Dungeon Master
Posts: 3160
Joined: Sunday, 5th August 2012, 14:52
Thursday, 8th October 2015, 21:27
Re: CSDC: Week 1, Season 4 NaWz
So D:1 is pretty easy -- I train only Conjurations. I start every fight with spit, ideally on a sleeping target for better accuracy, then use MD until it drops. I'm able to break up jackal packs and no gnolls spawned, so I get to XL2 w/o incident, and from there Wz has a pretty easy start. On D:2 I see Dith and immediately sign up, then remember that Dith shuts down Conjure Flame. Bad news. On D:3 I find a short sword of protection, which I'll end up wielding almost exclusively until D:14, when I find something better.
Once Conjurations hit 6 and MD is at max power, I switch to training air/poison to level 3, spellcasting to level 4, and hexes to level 2. I use Slow pretty often to get away from bad situations before Meph comes online, and also when Meph is too noisy, expensive, or unreliable. On D:4 I find something amazing: +4 robe "Syezer" {Int-2 Dex+7 Slay+2 Stlth-}. I'm still wearing it as of this account.
The rest of my early game training is Fighting to 5, then Dodging/Stealth to 6, then Tloc and Summoning to 2 to round out the starting book. I find some potentially better offensive weapons -- a whip of pain with no necromancy spells, then a dagger of elec on D:8, then a better dagger of elec. I'm thinking of going in a stabby direction when I find the book of dreams, which gives me Hibernation and Shadow Creatures. This should be a sign to go into stabbing, but I don't like the lack of Confusion and I don't like pairing stabbing and conjurations much, so I hold out on training SBl. I raise Spellcasting to 8, learn Shadow Creatures, get Shields to 4 to use a +0 buckler, and Summonings to 10. Somewhere in here I get some more dodging too.
After clearing D:10 I head to Orc on D:9, and blast through everything with Meph + weak stabs and poison needles. By this point Dith is mimicking my casting, so magic dart is starting to do okay damage. I buy a +6 dex ring to get decent EV as well as Cekugob, which periodically I forget about and then nearly get into trouble. I also drink a potion of beneficial mutation and get horns, losing my +2 helmet, on which I spent 2 ?EA. I already blew 1 ?EA on my starting hat, so I retrieve it, muttering curses. Those three ?EA will be the last I see until I enter the Abyss. I buy a +2 ring of slaying too, since I don't have another good ring.
After leaving Orc, I find the book of Conjurations on d:11 and learn Battlesphere and Fulminant Prism. Now I finally have a decent offense. I start training Conjurations and Charms, eventually taking Charms to 7 and Conjurations to 13 by about D:15. I decide to go in on my +3 dagger of elec on D:14, and immediately afterward find +11 trident "Aschunwa" {pierce, rN+ MP+9 Int+7 Dex-2}, which changes my plans. With D over, I need to pick something much harder to do. I decide on the Elven Halls, and buy a ring of teleport in case I get banished.
In the Elven Halls, I finish training Conjurations at 14, then start on Evo/Stealth -- I'm gonna need the Evo for a good success rate on my ring of teleport and I'm going to need the stealth to survive in the Abyss. 5 Evo gets me a 50% fail rate, and that's good enough. Stealth gets to 10, and then I run into Aizul. I don't have much in the way of MR and I don't have a strong offense, so it quickly takes me to half health. I start delaying with summons and make my way back, but Aizul is too fast and I'm out of mana -- I burn a blink scroll and then start considering my second and last one, or maybe one of my few scrolls of teleport. Instead I evoke the legendary deck of escape I picked up, hoping for some help. Draw one: nothing useful. Draw two: nothing useful. Draw three: Aizul gets banished.
Soon after I run into Nikola while not in great shape to fight. I forget that Cekugob gives rElec, and random teleport my ass away, using summons to pad out possible chain lightning. I appear nearby, and have to burn my last blink scroll to get to the stairs safely. I start IDing random artefact armour and find a +1 leather w/ rElec and then come back and finish Nikola using it, then switch back to my robe.
I get 6 Invo to make Shadow Form possible if not likely, and raise Stealth to 13 along with a couple polearm levels, get 10 Spellcasting and learn IMB, and then see that I can afford some MR. I go back and purchase a ring of MR and the amulet of the Sun {Inacc MR+}, then head back to Elf. Almost immediately after I find a sorceror, I forget to put on the MR equipment, and I get banished. Luckily my teleport-and-stealth plan gets me to an exit without serious incident, and I exercise more caution for the rest of the halls. Elf:3 holds no treasures of note, sadly, aside from the amulet of Riho {Inacc rF+}. With magic dart + Battlesphere, I can do decent damage even w/ inaccuracy.
I head to the Depths and start training Polearms/Fighting so I can finally have a good backup plan when low on mana. I end up having to work pretty hard to break up packs and teleport w/ my ring when I start running low on mana since my offense is so inefficient. I end up teleporting nearly 30 times via ring during Depths.
On depths 3 I train some Armour skill for the +1 AC boost and finally get an ego buckler -- protection. I finish training Polearms to 14, learn Phase Shift and Bolt of Cold and start training Ice Magic -- just in time to find a manual of Polearms. After clearing U:5 I check out some more ego and artefact items from shops, and find nothing of value -- a +0 cloak of invis would be great if I had two spare ?EA, and +1 gloves of archery are a step down from my +2 gloves when I have no ranged weapon. At this point I still have no barding and I still haven't cured my horns mutation. I found my 6th wand of the game on U:1 or so (wand of frost). Loot has been weird. On the plus side, I got controlled blink and started training up Translocations.
With Depths clear, it was time to go for my first rune. I jumped into an Abyss portal, and spent 2000 turns wandering Abyss:1. The two highlights were finishing off Aizul and getting down to 25% health against a bone dragon that refused to die. Abyss:2 took a scant 200 turns. Abyss:3 turned up the heat considerably -- liches, ancient liches, more liches, and a few flavors of torment had me teleporting rapidly. Eventually I found a vault that was a block of glass filled with sleeping spatial maelstroms, with a rune hiding underneath. I knew apportation, so it seemed doable.
The maelstroms began to notice me and wake up a few at a time, carving paths towards me, but I didn't want to fight them -- it took 1/3 of my mana to kill just one, and there were at least a dozen. I shouted to wake the rest of them so they'd clear out the glass and let me apport the rune, but as soon as they did the beatings from the nearer maelstroms activated my fog blood and blocked my vision of the rune. I blinked, getting a new angle, and was able to get an angle on the runes as the maelstroms began to surround me again. I picked it up, activated teleport, and blinked again -- since the solid mass of maelstroms, vortexes, and fog took up most of the screen, I had good odds of moving further away. Once I was clear, I started sluggishly walking away -- I didn't dare random blink again for fear of ending up back in the horde, and my health was still at about 60%. I managed to prolong the chase enough that I made it away in decent shape, and then made my way to the exit.
I intend to visit the vaults next and maybe pick up a barding or cure my mutations.
Once Conjurations hit 6 and MD is at max power, I switch to training air/poison to level 3, spellcasting to level 4, and hexes to level 2. I use Slow pretty often to get away from bad situations before Meph comes online, and also when Meph is too noisy, expensive, or unreliable. On D:4 I find something amazing: +4 robe "Syezer" {Int-2 Dex+7 Slay+2 Stlth-}. I'm still wearing it as of this account.
The rest of my early game training is Fighting to 5, then Dodging/Stealth to 6, then Tloc and Summoning to 2 to round out the starting book. I find some potentially better offensive weapons -- a whip of pain with no necromancy spells, then a dagger of elec on D:8, then a better dagger of elec. I'm thinking of going in a stabby direction when I find the book of dreams, which gives me Hibernation and Shadow Creatures. This should be a sign to go into stabbing, but I don't like the lack of Confusion and I don't like pairing stabbing and conjurations much, so I hold out on training SBl. I raise Spellcasting to 8, learn Shadow Creatures, get Shields to 4 to use a +0 buckler, and Summonings to 10. Somewhere in here I get some more dodging too.
After clearing D:10 I head to Orc on D:9, and blast through everything with Meph + weak stabs and poison needles. By this point Dith is mimicking my casting, so magic dart is starting to do okay damage. I buy a +6 dex ring to get decent EV as well as Cekugob, which periodically I forget about and then nearly get into trouble. I also drink a potion of beneficial mutation and get horns, losing my +2 helmet, on which I spent 2 ?EA. I already blew 1 ?EA on my starting hat, so I retrieve it, muttering curses. Those three ?EA will be the last I see until I enter the Abyss. I buy a +2 ring of slaying too, since I don't have another good ring.
After leaving Orc, I find the book of Conjurations on d:11 and learn Battlesphere and Fulminant Prism. Now I finally have a decent offense. I start training Conjurations and Charms, eventually taking Charms to 7 and Conjurations to 13 by about D:15. I decide to go in on my +3 dagger of elec on D:14, and immediately afterward find +11 trident "Aschunwa" {pierce, rN+ MP+9 Int+7 Dex-2}, which changes my plans. With D over, I need to pick something much harder to do. I decide on the Elven Halls, and buy a ring of teleport in case I get banished.
In the Elven Halls, I finish training Conjurations at 14, then start on Evo/Stealth -- I'm gonna need the Evo for a good success rate on my ring of teleport and I'm going to need the stealth to survive in the Abyss. 5 Evo gets me a 50% fail rate, and that's good enough. Stealth gets to 10, and then I run into Aizul. I don't have much in the way of MR and I don't have a strong offense, so it quickly takes me to half health. I start delaying with summons and make my way back, but Aizul is too fast and I'm out of mana -- I burn a blink scroll and then start considering my second and last one, or maybe one of my few scrolls of teleport. Instead I evoke the legendary deck of escape I picked up, hoping for some help. Draw one: nothing useful. Draw two: nothing useful. Draw three: Aizul gets banished.
Soon after I run into Nikola while not in great shape to fight. I forget that Cekugob gives rElec, and random teleport my ass away, using summons to pad out possible chain lightning. I appear nearby, and have to burn my last blink scroll to get to the stairs safely. I start IDing random artefact armour and find a +1 leather w/ rElec and then come back and finish Nikola using it, then switch back to my robe.
I get 6 Invo to make Shadow Form possible if not likely, and raise Stealth to 13 along with a couple polearm levels, get 10 Spellcasting and learn IMB, and then see that I can afford some MR. I go back and purchase a ring of MR and the amulet of the Sun {Inacc MR+}, then head back to Elf. Almost immediately after I find a sorceror, I forget to put on the MR equipment, and I get banished. Luckily my teleport-and-stealth plan gets me to an exit without serious incident, and I exercise more caution for the rest of the halls. Elf:3 holds no treasures of note, sadly, aside from the amulet of Riho {Inacc rF+}. With magic dart + Battlesphere, I can do decent damage even w/ inaccuracy.
I head to the Depths and start training Polearms/Fighting so I can finally have a good backup plan when low on mana. I end up having to work pretty hard to break up packs and teleport w/ my ring when I start running low on mana since my offense is so inefficient. I end up teleporting nearly 30 times via ring during Depths.
On depths 3 I train some Armour skill for the +1 AC boost and finally get an ego buckler -- protection. I finish training Polearms to 14, learn Phase Shift and Bolt of Cold and start training Ice Magic -- just in time to find a manual of Polearms. After clearing U:5 I check out some more ego and artefact items from shops, and find nothing of value -- a +0 cloak of invis would be great if I had two spare ?EA, and +1 gloves of archery are a step down from my +2 gloves when I have no ranged weapon. At this point I still have no barding and I still haven't cured my horns mutation. I found my 6th wand of the game on U:1 or so (wand of frost). Loot has been weird. On the plus side, I got controlled blink and started training up Translocations.
With Depths clear, it was time to go for my first rune. I jumped into an Abyss portal, and spent 2000 turns wandering Abyss:1. The two highlights were finishing off Aizul and getting down to 25% health against a bone dragon that refused to die. Abyss:2 took a scant 200 turns. Abyss:3 turned up the heat considerably -- liches, ancient liches, more liches, and a few flavors of torment had me teleporting rapidly. Eventually I found a vault that was a block of glass filled with sleeping spatial maelstroms, with a rune hiding underneath. I knew apportation, so it seemed doable.
The maelstroms began to notice me and wake up a few at a time, carving paths towards me, but I didn't want to fight them -- it took 1/3 of my mana to kill just one, and there were at least a dozen. I shouted to wake the rest of them so they'd clear out the glass and let me apport the rune, but as soon as they did the beatings from the nearer maelstroms activated my fog blood and blocked my vision of the rune. I blinked, getting a new angle, and was able to get an angle on the runes as the maelstroms began to surround me again. I picked it up, activated teleport, and blinked again -- since the solid mass of maelstroms, vortexes, and fog took up most of the screen, I had good odds of moving further away. Once I was clear, I started sluggishly walking away -- I didn't dare random blink again for fear of ending up back in the horde, and my health was still at about 60%. I managed to prolong the chase enough that I made it away in decent shape, and then made my way to the exit.
I intend to visit the vaults next and maybe pick up a barding or cure my mutations.
