I think we learned an important lesson today.

[hxy]

umm.. maybe it's just the noise you're making?
usually I just shout (tt) and the monster will surface

[TehDruid]

Apparently, tomatoes are evil.

[Jabberwocky]

Apparently, tomatoes are evil.

A must agree with you there.

[JeffQyzt]

Apparently, tomatoes are evil.

[Jabberwocky]

Apparently, tomatoes are evil.

Reference to the troll tomato over in GDD

[Jabberwocky]

Here are two of tomato's threads
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5832
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5829

[pratamawirya]

yo guys...

[Eaki Godsbane]

I found out that the game really wanted to kill me when I encountered:

On Snake 3: Margery, Agnes, Donald and Wiglaf

On Elf 3: Aizul, Louise, Nessos, and Nergaille

Of course they would arrive at the same time and from different directions, and obviously the RNG wanted to spice things up and gave me Slow Movement 1 mutation after I got too much glow from casting haste and other buffs.

I survived.

Due to being a Merfolk conjurer with OOD, Poison Arrow, a rod of ice and a teleportation wand.

Damn you Crawl! I won't die till I beat you!

[palin]

If the RNG would have you dead, it would have spawned Mennas, not those wimpies...

[Pteriforever]

If the RNG would have you dead, it would have spawned Mennas, not those wimpies...

Wouldn't call Nessos wimpy, only time I was able to kill him was with an XL12 character with rPois and rF++.

-- You know those vaults where there's a cloud of fire/cold/other form of doom over a Vehumet altar? A potion of speed can help to get in there between when the cloud appears.

-- Meph cloud is the most overrated spell ever. Seriously, don't bother.

[palin]

Wouldn't call Nessos wimpy, only time I was able to kill him was with an XL12 character with rPois and rF++.

I never died to Nessos. If terrain is not optimal to fight him, I usually pop in a Blink scroll and then teleport away. Let the children come to me.

[Pteriforever]

Add "force_more_message = feel drained" to your init.txt file. That way you'll get drained once and then can take steps to avoid being drained again, rather than being drained five times before you even notice.

[Jabberwocky]

IRC stands for infrared class.

[lazylink]

As of 0.11 my poison spells no longer word on undead, or at least not on the ones I care about like necrophages and tough zombies (eg zombie hill giants). When I try to cast a poison spell when there are only undead targets around the game tells me there are no viable targets. I tried several times using capital Z but my spells got completely resisted so I stopped after a few tries. I didn't see this mentioned in the patch notes, anybody know what's going on?

[lazylink]

Giving undead complete poison immunity really changes things for venom mages. Before, I could easily get through the early game with only venom bolt, now that's no longer possible. I suggest you use your wands actively against undead, and when you get the book of Conjurations (the first book from Vehumet) you memorize bolt of lightning, it really helps out.

[cybersaint2k]

Never, ever, ever stand next to a titanic slime. Never.

Annihilated by a titanic slime creature (91 damage)

[Jabberwocky]

Never, ever, ever stand next to a titanic slime. Never.

Annihilated by a titanic slime creature (91 damage)

Only thing worse is

  Code:

Annihilated by a titanic slime creature (110 damage)

[Wark]

Apparently 70 HP is not enough to at least be able to react if something bad happens at D:18.

  Code:

You open the door.
A deep elf annihilator comes into view. It is wielding an elven sabre.
The deep elf annihilator shouts!
The deep elf annihilator casts a spell at you.
The bolt of lightning hits you!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The bolt of lightning hits you!
You die...

[Grimm]

What XL were you there?

[Wark]

What XL were you there?

15. I didn't rest to full hp after previous fight though. Btw, here is the morgue file, if you're interested.

[Grimm]

A good rule of thumb is not to go deeper in D than you have XL. The danger ramps up pretty quickly. And yeah, never explore at less than full HP.

[BlackSheep]

Take special note (force a more message or change the color or something) when monsters cast Death's Door. (I'm looking at you Nergalle!) Otherwise you'll waste tons of time and resources trying to kill something invulnerable.

[delilah]

That first time I went to snake after both polearm reaching and constriction came into effect.

Oh god did I ever regret going down those stairs.

[forest]

One does not simply stab Erolcha...

  Code:

             Began as a Spriggan Assassin on Oct 18, 2012.
             Was an Initiate of Ashenzari.
             Killed from afar by Erolcha (51 damage)
             ... with a crystal spear
             
             ... on Level 8 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 00:15:31 (7720 turns).


Her spell set is ridicolous. I cannot beleive I have been undrestimating her all this time. Never again.

[Xion350]

A positive tip for once.

Spoiler: show

Scrolls of Immolation are GREAT offensive tools. That's 6 kills for one scroll, and a little bit of HP damage on myself.

[nordetsa]

Even when your character is lv 27 TSO Axe-wielding minotaur who will grind any demon he sees on sight, it doesn't mean he can fight several hell sentinels just to see cleaving on effect.

[Deimos]

A XL27 DEFE should not melee a Tentacle Monstrosity.

Ugh, what a waste of a char. Melee'd one earlier and took him down no problem; next one killed me without taking much at all in the way of damage. Tried to escape, but he had me.

[palin]

A XL27 DEFE should not melee a Tentacle Monstrosity.

These are dangerous even for melee characters... so for casters they should be a no no.

[Deimos]

Indeed, the worst part is that I've done the same exact thing before and the result was the same.

[SchwaWarrior]

A XL27 DEFE should not melee a Tentacle Monstrosity.

Ugh, what a waste of a char. Melee'd one earlier and took him down no problem; next one killed me without taking much at all in the way of damage. Tried to escape, but he had me.

I was successful at meleeing with a High Elf and fire spells, but a Deep Elf is immensely more frail, not to mention optimized solely for spellcasting, whereas my character was built to fight in both melee and with offensive spells (high Short Blade skill and a +8+9 Quickblade of Flame).

Thus I say, melee-casting hybrids are awesome, but pure-casters cannot and should not pretend to be hybrids. Stick to the guns you know will work.

As a Deep Elf pure caster I'd likely be using an enhancer staff, either a Staff of Fire for playing a Fire Elementalist or a Staff of Channeling/Wizardry/Power, or alternatively a Dagger/Quarterstaff of Protection or some randart that offers similar, relevant boosts (i.e. + Attributes, elemental resistances, etc). I would NOT be fighting with it; it would simply be in my weapon hand for the boosts it gives my spells to help them blast a higher amount of crap out of things than without.

For Tentacled Monstrosities, the melee-caster I played would sling Fireballs at it as it closed the distance between us, and then Phase Shift and Conjure Flame during the melee phase to finish it off (with my +8+9 Quickblade of Flame-- note that in this situation, it was VERY effective compared to a heavier slower weapon, as I was taking Constriction damage every turn and my particular fast-but-weak weapon was able to out-DPS that Constriction damage). One-versus-one I would win the fight on average with 2/3 of my max HP left (and I never dared to fight these things with other foes hanging around). I had Semi-controlled Blink handy to make a getaway if I needed to, which I did sometimes. So, as a pure caster, I might have simply relied on Fireballs and Conjure Flame in a 1-tile corridor, Blinking away as it got close, distracting it with summons if I had any, and if I were a pure caster I would probably have a Crystal Ball or Channeling handy to regain MP so I could continue my assault.

There were also times when I just did not want to be bothered so I slung 2 or 3 Orbs of Destruction and blew them the fuck up. Even if you're playing a Fire specialist, in my personal opinion no caster with any investments in Conjurations should be without OOD late-game, as it can basically win you any 1-on-1 engagement with MP to spare, room to move around in (OOD works poorly in corridors 'cause it can hit the walls and fizz out) and a low failure rate. Ancient Liches? Curse Toes? Orbs of Fire? Basically anything ever in Zot 1 through 5? OOD pulled me through when nothing else I had would scratch 'em. ^^

All this is basically conjecture though so feel free to take the things of my post(s) you like and leave the rest. I'm not exactly a "Crawl expert". But for your long-gone DDFE, I feel for you, and have had similar "oh god what was I thinking" fates (just recently lost a fantastic TEMo to Nikola because I just didn't think to quaff the damn Potion of Resistance I had, and NO OTHER REASON ). Keep at it man!

[Psieye]

A positive tip for once.

Spoiler: show

Scrolls of Immolation are GREAT offensive tools. That's 6 kills for one scroll, and a little bit of HP damage on myself.

When I have heal-on-kill (as Ds or Maklehb worhsip), my favoured V:last opener is 2 torment scrolls and some 5+ immolation scrolls. It FEELS SO GOOD killing the guards that way while coming back to near-full HP but the noise attracts scarier things from outside LoS which are a problem. Still, IT FEELS GOOD.

[SchwaWarrior]

When I have heal-on-kill (as Ds or Maklehb worhsip), my favoured V:last opener is 2 torment scrolls and some 5+ immolation scrolls. It FEELS SO GOOD killing the guards that way while coming back to near-full HP but the noise attracts scarier things from outside LoS which are a problem. Still, IT FEELS GOOD.

I've done something like that too. But I was also Invisible and had Repel Missiles on, so when Stone Giants and Centaur Warriors and Dragons started showing up from outside the LOS to investigate, they'd fire at me, miss, and kill their allies. If you think yours felt good, try it with that too. Absolute hysteria.

[Schussel]

I just relearned how hillarious it is to bring a shield of Reflection into orb spider infested spider nests.

It feels like playing doom-rogue all over again .. splatter everything just by moving around ;o).

[Psieye]

Lesson: in the endgame, always be prepared for an unexpected extended trip through Abyss. I got caught off-guard with no permafood. Thankfully I did have rMut, sustenance and !restore abilities on me (12 Int is not enough as it will get sucked dry), but darn was that a long journey. The re-arrangement madness was speeding up, Lugonu shoved an altar in my face over 8 times and still I could not find the exit. When I did, it irked me that I hadn't come across the Abyssal rune yet. Not that I plan to do a 15-rune with my current MiBe but I wish I had a rune to show for my trek. Ah well, will make do with this abjuration rod instead - there were 2 acquirement scrolls down there and the first gave me a rod of striking. Go go guaranteed-rod acquirements for Be!

When I have heal-on-kill (as Ds or Maklehb worhsip), my favoured V:last opener is 2 torment scrolls and some 5+ immolation scrolls. It FEELS SO GOOD killing the guards that way while coming back to near-full HP but the noise attracts scarier things from outside LoS which are a problem. Still, IT FEELS GOOD.

I've done something like that too. But I was also Invisible and had Repel Missiles on, so when Stone Giants and Centaur Warriors and Dragons started showing up from outside the LOS to investigate, they'd fire at me, miss, and kill their allies. If you think yours felt good, try it with that too. Absolute hysteria.

But I don't need invisibility to do that. I just need high EV, with optional Rmsl/Dmsl. Heck I don't even need monsters to be on opposite sides of me to make them kill each other, some monsters are all too happy to kill lesser allies to shoot me. Confusion and mind reformat are much more fun for that kind of hilarity.

[Xiphias]

For the sake of all that's unholy, do NOT melee certain powerful spellcasters with Ring of Flames up.

610215 Xiphias the Impregnable (level 27, -41/229 HPs)
Began as a Hill Orc Fire Elementalist on Oct 30, 2012.
Was the Champion of Vehumet.
Killed from afar by an ancient lich (124 damage)
... with a bolt of cold

... on Level 5 of the Realm of Zot on Oct 31, 2012.

(...in this case, "afar" means "melee range.")

[SchwaWarrior]

My high-level Demonspawn Wizard just died to being smitten repeatedly by Daevas guarding a Ziggaurat, behind the enclosed walls.

The kicker? They were iron grate walls, NOT transparent rock walls like usual. There is a HUGE difference 'cause iron grates will not stop various projectile attacks. I thought it was safe to just run right on by, and didn't notice massive chunks of my HP leaving me until I was suddenly dead-- what!? And then OH GOD they were grates! Also this was on D:23 of the dungeon, reeeal deep, so it's not like I didn't have a chance to get out in time if I would have actually paid attention. Simply amazing.

[bricks]

Baskets of spiders are not to be taken lightly. The best part of this - when my teleport finally kicked in, it dropped me next to a goldfish, which killed me. At least that VpEn died in an amusing and unexpected way.

[Xoai]

some gems from the .11 tourney so far, and other general lessons learned:

--you CAN blink into your own cloud of conjured flame (2 lower level layer casters dead)
--fear of killing an ally, and the pennance associated, is not reason enough to die on final Vault level with a purple draconian wizard of sif muna after 'shatter'ing all the vault guards and spawning an aeomeba when a tentacled monstrosity constricted you and dealt 15% max hp damage (such amazingly lucky RNG rolls that game - purple Dr w/ wizard!!... not used to having allies, and didn't want punishments from jiyva, so... lesson learned)... did i mention my list of awesome mutations, including full wings and poison spit in addition to buff removing breath... and all manor of tail and horn headbut counters... ugh!!!! (sorry for YASD paragraph)
--I have nightmares about Mennas and Ghost moths (caster) - to that end, plan ahead for silent situations, and don't enter spider or zot:5 without sInv
--Troves don't necessarily contain cureMut potions (20 ID scrolls wasted on a couple runed hammers and a scroll of holy word!!!)
--sometimes the RNG won't give you another conj spell book (and piety might not be high enough to get books from gods) until you've cleared up to D:18, and die on L:7 after killing countless spiny frogs and hydrae with magic dart and conjur flame (YES, you CAN clear layer with magic dart... if the RNG HATES you... and you are the totem of patience)

EDIT:
--if you were looking for Sif in the temple... couldn't find her, so you went down to D:7 and didn't find her, and went to D:8, saw that the level was a wide open terror dome, and assumed it wouldn't have an alter in the middle of the open floor, so you went up to D:6 to take vehumet as a 2nd choice, then back to D:8 to kill stuff and explore... only to find that blue alter sitting right in the middle of a giant empty floor, you'll feel pretty stupid... FYI

[SchwaWarrior]

Today I learned why Mummies are as dangerous as people say they are.

I was SO thrilled to finally have Ice Storm running at full power, with my XL27 Demonspawn Wizard that was immune to freezing vapors (demonic ancestry trait), so while I was rocking the Ziggaurat I found in Pandemonium with it, I found that yes, I can take on an entire room of Orbs of Fire, and I can take on an entire dungeon filled with Angelic beings of all variety (as a Demonspawn no less!!), but when I Ice Stormed an entire horde of Greater Mummies and Mummy Priests, suddenly I went from max HP to 1/10 of my HP due to their death curses, and even when I managed to heal up with my Wand and Regeneration spells, and get some MP back using Ambrosia, just barely staving off their Smite attacks the whole while, I made the same move again thinking a couple more Ice Storms would finish them off, death curses kicked in again and killed me outright.

This is a moral of the dangers of being too trigger-happy with your new toys. Don't be. x_x I always thought death curses were "annoying", I never imagined they'd be the force of nature they really are. Maybe I would have had better success spamming Orb of Destruction while backing up and taking them out one by one instead of en masse, and it was a sore mistake for me not to have called in Demonic Horde beforehand. Ah well, lessons learned.

It's kinda funny though because most people's first time dealing with nasty Mummies is in Tomb, for me it was a Ziggaurat. Go figure, right?

[Kilnborn]

Today I learned why Mummies are as dangerous as people say they are.

I was SO thrilled to finally have Ice Storm running at full power, with my XL27 Demonspawn Wizard that was immune to freezing vapors (demonic ancestry trait), so while I was rocking the Ziggaurat I found in Pandemonium with it, I found that yes, I can take on an entire room of Orbs of Fire, and I can take on an entire dungeon filled with Angelic beings of all variety (as a Demonspawn no less!!), but when I Ice Stormed an entire horde of Greater Mummies and Mummy Priests, suddenly I went from max HP to 1/10 of my HP due to their death curses, and even when I managed to heal up with my Wand and Regeneration spells, and get some MP back using Ambrosia, just barely staving off their Smite attacks the whole while, I made the same move again thinking a couple more Ice Storms would finish them off, death curses kicked in again and killed me outright.

This is a moral of the dangers of being too trigger-happy with your new toys. Don't be. x_x I always thought death curses were "annoying", I never imagined they'd be the force of nature they really are. Maybe I would have had better success spamming Orb of Destruction while backing up and taking them out one by one instead of en masse, and it was a sore mistake for me not to have called in Demonic Horde beforehand. Ah well, lessons learned.

It's kinda funny though because most people's first time dealing with nasty Mummies is in Tomb, for me it was a Ziggaurat. Go figure, right?

I had a HOGl of Chei working, in crystal plate, casting OOD and controlled blink, and I went to a Zig looking for a cure mutation potion. Got through the first 9 levels, when I get a mummy level.

Mummies are no joke.

Here is the important lesson I learned:

When you _FINALLY_ get controlled blink castable in crystal plate, don't treat it as semi-controlled blink and get mad because 4 times in a row you just blinked one square back.

Also, if you then drink a potion of magic, and slouch 3 times, you die.

Oh well.

edited: changed HEGl to HOGl.

[hxy]

If you're using fire/ice storm, try to hit the mummies when they just enter the edge of LOS. That minimises the number of death curses you get each time, and they can't smite/summon if they don't see you. Similarly for Deep Dwarf levels.

[crate]

Don't fire storm DD levels, some of them will pain mirror when they see a fire vortex, and then you'll be fire storming pain mirrored dwarves.

Ice storm against DD levels is fine though.

[Psieye]

Don't fire storm DD levels, some of them will pain mirror when they see a fire vortex, and then you'll be fire storming pain mirrored dwarves.

Ice storm against DD levels is fine though.

I never thought I'd see a non-elemental reason for favouring ice storm over fire storm.

[Roderic]

Grinder may appear in D:6 and later on, make a special appearance in D:8

[SchwaWarrior]

Grinder may appear in D:6 and later on, make a special appearance in D:8

It's hilarious when that happens. Sometimes enemies like to hop into a Shaft off-screen, and then you stress yourself out hunting it down when it's not there anymore, thinking oh god oh god where is that D:9 Sphinx hiding I need to KILL IT only to eventually give up, and then it shows up in D:10 instead when you just retreated to heal and finishes you off.

It's similarly hilarious when you Banish something, then much much later on you get Banished yourself, and you meet the thing you Banished all that time ago and this time it's a fight to the death, no running away! This has happened with 5 or 6 different low-level Uniques all fighting me at once in the Abyss if I find an early-game distortion weapon.

Also, Boris. End of story.

[daggaz]

After breezing thru lair and getting all your main skills to their respective maxes, and then breezing thru orc mines and rampaging into the last fort, berserking and hewing your way thru the guards to slaughter the high priests before berserk drops, DONT try to run away from the hellion, even if you have blink scrolls and potions of speed. Apparently I was supposed to stand next to him and icewand or melee him instead of eating all those hellfires. Damn that thing moved fast. Good bye, kobold assassin, I barely knew ye.

[SchwaWarrior]

After breezing thru lair and getting all your main skills to their respective maxes, and then breezing thru orc mines and rampaging into the last fort, berserking and hewing your way thru the guards to slaughter the high priests before berserk drops, DONT try to run away from the hellion, even if you have blink scrolls and potions of speed. Apparently I was supposed to stand next to him and icewand or melee him instead of eating all those hellfires. Damn that thing moved fast. Good bye, kobold assassin, I barely knew ye.

Berserking and hewing as an Assassin?? There's your problem! Might've been a lot wiser to play the level stealthily, not waking anything up as best you could, and stabbing everything in their sleep to kill it in one hit. This way the Sorcerers and High Priests wouldn't have been awake to summon that Hellion which mangled you so badly.

Wait a minute, can Sorcerers even summon Hellions?? What on earth were you even doing down there? The only thing that comes to mind is maybe someone hit a Zot trap...

[Psieye]

High priests can summon them I think.

[palin]

They both have summon demon which can summon 2- to 4-tier demons. So both can summon Hellions if they get luck (or the player gets unlucky, it depends on the way you look at the situation).