I think we learned an important lesson today.

[daggaz]

I dont focus on stealth and stabbing until later in the game, preferring to get my short blades to 12 or 14 and then dodging up to midlevels first, as well as shields to 7 if I happen on a buckler. I will usually park stealth and stabbing at 5 until then. As for sneaking around, yeah of course I do that, but you cant really sneak into the last orc stronghold down there, too many sentries who arent sleeping and too many fights before hand that wake folks up.. The inner area is generally well awake by the time you get anywhere close.

As it stands, I was able to hew my way into the center of a large crowd of all manner of orcs, avoid the biggest meleers (some of which i lured out beforehand), and assassinate the big magic casters before they could even begin to damage me. Unfortunately, one high priest managed to squeeze out one hellion at the last second, and even tho I was also able to waltz out and blink around the outer walls, the damn thing had no problem with keeping me in sight. I definitely should have just stayed in the middle and duked it out with him, the other orcs werent really a worry.

[crate]

Summon demon will not create 2's.

[BlackSheep]

http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=orc+high+priest
http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=orc+sorcerer

Both seem to have a spell listed simply as "demon". The high priest entry suggests it can create 2's, 3's and 4's.

[crate]

The info must be old then. It won't make 2's (it probably used to back when Balrugs and such were 1's).

[Kate]

http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=common_demon

Common demons have been just 3s and 4s for quite a long time now, some entries of individual monster casters just weren't updated (those entries probably shouldn't exist since all they do is duplicate Gretell info except badly).

[daggaz]

It was a hellion. The orc in a red shirt made it, along with one of the little ice imps and a few other little guys. It hellfired me to death. EDIT: lol, should I mention, due to extenuating circumstances (new baby, dramatic and dangerous birth, finishing long overdue masters in nanotech), that I havent played in a while and am still using 9.0 or whatever you call two versions back?

[Kate]

That'd be it then, yep - I don't remember exactly when it changed, but 0.10 sounds about right.

[palin]

Summon demon will not create 2's.

I feel you're right even if I got it wrong from the comment from mon-cast.cc:

  Code:

   case SPELL_SUMMON_DEMON: // class 2-4 demon


The choosen demon is common, so it's 3- and 4-tier. Sorry for the wrong info.

[SchwaWarrior]

It was a hellion. The orc in a red shirt made it, along with one of the little ice imps and a few other little guys. It hellfired me to death. EDIT: lol, should I mention, due to extenuating circumstances (new baby, dramatic and dangerous birth, finishing long overdue masters in nanotech), that I havent played in a while and am still using 9.0 or whatever you call two versions back?

Congratulations on the new baby and I'm hopeful that things work out and that all three of you are safe. *brotherly hugs*

[varsovie]

Spoiler: show

Someone did a vault with an altar of lugonu and a bunch of Kobold, one of them had a qickblade of distortion.

[SchwaWarrior]

Spoiler: show

Someone did a vault with an altar of lugonu and a bunch of Kobold, one of them had a qickblade of distortion.

I've seen this one. It's awesome. If I hadn't had a fantastic one already of a different brand I would have pilfered those weapons and used them myself. Did you see the secret room in the back with the one-way portal?

I think there's a Xom one with Chaos brands too but I might be wrong.

[Psieye]

Silent spectres can spawn in Tartarus. They had never left a memorable presence in me before as I always had some melee option in my previous extended runs.

[nordetsa]

Actually, I have no idea how a mage would deal with them. Attack them with melee weapons perhaps?

[crate]

Yes, press tab ... you've had like 10 runes worth of xp, I hope you can spare some of that to get a weapon skill to 10+.

[Psieye]

Well, here's my YASD thread. Skip to the bottom to see how many ways I could have dealt with that if I had remembered silent spectres reside in Tartarus. Melee weapons are hardly the only way for a mage to deal with them.

[BlackSheep]

Wands and rods can work too, and if you haven't been fighting things in melee, you should probably have a few potions of might saved up.

[UltimaRatioRegum]

When you've never got a Rune before, and never won Crawl before, and get your first ever Rune, and decide to go for all 15, and get 14 of them... don't forget poison resistance/some way to cure poison against Draconians.

[rebthor]

Kraken tentacles hit hard and move fast. Just because you've killed 2 kraken already with no issues doesn't mean the 3rd one won't get you.

[Vanties]

Fairly long time lurker, and first time poster.

When you challenge your friends to a race down to down to D10 (neither of us are very good at DCSS), he will start a troll berserker and find CPM (Crystal Plate Mail) on D2. That was the best thing I had ever seen.

[SchwaWarrior]

Today I equipped a +7+5 Ring of Slaying to go with my +6+5 Ring of Slaying. That's a lot of slaying. But you know what? It really didn't make much difference, and considering my sword was a +4+4 Sabre of Electricity, I think it would have been better not to go with a second Slaying ring or even any at all, and equip some of my resistance rings or perhaps Teleport Control instead.

Next time I must keep in mind that overkill is not necessarily helpful. ^^

[Zicher]

Meeting Mara with a fully going Poison Arrow Gatling Gun => run as hell.
Meeting Mara with a fully going HOPr with his army => stand back and laugh as (s)he's hacked to pieces in less than ten turns.

Being "Misled" tops the fun off to see that "your kobold" landed the killing blow.

[Psieye]

Don't start a forest fire and then stop to eat in the middle of the forest! Damn fire spreads really really fast. Uh yeah, I started that fire because a spriggan druid would have otherwise asked the trees to destroy me (I was surrounded by trees). Killed the druid, then stayed around in the forest because my exit was already burning up.

[Herode2]

Scrolls of Acquirement sometimes have a whimsical sense of humor.

With jokes like : giving you a -1 Hat of the Wizard when you're playing a HuFi (with the 'antennae' mutation).

Too bad the guy was not worshipping Xom...

[slx]

If you used to spam one spell throughout the game (like Fireball) and then forgot it and learned spell that you want to use only in special cases (like Death's Door), just assign new spell to the other key. Really.
Just wanted to finish off this almost dead Ice Fiend and... bah... what the f... Is it torment? 8 hp? but how... Oh, I see. Death's Door. Just after casting Fire Storm on a new Pan floor. Damnit.

[Kannon]

A: Don't inner flame something unless you can kill it before it closes.

  Code:

The ogre hits your rat skeleton with a giant club!
Your rat skeleton explodes!
The fiery explosion engulfs the ogre.
You kill the ogre!


B: Inner Flame on a fragile friendly rat skeleton is a really fun way to get rid of tough/annoying monsters.

[SchwaWarrior]

B: Inner Flame on a fragile friendly rat skeleton is a really fun way to get rid of tough/annoying monsters.

I've never tried Inner Flame before but it sounds like a lot of fun playing a Necromancer/Fire spellcaster build, or a Fire Death Knight (Yred) or something.

Specifically with Yred and Amulet of Faith, those undead summon gifts come in really fast. By the end of Lair, me wearing Faith ever since the Temple, I probably had about 50 permanent undead servants, one of them being a Profane Servitor. I didn't have Inner Flame sadly, but yeah, for something like that it would have been *amazing*.

I lost that character via banishment to the Abyss and then getting destroyed by a Brimstone Fiend summoned by an Ancient Lich. Thing about banishment is that it separates you from all your summons or allies, so... if that hadn't happened I would've gotten a lot farther. ^^;;

That said, here's a tip to anyone who struggles with banishment in the Elven Halls: bringing a ring of Magic Resistance is very much worth it. Even an XL 20 character can be banished without too much trouble by those damn Elven Demonologists, but with a source of MR, I almost never have to worry about it. I wonder if a lot of players overlook MR because "Oh I'll be fine if I meet anyone with hex spells, confusion and slow and whatever doesn't bug me", but you know, on the other hand MR is a pretty solid and good buff, since it protects against a *lot* of different effects. I'd likely pick MR over rPois unless I was in the Lair or Snake Pits, and even against Aizul, I'd probably rather take the 50-damage Poison Arrow which might miss, instead of the Sleep + 100-ish-damage melee attack combo which can never miss 'cause I've been put to sleep due to not having enough MR. (Both rPois and MR would be best, though. So if I had a ring of each, and Slaying, I'd remove Slaying just to defeat Aizul.)

Yeah and okay I'm ranting at this point, but... thinking if I had a ring of each thing, I must say, sometimes the options I have to choose from overwhelm me. Let's say I had a plate armor melee build, now, choosing between Ring of Regeneration vs. Ring of +6 EV vs. +3+4 Ring of Slaying is a huge toss-up for me. And weapons! Early game if I'm training up Maces and have it at like 3.0 or 4.0 at XL 3 or 4, and then in D:4 or 5 I find an amazing randart falchion that offers +Blink and a couple good resistances, and then soon after, a +2+4 Vampiric Great Mace I took off an Orc Warrior, it tends to make me grab my face going "ayayayayayayay what do I DOOO" which gets me weird looks all over Starbucks. I'm so in love with Crawl, because it offers challenges and predicaments of all kinds, even when you're not in battle. I love video games that really make me think, and Crawl does that while still being adrenaline at the same time during the intense battles and close calls.

And the delicious coffee makes the game all the more enjoyable, to boot! That's why I prefer to play in Starbucks. That, and when a person sometimes sits down and starts watching me, I feel really motivated and I play better.

The other week I had a fellow geek sit down to watch me and he was a long-time NetHack player and even though he had not seen DCSS before, he knew the ins and outs. A Hydra comes along and he's like "You have Javelins, you'll be able to kill it, but get it away from the Yaks first." He was flawlessly correct, too, the Hydra began to flee on the fifth javelin and died on the sixth! I love it when that kind of thing happens and I meet such a cool person who shares my interests.

But Starbucks is closing in 20 minutes so I better wrap this rant up. Have a good night everyone! *finishes off my mocha and logs out*

[Psieye]

B: Inner Flame on a fragile friendly rat skeleton is a really fun way to get rid of tough/annoying monsters.

I've never tried Inner Flame before but it sounds like a lot of fun playing a Necromancer/Fire spellcaster build, or a Fire Death Knight (Yred) or something.

Unnecessary. Just go full necromancy and dabble a little into one of hexes or fire unless you're rushing for Inner Flame after a lucky early spellbook. Chances are, by the time you get Inner Flame it'll be easy to use off of raw spellcasting alone. The reason this is viable is: your perma-allies (or at least, zombies/skeletons) don't resist Inner Flame. Bonus points if you set up several of your zombies to be walking bombs and watch the chain reaction go off.

This is just one more reason why Kiku is awesome: "portable" perma-allies.

[SchwaWarrior]

Don't polymorph Elephant Slugs.

Specifically, don't polymorph them into Acid Blobs that will gleefully proceed to destroy you within three turns.

I'm never using Crazy Yiuf's staff again XDDD

[daggaz]

Grinder sucks. Polymorphing him into a shadow demon (version 9, perma invis), sucks far, far, far worse.

[Moanerette]

Sublimation Of Blood is a really, really useful spell. And only level 2!

[Gilou]

Sublimation Of Blood is a really, really useful spell. And only level 2!

It's amazing how many level 2 spells are great. Blink, Swiftness, Repel Missil, etc. I'll try SoB someday.

[dassem]

Sublimation Of Blood is a really, really useful spell. And only level 2!

It's amazing how many level 2 spells are great. Blink, Swiftness, Repel Missil, etc. I'll try SoB someday.

Yup, I've just "discovered" this spell too.
Now, where it gets to be fun is with Animate Skeleton for fast butchering, or with regeneration for casting on yourself. (And don't forget that different sources of regeneration can stack...)
The other obvious tip from the wiki is to worship Kiku and use his corpses for this.
I had fun with casting this spell on myself when worshiping Mahkleb, who restores HP but not MP.
I am having a lot of fun with this spell at the moment as a ice-based conjuror DS with the life-stealing mutation. After a while, you stop thinking of them so much as "Dragons" but as more like flying snacks.

[Gilou]

Oh, come on, I loved my black draconian...
Today, I learned that if you lose too much life with an invisible monster on D:15, and that you can't see invisble, don't even try to fight him. Spend consumable to leave the level ASAP and come back when you'll be able to see it.
Let's try a naga this time...

[Psieye]

Oh, come on, I loved my black draconian...
Today, I learned that if you lose too much life with an invisible monster on D:15, and that you can't see invisble, don't even try to fight him. Spend consumable to leave the level ASAP and come back when you'll be able to see it.
Let's try a naga this time...

Actually, you can fight invisible monsters without see invisible. Usually involves corridors and/or summons and/or clouds. What you died to was an Unseen Horror which is nasty if it spawns way early (like D:8) but is ok by D:15 if you have corridors (make one if need be).

[Gilou]

Actually, you can fight invisible monsters without see invisible. Usually involves corridors and/or summons and/or clouds. What you died to was an Unseen Horror which is nasty if it spawns way early (like D:8) but is ok by D:15 if you have corridors (make one if need be).

It was a lorocyproca, which I know because it is written in my morgue file. I have no idea what is a lorocyproca, and I though it was an unseen horror. In fact, I killed a first one of this babies, so I was confident for a second fight. But then some spider joined the fight, and it became complicated to flee. I should have drink a potion of speed and start running but, well, I was level 16 and I had to learn that lorocyproca exists.

[Psieye]

Oh. Damn, that's OOD. Lorocyproca aren't even supposed to show up in the dungeon unless there's some special vault that puts them there. They're Class 2 demons with anti-magic melee. By the time they regularly show up (Abyss/Pan/Hell) it's practically guaranteed you'd have SInv.

[Gilou]

What the hell, how was I supposed to know ? I mean, I do my best do be very careful when I deal with unidentified oponents, using consumables, fleeing and the like. But this thing was invisible and OOD ?
Now I feel stolen. Give me back my draconian ! (oh well, he was "only" level 16 and had average gear, I can just start a new one)

[BlackSheep]

There's a vault nrook_kobold_shadow_demons that has depth D:14-27 that could spawn a lorocyproca.
(mini_monsters.des, if someone with more vault experience wants to check my work)

[KoboldLord]

Lorocyprocae aren't Out of Depth on D15, they just aren't on the natural spawning list for that branch. Porcupines aren't on the spawning list for D15 either, but that doesn't make them too hard for a depth that occasionally will throw titans and shadow dragons at you. OOD has a specific meaning, and shouldn't be used to describe 'any unexpected encounter'.

Had you been familiar with lorocyprocae, you would have been fine. Lorocyprocae aren't particularly dangerous on their own; their anti-magic attacks make them effective when they're supporting other demons because they'll shut down any magical offenses and defenses you might have, but when it's just your D15 character and one lorocyprocae fighting one-on-one you should have ample time to figure out what's going on and how to handle the situation.

Really, endgame support demons don't get enough attention. Invisibility isn't much of a gimmick late in the game, so if the lorocyproca is going to ever actually use that ability it needs to be placed in a vault. We need more such vaults.

[rebthor]

It's not even like a lorocyproca is that dangerous. Unlike unseen horrors, you can literally just walk away from them or kill them in a corridor without having to guess where it is. I'd much rather face one of those than pretty much any other 2. Probably I'd rather be attacked by green death but other than that I can't think of a less dangerous 2.

[Cirdan]

Using the innate Deep Dwarf's ability to recharge devices with an empty mana pool doesn't work.

Running around D:8 with 9 HP left in order to save wand of healing's charges is a bad idea.

_A steam dragon comes into view.
The steam dragon breathes steam at you.
The ball of steam hits you!
You die...
Your body rises from the dead as a mindless zombie.

[NarcissusIII]

No, you aren't a match for Mennas in single combat, even as a MiBe in heavily enchanted plate with a vampiric executioner's axe.

Remember to make sure all of Ilsiuw's water elementals are gone BEFORE you start picking up loot, they blend in with the water and you will not see them until they kill you.

Distortion branded weapons are almost never worth the trouble of chasing down the enemies you will blink all over the goddamned place.

Merfolk will lose to hydras. ESPECIALLY SWIMMING HYDRAS.

Once you convert to TSO, you can no longer use Animate Skeleton to get your chunks with a cursed blunt weapon stuck to you.

Don't read-ID scrolls with low health as a Demonspawn unless you already ID'd Holy Word.

[Grimm]

No, you aren't a match for Mennas in single combat, even as a MiBe in heavily enchanted plate with a vampiric executioner's axe.

If you're high enough level and have some good buffs this is doable.

[NarcissusIII]

If you're high enough level and have some good buffs this is doable.

The problem is buffing yourself when silenced. Also I was only level 16 or so. Wasn't expecting something as hard to kill as Mennas on Vault:2.

[Grimm]

Yeah XL 16 is too low. My condolences on your loss. Potion buffs are the way to go: speed, might.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Speaking of Mennas, never engage him without a wand of teleportation that you KNOW has several charges left in it (min two).

[Gruud]

This local game just got a lot more interesting, and I learned just how selfish (0.12) Xom is - Monstrous Demonspawn

  Code:

  4167 | D:4      | XOM: give mutations
  4167 | D:4      | Gained mutation: Your vision is a little blurry. [Xom's mischief]
  4167 | D:4      | Gained mutation: You tend to lose your temper in combat. [Xom's mischief]
  4167 | D:4      | Gained mutation: Armour fits poorly on your strangely shaped body. [Xom's mischief]
  4168 | D:4      | Reached skill level 7 in Unarmed Combat
  4222 | D:4      | XOM: give mutation
  4222 | D:4      | Gained mutation: You occasionally shout uncontrollably. [Xom's mischief]


"You need some minor improvements, mortal!" indeed... Going to be interesting to see how/if I can survive this one.

[starless]

Don't auto-fight in Gehenna.

[varsovie]

Don't auto-fight.

Corrected

[Pereza0]

Wands of enslavement kick Pikel's ass. He has low resistance, and succeeding instantly makes all his buddies neutral, am I the first one to notice this?

Also, iguanas hit surprisingly hard in the early game