how many G--D-- player ghosts am I supposed to kill?

[Stumblebum]

Was playing the first level of Lair on web tiles and one "extremely dangerous" player ghost comes at me and I barely kill him but am out of magic. A whole horde of monsters are attracted by the noise of me killing him and I have to run for my life. I make it to the entrance of the Ice Cave, where I figure I can rest and recover my magic before going out to fight my way through the monsters. But no, there is another "extremely dangerous" player ghost one square away from me. I pull out every wand and every potion I can to make it through this and then around the corner comes another "extremely dangerous" player ghost. Not sure this is what I call fun.

[MrPlanck]

I do not engage if they are too dangerous.

[moocowmoocow]

I do not engage if they are too dangerous.

This. Player ghosts are some of the most dangerous fights you can pick. If it takes a ton of consumables and lucky rolls to kill something, it was bad engagement to begin with.

[and into]

Also Stumblebum, if you ignore a ghost and you don't die on the level it spawned on, it never generates again and you have effectively "killed" it. So don't feel like you have to take them down or else you'll have to face them in a subsequent game. Basically they are uniques, except you can't knowledge bot them and they can have much worse and unfair spell/ability combinations compared to other enemies at the same depth, and you don't know exactly how dangerous they are—which makes them extremely risky in a game where you only get one life.

[Stumblebum]

Thank you guys for the calm advice and not making fun of me for being a ranting newbie.

[variouselite]

Hey, sometimes you catch them on a good day. Also if you are still getting frustrated with player ghosts you can simply delete all the bones files(eg: "bones.D-3") in your DCSS\saves directory and that will make sure no more spawn(although you do have to do this every time you die if you want to make sure). Apparently if you delete all ghosts its not even considered cheating(as opposed to picking and choosing to delete only the tough ones and leaving the easy ones for easy XP). Good luck.

[headcrab0803]

Hey, sometimes you catch them on a good day. Also if you are still getting frustrated with player ghosts you can simply delete all the bones files(eg: "bones.D-3") in your DCSS\saves directory and that will make sure no more spawn(although you do have to do this every time you die if you want to make sure). Apparently if you delete all ghosts its not even considered cheating(as opposed to picking and choosing to delete only the tough ones and leaving the easy ones for easy XP). Good luck.

He was playing on webtiles though

[hermbot]

If it makes you feel better I was playing on CSZO and died to my own ghost. If there were achievements I think that would warrant one.

[rebthor]

Also Stumblebum, if you ignore a ghost and you don't die on the level it spawned on, it never generates again and you have effectively "killed" it. So don't feel like you have to take them down or else you'll have to face them in a subsequent game. Basically they are uniques, except you can't knowledge bot them and they can have much worse and unfair spell/ability combinations compared to other enemies at the same depth, and you don't know exactly how dangerous they are—which makes them extremely risky in a game where you only get one life.

If you're playing locally, you can dive into your past morgues and see what the ghost had. If you're playing online, you can ask Sequell (the IRC bot) with !log <charactername> <Species/Class abbreviation> <location> and get the morgue of the ghost. This can help a lot to know if the ghost is actually dangerous or not.

[Hirsch I]

optimal play can be boring, huh?