Any tips for the dying?

[Actinide2k9]

I look to the left and see a flash of steel. "Ah, another weapon. Let's see if this one can be put to use!" I open my bag and grab an identify scroll, when I finish reading the scroll I know it for sure. This longsword of flames can be used for those hydra's I saw earlier. I look around and see the coast is clear, so I start walking back to the stairs. As I walk around the corner I realize it is too late already, because suddenly I see twenty death yak's looking me in the eyes...

*Throws computer out of window*

Okay, the problem is this always seems to happen when I get around level 16 or something. I try playing MiFi alot since it's relatively easy to play as that, but after I hit a certain level or something I always seem to get blasted to tiny little bits by a random encounter with thousands of overpowered monsters with rabies. Maybe I'm just not careful enough but after 4 years of playing and still no win (most I had was two runes) I'm curious, does anyone who had the same experience have any tips?

Alas, I'll keep trying till my fingers fall off or my head explodes. Just looking for some tips over here.

[Sar]

Post a couple of morgues ITT, because your story sounds very... exaggerated, which makes it hard to pinpoint your mistakes.

[Actinide2k9]

Post a couple of morgues ITT, because your story sounds very... exaggerated, which makes it hard to pinpoint your mistakes.

Well, yeah I exaggerated I do not have any morgues at the moment because I recently reinstalled everything, and so far I have not made any good progress.

Let's just say -at least I think that is it- I'm not careful enough. But I always seem to die about mid-game through bad luck, or an overpowered monster. I usually try to get away using a blink/teleport but I'm always too late.

I guess I'm looking for some mid-game tips for survivability.

[Hurkyl]

Let's just say -at least I think that is it- I'm not careful enough. But I always seem to die about mid-game through bad luck, or an overpowered monster. I usually try to get away using a blink/teleport but I'm always too late.

I guess I'm looking for some mid-game tips for survivability.

The snarky answer is "try to get away earlier".

It's probably the serious answer too.

[Sar]

Well if a monster is "overpowered" you probably need to either not fight it or use some buffs that would tip the scales in your favor.

Luck plays very little role past early game, definitely in mid game. It's safe to assume that if you died, you've made a mistake - I'm not saying that just to be an asshole, that's a useful assumption to make because the next step is identifying that mistake. And when you identified the mistake you can try preventing it!

But yeah, it's more likely "biting more than you can chew" and not identifying danger early enough.

[Actinide2k9]

I guess I'll have to identify danger earlier indeed. What are some of the clues I should look for except 'it looks extremely dangerous' when examined? Should I try to learn more about the mid-game monsters and maybe look up more about skills?

Usually I train my skills as follows (being a MiFi, weapon/shield combo):

- First I get my weapon skill to min delay and about halfway I also start training shields
- Second I focus on armour and getting shields to minimal encumbrance
- Meanwhile I also train fighting
- EDIT: And of course, throwing for ranged attacks

Are there any magic tricks that could be helpful for fighters for a greater survivability or should I keep pumping my XP in melee? I've read about that magic can also be useful for fighters but I can't seem to find any spells that could be useful.

Regarding danger also, more often than not I get obliterated after being stunned or something like that. But yeah, that's really my fault.

[tabstorm]

Try this instead:
Train weapon skill to about 10, then turn on fighting, dodging and armor, with weapon skill focused. Do not train shields. Do not use shields. Do not train throwing.

[MainiacJoe]

I am at the same point you are, mid-game dying. And most of my deaths do come down to not buffing myself enough and/or not avoiding trouble. I way under-utilize consumables like potions, scrolls, wands, piety, and even food (spell hunger).

[njvack]

Magic is good and can do a lot for you. Things like Blink and Swiftness and Animate Skeleton (or a low-level summon -- small mammal or butterflies or imp) are pretty easy to get castable (even for a Minotaur), and they can help with one of the things that's hardest to learn, which is what to do when something you're fighting in melee is just too strong for you to handle right now. All of those options let you move and get some space (assuming you have more than one turn left to live) -- step back and swap places with the skeleton and you can now walk back upstairs without worry. Blink and you're likely to be out of yak or hydra range. Swiftness will give you a short boost that'll get that one valuable space you need.

Once safe and healed up, you can decide what to do. Maybe you can go down different stairs and never look at that monster again. You'll be happy to never fight Rupert or Erolcha. If all the stairs are blocked, maybe you can go down a hatch. Maybe you can buff up and take the monster. !Might and !Agility are excellent, as is !Rage. !Speed is far more valuable offensively than defensively, though sometimes "walk away real fast" is the right choice too. The gap between "I crushed this monster" and "this monster crushed me" is surprisingly narrow -- you can get down to half HP and barely scratch a monster in one fight, but mighted, you can kill it with barely a scratch.

A good rule of thumb is: never fight two monsters when you could be fighting one. Anything remotely dangerous (Death Yaks and elephants absolutely count) you'll want to lure away from their buddies and into a nice, secluded spot for slaughter. Be quiet until you're far(!) away from where those wandering monsters were. In a pinch, you can usually lure a single monster up stairs (though it'll get a free shot or two as you're going up).

Don't neglect things like poisoned needles -- shooting something with a few needles and walking away as its HP bar ticks down and down is really strong. Curare will slow monsters down as well, which is really great. Slow monsters not only walk slowly, they hit you way less often. Nets are Insanely Strong; you can throw a net on basically anyone and they'll stop moving and attacking and let you either hit them with a big stick or walk away.

Looking up monsters is good (although inspecting them with xv tells you enough I think) -- especially if you see something new. Double especially if it has a funny name. You'll learn what monsters do as time goes on.

It's easy to worry a lot about skilling (and things like rushing minimum delay are probably not the best) and you'll get advice about it. But! With good combat tactics, you can win even with terrible skilling. With bad combat tactics, you'll get pasted even with the best skilling possible.

What have you been doing for religion? Hint: earlier is better than later for choosing a god; for MiFi, taking the first altar that isn't Sif, Vehumet, or Xom (ok, don't take Chei either until you know what you're doing) is not a terrible strategy. Use those divine abilities! There's nothing worse than dying with a bunch of piety and an ability that could have turned the tide of a fight.

One thing that can help is: when you get to 50% HP, pretend you're dead. Stop. Monsters can't do anything at all as long as you don't take an action. Look at your inventory and the area and see what could have made the fight go better. Maybe this monster is just too strong for you right now. Maybe you tried to fight too many things at once. Then, use your remaining HP to get away, rest up (if possible), and try a different approach. Do not try to continue to just hit the monster in hopes that it'll make the fight suddenly go OK; it might not and then game over.

Posting a character dump and asking in the Characters in Progress thread (or other questions here) will usually yield... advice

[Zargon]

My 2 cents worth of advice for melee dudes:

Rule number 1: **The fewer the number of enemies that can attack you at once, the better**

Rule number 2: **The fewer the number of enemies that know you're there, the better, unless you actually want them to come to you (which you often do)""

With this in mind, always stay within 10 squares of safety (i.e. upstairs, chokepoints where enemies can only attack you 1 or 2 at a time (corridors, doorways, entrances to corridors, mazy vaults, areas with loads of pillars, corners of buildings etc.), teleport traps, even shafts and emergency down-hatches if you're desperate). The more points of safety you have nearby the better. You can make your own if need be with a wand of digging. Even in a completely open area with undiggable walls, if you're next to the wall you can only be attacked from 5 directions not 8.

Then, when enemies start coming your way (which they surely will because of all that noise you're making), back up to the nearest safety point and engage them. Buff up against tough enemies, or just run away if you can't handle it.

ALWAYS have an emergency plan (?Blinking, ?Fear, !Haste, !Invis etc, in case things start going wrong)

Chokepoints are useful because as well as funneling monsters, the walls also block noise and you can dodge around them to break LOS (just be aware of LRD-casting monsters - e.g. deep troll packs)

Be careful of fighing in the middle of long corridors - although the melee dudes can only attack you 1 on 1, you can still be smite-targeted from behind the queue (e.g. by orc priests) or whacked with bolt spells (e.g. bolts of fire from fire giants), and then if something tough comes up the corridor from the other direction you've nowhere to go and you're screwed. Better is to hover around near the entrance to the corridor so that they're forced to attack you 1 on 1, but so that you can escape round the corner if things start going south.

Training: train only your starting weapon skill, to min delay, then switch on armour, dodging and fighting, but keep your weapon skill focussed. If you find a buckler, train shields to 5 and use it, then ditch it when you get your 2-handed weapon of choice to within 2 skill points of min delay. Gradually increase your body armour until you're in plate by lair.

Also, try watching some good players in action via webtiles - you can learn a lot this way.

Hope this helps...

[moocowmoocow]

Yeah definitely post in the CiP section with char dumps... it helps a lot to get advice tailored to a current character. Heed the general advice too that people have given here. From the little information you've given it sounds like fighting too many enemies at a time is your problem. It's very simple with a little patience to fight things one at a time.

[Blink Frog]

Try playing MiBe instead of MiFi. Go maces. Dump xp into that until your attack takes 1 turn or less. Then turn on Fighting, Dodge and Armor. Start wearing heavier stuff. Learn Trog. Use Hand and Bros more than Berserk.

[MainiacJoe]

Use Hand and Bros more than Berserk.

Curious, do your Bros go poof when you go upstairs, or can you run away and come back to corpses everywhere?

[bel]

One good way to learn is to watch ttyrecs of other players. You can get them by using Sequell on IRC. The syntax can take some getting used to, people on IRC or here will help you out if you can't figure it out.

Or you can just spectate some games.

[njvack]

Try playing MiBe instead of MiFi. Go maces. Dump xp into that until your attack takes 1 turn or less. Then turn on Fighting, Dodge and Armor. Start wearing heavier stuff. Learn Trog. Use Hand and Bros more than Berserk.

In particular, I'd say avoid axes while you're learning. Not because cleaving is bad, but because it encourages you to fight more than one dude at at time. Which, don't do.

Berserk, I'd use whenever I'm essentially alone against something arguably threatening. It is very, very strong (and free!); you just don't want it to wear off before the party is over. Being slowed while you're near dangerous things is really bad.

Brothers in Arms is amazing, though. It solves nearly any problem in a three-rune game, single-handedly.

+1 to spectating. Webtiles makes this real easy.

[dowan]

If you see a herd of death yaks, or other scary monsters you usually have the option of just saying "nope" and walking the other way, preferably to a staircase. Try splitting up packs like that, and try to fight in hallways, where only 1 monster can get you at a time.

[and into]

When you first spot an enemy, moving toward it is very rarely your best move.

You always have the advantage of time--when things get more heated and intense, you should (perhaps against instinct) play more slowly and cautiously--checking your inventory carefully at such moments for items that might be helpful but are easy to overlook is a good idea.

Try to preempt dangerous situations as much as possible. Try to keep in mind the "hidden" costs (e.g., opportunity costs) of your decisions.

Meta-advice: if you are following advice and it seems to be working out, you will learn much, much more about the game if you try to figure out *why* it is working.

[Celerity]

Based on the story you wrote in the OP, I just wanted to make it clear: you should almost never be using ID scrolls on weapons. The worst it can generally be is cursed, and remove curse scrolls are much less valuable than identify scrolls. Distortion weapons are dangerous to unwield, but they are a.) exceedingly rare and b.) reasonably strong, so you won't need to unwield them right away in many cases. That being said, a trip to the abyss can often be a blessing for an early character, since you can find an altar to Lugonu and start worshiping him right away.

Try to scroll ID your potions first, and read-ID duplicate scrolls. I like to ID my middlest potion stacks first of all, since the large stack is usually curing, and the slightly less common stacks tend to be stuff like might/heal wounds that you want to know about in an emergency. Remember to strive to ID as much as you can. That unidentified consumable might be the one that could save your life!

[celem]

In the vague situation described in the OP, well Death Yaks are not really faster than you. As soon as you see them you run if thats not something you can handle. Back the way you came, down and up another stair or something. You said you were moving upwards. Never be afraid to backtrack or go around. Also Death Yaks are nasty, they are the biggest hitters you are likely to have met when they first turn up. (besides hydras which hopefully are obviously scary)

Learn a few more escapes techniques. You cant rely on blink/tele forever. Blink scrolls are golden, CBlink is a heavy investment and Tele can easily drop you on more monsters. Swiftness/Haste, Berserk for the Haste, Invisibility, Fear. Options are out there.

[and into]

Just going to note that using berserk as an "escape method" to run away is terrible in basically all realistic scenarios, and new players who try this particular "protip" when they have other escape methods available are likely to kill themselves when survival might have been possible using other means. Berserk tends to run out very quickly if you are not hitting things, leaving you slowed in a situation you wanted to escape from.

[Actinide2k9]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

Regarding the ID-ing of weapons. That first little story was just to spice it a little bit up haha Of course I do not ID weapons by using scrolls! It was just an example of what COULD happen to me.

I think I'm going to watch some online and then give it YAT (Yet Another Try???) When I die or hopefully finish I'll post my dump for advice! I did not expect so much response on my question, and now I'm sure I'll get loads of advice if I ask for it!

I thank you all!

[Actinide2k9]

...
What have you been doing for religion? Hint: earlier is better than later for choosing a god; for MiFi, taking the first altar that isn't Sif, Vehumet, or Xom (ok, don't take Chei either until you know what you're doing) is not a terrible strategy. Use those divine abilities! There's nothing worse than dying with a bunch of piety and an ability that could have turned the tide of a fight.
...

As a fighter I usually go for Okawaru, I could not really find another god that fits my personal playstyle. Maybe I'm going to try another god for the next crawl, just to see how it works out!

[Pollen_Golem]

Wow, such a wealth of detailed tips and all the OP gave away about his game was this:

- First I get my weapon skill to min delay and about halfway I also start training shields
- Second I focus on armour and getting shields to minimal encumbrance
- Meanwhile I also train fighting
- EDIT: And of course, throwing for ranged attacks

[Pollen_Golem]

a trip to the abyss can often be a blessing for an early character

wtfmofo, have you ever been to the abyss?

[Actinide2k9]

Wow, such a wealth of detailed tips and all the OP gave away about his game was this:

- First I get my weapon skill to min delay and about halfway I also start training shields
- Second I focus on armour and getting shields to minimal encumbrance
- Meanwhile I also train fighting
- EDIT: And of course, throwing for ranged attacks

Well yeah, I don't really know what else to give for now. Like I said before, I play MiFi usually... weapon focus differs a little bit but usually I go with maces&flails (I like those)
I try to ID most scrolls/potions early and I'd say my playstyle is fast but cautious. I also usually go for Okawaru when playing this way. I also get INT to 8 first (against stat zero) and after that I dump all points into STR (since with Plate Armour EV is kinda useless if I'm correct?) Most of those choices are from bits of information I picked up from the wiki and tavern.

If anymore information can help I'd like to hear it. I'll try to give as much as I can!

[Pollen_Golem]

I also get INT to 8 first (against stat zero)

with Plate Armour EV is kinda useless if I'm correct?

It's not lethal and few things in middle game reduce stats. If it's a -Int item, just take it off.

Heavy armor may reduce EV but doesn't somehow degrade the EV that you have remaining after you put it on.

[and into]

Wow, such a wealth of detailed tips and all the OP gave away about his game was this:

- First I get my weapon skill to min delay and about halfway I also start training shields
- Second I focus on armour and getting shields to minimal encumbrance
- Meanwhile I also train fighting
- EDIT: And of course, throwing for ranged attacks

This was actually the relevant thing the OP said:

Maybe I'm just not careful enough but after 4 years of playing and still no win (most I had was two runes) I'm curious, does anyone who had the same experience have any tips?

[njvack]

As a fighter I usually go for Okawaru, I could not really find another god that fits my personal playstyle. Maybe I'm going to try another god for the next crawl, just to see how it works out!

If you're going God shopping, try Fedhas on for a few games; you get fantastic allies at * for a couple piety. An allied Oklob or two trivializes almost any fight. Grabbing a ranged attack (or starting Hu) is excellent, as you can shoot through your plants. Sunlight is effectively free and gives you an irresistible to-hit bonus to monsters in its area.

Yred is also great because zombies are great, even though babysitting undead allies can get pretty tedious.

If you do stay Oka, remember to use heroism pretty liberally. All buffs are worth much, much more before a fight starts than once you're already hurting. But Oka is not very strong these days; piety gain is slower without corpse sacrifices, and heroism has gotten more expensive.

Since you've survived past the "get a rune" stage, it may be that you're playing bored or tired. If you keep a cool head and assess threats well, dying past the start of Lair should be pretty rare (except for unusual circumstances or special fights); I find that I get careless (and, hence, splatted) after playing for more than a couple hours at a stretch. And I'm nowhere near good enough to speed run, so my games take like 10-15 hours.

[njvack]

I also get INT to 8 first (against stat zero) and after that I dump all points into STR (since with Plate Armour EV is kinda useless if I'm correct?) Most of those choices are from bits of information I picked up from the wiki and tavern.

Don't worry about stat death anymore, it isn't a thing. Carry restab or a jelly and remove curse with you and you'll be fine. (I guess having like 3 base int would be pretty irritating.)

EV with plate is fantastic! Take some dex on level-up; if you're only planning to use low-level support spells, you can skip int. Train dodging. It won't do anything at first because some math reason I can't remember, but then you'll see normal returns past some threshold (and for plate, it's a pretty reasonable threshold). Having 35 EV on a MiFi in plate is totally reasonable. CPA or GDA are harder to get dodgy in (and warrant more strength) but a good plate with some resistance is so much more common that you'll usually wind up in one.

All things being equal, a rough balance of EV and AC is better than an imbalance.

[ldf]

Carry restab or a jelly and remove curse with you and you'll be fine.

Royal jellies don't restore stats.

[njvack]

Well, look at that! I feel silly for carrying them around now.

[dowan]

All things being equal, a rough balance of EV and AC is better than an imbalance.

Huh? If I have 30 AC and 30 EV, that's balanced. If I put on a ring of robustness and have 38 AC and 30 EV, that's imbalanced. It's obvious which one is better though.

Did you mean a rough balance of dodging and armor skill? Or that 50AC 10 EV is worse than 25AC 25EV?

[njvack]

Yes, 38AC and 30EV is better than 30AC/30EV. But if you have like 30AC and 10EV and are wearing plate, maybe train some Dodging instead of more Armour.

[Siegurt]

All things being equal, a rough balance of EV and AC is better than an imbalance.

Huh? If I have 30 AC and 30 EV, that's balanced. If I put on a ring of robustness and have 38 AC and 30 EV, that's imbalanced. It's obvious which one is better though.

Did you mean a rough balance of dodging and armor skill? Or that 50AC 10 EV is worse than 25AC 25EV?

I believe the actual meaning of the quote was "given that the total of the two remains the same, it's slightly better to have more similar AC & EV than it is to have a ton of one and almost none of the other"

The truth is slightly more nuanced though, for a given creature, both AC and EV have a peak performance per-point (berder actually made some good graphs here in the forums that give you a good idea of the shape of things, if want to find those and care enough)

So for example starting at 25 AC, 1 EV, it's actually more effective for most creatures to go to 26AC, 1EV than it is to go from 25AC, 2EV. Because 25AC is closer to peak efficiency for AC for most creatures (in terms of damage reduction), and 1EV is very far from peak efficiency for most creatures, however the reverse is *also* true, going from 1AC, 25 EV, to 1AC, 26EV is better than going to 2AC, 25EV.

However that's an extreme example, a more normal example is "I am at 50 AC, 10 EV, do I wear a +6 protection ring or a +6 evasion ring" In that case, 50AC is *decreasing* in effectiveness and 10 EV is *increasing* so depending on exactly where you are in the curve and what you're fighting, either one could be better, but in most cases, it will be the EV.

And as it happens, for the majority of instances of AC and EV, in the majority of games, adding points to the lower of the two options is the way to go, unless one is "extreme" and the other is "average"

I, personally, rather than figure out exactly what's optimal in all cases, shoot for "my AC and EV should be optimally be around the average HD of the creatures I'm fighting, or my XL+5 if I'm too lazy to figure out that number" That is to say, if you're XL15, the closer AC or EV is to 20 the more effective it is. I personally estimate an effectiveness of 2 for "close to my target" and 1.0 for "extremely far away" so for XL15, if you're at 50 AC and 10 EV, I would probably rate 50AC at 1.0 and 10 EV at 1.5 and therefore estimate that a +6EV ring would probably be slightly better than +8AC ring (given that I couldn't use both for some reason)

More points is usually better than less points however, if you are too lazy to do even my rough approximation then probably go for "more close together is better than further apart for the same total amount of points between the two, but go for the larger number of total points in most cases" this will only rarely lead you astray, and not by enough to make a large difference in any case.

[njvack]

+1 to Siegurt.

And anyhow, I feel kind of like AC and EV are a little bit skilling. Yes, it's possible to do them horribly wrong, but it's also easy to spend too much energy obsessing over them because they're numbers. Good tactics will save you a lot more than optimizing numbers.

[Pollen_Golem]

adding points to the lower of the two options is the way to go, unless one is "extreme" and the other is "average"

To be consistent with the rest of your post, you must have meant "extremely low" when you wrote "extreme."

So that with 2AC (extreme) and 17EV (average), +3EV is better than +3AC.

[mps]

The rule of thumb that you want to optimize for AC + EV is correct, except on the low end of AC and on the high end of AC + EV with EV > AC against hard-hitting opponents, only the first of which is relevant at the stage of the game the OP is talking about. On the low end of AC, it's perceptibly better (but not hugely so) to have a point of AC than a point of EV.

At 2 AC and 17 EV, +3 AC is perceptibly better than +3 EV. At 30 AC, 35 EV, I think +3 EV is somewhat better than +3 AC. This last bit, though, isn't hugely useful to know.

[Sar]

Didn't Berder prove that AC is worse than EV if you have mediocre EV and no AC? Or something like that.

[mps]

If memory serves, Berder's graphs showed roughly what I said: that the marginal point of AC is better than the marginal point of EV when AC is low, that when both AC and EV are reasonably high, the marginal value of EV is noticeably better than AC for EV sufficiently large, and that AC + EV is the right thing to look at through most reasonable values of AC and EV outside of these two exceptions. Of course, there's a lot more information there, but that's what seems to stand out to me as a practicable correction term to the AC + EV heuristic.

In particular, you get the most punch out of the first like 15 points of AC or something, but AC remains slightly better than EV until like 25 or something. I don't really remember exactly and anyway, you're well into the regime where AC+EV is the right way to think by that stage.

[HobGoblin]

Your problem is you think you are getting unlucky. One of the main issues at that stage of the game IS the herds of yaks and what not that you reveal all at once. That is what is SUPPOSED to happen at those levels, you should expect it everytime. It isn't unlucky, it is how that area works. You have to use Tele scrolls/wands, invis potions, and every other little thing you have WELL. The game is basically use the random ten things that you've found so far that can help you escape plus positoning so there are escape paths if you run into a group. Also you can turn corners from a distance so you aren't standing 3 squares from a massive chunk of the map you just revealed. You also have to stop the move you get into trouble and calculate all the different combinations of things you can do to survive and decide which one is the best. If you aren't using ALL your items and abilities and choosing from multiple different ways to survive the encounters that could easily kill you, which come up regularly, in addition to preemptively setting up clear areas to run to and escape up stairs from, you'd have to be lucky TO survive those areas. I basically clear in a spiral around whatever stairs I am using, and sometimes switch to other stairs if they seem safer. Also, if you find another up stairs while walking, you then redetermine the order that you search the different areas using the fact that you can run to either stair. Sometimes you may need to use down stairs as well. Also, you have to just leave groups of enemies where they are until you acquire better ways of dealing with them. You should expect to use all of these techniques regularly while playing and even then you can still get killed.
You literally must use everything, for example just because you read cure potions should be used for statuses and not health does not mean there aren't times when you have to use it for health. The game gives you a bunch of randomly generated tools so that you can use them to survive, and the game is balanced so you really need to use them. Every option you neglect, the more likely it is you are going to die.

[tannisroot]

I'm also a beginner to the game and have just started to find the Lair survivable.

MiBe is definitely an excellent combo for survivability against Yaks. They provide chunks so you can easily chain beserks against them at basically no cost.

Keep track of important escape items: haste, blink, and teleport. Wands of slowing / paralysis can also be very decisive against dangerous uniques.

[HobGoblin]

Also, pure melee characters are good beginner classes because of their easy early game. It is easy to fall asleep and then walk into a brick wall. I think the next logical step is to play a character with a difficult early game, and see how far you can get with them. Mastering their early games is relatively straightforward, and you will be in the right mindset to face the later parts of the game, where the melee characters difficulty probably isn't easy like it was with the early game.
1.Melee through early game 2.Harder early game character until you play it consistently well through the early game 3.Take on the middle/lategame, knowing how to play the game safely and make use of your options

[Pollen_Golem]

I think the next logical step is to play a character with a difficult early game, and see how far you can get with them.

Who would recommend exactly? surely not warpers or spriggans who are weak early but have consistently available (tho narrow-minded) escape options.

[dirtywick]

My tips on not dying are to establish a core and then supplement the core. Learning positioning, when to use consumables, how strong your character is relative to the monster you're about to fight, and when to retreat are very important too but you're only going to learn that by practice and experience.

Establishing a core is figuring out how your character is going to kill monsters that are capable of ending your run and how to survive being attacked by monsters. Meaning, I am going to fight dangerous monsters by casting conjurations and survive being attacked by creating distance between myself and the monster, or I will attack with a weapon and wear heavy armor and a shield to avoid being killed, or I will summon monsters to attack monsters and hide behind summons to avoid being killed. You should primarily focus on getting better at these things throughout the game. It's rare that a character would change their focus from blasting things with spells and dodging attacks at the start of the game to wielding a two handed weapon and heavy armor at the end and probably not something I'd advise a person to do if they don't know how to win at all.

Especially at the beginning of the game, focus exclusively on killing monsters in the most quick and efficient way possible. With a spell casting background it's easy, get your starting attack spell to a low failure rate and use that until you can learn another spell, memorize it, and train that skill until you have that at a low failure rate. When you're not doing that, train your defensive skills. With a melee background, it's a bit more difficult because of weapon min delay and weapon types. Since min delay for most weapons is a skill level in the mid teens or higher for two handers and UC, you can't realistically focus on just that skill until you hit it and then train other things or your defenses will lag too much and you'll be killed. I think a good rough guideline is having your weapon skill 1-2 levels above your XP level and spend the remaining time training your defensive skill is OK. You should choose one weapon type early and use that only, and upgrade to better base types as you find them. Fighting is a skill that is good on any character as it increases their hp pool. You can generally invest in levels of this skill safely and it will help your character.

Choosing a god that enhances or supplements your core is also important. Gods are pretty varied and do many things and many different stages in the game and it's actually pretty difficult to pick one that makes your character worse, but obviously some are more magic oriented than others so keep that in mind.

Finally escape is important, but early on when you're establishing the core of your character, with some exceptions like blink or flame cloud or summons in hallways, consumables are what you will be using. Identify them early so you can actually use them. There's some debate about whether or not you should quaff id potions or wait for id scrolls and whether you should wait for a stack of multiples or use singles to id them and there's pros and cons to both and I don't think it matters that much. Worst case you get a bad mutation, or worst case you die with stuff that could have saved you that you didn't id. Decide which one is worse for yourself.

Supplementing your core is learning skills and abilities that will assist you indirectly. A caster character will generally wear a robe to start, but once they've established their core abilities they may want to wear a leather or scale armor and train armor for extra AC to supplement their dodging, grab a buckler and train shields a bit, and fighting for more HP, and a weapon skill so they can save MP for when they need it. Now, putting on the first scale armor you see, grabbing a buckler, and a war axe by D6 would be a disaster because they can't cast or fight effectively and they're diverting resources from their core in too many directions. Likewise, finding a book with haste or regeneration in it is really good for a character in plate armor with a two hander, but it also signifies a significant investment of spellcasting and charms/necromancy to be able to utilize the spell, and it's an investment you'll get nothing out of until it's ready. That's how supplemental skills work generally. You can't wear the armor until your spells are castable in it or can't wield a demon whip effectively because you don't have any skill in it, but you still need to invest a lot of XP to get there, and during that time you're not going to gain any strength. So you need to work these skills in at the right time, and the right time is when you're character won't be vulnerable.

Good times to train some of these supplemental skills is mid lair up to 7, all but the last level of the Vaults, first 3 levels of orc, clearing the other lair branch for a second rune, and clearing optional branches like crypt, elf, etc. These areas are multiple levels of basically the same threat level, so if you can handle the first floor you can handle the rest of them, notably except the last levels of each as they tend to have a dangerous vault at the bottom. The point is you don't need to be continually directly increasing your strength throughout these branches because they tend not to get more dangerous as you go, unlike the dungeon. And finally when you've gotten your weapon to min delay/your end game spells castable and your defenses in the 20's in skill levels, i.e. when your core is basically done and any improvement on that is minimal.

[njvack]

I think the next logical step is to play a character with a difficult early game, and see how far you can get with them.

Who would recommend exactly? surely not warpers or spriggans who are weak early but have consistently available (tho narrow-minded) escape options.

There is probably no race with an easier start than spriggans. Walking away from dangerous monsters isn't narrow-minded; it's like half of Crawl.

[Pollen_Golem]

Right - while Spriggans do teach newbies not to spam tab, they don't push you to explore options like consumables. And they might delude some players into believing that running away is just for fast species. I just wondered if HobGoblin would best my idea of learning to push a NaCK reliably through to lair. I thought he would.

[rchandra]

You can't make a CK reliably do anything. I played 4 "good" CK in the last tournament (played random characters only - lucky that at least they were Ce and 3x HO). One died from my idiocy, but the others included XL1 D:1 Reaper from Xom, D:3 Grinder the apocalypse crab, and D:3 sixfirhy from Xom. So that's one completely unavoidable death and two requiring near-perfect play. I guess it's at least good to see different terrible situations?

[Elystan]

Play Enchanters? I seem to do just fine with enchanters, but any other background and I'm doing well to reach temple.

[dornbeast]

Personally, I've found that now that I have the basics, playing random-race wanderers is an interesting way to broaden my skills. It's frustrating some times, and I've sent a fair number of wanderers back up the stairs rather than trying an obviously poor start, but I'm learning new methods.

[mps]

Right - while Spriggans do teach newbies not to spam tab, they don't push you to explore options like consumables. And they might delude some players into believing that running away is just for fast species. I just wondered if HobGoblin would best my idea of learning to push a NaCK reliably through to lair. I thought he would.

Why are you publicly speculating about what bad habits newbies can pick up from playing spriggans? This is the kind of thing that an experienced player who spends a lot of time speccing and helping new players might have an informed opinion on. It's definitely not something an inexperienced player could have a useful opinion about.