The Tavern

Spider den = astronomical risk, no reward. never, ever go in there.

Even though your Deep Elf Wizard has just ridiculously easily cleared the Swamp, Elven Halls, and Snake Pits 5 using almost nothing but Poison Arrow, Boris can kill you with a single Iron Shot.

Hydras can appear in the main dungeon, even as early as D 7.

One man's 4-headed Hydra is another man's eleven-headed zombie slave of doom, if that man has high EV/AC, a big choppy axe and Animate Dead 8)

ghend wrote:Spider den = astronomical risk, no reward. never, ever go in there.

This is not an important lesson, this seems to be an overreaction to a bad incident. This is a bit like saying the same about ice caves or volcanoes. In fact, it's a lot like that.

Assuming you're reasonably prepared, there are no Spider's Dens that you can't run away from safely after entering, and only a few (one?) with the kind of surprises that unexpectedly require it if you're unspoiled.

There are two Spiders' Nests that have a ghost moth, and both of them are recognizable the moment you step through the portal. There's the three-chamber one with trapdoor spiders and the one that starts with tarantellas in line-of-sight. You can definitely bail out through the exit portal if you can't handle a ghost moth, which may very well be the case.

The other maps are pretty mundane, and you can take them like you take Hive, only the monsters don't have the same crazy speed and evasion.

i've only had to leave a spiders' nest once, and it was due to a ghost moth i couldn't see. i've beaten at least one without rPois.
on the other hand i've died to ice caves several times, and i've had to bail out a few more times.
so it's a matter of luck, mostly. either portal is common, but you'll have a small sample size anyway.

Well, in ice caves you generally get nice stuff if you're tough or clever enough to get to it. I've cleared a spider den only to recieve no loot. Maybe it's only the one spider den map?

If an elephant attacks you while you are climbing the stairs, it will trample you and push you away from the stairs and you will not be able to get up them. Then you will die. Or in this case, expend a huge amount of resources staying alive.

Not sure if this also applies to going down stairs or using escape hatches.

On a related point: Lair is not easier than Orc (at least levels 1-3.) With vast herds of elephants and death yaks on pretty much every level, Lair cost me almost all my emergency escapes and also a lot of Okawaru piety as I had to use his abilities for every fight and spend a long time resting afterwards.

Jeremiah wrote:If an elephant attacks you while you are climbing the stairs, it will trample you and push you away from the stairs and you will not be able to get up them. Then you will die.

This also applies to dragons of all kinds, and (worse) to the Beasts that Geryon summons. This last one is no joke the first time you discover it!

Joel
Teleporting frantically

When playing a nemelex summoner never, ever sacrifice anything other than corpses. You sacrifice one randart...

If you are playing 0.8, then you can select what kinds of things you want to sacrifice to Nemelex. ^ then right-click. I always turn off b - decks of destruction, for example.

Just because you killed one ogre easily doesn't mean you will be able to kill the next one.

Jeremiah wrote:Just because you killed one ogre easily doesn't mean you will be able to kill the next one.

Look at the weapon the ogre is carrying. Some do more damage than others.

Regardless of the weapon, you might miss it 10 times in a row and it hit you every time. Alternatively it might hit you with a giant spiked club and do no damage while an orc priest can hit you for 20 damage with a dagger. Essentially what I'm saying is that in Crawl, a lot of things that are determined by the RNG have a very wide range of possible results, which might be a shock to people familiar with other games where damage tends more towards the average.

ghoul monk of kiku is actually pretty awesome. an easy way to torment everything on screen with yourself immune? yes please! Also, snacks.

DON'T hold the arrow buttons down to bash plants out of the way. Had a promising SEEE at lair 8, saw a hydra, backed off a bit but then couldn't find it, so I gave up and went to getting some plants out of the way in the vault, held down the arrow key and all of a sudden the hydra comes racing out of off-screen to eat me. I've done this at least twice now, damn it.

Scrolls of Magic Mapping are good for quickly locating Labyrinths and Bazaars

There are now orange rats in the sewers !

In all my previous encounters with those evil rodents, usually as minions of a vampire, I could blast through them easily. My low level MDHu could not, even with his shiny +4 ring mail. You feel drained ! You die...

Don't draw a card from an unidentified legendary deck in the middle of a hard level of the Orcish Mines. Even if you think it's Summoning, it might be Dungeons and you might turn the entire level into glass, giving hordes of Orc Priests free range to smite you.

(I didn't have any difficulty surviving, as a Spriggan that could easily run away, but it did cost me a Potion of Heal Wounds.)

When you suddenly find yourself facing a polar bear, please, please try to remember that you are using a hand axe of FREEZING. If you don't, you will die to his berserking and lose what was an INTENSELY promising character. I mean everything was falling into place: he even found an axe of flaming right before doing the Lair.

While the player spell Sticky Flame has been nerfed, monsters can still cast it at range.

Ball lightning can be abjured!

Not in 0.8.

Well dang. That was a short lived discovery. Though I suppose it's for the best- it did feel like a cheesy way to neutralize Lom Lobon.

New discovery: summoned A's can come with randart shields! Pity they don't leave them behind when they depart...

polymorph other wands work on invisible horrors

this is handy when you have no SInv

Missile weapons can have the elec brand. I had never encountered this before.

Grimm wrote:Missile weapons can have the elec brand. I had never encountered this before.

Was it the fixed artefact [s]bow of Krishna (Sharnga)[/s]? I think that's a special case.

Edit: D'oh - see post below, it's the Storm Bow.

Grimm wrote:Missile weapons can have the elec brand. I had never encountered this before.

The +8,+8 Storm Bow.

When the wiki says " ... last floor ... is extremely dangerous ... " BELIEVE IT and do not think "aw come on, one look couldn't be that bad".
Lost my lvl. 18 SpBe with an artifact +7/+8 demonblade (+2Str, +2Dex, Vamp) to an elven annihilator on the entry to floor 7 of the elven halls ...

*cry*

Vampiric is such a cool brand for a melee character ... *cry*

When you are playing your first mummy caster in a while, you will immediately find a ring of sustenance and an amulet of the gourmand.

minmay is right - my bow is neither Sharnga nor Storm. It is a +12, +0 unrandart crossbow that also has +Str or something like that. An Okawaru gift - a very cheeky bonus.

more specifically it's the +12, +0 crossbow "Lufohov" (sounds a bit Slavic) {god gift, elec, Int +1, Stlth++}

Simulacrums are considered UNDEAD and therefore can be dispelled as such!

So much easier than flame tonguing them.

Acquiring negative energy resistance, cold resistance and a weapon of holy wrath on dungeon level 2 does not prevent you from getting one-shot by an ogre on dungeon level 3.

That is the damn cold truth brother, or sister.

Vampire mosquitoes are also undead and can be dispelled as much. I don't know why it took so long for me to figure that one out.

If you're deep in Snake and get backlashed by casting Vampiric Draining on something invisible, don't waste time or life dropping a freezing cloud on it. It's probably Boris.

If you kill a monster with a multizap, it has time to shout in between the first zap hitting it and the second.

Edit: "OMG I'VE BEEN STRUCK BY LI...." splat

Stormfox wrote:If you're deep in Snake and get backlashed by casting Vampiric Draining on something invisible, don't waste time or life dropping a freezing cloud on it. It's probably Boris.

HA HA HA HA HA

ghend wrote:Spider den = astronomical risk, no reward. never, ever go in there.

I'm coming round to this idea. At least for some of the maps.

Dammit, I was starting to like that character too.

Darts of dispersal work on Roxanne. (Is this a bug? Does it work for other form of dispersal -- the spell or arrows? Does it work on other statues?)

Just because you kick Mennas's ass the very first time you meet him does not mean he is a pushover.

Something is invisible and attacking you, you say?

And you can't see invisible?

SCROLL OF FOG. At least you'll be able to locate the bastard.

^If you're going to counter invisibility with a scroll, using immolation is a much funner way of doing it. XD

Today, in wizard more, I discovered if you take one of the special blessed TSO weapons to Kiku or Lucy for bloodying or corrupting, they revert to demon weapons. No dual branding. Although, this being wizard mode, you can produce demon blades of holy wrath or trishulas of pain if you really want.

Escape hatches are labelled ESCAPE for a reason. Unless you actually need an escape, you should consider twice before activating one. This goes double if you have no means of teleportation, no melee-worthy character, no idea of what the target floor looks like or (worst) all of the above.

Yredelemnul's servants won't follow you into a Labyrinth

The Tavern

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