Thunderhoof

[Indianageoff]

I am rolling up a Centaur Hunter who will worship Qazlal Stormbringer. I picture a big, loud, obnoxious horse man with heavy armour, a big blunt weapon throwing arrows and lightning bolts like a boss.

Any advice on skill order and other things to succeed? The first few I put a few points in maces, then heavy bows and other misc skills. But after burning out midgame, I am thinking that going heavy weapons and saving the bow for later might be better.

Any advice on how to take this beast through?

[rchandra]

If you're not committed to ranged, I'd start the character as CeFi (maces or long blades). Start with weapon/fighting, then armour/invocations as you see fit, then more weapon/fighting, then shields, more armour and 27 invo.
If you really want to do it as hunter, then the same thing (bows as the weapon skill) but skip shields and you'll eventually want more ows skill. I'd keep melee training to a minimum - probably 0-skill melee attacks, only when you want to save arrows.

[mps]

There's not much point in going bows on a qaz dude. You have good ranged attacks (qaz invocations) when it matters and you need heavy armor melee to survive the rushes of ordinarily harmless monsters you deal with in packs with qaz. No sure supply of ammo shuts you out of good ranged weapons (i.e. throwing) and leaves you with only one okay option (xbows).

IRL, qaz isn't romantic, it's just stair dancing with a melee character.

[njvack]

Any advice on skill order and other things to succeed?

Role-playing Crawl characters is not a good way to get the orb. It's fun, I do it all the time, but I am not very good at bringing the orb home.

So, my advice would be "decide if success means winning the game" and if so, limit your roleplaying to building a story around the stuff you find in the dungeon.

Otherwise, play the character that sounds fun in a way that sounds fun. If you get really good at Crawl tactics you can win even with really underpowered strategy. As mps says, for this character that will mean "stair dance a lot."

[Indianageoff]

Stair dancing was never a big deal for me. I consider it to be a normal strategy for most characters.

So I guess need to commit to archery or melee. I have been mixing the two... big mistake?

As far as ammo, I usually put a point into throwing so I can throw or shoot darts and run. Pick of anything that can be shot and pick up a cross bow. Use that for easy kills and save the arrows for later in the game or for bigger nasties. That gets me through the mid game. A 5 points or so in maces for bashing to save arrows, and then later a few more.

Is wearing plate with bows a huge no no?

[tasonir]

Heavy armor has no penalty for ranged weapons, so plate is probably a good idea. You'll only get 5 base ac as a centaur, but your dodging is also poor, and you still get full returns from armor skill and enchantment.

Mixing the two is common, it's just challenging in the early game. Ranged characters who aren't with oka/trog for ammo gifts almost always need some melee training. It may be easier to just start as 100% melee and pick up the bow/arrows once you find a centaur in the dungeon, though. Starting as a hunter and then having to hit things with 0 skill melee is a bit more dangerous, although it's certainly doable.

[duvessa]

Heavy armor has no penalty for ranged weapons, so plate is probably a good idea.

the penalty for ranged weapons is literally identical to the one for melee weapons

You'll only get 5 base ac as a centaur

no, you get 10 base ac. the ONLY thing unfitting armour does is subtract half of your total base AC from your final AC. it does not change ANY of the effects of base ac (armour skill etc)

[rchandra]

mixing ranged/melee is fine if you want to, but since you also want to Qaz that's a lot of things to be doing, especially with the -3 Armour that you have to deal with. That's why I'd pick one or the other here.

[Indianageoff]

Well last night seemed to go better.

I went fighter and maces. Got some decent early weapons (a venom whip and a +8 randat morningstar). I put a small bit of training into throwing and promptly got nothing but rocks until orc. I know have a few tomahawks, but it's pretty useless. Not one blow gun yet. Those are very nice when you have lanes to run and can pepper down a nasty.

I am picking up every arrow and bolt I can find and stashing them. I'll wait until I have a very good launcher (hopefully bow) before training. So for now it is maces with a bit of fighting and other useful skills (Invoc, Evoc).

I do have a store with an Iron Rod in it. I am not far from being able to buy it (900ish gold needed and I am 880). I am going to pick that up. It could be very useful for blasting things with out burning mana or piety. If I make it a another day I'll drop a log in.

Right now I am making clouds and wearing a decent set of chainmail (+2 Fire resistance). Still looking for better, but it is fine for now. Nothing to help me with poison so lair might be problematic. So I am dancing between orc and lair, working my way down slowly until I get that rod.

[njvack]

Lair lair lair, you don't need rPois for lair at all.

Remember that training Evo for the Iron Rod means you'll be splitting your ranged XP between launcher, evo, and invo. And you still want to train some melee and defenses.

[tedric]

I probably wouldn't buy that rod until I'd seen what's in the Orc:4 shops.

[Sandman25]

Lair lair lair, you don't need rPois for lair at all.

We don't need anything anywhere but it does not mean that rPois is not useful in Lair.

[Sar]

Come on man, rPois being occasionally useful in Lair doesn't mean that "do I have rPois" should be a consideration when you find the entrance.

[Siegurt]

I am playing a BE who hasn't seen a blowgun (or body armour with an ego other than rpois) and just finished vaults.

Trogs still flooded me with needles. Oh well, sometimes the rng is annoying that way

[Sandman25]

Come on man, rPois being occasionally useful in Lair doesn't mean that "do I have rPois" should be a consideration when you find the entrance.

Damn, probably I should start reading messages which triggered post I am replying at

[Indianageoff]

I probably wouldn't buy that rod until I'd seen what's in the Orc:4 shops.

That is part of my problem. I hit some nasties in orc 3 early on. I think I need more firepower to take them down. I may not see that killer launcher for a while so I am thinking about the rod in the interim. Evoc always helps with wands anyway.

I'm not sure what to do. Not like 900 gold is doing me any good just sitting there anyway.

I could drop some levels in the dungeon and hope to get a blow gun. Then I can dance with the Orc Warlord.

[Sandman25]

Not like 900 gold is doing me any good just sitting there anyway.

You know about timed bazaars, don't you?

[Indianageoff]

Not like 900 gold is doing me any good just sitting there anyway.

You know about timed bazaars, don't you?

Yea. But in the game, you cannot prepare for everything. It is always the balance between a problem you can solve now and the better solution you may or may not see in the future.

[Sandman25]

Yea. But in the game, you cannot prepare for everything. It is always the balance between a problem you can solve now and the better solution you may or may not see in the future.

While I agree with this principle I disagree that you should waste the gold just because "Not like 900 gold is doing me any good just sitting there anyway".

[ZipZipskins]

Not like 900 gold is doing me any good just sitting there anyway.

You know about timed bazaars, don't you?

Yea. But in the game, you cannot prepare for everything. It is always the balance between a problem you can solve now and the better solution you may or may not see in the future.

That iron rod isn't going to solve your problems 900 gold worth now

[tedric]

Holding onto money for the slight chance that your game turns out to even contain a bazaar, much less that you'll reach it and it will have items you want...is, well...bizarre. But Zip's right, the iron rod isn't going to do much to get you through Orc if you're stumped by a Warlord or other high-AC enemies. It'd be more useful in Lair, but still probably not worth emptying your wallet for.

[mps]

Two facts:

1. You should aim to keep your money low at all times if you can accomplish that by buying useful items.

2. Rods that aren't rod of shadows or rod of clouds are bad and not worth 900 gold or training evo early on a character with bad apts for core skills, like this one.

The idea of keeping money available on the off chance you'll run into a timed bazaar when there are useful items to buy now is terrible. The point here is that iron rod is a bad item that will not make this character better.

[Sandman25]

For the record I wasn't suggesting to keep gold for timed portal. I was suggesting to stop treating current gold as useless, it does have some purpose.

[duvessa]

swarm is better than rod of clouds (maybe inaccuracy is too, it certainly has the advantage of not being completely useless at low evocations) but yes, non-shadows rods are hilariously overrated on here

[mps]

You certainly shouldn't waste gold, say, by buying an iron rod, but you shouldn't save gold in hopes of finding something better to buy down the road when good items are available now (by "down the road" I mean on future floors, not like buy whatever's good immediately in a four shop vault without checking all shops).

[Siegurt]

I dunno, my last character had an iron rod pre-lair and one shotted every hydra he met with it (Which worked well, since he was an axe-wielder and hadn't found any flaming ones yet)

It's not like super awesome or anything (Certainly not as good as clouds with decent evo or shadows, IMHO it's about on par with swarm), but if you fire it point-blank it's pretty good damage. It does decrease in usefulness as you get later in the game (when things have better AC)

[mps]

At point blank range, I like melee weapons.

[Siegurt]

At point blank range, I like melee weapons.

Well, 4-8 shots which increase the damage I take on each shot seemed like a less good deal at the time than 1 shot which never caused me to take any damage.

[ZipZipskins]

A centaur also doesn't realistically need a way to kill every hydra to get most of the benefits from clearing Lair. Also this character is using maces.

[Siegurt]

A centaur also doesn't realistically need a way to kill every hydra to get most of the benefits from clearing Lair. Also this character is using maces.

Yes, I didn't say this character should buy this rod in this case, I said "I found it to be good once in this one situation" in response to a percieved generalization about it sucking.

I find that generally speaking I would always rather spend my money on useful stuff as soon as it becomes available, but whether this rod is useful in this case is certainly questionable.

[Indianageoff]

Short session last night. I found an amulet of faith so I ditched the rod idea. With a faster piety rebuild, I feel more comfortable using my God's powers. Plus I found a basic long bow, so I am doing a bit of archery. But I'll hold back on shooting stuff until I can brand the bow and enchant it or find better. It is mostly a bash fest. Whip for most stuff and the draining morningstar for the rest.

Grinding out the lair now then back to orc.

Thanks for the advice on the Rod. I'll hold out for something better, hopefully in Orc.

I did find the spider nest and swamp. I do need some sort of resist poison.

[njvack]

Well, they're both *possible* without rPois, though they're a lot more fun with it.

All I'm saying is if you don't find rPois until you need a rune, don't go all slime or abyss.

[tasonir]

You'll only get 5 base ac as a centaur

no, you get 10 base ac. the ONLY thing unfitting armour does is subtract half of your total base AC from your final AC. it does not change ANY of the effects of base ac (armour skill etc)

Sorry to be pedantic, but I literally said that you get full ac from training armor:

You'll only get 5 base ac as a centaur, but your dodging is also poor, and you still get full returns from armor skill and enchantment.

Maybe I should have said "immediate ac" rather than base ac, but I think it was otherwise pretty clear.

[duvessa]

You'll only get 5 base ac as a centaur

no, you get 10 base ac. the ONLY thing unfitting armour does is subtract half of your total base AC from your final AC. it does not change ANY of the effects of base ac (armour skill etc)

Sorry to be pedantic, but I literally said that you get full ac from training armor:

You'll only get 5 base ac as a centaur, but your dodging is also poor, and you still get full returns from armor skill and enchantment.

Maybe I should have said "immediate ac" rather than base ac, but I think it was otherwise pretty clear.

You also literally didn't say any of the other things affected by base AC. You literally said "You'll only get 5 base ac" which is literally wrong.