Any way of not dying before Lair as a caster?

[Sargon]

How the hell do people survive as casters? I have tried GaEE and DECo numerous times and I always die as soon as I can cast anything better than the starting lvl1 spells. Basically anything tougher than a hobgoblin is lethal danger, and two monsters like that are certain death. With straight-up fighters, I almost always die to carelessness, such as waltzing in the middle of a rune stash or thinking that wielding an axe in on open field will actually make fighting 3 yak herds easier, but with casters, it's always some unforseeable landmine like an orc priest with some buddies noticing me somewhere miles away from a stairway, something blocking a hallway from the other direction while I'm retreating, or a player ghost frying me with 3 magic darts across the entire LoS before I can even think if taking the stairs.

Is there some secret cheese that people use to get over the early game, some must-have spell or unusual tactic or something? I can be careful and pick them off one by one and always wait to recharge and whatnot all I want, but that doesn't matter when I get smited two times in a row or blown to pieces by an invisible orc wizard who I can't target or stung to death by a surprise pack of killer bees(in a hallway and with a gargoyle no less).

[Rast]

Please provide example morgue files or ttyrecs.

[ydeve]

Learn how and when to run and lure. Orc priests can't kill you if you start walking away when you notice them. Picking things off one at a time allows you to regen mp between fights.

Understand noise and how it works. Lots of Conjurations are loud. If you're casting IMB at the edge of the black, you're asking for trouble. Lure monsters back a screen first.

Learn what your mana-efficient spells are. Casting IMB at targets will drain your mp quickly. Searing Ray gives you much more bang for your buck.

Player ghosts are rarely dangerous as they don't use stairs. If you can't kill them, then don't.

Post a morgue and we might be able to give more specific advice.

[Blade]

When I was starting to learn Crawl, the simplest conjurations build for me to pick up was DEFE of Vehumet. In the early game, you just have to make sure you're only taking on one or two monsters at a time, but flame tongue is strong enough to take most monsters out. When you get conjure flame, you can stick one between you and dangerous melee threats like ogres, then pick them off with flame tongue. Sticky flame is a really MP-efficient way to kill almost everything in the early game. After that, Fireball provides really good crowd control and high enough damage to be useful through most of the game.

As with melee fighters, it's important to focus your skills on offense first, defense second. I've had DEFE games where I didn't train anything but fire, conjurations, and Spellcasting until I had fireball online. Others find a slightly more conservative approach works, so experiment a bit.

Honestly, a combo like that will give you enough firepower to take out just about any early-game threat, so the most important thing to practice is just good positioning. Lure monsters, rest to full mp between fights, don't start fights you're not sure you can win without a clear escape plan. It takes a bit of getting used to at first, but it becomes powerful quickly. Good luck!

[Sargon]

Please provide example morgue files or ttyrecs.

http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/Sa ... 135143.txt
http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/Sa ... 014813.txt
http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/Sa ... 010612.txt
http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/Sa ... 001552.txt
http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/Sa ... 000050.txt

Here's some of them. So, what is it doc?:)

[Hurkyl]

Some notes:

Targets struck with Sandblast get to use their AC three times to reduce the damage -- it's rather ineffective against well-armored enemies, such as orcs in heavy armor.

Stealth is useful for getting more chances to back away before things notice you.

Against melee enemies the same speed as you, running in circles to gain MP while not taking damage is usually more effective than trying to melee them. (unless you're actually good at melee and not so good at blasting)

Usually, you can tell where an invisible orc is, and magic dart doesn't miss. (nor do battlespheres)

[tabstorm]

The key thing to remember as a spellcaster is that you can run away from speed 10 enemies.

[Turukano]

Starting FE is not tricky
Only red imps will be icky
Throw flame at your foes
Just learn how it goes
And soon you can burn them with sticky

[Rast]

Here's some of them. So, what is it doc?:)

1. Did you fullclear D:1-2? Your XL and items seem a bit low. You didn't even pick up a weapon. Unlucky how the ghost spammed magic dart, but I think you could have avoided it by fleeing north instead of west, then come around in a circle and take stairs away. !lg sargon gree xl=3 -tv
2. Terrible job running away from the invisible orc wizard. !lg sargon decj xl=7 -tv Should have put a little bit of xp into fighting and dodging, IMO. Should have read that stack of 9 ID much sooner: n - a potion of experience {unknown}
3. You moved too quickly and ended up stuck between two iguanas in a corridor. Also you are wearing gourmand instead of mana regen. The blowgun alone would have beaten one iguana solo.
4. Running away from a pack of killer bees isn't going to work. Should have fought them in the initial corridor. Blind-quaff some consumables and wish for the best. Also, why were you even there? should have entered the sewer earlier.
5. Orc warrior with a dire flail. Should have run before it ever got adjacent to you.

[WalkerBoh]

The main difference between a melee background vs. a caster background early on is that it's possible to run out of attack power as a magic user. On the other hand, you kill things much quicker in terms of turns needed, and you can do it from range so you take less hits. But this just means you have to be more careful monitoring whether you have enough MP to kill whatever group of enemies you're fighting. In practice this leads to a lot more running away and resting, in my experience.

Other than that, the tactics are identical (with some minor positioning differences based on which spell you're using, like shock or meph or whatever).

[Tiktacy]

I remember a lot of struggles I had as a newer player involved not understand the core strategies of the game. I am going to try to give you some general advice that I find on here pretty often that should help you in general to survive better:

1) The number one most important and essential strategy in the entirety of crawl is to only fight enemies one on one. In every encounter during your game, IF you plan on killing the enemy, you are going to want the fight to be 1 on 1, you need to drive that idea into your head so hard that even the thought of fighting an orc priest and an orc warrior before reaching the ecumenical temple at the same time makes you sick to your stomach. When you DO need to fight enemies in a group, try to always fight in corridors so you only have to deal with one at a time.

2) The OTHER most important strategy is to run away from encounters that can cause death. Stairs are your best friend, always have an escape route planned and ready to execute. This takes a lot of practice and time to get the hang of, so don't be too disappointed if you have trouble with this at first. Additionally, keep in mind that if you find a dangerous enemy that you can't handle(SIGMUND), skipping the level until you are ready is sometimes a good choice.

3) Stairs are your best friend, if a specific part of the level is too dangerous for you to go back into, go down a different stair case.

4) FE is a great class for newer players(try to get sticky flame online asap, it is extremely powerful), draconian is a good race to choose for new players because its skills are pretty even across the board(making skills more linear since the skill page can often be overwhelming for new players) and you aren't required to make decisions on what armor to wear(which is a little tricky to understand for newer players). All draconian races are good, some are better than others, but don't fret if you don't get the one you want.

5) Generally speaking, you are going to want to train offense in the beginning over all else. The faster you can kill things, the less chances they will have to kill you. Some players like to train fighting right away for non-spellcaster starting classes since it provides both offense and HP(which is extremely important in the early game especially).

6) Blowguns are very very good, use them. You don't need to train any more than 2-3 levels for them to serve their purpose, but even a player with 0 throwing skill armed with a blowgun can kill an ogre on d;2. Kite the shit out of them but never let them close in onto an adjacent tile.

7) Quaff/read ID potions/scrolls when there is a stack of 2 or more. If you find identification scrolls, use them on single stacked potions. This gives you the optimal spread of resources you can tap into incase of emergency. Haste and blink are arguably your two most important consumables, never use them unless its to help you survive, might and agility though can be used to help you kill dangerous enemies if you REALLY need them dead. This one is a very personal opinion of mine, so take it with a grain of salt, many players may disagree here.

[yesno]

sand blast with stones equipped trivializes a bunch of early enemies that can be difficult for other characters. watch your supply of stones (though many/maybe most games will spawn more than you'll ever need) but use them liberally against anything that poses any real threat. almost everything you meet that has high AC in early dungeon (like orc warriors) is something most characters at that point should be running away from anyway. most major threats in lair also have low AC.

[daggaz]

In the first five levels or so of the main dungeon, you are at your weakest and are the most likely to die, and this is compounded by being a weak caster with limited MP and a lvl 1 offensive spell.

Lure pretty much EVERYTHING. Get it to notice you (preferably by zapping it once with a long range spell like magic dart), and then walk back the way you came and kill it around a corner. Remember that jackals and gnolls pretty much always come in packs, and orcs to a lesser extent. Try to split them up by only luring one or two well away from the main pack. Explore carefully (not auto) so that you clear out a circular area around the stairs and try to keep your path to safety open. Spells that can create distance are absolute lifesavers and should be used whenever needed. Conjure flame is the best, but blink and summon whatever work well, too. If you end up toe-to-toe, try to make a gap. You can take advantage of enemy speed randomization or let it swing at you in melee and then take a step, at which point you should try to block that space somehow and increase the gap. Dont forget that teleportation traps can save your life!

Speaking of teleport, identify your consumables ASAP. Read-ID scrolls and identify potions. Use them all liberally in the beginning to escape or to swing any potentially bad encounter heavily in your favor. Use wands all the time, low level enemies have miserable MR and low HPs, later on half of the wands are worthless anyhow and you will get more than enough of them.

Always pick up a melee weapon. Prioritize high speed/accuracy weapons like daggers, and anything with a brand on it. Protection is your absolute best friend. Electricity can one or two shot things if you are lucky with the proc and out of other escape options.

[MainiacJoe]

Another D:1 trick: go down any staircase (not hatch!) you find once you have clear enemies away from it. You will discover whether there are monsters around that stairs on D:2. If not, then that staircase becomes an escape option for you on D:1. If you're lucky, you might even find that two stairs are close enough on D:2 that you can risk exploring from one to the other, then you have an even better D:1 escape option because you can return to D:1 at a different place from the baddie that chased you down.

You can continue this tactic of exploring downstairs as you continue through the dungeon, at the cost of potentially missing out on a Sewer or Ossuary if you aren't ready to explore the lower level yet. But I don't think those spawn on D:2 anyway.

[Hurkyl]

Prioritize high speed/accuracy weapons like daggers,

The low damage is a problem. Rapiers and Tridents, I think, are the best reasonably common mundane weapons for 0 skill melee.

[daggaz]

Its not really a problem in the first few levels of D because monsters dont have many HPs anyways, if you miss (and/or are standing around waiting for delay so you can swing again) you are doing 0 damage, and generally, assuming optimal play, you are only using your melee in cases where the monster is heavily wounded and you happened to run out of MP in the process. Obviously get something with a brand or at least an enchantment bonus on it if you can, but speed and weapon accuracy are critical when your weapon and fighting skill are close to 0. Whips and daggers are good here. I keep a spear or a trident as well for use with conjure flame. If you really want to see the pronounced effect, try an OgWz and use a GSC vs a whip or even club before you put any reasonable skill into M&F. (I use the GSC for unarmed imps because they do jack shit for damage, you miss a few times but eventually you will one-shot them).

More important is the need to get a weapon ASAP. Taking a step around a corner and alerting an entire jackal pack is pretty much fatal on D1 if you have no weapon and cant get behind a door. Pick up the first thing you find, chances are it's a dagger or club. Dont hunt around for a rapier first.

Later on you can transition up to a more suitable anti-popcorn beat-stick when you can spare some XP for the required skills. As it is tho, rapiers are pretty fast, I would definitely use one if it was branded.

[ydeve]

I've found that short swords work really well untrained. There's no need to sink points into short blades, though you can if you want I guess. Don't kill rats and roaches with magic. Use you weapon.

[ZipZipskins]

I've found that short swords work really well untrained. There's no need to sink points into short blades, though you can if you want I guess. Don't kill rats and roaches with magic. Use you weapon.

Thanks

Short swords rule

[Lasty]

A lot of good points have already been made about the sorts of tactics needed (esp. WalkerBoh), but another point is species. The "good caster" species like Te and DE are actually really hard thanks to their tiny health pools. Try starting off with humans or draconians until you get the hang of it; they have less firepower but are much more mistake-tolerant.

[Sprucery]

+1 for Hu or Dr and I add HOFE.

[johlstei]

GrEE seems like a reasonable choice to me. HOFE is probably a bit easier.

[Sar]

Playing HOFE made me realize you can be great at both melee and magic during a regular 3 runes game. Would recommend!

[Blade]

I strongly disagree that DEFE is really hard for new players. Yes, it's fragile, but it's straightforward and powerful from the beginning. I recommend them largely because they are one-note characters; you don't need to balance a lot of things, and they let you get used to magic and only magic before hybridizing. Others' experiences may be different, but my first win was with a DEFE after trying quite a few draconians. The more experienced I got, the more I started enjoying other strong spellcaster species as well, but in my experience, DEFE is one of the best choices for new players. I can't speak for other deep elves the same way, though.

[ydeve]

I find DEFE is a strong combo for beginners to crawl, as it makes up for poor skilling choices and aren't likely to want to melee enemies with a character they perceive as a "mage". Its low hp pool forces you to learn good "runaway" tactics, while it's high aptitudes gives you strong skills and firepower and covers up skilling errors. The main downside in terms of learning is that the skill pool is so large, you don't need to actually learn good skilling habits.

Veteran players of melee and "hybrid" characters will have a harder time with DE as the kind of mistakes DE apts help to cover up aren't made so much and the low hp becomes the biggest obstacle.

[Lasty]

I disagree w/ the idea that DE helps cover up mistakes. I think it actually tends to amplify mistakes. DE's aptitudes grease a slide into a really unbalanced skill distribution that will eventually kill off the character as soon as a non-trivial mistake is made. With a Hu or Dr there's no "terrible path of least resistance" problem, and it generally takes a bigger mistake to kill off those species. DE is tempting for newer players precisely because it feels so very strong right up until the point where it suddenly dies; Hu and Dr don't feel as strong, but they less often suddenly die.

[ydeve]

The thing is what kind of mistakes. New players make a range of mistakes that experienced players don't make. Mostly skilling and character building issues. With balanced species, if you don't have some understanding of what skills to train, you can train yourself into a wall more easily than you can with say DE (Yes, the dungeon gives you more xp than you need, but we've seen the kind of stuff new players put skill points into). What's more, new players often don't even realize they're making these mistakes, while the dungeon is getting harder and harder as they go. At least DE shoehorns them into a build that, while suboptimal, is at least "viable," so they can focus on the other mistakes they're making instead and get better at those. In this way, while not necessarily being good for winning, it at least facilitates learning.

Also sudden death after making a mistake teaches that it was a mistake better than being able to push through it because your species is more robust.

[Jarlyk]

Speaking personally, I've won DE twice; the only other 'caster' I won was a NaFE, but it wound up mostly melee-focused in the end. I also haven't played very many DE games, so my DE win rate is an order of magnitude higher than my overall win rate. So, at least for the kinds of mistakes I make, DE is easier for me than other species for 'casting'. Incidentally, the DE runs are also the ones where I've gotten the most runes, though that's less relevant to just winning the game.

I think it's mainly because DE is a good option if you want to play 'pure blaster', as you can get good spellpower very quickly; this is often the way that new players prefer to play their 'casters'. Spellcasting is also fairly cheap as DE, so you end up with more MP, which helps lazy players like me that like to bite off larger encounters than they probably should be tackling. Mix in a little Sif Muna for channeling and you can be raining destruction on your foes fast-and-furiously enough that you can brute force your way through a lot of otherwise poor play. You still have to learn how to be a bit careful (especially in the early dungeon, where a stiff breeze can knock you over), but I don't think it's a weak species for typical players. It's probably a lot riskier with good play, since the low HP makes you more vulnerable to random events, but with average/new play, having that HP buffer doesn't help as much, since you probably don't run away soon enough to take advantage of it anyway (i.e. you basically keep fighting until you're down to DE levels of HP, meaning that you're just about as vulnerable as a DE.) At least as a DE you're acutely aware of your fragility.

----

One caveat to the above; you do still need to learn to train Fighting as a DE, despite the aptitude. A DE with no Fighting is an insta-splat waiting to happen.

[ZipZipskins]

A DE with no Fighting is an insta-splat waiting to happen.

So is a DE with Fighting.

[ydeve]

A DE with no Fighting is an insta-splat waiting to happen.

So is a DE with Fighting.

So is a Spriggan, yet somehow people manage.

[nago]

Speed 3 is still Speed 3

[Magipi]

A DE with no Fighting is an insta-splat waiting to happen.

So is a DE with Fighting.

I don't see why. Nothing stops a DE from having decent AC and EV, and with some fighting, HP can be quite OK as well.
My 3-rune DE win had 18 AC (in robe!), 31 EV and 168 HP, that is very far from "an insta-splat waiting to happen". That's for felids and octopodes.

[Bart]

Just admit it - deep elves are glass cannons. Many people enjoy glass cannons because they are exciting to play, not because they are great at survival.

A DE has less HPs than an octopode and less lives than a felid. Due to low str and poor Armour apt it's difficult to get AC quickly, so for a long time DE is somewhere between one and three hits from death. You can't mitigate that with EV.

[nago]

Just admit it - deep elves are glass cannons. Many people enjoy glass cannons because they are exciting to play, not because they are great at survival.

A DE has less HPs than an octopode and less lives than a felid. Due to low str and poor Armour apt it's difficult to get AC quickly, so for a long time DE is somewhere between one and three hits from death. You can't mitigate that with EV.

thanks

[Magipi]

Yes, this is all true, glass cannons, worse than average, all true. I don't like them either. But they are not nearly as bad as some guys in this thread suggested.

[ZipZipskins]

A DE with no Fighting is an insta-splat waiting to happen.

So is a DE with Fighting.

I don't see why. Nothing stops a DE from having decent AC and EV, and with some fighting, HP can be quite OK as well.
My 3-rune DE win had 18 AC (in robe!), 31 EV and 168 HP, that is very far from "an insta-splat waiting to happen". That's for felids and octopodes.

gj your endgame de made it to the endgame

[njvack]

FWIW, my first win was also a DE (maybe Wz?). My approach in that game was basically Nethack's "weaponless" conduct (though it was in the days of victory dancing, so I hit a lot of orcs with staves) and to kill absolutely everything with conjurations. I think I took Sif. IIRC I was casting haste, necromutation and fire storm by the end of a 3-rune game, to give an idea of how one-sided my skilling was.

Lots of running, lots of problems with yaktaur packs and stone giants, but with Haste, "never be in melee range with anything" is possible. I would have had more fun and lot fewer dicey situations, I think, if I'd trained more defenses and less magic. But I really really wanted to be a sweet Fire Storm-ing lich, so there I was.

[ydeve]

Yes, this is all true, glass cannons, worse than average, all true. I don't like them either. But they are not nearly as bad as some guys in this thread suggested.

Thanks. (I don't like playing them either)

[njvack]

... and now I realize this question is before Lair, where you certainly don't have Haste. Wizards still do have a starting book that's particularly conducive to never being in melee range with things, though.

[Lasty]

So here are the actual winrates online for, say, fire elementalists. Obviously, this doesn't by itself prove anything, as the sample size is relatively small and has weighting issues, but it is suggestive. For all players, DEFE ranks 17th in win rate, with only 0.81%; meanwhile, HuFE have 0.98%, FoFE have 2.45%, and MiFE have 9.13%. For greatplayers, DEFE ranks 20th in win rate with 7.08%, while DrFE has 10.45%, FoFE has 22.58% and HuFE has 29.41%.

Interestingly, in games from the set of all players draconians do worse as FE than deep elves, but only by a slim margin. Switching the book background to IE puts
draconians ahead 1.2% to 0.92%.

  Code:

<Lasty_> !lg * --fe recent !boring s=crace / won o=%
<Sequell> 463/52427 games for * (--fe recent !boring): 21/230x Minotaur [9.13%], 13/178x Deep Dwarf [7.30%], 8/215x Felid [3.72%], 5/152x Centaur [3.29%], 13/461x Vine Stalker [2.82%], 12/490x Formicid [2.45%], 2/86x Merfolk [2.33%], 2/108x Imp [1.85%], 21/1508x Demigod [1.39%], 17/1247x Naga [1.36%], 5/464x Vampire [1.08%], 35/3482x Gargoyle [1.01%], 12/1226x Human [0.98%], 30/3307x Demonspawn [0.91%], 14/1560x Hill Orc [0.90%], 4/490x Troll [0.82%], 149/18327x Deep Elf [0.81%], 23/3053x Draconian [0.75%], 6/805x Ogre [0.75%], 2/270x Spriggan [0.74%], 15/2079x Tengu [0.72%], 3/431x Halfling [0.70%], 20/3369x High Elf [0.59%], 3/527x Ghoul [0.57%], 3/558x Kobold [0.54%], 14/3858x Octopode [0.36%], 11/3940x Mummy [0.28%], 0/3x Lava Orc [0.00%], 0/3x Djinni [0.00%]

<Lasty_> !lg greatplayers --fe recent !boring s=crace / won o=%
<Sequell> 162/1860 games for greatplayers (--fe recent !boring): 11/27x Deep Dwarf [40.74%], 2/6x Halfling [33.33%], 5/17x Human [29.41%], 15/55x Minotaur [27.27%], 7/31x Formicid [22.58%], 2/9x Spriggan [22.22%], 2/10x Centaur [20.00%], 7/41x Gargoyle [17.07%], 4/26x Troll [15.38%], 9/75x Demigod [12.00%], 4/34x Felid [11.76%], 1/9x Imp [11.11%], 8/73x Hill Orc [10.96%], 9/83x Demonspawn [10.84%], 7/67x Draconian [10.45%], 5/52x Ogre [9.62%], 5/59x Vampire [8.47%], 3/39x Ghoul [7.69%], 1/13x Merfolk [7.69%], 24/339x Deep Elf [7.08%], 4/60x High Elf [6.67%], 5/79x Naga [6.33%], 4/71x Vine Stalker [5.63%], 2/38x Kobold [5.26%], 6/197x Tengu [3.05%], 5/175x Mummy [2.86%], 5/175x Octopode [2.86%]


[Bart]

Lasty, I think that this information is hardly useful because of speedrunners. You can see huge overrepresentation of DE in this sample, because it's the first speedrunner's choice. Out of 52k FE games, 18k were deep elf games! Even in the group of greatplayers 339 games out of 1860 are DEFE - for the same reason.

I think the correlation between DEFE's position on the list and their weakness is accidental, yet if somebody asked me which race to choose to win a FE, I would point towards a human or (apparently wrongly) draconian, definitely not DE.

If somebody asked me which FEs are exciting, I'd tell - take DEFE or TeFE.

[Lasty]

Yeah, there are a ton of confounding factors. Speedrunners confound it by both being more likely to die than that player would be if they didn't speedrun, but also by generally being stronger players than the average player. CSDC-type tournaments with FEs in them will confound the results too. That's more less what I meant by "has weighting issues", though I could have been more clear. I don't think the data -proves- anything, it's just one more piece of data in this conversation.

As for the choice of FE specifically, if we run the numbers on a different book background and I think the overall picture would look fairly similar, even if the specifics differ.

[archaeo]

It's worth pointing out that the game suggests a DE caster for new players with hints mode (DECj, along with MiBe and CeHu). I'm not sure where I fall on this debate, though I think there's an argument to be made that for new players in particular, 20% of HP isn't often the margin between defeat and victory. That said, if the consensus among good players and devs is that Dr > DE for players of all skill levels, the game should probably push new players in that direction.

edit: oops, sar is right

[Sar]

Dr have +10 HP so it's more than 20% difference.

[nago]

Plus free AC

[Sar]

Yeah, and having a positive Fighting apt might help new players to realize that maybe they should also train that!

[nago]

Agree, new players tend to believe -2 apt are awful

[Bart]

Agree, new players tend to believe -2 apt are awful

Isn't -2 awful?

Hints mode shall explain the basics of the game, but at the same time it shouldn't be repulsive and boring. DE, Mi and Ce are good choices if you want to hook new players and show them the fanciest aspects of Crawl.

The problem is that spellcasters are less friendly to new players and somewhat more difficult to play no matter which species you choose (maybe except troll "spellcaster"). I wouldn't recommend draconian, because developing unwanted colour might only baffle new players. I also wouldn't recommend human, as it might seem boring and weak. If anything, the game should show a big red warning: "Deep elves are fun to play, but you'll die. A lot.".

[Sprucery]

Isn't -2 awful?

Is it? When a +0 skill is at 10, a -2 skill is at 8.4. I guess it depends how you define 'awful'.

[Lasty]

Hints mode shall explain the basics of the game, but at the same time it shouldn't be repulsive and boring. DE, Mi and Ce are good choices if you want to hook new players and show them the fanciest aspects of Crawl. [ . . . ] I also wouldn't recommend human, as it might seem boring and weak. If anything, the game should show a big red warning: "Deep elves are fun to play, but you'll die. A lot.".

An interesting point; I tend to find humans far more interesting than deep elves, but I recognize that that's not universal. Maybe I'm giving insufficient weight to giving new players the fun experience of feeling strong (even if their character is not actually strong).

[MainiacJoe]

We should not overlook the thrill of getting farther in the game than you ever have before. Newbies that see the Lair staircase for the first time ever are going to play the exact same character to try to get there again. DE gets killdudes online pretty quickly (and kildudes are more fun than notdietodudes), and you can get pretty far with it (relatively speaking) before it blows up in your face. Tr is similar, though I'm guessing the dying usually happens a bit later than for DE when both are played by newbies.