Give all caster starts a (bad) weapon.

[Lord Haart]

I've just started a new character and was in the middle of the usual routine of mugging the nearesr goblin for his club and hoping it's not a -2 cursed one, when it dawned on me:
Having no starting weapon until you mug a (hob)goblin (or pick it up from the floor) does not matter at all, unless your first ten (or so) turns of exploration attract to you several monsters at once and run out of space to kite them effectively, in which case it kills you (not that having a club already is a guaranteed protection against that). Unless unless you're an EE, who get to start with a weapon anyway (and a throwing one, at that).Before you loot that sweet, sweet +0 randart club "Ayuyax", you kite every single monster to avoid running out of mana; after you get it, you kite every single monster that isn't a rat, an unarmed goblin or a newt - because you still need that mana to kill anything remotely dangerous, you just don't have to run in circles from a rat (or spend 20+ turns whiffling at it ineffectively) because your Magic Dart missed both times. Luckily, you're all but guaranteed to solve that problem in the first 30 turns or so, but... Is that period of having-a-small-chance-to-suck-more-than-all-noncaster-and-semicaster-starts a necessary balancing tool?

By just letting people start with that damn club already, we would: 1. let them bash the damned rat instead of kiting it if they feel like Playing Suboptimally (something they get before level 2 anyway); 2. let tyemhave a bit more options if autoexplore sticks them between a hobgoblin and a hobgoblin and their poor Mummy Fire Elementalist's Flame Tongue only manages to bring one of them down to Almost Dead; 3. and even insert a tiny bit of flavour like giving the Summoner start a whip.

So what i propose (in case my mesaage is still far from clear) is: let every start (except the Monk ofc) have a starting weapon. A dagger for the Necromancer, the Conjurer and the Poisoner, a whip for the Summoner, a club for the FE (referencing a torch), a spear for the Air Elementalist (going with their theme of requiring more skill to use in return for small advantages) and a short sword for the Ice Elementalist (limited to melee range anyway, so Freeze is a top choice over tab unless they meet a skeleton or a zombie, and a level 1 IE is horrendously weak against those even after getting a dagger for no real reason balance-wise). Earth Elementalists get to keep the stones, and wizard could start with a staff (not the quarterstaff, the 5/+5 one-handed stuff that's only generated as the base type for magical staves) for a bit of extra flavour.

No starting weapon skill. It's not necessary, and that way we can even get to teach new players the merits of zero-skill melee without forcing them to forums.

(Mod edit: moved to advice from GDD)

[CanOfWorms]

you start with your bare hands, more than sufficient to choke any D:1 gnoll to death*

*may not actually be sufficient

[One-Eyed Jack]

I see no-weapon starts as more hurtful to AM because if you equip a -1 club you can't use your ranged weapons anymore.

[Hellmonk]

I don't think mage starts need a buff, even one as marginal as a starting +0 dagger. The whole "whoops your first weapon was randomly cursed" thing is dumb, but curses in general are dumb for one reason or another at every point of the game and are so egregiously dumb past the earlygame that I am really surprised that there hasn't been a serious attempt at curse reform yet.

Also, monk gets a starting weapon now and should remain that way.

[watertreatmentRL]

I think giving mages a bad melee option out of the gate would make those backgrounds a lot more consistent. This is particularly true of venom mages, which can end up in pretty dire straits just from an ooze near the entrance. The games a reasonably good player would lose because they don't have a +0 dagger on turn 1 are few and frankly not really fair.

[Vajrapani]

A weapon should hopefully reduce the kiting a caster has to do at the start and make them a little more bearable to play than standard heavy melee, I'm on board with this. Casters are already restricted by MP, spell slots, encumbrance, failure rates, hunger etc, so a small early game buff would be pretty great.

[ion_frigate]

This existed, and was removed way back in the mists of time. If I recall correctly, the starting weapon for pure casters was a knife (think dagger but even less damage).

Honestly, I'd rather see casters' early game made less painful by raising spell success chances and accuracy early on, but giving them a crappy starting weapon is a reasonable (and simpler) substitute.

[duvessa]

What exactly is wrong with mage backgrounds' early games in the first place?

[Majang]

What exactly is wrong with mage backgrounds' early games in the first place?

In the very early game you have no control over how many monsters you need to fight. There is no safe haven when MP runs out (no upstairs), so you are forced to deal with packs of two, three, four low-level monsters without the means to deal with them. Most mage backgrounds start with 3MP, and that is barely enough for killing one monster.
Cursed weapons lying around next to the starting point don't help with that problem.

[duvessa]

In the very early game you have no control over how many monsters you need to fight.

This is not true.

[ion_frigate]

In the very early game you have no control over how many monsters you need to fight.

This is not true.

No, but what is true that unless you're playing a super-strong mage start (like most DE), you can expect, with reasonable regularity, to whiff all 3MP from time to time. You're not just up against miscast chances, but also miss chances and monster AC. There's nothing the player can do to prevent this situation, and the solution is a model of tedium: find a loop in explored territory, and circle around until you gain back the MP. This is boring and tedious all hell, and the fact that most players instinctively avoid doing something that dull is what makes people think that mage starts are difficult.

[Majang]

In the very early game you have no control over how many monsters you need to fight.

This is not true.

Didi it never happen to you that you started the game, opened the first door of the entry vault, and had three/four kobolds/goblins/rats/bats leer at you? It sure does happen to me. What kind of control do you have then?

[duvessa]

No, but what is true that unless you're playing a super-strong mage start (like most DE), you can expect, with reasonable regularity, to whiff all 3MP from time to time. You're not just up against miscast chances, but also miss chances and monster AC. There's nothing the player can do to prevent this situation, and the solution is a model of tedium: find a loop in explored territory, and circle around until you gain back the MP. This is boring and tedious all hell, and the fact that most players instinctively avoid doing something that dull is what makes people think that mage starts are difficult.

I agree that kiting and the MP system are blights on the game, but since HP regenerates too, this applies to every background, not just mage backgrounds. I personally find it more annoying on melee backgrounds because HP regeneration is slower.

In the very early game you have no control over how many monsters you need to fight.

Didi it never happen to you that you started the game, opened the first door of the entry vault, and had three/four kobolds/goblins/rats/bats leer at you?

I've played 5000+ games and I don't remember ever having this happen, no. Most arrival vaults don't even have doors, let alone doors that need to be opened at an awful enough angle to have any significant chance of revealing three monsters. The only vault I can think of where this situation is in danger of happening is lemuel_arrival_funnel, which has a 7/8 chance of having a cycle you can kite monsters around.
erik_arrival_gehennom comes kind of close (and is probably the most badly designed non-portal vault in the entire game) by making you fight a kobold and goblin immediately, but there can't possibly be 3 monsters.

Neither of these situations are addressed by giving mage starts a melee weapon. And IMO if you fight four monsters at once on D:1 you should die.

[mikee]

Weren't knives base damage 3, which is the same as unskilled unarmed combat? This also leads into my main suggestion of: have you tried just punching things if you're out of mp? It's not like it does 0 damage.

[duvessa]

They were base damage 3 but they had better accuracy than unarmed.

[Vajrapani]

Weren't knives base damage 3, which is the same as unskilled unarmed combat? This also leads into my main suggestion of: have you tried just punching things if you're out of mp? It's not like it does 0 damage.

Punching a pack of jackals, even 1v1, is not going to go well with mage defence.

[duvessa]

so use your spells and don't fight the whole pack at once

[Vajrapani]

There's not much choice in that regard if they are the very first thing you encounter in d:1. Nothing will save a TeAE who miscasted 3 times against jackals on d:1, even in magical optimal play™ land. The early game is always a dice roll that is independent of player skill.

[Shtopit]

You can find descending stairs or a shaft and go there. It's risky and purely dependent on luck, but it is doable.

[Vajrapani]

You can find descending stairs or a shaft and go there. It's risky and purely dependent on luck, but it is doable.

And what about the characters who don't find those stairs? And if they do, what if there's something worse down there? What if the jackals have already whittled down the character's HP so much that it doesn't even matter if he reaches the stairs?

It's completely RNG, and even more so for a background that depends on magic.

[duvessa]

You can run away to regenerate MP. The jackal will get some attacks, sure, but they don't do damage that fast. Alternatively, since you are a tengu and the kick bug has been fixed, you can just peck or kick it and it'll die.

TeAE starting skills also give you about an 8% fail rate on Shock, so miscasting it 3 times in a row is about an 0.05% chance.

[mikee]

I've been seeing people make threads/complaints like this literally for 6 years now here, in irc, on reddit, etc. (one example: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13192&start=50&hilit=sandstorms&p=188746&view=show#p188746). Every single time, the source assumes they've done everything reasonable to succeed on d:1 and it's because of a design flaw in the game that they've died. And when told that that may not be the case, the typical response is something like, "Well sure, if you 'optimal' players want to kite monsters on d:1 for 45 minutes maybe you can survive." In reality, d:1 is not a difficult level for players who have learned to handle it, and it's not because they spend an hour on it. There's a middle ground between charging up to every monster you see and kiting every monster you see. If you're playing 0.9 or later you should not be dying on d:1.

[mikee]

Weren't knives base damage 3, which is the same as unskilled unarmed combat? This also leads into my main suggestion of: have you tried just punching things if you're out of mp? It's not like it does 0 damage.

Punching a pack of jackals, even 1v1, is not going to go well with mage defence.

Jackals have roughly half of your hp on average and deal the same damage as unskilled unarmed combat. Of course if you start the game somehow fighting an entire pack of jackals that is a sign that something went wrong.

[ion_frigate]

TeAE starting skills also give you about an 8% fail rate on Shock, so miscasting it 3 times in a row is about an 0.05% chance.

It's a lot more common than you make it sound. The spell can miscast, the spell can miss, and the spell can do little or no damage (low damage roll, or high monster AC roll for some spells). I don't know the hard numbers, but I'm guessing those three combined make it a lot higher than 0.05% of the time that you end up with an angry hobgoblin or jackal in melee range, with no realistic way to kill it other than to gain back the MP. Also, I know the example given was TeAE, but most characters don't have +3 aptitudes in all the spell schools for their starting spell - they tend to have higher miscast rates.

I agree with you and mikee that, no, this situation isn't the end of the world that people are making it out to be, but it is certainly more frequent than a 1/2000 thing.

[Majang]

Did it never happen to you that you started the game, opened the first door of the entry vault, and had three/four kobolds/goblins/rats/bats leer at you?

I've played 5000+ games and I don't remember ever having this happen, no. Most arrival vaults don't even have doors, let alone doors that need to be opened at an awful enough angle to have any significant chance of revealing three monsters. The only vault I can think of where this situation is in danger of happening is lemuel_arrival_funnel, which has a 7/8 chance of having a cycle you can kite monsters around.
erik_arrival_gehennom comes kind of close (and is probably the most badly designed non-portal vault in the entire game) by making you fight a kobold and goblin immediately, but there can't possibly be 3 monsters.

Neither of these situations are addressed by giving mage starts a melee weapon. And IMO if you fight four monsters at once on D:1 you should die.

I put on Gentle Giant and Tom Waits to help me through a very tedious, but interesting exercise - evaluating my own claim that it is possible to be swarmed by monsters in D1, no matter what you do or how smart you play. So I put myself through 25 mini-games which I all ended by ctrl-q the moment I hit XL2, except the one game where I was killed. XL2 gives you 5 MP, which should end caster's very-early-game crisis. I always played a DsFE, because that is a reasonably average character with 3 shots at XL1, and without any unarmed bonuses at that stage. Conduct: no autoexplore, venture out of the entry vault area very carefully, intent on securing a safe loop for pillar dancing, where possible. Pick up the first weapon that presents itself, including drops from monsters. Pick up stones and use them to get a monsters' attention at LOS. If no stones are available, wait at LOS until monster notices you. When noticed, retreat a few steps towards safe area, preferably around a corner, before engaging the monster. Use spell (flame tongue) until MP is zero, then start kiting or use weapon/fists, depending on situation. I used kiting with normal-speed monsters, and hit back with faster monsters, dart slugs, and when cornered. Always heal up and regenerate MP in safe area before exploring further.
Here is my sketchy journal of these 25 mini-games:

Spoiler: show

1: Always one enemy only; ran out of mana once before killing enemy.
2: Always one enemy only.
3: Always one enemy only; ran out of mana twice before killing the enemy (four shots at a bat did not cause any damage whatsoever); picked up a -3 short sword.
4: Always one enemy only, picked up +1 short sword of draining; had to kill one enemy with this sword.
5: Once had to fight two enemies; another time there were two enemies behind a door I opened, but they did not wake up before I closed the door again; killed a cockroach with an axe.
6: Always one enemy only; picked up cursed, but unenchanted dagger; had to kite a gnoll and took heavy damage.
7: Always one enemy only; got down to 3 HP in a showdown with a dart slug.
8: Always one enemy only; killed ooze with club.
9: When luring goblin into safe area, got ambushed there by wandering kobold, but landed two one-shot kills.
10: Steady flow of single wandering monsters into the entry-hall area; could not venture out; could not heal up fully; killed a dart slug with my fists.
11: No weapon found; once had to fight two cockroaches, but that was my mistake.
12: Killed dart slug with club; had to kite goblin, which was joined by a wandering kobold when I was on low health; had to pillar-dance for almost 100 turns before engaging the kobold.
13: Lured goblin into safe area, but he was followed by wandering kobold; had to kill cockroach with club.
14: Had to venture out very far from the entry hall to encounter first monster; when luring it back, I attracted three more, who came wandering in from different directions; was trapped in a corridor when another goblin showed up at the other end; survived the situation by luckily landing three one-shot kills and by using a club on the other ones.
15: Opened door to see two napping jackals; I retreated in hope to attract only one of them, but when it woke up, it stirred up the second one. I killed the first, but was hunted down by the second (they apparently move faster than 10 auts); I boxed it to death on low health, but was killed shortly afterwards by one lowly leopard gecko I ran into around a corner; I also could not outrun it, and it brought me down from full HP and MP, taking only little damage from my three shots. I think this situation would have wrecked any player's streak...
16: To leave the entry vault I turned a corner to face three monsters at once; only two of them realized my presence, and they did not alert the third, which saved me; I could not establish a safe loop for pillar dancing until hitting XL 2.
17: My first step brought me into LOS with a napping jackal, which I then avoided by going the other way. There I turned a corner to run into three monsters, all noticing me. I won that fight, using a club in the end.
18: Entry hall could only be left through a very long corridor; all monsters could be lured singly into the explored area; had to kill a rat with a whip, because it did not take any damage in three shots.
19: This entry hall (with transparent walls) exposed me to a monster from the beginning. My first move out brought me into contact with two monsters.
20: Another start where I had to venture out very far to see my first monster. Almost got cornered by two dart slugs, but was able to separate them. One I had to bash to death with a mace, on low health.
21: After easy start opened door revealing four jackals; only one of them acquired me, and I ran away fast; no weapon generated, so I had to bash a dart slug with my fists, on low health.
22: Exactly the same events as 21, except I was not on low health when boxing the dart slug to death.
23: Always one enemy only.
24: Always one enemy only; had to box a goblin to death on very low health - I had to let him drive me into a corner, as the entry vault provided no pillar dancing opportunities
25: Always one enemy only.

Based on all this, I allow myself to draw the following conclusions:

• I now agree with Duvessa that leaving the entry vault is generally a very safe operation. The only problems ensued in game 10, where monsters kept wandering in without being stirred up by me, and game 17, where there was a jackal visible right after the first step. I need to assume that this jackal was not alone, and that, had it woken up, I would have been swarmed by three or four of them.
• More troublesome for the caster are the situations where I had to venture out quite far to encounter the first monsters (I never walked very far into one direction, but always retreated after some steps, to stay as close to the entry as possible). Retreating with a monster at my tail brought me into contact with wandering other monsters in the "safe" area in games 9, 12, 13, 14, 20.
• In other situations where the first encounters happened far away from the entry vault, turning a corner brought me into contact with several monsters at once: games 5, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22
• Running out of MP, even on a single target, as an XL1 caster is commonplace. Fists were often the only option to resolve the situation, but it worked surprisingly often.
• Running into a faster monster at XL1, and then losing all MP, is very bad news. As much as I analyze my death in game 15, I don't see what I could have done to prevent it. Leopard geckos are hard to hit, faster than 10 aut, and have a bite that kills. I think a weapon would have helped here.
• Picking up a cursed and minus-enchanted weapon happened less frequently than I subjectively feel it usually happens to me.
• I landed some good hits with stones that I just threw to wake up monsters. They can be used as unskilled ranged weapons on D1, at least to occasionally soften up the target.
• Bats, although not really dangerous in themselves, can keep you busy until some other monster walks in for the kill.
• In these 25 games I had only one tedious pillar-dancing episode, involving an armed kobold. More pillar-dancing could have ensued in other situations, but the dungeon layout did not allow for that. That almost got me killed in game 24.
• That I did not get killed two or three more times in these 25 games was due to luck, in spite of what I think was pretty optimal playing. Games 7, 12, 14 and 24 certainly could have gone the other way.

In summary, I have to qualify my earlier statement that you cannot control the number of enemies you need to fight. I see now that careful play can eliminate most of the situations I did encounter in earlier games. At the same time, unavoidable enemy swarms do exist (and are even designed that way by the sheer existence of jackal packs), and many times early casters find themselves without MP in the face of monsters. Regarding the opening question, I believe that casters can start without a weapon, but I would still appreciate if they can be sure that any plain weapon they pick up is neither cursed nor negatively enchanted.

Edit: Nago is right, of course I played 25 DsFE games, not DsEE. I corrected this now. I picked FE, because Flame tongue is sort of average between the starting spells, better than magic dart, similar to Sandblast, not quite as good, but also less dangerous than Freeze or double-zap.

[nago]

Yeah jackal are speed 14, which means a mage should threat them with respect and fighting always 1vs1, but picked alone aren't so dangerous (I think only bat hit less hard than them).
And you probably meant DSFe as you after refer to flame tongue as spell.

Otherwise this is still a very good test but a bit more biased as sandblast hit harder than flame tongue so EE have easier early time - at least until they run out of stone.

[Lord Haart]

I don't really understand how this ended up in Crawl Advice subforum of all things; i weren't asking for an advice, and i thought i'm quite clearly voicing a proposal for tiny but meaningful change. And i didn't assume i've "done everything reasonable to succeed on d:1 and it's because of a design flaw in the game that they've died"; in fact, the character that started me on that thought never died at all, and i don't claim optimal play for the characters of mine who died like that (nor do i claim it's a common death even with my sloppy play).

But whatever. All i want is to point out the overlooked core of my reasoning: the reason why the current situation should be changed is not because it makes a difference too often. It's because it makes a difference too rarely (and when it does, it still happens to be a negative experience).

It's possible that a situation when you die because you haven't gotten a weapon yet arises only once in 25 games. It could be possible it arises only once in 25000 games, and Majang just got lucky, and Duvessa is right and with a bit of careful play you can easily survive until you get a club. But what's the point of starting unarmed if 1. it's always better to loot a club than not to loot a club (unless you're afraid of it turning out to be a -3 cursed one, which i believe is generally believed to be a bad design feature, not a good one; and unless you have better-than-general unarmed combat, which like a quarter of all species does, so if casters are supposed to differ from other starts by having a tougher level 1 start due to a lack of a weapon, why aren't those imba?), and 2. it's more often than not as trivial as picking it up from the floor or killing a goblin from full MP, so it usually fails at creating an interesting minigame for those 30 turns.

I'm not arguing we lose much from having our mages start unarmed. I'm arguing we won't lose anything if we give them weapons.

At the very least, it will reduce the dreaded Number Of Keyresses That Do Not Relate To A Meaningful Decision. Since picking up a club is not a meaningful decision over not picking it up.

[duvessa]

Yes, it's better to pick up and wield a weapon in the same way it's better to pick up and wear a helmet. That doesn't mean all mage backgrounds should start with a helmet.

[ion_frigate]

Yes, it's better to pick up and wield a weapon in the same way it's better to pick up and wear a helmet. That doesn't mean all mage backgrounds should start with a helmet.

A helmet is not at all guaranteed to appear on D:1. It is very rare that a club or a dagger doesn't appear on D:1. Lord Haart's point is that picking up a weapon on D:1 is a nondecision that's all but guaranteed to occur, and might as well be removed by giving casters a starting weapon.

[duvessa]

Yes, I suppose that was a bad comparison.

What I'm trying to get across is that I think it's good that backgrounds start with almost no equipment. It's cool that waking up a jackal or gecko is scarier when you haven't found a club yet.

[mikee]

3: Always one enemy only; ran out of mana twice before killing the enemy (four shots at a bat did not cause any damage whatsoever); picked up a -3 short sword.-

I appreciate you taking the time to playtest d:1. A few years ago, a player in irc was complaining about d:1 being too hard for his character in that "the game needs to be changed" way, so I demoed d:1 with defe or whatever it was for him. I spent about 15 minutes clearing it I think 3 times, making comments like, so see how I'm choosing here to fight, look how I'm using both hp and mp as a resource, etc. He didn't seem to benefit from it and started making up things to argue with me about, like "You're just lucky an adder didn't show up because it would have really baked your potato." About what I'm quoting, I think most people in this thread really underestimate the effectiveness of unskilled unarmed combat on d:1. I frequently use it even when I'm not out of mp, just because I don't want to be sitting there mashing 5 after every single fight.

9: When luring goblin into safe area, got ambushed there by wandering kobold, but landed two one-shot kills.

This is mainly why excessive luring is bad or at least a risk you should be consciously opting into.

15: Opened door to see two napping jackals; I retreated in hope to attract only one of them, but when it woke up, it stirred up the second one. I killed the first, but was hunted down by the second (they apparently move faster than 10 auts); I boxed it to death on low health, but was killed shortly afterwards by one lowly leopard gecko I ran into around a corner; I also could not outrun it, and it brought me down from full HP and MP, taking only little damage from my three shots. I think this situation would have wrecked any player's streak...

Close the door.

[*]Running out of MP, even on a single target, as an XL1 caster is commonplace. Fists were often the only option to resolve the situation, but it worked surprisingly often.

Try mixing fists in a little bit more. Monsters generally have much worse stats than you, and you just need to add up some combination of damage that reduces their hp to 0. And again, fists aren't that much worse than the mythical +0 club that people seem to want so their 'caster' doesn't catch some disease from touching a monster.

[*]That I did not get killed two or three more times in these 25 games was due to luck, in spite of what I think was pretty optimal playing. Games 7, 12, 14 and 24 certainly could have gone the other way.

Maybe, I would have to see to really comment. Streaks used to end on d:1 quite a bit, but that should be super rare now. I could only find two recent ones and while I need to watch them to say more, the logs suggest they were both doing something wrong.

[njvack]

What changed to make D:1 safer for players?

FWIW I also tend to not die on D:1, and I am terrible enough that I die in Lair

[duvessa]

Better HP, no more wands or exploding darts, plus the general buffs to e.g. melee damage

[Majang]

Close the door.

Right, that would have avoided that situation - stupid! But that leopard thingy that killed me did not come from behind that door.

[stoneychips]

... At the same time, unavoidable enemy swarms do exist (and are even designed that way by the sheer existence of jackal packs), and many times early casters find themselves without MP in the face of monsters.

I just have to second this.

When the exit from the entry chamber is a 1-tile corridor and you meet a pack of jackals coming down it in front of you? No door to dance behind.

It just might be technically possible to kite/flee around the wall line of the inner entry chamber (if it's huge enough to draw the pack around in a wide arc somehow) in some of these situations... Though I wonder, how are you going to make four jackals in a single-tile corridor immediately facing the entry chamber, all get behind you so you can leave, and follow you out all without them attacking you much? Then you have to lead them down that long winding 1-tile corridor, staying ahead of them the whole way despite movement rules where things generally catch up every so often and they're relatively fast, and step out into some unknown terrain which may have more mobs also just outside and you've had no opportunity to pick up anything at all unless the entry chamber gave you a gift... Let's just say this is all taken to be somehow "basic tactical knowledge", and moreover taken to be worth doing -- whether it's five minutes or twenty, by most everyone (I rather doubt it on both counts).

I seriously didn't just make this case up. I have run into such jackal packs immediately out of the gate, coming against me in such narrow corridors, and I really don't believe I "did something wrong." (In fact, I noticed the post suggesting that after I typed that paragraph and went looking to see if there was an obvious answer I'd missed... Okay so a tengu can peck, but what about the guy only casting Magic Dart or Flame Tongue?)

Overall, I don't see how just saving everyone the trouble with like, a single gift dagger is such a big deal. Realistically, we'll probably still die in many similar situations anyway dagger or no dagger, but it'll reduce the number of cases significantly and it will certainly feel more competitive thinking in the worst cases, we at least did a touch more damage on the way out.

Many games the first thing we'll do anyway if we have no weapon, is sweep around looking for a club or short blade asap. Given the chance. It's not even getting to that chance that's extra frustrating when you've fired off your 3-5 MP and there's still a huge fight in front of you with no apparently, seeming possible dent you could expect to make.

[stoneychips]

Also compare the given weaponless starter mage to other classes.

Anyone can start as a hunter and get what, 20 shots (bolts/arrows/bullets). They can miss a good few (and do early on versus dodgy things like snakes), and that's still rather nicer ammo-wise than having to find a quiet space to rest after your first 3 darts or stings.

Melee fighter-types get a reliable melee weapon which will never be cursed and a bit of skill already trained in how to use it, too.

Many wanderers (supposedly non-advisable class) start with a +2 weapon out of the gate. Not all do (some get +0 and some also get more or less wacked skill/stats mixes to decide what to do with) but still.

Oh but punish those magi who might somehow carve out a hole in the dungeon where they can keep sitting to replenish those 3 starting points of MP over and over cause well, they might hit critically and they're ranged? Or something.

[VeryAngryFelid]

FR: Disable autoexploring of D:1 for book backgrounds unless you are Tr/Mi/Gh
Seriously, any melee background can use autoexplore on D:1 and not have huge chance of dying.

[mikee]

When the exit from the entry chamber is a 1-tile corridor and you meet a pack of jackals coming down it in front of you? No door to dance behind.

It just might be technically possible to kite/flee around the wall line of the inner entry chamber (if it's huge enough to draw the pack around in a wide arc somehow) in some of these situations... Though I wonder, how are you going to make four jackals in a single-tile corridor immediately facing the entry chamber, all get behind you so you can leave, and follow you out all without them attacking you much? Then you have to lead them down that long winding 1-tile corridor, staying ahead of them the whole way despite movement rules where things generally catch up every so often and they're relatively fast, and step out into some unknown terrain which may have more mobs also just outside and you've had no opportunity to pick up anything at all unless the entry chamber gave you a gift... Let's just say this is all taken to be somehow "basic tactical knowledge", and moreover taken to be worth doing -- whether it's five minutes or twenty, by most everyone (I rather doubt it on both counts).

I seriously didn't just make this case up. I have run into such jackal packs immediately out of the gate, coming against me in such narrow corridors, and I really don't believe I "did something wrong." (In fact, I noticed the post suggesting that after I typed that paragraph and went looking to see if there was an obvious answer I'd missed... Okay so a tengu can peck, but what about the guy only casting Magic Dart or Flame Tongue?)

I feel like this is just another person telling me an adder's going to bake my potato. I mean sure, some extreme case might happen on d:1, like a frog might come up the stairs or whatever, and you just do your best. I can't remember this jackal example ever happening to me so it must be rare, and if it did happen, maybe I did do some things differently from you. There are so many decisions in even a short game, and most of them get overlooked even when one is looking for them.

I guess ideally in this jackal scenario I'd want to do something like what I outlined here (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5357&p=72097&hilit=+bees#p72097). They did appear on the edge of the screen, so maybe I won't have to fight them all at once. If for some reason I can't do that, like they all spawned adjacent to me as monsters often do in this type of experiment, I guess I still want to kite them and arrange them such that the first one is adjacent to me. Then I want to cast flame tongue or whatever targeting the second in the line so that if I miss the first it might still hit the second. Flame tongue does enough damage to hopefully one shot a jackal or at least do a lot of damage to it so hopefully I can kill at least two of them and kill or damage the third. Could get unlucky but you know, such is life. This type of advice is the hardest to give because so much of it is experiential and based on position and prediction.

So yes, giving 'casters' weapons on d:1 would buff their early game, but I don't see the justification for that on the basis that a significant portion of games are unwinnable - a better question to ask might be, how easy or difficult do we want d:1 to be? How much of a player's potential frustration with d:1 is because of the game and not the player, and does that matter?

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Oh but punish those magi who might somehow carve out a hole in the dungeon where they can keep sitting to replenish those 3 starting points of MP over and over cause well, they might hit critically and they're ranged? Or something.

Despite what you might feel personally, book stats are actually stronger than melee weapon starts, although both are probably weaker than ranged on D:1. A book start character can often, but not always, kill dangerous monsters (like hobgoblins with clubs, or even a humble kobold wielding a dagger of venom) without ever standing next to them. This option isn't available to melee starts until they find some ranged weaponry like stones.

[Plantissue]

I don't really see a problem with giving mage starters a dagger or a starting base staff like the staves but weaker than a club if people don't want magesto start of capable of stealthy stabbing. The staff would be thematic but the only problem I can see with it is early training for staves, but I conisder it unlikely that anybody would want to train it over magic skills in the early game.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

It depends what you mean with 'problem'. It wouldn't break the game, of course, but it would make book starts stronger. Considering that they are already considered the strongest starts available, in my view, this would not improve the game.

[stoneychips]

Oh but punish those magi who might somehow carve out a hole in the dungeon where they can keep sitting to replenish those 3 starting points of MP over and over cause well, they might hit critically and they're ranged? Or something.

Despite what you might feel personally, book stats are actually stronger than melee weapon starts, although both are probably weaker than ranged on D:1. A book start character can often, but not always, kill dangerous monsters (like hobgoblins with clubs, or even a humble kobold wielding a dagger of venom) without ever standing next to them. This option isn't available to melee starts until they find some ranged weaponry like stones.

I didn't say they can't hit a single target hard on a good day (though I've had plenty of bad ones where they just keep missing/underperforming with damage, too). It's more the packs of things one after another that often make them frustrating on D:1.

[cjo]

FWIW, I enjoy the hunt for a weapon on D1. It's this quick little mini task that gives me satisfaction to complete, and adds some variety to the early game. I wouldn't want to give it up in exchange for off-theme equipment that's the same every time.

[Majang]

You can "complete" it in a quite unsatisfying way, by picking up a cursed -3 short sword. That may extend your little mini-quest all the way down to D3 or D4, until you identify a scroll of remove curse. But I have to admit that it gives an even deeper feeling of satisfaction when you survive a situation like this.

[cjo]

You can "complete" it in a quite unsatisfying way, by picking up a cursed -3 short sword. That may extend your little mini-quest all the way down to D3 or D4, until you identify a scroll of remove curse. But I have to admit that it gives an even deeper feeling of satisfaction when you survive a situation like this.

Yeah, it does bug me when I pick up a regular item and it's cursed and negatively enchanted. Sometimes I gamble on glowing ones, then I figure I deserve what I get

[Majang]

Oooh, they are almost always negatively enchanted. At least those that I pick up.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I didn't say they can't hit a single target hard on a good day (though I've had plenty of bad ones where they just keep missing/underperforming with damage, too). It's more the packs of things one after another that often make them frustrating on D:1.

Well, except jackals there aren't any packs on D:1, and those are pretty wimpy. Of course they can kill an XL 1 character out in the open, but given typical D:1 layouts that's almost always avoidable.

But let's go back to examining the proposal. In your view, which backgrounds are generally stronger? The magic backgrounds that start without weapons (FE, EE, AE, IE, VM, Nm, Wz, Su, Cj, En), or the backgrounds that start with melee weapons, except Be (AK, CK, Fi, Gl, Mo, Sk, Tm)?

[stoneychips]

I don't claim to have really played all the melee backgrounds or all the mage backgrounds that much, honestly. I usually do either the blaster caster types (Venom, Conj, occasionally other elements or Wz) or more traditional melee fighters (Fi, Gl, Mo, have done quite well with early AK a few times). I love the missile backgrounds at least partly because they do get to shoot more than a few times reliably early on (not to mention later).

You know, I don't think there's going to be much agreement about this. There are a few veterans who feel it's possible to weasel one's way out of almost anything and there are a few of us who have experienced either packs or rapid successions of individuals (pretty much the same problem, so please don't dance around it by saying you'll only meet jackals in a formal pack) in tight quarters before getting a weapon. Yes, I'm somewhat capable of kiting and shooting and waiting but it's at the point where some of us just don't see how it's either (sometimes) possible or (often) all that much fun to be spending effort on that kind of exercise right around the entry. Then some people come back and say, I just can't believe this has happened to you and there is an impasse because hey we just said it has and repeatedly.

Finally, there's two ways of looking at it as a supposedly trivial, small thing but they're very contradictory: Either it's a negligible gift and all of the game should require perfect placement including the start, or somehow it's an important gift because oh those magi are so good with (I would say, mostly) single targets, they can't possibly afford to have that to help too. We can all pretty much agree it's arguing about a pretty small portion of the game, I think? But I don't feel it's really worth the frustration quite a few (I suspect?) of us get feeling so many casters are just thrown away before they get far from the entry.

Even a feeling of having a slightly higher chance would be more interesting. Unless your philosophy is more that casters somehow need to be hit with the risk of picking up cursed weapons just to have any melee weapon at all. Which I can't get on board with. I don't mind the occasional negative grey weapon that much and I take my chances some with the blues and whatever. I put up with the D:1 kobolds and goblins coming along brandishing wands, electrocution and distortion at times. But starting with zilch on melee and that severely limited quantity of MP is just annoying to me.

[ZipZipskins]

I don't think any of these "veterans" is claiming you haven't run into packs of jackals or strings of individual monsters in tight quarters. I'm sure you have, and I'm also sure the other people who have chimed in understand that you have.

The argument is that through proper play, deaths to packs and multiple monsters on D:1 are nearly always avoidable, primarily through careful exploration and resource management. This is definitely the case (in my limited and not-a-great-player experience), and even if I'm not always successful at it, there are a number of excellent players who can demonstrate how to do it consistently.

In that case, it's really not a difference of opinion, because it clearly and demonstrably can reliably be done by players who really understand the management balance of Crawl's early game.

[cjo]

stoneychips -- I think you're right that people won't agree. When do people ever all agree on anything, however trivial?

However, my claim wasn't that D1 deaths never happen, but rather that I enjoy seeking a weapon. I'm not in love with running in circles around a pillar any more than the next player, yet when I add everything up, I find seeking a weapon adds more than it detracts for me. I mean, I'm a lousy player, so I play D1 all too often. The thrill of 'yay my first dagger' is a small victory which I enjoy getting. I also think it's a good early game lesson for new players to look beyond their starting gear. Finally, I like the theme of starting gear relating to starting job.