When the rng simply doesn't like you

[Zhorgal]

Took stairs, Grinder and Ijyb are there. Got lucky and went up with two other monsters.
Took another set of stairs. Two steps later Eustachio gets next to me (probably from a teleport trap). First thing he does is summon 2 mobs between me and the stairs. He has a poison rapier.
Guess who decided to join? Sigmund!

I don't think there was anything I could have done. Is this a streakbreaker for anyone or am I simply dumb?

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.20.0 (tiles) character file.

336 Sssra the Chopper (level 6, -1/56 HPs)
             Began as a Naga Fighter on Aug 3, 2017.
             Slain by Sigmund
             ... wielding a +0 scythe of venom
              (2 damage)
             ... on level 4 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 00:10:11 (2323 turns).

Sssra the Chopper (Naga Fighter)                    Turns: 2323, Time: 00:10:12

Health: -1/56      AC:  7    Str: 21    XL:     6   Next: 54%
Magic:  6/6        EV:  3    Int:  8    God:   
Gold:   158        SH:  8    Dex: 10    Spells: 5/5 levels left

rFire    . . .     SeeInvis +   a - +0 war axe
rCold    . . .     Gourm    .   c - +0 shield
rNeg     . . .     Faith    .   b - +0 scale mail
rPois    +         Spirit   .   l - +0 helmet
rElec    .         Reflect  .   (no cloak)
rCorr    .         Harm     .   m - +0 pair of gloves
MR       .....                  (no barding)
Stlth    ..........             h - amulet of regeneration
Regen    0.6/turn               p - -2 ring of evasion (curse)
MPRegen  0.1/turn               (no ring)

@: lethally poisoned (-1 -> -14), short of breath, hasted, quick
A: see invisible, deformed body, poison resistance, slowness 2, slow metabolism
1, spit poison 1, AC +2
a: Spit Poison


You were on level 4 of the Dungeon.
You were not hungry.

You visited 1 branch of the dungeon, and saw 4 of its levels.

You collected 158 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand Weapons
 a - a +0 war axe (weapon)
Armour
 b - a +0 scale mail (worn)
 c - a +0 shield (worn)
 l - a +0 helmet (worn)
 m - a +0 pair of gloves (worn)
 n - a +0 chain mail
Jewellery
 h - an amulet of regeneration (around neck)
 i - an uncursed amulet of guardian spirit {unknown}
 p - a cursed -2 ring of evasion (left hand)
Scrolls
 g - 2 scrolls of identify
Potions
 d - a potion of might
 e - 4 potions of flight
 j - a potion of haste
 k - a potion of cancellation {unknown}
 r - a potion of curing
 s - 2 potions of ambrosia {unknown}
 v - 3 potions of brilliance {unknown}
Comestibles
 f - a bread ration
 o - a meat ration
 q - 2 chunks of flesh
 t - a royal jelly


   Skills:
 - Level 3,0 Fighting
 + Level 6,7 Axes
 - Level 2,4 Armour
 - Level 2,4 Shields


You had 5 spell levels left.
You didn't know any spells.

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (4/15)           
Temple: D:4-7       

Altars:

Annotations:
D:4 Eustachio, Grinder, Ijyb, Sigmund


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You cannot wear boots.
Your serpentine skin is tough. (AC +2)
You have supernaturally acute eyesight. (SInv)
Armour fits poorly on your strangely shaped body.
Your system is resistant to poisons. (rPois)
You cover ground very slowly.
You have a slow metabolism.
You can spit poison.


Message History

Okay, then.
Char dumped to 'morgue/Sssra.txt'.
You feel better. You block the ufetubus's attack.
The ufetubus hits you but does no damage.
Eustachio growls, "To hell with you, honourless miscreant!"
Eustachio hits you with a rapier of venom!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You are lethally poisoned!
Okay, then.
Okay, then.
You closely miss Eustachio.
Eustachio is heavily wounded.
You miss the ufetubus.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You feel sick.
The ufetubus disappears in a puff of smoke!
Eustachio hits you but does no damage.
You are more poisoned.
Sigmund hits you from afar with a scythe of venom.
You die...

                 .....
                 #...
                 ....
                 #..
                 #..
                 #.#
                 #@##########
                 #@##.......#
.  #.#...###     #@##.......#
#.# ?#.#...#     #r##.......#
#.#........#     #.##<......#
.... ......#     #..........#
...........#     ####r5.....#
.#...#.....#        #.......#
...<>...%..#        #########
.....#.#.###
......g....#
.........#######
...............#


You could see Eustachio, Sigmund and a rat.

Vanquished Creatures
  An ogre (D:4)
  An orc priest (D:3)
  A hound (D:3)
  A hound skeleton (D:4)
  7 adders
  3 worms (D:2)
  9 dart slugs
  6 orcs (D:3)
  8 ball pythons
  5 giant cockroaches
  7 goblins
  5 hobgoblins
  8 jackals
  6 kobolds
  3 quokkas
  10 bats
  A frilled lizard (D:3)
  4 rats
86 creatures vanquished.

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
-------+----------+-------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Sssra the Naga Fighter began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 21/21 MP: 1/1
   473 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 28/28 MP: 2/2
   583 | D:1      | Reached skill level 3 in Axes
   818 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 31/34 MP: 3/3
  1074 | D:2      | Reached skill level 4 in Axes
  1163 | D:2      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 42/42 MP: 4/4
  1731 | D:3      | Reached skill level 5 in Axes
  1732 | D:3      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 43/49 MP: 5/5
  2237 | D:4      | Noticed Grinder
  2241 | D:4      | Noticed Ijyb
  2243 | D:4      | Noticed Eustachio
  2254 | D:3      | Reached skill level 6 in Axes
  2254 | D:3      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 42/56 MP: 6/6
  2317 | D:4      | Noticed Sigmund
  2321 | D:4      | HP: 1/56 [Sigmund/scythe of venom (12)]
  2323 | D:4      | Slain by Sigmund

Skill      XL: |  1  2  3  4  5 |
---------------+----------------+-----
Axes           |     3  4  5  6 |  6,7
Fighting       |                |  3,0
Armour         |                |  2,4
Shields        |                |  2,4

Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: War axe           |    70 |   174 ||   244
 Abil: Spit Poison       |     6 |    27 ||    33
  Use: Scroll            |     3 |     3 ||     6
       Potion            |       |     3 ||     3
  Eat: Chunk             |     1 |     5 ||     6
Armor: Scale mail        |    33 |   142 ||   175
Dodge: Dodged            |    13 |    36 ||    49
Block: Shield            |    31 |   109 ||   140




[VeryAngryFelid]

I don't see a solution. Quaffing might was unlikely to help but still might be a good idea. Also you have 2 scrolls of id with unknown potions in inventory. Again would not help much.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I might have decided to attack the summons, in the hope that Eustachio summons more/blinks, and getting to the stairs. It's not likely to work, but killing both Eustachio and Sigmund (or running away from Sigmund) seems even less likely to work.

That said, Grinder, Ijyb and Sigmund is pretty unlucky. Eustachio is also quite bad for you as Na.

It's possible, although we have no way of going back, that training some steath would've resulted in not waking up Eustachio / Sigmund, or even Grinder / Iyjib. Early stealth levels are really cheap for Na, with that amazing aptitude.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Stealth was useless, the character was using scale mail. That's -66 to stealth score, losing more than 4 levels in Stealth. You can see the character wasn't stealthy in the dump. Switching to robe/leather might be a good idea but I cannot say it was a mistake to stay in scale. Using +0 plate would be a mistake for sure.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

At stealth skill 4, a Na in scale mail has a chance greater than 10% not to wake up Grinder and nearly 20% chance not to wake up Ijyb. At skill 5 it starts to become pretty useful. The XP was there, as seen by training axes from 3 to 6.7.

[VeryAngryFelid]

So you are suggesting to train Stealth instead of Axes on Fighter just to have 10% chance of avoiding Grinder? Seriously?

It reminds me old times when I was trying to win NaEn. I trained stealth a lot and almost all of them reached Lair... where they all died because this training was very bad in the long run, I just couldn't kill normal monsters and of course I couldn't avoid them as I was slower.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Stealth is bad when you have multiple monsters in view. Even if you have 50% chance to stay unnoticed by a monster and there are 3 such monsters in view, suddenly you have just 12.5% chance to stay unnoticed.
With 10% and 20% you have 2% (two percents) chance to stay unnoticed by Grinder/Ijyb. I would rather have Axes/Fighting trained

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Have a look at this morgue.

Stealth skill 8 at xl 6. Started with +2 scale and +0 dagger. Avoided Sigmund on D:2 and Menkaur on D:4. No weapon skill trained until xl 8.

I would suggest that the success of Berder's streak is good evidence for the viability of the stealth training strategy.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Did you miss the NaWn thread which I created recently? I described exactly that in OP of that thread
I still believe it is not a good idea to train stealth AND stay in +0 scale mail, and that's exactly what Berder did in the game you posted. I mean if stealth is so great, just remove scale mail, you will instantly get 4+ levels in stealth while losing 3 AC (or 2AC if using robe instead of naked) and getting 1 EV.

Edit. +2 scale is a very good armour for Na but then training stealth was a mistake IMHO.

Edit2. Notice there is no exclusion for Sigmund in that game by Berder, it probably/usually/often means that Sigmund was awake when noticed. I mean I always put exclusion on sleeping Sigmund and later I either return to kill it or just let it stay in exclusion forever.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I did notice that thread. I even participated!

The way I see it, with a waraxe and 3 skill, a Na can kill all normal enemies. So there's no need to train more axes immediately.

Na runs into problems with enemies it can't easily kill, because they do ranged damage or something, like Grinder, Ijyb, Eustachio, Sigmund, etc. Another level of fighting or axes won't change the power balance much. But another level of stealth (past skill 4 that is, if you are in scale) will give at least some chance to be able to slither away unharmed.

[Majang]

I also believe that stealth is overrated. Those games where I trained it up all the way to "uncannily insanely stealthy" or whatever they called it in those days - towards the late game all enemies show up in packs, and always, always, always one of them is going to wake up, see you and shout from the top of its lungs, getting the whole lot swarming you. Sure it's nice to sneak up on a solitary napping monster, but they are not the norm towards the end-game. The all the experience sunk into stealth seems wasted. To use stealth to avoid fights is a different matter, but I never really understood how people win this game by avoiding 70% of all fights. It never seems to work for me. So I have mostly given up on stealth as an asset, preferring fights in the open with all that want to join. For that matter, I also don't share most people's dislike for Quazlal...

[4Hooves2Appendages]

The big difference that we are discussing the early game, pre-lair. The monster density is quite low in the early dungeon. Encountering single monsters is very common.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I guess we can just agree to disagree here. I think I will play a NaWn in robe or naked and train Stealth as my next game, just to have a morgue which proves that it works also

[watertreatmentRL]

The role of stealth in Dynast's NaWn strategy is to get more control over early game encounters so that you can make more use of poison breath and get killed by sigmund and grinder at random less frequently. The typical build is otherwise heavy armor melee with shields. Once it stabilizes, the characters have almost no stealth and have a pretty conventional melee endgame.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Good luck.

[VeryAngryFelid]

The role of stealth in Dynast's NaWn strategy is to get more control over early game encounters so that you can make more use of poison breath and get killed by sigmund and grinder at random less frequently. The typical build is otherwise heavy armor melee with shields. Once it stabilizes, the characters have almost no stealth and have a pretty conventional melee endgame.

Don't forget about Gozag also. Stealth helps with distraction-stabbing. When using axes some hit monsters are distracted by gold often I suppose.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I always forget about the distraction.

[watertreatmentRL]

While it is true that Gozag gives you distraction stabbing opportunities and that stealth helps with stab damage, the stealth/Gozag interaction in Dynast's games is more about covering slow retreats and luring/kiting maneuvers. By the time you get Gozag, the role of stealth is already diminishing. Stealth is a substitute for good defenses until you get good defenses.