Looking for advice: Surviving the D1-5 meatgrinder

[Medicine Man]

Hello folks.

I am a new player to Dungeon Crawl and, after doing some pre-game homework (reading wiki and playing tutorials) and playing a few games, I am now looking for some advice for getting a fresh character off the ground with a better than "charging the guns at the Somme"-survival rate. I knew I was in for some fun when I died twice playing the tutorials... but I still didn't anticipate the cheese-gratering this game was going to give me.

I have started out trying a Minotaur Fighter, Minos (who soon would be known as Minos I, unbeknownst to me), knowing that it is a fairly strong combination that is not very complicated. Well, a MiFi functions as advertised, but my family clan of Minotaurs is nonetheless getting quite pasted. After playing for a few hours on Saturday, I am now up to Minos VI; a few members of the clan had, how shall we say, rather brief existences. Knowing what I now know, I have a few fairly specific questions for anyone with a better track record than myself (read: anyone), regarding tactics and philosophy required for survival in the dungeon — to wit:

1) Minos I taught me that identifying items by wearing them is very risky. When do you risk blind equipping an item? If you are otherwise unarmed?

2) What is the best strategy for blind IDing potions and scrolls? Blind fire the largest stack of scrolls and potions you have in hopes that they are Identification and Healing, respectively, and then use ID scrolls on everything else? This is something I'm really curious about, as it seems like the faster you get a stack of consumables together, the more likely you are to survive, but queuing up and rattling off a pile of mystery consumables very risky and costly.

3) At what point should I swallow my pride and stop trying to explore every square inch of a dungeon floor before moving on? I lost Minos IV trying to hammer stubbornly through everything that appeared and have now decided that sometimes you just need to skip content, ether by diverting around or moving ahead. Any advise on when to show discretion?

4) How to escape? If I spot a foe that I am convinced is going to thrash my ass in melee, what is a reliable way to escape? Retreat to a stairwell and flee upstairs, leaving the enemy behind if he not right on my heels? If he/she/it follows me upstairs can I subsequently ditch it by fleeing back down?

Appreciate any advise y'all can give me. Cheers and wish Minos VI good luck.
-MM

[Bloax]

1) Minos I taught me that identifying items by wearing them is very risky. When do you risk blind equipping an item? If you are otherwise unarmed?

Only do so with blue items, as they might have a brand - or at least alright enhancements.

You may want to identify a white (artifact) item, however.

2) What is the best strategy for blind IDing potions and scrolls? Blind fire the largest stack of scrolls and potions you have in hopes that they are Identification and Healing, respectively, and then use ID scrolls on everything else? This is something I'm really curious about, as it seems like the faster you get a stack of consumables together, the more likely you are to survive, but queuing up and rattling off a pile of mystery consumables very risky and costly.

The most common scrolls are usually identify/remove curse, and the most common potion is curing. So there's a good chance that big stack of a potion you have is curing.
Unless you have a better use for ID scrolls, using them on potions is a pretty good idea.

Blind IDing in combat is generally hazardous and should be avoided.

3) At what point should I swallow my pride and stop trying to explore every square inch of a dungeon floor before moving on? I lost Minos IV trying to hammer stubbornly through everything that appeared and have now decided that sometimes you just need to skip content, ether by diverting around or moving ahead. Any advise on when to show discretion?

This is strange, since even tougher combinations than MiFi (loads of those) can handle this.
Just don't forget the golden rule about exploring with (or quite close to) full hp and you'll be mostly fine.

If you meet a centaur, use the corners/doors nearby to your advantage. They're stupid enough to open closed doors with you just behind them. At which point you can just walk forward from the door straight to melee range.

4) How to escape? If I spot a foe that I am convinced is going to thrash my ass in melee, what is a reliable way to escape? Retreat to a stairwell and flee upstairs, leaving the enemy behind if he not right on my heels? If he/she/it follows me upstairs can I subsequently ditch it by fleeing back down?

The medicine here is to avoid such fights, but alas - they can sneak up on you either way. If so, try to go back up a level and take some other stairs down.
Don't bother trying to fight something you're sure will turn you into worm food.

If it's faster than you, then tough luck. Teleport scrolls work quite well for escaping YASDs, however. Be sure to have them identified pretty early.

In case you don't know, focusing (let's just be honest and say don't train more than 2-3 skills right off the bat, alright?) on important skills like your primary weapon is more important than things like dodging & stealth.
I haven't played a MiFi or much however, so I can't really recommend anything except getting your weapon skill of choice pretty high (10-ish, I guess) - and only after that start distributing stuff into important stuff like Armor & Fighting.
[/scavengedinfo]

[Blade]

One quick tip: MiGl is stronger than MiFi in just about every way.

Now on to your questions:
1) It's actually not all that risky. Don't bother testing every weapon you come across, but if you find a glowing/runed item in your current weapon class or a stronger weapon of the same type (e.g. a war axe if you're using a hand axe), don't be afraid to try it out. Similarly, don't be afraid to wear any gloves/boots/hats/what-have-you that you find (in addition to heavy armour [preferably plate mail]).

2) As a general rule, read scrolls to identify them (if it asks you to choose an item, it is one of identify/enchant armour/recharging). The best way is probably to read from smallest stack to largest, since items that curse equipment are rarer than remove curse scrolls, and you can't ID remove curse without having a cursed item. Most of them have fairly low tactical value and are not threatening to read-id. Use scrolls on potions—mutation can really mess characters up, and there are a lot of extremely valuable ones (speed, heal wounds) that you don't want to waste. You can usually be fairly sure that your largest stacks are ID and curing, as you said. There are a couple of tactics for wand identification (you didn't ask about this, but it's still useful): The first option is to shoot it at a wall, then at yourself if the wall-shot doesn't ID it. The second is to shoot it at a weak monster (rats, usually) next to a wall. The second is technically better, but it's more of a hassle and doesn't provide much more gain.

3) Show discretion if you have doubts regarding your ability to handle something. If you find Sigmund, Grinder, or other powerful unique monsters early, it can be best to cut your losses and skip the level (or run away from them, go upstairs, come down a different staircase, and hope to avoid them). Same thing with other powerful early monsters (centaurs, orc packs, ogres).

4) Most early dangerous monsters are the same speed as you. If you doubt your ability to handle an enemy, run away. Don't let them close to melee if you can avoid it. Running upstairs is always a good option here. If they get next to you, you don't have as many options; you can run around hoping that a space will eventually open up between you and them (occasionally you or an enemy will get a double action), you can use consumables (scrolls of blinking/tele, potion of speed, etc.), or as a last resort, you can stand and fight.

Really, the most important rule to learn is this: You don't need to fight everything. There is plenty of experience in the dungeon; skipping one monster won't kill you (and fighting it often will). Learn when to run away and when to stand and fight.

Good luck.

[danr]

In terms of making that call to fight or flee:
- Mousing over the monster will show a description, which will say among other things how dangerous the monster is relative to you. If it says "extremely dangerous", you should think long and hard before sticking around and have a definite plan for tackling it as well as a plan for escaping if it doesn't work out.
- http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/bots: put in the name of the monster you are wondering about, it will give more advice.

Also, just get used to dying. I've played hundreds of games and have only won once or twice. The fun is in the game and its variety, not in winning.

[Abominae]

I'm not the absolute best crawler out there, but I'll try to give what advice I can.

1) I personally don't think blindly equipping is too threatening at all, unless you don't have Remove Curse identified or acquired yet. The worst thing you get from most items is the possibility of it being cursed. Weapons are a little sketchier with Distortion, but later you'll only be looking for 1-2 item types and you will eventually ignore the majority of weapon drops, if not all.

2) In my opinion, scroll ID is much easier than potion ID. If you ID scrolls on a cleared level with no summons/allies around, the worst thing that can happen to you is cursing an item. This is different for those who worship good gods though, as Unholy Creation and Torment will piss them off (Unholy Creation is also annoying for Okawaru followers). You should also recognize Scroll of Amnesia on spell-less characters and Curse Weapon on unarmed characters. If I recall the list correctly, only the 3 Curse scrolls, Remove Curse, and Amnesia will not identify unless you have the means for that scroll to work and are the only scrolls that will generate the nothing happened message. (Recharging/Identify/E. Armor aside)
Potion ID, well you should probably listen to someone better than I about that. What I do probably isn't optimal, but I normally quaff ID the potions in large stacks and then begin to burn identify scrolls on them when I haven't ran into Mutation / Cure Mutation yet. If I have the extra identify scrolls or I feel my character really needs the extra consumables to survive, I don't hesitate to use ID scrolls in an attempt to identify Might/Speed/Heal Wounds earlier on; it can be the difference between your character surviving or not.

3) Learning when to fight and when to run is a huge part of Crawl. When I first started playing, I played a lot of melee and got used to using "BASH IT IN THE FACE" as my only option. This isn't always true, and it took me awhile to break away from the mentality of having to kill absolutely everything. My rule of thumb for surviving would be to only participate in fights that you are either a) certain to win or b) are able to escape from if shit goes sour. That Ogre on D:3? Fuck 'em. If you're that stubborn, come back after a few levels and beat its face in when you're more powerful. Running from things you just encountered is fairly easy in Crawl, running from a fight you've already engaged in melee can become quite a bit trickier.

4) If a monster that you can't face enters your line of site, get away from it. Every level of the dungeon has a guaranteed three stairs up and three stairs down, so running upward to a cleared level is a very good idea. There are possible dungeon maps that have all three stairs placed next to each other, but there are many, many layouts that do not, so the majority of the time you can come upwards and then back down into a different part of the level. If you're in a position that an enemy can follow you up the stairs, you better be able to kill that enemy (it will follow you back down). The only business you ever have being adjacent to an enemy (as a pure melee at least) is to kill it or to stair dance it away from its homies. Otherwise, you shouldn't let yourself get into that situation.

I would also suggest trying a MiBe, and see how Berserk feels for you. It's an extremely powerful tool and it helps to get past D:1-D:10 immensely. In a 3-rune game, you will hardly (if at all) ever cast on a Minotaur, so the biggest disadvantage to Trog is basically irrelevant for you. It also gives you a taste of just how powerful god abilities are in this game and how much they can define your character. Anyway, good luck and keep bashing!


EDIT: Sorry if any of this advice overlaps with the previous posters, wrote this shit out when I thought no replies had been submitted.

[Deimos]

1. Set autofight_stop = 50.

Enjoy your newly empowered Minotaurs.

[pratamawirya]

1. Set autofight_stop = 50.

Enjoy your newly empowered Minotaurs.

Less robotic, more humane.

[Medicine Man]

All good advice. Thanks guys.

3) At what point should I swallow my pride and stop trying to explore every square inch of a dungeon floor before moving on? I lost Minos IV trying to hammer stubbornly through everything that appeared and have now decided that sometimes you just need to skip content, ether by diverting around or moving ahead. Any advise on when to show discretion?

This is strange, since even tougher combinations than MiFi (loads of those) can handle this.

I realize now that I've had a run of bad luck. Reviewing my morgue files I can see that I lost Minos II to an Orc Wizard on D2 (he turned invisible and lit me up with Magic Dart/Summon Flame), Minos III to Terrence on D2 (straight up overpowered me), Minos IV to Sigmund on D3 (prick), and Minos V to Grinder on D3 (had the opportunity to avoid him but went after him anyhow). Minos I was actually starving to death (I equipped a cursed ring of hunger) when I chose to go down in a blaze of glory against 3 gnolls (took 2 with me at least).

Minos VI is actually doing much better than his predecessors, so far. XL 8 and DL 6.

[onton]

All good advice. Thanks guys.

3) At what point should I swallow my pride and stop trying to explore every square inch of a dungeon floor before moving on? I lost Minos IV trying to hammer stubbornly through everything that appeared and have now decided that sometimes you just need to skip content, ether by diverting around or moving ahead. Any advise on when to show discretion?

This is strange, since even tougher combinations than MiFi (loads of those) can handle this.

I realize now that I've had a run of bad luck. Reviewing my morgue files I can see that I lost Minos II to an Orc Wizard on D2 (he turned invisible and lit me up with Magic Dart/Summon Flame), Minos III to Terrence on D2 (straight up overpowered me), Minos IV to Sigmund on D3 (prick), and Minos V to Grinder on D3 (had the opportunity to avoid him but went after him anyhow). Minos I was actually starving to death (I equipped a cursed ring of hunger) when I chose to go down in a blaze of glory against 3 gnolls (took 2 with me at least).

Minos VI is actually doing much better than his predecessors, so far. XL 8 and DL 6.

This is not just bad luck. All of these treats were normal speed and two of them (Sigmund and wizzy) spent an extra turn turning invisible and another turn casting throw flame. This virtually guarantees an escape route for you, for you should be able to take one magic dart or a thrown flame. As for Terence, you either use a consumable (!speed, !rage , ?blinking, ?tele etc) or try to position a bat between you and him. This is only the case if you descended straight into him which is quite unlikely. As a fighter you are quite durable, but have fewer ways to correct a mistake. For example, a MiGl could throw a net and escape, a MiBe could use berserk to kick the crap out of Terence of use the extra speed from berserking to run the last 4 tiles to a staircase. Also remove your starting shield immediately, 'cause you (you Mino, not you yourself ) are yet too unexpierenced to use it. It slows down your attacks and actually decreases your survivability in most cases.

[IronJelly]

Just some advice that helped me:

You don't mention God choice at all. You might get further at first with a berserker. The ability to berserk at will is really nice if you do get into a tight spot, and Trog's other abilities are also powerful.

I usually read scrolls to try to ID them. It's been mentioned that only a few of them ask you to choose an item. If I don't know yet what it is, I'll try to point to an unidentified wand, giving me more than one possible outcome that would identify the scroll (identify or recharging). Potions too. i'll drink them when not in combat, and it's not usually one that can kill you. most games by the time i find strong poison potions, I have a curing potion with me anyways, so it's not a major issue.

I often save ID scrolls for jewelry. I do this for two reasons. first, there are some nasty rings and amulets out there, which, to me, makes it too dangerous to use them to ID them. a lot of them also don't ID just by putting them on, and nobody wants to die of starvation because they couldn't get rid of a ring of hunger. Second, because it is frustrating to die to something and find out after that you had a ring of resistance to it in your pack. Resist poison, found early enough makes those plentiful kobolds edible, and early gourmand makes spell hunger negligible.

My single biggest problem is that I don't always know when to run, and that combined with overconfidence tends to splat quite a few of my characters when they find the wrong unique at the wrong time.

[BlackSheep]

Just as a counterpoint to IronJelly's ID advice, I don't quaff ID any potions unless I know I'm not going to get mutated, know I've already discovered cure mutation, and have a potion of curing on hand to fix anything bad that happens, otherwise I scroll ID them if they're not a brown/white gluggy potion (almost always porridge) or a few different varieties of red (blood, which I give time to rot before IDing). I use ID all jewellery if I have scrolls of remove curse, which are usually plentiful. If it doesn't auto-ID, I take it off until I find more scrolls. Wands I use-ID on rats and kobolds.

[Deimos]

Question; if brown/white gluggy potions are almost always porridge, why are they obscured in the first place?

[BlackSheep]

Good question. They've already made clear potions auto-ID as water. It's not unreasonable to just start everyone off knowing what porridge looks like too.

[danr]

Yeah, use ID scrolls on potions early on, and eventually on jewellery.

Eventually I start using them on wands that I plan to keep recharging like healing or invisibility or haste because it's really nice to know if you've still got a charge.

And I like to wait with read-IDing scrolls until I've found a wand because this guarantees you'll figure out what each of enchant armour, charging and ID are. When you hit a scroll that asks what item to use it on, you apply it to the wand. Then:
a) It IDs the wand and you know what the wand is (if you didn't yet) and how many charges it's got
b) Nothing happens: it was an Enchant Armour Scroll. No biggie, any armour you would have enchanted at this point is likely to be replaced by something better. Next time you find that scroll (it will say "Tried on X wand") you inscribe it Enchant Armour or just use it for that purpose.
c) Least likely: it charges the wand

You can do the same with a piece of unID'ed armour but armour self-ID's anyway, and even if you hit enchant armour, the odds are it's not actually armour you'll want to use.

[some12fat2move]

If he/she/it follows me upstairs can I subsequently ditch it by fleeing back down?

Enemies will follow you up and down any staircase if they are adjacent to you, but cannot follow you if they are not adjacent to you (however they will likely camp there). So if you had an enemy follow you upstairs, unless you somehow manage to get it away from you (or yourself away from it) then it will just follow you right back down. IIRC when an enemy follows you up or down stairs it immediately gets 1.5 turns worth of attacks on you for free.

Note that escape hatches follow the same rules, as do all portals (portals are one-way entrances and exits to funky regions like the Sewers, Ossuary, Bailey, Ice Cave, etc...which you might not have seen yet).

Also worth mentioning that zombies and skeletons cannot follow you in this way but will still get the 1.5 turns of attacks if they are adjacent.

[JFunk]

I use ID all jewellery if I have scrolls of remove curse, which are usually plentiful. If it doesn't auto-ID, I take it off until I find more scrolls. Wands I use-ID on rats and kobolds.

You should always wear unIDed rings around, and I'd suggest that you should almost always wear your unIDed amulets around as well. You'll know of any negative effects from your rings immediately--they'll be cursed. All the -stat rings will be cursed and autoID, and cursed teleport will also autoID. If it's cursed and it doesn't autoID, it's hunger (or, more rarely and later in the game, negative slaying), and you know to get rid of it because it's cursed. All other rings provide either positive effects or, in the case of rings of ice and fire, which bestow an elemental vulnerability, those rings autoID. (I'm almost positive that these rings autoID even with no magical ability whatsoever, but if I'm wrong on this, I apologize.) Regeneration has a hunger cost, but who cares? That minimal added hunger cost will never break any character but the unluckiest and most spell-spammy of spriggans.

On the other hand, the vast majority of rings offer beneficial effects that could well save your life. Do you want to be walking around with that unIDed ring of resist poison in your pack when an adder pops up when you're trying to park an imp? Or that ring of sustenance when you don't have any other ring to wear anyway? Or see invisible when the first orc wizard shows up? These kind of rings aren't even particularly rare, but they don't autoID. You have to wear them around if you want to get any benefit from them, or have them ID by happenstance.

Amulets are more complicated because of stasis and inaccuracy, but the former usually gets IDd pretty quickly, and if you have a blink spell or teleport trap handy, you can test for stasis. (You're taking the usual risks with faith, anyway, as long as you're wear-IDing.) Also, amulets don't usually provide mission-critical early game survival abilities, so you might feel safer in tucking them away. I still think it's better to wear them, though, although they are more situational. You don't want to have your unIDed amulet of warding in your pack when Eustachio comes around, or the amulet of resist corrosion with an early jelly.

[BlackSheep]

If it's cursed and it doesn't autoID, it's hunger (or, more rarely and later in the game, negative slaying)

Not all cursed un-ID'd rings are hunger, not all negative slaying is cursed.

You don't want to have your unIDed amulet of warding in your pack when Eustachio comes around, or the amulet of resist corrosion with an early jelly.

You also don't want to be wearing an amulet of inaccuracy or a -4 ring of slaying while trying to kill those or many other monsters.

[JFunk]

If it's cursed and it doesn't autoID, it's hunger (or, more rarely and later in the game, negative slaying)

Not all cursed un-ID'd rings are hunger...

I stand corrected. If the wiki is correct, all rings have a 2% chance of being cursed, so I guess it's possible you should continue wearing cursed rings around too, but I don't think it's wise.

not all negative slaying is cursed

I looked at the item generation code, and while it's possible I've missed something, this does not look to be accurate.

Spoiler: show

Rings of slaying are assigned an initial enchantment value by the same process as stat rings in _determine_ring_plus() and are cursed if negative, and usually become more negative if cursed in _generate_jewellry_item(). There is only a five percent chance of a cursed slaying ring getting points added to its enchantment, and so far as I can identify, no chance of an uncursed ring being generated with negative values.

Again, I could be missing something in the code, but even if I'm not, I still think it's clear that in D1-5, the miniscule chance of a negatively enchanted, uncursed ring of slaying is the wrong thing to worry about. I can't recall ever having run across such an item in the early dungeon, while early rings providing beneficial intrinsics are extremely common.

[rchandra]

I keep using unIDed rings but not amulets, as both inaccuracy and stasis can be problematic.