Guide to Safe Crawling


Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.

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Post Thursday, 7th May 2015, 16:59

Guide to Safe Crawling

These are some basic tactical guidelines that can apply to any character, if you want to play safe and minimize your risk of death. I'm omitting any mention of character building or specific killdudes tactics - those are also important to know, but are much more variable between different characters.


What to consider before a fight

  • Your goal for the whole game is for every fight to be small and easy with a predictable outcome that involves you winning with high HP. If you don't feel like you're in control of all you see before you, retreat and/or use consumables until you are in control.
  • Lure lure lure lure lure enemies back into a safe area before fighting. I can't stress this enough. This even applies to trivial enemies, since their noise could attract others, or others might be wandering nearby.
  • Fight with enemies in front of you, safety close behind you. If the situation doesn't look like this, retreat until it does.
  • Safety can be stairs, a chokepoint, a cloud of summons/allies, or a fully cleared, short, direct path to safety. In the very early dungeon it can be a pillar to dance around.
  • Against multiple enemies, fight with a perfect width-1 chokepoint. If you can't get a chokepoint like that, use corners, or a worse chokepoint. If you can't get that, then maybe you can get some allies to block enemies from attacking you at once. If none of these are options, and the enemy is a dangerous pack, then retreat.
  • If there's a single enemy that's a worrisome threat and requires buffs to kill safely, you don't want to fight it unless conditions are ideal. That means it should be the only threat in view, you should be at full HP and fully buffed prior to the fight, and you should be in a safe area. If conditions don't look like that, retreat and fight it another time, assuming that's safe to do.
  • Before any fight that it's possible you might lose, review your emergency measures. Take a look at your inventory for potions of heal wounds, potions of curing, scrolls of blinking, scrolls of teleportation, etc, and consider which of them you're most willing to use. Glance at the minimap to see where you can retreat and whether you really do have safety at your back.
  • If you don't have good emergency measures, you need go all out with consumables to be really certain you can win the fight outright. Or if that's not possible, avoid the fight entirely.
  • Prepare for a fight as if reaching 50% hp is death. Try to avoid fights that would result in losing half your hp.
  • Can the enemy paralyze you? Perhaps wear stasis, or don't fight it, or fight it only if it's alone. Always check the monster's spell description prior to the fight to see if you have enough MR. Paralysis can very often become instadeath if hard hitters are around.

What to consider during a fight

  • If the enemy surprises you by hitting you hard (20% of your HP is a hard hit) then they are probably more dangerous than you thought. At least use a consumable to ease the rest of the fight, if it would help.
  • If it looks like you are actually losing the fight and your HP is starting to go down faster than the enemy's, that's immediately an emergency even if your HP is currently high.
  • If more enemies come into view - especially if they come from the supposed "safe" area behind you - consider whether you can still kill everything you see with no problem. If not, stop hitting things and get out of there.
  • Don't wait until it's too late, to use an emergency measure.
  • You need to know how much damage different enemies might deal you. For example, a death yak can deal 30. A yak can deal 18.
  • If the enemy could potentially kill you in one hit, you need to use a scroll of blinking, period. Forget the cost.
  • If the enemy could potentially kill you in two hits, that's the last possible chance to read a scroll of teleportation, provided the level is fairly safe for tele and you can walk away from the enemy until it kicks in. You shouldn't wait until the last possible chance.
  • If bad things happen that you did not expect, such as dropping below 50% hp, this has now become an emergency.

What to consider during an emergency

  • Stop. You're potentially dying. Don't make another move.
  • Look through your consumables. How many heal wounds, blinks, teleports, cures, hastes, agi, resist, evocables, scrolls of summoning, digging/disint?
  • Look at your spells and abilities. Blink, passwall, control teleport, swiftness? Any nice god abilities?
  • Look at your equipment. Would a quick weapon or jewelry swap give you the resist or evocable ability you need to survive the next couple turns?
  • Consider breaking LOS, if that's possible.
  • Think ahead to what would likely happen in several turns, before choosing your course of action.
  • After you finally decide and move, stop again. You're probably still dying. Do not immediately make a second move, but look through all your options again based on the changed situation. Your first plan may have to change.
  • Repeat until safe or dead.

What to consider after a fight

  • If you're hurt much, fully retreat to a nearby safe place such as nearby stairs or a safe chokepoint a good distance from your current location, before resting. This is to minimize the chance of more enemies showing up while you're hurt.
  • Rest to full
  • Consider: did that fight make you panic? Did you have to use consumables to run away from it? Or alternatively, did you almost die? If so, maybe you should skip the level or dip into another branch. Don't stay in a level that's too dangerous if there's another option available.

Exploration

  • When manually exploring, either shift-walk or use force_more_messages to alert you when enemies come into view.
  • Autoexplore only if you feel fairly confident about the level.
  • Try to explore narrow passages first
  • Avoid the middles of large open areas. Go around the edges first.
  • Try to reveal as few new squares as possible
  • Keep safety to your back. Avoid twisting paths through unexplored territory. You ideally want a straight, cleared path so you can retreat back to the stairs. However, still don't charge into the middle of a wide open area - that's more important than this.
  • Mark exclusions on sleeping dangerous things.
  • If you meet an awake enemy you don't want to fight even with buffs and that you have to use consumables to escape, skip the level.
  • Provided you can do it safely and there isn't anything you can't handle, eventually clear the whole level.
  • If you go downstairs and are in an open area being attacked from multiple sides without a nearby chokepoint, try a different stairs. That's much preferable to stairdancing.
Last edited by Berder on Friday, 8th May 2015, 16:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Sar

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Post Thursday, 7th May 2015, 17:01

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

I really wanted to thank that post but I just can't since it recommends ignoring autoexplore.

Edit: the rest of it seems really good though!

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Post Thursday, 7th May 2015, 19:54

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Lure lure lure lure lure enemies back into a safe area before fighting. I can't stress this enough. This even applies to trivial enemies, since their noise could attract others, or others might be wandering nearby.


Is the goal to win or to have fun?

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Post Friday, 8th May 2015, 00:00

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Rast wrote:
Lure lure lure lure lure enemies back into a safe area before fighting. I can't stress this enough. This even applies to trivial enemies, since their noise could attract others, or others might be wandering nearby.


Is the goal to win or to have fun?

If you'd rather play more casually you don't have to follow any of the advice.

Also if you're feeling confident about the level and your current location, luring backwards might not be necessary for safety, though I would still at least wait for enemies to come to me rather than walking to them.

Myself, I find streaking to be exciting since every game has higher stakes. Every game - every single dangerous enemy - risks breaking the entire streak. And every win is doubly rewarding since it extends the streak.
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Post Friday, 8th May 2015, 01:53

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

The solution to luring being really good is to make all monsters speed 11 >_> <_<
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Post Friday, 8th May 2015, 03:27

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

reaver wrote:The solution to luring being really good is to make all monsters speed 11 >_> <_<

Luring remains good if you are a naga. Also, that would really screw over octopodes and other weak chars and result in tons more unavoidable deaths in the early dungeon, which would be bad.
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Post Friday, 8th May 2015, 06:41

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Solution to luring would be more advanced monster AI. Orb Spiders are a good example, since they try to maintain distance.

Make monsters try to gang up on you. If they spot you and are alone, they start looking for other monsters to gang up and come after you. :P You no longer want to let that goblin run off and return with a Hill Giant.

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Post Friday, 8th May 2015, 07:25

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Yeah, some roguelikes are good at having monsters ambush you, or wait at chokepoints for YOU to come to THEM. I think Sil and Brogue do that.

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Post Friday, 8th May 2015, 20:41

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Pretty nice guide, manages to tread the line of generalisation that keeps it from being opinion, I'd hold with most of this. The single element I found most on-target was 'Stop Pressing Buttons'. I die plenty of times because I make a decision, and then commit to it through 10-15 keypresses without re-evaluating.

The one thing that occured to me when you were talking about using summons to help make a chokepoint is that I do this with popcorn hostiles too. If theyre flooding down a 2-tile hallway and something I dont care about ends up adjacent I like to let it live until very last as a blocker. Works best with monsters heavily elemental where you strongly resist, or wimpy melees where you are a tank, but assumes detailed knowledge of what you are facing. (if you lack that, why? x,v) Infact thats probably a general point for safe crawling too, learn your enemies.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 02:18

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

This is strictly a tactics guide. Have you considered writing a strategy guide? The common objection to strategy guides is that the game is too random, you gotta respond to what the game gives you. But hey, that's true of tactics too. You have conditionals in your guide all over the place. There's like 30 ifs in you guide right there. If you can make it for tactics, I don't see why you can't make it for strategy. I don't think I've even seen strategy guides.

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 03:16

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Reads like an 8th grade sex ed class.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 04:42

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Oh yeah, especially these parts:
Berder wrote:
  • Look at your equipment. Would a quick weapon or jewelry swap give you the ... ability you need to survive the next couple turns?
  • Consider breaking LOS, if that's possible.
  • Repeat until safe or dead.
  • Rest to full
  • Consider: did that fight make you panic? Did you have to use consumables to run away from it? Or alternatively, did you almost die? If so, maybe you should skip the level or dip into ... another available option.
  • Try to explore narrow passages first
  • Avoid the middles of large open areas. Go around the edges first.
  • Mark exclusions on sleeping dangerous things.

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 12:39

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Always wear finger cots before typing.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 13:25

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Pollen_Golem wrote:This is strictly a tactics guide. Have you considered writing a strategy guide? The common objection to strategy guides is that the game is too random, you gotta respond to what the game gives you. But hey, that's true of tactics too. You have conditionals in your guide all over the place. There's like 30 ifs in you guide right there. If you can make it for tactics, I don't see why you can't make it for strategy. I don't think I've even seen strategy guides.

Good tactics can compensate for bad strategy far more than good strategy can compensate for bad tactics. I do think that strategy/character building is much more dependent on the character. Here are some general strategic tips that could apply to many different characters.

  • In the early game, focus only on your attack skill. If you're a fighter this is your weapon skill and you want it at maybe 8-10 before getting defenses. If you're a mage it's your spells.
  • When in doubt, check how elliptic played a similar character and what skills he leveled up early on.
  • Fighting is the best defensive skill because it's less subject to chance and helps with offense too.
  • Don't wield a weapon if you can't uncurse it and it would end your game if it is cursed. This doesn't apply to branded weapons wielded by a monster, which are never cursed. "Short blade of venom" - safe. "Enchanted short blade" - not safe.
  • Don't train heavily into short blades unless you're an enchanter or a vine stalker
  • In the early dungeon, support your main attack with ranged weapons at 0 skill. At 0 skill, the following order of preference holds: blowgun > arbalest > javelins > hand xbow = longbow > greatsling (sling bullets) > shortbow = greatsling (stones) = hunting sling (sling bullets) > hunting sling (stones) = tomahawks.
  • Also don't neglect throwing nets.
  • Pick the first decent god for your character. If you want to be a mage and don't yet have a good selection of blasting spells (such as a VM or Wz), you need Vehumet. Trog and Fedhas are strong choices that can support a character through the early game. To a lesser extent, Oka can do that too. Ash, Dith, Ely, Kiku, Lugonu, Mak, Nem, Ru, Yred, and Zin will not help you much in the early game but are all workable decent choices, and I'd pick them if I find them early and they suit my character. Jiyva - I don't know Jiyva that well, and it's really rare in early dungeon, but it may be strong. Beogh is great. The rest - Xom, TSO, Chei, Sif - are questionable choices for a first god if you are trying to play safe.
  • Your first priority is to build your character to be able to handle everything in lair, particularly black mambas. This means, for instance, a VM/Wz needs Vehumet or needs to stop training magic early and go strong on melee. You don't need a way to kill hydras unless you are a naga, though.
  • Midway through lair you need to start getting some form of irresistible damage, if you don't have one. Earth magic, pure conjurations, or strong melee.
  • It's optional but very good to train an arbalest or a longbow, either as your primary attack or as an alternate attack. Strong ranged can compensate for bad defenses in a way that melee can't. Eventually, the ranged weapon needs to be fully enchanted to be effective. That means it has to be either a strong artifact or your primary weapon, or else your melee weapon has to be a strong artifact so you don't need to enchant it.
  • Once you find a great weapon of the kind you've trained, use your enchants on it. "Great" means it should be at least as good as the demon weapon of the type, if the type has a demon weapon, or a powerful two-handed weapon of the type (greatsword or better).
  • Through the rest of the game you can build your character however you want. It doesn't really matter anymore if your tactics are good enough. You do want to gear up to eventually kill orbs of fire, and some crowd control such as freezing cloud or rod of clouds is handy.
  • Fire dragon armour is awfully good to get that rF++ for zot. You can put off enchanting your armor for a long time if your tactics are good, while you wait for a good armor to enchant.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 16:23

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Berder wrote:[*]Don't train heavily into short blades unless you're an enchanter or a vine stalker



I get the enchanter point, stabbing power and all that. Why the VS edge-case?
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 16:27

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

VS's bite is an extremely powerful aux attack which also "heals" and apply antimagic to the target - it alone can offset the low damage of short blades, also because it is triggered more often when using them, as there's a chance (depending on dex+str) for each attack done, and short blades have lower attack delay than other weapons.
In other words, a VS with a dagger\quickblade can deal a surprisingly high amount of pain to everything, and it's often for them better use short blades rather than bigger weapon (at least, exp wise).
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 17:00

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

How is Kiku not helpful in early game?

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 17:27

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

nago wrote:VS's bite is an extremely powerful aux attack which also "heals" and apply antimagic to the target - it alone can offset the low damage of short blades, also because it is triggered more often when using them, as there's a chance (depending on dex+str) for each attack done, and short blades have lower attack delay than other weapons.
In other words, a VS with a dagger\quickblade can deal a surprisingly high amount of pain to everything, and it's often for them better use short blades rather than bigger weapon (at least, exp wise).



That much I understood more or less. Playing with a VS a shorter attack delay is what its all about since the aux goes with the mainhand, My own VS win relied on a dagger of speed for a while for this reason. Also true to some degree for Op and constrict. However...

What I didnt get is why Berder recommends training 'heavily' into ShortBlade with a VS though. By my understanding of that sentance hes saying the only time to take SBlade past min-delay is on an Enchanter/VStalker.

Now recommending short blades as a weapon choice only to stabbers and VStalkers, makes some vague kind of sense though many other builds can happily use SBlades. And I can see that raising short blade past minimum delay for the purposes of base (open combat) damage is a futile pursuit (its barely viable with bigger hitting weapons and usually last thing you skill). So therefore the only case where you ought be 'training heavily' in ShortBlades, i.e. past min-delay, is on a stabber for the stab bonus. Or possibly VS if theres something im still missing... (otherwise as nago pointed out he wants a shortblade, and wants mindelay, but probably doesnt care a hoot about post-delay)

Otherwise I'd add Op to En/VS as a race that wants a shortblade for its aux-attack speed. Not always true, but in that case not always true of the VS. Stabbers being the only guys wanting more than 10-14 Short Blade skill is the only thing that seems logical.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 17:40

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Sar wrote:How is Kiku not helpful in early game?

You need necro for kiku to be useful at all, which you won't have for a long time unless you are a necromancer. Even if you do happen to be a necromancer, corpse delivery for necromancers in the early dungeon is not in my experience as powerful as fedhas mushrooms, trog berserk, or oka heroism. You often just get hobgoblins and unarmed orc zombies.

celem wrote:What I didnt get is why Berder recommends training 'heavily' into ShortBlade with a VS though. By my understanding of that sentance hes saying the only time to take SBlade past min-delay is on an Enchanter/VStalker.

Sorry if that was confusing. The context was the early dungeon where mindelay is still a long way away. Training short blades "heavily" means basically "at all," although you might train them for xl1-3 if you started with them and have no better weapon, such as an assassin. I would virtually never train short blades beyond mindelay unless I have xp to burn.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 18:07

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

boy it sure takes a lot of necro skill to cast pain and animate skeleton

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 18:13

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

duvessa wrote:boy it sure takes a lot of necro skill to cast pain and animate skeleton

Quit it. It does take substantial necro to max out power on pain, pain isn't that good a spell by the time you're taking kiku, kiku doesn't always give you pain, you need necro for corpse delivery to not be shit, and kiku doesn't always give you animate skeleton. And animate skeleton is now a lot less good after the recent undead change.

Let none of this be construed as hating on kiku, who is definitely a decent god. Just not a god that gives you much of a pre-lair leg-up.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 18:53

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

I have only played with Kiku on enchanters, and thus have only used it in Lair. Pre-lair, hexes work fine. Perhaps Kiku is good pre-lair for Fi types.

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 19:00

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

AS with okay Necro can be better than either Berserk or Hero because it doesn't require you to stand next to a thing you want dead. Of course it's less silly now that AS has been nerfed, but still.

AD is definitely much better though, and it honestly isn't hard to get going on any ~casty~ char (which is the kind of char one usually picks Kiku on).

Corpse Rot is also pretty amazing and doesn't depend on initial corpse quality at all.

I guess what I am trying to say is that Kiku is better than Veh.

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 19:20

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Sar wrote:AS with okay Necro can be better than either Berserk or Hero because it doesn't require you to stand next to a thing you want dead. Of course it's less silly now that AS has been nerfed, but still.

AD is definitely much better though, and it honestly isn't hard to get going on any ~casty~ char (which is the kind of char one usually picks Kiku on).

I wizmoded a hufi. Started at xl1, turned on m&f 100%, raised level to xl6. Fought a yak. AvEffDam 2.3 attacking 3.6 defending. Then I used heroism and fought a yak. AvEffDam 4.0 attacking 2.3 defending. Heroism gives... (4 / 2.3) * (3.6 / 2.3) = 2.7 times as much combat effectiveness as without heroism. Berserk gives about 5.6x as much when you consider the greater hp pool.

Compared to something that almost triples the number of enemies you can kill - or multiplies it by 5 - a few gimpy orc zombies aren't even in the same league.
Last edited by Berder on Saturday, 9th May 2015, 19:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 19:21

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

"AS can be better than berserk."

I'd say this whole subthread going here has been a stretch, but AS > berserk pretty much takes the cake.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 19:23

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

I remember getting Hill Giant zombies in D and hydra zombies in Lair with a little less that 10 Necro. How many book characters can safely zerk a hydra in Lair?

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 19:39

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Berder is presumably talking about the extent to which gods help you get to lair alive. Obviously Kiku is useful by the time you're actually in lair killing things. Getting 10 Necro pre-lair is probably not something you're going to want to do if you didn't start as a necromancer.
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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 19:44

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

I wonder what kind of drops you get with mediocre Necro, like 5 or so. Getting 5 Necro is not hard.

Also Corpse Rot is pretty much irresistible slow + heavy poisoning on most monsters.

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 20:03

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

You don't take Trog, you start with Trog. You're comparing a D1 berserk and a lair 1 +8 vamp greatsword to a D7 AS or even worse a D7 pain and a Lair 8 AD.

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Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 20:13

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

I'm pretty sure you can take Trog though.

Really late edit: and yes, I obviously did not imply that going Kiku is stronger than picking Be on the background choice screen, or even that Kiku is better than Trog regardless of character in question and altar spawn depths. That would be dumb even by my standards!

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Post Saturday, 9th May 2015, 21:58

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

If you (not addressing anyone in particular) haven't tried picking Kiku with a non-necromancer and training necro early, I recommend you try it. Preferably with a no book background. It works well because necro spells are strong.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 01:03

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Sar wrote:I'm pretty sure you can take Trog though.

Really late edit: and yes, I obviously did not imply that going Kiku is stronger than picking Be on the background choice screen, or even that Kiku is better than Trog regardless of character in question and altar spawn depths. That would be dumb even by my standards!


I didn't mean to imply that you were doing either of those. But yes, you're correct. You can take technically pick up Trog later. But I feel like that's describing some pretty questionable decision making or fringe cases where, more realistically, you're either starting with Trog or not taking Trog.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 01:18

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

dirtywick wrote:more realistically, you're either starting with Trog or not taking Trog

Or maybe you are a Fighter, Gladiator, Monk, Hunter, Assassin, Artificer or Wanderer and found an altar. Or maybe you are a book background but your race lends itself better to melee (say, you picked the background because it was a random choice or Nemelex Choice or whatever) and found an altar.

Edit: in particular, Trog is a pretty amazing As and Ar god.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 01:56

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

You'd be better off starting as Be and training those relevant skills instead.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 01:58

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

You'd also be better off starting as a DD.

In fact, there is literally no reason playing anything that is not DDBe.

Why are we even discussing this shit? You play DDBe. Then you play DDBe. Then you play DDBe. Have to be an idiot to play anything else.

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Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:08

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Sar wrote:You'd also be better off starting as a DD.

In fact, there is literally no reason playing anything that is not DDBe.

Why are we even discussing this shit? You play DDBe. Then you play DDBe. Then you play DDBe. Have to be an idiot to play anything else.


Calm down. All I did was disagree with you.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:10

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

You didn't disagree. "Trog is good for a lot of backgrounds" and "Berserker is the best background" are not conflicting statements.

Edit: well, I guess you did disagree, you just didn't present any proper argument.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:19

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

dirtywick wrote:You don't take Trog, you start with Trog.

And that's a wrong statement. I'm sure Berder can whip up some stats on how many non-Be chars won with Trog.

Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:26

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Your argument seems to be that Kiku is a comparable early game choice than Trog in cases when you're intentionally taking Trog later because you're sick of playing DDBe all the time. My argument is that people who play Trog play Be and that you need to compare Kiku to Trog in a context that applies to players besides yourself.

Yeah, fine, you're technically correct as I said before.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:30

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Sar wrote:
dirtywick wrote:You don't take Trog, you start with Trog.

And that's a wrong statement. I'm sure Berder can whip up some stats on how many non-Be chars won with Trog.


Perhaps. I would assume a vast majority of Trog wins are from a Be, but I could be wrong about that. If so I'll concede my argument.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:35

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Yes the vast majority of Trog wins are probably Berserkers because Be is a very strong start and Be is also a very popular start. This has literally nothing to do with the desirability of Trog for other backgrounds. When you play a Fi or an As or an Ar and you find an early Trog altar do you really think "Man I wish I were a Berserker, I would have Trog on turn 1" and then ignore that altar? Well maybe you do, but I and a lot of other players don't. They just take Trog and win.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:47

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Sar wrote:Yes the vast majority of Trog wins are probably Berserkers because Be is a very strong start and Be is also a very popular start. This has literally nothing to do with the desirability of Trog for other backgrounds. When you play a Fi or an As or an Ar and you find an early Trog altar do you really think "Man I wish I were a Berserker, I would have Trog on turn 1" and then ignore that altar? Well maybe you do, but I and a lot of other players don't. They just take Trog and win.


What I think is that if you're going to compare Kiku to Trog as early game gods it should be from the context that most players experience the game.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:51

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

What I think is that it's completely pointless to discuss Be background in the context of god choice as their god choice happened before the game even begun.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 02:58

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

OK. Then enjoy the rest of your day.
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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 03:06

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

dirtywick wrote:OK. Then enjoy the rest of your day.


Thanks, you too.
If you are offended by something I've posted, just PM me. It probably wasn't intentional.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 03:22

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Pretty nice guide, Berder. I think any new player would benefit from a careful reading of it.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 17:17

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

What about other parts of strategy such as inventory management, exploration? I'm thinking of something like this, but better ;) :

  • If your race has a strong affinity for a particular melee weapon class, you will likely end up using it throughout the game, so you can usually ignore other melee weapon types. This is doubly true if you follow Trog or Okawaru.
  • If you want the option to switch to a better weapon of an unknown class, you can train other skills like fighting, dodging, and throwing, but put a few points into the weapon you're using at the beginning. Every skill level requires greater investment than the last, and the first few levels are really cheap.
  • Make a stash to dump non-emergency items you might use strategically at a later point, e.g. heavy armor, good weapons with high delay, scrolls of enchant, amulet of rCorr, potion of cure mutation. L:1 or L:2 is usually a great place.
  • Carry rations while exploring, and dump rarer permafoods like pizza slices at your stash. You're likely to find rations while exploring, but not pizza slices, so you'll probably pick up rations and not pizzas. You might as well keep an inventory slot occupied by rations, and not 1 slice of pizza. But if you do find yourself close to starvation with no chunks, do eat the rarer permafood if you have it with you.
  • If your inventory is near full, then right before diving deeper, you might want to make a temporary stash of items you do not need urgently, e.g. permafood, duplicate wands, scrolls of identification and remove curse. Then you can grab all potentially useful drops below, and deal with it when you're back at the temporary stash.
  • Before identifying some of your last unidentified potions and scrolls, press \\ to see what options remain. There's no reason to waste an id scroll if only !poison and !experience aren't identified yet.
  • Learn what each potion effect does exactly.
  • If you're not wiping the floors with your enemies, carefully consider the branch you should be exploring. It varies per character, but there are some constants. Elf is the hardest branch you'll see for a long time, lair branches are much harder than lair (especially slime), depths are harder than dungeon.
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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 17:24

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Berder wrote:Good tactics can compensate for bad strategy far more than good strategy can compensate for bad tactics.


I guess that's true, but I typically find myself having cleared about 15 levels of the game and despairing, not wanting to go anywhere.

Berder wrote:never cursed. "Short blade of venom" - safe.


The game labels a weapon "uncursed" if you saw it get unwielded. It should do so for branded weapons, then. This definitely needs a patch.

Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 17:51

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

Berder wrote:
  • Don't wield a weapon if you can't uncurse it and it would end your game if it is cursed. This doesn't apply to branded weapons wielded by a monster, which are never cursed. "Short blade of venom" - safe. "Enchanted short blade" - not safe.


This isn't true! I've found cursed branded weapons in the past, although I think it's less likely than with a generically "glowing" weapon. It's still fairly safe to wield a short blade of venom if you're not too dependent on your weapon slot though, since it's a nice earlygame weapon.

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Post Sunday, 10th May 2015, 18:27

Re: Guide to Safe Crawling

I usually don't make a stash. There's no carry weight limit or item destruction and you can Ctrl-f things you only maybe need later.

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