Immutable Laws of the Dungeon of Zot

[FlyingPants]

If you drink enough mutation potions, eventually you have teleportitis, berserkitis, none of your armor fits, you shout, and are dying from negative stats.

[joellercoaster]

Only when you are playing an Octopode will you find two randart armours (one being worn by a hobgoblin) and a GDA lying on the floor - by D:8.

Joel
Could not make this stuff up

[joellercoaster]

There is no feeling quite like that spike of adrenaline you get from stepping on a teleport trap on Elf:5... and finding yourself in the very middle of the Vault of the Pointy-Eared Jerks.

"The Deep Elf Annihilator shouts! x2"
"The Deep Elf Demonologist gestures widly while chanting."
"A nequoxec comes into view"

(It goes on like this for quite some time.)

[Grimm]

The one time you break your rule and try on a sketchy looking unrand leather armour that turns out to be like -4 and cursed will be the one time in human memory that no remove curse scrolls will appear from D1 to D7. You will die from an otherwise weak monster attack on D7.

[Happy Corner]

The very next turn after your last chunk goes rotten, you will go hungry.

Related is the lesser-known law that, whenever you spend all your money on a nice piece of gear at a shop, an even better item of the same type will pop up almost immediately afterwards.

[Stormfox]

The very next turn after your last chunk goes rotten, you will go hungry.

Related is the lesser-known law that, whenever you spend all your money on a nice piece of gear at a shop, an even better item of the same type will pop up almost immediately afterwards.

Especially if you're buying in a bazaar, where you don't have the option of going back later...

[joellercoaster]

If you publicly chide someone for complaining about a way of getting killed they consider unfair and you consider avoidable, you will lose a character that way within 48 hours.

Joel
Killed by his own meph-cloud-spamming Transmuter ghost on Lair:2 after 12,345 turns

[TwilightPhoenix]

The usefulness of an artifact in a shop is goes down as the price goes up. Unless it's really cheap, then you get what you paid for.

[joellercoaster]

If by various shaftings and whatnot, you find yourself on D:16 without poison resistance, you will immediately encounter Aizul and Nessos.

[Jeremiah]

A player ghost will consistently do more damage with any given weapon or spell than the same character did while they were alive.

[Mackerel]

^ truth

[KoboldLord]

A player ghost will consistently do more damage with any given weapon or spell than the same character did while they were alive.

That's not really in the spirit of the thread, though. That is, in fact, the way things actually work and not your imagination. Ghost versions of many common spells are clearly superior to the player equivalent. Sometimes this is simply a matter of a significantly higher damage cap, and sometimes they get benefits that have since been cut out of the game for players entirely on account of being too overpowered. Every creature in the entire Dungeon will sometimes get drain-happy orange rats if they cast Summon Small Mammals, for instance. Every creature except you.

[TwilightPhoenix]

If you've been getting lucky with lots of portal vaults lately, you'll get an Ossuary. Said Ossuary will have 80% of its treasure locked behind transparent and stone walls with a Guardian Mummy standing over it. While you're at level 7.

[KoboldLord]

If you've been getting lucky with lots of portal vaults lately, you'll get an Ossuary. Said Ossuary will have 80% of its treasure locked behind transparent and stone walls with a Guardian Mummy standing over it. While you're at level 7.

For that one, you're supposed to make the guardian mummy chase you around in a big circle. Once you've lured it far enough away from the loot, you circle around and ninja everything.

[0x6d657566]

I think it makes sense that you can blink past a statue - it has air space around it, there is a conceivable path. A glass wall is still solid and impermeable.

What if it's a statue depicting a wall?

[TwilightPhoenix]

If you've been getting lucky with lots of portal vaults lately, you'll get an Ossuary. Said Ossuary will have 80% of its treasure locked behind transparent and stone walls with a Guardian Mummy standing over it. While you're at level 7.

For that one, you're supposed to make the guardian mummy chase you around in a big circle. Once you've lured it far enough away from the loot, you circle around and ninja everything.

The room said mummy was in was far too tiny for that. Trust me, I tried. You had to get in with Controlled/Lucky Teleport, Passwall, LRD, Shatter, or something else able to bypass or destroy stone and transparent walls. And while the mummy is said to move slow, it manages to keep up with that little amount of space just fine.

[Grimm]

No, you're supposed to lure the mummy out and wildgoose him around the outside of the room. You can get ten or fifteen squares between you and him.

[KoboldLord]

The room said mummy was in was far too tiny for that. Trust me, I tried. You had to get in with Controlled/Lucky Teleport, Passwall, LRD, Shatter, or something else able to bypass or destroy stone and transparent walls. And while the mummy is said to move slow, it manages to keep up with that little amount of space just fine.

Well, there's your problem. Open the secret doors before engaging. An ossuary submission that required teleport control or the ability to pass through stone would never be approved, simply because almost no characters will have such abilities at the depth where ossuaries appear.

[TwilightPhoenix]

...I wish had I thought about that at the time. I need to stop playing late at night.

[asdu]

Unseen horrors are twice as likely to appear on open levels, especially OOD ones. Unless you can see invisible, in which case you won't meet one until D:18. I swear this (like chunks rotting the turn before you go hungry) is coded on purpose.

[Zicher]

If you ever have a great early find and share it in this topic, you'll suffer a YASD.
No exceptions.

[TwilightPhoenix]

The trick is to wait to share it until after you have died or, much less likely, won.

[OdiumTheologicum]

Ijyb has a 50% chance to spawn with a wand of disintegration.
Also. The RNG is the persona of Xom.

  Code:

You feel resistant to hostile enchantments.
Really eat this mutagenic chunk of meat?
This meat tastes really weird.
You feel weaker.
Really eat this mutagenic chunk of meat?
This meat tastes really weird.
You feel less resistant to hostile enchantments.

Should've known better.

[Happy Corner]

If you play a Draconian, monsters will spawn with weapons of dragon-slaying roughly a hundred times more often (and many floors earlier) than when you're any other race.

(Why yes, I DID recently lose a Draconian character on D:1 to a monster with a dragon-slaying weapon. Why do you ask?)

[OdiumTheologicum]

If you play a Draconian, monsters will spawn with weapons of dragon-slaying roughly a hundred times more often (and many floors earlier) than when you're any other race.

(Why yes, I DID recently lose a Draconian character on D:1 to a monster with a dragon-slaying weapon. Why do you ask?)

Did they happen to be spears? I ran into that problem too.

[Zicher]

If you play a Draconian, monsters will spawn with weapons of dragon-slaying roughly a hundred times more often (and many floors earlier) than when you're any other race.

(Why yes, I DID recently lose a Draconian character on D:1 to a monster with a dragon-slaying weapon. Why do you ask?)

Did they happen to be spears? I ran into that problem too.

IIRC, only polearms can get the dragon-slaying brand. Be afraid of early gnolls!

[asdu]

The very next turn after your last chunk goes rotten, you will go hungry.

After extensive research, I feel confident about expanding on that basic law to create a comprehensive theory of chunk availability:

1. The very next turn after your last chunk goes rotten, you will go hungry.
2. While hungry, the chances of monsters dropping edible corpses will decrease to almost 0%; to compensate, poisonous (if lacking rPois), mutagenic and rot-inducing corpses will generate 100% of the time.
3. If an edible corpse is generated, either the creature that dropped it will be part of a dangerous group, or some other powerful enemy will show up before you've managed to chop up the corpse; either way, you'll be forced to run, leaving the corpse behind to rot.
4. Occasionally a monster may generate a corpse in circumstances that allow you to freely chop it up without being interrupted; this however only happens with monsters giving brown chunks, and chunks obtained this way will always cause sickness (regarding sickness, note there is a law stating that the probability of sickness causing strenght drain is directly proportional to character encumbrance).
5. Finally giving in to hunger and eating permafood will cause a high chunk yield monster to spawn within 10 turns and drop a corpse with 100% certainty (this is only true if permafood took you to satiatied status or above. Otherwise, go back to point 2).

[Grimm]

Asdu, your contribution to the scholarly discipline of Advanced Crawlistics is much appreciated. You deserve a grant, possibly even your own lab.

[OdiumTheologicum]

If you play a Draconian, monsters will spawn with weapons of dragon-slaying roughly a hundred times more often (and many floors earlier) than when you're any other race.

(Why yes, I DID recently lose a Draconian character on D:1 to a monster with a dragon-slaying weapon. Why do you ask?)

Did they happen to be spears? I ran into that problem too.

IIRC, only polearms can get the dragon-slaying brand. Be afraid of early gnolls!

Ah, this is true. First time I ran into it was a Gnoll with 5 spears of dragon slaying. > .>

[joellercoaster]

If you decide your current character is a 3-runer and not even going to look down the stairs to Tomb, you will immediately encounter Khufu and an entourage of Greater Mummies anyway.

[Stormfox]

If you are forced to scour the main branch down to D:19 to find poison resistance, a ring of rPois will be within sight of the stairs when you finally tackle Snake:1. Especially if you had to get through Mara to find that first source.

[Happy Corner]

If you kill enough Liches when you're fucking around in the Abyss, eventually the next one will get tired of the ongoing genocide and summon at least three Fiends (of various kinds) as its first action. The next turn, most of these Fiends will torment you, reducing you to 1/4 or even 1/8th of your HP in an instant. The final turn, one of them will finish you off by laughing at your 48 EV and sending a big burst of hellfire up your ass. Your character will, of course, be at level 27 (having only gone to the Abyss to gather some needed items for the final Zot run), leaving a very powerful ghost to terrorize your next character to step into the Abyss.

(sighs)

[OdiumTheologicum]

When you start as a hunter, you won't find ammo for your weapon on the first 3 levels of the dungeon.

[Grimm]

If you kill enough Liches when you're fucking around in the Abyss, eventually the next one will get tired of the ongoing genocide and summon at least three Fiends (of various kinds) as its first action. The next turn, most of these Fiends will torment you, reducing you to 1/4 or even 1/8th of your HP in an instant. The final turn, one of them will finish you off by laughing at your 48 EV and sending a big burst of hellfire up your ass. Your character will, of course, be at level 27 (having only gone to the Abyss to gather some needed items for the final Zot run), leaving a very powerful ghost to terrorize your next character to step into the Abyss.

(sighs)

This is an awesome law.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Just when you thought that there was no such thing as a dangerous Temple-entry mini-vault, you'll find one being guarded by an Oklob Sapling. At least they were kind enough not to put the real thing there, but it still really, really hurt.

[Silk]

The only way you are EVER going to get a set of three strong mutations from a potion is when you are desperately quaffing it in search of a healing potion and 1HP.

[dassem]

If you play a Draconian, monsters will spawn with weapons of dragon-slaying roughly a hundred times more often (and many floors earlier) than when you're any other race.

(Why yes, I DID recently lose a Draconian character on D:1 to a monster with a dragon-slaying weapon. Why do you ask?)

That sounds oddly familiar...
If you play a Demonspawn, monsters will spawn with weapons of holy wrath at that same rate.

If you play a venom mage or ice elementalist, while you are waiting for a book with spells from another school, the dungeon will be stuffed with undead and ossuaries. (Which a fire elementalist would rip through like, well, like a hot knife.)

Every time that you use mephitic cloud to confuse and kill an enemy that would otherwise be too tough for you, the odds that the next monster will be a hydra are doubled and the chances of ever finding a flame-branded weapon are halved.

[dassem]

When the first item you find is an elven shield of resistance, you will die stupidly before you get enough shield skill to wear it.

When you die to poison, guess what that one unidentified ring just has to be...

Yes, the last time you died the un-identified potion was heal wounds. The time when you have a chance to frantically quaff-id as you succumb to poison, it will be not be.

[joellercoaster]

When you are Hasted, and Mennas comes into view, giving you a solid four turns before his Silence gets into range, Shadow Creatures will generate not Alligators and Hydrae, but:

1. Insubstantial Wisps
2. A Hound
3. Vampire Mosquitoes
4. A single Butterfly

Joel
Next time just going with the scorpions again

[bobross419]

The very next turn after your last chunk goes rotten, you will go hungry.

After extensive research, I feel confident about expanding on that basic law to create a comprehensive theory of chunk availability:

1. The very next turn after your last chunk goes rotten, you will go hungry.
2. While hungry, the chances of monsters dropping edible corpses will decrease to almost 0%; to compensate, poisonous (if lacking rPois), mutagenic and rot-inducing corpses will generate 100% of the time.
3. If an edible corpse is generated, either the creature that dropped it will be part of a dangerous group, or some other powerful enemy will show up before you've managed to chop up the corpse; either way, you'll be forced to run, leaving the corpse behind to rot.
4. Occasionally a monster may generate a corpse in circumstances that allow you to freely chop it up without being interrupted; this however only happens with monsters giving brown chunks, and chunks obtained this way will always cause sickness (regarding sickness, note there is a law stating that the probability of sickness causing strenght drain is directly proportional to character encumbrance).
5. Finally giving in to hunger and eating permafood will cause a high chunk yield monster to spawn within 10 turns and drop a corpse with 100% certainty (this is only true if permafood took you to satiatied status or above. Otherwise, go back to point 2).

You may want to add that if you are looking for mutagenic chunks then they only drop when you are well satiated and no amount of chain berserks will get you hungry before they rot.

[palin]

IMO you should always acquire jewelry...*always*

Unless you're playing a FeBE. I acquired two jewels hoping for a rPois and had to clear Swamp without it. Luckily Snake Pits didn't generate, and done Shoals instead. By the way, I got an amulet of Rage and a ring of Ice. On a berskerker.

[Eji1700]

You've been backed into a corner. You're surrounded by gnolls and wounded on a low level of the dungeon. You've quaffed your un id'd potions and managed to not turn yourself into a puddle. Fighting it out is not an option. You have two un ID'd scrolls. The one you pick WILL be holy wrath because you are a demonspawn. Guess what the other one was?

In fact, NEVER look at the death screen. Yes the one you didn't pick was the one you needed, or the one you did pick was the one that would ENSURE death.

Finally, when you crack, and force your troll zerker to abandon trog on d2 and take up necromancy so he can use that necronomicon he just found, or have that Xin follower give it all up for the demon whip on d3 you will do well. Really really well. You'll survive the wrath, and dodge your enemies, and find the floor littered with potions of haste and other goodies. Then you will of course, die, but not to something interesting. Not to the terrible wrath you've avoided. To something mundane, that you've killed hundreds of. Lets say an orc warrior. Maybe a centaur. If your lucky the game will dignify you by at least giving them a normal weapon instead of something that's -/-

[Tiber]

Finding good items early on and getting good demonspawn mutations/draconian colors are mutually exclusive.

[bobross419]

When you worship Trog you will find hundreds of Amnesia Scrolls... When you worship Vehumet you'll find none.

[infinitevox]

When you find an Amulet of Faith on D:1, you will die on D:3. No exceptions.

[infinitevox]

OnlyMummies.JPG (44.05 KiB) Viewed 14491 times

[Blade]

When you are playing a Draconian, he will find three powerful randart body armours before D:8, along with three armour shops.
If said Draconian also happens to be a spellcaster, the fourth shop he find will be weapons.
If he is a Fire Elementalist, he will grow up to be white.
If he finds a Book of Geomancy just in time for the colour change, there will be a grand total of 12 stones on the first five dungeon levels.
If he survives despite all that, the dungeon will begin spamming OOD monsters and powerful player ghosts.

And one last rule:
If you switch to a non-caster after a long string of casters, you will find both a Necronomicon and a Grand Grimoire before D:10.

I swear this game is out to get me.

[Pteriforever]

So... These scrolls I have like, 5 of that don't seem to do anything? Fear, right? Nope, Curse Jewellery.

[Konebred]

If you are undecided between two different builds, you will find an early randart or weapon that goes perfectly with the build you didn't choose.

[TwilightPhoenix]

So... These scrolls I have like, 5 of that don't seem to do anything? Fear, right? Nope, Curse Jewellery.

Are you a spellcaster? If not, they're probably Amnesia.


Meanwhile, when you're one of those who never play Centaurs or Nagas, you'll eventually find this...