0.18 Trunk Questions.


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

Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 01:48

0.18 Trunk Questions.

So how does one get Clarity and Resist Mutation outside of mutation lotto and artifacts (or ashenzari since he sucks for spriggans) ? Clarity I can live without I guess but Transient Mutations aren't something you can heal with Potions of Cure Mutation... Also is it me or does draining feel infinitely superior to every other weapon brand? On a less serious note, I always used to think Okawaru's gifts were weighted towards the weapon you're training and armor slots you haven't augmented but ever since I started playing trunk all he ever gives me is "Armor you already have exactly as you have it" (IE +2 leather armor of fire resistance when this is exactly what I am wearing), The classic +0 hat, and almost explicitly weapons you'll never use like Quarterstaffs when you're a stabber and quickblades when you're a mace wielding gargoyle or demonspawn. Is there some kind of usefulness gift deciding mechanic implemented I am not aware of and is it better to just worship another god early game? and my final question, how do you worship Gozag as a non-spriggan. All of his mechanics have a huuge bias to worshiping him as early as possible so its not like you can just stockpile a bunch of permafoods and expect him to be of any value by that point.

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 02:04

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Transient mutations are cured with experience.

God gifts are just acquirements that are tweaked to fit the god (e.g. Trog gives more antimagic than usual, etc.) and acquirement only uses your skilling as weights to determine what to give you.

Gozag's food cost isn't much of an issue unless you're a Troll, Ghoul, Vampire or decided to cast a lot of high hunger spells.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 03:37

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

In trunk, you usually don't have access to Clarity or rMut, and have to adjust play accordingly.

God gifts are weighted slightly differently to normal acquirement (gifting is not as good as acquirements), but all you really need to know is that oka gifts can be quite random. There is no conspiracy.

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 03:42

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Have you never gotten the -4 hat of Okawaru's Regard {Curse*, Contam*, Str-8, Slay-3, -Cast}? It's quite the meme and has been around for years.

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 15:00

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

The conspiracy does exist and it's that okawaru gifts usually blow and you should consider yourself quite fortunate if he poops out something even as useful as things you found on the ground let alone better.

The reason why that is is because okawaru is senile af.

The answer to how you get clarity and rmut is you don't and that's a pretty good thing, and looking at your post I think you're under the impression that mutations are much more detrimental than they actually turn out to be.

Regarding the draining brand: it is just you, yes

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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 15:27

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

I thought okuwarus gifts sucked because of his unusually large acquirement pool?
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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 10:24

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Draining brand is superior early game due to the flat bonus damage it deals every hit. The % damage it deals is 2x smaller than flaming/freezing, and doesn't work against rN monsters at all.

Gozag: I convert to him before Lair, when I have a stockpile of food and I'm way past the point of running away from most threats (and wasting food).
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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 10:35

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Draining is very good early on because early on, defenses are probably more important overall than offense. Increasing your damage a bit while being hit by 5 monsters simultaneously does not actually increase your damage so well, because you wind up needing to flee.

The reason draining is defensive is because it can also reduce the HD of monsters, weakening their attacks. If you're fighting a hydra or something with multiple attacks, you can notice it very much. A monster you might not be able to kill may become killable if you tag it with a dagger of draining before going to town on it, simply because you can survive it's offense in order to deliver your own.

The other reason draining is good is because it can reduce the target's maximum HP, which is a separate issue from just calculating the damage it deals.

Now, if you have 3 STR, you may be better off with a dagger of electricity...or poison.

The way in which you can deal with food issues and Gozag is pretty simple. If you are running out of food too quickly, choose a food merchant if you can when you call a merchant. One single food merchant will likely be enough that you won't have to do that more than once. Of course it isn't without risk, you may not get that option.. but the game is filled with risks.

Clarity and rMut outside of mutations and artefacts: You don't. The only exceptions are to worship Zin to avoid mutations (and confusion protection with vitalize) or Ash for Clarity. The loss of Clarity amulets is kind of annoying (to get stupid ones like dismissal and harm), but the loss of the rMut amulet is worse. Basically be prepared to never play the mutation roulette game, save all your cure mutation potions - and use them after enough bad muts pile up or you cannot stand a particular one like teleportis or forced berserk, both of which can be deadly. If you're lucky enough to get a good mutation, you can try and hang onto it as long as you can (before abyss/slimes) but more times than not, they then just become obstacles to clearing a bad one you get later that you want gone (or wasted along with the bad ones.)

If you really hate bad muts, then get all the good mutations you can, or play roulette until you have a set which is acceptable/good, then say hello to Zin. I think it's bass ackwards that while Zin should be the God of no mutations, it's more like the only god of having (good) mutations. Jiyva will just piss you off. Sadly, at the state where full mutation protection is more useful (extended), you're pretty much gimping yourself to not have TSO or Mak because nothing much competes with life/mana on kill. I might take Zin if I had a super set of mutations, including fast regeneration.. but that's hard to get, especially now without rMut amulets.

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 11:01

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

svendre wrote:The way in which you can deal with food issues and Gozag is pretty simple. If you are running out of food too quickly, choose a food merchant if you can when you call a merchant. One single food merchant will likely be enough that you won't have to do that more than once. Of course it isn't without risk, you may not get that option.. but the game is filled with risks.


I take solace in the fact that while OpTm is consistently offered weapon and armor shops over jewelry, he never has to deal with food shop issues. Those buggers are guaranteed.

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 14:58

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

svendre wrote:Draining is very good early on because early on, defenses are probably more important overall than offense. Increasing your damage a bit while being hit by 5 monsters simultaneously does not actually increase your damage so well, because you wind up needing to flee.

The reason draining is defensive is because it can also reduce the HD of monsters, weakening their attacks. If you're fighting a hydra or something with multiple attacks, you can notice it very much. A monster you might not be able to kill may become killable if you tag it with a dagger of draining before going to town on it, simply because you can survive it's offense in order to deliver your own.


this is all silly for a couple of reasons. dead things have 0 HD and defenses are not more important overall than offense ever let alone early. why are you talking about being hit by five monsters simultaneously.

The loss of Clarity amulets is kind of annoying (to get stupid ones like dismissal and harm),


"kind of annoying" is reasonable, I suppose, except it's still better than "ignore the gameplay changes that the threat of confusion provides"

but the loss of the rMut amulet is worse.


No it isn't.

Basically be prepared to never play the mutation roulette game,


This has always been good advice.

If you really hate bad muts, then get all the good mutations you can, or play roulette until you have a set which is acceptable/good, then say hello to Zin.


don't do this

Tiktacy wrote:I thought okuwarus gifts sucked because of his unusually large acquirement pool?


yup and acquirements also suck

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 20:06

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

what is "acquirement pool" even supposed to mean

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Thursday, 21st April 2016, 06:26

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Set of possible gifts?
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Post Thursday, 21st April 2016, 14:53

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

it's where people who want a +1 buckler go to take a dip

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 02:45

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

duvessa wrote:what is "acquirement pool" even supposed to mean


If you just insert "penis" for every instance of "acquirement pool" it's funnier and makes at least as much sense probably.

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 02:50

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

prozacelf wrote:
duvessa wrote:what is "acquirement pool" even supposed to mean


If you just insert "penis" for every instance of "acquirement pool" it's funnier and makes at least as much sense probably.
no fair, that works on every word/phrase
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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 03:33

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

This is slightly off-topic to what the OP is asking for, but the most important piece of trunk advice I can give from a painful trunk death recently is that as of relatively recently, Water Nymphs will just swallow up staircases. As in, if they get within one tile of an up or down staircase, the shallow water they make will go "over" the staircase and replace it. There's no tile for this(or x-v explanation), so I thought I was going crazy/experiencing a bug when it happened.

So, uh, be careful of that.

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 04:41

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

prozacelf wrote:
If you just insert "penis"


Go on...
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Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 07:00

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Shard1697 wrote:This is slightly off-topic to what the OP is asking for, but the most important piece of trunk advice I can give from a painful trunk death recently is that as of relatively recently, Water Nymphs will just swallow up staircases. As in, if they get within one tile of an up or down staircase, the shallow water they make will go "over" the staircase and replace it. There's no tile for this(or x-v explanation), so I thought I was going crazy/experiencing a bug when it happened.

So, uh, be careful of that.


>.>
That sounds like a bug...
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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 07:42

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

it's not a bug, and unfortunately neither is the existence of water nymphs

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 11:33

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

svendre wrote:If you really hate bad muts, then get all the good mutations you can, or play roulette until you have a set which is acceptable/good, then say hello to Zin.


don't do this


The reason for advising this is that once you take Zin, you can fairly easily lock-in your existing mutations.

For example: If I have 3 potions of mutation and 3 potions of cure mutations, and 2 beneficial mutation potions you might..

1) quaff mutation potion
>> You don't like the results, quaff cure mutation
>> You like the results? Quaff beneficial, go worship Zin

If you're planning to stay with Zin, those potions of cure mutation won't have much if any value at all because you won't be getting mutated. It's not that tough to pump Zin's piety quickly by donating gold. If you pickup a bad mutation before piety is high, and you used your very last cure mutation potion you might be annoyed a bit but you can *still* clear all mutations with Zin's ability, or find more cure mutation potions later. What you cannot do as easily is gain good mutations while worshipping Zin, because they'll get blocked. In this case, the only thing you will have lost is a good mutation or more which you wouldn't have had otherwise unless you attempted to get them before worshipping Zin.

I find it all very odd that Zin "hates mutations", yet I feel like it's the god of mutations, because you can keep the ones you want almost indefinitely while Jiyva is just a big mess.

One thing I've thought about trying but haven't tested is intentionally incurring a minor god wrath (desecrate a corpse intentionally) to get around the mutation protection in order to use a potion of beneficial mutation.

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 14:41

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

No set of mutations, good or bad, is worth recommending a player switch gods to Zin for.

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 15:02

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Where does it say switch Gods? Even if you were switching, in the case of Zin it would be quite easy from Ely or TSO. The OP was specifically asking about ways to manage mutations. You didn't qualify your statement with any reasons.

If I had enough very good mutations, in a lot of games I would give worshipping Zin serious consideration. 10 good mutations could be like, as good as all the benefits from one god on their own. A bunch of extra AC, resists, EV, stealth, regenerating more quickly, extra melee damage, etc. etc. - yeah that could add up quickly. Not only that: you have a near guarantee of not having bad mutations so the benefit is two-fold. Zin's abilities not even considering mutations are powerful on their own compared with many other gods. For these reasons, it's not the worst decision a person could make.

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 15:31

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

If you've racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. A switch from Ely or TSO is a pretty edge case, and even then you're giving up half your piety, which requires careful consideration as to its value.

Giving up 1, 2, 5, or 10 good mutations is way less likely to kill you than god wrath. Careful play can help you avoid getting bad mutations, and potions of cure mut are there for the ones that sneak through.

Playing mutation roulette is a terrible idea. It's called roulette for a reason- sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The best strategies in roguelikes are ones that minimize the chance that you "lose".

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 19:18

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

ZipZipskins wrote:If you've racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. A switch from Ely or TSO is a pretty edge case, and even then you're giving up half your piety, which requires careful consideration as to its value.

Giving up 1, 2, 5, or 10 good mutations is way less likely to kill you than god wrath. Careful play can help you avoid getting bad mutations, and potions of cure mut are there for the ones that sneak through.

Playing mutation roulette is a terrible idea. It's called roulette for a reason- sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The best strategies in roguelikes are ones that minimize the chance that you "lose".


I guess we just disagree. If you've racked up a bunch of mutations without a means to remove them if they don't turn out well, that might be bad. Firstly, again I never said anything in the first place about switching gods, so I don't know why you keep bringing up god wrath. You can find a mutation potion or two, a cure mutation potion or two and if you're lucky a beneficial mutation potion and make a choice to worship Zin (not only for those reasons.) All it would take early game is slamming the random mutation potion and getting 2 or 3 muts you want, followed up by the beneficial and you'd already have a decent set without risking much since you can wipe them. Then you have corpses you could eat, and even if you don't have a cure mutation potion yet, Zin can *still* wipe the slate clean for you so what's the big deal. As for switching from Ely or TSO, you're also assuming that losing half your piety is a big deal because what if you have spent their piety and you aren't going to lose much anyways. It just isn't that tough to get piety with Zin thanks to the donate function. Even if you're going to take God wrath from somewhere else how dangerous it is depends on from what god and what condition you are in. I don't think it's true that globally any god wrath at any time is more dangerous than losing 10 good muts. I don't think most God wraths are that unmanageable, and they aren't always so bad if it happens at a lower level. The one exception I do actually stress about is leaving Vehumet at a high level, that can get nasty. There are actually some cases where God wrath can be desirable and used to your advantage.
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Post Saturday, 23rd April 2016, 00:27

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

ZipZipskins wrote:If you've racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. A switch from Ely or TSO is a pretty edge case, and even then you're giving up half your piety, which requires careful consideration as to its value.

Giving up 1, 2, 5, or 10 good mutations is way less likely to kill you than god wrath. Careful play can help you avoid getting bad mutations, and potions of cure mut are there for the ones that sneak through.

Playing mutation roulette is a terrible idea. It's called roulette for a reason- sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The best strategies in roguelikes are ones that minimize the chance that you "lose".


I argue that if you haven't racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. And boring.

Mutation roulette is the best idea. Mutations are weighted towards getting good ones, and as long as you're not Gozag, there are PLENTY of mutagenic corpses throughout the game to adjust your mutation pool.
It's a game, try having fun.
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Post Saturday, 23rd April 2016, 00:34

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

infinitevox wrote:
ZipZipskins wrote:If you've racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. A switch from Ely or TSO is a pretty edge case, and even then you're giving up half your piety, which requires careful consideration as to its value.

Giving up 1, 2, 5, or 10 good mutations is way less likely to kill you than god wrath. Careful play can help you avoid getting bad mutations, and potions of cure mut are there for the ones that sneak through.

Playing mutation roulette is a terrible idea. It's called roulette for a reason- sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The best strategies in roguelikes are ones that minimize the chance that you "lose".


I argue that if you haven't racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. And boring.

Mutation roulette is the best idea. Mutations are weighted towards getting good ones, and as long as you're not Gozag, there are PLENTY of mutagenic corpses throughout the game to adjust your mutation pool.
It's a game, try having fun.


Mutations from mutagenic chunks and potions of mutation are 60/40 (thanks minmay), not 50/50 like I thought but still pretty risky. Bad mutations are substantially more likely to put you in a bad/potentially unwinnable situation early on than good mutations are to get you out of one. Yes, long-term you can usually get a positive set if you want to, but you can't actually get there if you die from teleportitis on D:3.

It's fine to play mutation roulette for fun, I do it myself occasionally, but let's not pretend it's a good idea if you're playing to win.
Last edited by Hellmonk on Saturday, 23rd April 2016, 00:48, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Saturday, 23rd April 2016, 00:39

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

they are actually 60/40 but mutating on purpose is still pretty bad if you don't have cmut

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Post Saturday, 23rd April 2016, 00:43

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

Badmuts also tend to be more harmful than goodmuts are helpful. Berserkitis will kill you more often than +2 strength saves your life.

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Post Saturday, 23rd April 2016, 19:26

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

infinitevox wrote:I argue that if you haven't racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. And boring.

Mutation roulette is the best idea. Mutations are weighted towards getting good ones, and as long as you're not Gozag, there are PLENTY of mutagenic corpses throughout the game to adjust your mutation pool.
It's a game, try having fun.


How about YOU try not making an assumption about a: how I actually play and b: what I or others might find fun in Crawl, and instead consider that the things I say in an advice thread are my best shots at giving advice to players with questions to help them be successful (have a better chance at winning) at Crawl.

And to that end I discourage people seeking to win more at Crawl from engaging in strategies that increase risk. Such as mutation roulette.

For the record, my own winrate is pretty atrocious, (I play pretty much strictly offline so this is self-reported and analysed) because I do lots and lots of very risky things. But I am also capable of seeing what sort of risk-taking strategies people espouse for what they are and recommmending against them for people seeking advice.

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Post Sunday, 24th April 2016, 22:41

Re: 0.18 Trunk Questions.

infinitevox wrote:
ZipZipskins wrote:If you've racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. A switch from Ely or TSO is a pretty edge case, and even then you're giving up half your piety, which requires careful consideration as to its value.

Giving up 1, 2, 5, or 10 good mutations is way less likely to kill you than god wrath. Careful play can help you avoid getting bad mutations, and potions of cure mut are there for the ones that sneak through.

Playing mutation roulette is a terrible idea. It's called roulette for a reason- sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The best strategies in roguelikes are ones that minimize the chance that you "lose".


I argue that if you haven't racked up a bunch of mutations before choosing a god, you're playing poorly. And boring.

Mutation roulette is the best idea. Mutations are weighted towards getting good ones, and as long as you're not Gozag, there are PLENTY of mutagenic corpses throughout the game to adjust your mutation pool.
It's a game, try having fun.


My current DDFi has Teleportitis 2 and Berserkeritis. It's definitely made things interesting... No he doesn't have any good mutations either.
"Crawl is cruel. But we keep coming back to it like an abusive boyfriend. It keeps telling us how it will be different this time by giving us early robes of the archmagi and staves of fire. Then it backhands you with a Centaur on D4." ~Me

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