New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup


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

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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 17:08

New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Hello,

I just started playing this game about a week ago and now I'm hopelessly addicted. I've only dabbled in roguelikes in the past, though I was never quite able to get into the games due to the oftentimes cryptic interface and design choices/limitations. I found this game much more noob-friendly and I have a few questions and suggestions that I'd like to pass along:

1. Do monsters respawn in earlier levels? Would revisting these levels promote grinding, or would there not be enough sustenance to survive doing this?
2. How can I view the highscores? Only upon death?
3. Is it possible to delete saved characters?
4. How often is the game updated? How can I find the latest, official version of the game?

I think what would really take this game to the next level would be a cleaner, more user friendly interface. While this game is leagues above other roguelikes in this aspect, I still think there's plenty of room for improvement. How about along with the tabs for your inventory, spell management, etc, introduce tabs for your character sheet, skill sheet, and piety status? By the way, I'm not sure what that monster tab is good for. Also, I think there are a few races that could be excised without being missed much, namely the minotaur, ogre and mummy, though to be fair I haven't put in much time with the game yet. And how about a tab that keeps a running total of the monster types you've killed?

Excellent game, one of the most engrossing and addictive I've ever played.
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 17:27

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

1. Monsters respawn slowly. Lingering too long on a level causes tougher monsters to spawn, until monsters eventually stop spawning.
3. Yes, check your saves folder.
4. Latest stable release - http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/downloads and Development Builds - https://crawl.develz.org/trunk/
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 17:29

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

1) Monsters continue to spawn as you stay on a level. However, if you stay too long, Crawl activates anti scumming measures by generating extremely out of depth monsters to punish you. If you actually kill the out of depth creatures, crawl gives up and stops giving you monsters till you move on. Mostly a problem with mummies- who could scum D1 indefinitely since they don't need to eat.

2) That, or open the scores file with a text editor (though it's hard to read). Personally, I'd love an in game option to scroll up and down the whole list.

3) Yes. In game, you can quit a character (ctrl q), or go to wizmode first (&) if you want to keep them off the scores list for some reason. Outside the game, go to the saves folder and start deleting every file with that character's name.

4) Frequently. New stable branches seem to come out every several months or so, and the development trunk build is changing all the time.

Edit: ninjaed by lucy. Shouldn't have bothered with the fancy urls. :p

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 17:41

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Some of the tabs you suggest have been introduced in trunk.

At this point you really want to be playing trunk because it is a far better game than the stable version.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 17:49

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Thanks for the replies, I'm interested in playing trunk but I really don't want to play a game that feels half finished or broken.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 17:55

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Hmm, I've been wanting to play trunk, but haven't bothered just yet. What I want to know is, what exactly is left before 8.0 is considered stable? Is it just playtesting/tweaking?

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 17:59

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

ClawlessVictory: Trunk does not feel broken. If anything it plays better than 0.7. Dive in, you won't regret it!

Also the trunk builds have an RSS feed for announcing the latest version, including descriptions of changes. It's the only way to fly.

Snake Sneak

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 18:12

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

ClawlessVictory wrote:Thanks for the replies, I'm interested in playing trunk but I really don't want to play a game that feels half finished or broken.

Nothing in trunk feels half finished or broken. If anything, it feels like an improved version 0.7. For a great example of this: Heavy armour that in 0.7 feels useless and broken was improved a lot and is currently a viable choice in trunk. Earth magic was revised and some useless or less useful spells were improved. Really, trunk is what striving for perfection. stable is , well it's a stable. Stable is not developed.

Snake Sneak

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 18:13

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

ClawlessVictory wrote: Also, I think there are a few races that could be excised without being missed much, namely the minotaur, ogre and mummy, about a tab that keeps a running total of the monster types you've killed?
.

Elaborate.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 18:15

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

It should be noted that, when 0.7 is described as the "stable" version, it does not imply that trunk is unstable.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 18:40

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Sealer wrote:
ClawlessVictory wrote: Also, I think there are a few races that could be excised without being missed much, namely the minotaur, ogre and mummy, about a tab that keeps a running total of the monster types you've killed?
.

Elaborate.


the total monster tab? The old AD&D game "Dungeon Hack" implemented this idea perfectly. Basically, a tab you click on that shows all of the monsters your character has killed over the course of the game. For example:

35 rats
10 ogres
5 hobgoblin skeletons
118 snakes
etc

Going to download "trunk" now. Thanks guys.

EDIT: could someone provide me with a link to "trunk"?
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 18:47

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

It'd probably work better for a separate window. Go to the YASD/VAVP section, look at one of the YAVP topics, and just look out how long that list can get. My latest winner killed around 5k monsters. You can also do a char dump (shift + 3) and look at the resulting file to see what you've killed so far.

But, I'm better he was talking about elaborating on why you think those species should be deleted. Minotaurs are physical combat specialists more or less while not being great spellcasters. They run up to stuff and punch/stab/slice/chop/bash/smash/gore them in the face. They also do not get lost in the Labyrinth. Mummies are for those who want to take the game at a lower pace and/or ignore the food clock entirely. They make great spellcasters since they have a good aptitude for it and do not need to worry about spellhunger. I've heard they make excellent Ice Elementalists. Ogres... well... there's a split. Some people think they should stay as is because "they make a great challenge class" while other think "they should feel like an Ogre, not a wimp".
The best strategy most frequently overlooked by new players for surviving: not starting a fight to begin with.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 18:52

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

yeah, I haven't played the game enough to form a strong enough argument as to why certain races should be removed, but at a cursory glance a few seem rather shallow.

Anyways, trunk is version 8.0 right?
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 19:08

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Just downloaded "trunk"... wow... already looks so much better.

Blades Runner

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 19:31

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

First, welcome to the huge world of Crawl :).

For me, there is one huge reason to play trunk online - I see the game evolve right under my hands. Seriously, when I drop Crawl for two weeks and return to it yet again, it feels like that game I played before is even more awesome than it was before.

And of course, by playing trunk, you can consider yourself a playtester as well ;).
... and forgive us our YASDs,
As we forgive our developers,
And lead us not into the Abyss,
But deliver us from Sigmund,
For Thine is the Roguelike,
the Orb and the Victory,
now and forever.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 20:44

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Ashery wrote:It should be noted that, when 0.7 is described as the "stable" version, it does not imply that trunk is unstable.

Why yes, it does. Trunk is "unstable" in the sense that it introduces a lot changes that might break your current game at any point (either directly by breaking save compatibility on upgrading) or indirectly (via some crash or obscure bug). In that respect, the stable version is safer (at least when we remember to do those bug fix releases :roll: ) because you know it's been tried and tested.
Please report bugs to Crawl's bug tracker, and leave feedback on the development wiki. Thank you!
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Dungeon Master

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 20:50

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Hello and welcome to Stonesoup! :D

ClawlessVictory wrote:While this game is leagues above other roguelikes in this aspect, I still think there's plenty of room for improvement. How about along with the tabs for your inventory, spell management, etc, introduce tabs for your character sheet, skill sheet, and piety status?
Done. ;)

By the way, I'm not sure what that monster tab is good for.

I think the main use is the same as in the non-graphical version: to see all monsters in view at a glance without distraction of items and features etc. If you like clicking on monsters to attack them, cast spells etc., the monster tab is more convenient because your mouse has to move a shorter distance.

Also, I think there are a few races that could be excised without being missed much, namely the minotaur, ogre and mummy, though to be fair I haven't put in much time with the game yet.

How do you come to that conclusion? The mummy, at least, allows a wildly different playing style, and minotaur and ogre are prime examples of the difficulty gradient along species, with minotaur being easy and ogre really hard.

And how about a tab that keeps a running total of the monster types you've killed?

Do you mean like the vanquished list in the dump? Players occasionally suggest that they'd like to check that in-game. If you're talking about keeping track over all games, I don't think we'll go there.

Have fun playing!
Please report bugs to Crawl's bug tracker, and leave feedback on the development wiki. Thank you!

Mines Malingerer

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Post Sunday, 27th February 2011, 21:07

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

jpeg wrote:
Ashery wrote:It should be noted that, when 0.7 is described as the "stable" version, it does not imply that trunk is unstable.

Why yes, it does. Trunk is "unstable" in the sense that it introduces a lot changes that might break your current game at any point (either directly by breaking save compatibility on upgrading) or indirectly (via some crash or obscure bug). In that respect, the stable version is safer (at least when we remember to do those bug fix releases :roll: ) because you know it's been tried and tested.


The "unstable" version of DCSS is far more stable, at least in the time I've been playing it, than most commercial games I've played. I wouldn't use the potential for the breaking of save game compatibility on upgrading as a symptom of being unstable, either, as it only pertains to upgrading. Irritating, sure, but no direct ties to instability.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Monday, 28th February 2011, 03:09

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Hey, there are some advantages to playing the stable ver. Like... not having to download new version of trunk all the time. Or getting to enjoy all the shiny new stuff in one great pile when the new version comes out (it seems more exciting to get all the improvements at once than meted out slowly over time).

Plus there's my personal favorite: "try whatever for yourself whatever tactic just got nerfed out trunk because everyone though it was too overpowered, ie fun". :lol:

Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 28th February 2011, 14:15

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

I can agree on one thing, and that is:

Minotaurs are too plain.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 28th February 2011, 23:24

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Another question:

Do mages receive a penalty to casting when wielding large weapons and/or shields?

hxy

Slime Squisher

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Post Tuesday, 1st March 2011, 00:58

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

I recall shields and heavy armour negatively affects spellcasting success...

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 1st March 2011, 01:47

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Shields, yes. High levels of shield skill will nullify the penalty.

Big weapons, no. The only weapons that will lower your spellcasting success are special cases like the staff of fire, which will inhibit cold spells.

Body armor (anything that replaces your starting robes) gives a penalty based on the listed evasion penalty. Armour skill reduces but does not eliminate this penalty.

hxy

Slime Squisher

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Post Tuesday, 1st March 2011, 02:44

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Does the effect of shields and armour get reflected in the "I" screen?
e.g. if I am able to cast Magic Dart at "Excellent", and I put on chain mail, does it become "Good"?
what about the effect of rings of wizadry?

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Post Tuesday, 1st March 2011, 03:33

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

hxy wrote:Does the effect of shields and armour get reflected in the "I" screen?
e.g. if I am able to cast Magic Dart at "Excellent", and I put on chain mail, does it become "Good"?
what about the effect of rings of wizadry?


Yes to all of those. You can memorize spells earlier than you can cast them by stripping naked, layering on two rings and one staff of wizardry, and/or quaffing a potion of brilliance. There usually isn't much point in doing this, but if you're close to getting a mid-level spell castable and plan to victory dance your way through Vaults with a lower-level spell in the same school, this will save you the trouble of carrying around or going back for the spellbook.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Tuesday, 1st March 2011, 04:41

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Thanks for all the help guys. I'm currently running a level 10 Deep Dwarf Artificer on the 11th level. A couple of close calls, but nothing too intense so far. I was skeptical about this guy at first, since I'm essentially using him as a fighter, taking advantage of his damage reduction. As for the lack of natural healing, it's not so bad when augmented with Maklehb's gain power ability. Haven't had to use up a single MP to recharge the healing rod yet. I'm definitely running into some tougher enemies now, and having to call upon Maklehb's lesser summons for help fairly often, so I expect to die very soon, especially considering my lack of playing experience.

This could very well be the most perfect CRPG I've ever played...

Thanks to the development team behind this amazing game. Can't praise it enough.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 2nd March 2011, 01:04

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

A few more questions, this time concerning unidentified items:

Okay, so there are normal items, runed items, glowing items and smoking items. Should I be picking up every single item I come across to see if it's enchanted? Which items types carry the better enchantments? It seems like smoking items are uniques? Which items should I be concerned with spending an identify scroll on? Can normal items have +# bonuses?

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Post Wednesday, 2nd March 2011, 01:11

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

ClawlessVictory wrote:A few more questions, this time concerning unidentified items:

Okay, so there are normal items, runed items, glowing items and smoking items. Should I be picking up every single item I come across to see if it's enchanted? Which items types carry the better enchantments? It seems like smoking items are uniques? Which items should I be concerned with spending an identify scroll on? Can normal items have +# bonuses?


Any armor or weapon that you find may have a +, but it isn't worth the effort to try them all on and see. Just try them on until you get a mediocre one, and you can assume that any better ones will be few and far between. All armors identify their + when you try them on, but for weapons you have to swing them at a target repeatedly until you succeed at a skill check.

Items with a standard adjective such as runed or glowing may have a brand. Items without an adjective never have a brand. Armor brands usually give some sort of resistance, like fire resistance or poison resistance, and weapon brands usually deal a little extra elemental damage. These will always autoidentify when you try the item on, so wear or wield them rather than wasting a scroll of identify. For best results, check for curses with a scroll of detect curse before trying on the equipment you've found.

Items that are displayed in bright white rather than the normal display colors are artifacts. They often come with a quirky adjective, but not always. You can identify artifacts the same way you identify the regular base item, but sometimes you have to use a scroll of identify to fully identify the item. Once you get the item's true name, you're done.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 2nd March 2011, 01:16

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

KoboldLord wrote:
ClawlessVictory wrote:A few more questions, this time concerning unidentified items:

Okay, so there are normal items, runed items, glowing items and smoking items. Should I be picking up every single item I come across to see if it's enchanted? Which items types carry the better enchantments? It seems like smoking items are uniques? Which items should I be concerned with spending an identify scroll on? Can normal items have +# bonuses?


Any armor or weapon that you find may have a +, but it isn't worth the effort to try them all on and see. Just try them on until you get a mediocre one, and you can assume that any better ones will be few and far between. All armors identify their + when you try them on, but for weapons you have to swing them at a target repeatedly until you succeed at a skill check.

Items with a standard adjective such as runed or glowing may have a brand. Items without an adjective never have a brand. Armor brands usually give some sort of resistance, like fire resistance or poison resistance, and weapon brands usually deal a little extra elemental damage. These will always autoidentify when you try the item on, so wear or wield them rather than wasting a scroll of identify. For best results, check for curses with a scroll of detect curse before trying on the equipment you've found.

Items that are displayed in bright white rather than the normal display colors are artifacts. They often come with a quirky adjective, but not always. You can identify artifacts the same way you identify the regular base item, but sometimes you have to use a scroll of identify to fully identify the item. Once you get the item's true name, you're done.

Thanks man, that cleared up a bit of confusion for me. I've been passing over countless items because I doubt they'll benefit me, but I wasn't sure.

So bright whites are artifacts? Man... I'm not playing right now but I thought all normal items were displayed in white? Are all artifacts called "smoking" items until identified? I really hope I haven't passed up any cool artifacts...
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 2nd March 2011, 01:35

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Here's an example.

example.png
example.png (8.05 KiB) Viewed 15018 times


a is an artefact. b is a potentially branded weapon, or at least enchanted. c has no brand. The colors are the same for armors and weapons.

All normal, potentially branded items use the same few adjectives-ie glowing, runed. Artefacts however have a long list of potential adjectives, and some fixdarts always use the same adjective.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 2nd March 2011, 01:42

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

mageykun wrote:Here's an example.

example.png


a is an artefact. b is a potentially branded weapon, or at least enchanted. c has no brand. The colors are the same for armors and weapons.

All normal, potentially branded items use the same few adjectives-ie glowing, runed. Artefacts however have a long list of potential adjectives, and some fixdarts always use the same adjective.

Thanks! Sorry for all of the questions, but I'm really not into reading the wiki too deeply just yet, I don't want to spoil anything. Damn, I'm so into this game...

I do wish that I could simply mouse over normal items to see if they have any bonuses instead of equipping each one and testing it on a creature. That's way too tedious, instead I just pass them up for the most part.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 2nd March 2011, 01:58

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

You can mouse over! When you do so, you'll see the description, just without the colors. (ie, a glowing dagger). Once you grow to recognize the few common adjectives, you'll be able to detect artefacts just by the unusual adjectives.

You can also see the names with colors by just standing over the items, no need to pick them up.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 6th March 2011, 13:43

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

As a spellcaster, will I actually receive a casting penalty if I choose to wield a staff due to it's slow attack speed? Would I be better off with a dagger or unarmed?

Also, do I receive a penalty when wearing boots, gauntlets or helmets? I know heavy body armor comes into play, but not sure about the rest.
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Temple Termagant

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Post Sunday, 6th March 2011, 15:24

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

I'm FAIRLY certain that the only "normal" adjectives are "glowing", "dyed" & "runed". But I could simply be making a fool of myself.

Artefact adjectives can be things like "smoking" and (my personal favourite) "distressingly furry".

Magic items may be good or bad, and the bad ones are usually cursed and will stick to you when you wear them. Normal items CAN have +/- to hit, damage or AC, but not typically an extreme bonus or penalty. One thing I have noticed is that orcish equipment tends to have slight penalties most of the time, when not branded.

EDIT: I don't know about the staves, but if there is a penalty it seems to be slight. Same thing for the other pieces of equipment. If you want to check for yourself, press "I" (that's a capital i) to see your spell list, then press "!" to toggle the information. You should see a column showing spell proficiency on the right side. Try your stuff on, and see if that value changes.

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Post Sunday, 6th March 2011, 18:11

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

KoboldLord wrote:
ClawlessVictory wrote:You can identify artifacts the same way you identify the regular base item, but sometimes you have to use a scroll of identify to fully identify the item. Once you get the item's true name, you're done.


Knowing the item's name happens at the same time as knowing all the properties for armour, but not for jewelry or weapons. For armour, you find out everything when you wear it (or when you use a scroll). Wielding a weapon tells you its name, its brand, and any special properties like resistances or evokable abilities. It doesn't tell you the slaying bonuses. A scroll of identification or repeated use will tell you that.

For jewelry, putting it on tells you the name and some of the properties. So you might put on a slimy purple amulet, and it might appear to be "The Amulet of Bunnies {Invis gourmand}." The description will include a line like, "This item may have unidentified abilities." When you identify it with a scroll, it may turn out to be "The Amulet of Bunnies {Invis SInv Hunger Stealth++ gourmand rC+}." Some properties are always revealed when it is equipped, and others are always hidden until you identify them. Some properties can be identified through use, like spell school enhancers.

Temple Termagant

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Post Sunday, 6th March 2011, 20:30

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Kylearan wrote:I'm FAIRLY certain that the only "normal" adjectives are "glowing", "dyed" & "runed".


Also embroidered.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 9th March 2011, 19:58

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

If you do Ctrl-F and look for "artefact" you'll see a list of any artefacts you might have overlooked.

Occasionally I search for "artef" (it finds substrings too) and "gift" for any god gifts or artefacts I overlooked. Sometimes there will be a dagger or something I overlooked because I don't really care about daggers. Artefacts are special cases though because they might give you a good ability like Blink that you want even if you don't want to fight with that weapon.

But yes, if the item is described with bright white text, then it is an artefact.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Saturday, 19th March 2011, 02:21

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Just a suggestion (one that's probably been mentioned many times before), I think magic users should receive a casting penalty when wearing gauntlets and heavy helmets. So maybe that means there should be an evasion modifier on these items?

Another weekend lost to DCSS *sigh*

Mines Malingerer

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Post Saturday, 19th March 2011, 11:47

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

KoboldLord wrote:Big weapons, no. The only weapons that will lower your spellcasting success are special cases like the staff of fire, which will inhibit cold spells.


This is wrong, big weapons do indeed affect spellcasting success, but the penalty is pretty small.

Dungeon Master

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Post Saturday, 19th March 2011, 12:04

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

And the staff of fire won't inhibit the success of your ice spells at all, only their power.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 27th March 2011, 22:31

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

I hope you guys don't mind if I use this thread to ask noob questions...

With that said, what good is the spider-form's "wall cling" ability?

Also, is the spell Apportation useful for anything except training the skill and endgame tactics?
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Sunday, 27th March 2011, 22:52

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

One of my fave uses for apportation is to retrieve ammo without moving into LOS of more monsters.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Monday, 28th March 2011, 00:30

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Apportation is useful for everything. Once I get it to hungerless, it's how I pick up damn near everything. Why walk towards an item, risking monsters appear in your LOS? You could have the item now. Also, it saves moves and hunger, since you can get anything in LOS with two actions, as opposed to the usually more than two steps required to walk over to it.

Because of it's usefulness, I almost always end up mapping it to a.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Tuesday, 29th March 2011, 13:40

Re: New to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

minmay wrote:Apportation is immensely useful throughout the game; you can get items from under monsters, items from across water, etc.

The wall-clinging lets you cross over water or lava. It also lets you fall into water or lava when it runs out.

I've pushed this yesterday, that should help.

  Code:
Better warning messages for form and levitation expiration.

It will give a more prompt if it starts expiring while you're on a deadly
cell, or if you enter one while it's expiring.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

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