New and wondering how to deal with interesting first level?

[thomkal]

(thanks to Lucy_Ferre for the heads up on the forum website change)

Hey guys,

Have played Roguelikes for more years than I care to admit . Have tried Crawl from time to time but never really got into it-maybe because its so easy to die, compared to my favorite Angband and its variants. But here I am trying again, and more into it this time. Been playing around with a few characters to get a better feel for things and created a human artificer because the background seemed different than the others. Well I've encountered a very interesting first level and I need knowledge/spoilers on some of the things I have found. The level has:

1) a temple to Sif Muna-chose not to worship her.
2) I'm hearing a grinding sound and don't know what that is.
3) I've found an area I think 3' X 3' walled off with translucent rock wall-I can see items in each square. I've tried searching for secret doors with no success. Is this something that I need to go down a level to find a stairway up into it, or something else? How do I get in there?
4) In another part of the level I have found a stone wall. It winds arounds in the form of a long thin cross and has no entrances. Will there be a secret door here, or do I need to go down a level or out of luck till I get something that can bring down the wall?

Thanks for any help you can give here.

[starless]

2. There is a boring beetle somewhere on the level.
3. You can dig through the translucent rock or control teleport inside.
4. It's most likely just a dungeon feature, nothing inside.

[Priority7]

3) Translucent rock walls require a rather high level spell to break through, a wand of digging won't work on them. Don't worry about it for now.

[Priority7]

3) Translucent rock walls require a rather high level spell to break through, a wand of digging won't work on them. Don't worry about it for now.

No, this is incorrect. Translucent rock walls can be dug in exactly the same ways as regular rock walls, and a wand of digging will work on them. You are thinking of translucent stone walls, which can be dug in exactly the same ways as regular stone walls (Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, Lugonu's corruption, or Shatter).

Whoops, you are right. Thanks for correcting me.

[danr]

What is the difference in appearance between trans. stone and trans. rock? I thought these were the same.

Another thing that works is a wand of disintegration, but I don't know for which kind of wall now.

[MrMisterMonkey]

They're only different in console if you bother to configure it.

danr, disintegration works on rock (not stone).

[thomkal]

thanks guys for the help here

[danr]

Disintegration works on rock walls but not stone walls. Translucent rock and stone walls look the same in Tiles, and must be examined to differentiate between them. I think they're different colors in console.

Interesting. Seems almost like a bug for Tiles version. Should this be reported or is it already "known"?

[chrysalis]

Wow. I have ascended a few times and thought I was already out of 'newbie' status.. Didn't even know translucent rock walls exist.

[galehar]

Disintegration works on rock walls but not stone walls. Translucent rock and stone walls look the same in Tiles, and must be examined to differentiate between them. I think they're different colors in console.

Interesting. Seems almost like a bug for Tiles version. Should this be reported or is it already "known"?

It's not really a bug. You can add it to the wiki if you want.

[thomkal]

I've moved down to the next level of the dungeon and quickly found an altar of Nemelex or however you spell it. I figure he was a pretty good match for an artificer, so worship him now. Got a deck of destruction when I sacrificed my stash of already ID's normal stuff-then drew 2 Venom cards which wasn't a lot of fun, but survived it, and still kicking.

[fspades]

I've moved down to the next level of the dungeon and quickly found an altar of Nemelex or however you spell it. I figure he was a pretty good match for an artificer, so worship him now. Got a deck of destruction when I sacrificed my stash of already ID's normal stuff-then drew 2 Venom cards which wasn't a lot of fun, but survived it, and still kicking.

Good choice. Nemelex is very powerful. Make sure you sacrifice lots of corpses to get a deck of Summoning.

[thomkal]

thanks for that fspades, will do when I get back to him.

Now I've found another interesting level 1-I apparantly started out in a prison of some sort and thankfully I was the only 'inmate" free or it would have been a very short career. what should I expect from the various inmates if/when I find a way of breaking them out? I take it I will have to fight them? What should I expect in terms of how powerful they might be?

Have to say this is one thing Crawl has over Angband and its variants-the variety of cool dungeon features you can find right from Level 1. Angband can get special levels right from the start, but they are very rare.

[szanth]

If it's the one I'm thinking of, they won't ever be free.

Also, Nemelex is good, but you -can- have too many summoning decks. Once you hit a comfortable amount of piety, say, almost full or full, then try sacrificing a bunch of things that can give you a deck of wonder, which can have a card of experience. Also I think the first time you sacrifice something under Nemelex, it automatically gives you that type of deck right there. So if you sacrifice a single thing of permafood, that'll do it.