New player help

[XrBob]

Hey, just started playing the game recently. Thought the complex system and perma death would be a turnoff, but it's surprisingly addictive, there's very little downtime and you gotta stay on your toes. I guess the main question is knowing when to fight and when to run. Every time I've encountered a monster with a name, just ijyb and Sigmund, I've died, so I try to stay away from those. Last death came from a giant beetle or something, I kept using the magic dart on him and he wouldn't die, but somehow I was determined to fight, though his attacks hurt too much.

I'm playing a deep elf conjurer, my basic strategy when facing tough enemies is to get to a one tile corridor and use a the flame spell to block the path to attack from afar. Also, what's the basic strategy on unidentified potions and scrolls? Wait till you have a large stack then try it? I read that you should turn off stealth to get more exp for other skills, how do you do that and why is it important? Thanks.

Also, is there a point where monsters who are chasing you lose aggro? Will they chase you forever?

[TheDark]

To start off, that's quite an acceptable strategy for lower-level characters. To just flame-block them can do one of two things. They can rush through the flame at you anyway, perhaps taking damage, or they can just wait there stupidly while you ping them to death. Hitting "x" and then hovering over the monster, and then hitting "v" can get an explanation of the monster, which you can learn resistances from, and often gauge their behavior. However, this flame-blocking strategy fails the second enemies get ranged attacks, such as smiting / missiles / spells / all of the above.

On the second point, personally, I just wait until I have a big stack of scrolls, and then read them until I find one that requires me to target my equipment. Then, I target an unidentified piece of equipment (preferably a wand or armor), so that I can tell which one of the three scrolls that target items it is. The scroll types are, in descending order of seeming rarity: identify, recharging, enchant armor. Once I have scrolls of ID identified, I start working on IDing the potions. However, most often the largest pile of potions will be healing. So, often I will just chug one to see if it is healing.

Now for your third question. To access your skills menu, you hit the "m" key. Then, you can toggle training of a skill by hitting the letter associated with that skill. For example, my current Mummy Wizard has stealth in the "b" slot. So, to turn it off, I would just hit the "b" key while in the skills menu. Then, the skill will gray out, and the plus to the left of the skill name will turn into a minus sign.

On your fourth question, monsters tend to lose aggro when you are out of their LOS for a number of turns. (I can't remember the number right now, or even if there is a fixed number.) After they lose aggro on you, then they will often randomly wander around for a bit, as if they are trying to find you. So, you still need to stay on your toes.

Now, on another note, welcome to the Crawl boards, and enjoy your time here. Feel free to ask any questions, and you will most likely get a response quickly.

[galehar]

Monsters stop following you after a random number of turns which depends on their intelligence. There's also a chance based on stealth that they stop sooner. Stealth is cheap and useful for many builds.

[XrBob]

how many time did you guys die before finishing? I've probably died 30 times so far and the farthest I've gotten is level 7, I've got to the realm with a bunch of gods to pick from twice. I've been doing deep elf conjurer, in doing a general magic user, what's the advantage of doing wizard instead? I'm pretty sure I'll use Sif Muna as the god, having all the spell books sounds good.

[Tiber]

Wizard starts with more MP and less HP. In 0.8, they also have a different spellbook, which is basically a sampler of different spell schools.

[pratamawirya]

how many time did you guys die before finishing?

I dunno. Maybe hundreds, or even a thousand?

I started playing some years ago, and just recently (this year) I got my first win (Demonspawn Conjurer).

But once you get your 1st win, the next ones will be much smoother.

[vintermann]

I think Vehumet is probably a better god for starting out than Sif Muna. The problem with Sif Muna is that it takes a long time before you start seeing those book gifts - by that time you've almost certainly found a useful book or two already. If you're going for direct damage spells (and it's sensible: that's easier too), Vehumet is superior anyway.

[TheDark]

I must have died somewhere about 100 times before I got my first win, but then I had beaten Nethack 5 times beforehand, and ADOM 7 times. So, I wasn't new to roguelikes.

[XrBob]

How important are aptitudes? I feel like the deep elf doesn't have enough hp so I was thinking of trying sludge elf, though the conjuration and enchantment aptitudes aren't as good. Sludge elves still have +2 in spellcasting so they could still do well, though maybe if aptitudes aren't as important I could lookat +1 or 0 species for spellcasting who have more hp to be more balanced.

Also, when I press m and it says I have unallocated experience, is there something I should do or is it just done automatically? And when you disable a skill in that menu, it just means that the skill doesn't get exp anymore and it's distributed to your other skills to make them level faster?

[Stormfox]

How important are aptitudes? I feel like the deep elf doesn't have enough hp so I was thinking of trying sludge elf, though the conjuration and enchantment aptitudes aren't as good. Sludge elves still have +2 in spellcasting so they could still do well, though maybe if aptitudes aren't as important I could lookat +1 or 0 species for spellcasting who have more hp to be more balanced.

They're important, but not game breakers. Positive aptitudes just mean that it takes fewer experience points to advance those skills. A Troll can become a deadly spellcaster if you just have enough time, patience, and sources of experience points.

Also, when I press m and it says I have unallocated experience, is there something I should do or is it just done automatically? And when you disable a skill in that menu, it just means that the skill doesn't get exp anymore and it's distributed to your other skills to make them level faster?

Unallocated experience gets distributed to skills as you exercise them. Turning off a skill in the 'm' menu just means that there is a much reduced chance (25%, if I'm remembering correctly) of actually having experience go toward advancing that skill when you do exercise it. Those skills still get experience, just not as often.

[XrBob]

hmm, well other than using a race with more hp, how do you survive early game? I feel like if I get poisoned by a snake or run into too many monsters then I'm about out of luck early in the game.

[smock]

Consider the easier (less-impossible) combinations: DDNe (of Makhleb), Ko/Sp/Ha/FeBe,SpEn. There are others. Conjurers can be strong later on but take some time to figure out and are not the easiest class to keep alive early on. Wizards tend to have better starting spells.

Re snakes and other dangerous monsters: As mentioned above, try not to wake up snakes. Use "xe" to make an autotravel exclusion. Return to them when you need the XP to level to defeat the orc priests that are killing machines on D3+. Throw daggers, stones, etc at snakes if they wake up and you tun out of MP.

Other advice: Lure slower dangerous things to near up staircases. Stand on the staircase and slip away if it gets too close. Descend another staircase avoid, or repeat until dead.

[7hm]

how many time did you guys die before finishing? I've probably died 30 times so far and the farthest I've gotten is level 7, I've got to the realm with a bunch of gods to pick from twice. I've been doing deep elf conjurer, in doing a general magic user, what's the advantage of doing wizard instead? I'm pretty sure I'll use Sif Muna as the god, having all the spell books sounds good.

4-500 times. Probably not all real games / attempts.

The big thing for me was finding a rune. The more you do it the easier it gets. Zot and endgame content are the same. Once you've been through it a couple times, you know what to expect.

[Volgon]

how many time did you guys die before finishing?

About 100, but I also read everything about the game and won other roguelikes many times...NetHack (~25), ADOM (4), DoomRL(1) and Larn (1).

If you want to win quick, try a Tr/MD/Mi Berserker. Who needs spells when you can plow over anything in your way?

Anyway, welcome to DCSS, the best game ever...

[XrBob]

How do you guys like to deal with uniques? I was doing well last game with an ice elementalist, ran into a guy with human slaves, I was able to skip him and go to the next level, but found a blork the orc. I found me so to run away I went back up the stairs, where the slave kobold guy got me. I've been able to take care of some of weaker ones like Jessica and Terence, but as they get more hp it gets pretty tough.

[hxy]

You need to take out Pikel (the guy with slaves) first, and then the slaves will become friendly.
Killing the slaves won't give you any XP, so try not to waste time on them.
You should have Throw Frost castable by the time you reach him... should be able to kill him (with a bit of luck)

[Doc Brown]

Have you tried playing a Venom Mage? I find that Mephitic Cloud + Sting make dealing with Uniques utterly trivial, at least until much later in the game.

[FlyingPants]

Or start as a race which can outrun everything, like a centaur or spriggan.

[XrBob]

Last game I died from a crazy yiuf. First time I saw him I ran away, though he must have seen me. I searched the rest of the level staying away from is little forest area. He moved about out of his home and I ran into him again, that time I was confused and killed. I suppose if you see a dangerous unique then it's best to just to just go down the closest stairs and come back later, better safe than sorry.

I'm trying to avoid Mephitic Cloud, I see it suggested so much that it seems overpowered, I'd like to see if I can't do well without it, or at least play someone who doesn't have it in their starting spellbook.

[smock]

I'm trying to avoid Mephitic Cloud, I see it suggested so much that it seems overpowered, I'd like to see if I can't do well without it, or at least play someone who doesn't have it in their starting spellbook.

The standard for "overpowered" in Crawl discussions is much lower than for other games. Mephitic Cloud is not cheating! Especially as you're learning the game, feel free take whatever you can get. If you want a challenge, the majority of race/background combination will kill you (and most players, I think) within minutes. Once you get sick of dying early and want to see more of the game, try an "easier" combination for a while so you can explore the lair or make it to some cool portals or whatnot.

[Tiber]

It is somewhat overpowered, but it's also sort of balanced by the fact that it's so loud it will draw more monsters to you, and if you keep using it to deal with those you won't have any mp to help kill the things that are all confused.

I kind of agree with the sentiment of challenging yourself (I myself won't play spriggans), but on the other hand, you're free to learn the spell, but only use it for emergencies.

[XrBob]

I finally tried high elves and I think they work much better than deep elves. I just had my most successful run with a high elf fire elementalist, death from gastronok on level 12. I could have avoided the fight, but I just wanted to try my luck. Conjure flame is by far the most useful early game spell there is, I can't imagine starting with out it now. I'm finding that as you go deeper things get a lot more stressful, you feel like imminent death is around every corner and then your hard work is gone. You find all these scary new monsters like yaks, ice beasts, and wyverns, not just rats and hobgoblins.

So far I've found orcish mines, and then I found the Lair. I just skipped them for now, when do you like to go in?

Also, what's the number to the left of your character when you die? It's on the list that ranks all your past characters, my latest one got around 7000, do you what it's a measure of?

[Tiber]

Go in lair pretty much when you find it. Poison resistance isn't necessary, but will make things much easier (especially if you want to eat). Orcish mines are, for the most part, easy once you clear lair. The problem is when it decides to break up the monotony and throw something harder into the mix.

[Ann Hal]

I'm trying to avoid Mephitic Cloud, I see it suggested so much that it seems overpowered, I'd like to see if I can't do well without it, or at least play someone who doesn't have it in their starting spellbook.

Why on god's green earth are you doing that? Mephitic Cloud is not overpowered. It is a perfectly reasonable spell that you should use. It actually makes dealing with all the uniques much easier. Sneak up on the unique. Drop Mephitic on them, and then Dart them until they die. Easy. Except it doesn't work vs. Grinder.

Mephitic will help you reach the Lair. Maybe even help get you a rune. But it will not win the game for you.

"Overpowered" is a meaningless term. Overpowered in relation to what? Crawl still kills even the best players more over 50% of the time (more like 85%, if they admit the truth), even with the overpowered spells like Mephitic, old Sticky Flame, and the new "overpowered" Tornado.

If you want to have an easier game, next time, try a Conjurer with the Ice/Air book. Turn off Conj at first and pump Spellcasting until Mephitic gets to low hunger (around 8 or so). Find a decent weapon and fight weaker monsters in melee. Turn off the weapon skill once it shows up so you can pump Fighting more effectively. Worship Vehumet or Sif Muna. Enjoy.

[joellercoaster]

I agree with most of the above post, except this bit:

Crawl still kills even the best players more over 50% of the time (more like 85%, if they admit the truth)

Not the very best.

(I am not, nor will I ever be, one of these players. I'd be overjoyed with a 50% win ratio. But I feel the need to mention the people who speedrun and, in particular, streak, for some of their achievements are really amazing. That is all )

[joellercoaster]

hmm, well other than using a race with more hp, how do you survive early game? I feel like if I get poisoned by a snake or run into too many monsters then I'm about out of luck early in the game.

As a couple of people have alluded to, the Crawl answer is, "don't do that then". As you play, lots of things will kill you, but if you notice and avoid that happening next time, they'll only kill you once. Twice, if you're me

Don't get poisoned by snakes. Don't fight many monsters at once.

You can run away, you can fight things with dangerous melee attacks from a distance (or, failing that, run away). You can fight in corridors, or summon something to get in the way while you run for it. You'll see a lot of wins here with Spriggan characters - part of the reason is that Spriggans are fairly strong, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that they're really good for running away when the inevitable fecal matter strikes the rotating blades. Spotting bad situations before they go wrong is huge - but a lot of that spotting comes from getting killed for a while

And in answer to your question about how many attempts... despite having beaten other roguelikes a lot, it still took me more than 200 games before my first Crawl win (partly, a friend points out, because I had to unlearn a bunch of Nethack and Angband habits - as someone with fewer preconceptions, if you learn from all the dying, you'll probably do better.)

Good luck, it's a heck of a fun game to learn and the length of the process is one of the best things about it.

[Ann Hal]

Underpowered is also a meaningless term.

Compared to what other "stuff" in the game? Would you want Conjure Flame or Mephitic Cloud if you run into Grinder backed by another imp? The context is fluid. Hence the terms are meaningless.

Statistics are funny things. http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/megabat.html Megabat is clearly the best Crawl player ever.

[KoboldLord]

So far I've found orcish mines, and then I found the Lair. I just skipped them for now, when do you like to go in?

I'm going to disagree with the other posters here, and say that it depends on the character at hand. I find that it is frequently a good idea to go into Orc before Lair. You will almost certainly get a branded weapon of your weapon skill in there, and are also likely to find some branded body armor. You are also likely to find some shops to spend all the gold on, even if you haven't found any good shops so far in the game. In contrast, Lair has standard floor trash and a lot of mobile bags of xp. Orc is particularly good for the followers of deities that grant piety for kills, because you'll make a lot of kills in a short amount of time, and you won't have to let it decay as you rest because you'll be killing efficiently.

The main risk in Orc is that you'll find one of several rare threats. These rare threats are uniques, stone or higher giants, and top-end orcs. Before you go into Orc, then, you simply need a plan to mitigate these potential problems. A potion of speed and a scroll of blinking will usually do, but it does depend on what resources you've found. Once you see something too dangerous to handle, just leave and don't come back, burning those consumables to facilitate your escape if necessary.

[Ann Hal]

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/casmith789.html
Same person. Megabat was casmith789's one-off streak account, I believe. And a 13-game streak does indicate being a rather good player.

And now you have proven my point: the data you pointed to ("hyperelliptic's" history) is not evidence of a player's true win-loss ratio.

The data on that site tracks only a limited, and intentionally controlled, subset of a player's history.

[jejorda2]

how many time did you guys die before finishing?

2600 games and counting online. A few hundred locally. I started playing crawl in 2007 and have not yet won.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/jejorda2.html

[7hm]

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/casmith789.html
Same person. Megabat was casmith789's one-off streak account, I believe. And a 13-game streak does indicate being a rather good player.

And now you have proven my point: the data you pointed to ("hyperelliptic's" history) is not evidence of a player's true win-loss ratio.

The data on that site tracks only a limited, and intentionally controlled, subset of a player's history.

What he was pointing to was proof that when the very good players try, crawl doesn't kill them 50% of the time. Megabat is also proof of this.

Or maybe it's just luck when people win 13 times in a row. Probably the rng.

[Ann Hal]

Looking at a selected history is not an accurate representation of the truth. That is what I am trying to explain.

The evidence of a player's win/loss ratio on an on-line server is not a true representation of that player's win/loss ratio in this game unless that player has played 100% of their games on that on-line server.

The megabat example proves this.

As minmay stated, megabat's record shows only a small slice of csmith's total record. It doesn't take into account that player's other wins/loss--e.g., those tracked under csmith's other account(s) or csmith's non-on-line games.

To say that megabat had a 95% win ratio on a particular day is, while dandy, not an accurate representation of that player's win-loss ratio. All it represents is that player's win-loss ratio in that narrow, selected universe.

How many crawl games has megabat/csmith played, ever? If you don't know that answer, then you do not have that player's true win-loss ratio.

As with our other discussion, this one has run its course. We'll just have to agree to disagree again.

[mageykun]

Ah, pointless percentage debates. It's times like these I like to point out my mortality rate in nethack is greater than 1. That's right- even with ascensions, my lifetime "times died" / "games played" exceeds 100%. Yay!

This seems to me to be a rather silly argument about semantics, that doesn't qualify as dungeon crawling advice, or new player help. Let's try to stay on topic and limit needless quibbling.

[fnwc]

Back to the topic on hand, I would suggest that anytime you run into something you haven't encountered (a unique, a new monster, or even a spell you're not sure of) you run it through the learndb.

Besides giving you raw numbers, there are often some helpful tidbits in some of the entries.

This is better than the wiki, which is out of date -- especially if you're playing trunk versions.

[XrBob]

I took your advice and started as an ice/air conjurer. Mephitic cloud is good, but there monsters that resist it so it's not too good. I'm in the Lair now and I found a labyrinth, should I go in? I've 6 bread rations and 3 meat rations, so food shouldn't be an issue, though how hard is the minotaur at the end? Conjuration and Spellcasting is at 11 and Ice magic is at 12, I can cast bolt of cold at great, I think I've got about 30 mana and 55 hp, the high elf is at level 11.

Otherwise I've gone down to dungeon level 14, though I've been skipping some stuff, I found a hydra that I had to run from, and a couple uniques I didn't want to deal with, I think it was Jozef and some necromancer guy. I also ran into some combining slime creatures that seemed to get too powerful. The Lair hasn't been so bad, I was able to kill the spiny frogs before they get too close

Thanks for the learndb link, I've always been typing in every new monster I find into the wiki, I'll try Learndb to see if that works any better. It's reassuring to see that many people play this game a long time without winning, it's still fun to get as far as you can and just enjoy the journey and such.

[Whart]

You have heaps of food for the labyrinth, I'd be surprised if you got through the meat rations, let alone the bread.

Mephetic Cloud + Throw Icicle should work on the minotaur. I killed a character once by being so excited to get to the end that I took him too lightly.

[XrBob]

Yup, labyrinth wasn't so bad. Was doing really well, life was good, but then a troll got me when I was out of mana. I really need to learn to remember I have items, I had a blink scroll to get away and I woulda been fine. Oh well. Anyways, thanks for all your help, I'm certainly having fun.

[fnwc]

I've died to the minotaur before. He had some kind of artifact weapon in his stash, which he wielded and proceeded to beat me to death.

[Ann Hal]

@ XrBob: glad to hear you had fun with that. As a general rule, when playing casters, I tend to rest to regain full mp before exploring. You can't always do that, of course, but try. It helps improve survivability. Also, try worshipping Vehumet. If you start as a conjurer, Vehumet's first gift will be the Book of Power. That book has Mystic Blast in it. Memorize that. It will cover the "middle" stage of the game where Throw Frost starts to seem weak, but Bolt of Cold (6th level) is still too expensive in terms of hunger/unreliable.

[FlyingPants]

I've died to the minotaur before. He had some kind of artifact weapon in his stash, which he wielded and proceeded to beat me to death.

He'd probably picked up an artifact weapon from the cache. They do that depending on how the end vault is situated.

[Katak]

I've died to the minotaur before. He had some kind of artifact weapon in his stash, which he wielded and proceeded to beat me to death.

He'd probably picked up an artifact weapon from the cache. They do that depending on how the end vault is situated.

Usually, they pick up the item worth the most gold, which is in most cases a magic staff or a rod, which is much better for you than them picking up that executioner's axe of chopping.

[XrBob]

Ann, I've always gotten Sif Muna, the idea of having access to every spellbook, even though it's unpredictable, is certainly appealing. I certainly don't need all of them though. His gifts will suffice for damage, though I'm hoping to have access to translocations and enchantments, stuff like blink, apporbation, and some reliable disable/escapes like confusion and haste and stuff, though I may be getting ahead of myself.

I feel like many of my deaths have been not realizing the danger of the situation until it's too late. Especially in the early parts of the game, I just press o for auto-explore then just mash z-a for magic dart or whatever else low level spell I have for nuking. That works until I run into something more powerful than usual and I'm not as careful as I should be.

I'm currently trying a merfolk ice wizard. I've tried other things like venom mage or air mage, but while venom can take care of most things, there are some poison resistant monsters that I just can't deal with. Air mage has swiftness and mephitic, but shock isn't powerful enough to last until I get spellbook gifts if I don't find a book on the floor before then.