CIP DrWz^Sif: The Evolving Lich

[megawidget]

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.16.1 (console) character file.               
                                                                                 
Orin the Eclecticist (Purple Draconian Wizard)     Turns: 82040, Time: 13:04:29 
                                                                                 
Health: 200/200    AC: 23    Str: 10    XL:     24   Next: 5%                   
Magic:  57/59      EV: 18    Int: 45    God:    Sif Muna [******]               
Gold:   3754       SH:  6    Dex: 14    Spells: 14 memorised, 2 levels left     
                                                                                 
rFire  + . .     SeeInvis +     v - staff of power                               
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     (armour unavailable)                             
rNeg   + . .     SustAb   .     S - +2 buckler {reflect}                         
rPois  .         Gourm    .     q - +3 crown of Dyrovepreva {rElec Int+2 SInv}   
rElec  +         Spirit   .     D - +1 cloak of Incorporation {Int+3}           
rCorr  .         Warding  +     J - +2 pair of gloves {Dex+3}                   
rMut   .         Stasis   .     G - +2 pair of boots {run}                       
MR     +++..                    Z - amulet "Boaf" {Ward rN+ Int+4 Dex+2}         
Stlth  ++........               e - ring of protection from fire                 
                                O - +3 ring of intelligence                     
                                                                                 
@: delayed fireball, repel missiles, quick, extremely resistant to hostile       
enchantments, unstealthy                                                         
A: breathe power, unfitting armour, horns 1, clever 1, evolution 1,             
cold-blooded, AC +12                                                             
a: Breathe Dispelling Energy, Channel Energy, Forget Spell, Renounce Religion,   
Release Delayed Fireball                                                         
}: 2/15 runes: decaying, serpentine                                             
                                                                                 
                                                                                 
You are on level 3 of the Depths.                                               
You worship Sif Muna.                                                           
Sif Muna is exalted by your worship.                                             
You are not hungry.                                                             
                                                                                 
You have visited 10 branches of the dungeon, and seen 51 of its levels.         
You have visited 1 bazaar.                                                       
You have also visited: Labyrinth.                     

<snip>

   Skills:                                                                       
 - Level 13.1 Fighting                                                           
 - Level 9.2 Short Blades                                                       
 - Level 10.3 Dodging                                                           
 - Level 4.6 Stealth                                                             
 * Level 1.4 Shields                                                             
 + Level 19.7 Spellcasting                                                       
 + Level 15.9 Conjurations                                                       
 - Level 11.3 Charms                                                             
   Level 3.0 Summonings                                                         
 - Level 16.1 Necromancy                                                         
 - Level 3.0 Translocations                                                     
 + Level 14.6 Transmutations                                                     
 + Level 15.4 Fire Magic                                                         
 - Level 8.0 Air Magic                                                           
   Level 2.1 Poison Magic                                                       
 - Level 12.8 Invocations                                                       
 - Level 9.5 Evocations                                                         
                                                                                 
                                                                                 
You have 2 spell levels left.                                                   
You know the following spells:                                                   
                                                                                 
 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger   
a - Iskenderun's Mystic   Conj           ########     0%          4    None     
b - Flight                Chrm/Air       #######...   1%          3    None     
c - Blink                 Tloc           N/A          1%          2    None     
d - Repel Missiles        Chrm/Air       ######       1%          2    None     
e - Agony                 Necr           ########     1%          5    None     
f - Control Teleport      Chrm/Tloc      #######...   1%          4    None     
g - Fireball              Conj/Fire      ########..   1%          5    None     
h - Delayed Fireball      Conj/Fire      N/A          1%          7    None     
i - Orb of Destruction    Conj           ########..   1%          7    None     
j - Dispel Undead         Necr           ########     1%          5    None     
k - Bolt of Fire          Conj/Fire      ########..   1%          6    None     
l - Haste                 Chrm           #######.     1%          6    None     
m - Necromutation         Trmt/Necr      ########..   10%         8    None     
z - Apportation           Tloc           ######....   1%          1    None   


A real quick "what would you do in my position?" question:

I'm presently running around in boots of running in lichform casting orbs of destruction at everything, but the problem is I just quaffed a potion of beneficial mutation and got saddled with evolution. If I understand correctly if I keep up lich form up I'll end up rotting periodically, which is not optimal. I'm thinking I could lichform just to channel and revert when done, but that seems a bit dangerous because it's so slow. What would you do if you were me?

[Sar]

What do you need lichform for?

[megawidget]

What do you need lichform for?

Sif Muna hungerless channeling, as well as the highly useful resistances. Not having to worry about rC+ especially on a draconian as well as rN+++ has been a real boon so far.
Not having to eat chunks while channeling helps, and furthermore after clearing out the Depths I was going to attempt Tomb, where food is scarce and I'm much more concerned with torment than dispel undead.

[Sar]

You probably have a lot of rations, you can just eat those. Food should not be a concern. I rarely use channeling though - usually I melee weaker things. Your char doesn't have a weapon but you can separate packs with your superior mobility and regen mana just by resting.

Actually I see you have some Short Blades. Do you have a quick blade with a good brand, maybe a rapier? A demon blade so you can get some Long Blades and use it decently with the crosstraining?

Oh, evolution. It will just disappear after you earn some XP (I think), maybe giving you a mut or two in process, maybe not.

Lastly - do not underestimate Dispel Undead. It kills.

[megawidget]

You probably have a lot of rations, you can just eat those. Food should not be a concern. I rarely use channeling though - usually I melee weaker things. Your char doesn't have a weapon but you can separate packs with your superior mobility and regen mana just by resting.

Actually I see you have some Short Blades. Do you have a quick blade with a good brand, maybe a rapier? A demon blade so you can get some Long Blades and use it decently with the crosstraining?

Alas, I only have a +8 short sword of electrocution I've been keeping around for emergencies. Technically I also found Morg (the +4 dagger of pain), but I'm more concerned with things immune to pain than to electricity. Besides, I feel that most enemies in the Depths are too dangerous to melee with a blasty spellcaster.

Oh, evolution. It will just disappear after you earn some XP (I think), maybe giving you a mut or two in process, maybe not.

Well, yes... I know what evolution does. The point is I can't mutate as a lich so I'll rot instead.

Lastly - do not underestimate Dispel Undead. It kills.

Dispel Undead isn't a big deal. Really. It's single-target and has a range of 5. Putting a "summon" like the OoD in its path should stop it in its tracks, plus I can usually outrun enemies that cast it. Torment, on the other hand, is LOS and takes away half health -- much more dangerous imho. Last but not least I can always drop lichform for free should I run into something that casts it, whereas if I meet something with torment, lichform is 8 mana and 10% failure chance.

To put things into further perspective, my last run with a mummy *fighter* had little issue with dispel undead, but died in pan to hellfire. :/

[Sar]

Your char has 200 HP (and can and probably should get more, since you have a +1 Fighting aptitude). AC and EV are not very good though, but that can probably be improved.

Morg would actually be a really good backup weapon with your Necro.

You're at Depth 2 now. You don't need Necromut in Depths (or even Crypt), and you will likely exhaust your evolution way before Tomb and other postend.

And well, I've had a couple of chars dying to Dispel but maybe you'll play your encounters better than me.

[megawidget]

Well, I'm going for a pure blaster type. Yes, I know this is suboptimal and hybrids are better, but I'm dumb like that. :p Thus, my AC/EV are unlikely to change much. It's probably not worth training Ice Magic just for Ozocubu's though I should probably swap Flight for Regeneration if I'm going to be spending time out of lich form.

I already cleared Crypt actually, but decided to postpone Tomb till after Depths, mostly due to the Anubis guards plus the Mummies mob.

It does suck to get hit by Dispel, but I do play like a complete coward.

[Sar]

Well, I'm going for a pure blaster type.

Your Fighting is non-zero and you have some Dodging trained, a weapon skill even. I'd say you've failed at that already!

[megawidget]

Well, I'm going for a pure blaster type.

Your Fighting is non-zero and you have some Dodging trained, a weapon skill even. I'd say you've failed at that already!

Pffft. I'm talking about stat distribution here!

[Sar]

Oh, your stats are good. I would consider some AC/EV/Dex rings though (+3 Int is not that important when you have over 40 Int anyway).

[Elystan]

Yeah those are some seriously mediocre rings, have you been to elf yet?

I have a bad habit of clearing depths early, like way before I'd ever be capable of casting necromutation and I sometimes do okay. Just don't cast lich form until you start getting tormented. Or you could quaff a cure mut if you have one, but personally I get excited whenever I get evolution (I once got robust 2 out of it).

Also the rotting from mutations seems to manifest itself as stat loss when you're in lich form? I mean if you're doing tomb, you're going to be losing stats left and right, one or two across the course of the branch from evolution seems inconsequential next to all the death curses.

[megawidget]

Yeah those are some seriously mediocre rings, have you been to elf yet?

I have a bad habit of clearing depths early, like way before I'd ever be capable of casting necromutation and I sometimes do okay. Just don't cast lich form until you start getting tormented. Or you could quaff a cure mut if you have one, but personally I get excited whenever I get evolution (I once got robust 2 out of it).

Also the rotting from mutations seems to manifest itself as stat loss when you're in lich form? I mean if you're doing tomb, you're going to be losing stats left and right, one or two across the course of the branch from evolution seems inconsequential next to all the death curses.

  Code:

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations                                           
                                                                                 
Branches:                                                                       
Dungeon (15/15)            Temple (1/1) D:4            Lair (8/8) D:8           
  Swamp (5/5) Lair:5        Snake (5/5) Lair:4        Slime (0/6) Lair:6         
    Orc (4/4) D:11            Elf (3/3) Orc:4        Vaults (4/5) D:13           
  Crypt (3/3) Vaults:2       Tomb (0/3) Crypt:3      Depths (3/5) D:15   


The RNG hasn't been too nice to me with gear, though I'm happy to have gotten the crown of dyrovepreva and the boots of running. Naturally, I also found 9 pieces of artifact armour.

I wasn't aware mutations manifest themselves as stat loss only. Are you sure?

[Sar]

I think stat loss is one of the ways negative muts manifest in undead. The other way is rotting, yeah. I had no idea evolution rotted liches though. I would imagine it just gets suppressed.

[megawidget]

I think stat loss is one of the ways negative muts manifest in undead. The other way is rotting, yeah. I had no idea evolution rotted liches though. I would imagine it just gets suppressed.

This mutation is, peculiarly, not suppressed.
Code diving indicates that the function 'mutate' takes a 'no_rot' boolean that is set to true when called from '_evolve'.

This boolean is entirely unused.

[Elystan]

I wasn't aware mutations manifest themselves as stat loss only. Are you sure?

Not 100% on this but in a game recently I was using necromutation when faced with things that malmutate because I didn't have any rMut in my game, and was expecting to see my max HP take a hit but ended up just seeing stat loss instead. I remember it because it surprised me, but it could have just been RNG.

[megawidget]

Sigh, RNG hates me, and I quit.

  Code:

Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations                                         
                                                                                 
((You can breathe bolts of energy.))                                             
((You can dispel enchantments when you breathe energy.))                         
Your rich purple scales are hard (AC +12).                                       
Your body does not fit into most forms of armour.                               
Your cold-blooded metabolism reacts poorly to cold.                             
You have a pair of small horns on your head.                                     
Scrolls take you a little longer to read.                                       
Your mind is acute. (Int +2)                                                     
You evolve.                                                                     
                                                                                     
                                                                                     
Message History           

The shadow dragon bites you but does no damage.                                     
The shadow dragon claws you but does no damage. x2                                   
The caustic shrike claws you but does no damage.                                     
The spriggan defender hits you with a lajatang of pain.                             
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *                                                     
You begin reading the scroll. You continue reading the scroll.                       
Your surroundings suddenly seem different.                                           
The vault guard shouts! x3                                                           
The stone giant shouts! x2                                                           
The vault guard hits you but does no damage.                                     
The stone giant throws a large rock.                                             
You reflect the large rock off your +2 buckler of reflection!                   
The large rock closely misses the vault guard.                                   
The large rock hits the stone giant!!!                                           
Found a large rock.                                                             
Blink to where?                                                                 
Press: ? - help, Dir - move target cursor, f - you                               
Are you sure you want to cancel this blink?                                     
Okay, then.                                                                     
Are you sure you want to abandon this character and quit the game? (Confirm with "yes".)
                                                                                 
                    ##                                                           
                   ##.                                                           
    ##++##         #>.                                                           
    #Lz..#         ##)                                                           
    +.pp..#         ##                                                           
    +CC.p.#                                                                     
    #....##                                                                     
    ##..##                                                                       
      ###                                                                       
            ##########                                                           
    #+#     #.........                                                           
### #.#     #.........                                                           
                                                                                 
                                                                                 
You could see 2 stone giants, 3 vault guards and a skeletal warrior.             


This was after my second teleport. I teleported away from some caustic shrikes into the middle of a Golden Dragon/Shadow Dragon/Lich vault, and then again at 14HP into this... Note the blurry vision mutation I got upon opening the door into a cacodaemon right before this whole thing transpired, which really screwed up my teleports even further -- the teleport resolved before I finished reading the scroll of blinking. I don't think I could've done anything differently, though I welcome being corrected on this.

[Sandman25]

I think you should try to teleport earlier. Teleport is a bad escape, it is last resort really on unexplored levels. Are you healing while waiting for teleport?