Saturday, 20th August 2011, 19:28 by Utis
For what it's worth, cheating or not, completely purging and reinstalling crawl is what I eventually did. The problem of player ghosts that shoot mephitic clouds and summon imps like there's no tomorrow was getting out of hand. More importantly, I felt like being punished for getting better at the game and it became increasingly frustrating. And it's not as if I would intent to do it regularly. As a complete rookie, I think that I had some puppy license up until now. In fact, I deleted two promising post-temple characters in the process, so it was not an easy decision.
I'd like to describe, how I'm currently approaching the game. Partly, in the hope of getting some pointers to obvious mistakes, as well as some hints and tips. Partly, because there might be others like me. Reading through the forums and the wiki, it seems that the character build advice given most often to new players is to choose a species/background combination that can cope easily with almost all threats. I'm sure that's good for many people, but it doesn't work for me, since its the "almost" that gets one killed. Starting over with such a build means I have to go through some lengthy easy play until I get killed again. This is frustrating; and it also means that it takes a long time between making mistakes from which I learn. In other words: everybody is different, but for me this is somewhat tedious. The way I approach the game now, I can see the truth in the saying "Dying is fun." The way I approach the game currently, it's interesting and challenging from D:2 on and my deaths are of the "Argh! I should have done x!" sort, not of the "Huh?! Where did that come from? This just sucks!" sort.
I'm alternating now between Kenku Wizard, Kenku Transmuter and Kenku Hunter. I've thrown the hunter in, partly because I had a hunch that the wizard's and the transmuter's means of escape through summons and noxious fumes led me to be somewhat careless. In fact, it might be not entirely unrelated that, discounting screw ups on D:1 and D:2, most of my characters got killed once they could cast Mephitic Cloud/Evaporate with some reliability. Should the problem with player ghosts get out of hand again, I'll throw in necromancers, which also seem to fit my job description. But I want to concentrate.
I'm pretty much settled for the Kenku it seems. I keep trying High Elfs occasionally. On paper, from what I understand, HEs should be far better suited as wizards and hunters. But for reasons unknown to me, my Kenkus seem to fare *far* better. I can only assume that I have an unconscious death wish when I play Yet Another Tolkien Type.
After entering a dungeon (after D:1 that is), I carefully peek into each adjacent room before I progress in one direction. Before I have an idea what's in the adjactent areas, I immediately retreat even if I see only a sleeping push-over. I do the same at every branch/crossways I encounter on my way. Depending on dungeon layout, I more or less explore in a circle around the nearest stairs up. This is in order to minimize the danger of something wandering in behind me. Even a lowly rat, wandering in my rear can kill me when I'm in hot flight from an ogre. Recently I changed the delay for auto-explore in my configuration. It progresses very slowly now, so that I can intervene and correct the directions.
As for food: I don't hesitate to eat contaminated food as soon as I'm at "hungry". I just wait until the sickness is going away, if necessary. If not even contaminated meat is available, I'll let my nutrition level go down as low as "Near starving", except when I'm playing a Kenku wizard, for whom even the escape spells are nutrition expensive. In general I try to refrain from resting, unless my HP is at less than 2/3 or my MP is almost empty. In order to conserve food, I let the healing/resplenishing happen while I'm exploring and I rely on my means to retreat, if necessary. This way, I can save permafood for emergency situations, like when I have to stairdance or when I'm enganged in a lengthy attempt to avoid a particular threat.
Skill progression is the area where I'm still most unsure. Lately, I'm not using 0.9's manual mode anymore. As I understand it, automatic mode asigns its distribution percentages according to how often skills are applied? I used to turn off e.g. dodging and stealth in the very beginning, but as I understand it, this means that they don't get any XP whatsoever anymore and I fear I'd need at least that little bit of either to be able to cope as I progress. So, with a couple of exceptions like Stabbing, I leave most things on, and hope that the automatic system distributes experience in the ratio in which that I need them. I'm rather unsure about throwing, though. I turn it off, but throwing is a nice, resources conserving way to soften easier monsters up, before I engage them in melee. (= they are killed sooner = they do less damage = I need less resting = I preserve food). I'm very unsure about armour ... I leave it on for the hunter, but turn it off for wizard and transmuter. I have no idea there, what I'm doing.
I do use focus, though. As a hunter, I put a focus on stealth. And, since I understand (wrongly?) that stealth is exercised by spending time in the LoS of unaware monster, and thus gets a higher percentage in experience distribution, I also try to "train" it a litte. I do this, because I believe that hunters must be able to choose their own battles. If wizards or transmuters are surprised, they can summon and block the monster's way. If a hunter gets too close to something nasty, it's over.
As a HEWi I put a focus on spell casting and translocation, in order to cast my spells hungerless quickly and in order to get blink reliable. After that I try to get Call Imp, then Mephitic Cloud reliable. As a KeWi it's not so easy. Lately, as a Kenku, I stopped bothering with spellcasting and blink at all. Instead I focussed on summoning immediately. I use summoning mostly to cover my retreats, both as a wizard and as a transmuter, if Mephitic Cloud/Evaporate fail for some reason.
For a disrecommended combination, Kenku transmuter seems to work surprisingly well. I put a focus on transmutation, but only until I get Fulsome Distillation, Evaporate and Sticks to Snakes work with some degree of reliabilty. After that I forget about the other spells and about spell related skills and focus on melee.
This, finally, is the area where I'm most unsure. How soon and to what degree should I develop melee skills? And which ones? For a high elf, I assume, the answer to the last question at least is: short blades. But what about Kenkus? I understand that unarmed combat is one of the better fighting skills and that Kenkus are quite good for it. But I also seem to understand (wrongly?) that unarmed combat (sans buffs like blade hands) gets good only very late in skill development. My builds are not intended as primary melee fighters. Thus, I wonder whether even my Kenku transmuters should rather use a weapon (short blades? maces?) and regard their unarmed attacks as a bonus. I'd very much appreciate enlightenment here.
"... while we / Unburden'd crawl toward death." -- King Lear I,1