Shoals, Spider, casters

[Tiktacy]

I tried doing a run without doing d:15 until I got a rune, and it was with spiders and shoals without any poison resistance with a superfluous amount of exp put into invocations(for fun with smite, I was playing HO of beogh). I was banished to the abyss 4 times and survived every single time, 2 of which was before I got the halls rune, so that tells me I was rolling a very strong character build.

In conclusion, it made little to no difference for me at all, but it would be a different story if I was a caster. In a sense, rune lock feels like it would be a nerf towards early game casters, as casters pretty much rely on experience alone.

I suggest we implement rune lock a few floors earlier and make the lair spawn the same as Orc. People consider lair easier anyway, so it wouldn't feel much different. In addition, I think we should consider buffing early game casters a bit, especially air elementalists. I'll try doing some casters later today and give the results.

[dck]

I think that if you claim magical backgrounds are anything but immensely strong and even suggest the most overpowered of them all, AE, is in need of a buff for any reason then that discredits anything else you may have to say on how to change the game or how much of a difference something like the runelock makes.
Also is the halls rune mint or eucalyptus flavored?

[Sandman25]

I think that if you claim magical backgrounds are anything but immensely strong and even suggest the most overpowered of them all, AE, is in need of a buff for any reason then that discredits anything else you may have to say on how to change the game or how much of a difference something like the runelock makes.
Also is the halls rune mint or eucalyptus flavored?

Have you tried getting Spider rune without sInv/Clarity/rPois on fragile caster? My DEFE almost died at the very entrance despite being around XL20 and having wand of digging.

Have you tried getting Shoals rune on the same fragile caster (without flight/repel missiles of course). Mennas/Frederick/Sojobo/Jorgrun/Ilsuiw are very easy to kill you know.

[Sar]

Have you tried training Dodging and Fighting?

[dck]

"fragile caster"

[Sandman25]

Have you tried training Dodging and Fighting?

Yes, Dodging 15 and 88 HP really helps when you are confused, poisoned, attacked by Wolf Spiders/Jumping Spiders and Orbs of Destruction. Are we playing the same game? (irony intended)

  Code:

53023 | D:19     | Reached XP level 17. HP: 88/88 MP: 21/42
...
54333 | D:20     | Reached skill level 15 in Dodging
...
 55144 | Orc:4    | Bought an uncursed amulet of clarity for 300 gold pieces
 55431 | Spider:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Spider Nest
 55431 | Spider:1 | Noticed Magicpokey's ghost (powerful GrMo)
 55439 | Spider:1 | Killed Magicpokey's ghost
 55615 | Spider:1 | Huge Dmg: 38 dmg
 56279 | Elf:1    | Entered Level 1 of the Elven Halls
...
 65196 | Shoals:5 | Got a barnacled rune of Zot


Notice I did have Clarity but even then Shoals was slightly easier.

[Sar]

88 HP sounds pretty low for a XL20 character, what was your Fighting?
Also we were talking casters, not every "caster" is a Deep Elf. I had casters with twice more HP on XL20 and nice AC/EV to boot.
I guess Deep Elves just make for bad casters.
Edit: wait, it's an XL17 character, my bad.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Would a DEFi or DEGl have been any easier?

[Sandman25]

"fragile caster"

I am sure your casters are tankier than my GrBe in CPA.

PS. You have 8 wins in last tournament, none of them are mages or even hybrids, all are fighters without ANY Conjuration spells.

[Sandman25]

88 HP sounds pretty low for a XL20 character, what was your Fighting?
Also we were talking casters, not every "caster" is a Deep Elf. I had casters with twice more HP on XL20 and nice AC/EV to boot.
I guess Deep Elves just make for bad casters.
Edit: wait, it's an XL17 character, my bad.

Don't forget thread context, we are talking about rune lock. No XL 17 even possible since we cannot get into D15.

[Sandman25]

Would a DEFi or DEGl have been any easier?

Not likely. My point was that "fragile casters" do exist.

[Sar]

In a sense, rune lock feels like it would be a nerf towards early game casters, as casters pretty much rely on experience alone.

I believe this was the quote that started it. I don't think it specifically mentions "fragile casters", just... casters.

[dck]

Yeah my "casters" have been definitely much "tankier" than a -2 HP race with shit dex taking the shit dex background using one of the heaviest armours.
Please do not embarrass yourself further.

[Sandman25]

Yeah my "casters" have been definitely much "tankier" than a -2 HP race with shit dex taking the shit dex background using one of the heaviest armours.
Please do not embarrass yourself further.

Sorry, I didn't know you didn't know DE exist

[Sandman25]

In a sense, rune lock feels like it would be a nerf towards early game casters, as casters pretty much rely on experience alone.

I believe this was the quote that started it. I don't think it specifically mentions "fragile casters", just... casters.

Correct. So what is XL 14 DEFE supposed to do in a game with Spiders/Shoals and without rPois/Clarity/Flight/sInv? Die in a funny way on Shoals 5?

[Sar]

I believe Spider is mostly easy if you approach it carefully.
Shoals are horrible, yeah.
Edit: I never did it at such low level though so I don't know.

[Sandman25]

I believe Spider is mostly easy if you approach it carefully.
Shoals are horrible, yeah.

Yes, that's what I was thinking too. Before that really unlucky game with pack of very dangerous monsters near upstairs in Spiders 1.

[wheals]

Am i missing the problem with Shoals on a DEFE? I mean, how is it any different from normal? Yes, conjure flame may be less useful, but it can still make steam clouds and such. Your ranged attacks mean that mesmeresis is less scary, and while waiting for the tide to go out may be tedious, it is not really difficult. I haven't done Shoals on a DE, so can someone fill me in?

[Sar]

Shoals:5 monsters are pretty scary.
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php ... lk+impaler
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php ... aquamancer
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php ... javelineer
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php?q=Ilsuiw
Also water elementals now engulf you, which acts like silence.

[Sandman25]

Am i missing the problem with Shoals on a DEFE? I mean, how is it any different from normal? Yes, conjure flame may be less useful, but it can still make steam clouds and such. Your ranged attacks mean that mesmeresis is less scary, and while waiting for the tide to go out may be tedious, it is not really difficult. I haven't done Shoals on a DE, so can someone fill me in?

Yes, Shoals are easy for high XL DEFE provided there are no top tier uniques and you have potion of invisibility for Ilsuiw.

[nordetsa]

IMO the biggest problem for a caster in Spider is the Ghost Moth. Without SInv, it is almost impossible to grab the rune-how are you supposed to do anything when one stare from the monster takes half of your mp?

Clarity and rPois can be 'substituted' with a bunch of potion of curings, though I doubt the players will have enough when they can't go beyond D:15.

[Wahaha]

You can hit the ghost moth with a sword or something. "Casters" can use things that aren't staves too. Even some staves would work! Drink one of those potions of might that are useless for "casters".

[Sandman25]

You can hit the ghost moth with a sword or something. "Casters" can use things that aren't staves too. Even some staves would work! Drink one of those potions of might that are useless for "casters".

Yes, it can work. But the problem is that there can be Emperor Scorpions along with that Ghost of Moth while you cannot run away because of webs. I killed some Emperor Scorpions/Ghost Moths in Spiders 5 with my last DEFE, it was actually fun with +18 Wyrmbane at min delay 0.5 but I am not sure it is a good idea for XL 14 DEFE since Emperor Scorpions have AC 20 and 101-138 HP

[XuaXua]

I hate ghost moths.

[nordetsa]

You can hit the ghost moth with a sword or something. "Casters" can use things that aren't staves too. Even some staves would work! Drink one of those potions of might that are useless for "casters".

Yes, it can work. But the problem is that there can be Emperor Scorpions along with that Ghost of Moth while you cannot run away because of webs. I killed some Emperor Scorpions/Ghost Moths in Spiders 5 with my last DEFE, it was actually fun with +18 Wyrmbane at min delay 0.5 but I am not sure it is a good idea for XL 14 DEFE since Emperor Scorpions have AC 20 and 101-138 HP

Not to mention that having no SInv would seriously impact your accuracy. "Casters" usually don't raise weapon skills unless they come across a really good weapon (like Wyrmbane, I guess) in the early-mid game.

[dck]

I strongly disagree with the above statement, magical backgrounds don't mean that your nerd arms can't swing a quarterstaff, that you can't whip fools into shape once you've killed pikel or that you can't use any of the branded daggers you happen to run into. A character that is done with lair has in most scenarios painfully neglected part of his training if he doesn't have a weapon to use on guys with defenses not to die to guys, and background doesn't change this very much.
You don't need a fancy weapon, you need something that does the job and if you do want a guaranteed fancy weapon you can go Kiku and enjoy one of the most powerful brands in the entire game.

And no sInv doesn't really do much as basically just unseen horrors and maurice have a chance not to be absolutely and completely predictable in their movements and since you have trained a decent bunch of fighting by the time you're done with lair and have a weapon rolling and trained up, the minimal acc loss isn't something to worry about.

Also moths do not see invisible.
Also maybe if you don't play like a huge fool and blast fireballs everywhere you can avoid fighting ghost moths alongside fucking emperor scorpions, or you can do just about anything to them since like most spider monsters they have trash MR.

[Siegurt]

Well, I tried a couple scenarios in wiz mode, assuming you've trained 8 fighting and 6 of the relevant weapon skill (This is low for a fighter, but not unusually low for a conjurer (of any stripe) at this point in the game, presuming around XL 15-16) I am also presuming average, but not special armour for that point in the game, I used "have enchanted robes and all my armour slots filled with at least some enchanted equipment" as my AC model and "Have trained at least 6 points of dodging, and have at least 14 dex" as my EV model, this gives me 10 AC and 15 EV which is pretty typical for a conjurer.

For my weapon I chose a +4 morningstar of flaming. This is something that you'd probably be able to readily find by that point (or it's approximate equivalent) and is a pretty decent common weapon with a common enchantment and about as good of a slaying level as you'd typically see by this point.

I found that it took about 20-30 swings to kill a ghost moth, and I would take 120-400 points of damage (Plus several points of stat drain and poisoning) to kill a ghost moth without healing given with these statistics using melee alone.

I tried upping my m&f skill to 10, which had a small, but noticeable impact on melee combat, but not enough to put it in the "You'll usually win" category for someone with 100-120 hps (or less for DE) I also tried stacking on a bunch more EV (I added 20 points with a ring) which also had negligable effects..

It usually took 1 round to reduce my MP below 5 from 40, sometimes two.

Ghost moths are also faster than average. They do not see invis however, a "caster" at this point may or may not have access to invis (With a strong emphasis on "probably will, at least as a potion"), however this also doesn't hurt moth's ability to drain your MP or do damage to you if they're already in melee range, haste+swiftness would let you reliably get away from them (Swiftness alone does not) or of course being a spriggan. Invis+"run the heck away" might work if they're not already in melee range.

Their MR is actually 104 (Which is above average, but not so much so that you won't be able to get a hex on them with decent skill, however the odds of doing so with little evocation and a wand are fairly low, with max spellpower on a wand you'd have about a 2:3 chance of getting them (so it might take a couple shots) They also resist poison (Unlike 90% of the spider's lair)

Overall it seems like a damn dangerous thing(tm) for a caster. It's also worth noting that when I tried with significantly more AC (by putting on +6 mottled dragon armour) the danger level went way down, of course that's not available in most games, but it's worth noting.

Disclaimer: it's entirely possible that training like this is a horrible idea, and that meleeing a ghost moth is also a terrible idea, or even that this whole thread is just plain terrible. I just wanted to get an idea of what it would look like so I pulled up some arbitrary statistics and put some numbers in, it may have no relevance to reality at all, judge for yourself. Tweaking the parameters of this experiment may produce very different results, I made little to no attempt to explore all possible outcomes of all possible parmeters or even to extrapolate what effect tweaking different parameters would have.

[dpeg]

Siegurt: Did you try how much a potion of might helps?

[Lasty]

Yeah, melee combat with a ghost moth when you have 10/15 defenses is a pretty bad idea. Did you mock up using potions of might and agility? I suspect that they would do a lot to turn the tide, even for someone with such bad defenses.

[Siegurt]

I did not try might and agility, I suspect they'd have helped considerably, I tried only exactly what I posted.

[dck]

@Siegurt: The MR mention was for emepescorpions actually.
Regardless, sometimes your AC is barely double digit because you can't find any decent aux armor, but for example as a DE there is no excuse for your EV to be just 15 with 14 dex wearing robes by the time you're done with lair, and those initial fighting and weapon skill from your tests are unacceptably low for a XL 16 character, and a morningstar of flaming isn't the kind of weapon any caster would go for.
That said, I never claimed you should train fighting and killdudes to kill monstrosities such as ghost moths at that level, but you should train them to have hp and kill all the other things that aren't extraordinarily dangerous.
Stealth exists and so do exclusions and so does invistele (nothing in spider but arachne sees inv) and walking away.

[indspenceable]

(nothing in spider but arachne sees inv)

Demonic crawlers < /pedant >

[Siegurt]

@Siegurt: The MR mention was for emepescorpions actually.
Regardless, sometimes your AC is barely double digit because you can't find any decent aux armor, but for example as a DE there is no excuse for your EV to be just 15 with 14 dex wearing robes by the time you're done with lair, and those initial fighting and weapon skill from your tests are unacceptably low for a XL 16 character, and a morningstar of flaming isn't the kind of weapon any caster would go for.
That said, I never claimed you should train fighting and killdudes to kill monstrosities such as ghost moths at that level, but you should train them to have hp and kill all the other things that aren't extraordinarily dangerous.
Stealth exists and so do exclusions and so does invistele (nothing in spider but arachne sees inv) and walking away.

Yeah, looking at it those were pretty hopeless and silly aribtrary-ish numbers.

To do something a slightly more realistic, I did manual training from levels 1->15 with a DECj and trained:
Fighting, Dodge, Spellcasting, Conjuration(doubled) and that's it. I know a typically conjurer would probably train less spellcasting, and more charms/hexes and maybe some weapon skill than this but what I ended up with was:
10.3 Fight, 14.2 Dodge, 15.1 Spellcasting, 17.9 Conjuration, 5 Str, 22 Int, 15 Dex
I put +2 robes, gloves, boots, and helmet on him, this yields 13 AC and 21 EV, I also gave him a +2 quarterstaff.
For comparison's sake, he's got 87 max HP and 38 max HP.

With agility his EV is boosted to 30

Using both might and agility:
Attempt #1 was a death after 21 hits (Moth was "severely wounded")
Attempt #2 was a success after 27 hits (50 damage taken)
Attempt #3 was a death after 17 hits (Moth was "almost dead")
Attempt #4 was a success after 22 hits (54 damage taken)
Attempt #5 was a death after 14 hits (Moth was "almost dead")
Attempt #6 was a death after 19 hits (Moth was "severely wounded")

Using agility with no might:
Attempt #1 was a death after 21 hits (Moth was "moderately wounded")
Attempt #2 was a death after 27 hits (Moth was "heavily wounded")
Attempt #3 was a death after 25 hits (Moth was "moderately wounded")
(clearly this isn't going to happen)

Using might with no agility:
Attempt #1 was a death after 10 hits (Moth was "moderately wounded")
Attempt #2 was a death after 16 hits (Moth was "severely wounded")
Attempt #3 was a death after 9 hits (Moth was "Slightly wounded")
(Also not gonna happen)

Using a potion of speed:
Death after 19 hits (Moth was "moderately wounded")

No potions were all death.

It looks to me like the viable solution when you encounter a ghost moth as a level 15 DECj is to escape in some fashion. If you have agility, might, speed, and a decent weapon and decent fighting skill you might beat it, but you probably shouldn't.

[Hurkyl]

It looks to me like the viable solution when you encounter a ghost moth as a level 15 DECj is to escape in some fashion. If you have agility, might, speed, and a decent weapon and decent fighting skill you might beat it, but you probably shouldn't.

Potion of invisibility, probably along with see invis, should be another option, I think. They don't drain your MP when you're invisible, right? Gives you a chance to blast them apart... if there aren't too many of them and you have enough potions.

A little spoilery, though.

[duvessa]

imo monsters that don't see invisible not seeing invisible players isnt a spoiler

[dck]

If you're going to die if they remember your position and drain you or your invis runs out then "blasting" them is a bad idea.

[Wahaha]

IMO the biggest problem for a caster in Spider is the Ghost Moth. Without SInv, it is almost impossible to grab the rune-how are you supposed to do anything when one stare from the monster takes half of your mp?

Clarity and rPois can be 'substituted' with a bunch of potion of curings, though I doubt the players will have enough when they can't go beyond D:15.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that fighting a ghost moth with a low level character would work well. I missed the part where you mentioned not being able to go below D:15. It is indeed pretty hard to do Spider with a low level character and less resources. In a normal game though, ghost moths aren't supposed to be a big threat when you meet them and they're alone, even if you mainly cast spells, that's what I wanted to say.

[Siegurt]

They don't drain your MP when you're invisible, right?

Actually they can employ their gaze attacks on you and drain your MP even if they can't see you, however they have to 'guess' at your position if they don't already know it.

[Hurkyl]

They don't drain your MP when you're invisible, right?

Actually they can employ their gaze attacks on you and drain your MP even if they can't see you, however they have to 'guess' at your position if they don't already know it.

Bah. Bad wiki.

[Lasty]

a morningstar of flaming isn't the kind of weapon any caster would go for.

Why not? I know I would. That's a strong weapon that doesn't require too much investment and still plays nice with a buckler.

@Siegurt, it looks like your hypothetical caster had no weapon skill this time around, and was using a weapon worse than anyone should be able to find by that point in the game. Even a branded flail should be better, and those are everywhere.

[dck]

You could wind up using it and I didn't mean it's a bad weapon, but chances are you've found either a whip with a good brand or a dire flail and those are superior weapons which are also common.

[Lasty]

Dire flails are pretty rare, I've found. Whip with a good brand is much more likely, though if the brand isn't elec or maybe draining, it would be worse against the ghost most. Morningstar of flaming does some pretty serious damage, so I could see it being the right choice for some characters.

[MoogleDan]

They don't drain your MP when you're invisible, right?

Actually they can employ their gaze attacks on you and drain your MP even if they can't see you, however they have to 'guess' at your position if they don't already know it.

Bah. Bad wiki.

Fixed!

[CommanderC]

They don't drain your MP when you're invisible, right?

Actually they can employ their gaze attacks on you and drain your MP even if they can't see you, however they have to 'guess' at your position if they don't already know it.

They can't. See the first few lines of mon_nearby_ability in mon-abil.cc.

[Siegurt]

They don't drain your MP when you're invisible, right?

Actually they can employ their gaze attacks on you and drain your MP even if they can't see you, however they have to 'guess' at your position if they don't already know it.

They can't. See the first few lines of mon_nearby_ability in mon-abil.cc.

Ah, you're correct, I confused it with brain feed (Which works via direct_effect which doesn't care about invis)

[asdu]

It looks to me like the viable solution when you encounter a ghost moth as a level 15 DECj is to escape in some fashion. If you have agility, might, speed, and a decent weapon and decent fighting skill you might beat it, but you probably shouldn't.

Potion of invisibility, probably along with see invis, should be another option, I think. They don't drain your MP when you're invisible, right? Gives you a chance to blast them apart... if there aren't too many of them and you have enough potions.

A little spoilery, though.

If you have a potion of invisibility, then you don't need to fight the ghost moths at all. Grab the rune, gtfo and don't look back. Not a failproof plan, but better than trying your luck fighting them. The real problem with ghost moths arises when you DON'T have a means of evading them.

[Tiktacy]

I think that if you claim magical backgrounds are anything but immensely strong and even suggest the most overpowered of them all, AE, is in need of a buff for any reason then that discredits anything else you may have to say on how to change the game or how much of a difference something like the runelock makes.
Also is the halls rune mint or eucalyptus flavored?

Way do you have to be such a dck all the time?

(Dck's behavior aside, I do tank to thread needs to get back on track)

[dck]

Because it seems pretty stupid to me to suggest the backgrounds with a guaranteed book with sticky flame/ozoarmour/swiftness/starrow/imb/vdrain etc need to be any better.
I also didn't understand what "I was banished to the abyss 4 times and survived every single time, 2 of which was before I got the halls rune, so that tells me I was rolling a very strong character build" meant.
I mean what it tells me is that you jumped into elf with crap MR and got really lucky FOUR banishments were the worst thing that happened to you, although it also tells me that you were in the abyss for long enough that upon returning you hallucinated the existence of an elven rune.

Sorry but to me those claims showing lack of familiarity with magical backgrounds and their power standards, combined with parading suicidal and pointless dives into elf as if there was something relevant about them and then talking about a rune that doesn't fucking exist discredit the rest of your suggestions on the runelock.
And that's basically what I think that first post attempted to convey and I think it did a pretty good job at it too.

[Tiktacy]

Because it seems pretty stupid to me to suggest the backgrounds with a guaranteed book with sticky flame/ozoarmour/swiftness/starrow/imb/vdrain etc need to be any better.
I also didn't understand what "I was banished to the abyss 4 times and survived every single time, 2 of which was before I got the halls rune, so that tells me I was rolling a very strong character build" meant.
I mean what it tells me is that you jumped into elf with crap MR and got really lucky FOUR banishments were the worst thing that happened to you, although it also tells me that you were in the abyss for long enough that upon returning you hallucinated the existence of an elven rune.

Sorry but to me those claims showing lack of familiarity with magical backgrounds and their power standards, combined with parading suicidal and pointless dives into elf as if there was something relevant about them and then talking about a rune that doesn't fucking exist discredit the rest of your suggestions on the runelock.
And that's basically what I think that first post attempted to convey and I think it did a pretty good job at it too.

I'm sorry, I was typing on an ipad, it was suppose to say shoals rune, not halls. I only go to elven halls if I'm in need of a rare spell book and am positive I have the tools to survive(or if I'm a follower of trog, he tends to have an easy time in elf 3 in my experience).

That being said, your entire argument is completely void... Sooo, I don't know where to go from there. I guess I should also mention what I ACTUALLY said as opposed to what you THINK i said in my OP; "I think we should 'CONSIDER' giving early game casters a buff, as they are pretty heavily reliant on experience(unlike other classes)" is what I actually said. This is what i believe you read that as "HOLLY FAKKING FOKK GIIIYYYS WEH NEHD 2 ROFLBUFF MAGGES NAAAOWWWUIH!!!!". I don't know about you, but I see a pretty significant difference.

[dck]

The "halls rune" has nothing to do with the real argument which is all spellbook backgrounds are great because they start with guaranteed spellbooks and on top of that the books are crazy good.
I don't see what you mean that magic users are reliant on exp but other guys aren't.