DCSS 0.10

[tazelbain]

The cabal of programmers who run this want every choice especially the race to be interesting.  MD wasn't interesting.  It was safe and familiar.  If you were going to making a meat head fighter it was a no brainer.  Really I fault them was not finding a way to spicy MD up rather than removing it.  They are the doing the work so I am not going to get upset. Hopefully MD can back when they can be made interesting.

[Slayerik]

So, I fucked up. I had a million outs. Instead of using them I thought one more heal wounds would save me. It didn't. FACK

[ezrast]

Lost my KoSt at level 17 after getting slowly worn down over 1200 turns in the Abyss. It's so frustrating; potions deal with swarms of things and it's easy to pick up necromancy for poison-resistant living and undead targets but I never have any tricks to deal with damn demons and my trusty daggers just don't quite do the job.

[Slayerik]

Abyss is a total bitch. One time, though, I had a guy tough enough to just farm the place. Never did find a rune, though!

[Sky]

Trying a Vampire Stalker, they're pretty cool. So far I've been leaning on throwing a lot, is leather armor too heavy to sneak or am I just too low? Only gotten a couple backstabs in. Should I work more magic or just stick to thief type skills?

In true fashion I ended up with a hobbling cursed item, -3 ring of evasion...and then 50 turns later found my very first scroll of remove curse evar! Yay!

Then on the next level is my badass MiBe ghost, who can just about two-shot me. Yay bat form, but exploring that level has become rough, barely escaped twice.

[Raging Turtle]

A big part of Crawl is learning when to run the hell away and come back a few levels later (or occasionally never).  Just look for the stairs down.

[Sky]

Yeah, I got that :) Worked the level around him, then the level below is a giant open area chock full of dudes. Judicious use of bat form to run away, finally got the ability to bottle blood. Took forever to work down the open level to the point where I got most of the items...then the named gets close to me and ports me to the Abyss. Dead. Kind of a rude thing for something on level 4.

Never found any good gear, a couple decent darts and a net to toss, but by level 4 I was in nonmagic leather and the newbie dagger, with a nonmagic cloak and books and a ring of magic.

[Sky]

Dammit, had a halfway decent run and decided to try the Bastion. Hey, it said the door might close soon!


Stalker is kind of an odd character. I've been playing it hard into stealth with a bit of short blades and a lot of throwing (blowgun with poison needles), and lobbing potions for crowd fights. The first two steps of the Bastion was pretty easy: a few confusion potions, the orcs all start killing each other and I just toss steam and poison clouds into the melee. Then I open the big door, no choke point and I'm low on potions so I back off to a choke point, but that thins out the group and I end up in melee and the orc knights just hit too hard for my low hps and crap armor...and there's no exit.

Forgot I had a tp scroll on me, doubt it would've done much good unless that was the last fight of the level and I got lucky.

My main gripe about Stalker is that it seems to be based on Evaporate, throwing potions, and potions weigh 4.0 each, so having a stack of harvested potions weighs me way down, especially in bat form. Seems like potions should weigh a lot less or that classes that use them heavily as part of the class combat idea should have some mechanics to reduce their weight.

Vampires are odd to play but fun.

[ezrast]

In general I find stealth and stabbing to be not worth the investment. Fighting/weapon/armor/dodging take care of most things that potions won't (except for the aforementioned demons).

Definitely agree about the weight issue. I always find myself having to leave behind wands, food, and other things that no other class would do without.

Free experience allocation (new since 0.8 or whatever it was since I last spent much time playing) makes things like Invocation much more viable though, so I've been experimenting more heavily with different gods and seeing what I can come up with to make this class feel right. Chei solves the weight issue handily but not being able to run away from anything ever is a harsh penalty.

[Sky]

I dunno, it seems any time anything over a stock mob got in range, it was pretty much time for bat form and running away. If I hadn't found that +4 AC/EV ring, I wouldn't have lasted that long.

And as I said, the potions kinda screwed me. Couldn't carry a lot of them, and stuck in the bailey with orcs that only drop confusion, which is nice but really limits my ability to deal aoe damage. And if you take away the potions, it seems like you could do better either as a mage or a fighter. Again, I guess I don't see how the class should work in a pure form.

[Slayerik]

In general I find stealth and stabbing to be not worth the investment. Fighting/weapon/armor/dodging take care of most things that potions won't (except for the aforementioned demons).

Definitely agree about the weight issue. I always find myself having to leave behind wands, food, and other things that no other class would do without.

Free experience allocation (new since 0.8 or whatever it was since I last spent much time playing) makes things like Invocation much more viable though, so I've been experimenting more heavily with different gods and seeing what I can come up with to make this class feel right. Chei solves the weight issue handily but not being able to run away from anything ever is a harsh penalty.

I used to think that stealth and stabbing weren't great until my naga assassin of Chei. Half the dungeon I killed while sleeping, and enough very tough uniques that it felt quite worth the points.

[Sky]

I got quite a few stealth kills in, and given the mechanic for vamps healing back up (drinking blood, which removes the bloodless state, thus making me less stealthy) I liked it enough to focus it.

I was about 100 coins from a piece of jewelry that granted a stealth bonus and invis 

[Salamok]

Abyss is a total bitch. One time, though, I had a guy tough enough to just farm the place. Never did find a rune, though!

My character of choice at the moment is a hill orc abyssal knight, I take the fail early and fail often approach and try for a few lucky abyss kills to quick start my character at level 3 or 4.  Of course the Abyss isn't that bad when you can leave whenever you want.

[Slayerik]

My current crawl is a Demonspawn Monk of Makhleb. He's a beast. My mutations were spines (full), powerful demonic guardian, +3 EV, and finally some fingernails! Have the swamp rune so far, almost done with vault...then I have to decide where to go for number three.

[Xuri]

Never tried this game until just now. I died in the tutorial when I failed to kill a goblin using a pair of boots I was accidentally wielding as a weapon.

[Slayerik]

Morgue:

[Slayerik]

other part of morgue file:

In search of a amulet of resist mutation I decided to head back and clear the Elven Halls, where I stumbled upon an Adamantium blade. Turned out to be a +13, +13  sword of Pain that prevents casting. Who needs casting with a +13 FUCKIN SWORD WOOOOO. Cleared slime to level up long sword for the Zot run. GG fuckers.

[Sky]

Yay! 

I'm running a high elf wizard at home, first one died trying to convert to Vehumet, burned up on the altar. Second version hits level 3 and Jessica shows up, so I run for the downstairs to clear the next level. Leaning on summons I clear the next level so I hit a distant stair and clean out level 3 without running into her again, nabbing two spellbooks.

[Slayerik]

I have found call imp to be an awesome spell, makes most early encounters trivial. Great for my poor casting hybrids (as it is lvl 2) - My personal god run down

Some SPOILERS incoming if you want to learn by yourself!



My run down Makhleb... He is a bad ass god. At 1 star you can spam decent random low level magic attacks, at 2 you can summon minor demons (which are strong and still used later on) - and you gain life back from killing shit, at 3 you can hurl major spells at the cost of health and piety, at 4 you can summon fuckin demons. As soon as I decided to go with him, I focused all training on invocations until i was at like level 7. Makes the spell damage and accuracy solid, and better chance of friendly demons. Being a monk, I was instantly at 2 stars which was cool.

Cheibriados is pretty sweet. +15 to all stats at max piety means you are a machine. Even species that don't cast well do once they get 30+ int. Great for making hybrids, just make sure you get blink and have some teleports available. He also has an awesome AOE ability with 'slouch' and get outta jail free card. Very cool god.

Kikubaaqudgha is strong. As long as you want necromancy in your portfolio, he really makes it happen. Necromancy is now my favorite spell school. Utility in regeneration at only level 3, lvl 4 animate dead is awesome. Nothing like a horde of minions. He lacks utility, though.

Okawaru is my god of choice if I want to make a one-man army, or anything that uses a lot of ammo. He showers you with ammo gifts and artifact level armor/weapons. One time he gave me a +8, +8 speed xbow with resistances and shit. I still died due to a fuckup. His hero and finesse skills allow you to take down shit you normally wouldn't have a shot at. He lacks utility but provides it in god gifts (evokable items and such)

Trog - what's not to like? Well, besides spellcasting...Rage (extended) on demand, an awesome regen/MR ability, and raged ogre/trolls? Don't forget his pretty crappy weapon god gifts! Rarely are they ever an upgrade from my experience, but YMMV.

Vehumet/Sif Muna - Guess you'd have to play casters to really appreciate these guys. Vehumet would be my choice for a pure bomb dropping caster.

Yredelemnul is one of my favorites. At one star you start raising the dead at the cost of hunger. Injury mirror is excellent at 3 stars, and drain life will save your ass AND aoe shit. He once gifted me a bone dragon I had for like 20 levels. That thing was ridiculously good. Never used his Enslave Soul ability, but sounds pretty sweet :)

Xom can suck it. Dude is always fuckin' with ya. Gave me bolts once. I had a bow.

The good gods, and plants/slime gods? No idea. Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

[Zaljerem]

Great game, this. I'm terrible at it (never had a character higher than level 10) but I'm not letting that stop me.

I've had a lot of fun with Demonspawn Chaos Knight, Naga Assassin, Ogre Mage, High Elf Hunter, Halfling Hunter, Human Fighter, Draconian Monk ...

[Pezzle]

Stealth and Face stabbing can be exceptionally powerful.  I play lots of spriggans and find them useful even on the casters to get you in range or finish off confused monsters.  

My current play is a Spriggan Wizard.  At level 9 now with my slowly back away killing everything tactics.  The game is starting to pick up!

As a heavy caster Sif Muna is awesome.  You will get nice spellbooks as gifts.  Once you have the setup you like I suppose you could change out to something else.

[Arinon]

Played the shit out of 0.8 and 0.9.  Just started a few 0.10 games this week and the changes look good.  Not sure why they keep adding stupid comedy races but whatever.  Naga has been my go-to race for some time.  The new constrict seems overpowered but nice for killing imps and other annoying shits early game.

Almost always run with casters of some sort as I can't seem to get melee past the mid game.  I've taken Deep Dwarf Necro and Naga Wiz into Zot 5 but haven't beaten the game.  Orbs of fire and electric golems suck!

Mostly agree with Slayerik on the gods but I find with Trog you have to be super careful with Rage.  Fighting once it wears off is NOT recommended.  Haven't played with the new Chei but I never liked him on non-Nagas.  I also vastly prefer Vehumet to Sif Muna.  Sif seems to give you more spells early but by the time you hit end game you've probably found most of them from other sources.  Vehumet's passives make him stronger late game and he guarantees access to the rarer spell books.

I also can't fathom how you kill Slime branch with Unarmed/Fighting/Blades/Dodge.  That place scares the shit out of me.  Never go in there!

[Slayerik]

The cloak of preservation gives resist acid and conservation it seems. I never lost any AC in the place, plus I had some artifact armor. I also had a ring that gave me +6 damage and other good shit, and a +4 +3 ring of slaying. So I think my spines were doing an extra 9 damage (not sure), things just impaled themselves on me, and I would beat the fuck out of them. If it looked remotely hairy, I had demons coming to my aid or I would summon them via Makhleb. Then I got a +13 sword LOL. I seriously made The Royal Jelly look like my bitch, and I remember the other time I fought him (on a diff crawl) I ran and never came back.

Normally I avoid Slime Pits like the Plague, but this guy was so beastly I probably coulda tried for an all rune run, mighta ran outta food though.



Oh I forgot the best thing about Makhleb, his Gain Power from killing. Near the end I would wade through Draconians, killing them and gaining like 20 health a kill.

[Slayerik]

Naga's are bad ass. That constrict is evil. Feels OP to me as well.

EDIT: Man, I'm still pretty pumped to have beat this! I have made a TON of crawls - with Demonspawn Monk being probably my most attempted. Feels good to win one. In this game, even with OP hookups it just takes one mistake to end it all.

[Sky]

Mostly playing at home now, so this is an older webtiles game that's been slowly moving. I was in really good shape with a couple nice finds - full plate and a nice axe; I had survived finding most potions and scrolls, too. Then I got cocky and tried to slip past a pool that had a couple electric goddamned eels in it. Dumb, really. Was probably my most promising run yet, I was tearing through stuff.

2232 Komoto the Covered (level 9, -2/75 HPs)
             Began as a Minotaur Berserker on Mar 23, 2012.
             Was an Elder of Trog.
             Slain by a giant goldfish (4 damage)
             ... on Level 6 of the Dungeon on Mar 27, 2012.
             The game lasted 01:24:11 (6119 turns).

[Raging Turtle]

For some reason, goldfish are one of the tougher water species.

I love Demonspawn (usually melee) and Draconian casters in this game - unpredictable is fun.  Of course, I tend to start over if the RNG gives me something horrible like hollow bones or grey draconians. 

[Salamok]

EDIT: Man, I'm still pretty pumped to have beat this! I have made a TON of crawls - with Demonspawn Monk being probably my most attempted. Feels good to win one. In this game, even with OP hookups it just takes one mistake to end it all.

I was finally going to give up playing, now you go and toss this out there  

My biggest problem is the 1st 8 lor so levels lull you into a sense of security where you just spam the crap out of attack and just when it lulls you into not paying attention wham it changes gears on you.  My most successful runs have been when I spam through a bunch of redos until I get a promising character to level 9/10 then force myself to step away from the game for a day, then come back to it with a slow methodical approach.  Otherwise I just get stuck in spam mode and end up dead by level 11.

Last night I had a sweet run that I made the mistake of not putting down, pretty much started at level 5 with 1 lucky abyss kill + snagged a ton of scrolls in the abyss.  Landed +4 and +6 rings of evasion pretty quick, followed up with +2 chain mail, +1 cloak, +2 wizards hat, found some gloves and boots right off, luck into a +2 shield.  Went on a wand binge and had 7 or so different ones in inventory (teleport/fire/flame/confusion/etc...), found 2 books and some weird ass staff of elements that kept up a pretty hilarious dialog.  So here I am level 9 with 23ac, 12 evasion and a decent amount of block, whupping everything in sight...

Then I die some stupid death because I have conditioned myself into high gear where I don't take the time to do a quick scan of my vitals on every single turn.

[ezrast]

Congrats on the win, Slay.

My biggest problem is the 1st 8 lor so levels lull you into a sense of security where you just spam the crap out of attack and just when it lulls you into not paying attention wham it changes gears on you.  My most successful runs have been when I spam through a bunch of redos until I get a promising character to level 9/10 then force myself to step away from the game for a day, then come back to it with a slow methodical approach.  Otherwise I just get stuck in spam mode and end up dead by level 11.

I think I have the opposite problem. I play characters that are weak at first and end up dying because I try to run away from everything threatening, and it's only a matter of time until I run away from a trio of Orc Knights straight into a Twelve-Headed Hydra or something.

[Salamok]

I just let the unlucky ones die fast in the abyss, I pretty much wont leave the abyss until I have a few levels or some decent armor.  Funny you should mention the orcs vs. hydra, the run I described ended by me whupping a steam dragon then wiping on a few orcs (priest+wiz+warrior and a peon or 2).

[Slayerik]

Orc priests can be goddamn deadly with their irresistable BS. If I see 2 or more, even high level, I slow my shit down and start thinking of outs. Trying to run like normal is bad, as they smite the piss out of you. Block LOS, and live. Of course, they are priority in a orc clusterfuck.

[Thrawn]

Hm, trying this for the first time tonight at work.  

Should I download it or play it through the https://tiles.crawl.develz.org/ link?  I started a tutorial game on the site but I don't think I actually got a tutorial....

*edit* ah, never mind, got the tutorial now.  Didn't work the first time because I had already started a normal game

Also Slay caught me elsewhere and got me started, so disregard my entire post.

[Rendakor]

I really wish you could just pick a god at start for all classes, instead of having to find the alter. Last playthrough I did (Demonspawn Fighter) the stairs to the temple were behind a wall of glass, and I died before finding any means through said glass. In fact, it's pretty rare that my characters survive long enough to pick a religion.

[Sky]

To answer what was already answered...I started on the webtiles and I'm glad I did. You learn much more of the keyboard stuff, the local version has a lot of QoL features but it's nice to know what they're covering up and it makes for easier hybrid play.

Webtiles hates my mac and magic mouse at work and I don't have a numpad on that machine, either. It's...primitive interaction, with advanced devices!

[Rendakor]

3898 Azhala III the Thaumaturge (level 9, -3/40 HPs)
             Began as a Deep Elf Venom Mage on Mar 25, 2012.
             Slain by a troll (4 damage)
             ... on Level 8 of the Dungeon on Mar 28, 2012.
             The game lasted 01:17:43 (14849 turns).

I was clearing out level 8 before trying one of the sub-branches (Lair was the only thing I'd found so far) and didn't have much answer for a troll. I had found a book of power and was slowly working up Fire and Earth so I could use Magma Bolt but it failed one time too many and I was out of escapes.

[Arinon]

Some random thoughts after putting a few hours into some melee based Naga runs.

• Constrict is freaking amazing.  Even putting aside the damage, not having to chase down most runners is nice as hell.
• Looks like all polearms have reach now.  Orc mines requires some thought when you have to eat like 3 attacks to close into melee range with some orc warrior or knight.  That shit can get out of hand.
• For any race on a food clock Amulet of the Gourmand is the best damn item in the game.
• Looks like they axed the Hive which removes a nice stash spot and food repository.  It was usually boring and easy (just have poison resist) but I hope they added more food somehow.
• Fuck Boggarts.

Current best and still in progress is NaMo of Chei.  Level 19 with Orc/Lair/Vaults cleared.  Haven't touched a weapon or cast any spells aside from Repel Missiles and Mephitic Cloud.  Would use more spells but haven't found the shit I'll need yet.  I really want Blade Hands. The damage with ~35 Str/Dex and 20 Unarmed must be through the roof.