Re: -crawl- YAFVP

ploog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

First of all: Congratulations!

Fuming was the fourth MDFE of mine to enter the Ecumenical Temple. He
stands out after a long line of Crawl characters played to death since
December 2005. Two predecessors fell on Zot 5 to fire orbs, causing
Fuming to put greater emphasis on fire resistance. These were fighter
types, DSMo and MDMo. Mountain dwarves deserve praise for the huge
amounts of HP they get. In my other conjurer-type attempts, I couldn't
get KeFE's off the ground and my elven magicians would be able to dish
out the blows but not to take them. Also having just fire and earth
magics available seems restricted at first, but looks like a killer
combination later.

You can never have too many HP, and a focus on fire and earth magic
certainly is no drawback. Kenkus are pretty nice once they hit level
14, but getting there can be fairly troublesome.

The sprint to the surface was a
bit disappointing: the demons were easy to deal with and I noticed no
other changes. Coming from Nethack I expected much tougher resistance;
among my post-orb-pick up apocalyptic scenarios were the granite
statues on Zot 5 changing colour. Upon meeting only some occasional
digits on the way back, I also imagined their strength and number to
increase level by level, culminating in a shocking showdown Fuming vs
denizens of Hell, battling over every single square on dungeon level 1.
Was I just lucky?

I find it fairly refreshing personally. The Hells, Tomb, and
Pandemoniun are open for visits if you want suspense. 1:s in large
numbers can kill you surprisingly quickly if you're unlucky (torments,
hellfire, plain hard-hitting physical attacks against characters that
rely on distance or evasion, and you can be dead in 2 turns from full
HP).

Hand weapons
a - the +5,+5 mace of Slime (1165 gold)
(You found it on level 4 of the Dungeon)
It has been blessed by the Shining One to harm undead and cause
great
damage to the unholy creatures of Hell or Pandemonium.
It protects you from fire.

\\ After finding this, I ditched the hammer. Later I made a +6,+8 mace
of Crushing but never put it to use.

Pretty nice.

f - a +0,+1 great mace of draining (563 gold)
(You subdued it in the Hall of Blades)

\\ Just glimpsing into the Hall, looking for experience not trouble,
put me in front of this. Before figuring out that spells were useless,
Fuming had lost level 23 and half of the next one. Might and Slime
could stop the madness. The adventure show Hall of Blades was cancelled
after this incident, of course.

As other have said: the Hall of Blades are really easy with Mystic
Blast or other Crystal Spear (Bolt of Iron can work if you have plenty
of mana, but it tends to miss a lot).

Armour
s - the +6 helmet of Wondrous Power (worn) (994 gold)
(You found it on level 1 of the Hive)
It affects your evasion (+4).
It affects your strength (+3).

\\ Was lying on the ground in a small side cavern. This is so good.
I played really cautious thereafter.

Nice, indeed.

C - a +2 pair of boots of running (worn) (245 gold)
(You found them on level 4 of the Elven Halls)

\\ You cannot imagine how cautious I left the Elven Halls. Two times I
ended up with equipment way inferior to this by Zot.

One of the best items in the game.

Q - a +0 pair of elven boots of running (77 gold)
(You found them on level 8 of the Vaults)

\\ Sorry, this one's only +0. Maybe someone with elfish pride is
interested?

No enchantment scrolls? Elven boots boosts your stealth, and having
that and running in one package is really nice.

Jewellery
c - the ring of Robustness (700 gold)
(You acquired it in the Ecumenical Temple)
It affects your AC (+8).

\\ Was first acquirement. Never left the finger until late in the game.

Always a nice find. Andrew wondered if this is an unrandart - yes. It's
the companion to the ring of Shaolin.

N - the ring of the Armoured One (right hand) (546 gold)
(You found it on level 8 of the Vaults)
This ring increases its wearer's reserves of magical power.
It protects you from fire.
It partially protects you from negative energy.
It lets you blink.
It lets you teleport.

\\ Would you have used it? It gave only 7 MP in the end, but still...

Perhaps, 2 levels of fire resistance is nice, and I'd wear it for that
if I had no better option.

Skills:
+ Level 12 Fighting
- Level 10 Maces & Flails
- Level 1 Staves
- Level 6 Armour
+ Level 14 Dodging
- Level 4 Stealth
+ Level 18 Spellcasting
+ Level 20 Conjurations
- Level 1 Enchantments
- Level 3 Transmigration
- Level 2 Divinations
+ Level 21 Fire Magic
+ Level 16 Earth Magic
- Level 3 Invocations
- Level 2 Evocations

\\ Investing so much in Fighting (and thus in Maces, as well) was
probably superfluous.

You can never have too many HP. (Worth repeating.)


k - Insulation Air/Enchantment Good 4
l - Apportation Translocation Great 1

\\ Both never used.

Insulation is very handy if you have no convenient access to
electricity resistance. Same with the see invisible spell.

All 'L'
2 ancient liches (Zot:5)
Boris (Vault:7)
3 creatures vanquished.

\\ These liches must have something really cunning up their sleeves -
they gave huge amounts of XP. Unfortunately they never got around
showing some tricks. In Nethack they can gate in all types of cronies,
possibly making monster generation faster than character-driven monster
dispatching.

They can summon lots of nasties and have spells that deal a lot of
damage. I make it a priority to take them out as soon as possible when
I see them.

Before discovering Crawl, I played Nethack on and off for over ten
years, including some ascensions. Being skilled there obviously helps
in Crawl a lot. However, in retrospect it is highly interesting to see
how Crawl removes so many of Nethack's weaknesses. Some points were
discussed on r.g.r.n. (e.g. having several layers of fire/cold
resistance instead of binary version, wishless conduct since wishing is
too strong, what to do against the ascension kit problem (there are
some really crucial items), lack of class differentiation (after having
these items, most characters look the same), endless tedium in
Gehennom).

I came to Crawl from Nethack too, and I see the same problems. I have
several ascension-worthy Nethack characters filed away, because I don't
want to go through the tedium of Gehennom.

Personally I'd add the plentiful instadeaths as a gameplay problem too.
There are some in Crawl too, but not as many as in Nethack. It makes
the game a lot more strategic and tactical, rather than having to worry
about every step you make when you have a cockatrice in your inventory,
for example.

And the foolproof check against quitting wasn't quite foolproof enough
for me. I've lost a promising contender on Vault 7 due to misquitting.
Hence I'd be thankful to see an option that forces "yes" or "no"
answers for precisely this query. Instead it would also be nice to have
an option disabling quitting at all. If there is one, please accept my
apologies, I found nothing related in the documentation.

It should be easy enough to incorporate the paranoid patch for Darshan.

--
Johan

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