Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

Mr. Prokosch posted:

That's the most baffling part. I suppose they're just over specialized to get a spell school that high that early? Usually by the time I get a level 9 I'm unstoppable short of a zig. My casters either die early or trounce the game, while my melee dudes limp to midgame and die, and my stabbers just die immediately.

Yeah, who could lose a character that can cast level 9 spells? :v:

# ? Jan 17, 2017 21:21

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# ? May 18, 2024 06:31

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

Who could possibly die during the orb run, with four level 9 spells and deaths door, in a tournament? That would just be embarrassing.

code:

82274 | Pan      | HP: 1/222 [Lom Lobon/great icy blast (51)]

I think the game had to correct this moment of extreme luck.

e: Comparing that morgue with Floodkiller is interesting, despite having 10 extra runes my character has less AC, less Ev, less Sh, less str & dex. Always go full caster.

Also always wear lovely gloves whose only redeeming factor is rC++ when you've already got two pips? Maybe don't do that.

Darox fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jan 18, 2017

# ? Jan 17, 2017 23:35

LogicNinja: Jan 21, 2011; ...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...

Mr. Prokosch posted:

That's the most baffling part. I suppose they're just over specialized to get a spell school that high that early? Usually by the time I get a level 9 I'm unstoppable short of a zig. My casters either die early or trounce the game, while my melee dudes limp to midgame and die, and my stabbers just die immediately.

TBQH, most of my ghosts are from earlygame, because earlygame is boring and I play it even faster/less carefully than otherwise.

But yeah, mostly it's from forging full speed ahead relying on conj/fire damage to carry the day, even in risky situations. ("I'm sure ONE MORE IMB+battlesphere blast will kill this efreet, I'm sure he won't fireball me to death... oh well.")

# ? Jan 18, 2017 01:42

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

Yeah a ghost with fireball on d6 is way more likely to kill you than one in vaults 5 with firestorm.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 01:45

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

LogicNinja posted:

TBQH, most of my ghosts are from earlygame, because earlygame is boring and I play it even faster/less carefully than otherwise.

But yeah, mostly it's from forging full speed ahead relying on conj/fire damage to carry the day, even in risky situations. ("I'm sure ONE MORE IMB+battlesphere blast will kill this efreet, I'm sure he won't fireball me to death... oh well.")

Now that you mention it, this IS one place where I feel luring puts you at an annoying impasse sometimes: you can take a risk and power through some tough enemies or you could pull the enemy away, regenerate a little extra MP and/or health and secure the kill. This can get annoying because early game you're not necessarily weak as much as your options are much more limited (less items, less god abilities, less skill points invested, etc.) and pulling enemies away or retreating constantly takes time and it breaks the normally smooth transition to mid-game where you o-tab or o-"spam fireball" to get to it. OTOH, it's one of the most effective tactics you can use in the absence of other options, and even with since they can save you a lot of piety or valuable consumables.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 03:22

Microcline: Jul 27, 2012

Darox posted:

Yeah a ghost with fireball on d6 is way more likely to kill you than one in vaults 5 with firestorm.

So I've been looking at the code for player ghost generation

code:

void ghost_demon::add_spells(bool actual_ghost)
{
    spells.clear();

    for (int i = 0; i < you.spell_no; i++)
    {
        const int chance = max(0, 50 - failure_rate_to_int(raw_spell_fail(you.spells[i])));
        const spell_type spell = translate_spell(you.spells[i]);
        if (spell != SPELL_NO_SPELL
            && !(get_spell_flags(spell) & SPFLAG_NO_GHOST)
            && is_valid_mon_spell(spell)
            && x_chance_in_y(chance*chance, 50*50))
        {
            spells.emplace_back(spell, 0, MON_SPELL_WIZARD);
        }
    }
...

What appears to be interesting is that while raw_spell_fail doesn't seem to apply the stepdown, it does apply wizardry

code:

int raw_spell_fail(spell_type spell)
{
...
 chance2 = _apply_spellcasting_success_boosts(spell, chance2);
...

And unless there's something going on with brilliance duration, potions of brilliance don't seem to care that you're dead.

code:

static int _apply_spellcasting_success_boosts(spell_type spell, int chance)
{
    int fail_reduce = 100;
    ...
    if (you.duration[DUR_BRILLIANCE])
        fail_reduce = fail_reduce / 2;

The chance of a spell being added to a ghost is ((50-fail%)/50)^2, which unfortunately makes the wizardry failure reduction less useful. If we want a ghost with a 50% chance of getting fireball we need to go from 160 (default failure for a level 5 spell) to 30 (which will become 15 with brilliance).

For int, we take DEFE (+12/+7), with +1 at levels 3 and 4, and brilliance (+5) for a total of 26. This means we need 160 - 30 - 52 = 78 from skills to hit our goal. We get ~12 points per average of conj/fire, so disregarding spellcasting we need an average of just 6.5 between these skills.

So if we find a scroll of amnesia as well we should be able to get a low-level ghost running around as early as D4 with nothing but fireball and sticky flame.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 04:16

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

I wanted to answer this earlier, but my post got eaten, so here it is again:

Araganzar posted:

That sounds awesome. The skill cap is livable, the low stats are the real turn off. It would be great to have the option to bust the cap for one skill at great expense. Then one could for example use a triple sword or exec axe.

Right now using a demon xxx is just about mandatory and that's limiting, but I don't see that as a deal breaker. Small races face the same limitation. But please push the cap to 15 so it's not a slap in the face to shield users. Also people can forever argue about 14 vs 15 skill or 14 min delay vs 16 min delay weapons.

The only issue I see with Chei right now is you can get into high level transmutes including statue form pretty quickly. That's because no one else has +2 in unarmed, transmute, and earth. I think where the Cyno race will shine is those skills or skill combos that no one is good at that a Cyno can suddenly take advantage of.

Statform is modestly overpowered, and a number of races get abusive with Chei very quickly, so I'm not sure that should be considered a fatal flaw. I'm pretty sure if someone complained "this race is abusive using Chei" they would be laughed out of the secret dev webtiles server.

If anything, the skill cap is more likely to go down over up. I'll leave it at 14 for the next iteration as I don't want to start heavily designing around pro players (there's a recorded winning game with the highest skill being 7.9!), but I'll probably use it as a tweaking number if the species only needs a minor step in one direction or the other to 'feel balanced'. Also, increasing the number to accomodate shields would have the same argument pop up as to why I can't accomodate it for 16 skill weapons, etc.

I dislike the idea of busting the skill cap from a design level. It's incredibly hard to balance; giving the player the ability to break the skill cap on a single skill will likely result in picking whatever their main Kill Dudes skill every time, and they will likely have a lot of opportunity to train it to max (or whatever max they care about) with the excess XP they will have when they don't have any other skills they are interested in training. Even with slightly lower defenses, this basically gives them the same difficulty in the late game as every other species, while still having a much easier early game (since the skill cap doesn't matter until you hit it). I'd have to introduce some downside to doing so, and I haven't been able to think of a downside that sits on the exact edge between 'always do this' and 'never do this' to make it an interesting enough choice. However, if you (or someone else) can come up with a good idea that I feel could balance it, I do have an idea of how to implement it relatively painlessly.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 04:36

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

Raising skill caps could be interesting for a caster (especially if it's gradual increases instead of unlocking straight to 27) but yeah a melee character you'd just keep dumping it into axes or whatever and be really boring.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:03

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

Bust skill cap, take that apt to minus 5, tweaking as needed?

Kind of interesting in that it forces them to use something else meanwhile. Sorta lovely because it isn't really fun (like a red draconian IE but worse) and picking something else to rely on prolly isn't that stressful.

All in all, a half-assed suggestion.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:17

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

LordSloth posted:

take that apt to minus 5

Changing apts on the fly has problems, since you'd be suddenly recalculating what level the skill was at. Manuals get away with this for mystical reasons(idk the real reason, probably just doubling XP in the relevant skill while the manual's active), but a permanent apt change wouldn't.

I'm too lazy to do the math on the amount of XP needed for a skill of 14 with a +2 apt, and what skill level that XP would translate to with a -5 apt, but I'm guessing the difference is Very Large. Enjoy having your main killdudes skill suddenly at D3 levels!

# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:24

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Just implement it as an anti-manual and leave the current skill as-is?

Or make an elaborate respec mechanic where you can get a skill to 14, reset it to 0 with a max of 16 and apt of +1, reset it to 0 with max of 18 and apt of +0...?

# ? Jan 18, 2017 05:38

Unimpressed: Feb 13, 2013

Microcline posted:

So I've been looking at the code for player ghost generation
code:
void ghost_demon::add_spells(bool actual_ghost)
{
    spells.clear();

    for (int i = 0; i < you.spell_no; i++)
    {
        const int chance = max(0, 50 - failure_rate_to_int(raw_spell_fail(you.spells[i])));
        const spell_type spell = translate_spell(you.spells[i]);
        if (spell != SPELL_NO_SPELL
            && !(get_spell_flags(spell) & SPFLAG_NO_GHOST)
            && is_valid_mon_spell(spell)
            && x_chance_in_y(chance*chance, 50*50))
        {
            spells.emplace_back(spell, 0, MON_SPELL_WIZARD);
        }
    }
...
What appears to be interesting is that while raw_spell_fail doesn't seem to apply the stepdown, it does apply wizardry
code:
int raw_spell_fail(spell_type spell)
{
...
 chance2 = _apply_spellcasting_success_boosts(spell, chance2);
...
And unless there's something going on with brilliance duration, potions of brilliance don't seem to care that you're dead.
code:
static int _apply_spellcasting_success_boosts(spell_type spell, int chance)
{
    int fail_reduce = 100;
    ...
    if (you.duration[DUR_BRILLIANCE])
        fail_reduce = fail_reduce / 2;
The chance of a spell being added to a ghost is ((50-fail%)/50)^2, which unfortunately makes the wizardry failure reduction less useful. If we want a ghost with a 50% chance of getting fireball we need to go from 160 (default failure for a level 5 spell) to 30 (which will become 15 with brilliance).

For int, we take DEFE (+12/+7), with +1 at levels 3 and 4, and brilliance (+5) for a total of 26. This means we need 160 - 30 - 52 = 78 from skills to hit our goal. We get ~12 points per average of conj/fire, so disregarding spellcasting we need an average of just 6.5 between these skills.

So if we find a scroll of amnesia as well we should be able to get a low-level ghost running around as early as D4 with nothing but fireball and sticky flame.

There could be a whole game within the game here, generating the deadliest player ghosts for the their D level.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 06:03

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

Make sure its a draconian that dies at level 7 so it gets that bullshit draining breath ASAP

# ? Jan 18, 2017 06:06

Microcline: Jul 27, 2012

Floodkiller posted:

If anything, the skill cap is more likely to go down over up. I'll leave it at 14 for the next iteration as I don't want to start heavily designing around pro players (there's a recorded winning game with the highest skill being 7.9!), but I'll probably use it as a tweaking number if the species only needs a minor step in one direction or the other to 'feel balanced'. Also, increasing the number to accommodate shields would have the same argument pop up as to why I can't accommodate it for 16 skill weapons, etc.

I dislike the idea of busting the skill cap from a design level. It's incredibly hard to balance; giving the player the ability to break the skill cap on a single skill will likely result in picking whatever their main Kill Dudes skill every time, and they will likely have a lot of opportunity to train it to max (or whatever max they care about) with the excess XP they will have when they don't have any other skills they are interested in training. Even with slightly lower defenses, this basically gives them the same difficulty in the late game as every other species, while still having a much easier early game (since the skill cap doesn't matter until you hit it). I'd have to introduce some downside to doing so, and I haven't been able to think of a downside that sits on the exact edge between 'always do this' and 'never do this' to make it an interesting enough choice. However, if you (or someone else) can come up with a good idea that I feel could balance it, I do have an idea of how to implement it relatively painlessly.

What if the skill cap were tied to the number of runes ~~collected~~ fetched?

The cap starts at 11, is raised by 1 for each of the first three runes, and 1 for every three runes after that. So a standard 3-rune run ends at 14 and a full 15-rune run ends at 18 (These can be tweaked for balance and still look nice as the first three are special and 12 is divisible by 2, 3, and 4). This way the cap is less of a hard stop and the postgame doesn't leave them behind while still favoring hybrid over specialist strategies.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 06:51

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

k - the +14 crystal plate armour "Bawnatic" (worn) {*Corrode rC+ Dex+3}.

My EV only dropped by 1 when I put it on, but my AC increased by 20+ points. I guess that's one way to get me to actually wear a CPA. :shepface:

# ? Jan 18, 2017 08:00

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

But you'll never be able to cast anything

I don't think I've ever worn CPA.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 08:01

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

I'm rolling with trog, so I don't care about that anyway. :v:

quote:

Tha lance o' force reflects off an invisible shield around ye!!!
_Tha lance o' force hits tha ancient lich!
Tha ancient lich be knocked back by tha lance o' force!
_Tha ancient lich slams inta tha heavily etched metal wall!!!

Also, reflection is still cool and good.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 08:15

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

quote:

The ring of Pibbua {*Slow rF+ rC+ Int+7 Dex+6}.

Oh god I can't resist this but *slow seems like a great way to get killed.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 09:28

Cynic Jester: Apr 11, 2009; Let's put a simile on that face
A dazzling simile
Twinkling like the night sky

Internet Kraken posted:

Oh god I can't resist this but *slow seems like a great way to get killed.

Switch to Chei. It's a clear sign.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 09:31

Veryslightlymad: Jun 3, 2007; I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction

I dunno if I've ever played online, so I really only have to worry about my own player ghosts.

I'm mostly afraid to play online because I just mash the random button to begin with and take life as it comes. I think I've gotten 2 runes before, but never quite into the realm of Zot. I tend to download the game, splat about 50 guys and then forget it exists for 3 patches.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 09:37

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

Honestly not sure what to wear for armour on this character.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/InternetKraken/InternetKraken.txt

I wanna do casting so nothing super heavy, not that I've gotten any of the spells I'd actually want to use yet. Thinking ice/fire dragon armour would be okay. I'm planning on ditching Okawaru for TSO some time soon as well so I can go extended, so I won't have to worry about rN.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 09:59

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

Depends on what kinda spells you're looking for, and whether you're willing to wear that randart ring of wizardry or not. The Str Penalty/Int Bonus complicates things a bit, so I'm diving into wizard mode.

Assuming you don't wear the ring, your stats don't change from leveling up at all, and you have 20 spellcasting and 20 translocations, here's a before and after comparison of leather/fire scales.

Controlled Blink: 10% / 38%
Dispersal: 1% / 1%
Passage of Golubria: 0% / 1%

If I take translocations to 27, then Cblink goes to 1% / 8% before any wizardry or str/int boosts come into play. At 23 Translocations, and 16 Armour skill troll leather is 2% miscast and Fire Dragon 10%. Entirely within the realm of plausible. If you swap the ring of protection for that randart ring of wizardry, -3 strength, +6 intelligence, and the last skill settings, then you come out at ahead, taking you to 4% miscast in fire dragon scales. Something with 15 encumberance like Shadow/Storm Dragon Scales, 12% with the ring, 28% without.

TL;DR: Yeah, Ice, Pearl and Fire Dragon would be okay for level eight spells and skill levels around 23-24. Level nine spells might be stretching it. You could get away with storm or shadow dragon scales in a three-runer if you aimed a little lower, like level six spells. If you were not a naga with deformed body I'd recommend quicksilver dragon scales, or if you were playing trunk and lacking an rCorr barding, acid dragon scales perhaps. Any other race and the QDS would give you a nice boost while you were saving up ?EA and skilling up, but your naga would barely see an improvement over the troll leather or robes unless you had a high armour skill. And nagas have a drat good natural MR anyways. The max enchant is where it's at.

Aiming for extended?

# ? Jan 18, 2017 11:04

CKyle: Jan 15, 2008

LordSloth posted:

Bust skill cap, take that apt to minus 5, tweaking as needed?

Kind of interesting in that it forces them to use something else meanwhile. Sorta lovely because it isn't really fun (like a red draconian IE but worse) and picking something else to rely on prolly isn't that stressful.

All in all, a half-assed suggestion.

I was thinking something similar. Maybe you smoothly lower the aptitude per skill so it starts at +3 or +4, hits -1 about skill level 14, and then as they go up in skill level it gradually plummets to something ridiculously low like -10. And like a manual, the aptitude change should only effect experience gained, not already earned. In theory, you could master any skill, but it would be an incredible waste of XP.

Maybe the easiest way to implement would be to make a custom experience table just for this species that mimics a smooth change in aptitude? I don't know how difficult that is.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 15:56

Elusif: Jun 9, 2008

Make a new race of energy beings, incapable of using any equipment or attacking in ways other than spells. Call them Orbs of Toz, can't be mutated, can't use potions, can't use evokables. Can't carry items. Can only memorise spells from books on the ground or via godness. Instead of escaping with the orb of zot they become it.

High movement speed, high stats, high aptitudes, high resists, high mana, built in guardian spirit which is more effective, low health pool, no AC.

Orb.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 16:05

brainwrinkle: Oct 18, 2009; What's going on in here?; Buglord

Going from splatting OpTm in Lair to playing a DEFE feels like cheating. The difference between a power combo and the challenge races/weaker combos is vast.

I think I'm almost good enough to reliably win power combos, but not good enough to win mediocre starts without splatting a good number of times. Anyone have tips for improving your play at this stage?

# ? Jan 18, 2017 16:52

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

LordSloth posted:

Bust skill cap, take that apt to minus 5, tweaking as needed?

As Haifisch said, changing the aptitude recalculates the skill to fit the new aptitude, which would either make this incredibly unfun and not worth it, or always worth it by just making sure you have a backup skill while training it back up to a useful level.

kaschei posted:

Just implement it as an anti-manual and leave the current skill as-is?

Or make an elaborate respec mechanic where you can get a skill to 14, reset it to 0 with a max of 16 and apt of +1, reset it to 0 with max of 18 and apt of +0...?

Anti-manual sounds less awful, but also doesn't really have all that much of a downside; unlock a skill to higher training levels at -2 sounds fine when you don't have anything better to train. If every skill gets an anti-manual when this happens (even the ones remaining capped), people now game the system to avoid having to pay extra for the capped skills.

An elaborate, per-skill cap system sounds awfully fiddly to deal with in game and to implement.

Microcline posted:

What if the skill cap were tied to the number of runes ~~collected~~ fetched?

The cap starts at 11, is raised by 1 for each of the first three runes, and 1 for every three runes after that. So a standard 3-rune run ends at 14 and a full 15-rune run ends at 18 (These can be tweaked for balance and still look nice as the first three are special and 12 is divisible by 2, 3, and 4). This way the cap is less of a hard stop and the postgame doesn't leave them behind while still favoring hybrid over specialist strategies.

Making runes important for species growth sounds really weird, considering they aren't important for anything other than the rune locks in any other case. Species are usually designed more as a template, which may gain additional abilities as they level up. It sounds like a concept better attached to a god.

CKyle posted:

I was thinking something similar. Maybe you smoothly lower the aptitude per skill so it starts at +3 or +4, hits -1 about skill level 14, and then as they go up in skill level it gradually plummets to something ridiculously low like -10. And like a manual, the aptitude change should only effect experience gained, not already earned. In theory, you could master any skill, but it would be an incredible waste of XP.

Maybe the easiest way to implement would be to make a custom experience table just for this species that mimics a smooth change in aptitude? I don't know how difficult that is.

This sounds interesting, but very quickly becomes a species designed around picking Ash and Oka. It also leads to casual/new player confusion: why are the aptitudes changing after reaching certain skill levels, or why does 13 to 14 at +2 aptitude on this species take way more XP than on any other species? Meanwhile, pro/spoiled players would just treat it as a more dramatic version of the current skill system (where any training past a certain point becomes wasteful compared to diversifying), just making the species more annoying to play because they now have to pay more specific attention to where their skills are to avoid wasting XP.

So far, the only thing I've been able think of to try to balance uncapping a skill is to choose at random with no downside: always a benefit, but it cannot be gamed. It would have to happen at a high enough XP level to avoid start scumming, so maybe giving them an uncap at XL 14 (or 13 and 26 if I want to give them two). If I do give them this, I would probably drop the general skill cap down to 12 or less. The problem I can foresee with this approach is how many complaints may come up because it uncapped a barely useful skill (Invo on a Ru worshipper, for example) and expect to be able to steer it to some degree (which brings it back to the issue that it becomes boring/too powerful when the user can pick what they want). Another issue is that this may step on Draconian's design space somewhat, but that's a bridge to cross if I choose to implement this.

I'll probably be pushing a new version to experimental either today or tomorrow with the following changes (I want to test it more first):
Stats from 5/5/5 to 7/8/9
XP attribute from -1 to -4
Passive detect monsters and items up to 8 squares away (currently a static 8; I may change this from a static number to something that grows over levels)

# ? Jan 18, 2017 18:10

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

Honestly, it was a half-assed zero effort idea on my part. I haven't even played it yet. The other half-baked idea I have is sacrificing maximum exp levels, like Ru.

Should get around to playing it by the end of the week. From my total inexperience I'm don't even have an idea whether lifting a cap is fun, or good for the intended design, or whatever.

All I know is I will always have Call Canine memorized from the summoner spell book.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 19:16

silentsnack: Mar 19, 2009; Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current President of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.

Floodkiller posted:

So far, the only thing I've been able think of to try to balance uncapping a skill is to choose at random with no downside: always a benefit, but it cannot be gamed. It would have to happen at a high enough XP level to avoid start scumming, so maybe giving them an uncap at XL 14 (or 13 and 26 if I want to give them two). If I do give them this, I would probably drop the general skill cap down to 12 or less. The problem I can foresee with this approach is how many complaints may come up because it uncapped a barely useful skill (Invo on a Ru worshipper, for example) and expect to be able to steer it to some degree (which brings it back to the issue that it becomes boring/too powerful when the user can pick what they want). Another issue is that this may step on Draconian's design space somewhat, but that's a bridge to cross if I choose to implement this.

I'll probably be pushing a new version to experimental either today or tomorrow with the following changes (I want to test it more first):
Stats from 5/5/5 to 7/8/9
XP attribute from -1 to -4
Passive detect monsters and items up to 8 squares away (currently a static 8; I may change this from a static number to something that grows over levels)

How about letting them train past the cap (but keep effective level locked at 14) and give a racial ability that temporarily lets them use full power, but uses are very limited (along the lines of felid revives or somesuch)

Pop a Scooby Snack and you can unleash Firestorm/etc, for (sqrt(100+d(XL*10))) turns.

silentsnack fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jan 18, 2017

# ? Jan 18, 2017 19:48

Cerepol: Dec 2, 2011

https://crawl.jorgrun.rocks/morgue/cerepol/?file=cerepol.txt

code:


 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.20-a0-495-g2241292 (webtiles) character file.

cerepol the Cudgeler (Demonspawn Monk)              Turns: 5063, Time: 00:14:32

@: no status effects
A: antennae 2, icy blue scales 1, blink, cold resistance 2, powered by pain 1,
spiny 1
a: Blink, Minor Destruction, Lesser Servant of Makhleb, Renounce Religion


You are on level 5 of the Dungeon.
You worship Makhleb.
Makhleb is most pleased with you.
You are not hungry.


Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
-------+----------+-------------------------------------------
   211 | D:1      | Gained mutation: You sometimes gain a little power by taking damage. [demonic ancestry]
  1858 | D:2      | Gained mutation: You are partially covered in sharp spines. [demonic ancestry]
  2591 | D:3      | Gained mutation: You have a pair of small antennae on your head. [demonic ancestry]
  3819 | D:4      | Gained mutation: You are partially covered in icy blue scales. (AC +2) [demonic ancestry]
  5040 | D:5      | Noticed a sky beast
  5056 | D:5      | Killed a sky beast
  5056 | D:5      | Gained mutation: You have a pair of antennae on your head. [demonic ancestry]
  5061 | D:5      | Gained mutation: Your flesh is cold resistant. (rC+) [mutagenic meat]
  5062 | D:5      | Gained mutation: You can translocate small distances at will. [mutagenic meat]
  5063 | D:5      | Gained mutation: Your flesh is very cold resistant. (rC++) [mutagenic meat]

this is the most luck I've ever gotten for mutation roulette!

# ? Jan 18, 2017 21:49

Sage Grimm: Feb 18, 2013; Let's go explorin' little dude!

silentsnack posted:

How about letting them train past the cap (but keep effective level locked at 14) and give a racial ability that temporarily lets them use full power, but uses are very limited (along the lines of felid revives or somesuch)

Pop a Scooby Snack and you can unleash Firestorm/etc, for (sqrt(100+d(XL*10))) turns.

That's a neat idea. Mine would have been to let the player annihilate one (or more) of their skills to let them past the cap of another random skill. Gets past the "uncapped useless skill" somewhat and doesn't let the user influence it too much.

# ? Jan 18, 2017 23:37

PotatoManJack: Nov 9, 2009

After my last 3 rune win with a MiFi of Qazlal, I have some thoughts on Qaz as a whole.

On one hand, he's a nice alternative to Oki and provides some cool bonuses and the elemental damage output is really sweet. However, the noise that he makes relegates him to a 3 rune god. Despite being able to crush Spider/Swamp, Vaults got tricky because of all the swarming monsters, and when I tried to go after the Abyss rune, it was a crazy hinderance. Never ever being able to rest and having mutating enemies constantly running to my position was such an unpleasant experience.

Zot 5 was also pretty unfun having to deal with so many difficult enemies at once.

Onto the next character. Having only ever accomplished 5 rune wins at best, what's the current hotness for OP combos? Is it still get a DECj of Veh past the early game and win?

# ? Jan 18, 2017 23:54

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

What's the correct response if you worship chei but don't have his second ability yet, and you auto-explore into an OOD cyclops that takes off a third of your health instantly with no nearby corner to back around

# ? Jan 19, 2017 00:18

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

Answer: don't worship chei till you have some panic options. Just converted is the most vulnerable time. If you have spammals, you might be able to force him to use up most of large rocks. Scroll of fog or fear, resist wands, mephitic cloud and lots of prayer.

# ? Jan 19, 2017 00:54

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

cheetah7071 posted:

What's the correct response if you worship chei but don't have his second ability yet, and you auto-explore into an OOD cyclops that takes off a third of your health instantly with no nearby corner to back around

Start tele and use consumables like crazy to try to survive. Alternatively, ~~quaff haste~~(E: Oops Chei worshipper :lol:

) and try to damage race if you have good ranged skills and can maybe beat it out while it gets unlucky with the following shots. Finally, succumb to sweet death if your morale is broken (or Ctrl+Q if you don't want to leave a ghost).

Sage Grimm posted:

That's a neat idea. Mine would have been to let the player annihilate one (or more) of their skills to let them past the cap of another random skill. Gets past the "uncapped useless skill" somewhat and doesn't let the user influence it too much.

Maybe based off of this, I could go with adding an ability that allows you to sacrifice a mastered skill to increase the skill cap for everything else by 1-2 points. This would make it so that there is a risk/opportunity choice of when you want to invest points to sacrifice for a larger cap, as well as encourage messing with less liked skill schools like training poison magic early to sac it later when it becomes useless.

# ? Jan 19, 2017 00:55

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

code:

1579061 haifisch the Invulnerable (level 27, 245/256 HPs)
             Began as a Barachian Berserker on Jan 13, 2017.
             Was a High Priest of Trog.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes on Jan 18, 2017!
             
             The game lasted 08:07:25 (101483 turns).

haifisch the Invulnerable (Barachian Berserker)   Turns: 101483, Time: 08:07:25

Health: 245/256    AC: 60    Str: 20    XL:     27
Magic:  26/26      EV: 18    Int:  9    God:    Trog [*****.]
Gold:   3059       SH:  9    Dex: 18    Spells: 26/26 levels left

rFire  + + +      SeeInvis .    a - +9 triple sword (flame) {🔥🔥🔥 FLOOSH!!! 🔥🔥🔥}
rCold  + . .      Gourm    .    k - +14 crystal plate armour "Bawnatic" {*Corrode rC+ Dex+3}
rNeg   + . .      Faith    .    (shield currently unavailable)
rPois  +          Spirit   +    J - +2 hat {Spirit}
rElec  +          Reflect  +    Y - +1 cloak "Wusumank" {+Blink rPois}
rCorr  .          Harm     .    Z - +2 pair of gloves {archery}
MR     +++..      Clarity  +    z - +2 pair of boots {run}
Stlth  ..........               c - +5 amulet of reflection
Regen  0.3/turn                 U - ring "Maesmeymp" {Wiz rF+ rN+ Str+3 Dex-3}
                                l - ring of Zeqirixe {rElec rPois rF+ Str-4 Dex+2}

@: drained
A: swims, horns 2, talons 1, large bone plates 1, rugged brown scales 1, blurry
vision 1, clarity, clever 1, deterioration 1, fire resistance 1, low mp 3, magic
resistance 1, screaming 1, shaggy fur 1, slowness 1, slow regeneration 1, sturdy
frame 1, strong legs 2
0: Orb of Zot
}: 3/15 runes: barnacled, silver, gossamer
a: Hop, Berserk, Trog's Hand, Brothers in Arms, Burn Spellbooks, Renounce
Religion, Evoke Blink

This is normally where I'd give more detailed opinions about the frogs, but I feel like I didn't get an accurate opinion with AC:60, running boots, and Trog worship. :v:

One thing I did notice is that scrolls of recharging seem kinda useless now, because I'll generally find another wand of a given type before using up all the charges on the first one. Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd found Scattershot earlier, though. (Comedy option: Let us use them to re-activate elemental evokers earlier)

LordSloth posted:

Answer: don't worship chei

...unless your escape options are good and you're already good at GTFOing early/dealing with enemies cautiously.

# ? Jan 19, 2017 01:02

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

It turned out I had a scroll of fog, so I lived

# ? Jan 19, 2017 01:10

brainwrinkle: Oct 18, 2009; What's going on in here?; Buglord

Conjure Ball Lightning is so fun!! Let's hope I can get firestorm online before Conjure Ball Lightning kills me though.

# ? Jan 19, 2017 05:19

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

Always wanted to play as a demonspawn and worship the faded altar for maximum random. Finally got the chance since I found it on D:2!

quote:

There is a faded altar of an unknown god here.
Xom accepts your prayer!
Xom welcomes you!

# ? Jan 19, 2017 08:02

tote up a bags: Jun 8, 2006; die stoats die

Internet Kraken posted:

Always wanted to play as a demonspawn and worship the faded altar for maximum random. Finally got the chance since I found it on D:2!

Congrats on your win

# ? Jan 19, 2017 08:46

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# ? May 18, 2024 06:31

someone awful.: Sep 7, 2007

Internet Kraken posted:

Always wanted to play as a demonspawn and worship the faded altar for maximum random. Finally got the chance since I found it on D:2!

you asked for maximum random tbf

# ? Jan 19, 2017 09:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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