Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

the Orb of Zot posted:

7 STR is tied with a Human Wizard or a Spriggan Warper, among other things. Going lower than this is stuff like DEFE, SpEN, and FeSu, spellcasters where you may not even bother with melee at all.
7 INT is tied with a Ghoul Skald or a Human Berserker, among other things. Going lower than this is stuff like MiFi or TrGl where you may not bother with spellcasting even if you don't worship Trog.
7 DEX is tied with a Ghoul Wizard, an Ogre Wizard, and literally nothing else. Going lower than this is impossible outside of a really weird Wanderer roll.

I didn't realize it was quite that bad until you laid it out like that, but yeah, no wonder they feel like hot garbage. I was wondering if I was doing it wrong, but I guess no, they just really are that bad.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 11:57

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# ? May 14, 2024 00:08

Anias: Jun 3, 2010; It really is a lovely hat

I think I want Gnolls to start with 7/7/7 and just gain positive stats from any stat change.

Degeneration becomes a buff.
All the -stat gear is great.
Stat draining mobs are your best friends.

Etc.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 14:26

Anias: Jun 3, 2010; It really is a lovely hat

That's after splatting 50 of them between online and offline.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 14:26

FulsomFrank: Sep 11, 2005; Hard on for love

World Famous W posted:

From yesterday, but I don't like new tomb stair gimmick at all.

I didn't die in Tomb, mind ya'. I died in Pan acting like a jackass, BUT I went to pan because Tomb was pissing me off.

I don't know about anyone else but Tomb is absolutely terrifying and even more of a slog now. Unless you've got a perfect build I find it not remotely worth dipping into.

Hell might be easier.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 14:44

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

Anias posted:

I think I want Gnolls to start with 7/7/7 and just gain positive stats from any stat change.

Degeneration becomes a buff.
All the -stat gear is great.
Stat draining mobs are your best friends.

Etc.

That's a pretty cool idea.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 15:37

Hooplah: Jul 15, 2006

The gnoll concept is terribly uninteresting and in their current form I can't see why anyone would want to play one.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 15:59

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

the Orb of Zot posted:

*snip

Thanks for writing all this out! I also read everyone else's feedback, so thanks for replying!

There's been a lot of complaints about the stats being too low. I will put forward that I did win two games in playtesting to make sure they were winnable, but I also admit the stat line is probably too low. My fix before merger for this was to put the stat choice every three levels back in, but it was left out when merged to see how it would play out.

After a couple more days of receiving input/data, I'll probably push a PR to raise the statline (10/10/10 sounds like a good starting point to test), as well as potentially raising the aptitudes to +4 or +5 (but this might be followed with breaking the flat apts on some skills like Evo/Invo, which aren't stat reliant).

Edit: There will also need to be a fix to spell hunger issues, which might be adding gourmand, but I'm still working on the best approach for that.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 16:28

Hooplah: Jul 15, 2006

Is there somewhere I can read about the concept/explanation/justification for what role gnolls are supposed to fill? I can't think of a class where choosing one would be an interesting choice vs. any other race (besides Hu or Dg, I guess, but those are both terminally boring). Statrot is such a complete non-issue 99% of the time, and +stat items so plentiful and impactful.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 17:03

pathetic little tramp: Dec 12, 2005; by Hillary Clinton's assassins; Fallen Rib

The gnoll idea isn't bad but give us some extra kind of bonus. You can't gain stats from levelling up, but you can get the bonus from gear, leads to a thoughtful consideration of "do I wear the +3 Int ring that also gives me random tele? I do need to put some power into my spells after all". In exchange, yes you can lose stats that are regained from xp like usual, and that can be a devastating blow to work around.

Also, why just +3? +5 everything if getting to 27 doesn't do poo poo for you anyway.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 17:28

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

The "+5 to all" gimmick was tried just recently with that dog race that loses interest. The comment was that early game was comical and you had vaults-level weapon skill walking into lair. 10/10/10 sounds more reasonable as a starting point, how the heck 7's got on the table bemuses me. This point was also raised with the dog race: having huge positive stats across the board is amazing on paper, but in reality most races will be dumping most of their xp into positive stat stuff anyways, it's why ppl pick thinks like MiBe's and DECj's etc.

I've got a good non-rhetorical question: Why aren't we exploring new races without extreme gimmicks, but rather interesting apt distributions with minimal slot restrictions? Stuff like merfolk are the classic good example this: they have a wicked weapon apt, but no str and crap armour, making them the prototypical gadiator-ice-hyrbid. It'd be fun to try, I dno, necro-armour ("death knight") guy who doesn't have to deal with DD's crap.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 17:53

Scaramouche: Mar 26, 2001; SPACE FACE! SPACE FACE!

The 10/10/10 idea was exactly what I was going to suggest

# ? Jul 20, 2017 17:53

Anias: Jun 3, 2010; It really is a lovely hat

Floodkiller posted:

Thanks for writing all this out! I also read everyone else's feedback, so thanks for replying!

There's been a lot of complaints about the stats being too low. I will put forward that I did win two games in playtesting to make sure they were winnable, but I also admit the stat line is probably too low. My fix before merger for this was to put the stat choice every three levels back in, but it was left out when merged to see how it would play out.

After a couple more days of receiving input/data, I'll probably push a PR to raise the statline (10/10/10 sounds like a good starting point to test), as well as potentially raising the aptitudes to +4 or +5 (but this might be followed with breaking the flat apts on some skills like Evo/Invo, which aren't stat reliant).

Edit: There will also need to be a fix to spell hunger issues, which might be adding gourmand, but I'm still working on the best approach for that.

"Can this win" is a terrible metric for making game designs. That's a useful metric for tuning. Right now gnolls are -not fun- and changing their base stats to 10/10/10 runs into the same problem of many situations where you find something unfun over and over and over again. You could make their base stats 30/30/30 and they would win more, but they would still have the same problem of -not fun-. You need to make the no-stat-malus gimmick more interesting, and the best way I can see to do it is absolute value positive all the stat change items/effects which in turn is balanced out by having static non-growing base stats. Suddenly you're looking for every -5 str ring you come across as interesting, and when you're playing not-gnolls you say "I wish I was a gnoll" if you see one.

You have a lot of design space here, just push it into the fun category and you'll have a unique race.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 17:54

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Yeah, I dig the "gain the absolute value of all stat changes". Imagine all the purple you'd eat.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 20:33

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

code:

 Okawaru is honoured by your kill.
 Something appears at your feet!
_Okawaru grants you a weapon!
 Your +0 falchion of flaming stops flaming.
 Your hands tingle!
_a - the +8 mithril axe "Arga" (weapon) {speed, MR+}
 You see here a runed morningstar {god gift}.
_i - a runed morningstar {god gift}
 Space warps around you for a moment!
_i - a +2 morningstar of distortion (weapon) {god gift}

Okawaru is a bastard.

Took it off without banishment though.

PMush Perfect posted:

Yeah, I dig the "gain the absolute value of all stat changes". Imagine all the purple you'd eat.

Who doesn't eat all the purple anyways?

# ? Jul 20, 2017 21:53

Indecisive: May 6, 2007

merfolk skald feels wierd for a 'good' combo, maybe I just dont like skald. also trying Zin as a god and bleh. It's working though I guess, got by with +0 trident/halberds til I found a +8 glaive of chop (-tele) in lair which is just killing everything right now til I find a bardiche.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 22:15

Devlan Mud: Apr 10, 2006; I'll hear your stories when we come back, alright?

Serephina posted:

I've got a good non-rhetorical question: Why aren't we exploring new races without extreme gimmicks, but rather interesting apt distributions with minimal slot restrictions? Stuff like merfolk are the classic good example this: they have a wicked weapon apt, but no str and crap armour, making them the prototypical gadiator-ice-hyrbid. It'd be fun to try, I dno, necro-armour ("death knight") guy who doesn't have to deal with DD's crap.

Because the devs remove those.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 23:34

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

Sage Grimm posted:

The one that went away was the level 2 Air/Charms spell Reflect Missile, to clarify. The one that Araganzar recommends getting is the level 6 big brother and still remains.

I've been rather nonplussed by Summon Forest in the late game. Shadow Creatures is your no-brainer Summons pick for 3-rune hybrid games.

I should have mentioned Summons - spellpower does affect them but many summons are quite good with low spellpower.

Indecisive posted:

merfolk skald feels wierd for a 'good' combo, maybe I just dont like skald. also trying Zin as a god and bleh. It's working though I guess, got by with +0 trident/halberds til I found a +8 glaive of chop (-tele) in lair which is just killing everything right now til I find a bardiche.

MfSk is strong because spec weapon is extremely good with polearms. Zin is just not great for early and mid game and not that great for a 3-4 rune game either. Zin excels late when you can do a lot with very high invocations both for offense and escape as well as providing protections from mutations and hell effects. Oka, Hep, Ru, Trog, Gozag and Yred are all strong with MfSk.

Summons are also good with polearms and Summon Forest at decent power can make water pools. Merfolk have +3 transmutations so take advantage of the great dodging apt with Statue Form and you are good to go for endgame.

# ? Jul 20, 2017 23:38

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

World Famous W posted:

code:
_a - the +8 mithril axe "Arga" (weapon) {speed, MR+}
 Space warps around you for a moment!
_i - a +2 morningstar of distortion (weapon) {god gift}
Okawaru is a bastard.

Took it off without banishment though.

You. Have. Arga. Your only possible complaint is "well, I would have preferred Wyrmbane".

# ? Jul 20, 2017 23:47

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

Oh no complaints there. Been rocking the hell out of it. But I still got to try on the weapons Oka gave me and was not expecting freaking distortion.

Honestly, I thought distortion was limited to Lugonu.

# ? Jul 21, 2017 00:07

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

Oka will happily give you Distort, *Drain, *Contam, you name it, all three in combination if he's feeling really saucy.

# ? Jul 21, 2017 00:13

pathetic little tramp: Dec 12, 2005; by Hillary Clinton's assassins; Fallen Rib

So will Trog. I've never gotten one from Xom, though. Xom loves us.

# ? Jul 21, 2017 00:22

Goffer: Apr 4, 2007; "..."

Punching Pandemonium lords to death!

code:

Found a dark rune of Zot.
 The helpless Gloorx Vloq fails to defend itself.
 You squash Gloorx Vloq like an ant!!!!! You kick Gloorx Vloq!
 You tail-slap Gloorx Vloq!!
 Gloorx Vloq is severely wounded.
 Your shadow hits Gloorx Vloq!
 Gloorx Vloq calls on the powers of darkness!
_Your body is wracked with pain!
 You completely miss Gloorx Vloq. You kick Gloorx Vloq!
 You tail-slap Gloorx Vloq, but do no damage.
 Gloorx Vloq is severely wounded.
 Your shadow hits Gloorx Vloq. Gloorx Vloq completely misses you.
 Gloorx Vloq calls on the powers of darkness!
_Your body is wracked with pain!
 You pulverise Gloorx Vloq!!!!
 You kill Gloorx Vloq!
_Dithmenos accepts your kill.

I'm really torn as to which transmutation to use:

I like punching things, and as a draconian, dragon form is awesome, definitely does the most damage quickly, plus I have rings and amulets that resist everything (but only rN+). Torment is awful though, and there isn't any way around that.
Statue form is OK, hits hard but so slow and still mutatable, and it sucks running up to a Neqoxec and getting hit 2-3 times. Also it just doesn't feel as fun (maybe because there is no draconian statue image, so I look like a dweeby human?)
Necromutation is also OK, but suffers because I still can't actually wear armour as a draconian, and it doesn't hit as hard as the other two. On the plus side, it does have complete immunity to nearly everything.

I guess I just wish that there was a more accessible form of resist torment that didn't involve sacrificing my cool toys.
Then again I guess as a transmutation specialist I guess I'm meant to learn multiple transmutations and use them situationally, like a Fire Elementalist knows multiple fire spells, etc.

Goffer fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jul 21, 2017

# ? Jul 21, 2017 00:32

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

What do I need to know about the new tomb before attempting to go down the one way stairs?

# ? Jul 21, 2017 15:04

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

taqueso posted:

What do I need to know about the new tomb before attempting to go down the one way stairs?

Where the one way stairs up are. For Tomb:2 that will be in the four corners from the central location IIRC and Tomb:3 has doors to the left/right of the central hallway that lead back to them. Tomb:2 is worse than Hell, Tomb:3 is a step in the right direction.

# ? Jul 21, 2017 15:26

Indecisive: May 6, 2007

tomb stairs step 1: magic mapping, step 2: get to da stairs step 3: kill what you can and leave, repeat

there should be stairs back up within like 10 squares of where you get dropped so it's not like you have to get ready to fight the whole floor, if you have cblink or scrolls of blink or even passage of golubria it's pretty easy to make it before you get overwhelmed. I agree that Tomb 2 is the harder ambush though, you get a room full of poo poo coming at you from all directions, on tomb 3 you can at least funnel them in the doorway.

# ? Jul 21, 2017 15:58

Old Dun Cow: Sep 5, 2006

Indecisive posted:

tomb stairs step 1: magic mapping, step 2: get to da stairs step 3: kill what you can and leave, repeat

Alternately: <s>, <s>, recite ?immolation, <a>, apocalypse, <enter>, <enter>, <play dcss git>

# ? Jul 21, 2017 16:17

I am Otis: Sep 22, 2003

Dont like the new tomb changes. I only ever do tomb if I have to have 15. If I do extended these days its usually only abyss and maybe a hell or pan. Just wish it was as fun as early game and depths, vaults and zot

# ? Jul 21, 2017 17:06

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

Update on Crystal Spear: I used to kinda like Crystal Spear. Now that I've lost a DEFE on his second zig to an enemy reflecting my nearly-max-power Crystal Spear at me and killing me, I no longer like Crystal Spear.

# ? Jul 21, 2017 19:52

Indecisive: May 6, 2007

owned

# ? Jul 21, 2017 20:06

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

Also, man, this isn't the first time I've run into a d:8 Centaur Warrior, but it sucks every time.

e: the d4 two-headed ogre is new. Thanks, Conjure Flame.!

LogicNinja fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jul 21, 2017

# ? Jul 21, 2017 20:16

vulturesrow: Sep 25, 2011; _{Always gotta pay it forward.}

I made the jump from .18 to .20 recently and have played a pretty decent amount of games. I could be wrong but it feels like the game has stepped up a bit in difficulty. I'm making it to Lair much less often, especially on caster type characters. And I've been seeing a lot of OOD monsters like LogicNinja was talking about.

# ? Jul 25, 2017 21:32

aphid_licker: Jan 7, 2009

How does the game do artifact frequencies? I'm trying to get an Octopode Monk to work and had an absolutely infuriating run where I splatted on D12 or something without having found a single ring.

# ? Jul 26, 2017 20:53

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

aphid_licker posted:

How does the game do artifact frequencies? I'm trying to get an Octopode Monk to work and had an absolutely infuriating run where I splatted on D12 or something without having found a single ring.

This is just a data sampling of a bunch of games, but on average you will find between 0 to 1 pieces of jewelry per dungeon floor (starts at 0.5, trends upwards as you descend). This is an average based off of all the jewelry types spawn chances combined, so you could just be finding the garbage stuff or a bunch of amulets.

# ? Jul 27, 2017 03:17

pathetic little tramp: Dec 12, 2005; by Hillary Clinton's assassins; Fallen Rib

In my search to get greaterplayer I've decided to get a mummy win I'm going to do a MuSu o Sif Muna for practically infinite channelling, but of course that won't work on newer versions, so I'm getting sneaky with 0.11, though the good news is my summons can hit stuff outside my LOS!

Anyone know what I should get my stabbing skill up to? And what's a good level of traps & doors detection?

# ? Jul 31, 2017 16:54

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

pathetic little tramp posted:

Anyone know what I should get my stabbing skill up to? And what's a good level of traps & doors detection?

Stabbing is a straight up multiplier so there are no good breakpoints, but on a MuSu I would say zero. Get T&D to 10 by end of Lair to have a good chance of detecting Zot traps, which in 0.11 can be quite deadly.

You know, it would be pretty easy to have a Mummy of every race, just subtract 1 from all apts due to the mummification process.

Sif channeling was not reworked until 0.19 so you can infinitely channel as late as 0.18. If you insist on playing 0.11, just get demonic horde as the summoned creature limit was not added until 0.13. I did both lair branches in 0.11 as FeSu just running as fast as I could making GBS threads clouds of demons. Don't forget to abuse Evaporation, too.

# ? Jul 31, 2017 17:24

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

pathetic little tramp posted:

In my search to get greaterplayer I've decided to get a mummy win I'm going to do a MuSu o Sif Muna for practically infinite channelling, but of course that won't work on newer versions, so I'm getting sneaky with 0.11, though the good news is my summons can hit stuff outside my LOS!

Anyone know what I should get my stabbing skill up to? And what's a good level of traps & doors detection?

I can't give good advice for 0.11, but I can recommend 0.18 and Pakellas worship if you want another busted way to beat mummies. Scumming for rods in 0.19 or earlier with Xom before worshipping Pak/Gozag can also be good if you don't care about winrate and just want a single mummy win so you can ignore them forever.

# ? Jul 31, 2017 17:31

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

Yeah, can definitely recommended the Mummy of Pake. Got my 15 rune mummy that way and now I never have to play that worthless race again.

# ? Jul 31, 2017 19:43

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

Yeah, the Mildly-Mummered Pake was quite good a few Patches ago.

Araganzar fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jul 31, 2017

# ? Jul 31, 2017 19:54

Toadsmash: Jun 10, 2009; Dave Tate's downsy face approves.

First time getting Slime Rune! Playing FoAK, still not decided on going full extended or not. I'd probably have to spend some time Abyss farming to get some resist gear, which sounds frankly miserable. It'd only be my second win ever.

# ? Jul 31, 2017 22:33

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# ? May 14, 2024 00:08

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Why are crawl devs so obsessed with making Dogbert races?

# ? Aug 1, 2017 00:21

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