[Crawl] Poison resistance dilemma

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Hi all,

I've always thought that a decent source of poison resistance was an easy
thing to get by the time one needed it. Not anymore -- I have an 18th level
DEWi who just. can't. FIND any source that isn't a bit ridiculous. And I'm
having some trouble now deciding how to proceed.

Cleared: D 15 and higher, entire Mines and Halls (Halls at level 17 was a bit
early, perhaps, but I was hoping that the treasure pile at the end of the
Halls would solve my problem -- it didn't), entire Lair, entire Swamp
(yep--got confused once and poisoned a few times, but that was it), the first
couple of levels of the Vaults. Everything else untouched.

Available sources of poison resistance:
- an artifact @#^^@$ WAR AXE (uh THANKS, Elves!!), and
- a couple of suits of heavy armor.

Notes: I have a staff of conjuration. I don't have an amulet of resist
corrosion. I've found the entry to the Hive FWIW, as well as of course the
entries to the Snake Pit and the Slime Pits. Focuses are conjuration, earth
(in the long run) and ice (currently ahead of earth, even though it's turned
off).

Possible routes I can imagine:
- Dive the main dungeon until it starts to look dangerous (which it already
kind of was a while back, but that was several character-levels ago), then
dive the Vaults, hoping that Something Good Will Happen along the way.
- Run into the Snake Pits wielding a war axe and screaming BANZAIIII!!
- Run into the Snake Pits wearing banded mail or maaaaybe chain mail of p.r..
Not even elven AFAIR.

Any other routes I'm not thinking of? Any thoughts on which is wisest?

Erik

 

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Erik Piper <efrniokr@sdky.cz> wrote:
> - Dive the main dungeon until it starts to look dangerous (which it already
> kind of was a while back, but that was several character-levels ago), then
> dive the Vaults, hoping that Something Good Will Happen along the way.

This is what I'd do. With most of my chars who make it far enough, I clear
the Vaults before the Elven Halls. I just have bad luck in the Halls.

justen

 

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"Erik Piper" <efrniokr@sdky.cz> writes:

>- Run into the Snake Pits wielding a war axe and screaming BANZAIIII!!
>- Run into the Snake Pits wearing banded mail or maaaaybe chain mail of p.r..
>Not even elven AFAIR.

Both of these are valid options. How are your spell success rates in these
cases? I'd prefer the war axe, since you're playing a wizard.

I once did the Snake Pit without poison resistance, but it was with a healer.
Some people do it all the time and claim that a decent evasion score is enough.
Or if you can cast deflect missiles (which you probably can't), poisoning
shouldn't be a problem.

-Jukka
--
Jukka Kuusisto

 

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"Erik Piper" <efrniokr@sdky.cz> wrote in message
news:31qpcdF3efh3uU1@individual.net...
> Cleared: D 15 and higher, entire Mines and Halls (Halls at level 17 was a bit
> early, perhaps, but I was hoping that the treasure pile at the end of the
> Halls would solve my problem -- it didn't), entire Lair, entire Swamp
> (yep--got confused once and poisoned a few times, but that was it), the first
> couple of levels of the Vaults. Everything else untouched.
>
> Available sources of poison resistance:
> - an artifact @#^^@$ WAR AXE (uh THANKS, Elves!!), and
> - a couple of suits of heavy armor.

I suppose if you've done the Swamp, all those Swamp Dragon corpses have rotted
away by now, so you couldn't just make yourself an armor?

> Notes: I have a staff of conjuration. I don't have an amulet of resist
> corrosion. I've found the entry to the Hive FWIW, as well as of course the
> entries to the Snake Pit and the Slime Pits. Focuses are conjuration, earth
> (in the long run) and ice (currently ahead of earth, even though it's turned
> off).
>
> Possible routes I can imagine:
> - Dive the main dungeon until it starts to look dangerous (which it already
> kind of was a while back, but that was several character-levels ago), then
> dive the Vaults, hoping that Something Good Will Happen along the way.
> - Run into the Snake Pits wielding a war axe and screaming BANZAIIII!!
> - Run into the Snake Pits wearing banded mail or maaaaybe chain mail of p.r..
> Not even elven AFAIR.
>
> Any other routes I'm not thinking of? Any thoughts on which is wisest?

Well I for one do the Snake Pit without poison resistance all the time, and
claim that a decent evasion score is enough -- just down a healing potion when
your poison meter takes on a rosy hue. If you can't do Deflect Missiles, Repel
would probably be enough to get the job done. Do you have a book with Cure
Poison in it (I think there's a spell Resist Poison, too, but I worry about
poisoning so little after the first few levels that I'm not sure I've ever
memorized either one).

If you can cast your necessary spells without the staff, the axe is a viable
option, too.

--
Jeremey

 

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bork bork bork Jeremey Wilson bork 1:43:25 PM bork 12/9/2004 bork bork:

>
> "Erik Piper" <efrniokr@sdky.cz> wrote in message
> news:31qpcdF3efh3uU1@individual.net...
> > Cleared: D 15 and higher, entire Mines and Halls (Halls at level 17 was a
> > bit early, perhaps, but I was hoping that the treasure pile at the end of
> > the Halls would solve my problem -- it didn't), entire Lair, entire Swamp
> > (yep--got confused once and poisoned a few times, but that was it), the
> > first couple of levels of the Vaults. Everything else untouched.
> >
> > Available sources of poison resistance:
> > - an artifact @#^^@$ WAR AXE (uh THANKS, Elves!!), and
> > - a couple of suits of heavy armor.
>
> I suppose if you've done the Swamp, all those Swamp Dragon corpses have
> rotted away by now, so you couldn't just make yourself an armor?

They basically didn't turn up until the final level, and either none of them
left a corpse, or I missed them all. I was a little distracted by the level
being a bit tough, especially since a recent death there WITH poison
resistance had drilled into me that Swamp:5 is no place to be fooling around.
(It was actually rather wimpy this time, but the lack of poison resistance
"made up" for that.)

> > Notes: I have a staff of conjuration. I don't have an amulet of resist
> > corrosion. I've found the entry to the Hive FWIW, as well as of course the
> > entries to the Snake Pit and the Slime Pits. Focuses are conjuration,
> > earth (in the long run) and ice (currently ahead of earth, even though
> > it's turned off).
> >
> > Possible routes I can imagine:
> > - Dive the main dungeon until it starts to look dangerous (which it
> > already kind of was a while back, but that was several character-levels
> > ago), then dive the Vaults, hoping that Something Good Will Happen along
> > the way. - Run into the Snake Pits wielding a war axe and screaming
> > BANZAIIII!! - Run into the Snake Pits wearing banded mail or maaaaybe
> > chain mail of p.r.. Not even elven AFAIR.
> >
> > Any other routes I'm not thinking of? Any thoughts on which is wisest?
>
> Well I for one do the Snake Pit without poison resistance all the time, and
> claim that a decent evasion score is enough -- just down a healing potion
> when your poison meter takes on a rosy hue.

Hmm... I do have a huge pile of those stored in Lair:1, and I rarely die due
to lack of a potion of healing (unlike Heal Wounds), so they'd probably
otherwise go to waste... interesting thought.

> If you can't do Deflect
> Missiles, Repel would probably be enough to get the job done.

I have a good Enchantments skill (although I imagine every Wizard eventually
effectively becomes some more specialized class, they start out as
generalists), so Repel is no problem and Deflect is only a matter of finding
the book (and maybe not even that -- but I quite like that spell, so if I
forgot having access to it, I'd be a bit surprised).

> Do you have
> a book with Cure Poison in it (I think there's a spell Resist Poison, too,
> but I worry about poisoning so little after the first few levels that I'm
> not sure I've ever memorized either one).

There's a Young Poisoner's Handbook on sale, but otherwise I don't think I
have much poison magic available. (I do have 2 levels of poison magic from
back when I still had to use Mephitic Cloud [1], though.) Think I'll skip the
purchase; I'm biased at the moment, though, the last time I made an iffy book
purchase in this game (book of Clouds), I used the book in question not one
bit.

[1] When your starting book lacks powerful spells, you have to make due with
middling ones.

> If you can cast your necessary spells without the staff, the axe is a viable
> option, too.

So, so far we have, counting Jukka's advice, 1 1/2 votes for doing it
resistanceless and 1 1/2 for doing it with the axe. Think I'll head in
there with the axe, the spell, and the potions, and experiment a bit with
both, then settle down.

Erik

 

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Erik Piper wrote:

> I've always thought that a decent source of poison resistance was an
> easy thing to get by the time one needed it. Not anymore -- I have an
> 18th level DEWi who just. can't. FIND any source that isn't a bit
> ridiculous. And I'm having some trouble now deciding how to proceed.

Don't know whether it's still of interest, but I'd currently a similar
problem: a level 15 DEIE, absolutely no source of res_poison, even no
heavy armor or weapon. I already cleared DL 16 and the first 2 levels of
the Halls and the Vaults, entire Lair and Mines but nothing else so far.
My main problem at this point was food and so I decided to take the risk
and grap all the yummie stuff from the bottom of the Hive.
What shall I say? It was surprisingly easy!

I think the key to success was a pretty high base AC (21) with EV 11.
Most of the time I was boosting my AC to 30 (Ozocubu's Armour) which
seemed to be an almost perfect protection against poisonous stings.
Don't know whether Ozo's Armour is similarly effective for a Wizard,
though. You didn't post anything about your current AC/EV, but you
probably could use these values as a rule of thumb for 'pseudo' poison
resistance...

Btw, how's your DEWi going? Still alive?
Good luck and shall Vehumet be always with you.

Rubinstein

 

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bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 3:10:37 PM bork 12/11/2004 bork bork:

> Erik Piper wrote:
>
> > I've always thought that a decent source of poison resistance was an
> > easy thing to get by the time one needed it. Not anymore -- I have an
> > 18th level DEWi who just. can't. FIND any source that isn't a bit
> > ridiculous. And I'm having some trouble now deciding how to proceed.
>
> Don't know whether it's still of interest, but I'd currently a similar
> problem: a level 15 DEIE, absolutely no source of res_poison, even no
> heavy armor or weapon. I already cleared DL 16 and the first 2 levels of
> the Halls and the Vaults, entire Lair and Mines but nothing else so far.
> My main problem at this point was food and so I decided to take the risk
> and grap all the yummie stuff from the bottom of the Hive.
> What shall I say? It was surprisingly easy!
>
> I think the key to success was a pretty high base AC (21) with EV 11.
> Most of the time I was boosting my AC to 30 (Ozocubu's Armour) which
> seemed to be an almost perfect protection against poisonous stings.
> Don't know whether Ozo's Armour is similarly effective for a Wizard,
> though. You didn't post anything about your current AC/EV, but you
> probably could use these values as a rule of thumb for 'pseudo' poison
> resistance...
>
> Btw, how's your DEWi going? Still alive?
> Good luck and shall Vehumet be always with you.
>
> Rubinstein

Wore banded mail of poison resistance (using double =oIce and a staff of
conjuration to avoid miscast problems -- insanely powerful combo if you don't
need to worry about fire, actually) and lugged along the axe just in case.
Found a =oPR in the Snake Pit itself shortly afterwards.

Considerably later, I died.

Crawl lesson no. 2309:

Never underestimate boggarts.

("City" level, Vaults 6. They kept summoning things with powerful ranged
attacks on the one hand and things that were ice-resistant on the other. I
had plenty of unresistable and half-unresistable spells in da books, but the
only ones I had on hand were Speech and Phenomena (more commonly known as
D.'s Vapid Deconstruction) and Crystal Spear. I started focusing on the
summoners instead of the summoned far too late -- low on HP, lower on SP. I
started focusing on getting the hell off the level too late as well. On the
turn before my death, I healed up from 20 HP to 40... then got Yaktaured for
20 and Cyclopsed for the final 23. Alas poor Oobie, we'll remember ye fondly.)

Erik

 

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Erik Piper wrote:
> bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 3:10:37 PM bork 12/11/2004 bork bork:
>
>> Erik Piper wrote:
>>
>> > [snip res_poison related thread]
>>
>> Btw, how's your DEWi going? Still alive? Good luck and shall Vehumet
>> be always with you.
>
> Wore banded mail of poison resistance (using double =oIce and a staff
> of conjuration to avoid miscast problems -- insanely powerful combo if
> you don't need to worry about fire, actually) and lugged along the axe
> just in case. Found a =oPR in the Snake Pit itself shortly
> afterwards.
>
> Considerably later, I died.

Commiseration :-(

> Crawl lesson no. 2309:
>
> Never underestimate boggarts.

Poor Oobie didn't die for nothing at least: I met my first (2 or 3)
boggarts in my current game and they died so soon that I couldn't see
how dangerous they actually are. Without your warning I was about to
underestimate them. The next (killed) boggart I'll dedicate to Oobie...

Btw, these boggarts seem extremely (physically) weak and if you get the
first turn and they're not too many (what probably means more than one)
they should be no problem. I wonder whether high stealth would help here
(and what is "high enough" stealth)?

Rubinstein

 

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bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 4:43:30 PM bork 12/13/2004 bork bork:

> Btw, these boggarts seem extremely (physically) weak and if you get the
> first turn and they're not too many (what probably means more than one)
> they should be no problem. I wonder whether high stealth would help here
> (and what is "high enough" stealth)?

Actually the first sign of the boggarts was an insanely large pack of
(summoned) yaktaurs. Since yaktaurs are not uncommon in the vaults, I wasn't
sure at first that it wasn't just the RNG at work. Since I saw the summoned
before the summoners, I'm not sure if it was my inattention at work, or the
boggarts being invisible, or them seeing me and backing out of sight before
summoning (or seeing me from outside my FOV).

"High enough" stealth is something you learn from the spoilers and a
calculator. Or years of experience, I guess.

The biggest problem BTW was that I tried to kill the summons instead of
understanding they were summons, RUNNING OFF THE LEVEL immediately and
letting them time out. City levels are no place to fight a summoner and his
missile-wielding summons... especially without Ice Storm (kick: Self. Could
hardly ever kill more than one enemy per turn. I probably thus would have
done just as poorly had I attacked the boggarts first (thus leaving all 5+
yaktaurs untouched for several turns, thus turning into an elfin porcupine
within 3 turns).

Erik

 

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bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 3:10:37 PM bork 12/11/2004 bork bork:

> Erik Piper wrote:
>
> > I've always thought that a decent source of poison resistance was an
> > easy thing to get by the time one needed it. Not anymore -- I have an
> > 18th level DEWi who just. can't. FIND any source that isn't a bit
> > ridiculous. And I'm having some trouble now deciding how to proceed.
>
> Don't know whether it's still of interest, but I'd currently a similar
> problem: a level 15 DEIE, absolutely no source of res_poison, even no
> heavy armor or weapon. I already cleared DL 16 and the first 2 levels of
> the Halls and the Vaults, entire Lair and Mines but nothing else so far.
> My main problem at this point was food and so I decided to take the risk
> and grap all the yummie stuff from the bottom of the Hive.
> What shall I say? It was surprisingly easy!
>
> I think the key to success was a pretty high base AC (21) with EV 11.
> Most of the time I was boosting my AC to 30 (Ozocubu's Armour) which
> seemed to be an almost perfect protection against poisonous stings.
> Don't know whether Ozo's Armour is similarly effective for a Wizard,
> though. You didn't post anything about your current AC/EV, but you
> probably could use these values as a rule of thumb for 'pseudo' poison
> resistance...


Perhaps it's silly to reply twice to the same post, but I just had an
interesting, if sad, experience in the Snake Pit that might help fill in a
bit for anyone browsing back to this thread in the future.

I had a Vehumet DE Fire/Earth Conjurer who, if he didn't want to delay his
dive into the Swamp and the Pit, could only get poison resistance by wearing
heavy armor--first some mundane set and then, after the Swamp, a suit of
swamp dragon armor. And wear these suits I did. I did my best to consume my
experience before Armour skill could swallow it (in the end I ended up
gaining a level anyway), but I was focusing on the wrong problem...

....because, lacking decent evasion while walking around in the swamp dragon
armour, in the end I was toast at the bottom of the Pit. I repeatedly let
several greater nagas have LOS at once, and eventually at least two fired off
Mystic Blasts on the same turn. I wasn't worried about it because I was used
to walking around the bottom of the pits with really good Evasion. This time,
of course, I didn't have it. Over 40 points in one turn. As a Deep Elf, I had
no hope. You die.

Moral of the story: low-HP races should worry about their evasion first and
poison resistance later.

Erik