[Crawl] Request help for a beginner...

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

I've only played a few games of crawl and it seems the learning curve
is steep and the amount of available spoilers small

So I'm after suggestions as to what to do with this guy, will probably
die shortly, had a couple of close encounters recently. First a few
questions...

Is it normal to play crawl top->down or do you revisit previously
explored dungeons to gain experience from regenerated monsters? Levels
are starting to get harder...

Haven't found any shops/churches yet so questions about that will have
to wait

I try not to melee with this conjurer, but how would I expect to
identify any weapons that might be useful to me? I wield test stuff but
as you can see from the dump lots of uncursed stuff that i'm not sure
will be much good to me.

Corpses... So far I've not bothered with them. Will I have to? (I.e.
can't get enough food without it). Any fatal errors with corpses I
should look to avoid?

Quaff testing potions... Always a risk worth taking? Can see it's not a
good idea unless you've got at least a healing potion.

Spellcasting/Conjurations... What's the difference? Saw one dump
advising just training up spellcasting, ignoring conjuration and
turning off fire manage as soon as they got it. Whats the intended
purpose of that?

Quite a lot there, but hopefully any answers might help others trying
the game out for the first time.


Richard

Dungeon Crawl version 4.0.0 beta 26 character file.

Tinkerbell the Conjurer (High Elf)
(Level 8 Conjurer)

Play time: 03:33:42 Number of turns: 8163

Experience : 8/2574
Strength 8 Dexterity 15 Intelligence 23
Hit Points : 42 Magic Points : 22
AC : 6 Evasion : 10 Shield : 0
GP : 31

You are on level 7.
You are hungry.

Inventory:
Hand weapons
e - a +2,+3 short sword of draining (weapon)
n - an uncursed runed hammer of pain
o - an uncursed dagger
r - an uncursed runed dagger
s - an uncursed blowgun
z - an uncursed sabre
C - an uncursed runed dagger
L - an uncursed orcish falchion
Missiles
t - 24 poisoned orcish needles
Armour
b - a +1 elven robe
g - a +2 pair of gloves (worn)
D - a +2 animal skin (worn)
E - a +0 ring mail of magic resistance
Magical devices
a - a wand of digging (4)
x - a wand of paralysis
A - a wand of fire
H - a shiny glass wand {tried}
K - a wand of lightning
M - a wand of disintegration
Comestibles
h - a meat ration
j - 2 bread rations
G - a slice of pizza
N - a cheese
Scrolls
k - 4 scrolls of remove curse
q - 7 scrolls of identify
v - a scroll of teleportation
I - a scroll of blinking
Jewellery
l - a +2 ring of intelligence (left hand)
p - a ring of fire
F - a ring of see invisible (right hand)
Potions
d - 2 smoky inky potions
f - 4 potions of healing
i - 2 potions of might
m - a potion of heal wounds
u - 2 smoky white potions
w - an oily black potion
y - a potion of invisibility
B - a purple potion
J - a slimy inky potion
Books
c - a book of Conjurations


You have 167 experience left.

Skills:
- Level 3 Short Blades
- Level 1 Staves
- Level 1 Dodging
+ Level 3 Stealth
+ Level 6 Spellcasting
+ Level 10 Conjurations
+ Level 3 Ice Magic
+ Level 2 Air Magic
+ Level 1 Poison Magic


You have 4 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

Your Spells Type Success Level
a - Magic Dart Conjuration Excellent 1
b - Throw Frost Ice/Conjuration Great 2
c - Mephitic Cloud Poison/Air/Conjuration Very Good 3
d - Static Discharge Air/Conjuration Very Good 4
e - Bolt of Cold Ice/Conjuration Good 5

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Cheers for all the advice Erik. I couldn't wait and played on and died
in the orc mines, level 2... Damn Orc knight got to melee range when I
was fleeing up the stairs and I zapped when I should have quaffed. Oh
well.

Erik Piper wrote:
> There are few weapons that are useful to a pure conjurer, and even
fewer
> once they find a staff of skill-they-use-a-lot. So once you find a
> weapon of protection or an enhancer staff, you can basically afford
to
> throw everything away.
>

hmmm. In the end I didn't use the weapon so this is useful advice.
Perhaps a better race for the conjurer next time. Or perhaps time to
try a chopper The few I have tried have died far too quickly.

> The identification philosophy is so different in Crawl compared to
other
> roguelikes that "how can I ever ID enough stuff" is a pretty standard

> beginner's question. The answer, really, is "learn what does and
doesn't
> 'deserve' a scroll."
>

Yeah think I've just about got the hang of it now, and your suggestions
here helped a lot, cheers!

> There's not enough food to survive the whole game in style without
> corpses; I personally only eat non-corpse food as a last resort, but
> most people aren't that extremist, I think.
>

OK. I always think that roguelikes where you can butcher and eat your
corpses could at least let you use the odd bit of fire magic to cook it
and make it more palatable

> > Magical devices
> > a - a wand of digging (4)
> > x - a wand of paralysis
> > A - a wand of fire
> > H - a shiny glass wand {tried}
> > K - a wand of lightning
> > M - a wand of disintegration
>
> That's a lot of weight; I'd stash some... my personal limit is 4. I'd
keep:
>

I read stash a lot... By stash I assume you just mean leave in a pile
on a safe level yes? I was keeping them all as they were all useful at
some point. Although I never really saw exactly what disintegration
did.


> > Scrolls
> > k - 4 scrolls of remove curse
> > q - 7 scrolls of identify
>
> Too many. I'd keep 1-2 of each. They're extra weight; they can get
fried
> if you're carrying them; after the first couple of each, they're just
as
> useful in the stash as they are in hand.

Where should you stash things as you get deeper in the dungeon?

>
> > v - a scroll of teleportation
> > I - a scroll of blinking
>
> Too few. (Unless there just aren't any more in the game.)

Yeah this was a problem. I used most of these on a previous level and
never found any more. Had to use the blinking on the top level of the
orc mines when I discovered that they actually follow you back up the
stairs if they're next to the stairs when you ascend!

>
> > Jewellery
> > l - a +2 ring of intelligence (left hand)
> > p - a ring of fire
>
> Stash it until you actually have some fire spells to cast. (Fire
> spells backed up by good conjurations are another solution to the
> ice/air conjurer's problem.)
>
> > F - a ring of see invisible (right hand)
> > Potions
> > d - 2 smoky inky potions
> > f - 4 potions of healing
> > i - 2 potions of might
> > m - a potion of heal wounds
> > u - 2 smoky white potions
> > w - an oily black potion
> > y - a potion of invisibility
> > B - a purple potion
> > J - a slimy inky potion
>
> Scroll-ID the small stacks; quaff-ID the large stacks (those won't be

> Mutation or Cure Mutation).
>

Yep cheers for that advice on the potion ID'ing.

> > Books
> > c - a book of Conjurations
>
> Nothing but starting book -- ouch. If you take Vehumet, he'll help
with
> that. Sif Muna will too, in spades, but that's about all she'll do,
> unlike Vehumet.
>

Found temple before death and went for Sif Muna. Didn't get anything
before death though, but did find another spellbook.

Death dump for anyone interested

Dungeon Crawl version 4.0.0 beta 26 character file.

Tinkerbell the Conjurer (High Elf)
(Level 10 Conjurer)

Play time: 05:53:22 Number of turns: 14381

Experience : 10/7743
Strength 8 Dexterity 16 Intelligence 24
Hit Points : -5/53 (dead) Magic Points : 1/27
AC : 7 Evasion : 10 Shield : 0
GP : 245

You are on level 8.
You worship Sif Muna.
Sif Muna is greatly pleased with you.
You are hungry.

Inventory:
Hand weapons
e - a +3,+3 short sword of draining (weapon)
n - a +2,+2 hammer of pain
s - a +2,+1 blowgun
Missiles
t - 24 poisoned +0 orcish needles
Armour
b - a +1 elven robe
g - a +2 pair of gloves (worn)
h - a +0 pair of dwarven boots (worn)
j - a +2 robe of cold resistance (worn)
C - a +0 cap (worn)
D - a +3 animal skin
E - a +0 ring mail of magic resistance
Magical devices
a - a wand of digging (3)
x - a wand of paralysis (7)
A - a wand of fire (1)
H - a wand of polymorph other (5)
K - a wand of lightning (4)
M - a wand of disintegration (3)
U - a wand of draining (9)
Comestibles
o - a cheese
G - 2 meat rations
Scrolls
k - 5 scrolls of remove curse
q - 5 scrolls of identify
v - 2 scrolls of teleportation
P - 2 scrolls of detect curse
Jewellery
l - a +2 ring of intelligence (left hand)
p - a ring of fire
r - an amulet of clarity (around neck)
F - a ring of see invisible (right hand)
O - a ring of protection from magic
Potions
d - 2 potions of slowing
f - 8 potions of healing
i - 3 potions of might
m - 3 potions of heal wounds
u - 4 potions of restore abilities
w - a potion of cure mutation
y - a potion of invisibility
z - a potion of speed
B - a potion of paralysis
J - a potion of experience

Most of these Id'd after death unfortunately

Books
c - a book of Conjurations
R - a book of Minor Magic


You have 170 experience left.

Skills:
- Level 3 Short Blades
- Level 1 Staves
- Level 1 Dodging
+ Level 4 Stealth
+ Level 8 Spellcasting
+ Level 13 Conjurations
+ Level 5 Ice Magic
- Level 2 Air Magic
- Level 2 Poison Magic
+ Level 2 Evocations


You have 5 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

Your Spells Type Success
Level
a - Magic Dart Conjuration Excellent 1
b - Throw Frost Ice/Conjuration Excellent 2
c - Mephitic Cloud Poison/Air/Conjuration Great 3
d - Static Discharge Air/Conjuration Great 4
e - Bolt of Cold Ice/Conjuration Very Good 5
f - Blink Translocation Very Good 2
g - Repel Missiles Air/Enchantment Very Good 2
h - Summon Small Mammals Summoning Very Good 1

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Erik Piper wrote:
> Erik Piper wrote:
> > cure, you're toast. Mutagenic corpses are shapeshifters, guardian
nagas,
> > very ugly things, and probably some other more forgettable
monsters.
>
> ...Oh. Yeah. If it mutated you when it was alive, it may well mutate
you
> when it's dead. Plus eyes of draining are mutagenic.

I'm pretty sure all the eyes except the giant eyeball are mutagenic.
Just found out yesterday that greater orbs of eyes are, and I've never
had them mutate me while alive. Found out the hard way, but lucked out
and didn't mutate.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Erik Piper wrote:
> cure, you're toast. Mutagenic corpses are shapeshifters, guardian nagas,
> very ugly things, and probably some other more forgettable monsters.

....Oh. Yeah. If it mutated you when it was alive, it may well mutate you
when it's dead. Plus eyes of draining are mutagenic.

Erik

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

"Dafty" <richard.clements@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>OK. I always think that roguelikes where you can butcher and eat your
>corpses could at least let you use the odd bit of fire magic to cook it
>and make it more palatable

ADOM is -----> over there
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
My roguelike games page (including my BSD-licenced roguelike) can be found at:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~mpread/roguelikes.html
bounce. bounce. bounce. bounce bounce bounce bounce.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Quoting Martin Read <mpread@chiark.greenend.org.uk>:
>"Dafty" <richard.clements@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>OK. I always think that roguelikes where you can butcher and eat your
>>corpses could at least let you use the odd bit of fire magic to cook it
>>and make it more palatable
>ADOM is -----> over there

Repost, I know, but...

I think the idea of cooking as a YANI is best handled with an extract from
Ada Lovelace's correspondence;

"Charles, I am much taken with your idea for a diverfion utilifing the
Difference Engine. I am sure that the challenges you outline - strange
monfters and deadly traps alike - will provide the operator with many
hours of harmless amufement. However, if I might offer one small
suggeftion, I feel the experience could be greatly enchanced if the
operator's alter-ego could prepare tafty repafts with the aid of fire or
flame and simple cooking implements such as grace any kitchen in England.

I myfelf propofe a similar diverfion where the operator is challenged to
guide a difc or spherelike being through a labyrinth confuming small dots
while purfued by malicious ghofts [...] "
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Gloucesterday, May.

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Erik Piper wrote:
> Dafty wrote:

>> Magical devices
>> a - a wand of digging (4)
>> x - a wand of paralysis
>> A - a wand of fire
>> H - a shiny glass wand {tried}
>> K - a wand of lightning
>> M - a wand of disintegration
>
>
> That's a lot of weight; I'd stash some... my personal limit is 4. I'd keep:
>
> lightning (you'll run into lightning-resistant beasties sooner than
> fire-resistant, so if you use the lightning wand now, you'll have the
> fire one when lightning has gone out of style),
>
> digging (although disintegration does some of the same things and more,
> digging is best at, well, digging) -- useful both strategically and
> tactically
>
> paralysis (not too useful, but can conserve charges on the lightning wand)
>
> the shiny glass wand, until you've ID'd it.

Good advice all around! I have a bit of a different system regarding
wands that I thought I'd mention for general consideration and critique.
I keep a fairly large inventory of wands around, despite the weight,
according to more-or-less the following system:

paralysis, confusion, enslavement: never keep, except in the very early
game when you have nothing else and monsters are less resistant.

flame and frost: keep until you have fire or cold, respectively.

fire, cold, lightning: almost always keep, especially for use against
monsters that are resistant to your particular focus if you're a
spellcaster (ie, treasure your wand of cold if you're a fire
elementalist!), and against monsters that are vulnerable to fire/cold
when they need to be dispatched quickly. I find they're good as an
emergency measure, but even better as a means of preventing an emergency
measure from becoming necessary.

digging: always keep - good for making travel easier/possible within a
level, of course, but also handy for creating narrow corridors to fight
from.

disintegration: always keep - I've had some very bad experiences with
statues and curse skulls... thus, am a bit paranoid.

draining, random effects, polymorph other: rarely keep. Usually there
are better and/or less-resistible options for dealing with dangerous
monsters, I find - and no guarantee that you'll be much better off after
the polymorph or random effect. ("The ogre seems to speed up!")
Sometimes good as an early emergency wand, though.

teleport, hasting, healing: always keep - handy if you run out of the
corresponding consumables, or they get burned/frozen away, or you want
to carry fewer of them for fear they get burned/frozen away.

.... So I often find myself toting 8 or 10 wands around. The main
disadvantage is weight, but I've never find it particularly
inconvenient. Then again, I'm not much of a hooverer.

For Dafty's character specifically, I'd recommend ditching paralysis and
keeping the rest - the wand of fire especially, for those
cold-resistant, fire-vulnerable ice beasts out there. Also handy against
undead, though lightning will do the trick here too.

Rob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Erik Piper wrote:
> Rob wrote:
> > Erik Piper wrote:

> > paralysis, confusion, enslavement: never keep, except in the very
early
> > game when you have nothing else and monsters are less resistant.
>
> Paralysis is a bit of a special case. Sure it's resistable, but
unlike
> the other resistable ones, what it does is pretty good -- above all,
it
> can bottle up whole hordes of monsters by locking the one in front in

> place in a corridor. Even with just four wands in my pack, I
sometimes
> find room for paralysis despite having 4 unresistable wands around.

I often want to leave a semi-weak character alive. I let it beat on me
to train armor skill. But you need a lot of food to do that, and you
can't dissect with it beating on you. So I keep paralysis around to
let me butcher.

> > flame and frost: keep until you have fire or cold, respectively.
>
> The thing is, wand charges don't grow on trees. If you use Cold to
solve
> a problem that could have been solved with Frost, then you may not
have
> it around when you really need it. (You may get lucky and be rolling
in
> the things, I grant that. But Crawl is finicky, and why test fate?)

I can't remember the last game I didn't either die early or have at
least ont extra unused each of fire, cold, and lighning wand. That
goes for most consumables too. I'm very conservative with them, but
I'm really starting to think there's no need to be so much.

> > disintegration: always keep - I've had some very bad experiences
with
> > statues and curse skulls... thus, am a bit paranoid.
>
> They unresistably disintegrate curse skulls? If so, wow...

I keep them just for statues myself, but there are times when letting
you dig a very specific shape of tunnel is useful. I imagine curse
skulls could be one of those times.

> > teleport, hasting, healing: always keep - handy if you run out of
the
> > corresponding consumables, or they get burned/frozen away, or you
want
> > to carry fewer of them for fear they get burned/frozen away.
>
> Again, if weight is not an issue, these are no issue. You forgot
> invisibility, though it's fairly forgettable in any case.

I usually keep invisibility, even more so than teleport. Potions of
invisibility are rarer than teleport scrolls. And this was even before
I learned that Nexoqecs can't see invisible.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Rob wrote:
> Erik Piper wrote:
>> Dafty wrote:

[wands to carry, wands to leave at home]

> Good advice all around! I have a bit of a different system regarding
> wands that I thought I'd mention for general consideration and critique.
> I keep a fairly large inventory of wands around, despite the weight,
> according to more-or-less the following system:

I won't criticize based on weight, since not everyone is such a
hoovering fanatic as I am. But there are still a couple of things where
I'd disagree.

> paralysis, confusion, enslavement: never keep, except in the very early
> game when you have nothing else and monsters are less resistant.

Paralysis is a bit of a special case. Sure it's resistable, but unlike
the other resistable ones, what it does is pretty good -- above all, it
can bottle up whole hordes of monsters by locking the one in front in
place in a corridor. Even with just four wands in my pack, I sometimes
find room for paralysis despite having 4 unresistable wands around.

Actually, I usually carry one resistable wand, for use in those
situations where charges from that wand can save you charges from a more
useful wand.

Enslavement is dangerous for anyone whose god dislikes allied deaths,
although enslavement of the strongest monster in a pack is still usually
OK, if you can get it to work.

You forgot Slowing. I can't blame you.

> flame and frost: keep until you have fire or cold, respectively.

The thing is, wand charges don't grow on trees. If you use Cold to solve
a problem that could have been solved with Frost, then you may not have
it around when you really need it. (You may get lucky and be rolling in
the things, I grant that. But Crawl is finicky, and why test fate?)

Magic Darts falls into the same category as these.

> fire, cold, lightning: almost always keep, especially for use against
> monsters that are resistant to your particular focus if you're a
> spellcaster (ie, treasure your wand of cold if you're a fire
> elementalist!), and against monsters that are vulnerable to fire/cold
> when they need to be dispatched quickly. I find they're good as an
> emergency measure, but even better as a means of preventing an emergency
> measure from becoming necessary.

See the part about flame and frost above

Also -- if you know your charge counts (due to plentiful ID or good
Evocations), then you can carry fewer wands, unless you're really
allergic to visiting your stash -- just check your counts and swap in
wands as appropriate during your stash visits.

> digging: always keep - good for making travel easier/possible within a
> level, of course, but also handy for creating narrow corridors to fight
> from.

If weight's not an issue, digging's definitely a keeper.

On a whim, I learned Dig early with my latest spellcaster despite not
having Selective Amnesia, and am finding it pretty strategically *and*
tactically useful. Of course, not having to conserve charges helps.

> disintegration: always keep - I've had some very bad experiences with
> statues and curse skulls... thus, am a bit paranoid.

They unresistably disintegrate curse skulls? If so, wow...

If weight is not an issue, yeah, always-carry.

> draining, random effects, polymorph other: rarely keep. Usually there
> are better and/or less-resistible options for dealing with dangerous
> monsters, I find - and no guarantee that you'll be much better off after
> the polymorph or random effect. ("The ogre seems to speed up!")
> Sometimes good as an early emergency wand, though.

Draining: I feel you are making a big mistake here. Draining is a
class-A wand on par with fire/cold/lightning. Sure it's more widely
resistable than the others -- but even if weight is an issue, it's worth
carrying alongside a more universal wand, again to save charges on that
wand. Also note that draining resistance, more common though it is,
tends to be concentrated in the Vaults-and-later period. If you still
have your fire/cold at that time because you used Draining in the period
before then, you're golden.

Random effects is good for finishing off fleeing monsters and for
conserving charges in those cases where you'd *like* a beam (but can
live without it) and can still handle a hasting.

Polymorph other: More useful than you seem to suggest -- there are a few
monsters that you'd rather have be *anything* of a similar strength
except for what they currently are. The resistance is a problem, though.

> teleport, hasting, healing: always keep - handy if you run out of the
> corresponding consumables, or they get burned/frozen away, or you want
> to carry fewer of them for fear they get burned/frozen away.

Again, if weight is not an issue, these are no issue. You forgot
invisibility, though it's fairly forgettable in any case.

Erik

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Erik Piper wrote:
> Rob wrote:
>
>> Erik Piper wrote:

[which wands to carry around?]

>
>> paralysis, confusion, enslavement: never keep, except in the very
>> early game when you have nothing else and monsters are less resistant.
>
>
> Paralysis is a bit of a special case. Sure it's resistable, but unlike
> the other resistable ones, what it does is pretty good -- above all, it
> can bottle up whole hordes of monsters by locking the one in front in
> place in a corridor. Even with just four wands in my pack, I sometimes
> find room for paralysis despite having 4 unresistable wands around.
>
> Actually, I usually carry one resistable wand, for use in those
> situations where charges from that wand can save you charges from a more
> useful wand.
>
> Enslavement is dangerous for anyone whose god dislikes allied deaths,
> although enslavement of the strongest monster in a pack is still usually
> OK, if you can get it to work.

Good points... I may have to give Paralysis another chance.

>
> You forgot Slowing. I can't blame you.

Knew I forget a few... glad it was the forgettable ones.

>
>> flame and frost: keep until you have fire or cold, respectively.
>
>
> The thing is, wand charges don't grow on trees. If you use Cold to solve
> a problem that could have been solved with Frost, then you may not have
> it around when you really need it. (You may get lucky and be rolling in
> the things, I grant that. But Crawl is finicky, and why test fate?)
>
> Magic Darts falls into the same category as these.

Very true - it's just that I often find that by the time I've got a nice
collection of fire/cold/lightning, the monsters have become too strong
for one or two zaps of flame and frost (and magic darts... I did forget
another one!) to do too much good. Using them to conserve charges in the
more powerful wands is a really good point, though, and one I too-often
forget.

>
>> fire, cold, lightning: almost always keep, especially for use against
>> monsters that are resistant to your particular focus if you're a
>> spellcaster (ie, treasure your wand of cold if you're a fire
>> elementalist!), and against monsters that are vulnerable to fire/cold
>> when they need to be dispatched quickly. I find they're good as an
>> emergency measure, but even better as a means of preventing an
>> emergency measure from becoming necessary.
>
>
> See the part about flame and frost above

Point taken. I find that some situations can be easily defused with a
wand of fire or cold before they turn ugly, though, if your character
doesn't have a beam spell - particularly lined-up groups of monsters.
Taking out an orc priest and wizard before they see you, and then
picking the others off at leisure, for example; or sending some fire
through a rat into that troll to soften him up before he closes to melee
range. Though here, conservation of charges would be important to keep
in mind, which is where your point below about knowing your wands'
charges comes in as well:

>
> Also -- if you know your charge counts (due to plentiful ID or good
> Evocations), then you can carry fewer wands, unless you're really
> allergic to visiting your stash -- just check your counts and swap in
> wands as appropriate during your stash visits.
>
>> digging: always keep - good for making travel easier/possible within a
>> level, of course, but also handy for creating narrow corridors to
>> fight from.
>
>
> If weight's not an issue, digging's definitely a keeper.
>
> On a whim, I learned Dig early with my latest spellcaster despite not
> having Selective Amnesia, and am finding it pretty strategically *and*
> tactically useful. Of course, not having to conserve charges helps.

I spent a while not too long ago trying to get somewhere with a GnEE -
this introduced me to the Dig spell, and I'm definitely a convert.

>
>> disintegration: always keep - I've had some very bad experiences with
>> statues and curse skulls... thus, am a bit paranoid.
>
>
> They unresistably disintegrate curse skulls? If so, wow...

It took a few successful zaps to kill it, IIRC, but it was resisting all
the other attacks available to me, and poking it with my butcher knife
wasn't working well either. Though looking at a spoiler just now, it
looks like they're not resistant to fire - maybe I can be a little less
paranoid. I did take a DSWz through the Crypt with Dispel Undead, which
took out the curse skull very quickly indeed.

>
> If weight is not an issue, yeah, always-carry.
>
>> draining, random effects, polymorph other: rarely keep. Usually there
>> are better and/or less-resistible options for dealing with dangerous
>> monsters, I find - and no guarantee that you'll be much better off
>> after the polymorph or random effect. ("The ogre seems to speed up!")
>> Sometimes good as an early emergency wand, though.
>
>
> Draining: I feel you are making a big mistake here. Draining is a
> class-A wand on par with fire/cold/lightning. Sure it's more widely
> resistable than the others -- but even if weight is an issue, it's worth
> carrying alongside a more universal wand, again to save charges on that
> wand. Also note that draining resistance, more common though it is,
> tends to be concentrated in the Vaults-and-later period. If you still
> have your fire/cold at that time because you used Draining in the period
> before then, you're golden.

Hmm, I'll give these another chance, then. I'll admit I tend to forget
about them more often than I should.

>
> Random effects is good for finishing off fleeing monsters and for
> conserving charges in those cases where you'd *like* a beam (but can
> live without it) and can still handle a hasting.

Good points, the second one especially with a scenario like the
rat-screening-a-troll one I imagined earlier.

>
> Polymorph other: More useful than you seem to suggest -- there are a few
> monsters that you'd rather have be *anything* of a similar strength
> except for what they currently are. The resistance is a problem, though.

The resistance scares me a bit. I used to use these a lot for things
like yellow wasps, or monsters with innate ranged attacks - but I found
that if the creature resisted, their resultant free turn left me low on
options. I could have been choosing the wrong moments to pull this wand
out, though.

>
>> teleport, hasting, healing: always keep - handy if you run out of the
>> corresponding consumables, or they get burned/frozen away, or you want
>> to carry fewer of them for fear they get burned/frozen away.
>
>
> Again, if weight is not an issue, these are no issue. You forgot
> invisibility, though it's fairly forgettable in any case.

Oh, I remembered invisibility, you just can't see it. (groan...)

Rob

 

[Jeremey]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

in article 1116346498.638790.310960@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, Igor D.
WonderLlama at WonderLlama_@hotmail.com wrote on 5/17/05 1:01 PM:

>
>>> disintegration: always keep - I've had some very bad experiences
> with
>>> statues and curse skulls... thus, am a bit paranoid.
>>
>> They unresistably disintegrate curse skulls? If so, wow...
>
> I keep them just for statues myself, but there are times when letting
> you dig a very specific shape of tunnel is useful. I imagine curse
> skulls could be one of those times.

I think all the walls in the Crypt are undiggable.

--
Jeremey

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Rob wrote:
> Erik Piper wrote:

All good stuff, but I write this stuff by wasting time at work so I'm
too, err, ethical at the moment to comment anything but the most
interesting point:

>> Polymorph other: More useful than you seem to suggest -- there are a
>> few monsters that you'd rather have be *anything* of a similar
>> strength except for what they currently are. The resistance is a
>> problem, though.
>
> The resistance scares me a bit. I used to use these a lot for things
> like yellow wasps, or monsters with innate ranged attacks - but I found
> that if the creature resisted, their resultant free turn left me low on
> options. I could have been choosing the wrong moments to pull this wand

There are a few monsters where, if you're serious about surviving, you
want, after a certain point, only 100% guarantees. With yellow wasps, if
I'm not poison resistant and I really REALLY don't want to die, and
they're within 2 spaces of me (I've seen them close 2 spaces in a turn),
I consider the situation "?oBlinking-worthy". I wouldn't even risk using
a double-enhanced high-level conjuration on them in that situation,
let alone a resistable wand -- one unlucky turn and you're most likely dead.

Ranged attackers are mostly a more complicated issue... though there's
nothing complicated about Xtahua, 6 HP left, and a scroll of blinking ;-)

Erik