Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: Now with 50% more Sigmund

[The Dark Fiddler]

Huh... I start my game and instantly find a Royal Jelly and an Amulet of Rage... on Dungeon 1. I also loot a single +4 dart off a kobold.

These things would have been more useful if I were playing something other than a Wizard.

[Iskandar]

Hey Cog, if you're having problems with .60, might want to check for updates once in a while. They have new builds out at least once a week, and there have been quite a bit of balancing and tweaks going on because they are aiming for a March 1st release.

[Gorgondantess]

Personally, I like .6.0. The text and screen is kindof jarring, due to my use to .5.2, but the new interface is wonderful. Other than that, there's no significant difference, to me.

[Milskidasith]

OK, this combination is *stupidly* workable. As in, this character was fully intended to die, and now it's working out fine.

Mummy Conjurer of Cheriboriawhateverhisnameis, the slow god. Bad choice, yes, but I learn spells so slowly Sif Muna wouldn't help (save the mana thing, but I don't usually run out), and it just seemed to fit with Mummy's slow playstyle. Then I got two artifact armors; one is a cursed robe I'm stuck with that gives me +2 damage and +3 accuracy, and the other is a leather armor of +6 evasion +4 damage. I have a ring of regeneration, a ring of teleport control, and a ring of +0,+6 slaying with a +4+1 mace. I'm not even trained in it, but all the passive boots means that I just slayed a kobold warren with no points in fighting by meleeing them. Ring of Regeneration means that kiting is absurdly easy and I have no hunger clock... and being slow in general pleases my god. It's a bizzarrely workable combination of the RNG being nice.

*predicts fire based enemies very soon.*

EDIT: Nevermind, death by Oklob Plant. Hit a teleport to get away from a troll, didn't put my ring on since he was next to me and I was at low HP, teleported to an altar of Okawaru surrounded by three plants and an oklob plant. Killed one right as I got destroyed, but luckily I finally got a point in fighting.

[Cogwheel]

Right. I'll be switching to the newest version of 0.6 constantly for this LP, than. Thank you. Note that this means very few ghosts. Don't tell me how to import them I like it that way.

Right. Kenku monk. Lessee how this goes... playing now.

[Cogwheel]

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This is the Flying Man. He cannot fly.



These are the Flying Man's skills. I'll be keeping the lot for now, but feel free to tell me to turn stealth off, since I'm a bit unsure about that anyway.

Also? I need strength. Badly.

Or I could branch out into magic. Maybe. I don't know. Speedy non-stupid non-casters confuse me.



And they say violence never solves anything. Bah.



First "stabbing" attack of the game. Without any sort of stabbing implement... unless I pecked that hobgoblin to death with a single hit. Who knows?



The cape. I need to find a blue robe and red cape eventually. For now, this grey one will do.



He seems to be doing alright so far. You know, I honestly wasn't expecting that. My kenkus have a horrid record of survival. Note the new interface, by the way - tabs for things like spellcasting out of the inventory menu. 'Tis neat.



The Flying Man's kicks now pack more of a punch.



Little experiment there. Healing from resting apparently doesn't take longer in 0.6, which is a relief. Resting just doesn't fast-forward like 0.52, which is annoying.



Well, there's Jessica. First unique and all. A caster at the end of a corridor.. and no, my stealth skill doesn't help any here.



I have a strange feeling Jessica learned the pain spell. Can't imagine why I would think that.



Fortunately, it doesn't help her. Now to search for something to murder and devour.



Walk away. Slooooowly. Thank you, stealth skill. Time to settle for a bread ration and rest my way to an adequate HP score.

Now, if I sneak up on it, I might even get the first hit in.



Ah, optimism - sorry, Sigmund, but I'm fairly sure it's claimed more kills than you.



At least I have healing potions. And the stack of 5 turned out to be Heal Wounds... so I'm set there, sort of.



Naturally, the snake had to run away. And now I need to chase it down. This should be so much fun*.

*Enthusiasm not included.



Interesting, the Fedhas altars got a new look. Looks less plastic-y now, which is nice. I won't be choosing Fedhas (new god of plants) unless someone wants me to, since Kenku are awful at invocations. I'll introduce him at the end of the update, regardless.



The snake. It is slain. Vengeance is mine, after far too much running about.

Oh, and level 4 gave me a point of strength, so that's nice too.



Remember him? Of course you do. Yiuf is not to be trifled with, or confused with one of those delicious yet strange custard-y desserts. So, of course, I reach the only sensible conclusion.

I decide to chug down my unidentified potions and take him on. One was Restore Abilities, the other was (luckily) Might.



The sound of potion-quaffing woke him up. Maybe the potions are highly carbonated and make a lot of noise when you open them, I don't know. Just like I have no idea what he's saying.



That would be Nemelex, Yiuf. And I'm fairly sure you worship Xom. Which raises the question of how he survived to such a ripe old age (the beard is fake, and held on by hooks).



That... went surprisingly well. I have no use for the hammer, but I'll keep the staff. Does anyone want me to use that? Are monks in Crawl somehow powerful with staves? I'll hold on to it, just in case.



An altar to the god of casters. Yes, that seems useful.



What will level 4 bring? The end of the update and, as always, potential horrible death.


Now, meet Fedhas.

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Fedhas is the god of plants. He immediately makes all plants friendly (not actually on your side, but friendlier than anything neutral) and lets you walk/fire through plants. He gets upset if you kill plants, or use necromancy (but only if you use necromancy on chunks or corpses, stuff like Bolt of Draining is fine).

Now, his abilities are... interesting. The basic one is decomposition. It'll turn corpses into skeletons and create toadstools on top of them, while giving you Fedhas piety. It also turns zombies into skeletons if they're in an area, or may just instakill them. Skeletons stand even less of a chance. Toadstools can make very short-lived roadblocks, as well.

Second, you gain Evolution. Fruit may be substituted for the piety cost here and for other abilities. You turn a plant/bush into an Oklob Plant, or a toadstool/any other fungus into a Wandering Mushroom. Both are friendly, and the mushrooms willeven follow you between floors. So Decomposition even gives you potential minions.

Third, you get Sunlight. Good for training invocations, apart from anything. Why? 2 MP as the cost. No piety, no hunger, nothing. It hits a + shaped five tile area with sunlight. This makes any creature hit by it glow for a while, so it's easier to hit. Deep water, meanwhile, turns to shallow water, and shallow water turns to dry ground. Makes me wonder what happens if fish find themselves on dry ground.

Fourth, you learn Circle of something or the other. It turns fruit in your inventory into a circle of plants around you, ready to act as meat shields or be Oklobed. Handy? Yes. But I never had enough fruit around to use it.

Fifth, you get to make corpses in the area (or toadstools, I forget) spew out giant spores - the exploding ones, in case you forgot them, who now confuse anything in the blast for good measure - who will fight for you.

Your last ability is Rain, for 8 MP. One casting turns all tiles surrounding you into shallow water. Good for weakening a lot of monsters. Bear in mind that it won't work on amphibians, reptiles or anything that flies. It also turns shallow water into deep water - anything that can't swim and is caught in deep water in such a way, unless it flies instead, will die instantly. Handy. Or you could use it to create an island to rest on. Or a moat on one side, and use Sunlight to create a safe way out for yourself.

All in all, Fedhas is an interesting, tactical and reasonably powerful god, who suffers from the lack of a niche. Still, he's fun. Just probably not the best for a race that's awful at invocations.

[Aldgar]

Hey, mummys should be awesome followers of the slow god or the plant god!

No food loss in case of plant god, slow god...well, mummys play slowly anyway.

[Cogwheel]

Tested that. Fedhas, predictably, doesn't accept undead followers. Too bad, really.

[Ziren]

Just a quick question: Do berserkers always get a squad of gnolls thrown at them on the first dungeon level? Because it happened to me four times in a row now...

[Cogwheel]

Just a quick question: Do berserkers always get a squad of gnolls thrown at them on the first dungeon level? Because it happened to me four times in a row now...

I had seven characters of varying races/classes die to a kobold with a glowing short sword. All on floor three. Really.

[Ziren]

I had seven characters of varying races/classes die to a kobold with a glowing short sword. All on floor three. Really.

It's just that it happened to every single berserker I've made this far... and only one of them survived the battle by nothing more than luck.

[Iskandar]

No, Staves don't help Unarmed Combat. Still, I'd put that weapon where something or someone else can't pick it up.

As far as magic goes, Kenku have a so-so Spellcasting skill, but good Conjurations, Summonings, Necromancy, Fire, and Air magic skills. So if you can find a spellbook, there is a chance you can get a spell you can actually use. Unfortunately, Kenu can't cast Transmutations worth a dang, so no Ice Form/Blade Hands for you.

Having claws and a beak, Kenkus become fairly awesome at UC at later levels. Oh, and at level 5 you will learn how to Fly (temporarily) and 15 it becomes permanent.

Edit: Yes, I've noticed the occasional pack of gnolls on DL1 this latest build. I really hope this is not intended behavior, and it will get tweaked.

Anyone found the gnoll castle that shows up about DL5 yet? You can recognize it by the water surrounding it and the almost infinite supply of jackals and gnolls inside it.

[Cogwheel]

Iskandar: The gnoll fort is one of many variants. I've seen Warg/orc ones, Warg/hill giant ones and, on D26 (the one that killed my best character yet) a draconian/drake fort with a lava moat. Really.

While I already knew the flight stuff more or less, the recap is nice. Thanks.

In other news, Crawl, even in 0.52, is merciless. Look at this. Just look.

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[Premier]

What's this talk about Stone Soup v0.6? The newest version I can find here is 0.5.2. Could someone give me a download link to the newest version, please?

[Lord Herman]

What's this talk about Stone Soup v0.6? The newest version I can find here is 0.5.2. Could someone give me a download link to the newest version, please?

Linky!

Note that it's not a stable build, so you might experience crashes and other bugs.

[Ziren]

Hmmm, it seems like Ghosts can appear on DLs wgere they haven't actually died. That's pretty annoying.

[Alex112524]

I just thought I'd share this with the class. This is Hoarch's Book Boutique:

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That's right, two, count them, TWO Necronomicons, in a book store on Lair:1. After I already found one on the floor of the dungeon on my way here! And the best part is, my current character is a deep elf wizard, so I can (eventually) use it! IF I can manage to survive that long that is.

I'm going to die horribly aren't I?

[Nano]

Where are high scores found in the files? I'd like to wipe them.

[Cogwheel]

Alex: Cthulhu would be proud.

Nano: Not a clue, sorry. I'll look around.

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Right, there's an amulet over there. Just need to get rid of the goblin, first.



And, this game being what it is, run headlong into more than I expected.



Luckily, they're no match for the Flying Man. Who's now level 5. Wheeee.



About time. Flying is temporary at this stage, and costs 3 MP/food. Yes, MP. Apparently, your ability to use wings depend not on power, grace, or any of those things, but your ability to warp the laws of reality with your mind. Makes sense, I know.



How awesome. The guardian spirit amulet is new - damage done to me is first redirected to my MP. For someone with a small supply of MP they'll never be using, this is pretty good. Well, never using it outside of flight, anyway.



Edmund. Let's hope this wand will help us against him. Speaking of which, time to test it on that kobold.



Confusion. I'd prefer damage, but it could be worse.



...Wait, what? Maybe he had a description change, could shed some light on this.



Yes. And it's still about a quarter of the length of the quotes.

Frankly, we don't want another Sigmund. Some idiot with a flail will do quite nicely.



Now we're both confused. What Edmund doesn't know is that there's a word for bumbling, confused monks, and it's two words: Drunken master.



Pictured: The Flying Man becomes alarmingly sober, but wins anyway. Boosting strength. I'll raise dex next, as far as 18, before I get back to strength. Unless anyone has other ideas, of course.



Now for a different part of floor 4. That's a snake zombie, by the way.



Can't wear boots as a Kenku. Stupid talons. The bea stops me from wearing helmets either, so I really hope I find some means of seeing invisible anyway.



Menkaure, another unique. Yes, that's another unique.



Apparently, making him a mummy turned him evil. No one ever learns.



Haste. Never a good start.



WHAT.

A quick trip to CrawlWiki shows me that, yes , Menkaure is an early game unique who can cast symbol of torment. To put that in perspective, it's a level 6 Necronomicon spell that halves the health of everything in sight. You can't cast it if you're immune to the effects yourself, but that's ok. Menkaure doesn't care for our pitiful rules.

This is going to be all kinds of unpleasant. Time for a Heal Wounds potion.



Aaaand again.



Again. Did I mention he can hit for up to 25 damage? Because he can. Menkaure is very, very nasty.

Killed him eventually, rising to the lofty heights of level 7. Of course, the mummy death curse kicks in...



...And rather than doing anything as pedestrian as cursing my equipment, he turns all my healing potions into decay potions. Nice job breaking it, Menkaure.



Ring of fire. Eh. I'll hold on to it, just in case. Got a spellbook a bit later.



Neat, but still, pearls before swine. It's a bit like giving a gatling laser to a caveman:They know it's awesome, but haven't the slightest idea about how to use it (hint: on other people).



Floor 6! Note the shiny new rank of Martial Artist.



I like the fire protection. The orc priest, less so.



There, that's done. As is the update. I'm quite surprised that he's lasting this long, to be honest. No good gear, not much HP, and yet he's doing Martial Arts and he's still alive.

[Cogwheel]

Hm. Nano, erasing the Morgue files might do the trick. Pretty sure that would also wipe out any ghosts, though, so try it at your own risk.

[Iskandar]

Yeah, Kenkus do get kinda shafted on equipment. Not quite as bad as Trolls, mind.
And yes, they've been tweaking the uniques lately.

You know, I've only run into that mummy unique twice, both times as a necromancer. Disrupt Undead is a nasty spell.

Which, BTW, cuts both ways. As I understand it, some of the top tier demons will cast it on you if you happen to be an undead race....

[Alex112524]

Found ANOTHER shop with a Necronomicon, Cthulu has taken an interest in me , also, Kenku cannot wear -helmets-, but they can still wear caps and wizard hats, so you can still wear a Cap of See Invisible if you find one. You will now find a helmet of see invisible!

About Kenku flight, according to the in game manual, Kenku don't have wings, so the DO fly with reality warping mind powers. Also, if you want your Kenku to match the manual, you can press the "-" (dash or minus) key and change the body type to one without wings, this also lets you change the gender and shown equipment of any character, plus hairstyle! (to change an equipment slot back to showing what you actually have equipped, press *, don't do that for hair, though, that removes your hair and you look weird without hair)

[Aldgar]

Ugh...what should I do?

Hat, my deep elven wizard(currently level 9), worshipping sif muna, is kinda stuck.

I cleared D1-D7, but on D8, there's a troll and a bunch of electric eels.

I tried to do the orc mines instead of D8 first, but after killing a bunch of orcs and orc warriors, wizards and priests, I've encountered an orc sorcerer and an orc high priest, and ran away.

Any tips what do to?

I have no wands, few potions, and only the starting spellbook(minor magic: summoning) and the book of party tricks.

[Vitruviansquid]

Bypass D8 somehow. If you can reach D9 without passing through any of the electric eels, you'll be good... as long as you don't bump into anything nasty on D9 and have to run upstairs again =X

[Cogwheel]

What Vitruvian said. To deal with the troll, but not eels, butterflies mae for good meat shields. Really. Oh, and look into Alistair's Intoxication once you get confusion resistance, if you survive that long.

[Gorgondantess]

Oh, boy, Menakure. My demigod reaver had to blow through a few potions to take him out: I can see him as the new Sigmund- too powerful enemy in early dungeon levels. At least SIgmund sometimes drops magical polearms. Menakure, well, you end up with less than you started with when you kill him.

[Aldgar]

Summoning a horde of wardogs is a surprisingly good tactic, I found out. I managed to clear D8 eventually...and then D9...and then D10...and then fell through a shaft on D10, was dumped in a tiny room in D11 where a troll and some other minor monsters swarmed me, a spore exploded in my face as I started to summon stuff, and I was too stupid to blink as the troll closed to melee.

Yeah, died...got 5.9k points, which is actually second place on my highscore list.

The first is still that deep dwarf necromancer of makhleb with 119k points.

[Milskidasith]

Oh, boy, Menakure. My demigod reaver had to blow through a few potions to take him out: I can see him as the new Sigmund- too powerful enemy in early dungeon levels. At least SIgmund sometimes drops magical polearms. Menakure, well, you end up with less than you started with when you kill him.

I never find Menakure that bad. Generally, though, I encounter him around (character) level 6 or 7, which is the sweet spot for me where everything is either going to be easy as pie and a good way to train my armor/shield skill with spare HP, or something that's gong to brutally murder me. Menakure happens to be in the first category by that point. At other levels, it's generally either "everything is a threat" (level 1) or some enemies common to the area are kind of a threat, but not especially so (gnolls around level 3-4, as an example).

[Iskandar]

Menakure has one weakness that Sigmund doesn't: he is a mummy. If you have Disrupt Undead he falls in two hits. If you are a tank type and pick up a weapon of Holy Wrath pretty much the same thing. He is also vulnerable to fire, so fire based casters will burn him down.

Admittedly, ice and poison type casters will probably have to run away, and most pure melee types will also have to run away (although anyone who can rage can probably blow right through him).

He no Sigmund. At the first few levels, no class can reliably take down Sigmund. (not EXACTLY true. lvl 3+ Troll with 'zerk stands a good chance, and if you get real lucky and pick up a wand you can also walk all over Sigmund)

[Cogwheel]

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You might think that thing is a brown snake. Caught me by surprise a few times, too. They're called water moccasins now, but beyond that, I can't find any difference. Ah well.



Violence is, as ever, the only answer to wildlife.



Staircase down to the orc mines. Eh, no. That'd be suicide, right now.



And that's the end of today's update. Time to pick a god.

Oh, right, the new non-Fedhas temple god. The next spoiler will explain that one, but personally, I recommend Trog. Why? Because Kenku are completely awful at invocations of any sort.

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Cheibriados, god of slow things. Bizarre domain to pick, I know, but there you go. Hasting yourself angers him, while killing creatures faster than you (this refers to movement speed only) gives you piety. By itself, this seems like a pretty slow way to gain piety.

Now, the first thing Chei gives is the ability to, in exchange for a bit of piety (I think) put the Ponderousness brand on any piece of armour you have. This slows down your movement. Bad? Ordinarily, yes. However, this means you can get piety for killing anything of normal speed, and he also (as your piety grows) grants resistances and stat boosts for each piece of Ponderous gear you wear. Nice, really.

Other than that, he has a few abilities. He slows down your digestion right off the bat, like a ring of sustenance. He gives Bend Time, which slows down everything around you. Next up is Ruinous Time, which will damage anything faster than you in the area. The faster it is, the more damage it takes.

Lastly, you get Step From Time. Basically, your character steps out of the timestream. Everything goes on in the dungeon as usual, but you don't hunger, buffs don't time out, you do regenerate, and it drops you where you left off about 100 turns later. By then, everything has most likely wandered off.

A neat god, again, who's nicheless (leaning towards a fighter-type, possibly). Again, not for The Flying Man, being heavily invocation and equipment-based. Too bad, really.