Game #115

9      Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 1, -5/16 HPs)
       Slain by a kobold on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Stupid, annoying, stupid #@$%ing game! This game lasted 69 turns before my death due to the game screwing me over. I encountered two hobgoblins and a kobold. The first hobgoblin had a club and quickly reduced me to half hitpoints, so I went berserk and defeated them. I was then low on hitpoints, slow and with nothing for items. A new kobold arrived and destroyed me, and there was nothing I could do.

Stupid @#$%ing game.

Game #114

46350  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 14, -15/121 HPs)
       Killed from afar by an oklob plant on Level 10 of the Lair of Beasts.

This game was very difficult to play, as early on I drank a potion of mutation which gave me the "you occasionally lose your temper in combat" mutation, which is really annoying. To add insult to injury, my first potion of cure mutation cured me of the good mutations (+1 AC and poison resistance) but left the temper problems. Stupid game.

I was constantly in food difficulties due to the fact that I was berserking in every other battle. Near the bottom of the Lair, I finally found a second potion of cure mutation and got rid of my temper problems. On the very bottom of the Lair, I ran into an oklob plant. Normally I just use a summoned creature to deal with those, but I could not get my helper to attack the stupid thing. While I was trying to get my summoned Ogre to attack, the plant was systematically corroding all of my armour.

I ran away, got new armour and decided to deal with the plant on my own. I took off all my armour, drank a potion of speed and ran up to the plant, planning to berserk. Unfortunately, there were actually six oklob plants in a group, and they blasted me to smithereens before I was able to escape.

Lessons Learned
1. Leave the stupid oklob plants alone.

Game #113

379    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 5, 0/46 HPs)
       Slain by an orc wizard on Level 4 of the Dungeon.

I encountered a group of orcs and Ijyb. My mistake was probably berserking too late, but the real problem was that the wizard confused me, and the frenzy quickly left as I went three turns without hitting anyone. So, there I was, facing an invisible wizard, three orcs and I was hungry, slow and below half hitpoints. I knew I did not have a scroll of teleportation, having used up my only one escaping from a wyvern zombie on level 3, so I started quaffing potions hoping for something that would help. The only good thing was heal wounds, but I was unable to hit the invisible wizard before he blasted me to pieces.

Stupid game.

Game #112

94165  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 15, 136/136 HPs)
       Drowned on Level 18 of the Dungeon.

I started this game around a month ago, but summer projects took over my free time, so I was unable to finish it until today. I had stopped playing just after arriving at the second level of the Lair and creating a stash, so I started off by clearing out the Lair. I did not have a very effective means of poison resistance - only a couple of artifact swords, so I continued through the dungeon, rather than going after either of my regular runes.

The dungeon was full of interesting things that you rarely encounter, and I was determined to figure them all out, which is what killed me. After defeating an ice statue guarding some inaccessible treasure, a hellion guarding an inaccessible portal to Hell, a room full of swamp worms and a brain worm and a couple of rooms full of killer bees, I encountered a circular room made of stone walls and full of deep water. I tried levitating through the hallway, but my levitation did not last long enough, and I had to teleport away to escape. I then tried blasting the walls with both a wand of digging and a wand of disintegration, but neither worked. Finally, I was trying to levitate and blink, when my levitation started to wear off. I did once last blink (which was a mistake) and then read a scroll of teleportation. Unfortunately, the teleportation took too long to activate, and I fell into the water and drowned.

I wonder if you can swim in deep water if you take your armour off? I guess that is something to try if I ever see this room again.

Lessons Learned
1. How not to deal with a room full of deep water.

Game #111 Finished

215579 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 19, 0/256 HPs)
       Killed from afar by a storm dragon on Level 25 of the Dungeon.

After escaping from the Snake Pit, I easily obtained the rune at the bottom of the Swamp. Some more dungeon exploration occurred, before I cleared the first seven levels of the Vault. My character was quite powerful and none of the levels were too difficult. However, I was scared of going down to the last level, as in previous attempts, shadow dragons were a problem, and I did not have anything that provided resistance to negative energy. I took the time to buy all the artifact armour and weapons in the shop (including a quick run through the Orcish Mines to raise money) before deciding to continue on into the dungeon. Things were going fine until I encountered a storm dragon on Level 25. We were in a short hallway and it kept attacking me with lightning bolts, which would bounce off the walls and hit me up to three times each attack. It did not take long before I was dead. I did not even have time to think about what was going on.

I think I found my first non-random artifact in this game - the +4 robe of the Night. It has a description, which random artifacts do not, and the game would not let me autodescribe it. Unfortunately for me, a stealth set of armour does not help a heavily armoured dwarf warrior.

Lessons Learned
1. Do not fight lightning wielding creatures in a hallway (or anywhere where a bounce attack can occur).

Game #111

My current game is going very well. I have cleared the Lair and retrieved the rune from the bottom of the Snake Pit. I got into trouble on the last level of the Snake Pit, but managed to escape. I got surrounded by the rune guards in a hallway near the open area - I berserked and took a bunch of them out, but there were far too many and I found myself slow and surrounded. I read a scroll of teleport, which dropped me three steps away from the rune. I quaffed a potion of speed and grabbed the rune, before reading another scroll of teleport as more nagas were arriving. Unfortunately, this teleport only took me to the other side of the open area. I just wanted to escape, so I read 3 scrolls of blinking (interspersed with 3 potions of healing, due to the poison arrows spells that were cast at me) in order to get to the far side of the hallway with all the guards. I was hasted by that point, so I just ran to the nearest staircase, taking at least one orb of energy hit that knocked my hitpoints down dangerously low.

Game #110

663    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 6, -2/73 HPs)
       Killed from afar by an orc priest on Level 6 of the Dungeon.

Wow. Level 6 contained large open areas and a lot of enemies. I had popped down all the staircases, so I knew there would be issues, but I was unprepared for the huge number of monsters standing right beside what had been an empty staircase. My arrival was greeted by an ogre, two hounds, a jackal and a giant ant. Those were just the monsters standing next to me. In the distance were a rat, a scorpion, a giant eyeball, an orc priest and an orc warrior. I berserked, took out the ogre and tried to take out the other creatures when the orc priest succeeded in blasting me. I'm really not sure what I should have done. Going back up the stairs would have killed me. I guess I could have blindly teleported and hoped for the best. Stupid game.

Game #109

651    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 6, 0/45 HPs)
       Succumbed to poison on Level 7 of the Dungeon.

I am developing a strong dislike for shaft traps, as they compound the out of depth issues in the game, by dumping you down two levels deeper than you are ready for. I had just started exploring level 6 when I fell down a shaft and arrived on level 8. I immediately encountered an orc and an ogre that I had to berserk to defeat. While resting, I encountered a large group of orcs, which required the use of summoned help. With no obvious way up, I started exploring, only to encounter a killer bee, which ended up being the death of me. However, I did manage to stay alive for some time. I caused the killer bee to flee from me twice and was able to get my hitpoints up to around 70%, which allowed me to start exploring for a way out of level 8.

I found a staircase, but the damn killer bee arrived at the same time. I probably should have fought it off at that point, but instead I made a run for the staircase and drug the bee up to level 7. Of course there was a zombie of something on level 7, and I was in the middle of a room, so I summoned help and fled. Somehow I managed to survive - I had 1 hitpoint while the zombie swung at me for a couple of turns. After that, my summoned bear went off down a hallway to deal with some orcs, while I rested. I ended up dying, even though I was pretty sure I was no longer poisoned. Oh well - I had no potions anyway, so there was nothing I could have done.

Lessons Learned
1. Don't bring a monster with you up (or down) and unknown staircase.

Game #108

199    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 4, -2/38 HPs)
       Slain by Jessica on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

Argh! Stupid Jessica on an early level! I berserked to fight her, but she kept blinking away from me, which caused my berserk to quickly wear off, after which she blasted me to death with magic and wands. I was reduced to quaffing unknown potions in a vain attempt at staying alive.

Game #107

75     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 3, -1/30 HPs)
       Slain by a worm on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

The starting area of this game included a room with glass walls full of oozes, worms, rats and jackals. I briefly considered berserking and immediately attacking, but I figured it would be wiser to explore the level, make to level 2 or 3 and then take out the room when I had more hitpoints. I did exactly that, except somehow the monsters managed to open the door on their own - are they like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park? Anyway, I encountered a bunch of them in an open area and ended up berserking in order to survive. After my berserk wore off, a worm walked up to me and pummelled me, since I was slow and had not found anything to help me in a dangerous situation.

I really despise the goofy starting levels in Crawl. I am pretty sure you can turn them off, and I think I am going to do that.

Game #106

51     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 1, 0/16 HPs)
       Slain by a goblin on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Stupid game. Encountered a hobgoblin - had to berserk to avoid dying. Rested until I was no longer slow, went into the next room and encountered a goblin that killed me with a single blow.

Game #105

2815   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, -1/105 HPs)
       Slain by an orc warrior on Level 8 of the Dungeon.

I'm really not sure what happened here. I encountered a group of orcs when I was just below half my hitpoints. I berserked, took a couple of swings at the orc warrior and then died. He must have hit me a lot and I just wasn't paying attention, which is entirely my fault.

Lessons Learned
1. Pay attention to your hitpoints after every move.

Game #104

461    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 6, -3/52 HPs)
       Slain by a wight on Level 5 of the Dungeon.

Another fight where I did not feel that I was in danger, as I had just over 50% of my hitpoints. However, a wight with a draining attack and a battleaxe can do a LOT of damage in one turn. I have been mulling over this problem for some time now, and I think Crawl needs a warning whenever you make a move and, in response, the enemy could do more damage than you have hitpoints. In fact, if your various command options were highlighted with regards to this information, it would greatly help decision making in situations such as this. Obviously it won't help when you have 2 hitpoints and are surrounded by enemies, but it may prevent you from getting into that situation.

Game #103

10050  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 11, -8/97 HPs)
       Mangled by a vampire on Level 14 of the Dungeon.

This was just bad luck. I approached the vampire and got a single swing in and then he confused me. Once confused there was nothing I could do. I tried reading my scroll of teleportation. I tried attacking, but nothing worked. I was surrounded by animals and annihilated. I guess I should be a bit more cautious when fighting vampires.

Game #102

598    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 6, 0/49 HPs)
       Slain by an ogre on level 6 of the Dungeon.

I came very close to dying on level 4, when I fought an orc priest, who seriously injured me, forcing me to berserk to defeat him. While I rested, an orc appeared with a battleaxe of venom (seriously?!?!) and took me down to 4 hitpoints and poisoned me. I was slow, with nothing identified - luckily two of my potions were healing and heal wounds, or else I would have been dead.

Once again, I ended up dying when I did not consider myself to be in any great danger. I was above 50% hitpoints (27/49), I had a decent start of game armour class (10), and I had an ogre who was seriously wounded and poisoned when I made my attack. My attack hit but did not kill the ogre, who managed to get in two attacks to my one (which should not be possible, given that his attack delay is as bad as mine) and he did 27 points of damage.

Stupid game. I really don't know what to do - berserk everytime your hitpoints go below 75%? If I did that, I doubt I would make it through the dungeon without dying of hunger. What Crawl really needs is a warning when you start an action that will allow a visible enemy to make multiple attacks. Of course, the idea would need to be tweaked a bit, as you would not want a warning every time you attacked a weak creature that was faster than you (such as a giant bat, or killer bee). Still, some sort of warning would be nice.

Game #101

87128  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 15, -9/138 (139) HPs)
       Killed from afar by a greater naga on Level 5 of the Snake Pit.

This character died to bad teleporting luck, in part because I chose to teleport from trouble instead of using a different escape option. I had spent some time fighting the nagas guarding the rune in a hallway next to the big open room. This worked well, but I ran into trouble during one fight, where a couple of poison arrows and hard hits from a naga warrior had knocked my hitpoints down a lot. I decided to flee via teleporting, but I ended up teleporting directly into the middle of the open room, surrounded by 20 or so nagas. I managed to survive for a couple of turns (scroll of fear, then scroll of teleportation) before I was blasted by a spell and died.

Lessons Learned
1. Blind teleportation should be your last escape option. I could have summoned help to fight for me, in which case I would have easily survived.

Game #100

17104  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 12, -4/98 HPs)
       Slain by a slime creature on Level 14 of the Dungeon.

I stuck to my plan and played very carefully whenever my hitpoints were low. Partly because of that, this felt like a very rough game, as I was constantly berserking and searching for food in the early game. Later on I found an amulet of the gourmand, which took care of any food issues, but I never really accumulated a good stash of escape options, which created a problem when I ran into trouble on level 14.

The main problem was that I had an artifact +0, +13 war axe that provided a negative bonus to my cold resistance. For the first part of the game with the axe, I was wearing a ring of protection from cold to counteract the penalty. Later on, I was forced to use a ring of poison resistance and a ring of see invisible in order to deal with unseen horrors and poison causing creatures. Level 14 was big and open and I encountered an unseen horror, a couple of other smaller monsters and a centaur captain with a bow of frost. I berserked and took out all the monsters, but the bow of frost was doing massive amounts of damage, which left me sitting on 8 hitpoints and facing three slime creatures when my berserk wore off.

I had already used up all my good scrolls, and I felt that a scroll of teleportation was a bit dangerous in an unexplored level, so I quaffed my last potion of extra healing and a potion of speed to counteract the slow penalty. I made it past the slime creatures to a staircase, but all three were right beside me. I went up, but was surrounded by the three. I tried to berserk to fight them, but was killed before I could. In retrospect, I guess I should have gambled with the scroll of teleportation.

Game #99

15406  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 12, 0/106 HPs)
       Slain by a black snake on Level 4 of the Lair of Beasts.

Sometimes my focus disappears, and I completely miss the fact that I am in trouble. When you are at 25% hitpoints, poisoned, slow and facing a black snake, you are in trouble. In fact, things got worse, as on my last game turn, all the same afflictions existed, but I was down to 8 hitpoints. From now on I am going to force myself to stop and plan an escape whenever my hitpoints are in the yellow.

Game #98

5812   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 10, -13/83 HPs)
       Mangled by an orc warrior on Level 2 of the Orcish Mines.

It has been awhile since I have gone to the Orcish Mines with a low level character and I forgot how dangerous it can be. In fact, this is the first time I think I have ever seen an orc warlord. Level 3 contained the warlord, a sorcerer, a few warriors and 20+ orcs all in one big room. I survived my first trip down, but not my second, and it was my fault. I knew the level was dangerous, but I went down the last staircase while I was hungry. I was surrounded immediately, but fled back up to level 2, where I tried to fight my way to a chokepoint, but I never made it.

Lessons Learned
1. Don't be stingy with your food. If you are hungry, then eat.

Game #97

3373   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, -22/74 HPs)
       Annihilated by an abomination in The Abyss.

I could not be more ticked off at this game right now. The room where the staircase to the Orcish Mines was located was full of orcs. It took me most of my wands and a couple of scrolls in order to fight through them all, but except for one time versus three priests, a wraith and a wizard, I survived without my hitpoints dipping into the red.

During the fighting, Trog was nice enough to give me a broad axe, but unfortunately for me, he was being very fickle and the stupid thing turned out to be a broad axe of distortion. Now once you wield a weapon of distortion you are generally f***ed, as bad things happen when you unwield it. My bad thing was to be thrown into the Abyss. Damn stupid game. I actually made it out of the Abyss the first time. However, I was a sucker for punishment and had wielded the broad axe of distortion while in the Abyss, since it was the most powerful weapon I had. Of course, the second time I unwielded it, I was again thrown into the Abyss, where I was mercilessly killed.

Lessons Learned
1. Throw the stupid weapons of distortion away and never, ever use them.

Game #96 Finished

212158 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 19, -17/160 (163) HPs)
       Demolished by a stone giant on Level 23 of the Dungeon.

I thought things were going very well for this character, until I got into a very dangerous situation and did not properly evaluate my escape options. After getting the two runes, I simply continued to explore the dungeon. At one point I even managed to defeat a stone giant and a gold dragon at the same time. As I was exploring level 23, which had large open hallways, I encountered a centaur captain, a ghost of some sort and a stone giant. I correctly started to retreat, but the centaur and ghost quickly caught me, while a simulcram and a bunch of killer bees arrived from a different direction. I summoned help, which tried to fight the stone giant, but quickly died. It was at this point that I made a fatal mistake, and I really don't know what I was thinking. Rather than blinking or teleporting, I decided to berserk, simply for the extra speed so that I could make it back to the staircase.

As should be expected, my berserking wore off in three turns, leaving me slow and still facing all the enemies. I still did not blink or teleport, but simply tried to slog my way back to the staircase, drinking potions of healing as my hitpoints dropped. After walking up the staircase, I was hit enough times that I died.

Lessons Learned
1. Choose a proper escape option when in trouble. Blinking is the best option to get away from enemies and closer to a staircase.
2. Never use berserk if you do not intend to fight.

Game #96

I finally have a character that is doing well. I went down through the dungeon until level 15 and then completed the Snake Pit, which was actually quite easy, as none of the staircases down to level 5 were in the middle of an open area surrounded by nagas. That allowed me to easily find the location of all the nagas and fight them through a bottleneck. After getting the rune from the Snake Pit, I went down into the Swamp and got the rune from it as well.

Game #95

60     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, 0/24 HPs)
       Succumbed to poison on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

I should not have died. I encountered a snake when I had full hitpoints. Three turns later, I was down to 9 hitpoints and poisoned. Stupid game - all I had found to that point was a potion of levitation, which really did not help me, and I ended up dying to the poison before I could find anything to heal me.

Game #94

1335   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 8, 0/103 HPs)
       Slain by a giant iguana on Level 7 of the Dungeon.

Another game where I was playing on autopilot and ignoring what was happening. I ended up in an open room with half my hitpoints and facing two enemies. Rather than retreat and find a spot to fight them individually, I stood beside both and fought them until I died.

Game #93

277    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 4, -2/33 HPs)
       Slain by an orc on Level 3 of the Dungeon.

I am an idiot. Why would you continue to attack orc after orc after orc with under 10 hitpoints. Surely I would understand that one of them is going to kill me? I had many escape options but chose to use none of them.

Game #92

120    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 3, -4/28 HPs)
       Slain by a worm on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

I think I have figured out one of the reasons so many of my characters die quickly - a lack of armour. Especially after finishing a game where my character had an armour class of 30, it is hard to adjust to having an armour class of 2. That was the situation in this game, where I kept getting in hitpoints trouble due to the fact that with a low armour class, you can take a lot of damage. In fact, the worm that killed me did 13 points of damage - I didn't know worms could hit that hard.

Lessons Learned
1. Be very careful in battles until you have some armour.

Game #91

34011  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 13, -3/199 HPs)
       Slain by a death yak on Level 9 of the Lair of Beasts.

Apparently I did not learn from my lessons last game. Around level 7 or 8 of the Lair, I started encountering a lot of hydras, but I only had an axe as a weapon. I decided to use a mace of protection to train up my maces skill in order to fight the hydras. The problem with training a new weapon is that you do not do anywhere near the same damage as you do with your old, especially when your old weapon is branded and your new one is not.

I encountered three or four death yaks on the ninth level of the Lair. I berserked and successfully defeated all but one, who was fleeing when my berserk wore off. Unfortunately, the room was small and he quickly turned around and came back to attack me. As I knew he was close to death, I kept swinging until it was too late. My final action was to belatedly drink a potion of speed, but while I did that, the death yak got two hits in and finished me off.

Lessons Learned
1. When training a new weapon skill, be very cautious and watch your hitpoints.
2. Even if an enemy is almost defeated, treat it as dangerous as you would one with full hitpoints.

Game #90

100167 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 16, -2/126 HPs)
       Mangled by a stone giant on Level 17 of the Dungeon.

I died due to trying to game the system, rather than just playing the game, plus I forgot to equip my best possible armour after using some inferior armour (that provided poison resistance) to obtain the rune at the bottom of the Snake Pit.

Around the second level, I took 47 curare tipped needles off of a kobold. With such a large stash of an awesome weapon, I spent the first part of the game training with a blowgun, only to realize that it is wholly inadequate as a weapon. Normally I use ranged weapons to pick off monsters who are fleeing from me. The blowgun is useless in that role, as it does not do any damage. So, after I got the rune, I grabbed a crossbow and a bunch of bolts and when down into the dungeon to train my crossbow skill. Of course, to do this, I stood beside fairly large creatures and shot them, which meant that I was low on hit points.

Eventually I encountered an enemy I had too few hitpoints for and I died.

Lessons Learned
1. The blowgun is not an effective ranged weapon (as far as damage is concerned).
2. Always ensure you have the best armour and weapons equipped.
3. Be very careful when gaming the system.

Game #89

122100 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 16, 0/134 (135) HPs)
       Killed from afar by a hellion in The Abyss.

<insert The Abyss rant here>

This game was marked by a complete lack of poison resistance. All I was able to do was clear the Lair and I was working my way down through the dungeon when Louise cast me into the Abyss.

Stupid game.

Vacation

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. I was on vacation and there wasn't enough time to play Crawl. Before playing again, I took some time to review what I wrote in the initial blog post, and I have done remarkably well in my goals. I have changed the type of character I am using, but I have managed to obtain a rune on many occasions, and I have even had a few characters obtain two runes.

I can definitely tell the difference between playing regularly and playing occasionally. When I have not played for a couple of days, my first few games are rough, as I no longer have a feel for when I am in trouble. Anyway, my new goal is to obtain entrance to the Realm of Zot, though I expect I will quickly die once I arrive there.

Finally, my comments regarding the requirement of spoilers needs a bit of clarification. I should note that Stone Soup now identifies the "edibility" of corpses, so there is no danger to dying to poisonous meat. However, there still is no way to know the capabilities of a given monster from within the game. I think Crawl would benefit from detailed monster descriptions listing the following type of information:

• regular depth level of monster (for out of depth discovery)


• special abilities of monster


• any resistances the monster has


• a rough idea of how more or less powerful the monster is versus the current character

Game #88

1483   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 8, -4/97 HPs)
       Slain by an orc warrior on Level 7 of the Dungeon.

Inattention killed this character. I encountered a group of orcs and did not realize how much damage the orc warrior was doing to me until I was down to 12 hitpoints. My fatal mistake was not attempting to escape at that point - for some reason I decided to berserk, which did not help much.

Lessons Learned
1. Escape when you have low hitpoints. Berserk when you have high hitpoints.

Game #87

26     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, 0/25 HPs)
       Slain by a hobgoblin on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Stupid game. Why should I die to a hobgoblin on level 1? How can it do so much damage in so little time?

Game #86

219398 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 19, -1/170 HPs)
       Killed from afar by a smoke demon in The Abyss.

Argh!! I hate the damned Abyss. This character ended up in it twice, both due to Zot traps. The first time I lucked out and found an exit immediately. The second time I quickly ended up in trouble, as something was covering me in sticky flames, which burned up all my scrolls of teleportation. My character was very strong, but I ended up stuck and surrounded by demons.

Stupid game. The Abyss is able to kill any character, and I do NOT like the ending of one of my best characters EVER to be due to what amounts to a random dice roll. The Abyss needs to be rethought. It needs to be made less dangerous to move through OR there needs to be ways to make it easier to get out of.

Game #85

99375  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 16, -14/146 HPs)
       Demolished by a naga warrior on Level 5 of the Snake Pit.

I never found the entrance to the Swamp in this game. After clearing the Lair, I went back to the dungeon and cleared it down to level 19 before deciding to tackle the Snake Pit. My biggest problem this game was that all my resistances were on artifact pieces of armour, which all had negative bonuses to my armour class. This meant that I felt like I was taking a lot more damage than last game (which I was, as my last game, I had an armour class in the 35 range).

Anyway, I cleared the first four levels of the Snake Pit and then popped down to the fifth level to make certain that all three staircases were in the middle of a round room with a ton of enemies, which was the case. I then returned to my stash, got everything I would need for the battle and returned. My plan, which almost worked perfectly, was to summon three helpers, read a scroll of teleportation and then descend to level 5. I did that, but when I teleported, I ended up in a hallway with a unique and a bunch of undead. It was a bit of a struggle to win that battle, but I did and I easily dealt with the stragglers from the main room.

What killed me was the fact that the room with the rune in it still had a huge number of powerful nagas in it, and I went into that room unprepared. A summoned rock troll took out a bunch but eventually I had to teleport away as I was getting low on hitpoints. My immediate plan was to head towards an escape hatchway to level 4, but a naga warrior appeared between me and the hatchway. I tried shooting him and was then pinned in the hallway as another naga appeared from the other direction. I had to fight my way out, but the naga warrior had a magical halberd and was hit me for a ton of damage each time, which quickly put an end to my character.

Lessons Learned
1. There are two rooms in the last level of the Snake Pit that you must deal with.
2. Don't forget to bring wands to a level with a rune - a wand of draining would have helped greatly, but I left two of them in my stash.

Game #84

226964 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 19, -2/165 (169) HPs)
       Hit by a large rock thrown by a stone giant on Level 27 of the Dungeon.

This was by far my best game to date, as I have never had a character reach level 19, nor have I ever made it to the bottom of the dungeon before. The Swamp was actually easy in this game, as I managed to get a war axe of flaming, and a very good bow from Trog and I used the combination of the two to easily deal with the hydras, swamp dragons and other nasties in the Swamp. With the rune from the Swamp obtained, I moved over to the Snake Pit and quickly cleared the first four levels. The fifth level was tough, but not too bad. I find that the fact that the Guardian Nagas teleport you actually helps, as it gives you an automatic escape option, after which you can rest and regain your hitpoints before rejoining the battle.

I could not find any way to see invisible, which caused me problems in the middle levels of the dungeon, especially when I encountered a group of boggarts on level 18. I cleared out the Hive, as I was running into food difficulties and then cleared the dungeon down to level 20. I then went back and started clearing the Vaults. All went well until I hit level 5 and encountered Boris. I quickly summoned help and ran away, especially as once he turned invisible, I had no way to find him. With clearing the Vaults no longer possible, I decided to push to the bottom of the dungeon before deciding upon my next course of action.

On level 26, I encountered a Lich, who summoned a couple of type 1 demons. Amazingly, I managed to easily win the battle, by berserking and then summoning a troll and using a potion of speed when the berserk wore off. Around this time, Trog gifted me an ankus that provided the ability to see invisible, though it is a mixed blessing, as it is a -4,-6 ankus, so I can see the invisible monster, but I will be hard pressed to hurt them.

Unfortunately, level 27 proved to be the death of me. I encountered a fire giant and a storm dragon at the same time. While I was fighting the fire giant, the storm dragon was blasting me with lightning, and I did not have any electrical resistance. I managed to defeat both creatures, but I had 29 hitpoints left when I was done. I started resting and a stone giant appeared. I summoned a troll, moved away from the stone giant and was hit by a rock. The end of the best character I have ever had, as level 27 is the bottom of the dungeon - I actually saw the entrances to the Realm of Zot!

Lessons Learned
1. Stone Giants are dangerous and can do a lot of damage in a short period of time.
2. Play slowly and carefully in the deeper levels of the dungeon.
3. Purchase all unidentified artifact items in the shops, as there was an artifact armor that provided electrical resistance.

Game #83

10     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 1, -4/24 HPs)
       Slain by a giant gecko on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother playing this game. The fourth enemy I encounter kills me and there was absolutely nothing I could do to prevent it. Geckos are faster than you, so running away is not an option. I was in a hallway, and I berserked when my hit points got low (as I had not found a single item yet), but I still died. In fact, the gecko took me from full hitpoints to 3 hitpoints in one turn.

Stupid game.

Game #82

81929  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 15, -2/132 (133) HPs)
       Slain by a four-headed hydra on Level 5 of the Swamp.

I wonder if I should wait longer before heading down to the last level of the Swamp. It just seems like luck is all that ever gets me through the fight with the swamp dragons and the hydras, which is not the best way to play the game. In this case, I fought through the first four waves, including a lot of berserking, before ending up in trouble and teleporting all over level 5 before I was able to escape. I restocked and returned, figuring that most of the monsters guarding the rune would be gone. They were, but Francis was not. He (or she) summoned some demons, who summoned more demons until half the screen was filled with 3s, 4s and 5s. I was berserk at the time, with a berserked rock troll as help and we actually managed to defeat them all.

However, the commotion attracted one of the last hydras and I was low on hitpoints and completely forgot that I was slow, which made my death come quickly.

Lessons Learned
1. Leave the last level of the Swamp until a bit later on in the game.

Game #81

111    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 3, 0/31 HPs)
       Killed from afar by Jessica on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

I blame this death entirely upon the game. My only option to prevent dying was to drink a potion of healing, but there was no way to tell that based upon the information given to me at the time. I had 16 hitpoints, so I was still above 50%, but I was facing a hasted spellcaster who was several steps away from me. Jessica hit me with two magic darts, both of which did 8 damage, thus killing me.

Stupid game. The moment she blinked, I was dead, as I had absolutely no escape options, nor any way to kill her before she killed me.

Game #80

41     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 1, -2/16 HPs)
       Hit by a dart thrown by a kobold on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

Fourth enemy I encountered hit me with three darts and killed me before I could even get near him. Sometimes this game is just way too dangerous to early characters.

Stupid game.

Game #79

1533   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 8, -4/66 HPs)
       Killed from afar by Blork the orc on Level 7 of the Dungeon.

I really seem to be hitting a wall around level 8 lately, as I seem unable to get any farther in the game. I arrived on level 8 and found myself surrounded by orcs and a LOT of various other monsters. None were difficult and as I was high level (due to one of those crazy gnoll infested levels earlier on) with a +0,+8 broad axe of chopping, I figured I could easily berserk and take out all my foes. In fact, that is exactly what I did.

However, once all the easy foes were dealt with, Blork, a centaur and some more orcs showed up. I tried to move towards them before my berserk wore off, but that did not work, which left me in the middle of nowhere, slow and facing a named NPC with a wand and a centaur with a bow of frost. It did not take long for the two of them to finish me off.

Lessons Learned
1. Always have an escape plan for when your berserk wears off. In this case, I should have taken the stairs up, as I was standing on them when Blork arrived.

Game #78

1893   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 8, 0/59 HPs)
       Slain by a yellow wasp on Level 8 of the Dungeon.

Another game that was my fault. I simply stopped paying attention to my hitpoints as I explored and fought various enemies. In fact, it was a complete surprise when the death message appeared. Sometimes I play on auto-pilot, which just does not work in this game.

Game #77

834    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 7, -6/88 HPs)
       Mangled by Bill's ghost on Level 6 of the Dungeon.

Wow. Wow. Triple Wow. That ghost was extremely strong, as I was dead before I even realized what happened. I popped down to level 6, saw the ghost, went berserk (with full hitpoints) and was dead after five attacks. I've never been hit that hard by a ghost before.

I forgot that ghosts are stuck to their level, as I should have went back to the stairs the moment my hitpoints hit the red. However, I also had the ghost's hitpoints in the red and foolishly continued to attack. Must remember to always escape when I have the chance.

Game #76

5758   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 10, -4/123 (125) HPs)
       Slain by an orc warrior on Level 10 of the Dungeon.

I was in constant trouble this entire game, and I'm really not certain why. Level 9 was open, with lakes filled with eels, and I spent a bunch of time suddenly realizing I was low on hit points and escaping up a level to rest. Finally, I decided to skip level 9 and move on to level 10, but it did not get any better. I was berserked almost all the time, primarily because I still had not found a decent weapon, and at level 10, you need something more powerful than a +0,+2 mace.

Anyway, I encountered a group of orcs, berserked and was slowly killed by them, even though I had a ton of hitpoints. I guess I should have tried to escape, but I really didn't want to, given how sucky this game had gone to this point.

Game #75

906    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 7, -4/60 HPs)
       Slain by an ogre on Level 6 of the Dungeon.

This one was all my fault. I was in a crooked hallway and I kept moving and stopping where multiple enemies could attack me. I also did not bother to use any escape or healing options when my hitpoints got low. I know how to play better than this.

Game #74

115    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, -5/25 HPs)
       Slain by a gnoll on Level 3 of the Dungeon.

Stupid game.

I found a sling on level 1 and at the end of the level, I wielded it. It was cursed and I did not have a scroll of remove curse. I could not even kill a rat with it wielded, so I was basically dead if I could not find a scroll. I tried dragging enemies over a dart trap, but it was far too slow a method to kill them. I eventually explored the levels trying to find a scroll of remove curse, but I quickly picked up a large number of monsters following me. whenever I had to turn around, I would take a whole bunch of hits and finally, they managed to defeat me.

Stupid game.

Game #73

110    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, 0/23 HPs)
       Slain by Sigmund on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

Damn Sigmund. I had not encountered him in a long time, so I completely forgot that he could appear at this depth. I only saw him for a single turn before he turned invisible, and as there were three other monsters around, it was easy to miss him as I was moving and attacking. After defeating two of the creatures, I started fighting an invisible creature and it took me far too long to realize who I was fighting - I was already below 10 hitpoints before I clued in.

Unfortunately, I was also hungry, so berserking was out of the question. I drank both my unidentified points, one of which was a potion of heal wounds, which helped, but not enough.

Stupid game.

Game #72

3331   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, 0/75 (77) HPs)
       Killed from afar by an electrical eel on Level 9 of the Dungeon.

I found a potion of mutation early on in this game that gave my character the berserk mutation, which meant that I randomly went berserk while fighting. This made the game extremely frustrating, as I was constantly running out of food and getting into trouble because I was berserking at very bad times. However, I fought through and made it all the way to level 9 of the Dungeon.

Level 9 was a big open area with a multitude of small lakes and each lake had one or two electrical eels. Without proper resistance, such a level is very dangerous, as you can quickly find yourself in range of 3 or 4 eels and take 3-4 lightning bolt hits with every step you take. That is what happened to me. I really should have just skipped the level, as there was no need to clear it out.

Lessons Learned
1. Avoid electrical eels when you do not have the proper resistances.

Game #71

11691  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 11, 0/100 HPs)
       Slain by a slime creature on Level 12 of the Dungeon.

This game was simply an exercise in frustration and I once I got annoyed, I played poorly. I normally carry everything with me until I find the Lair, and then I quickly pop down to Level 2 and drop everything off. Well, the Lair did not turn up until Level 12 and I kept having inventory problems until I eventually got mad and ran back to the temple to drop off a bunch of stuff for later.

Now, Level 12 was a complete nightmare. It was overpopulated with monsters, including an entire room full of orc warriors and orcs. One of the stupid warriors had a war axe of distortion and I just could not defeat him. I would hit him a few times and then he would teleport me away. Similarly, the level was full of Slime Creatures that worked the same way. Hit them until they flee and then encounter them again, hit them until they flee and then encounter them again and so on and so on and so on. I must have fought the same five creatures 40 times and my finger started hurting from all the attacks I was making.

The entrance to the Lair was surrounded by water that was filled with Jellyfish and Goldfish, both of which work the same way - attack until they retreat, find them again and then attack until they retreat. I was so sick of it, that I was trying to use summoned creatures to clear the water, but the stupid things wouldn't fight the monsters right beside them - instead they kept trying to find a way to the Slime Creatures outside the water. After a bunch of time in the water, my hitpoints were low, my patience was thin and I let a Slime Creature kill me.

Annoying level.

Game #70 Finished

171115 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 17, -16/225 HPs)
       Killed from afar by a shadow dragon on Level 5 of the Vaults.

Got the Swamp rune and then easily cleared the first four levels of the Snake Pit. Level 5 was a problem, as all three down staircases led to the same spot - an open room surrounded by all the biggest and baddest Nagas in the game. I summoned three helpers and went down, but that was not a resounding success - I defeated a number of the enemies but was hit pretty hard before I could retreat. The second time worked the same way and then the third got me in real trouble. I summoned three helpers and went down. Once I was on level 5, I berserked and started swinging. Unfortunately, there were a lot of tough Nagas and I was quickly super poisoned. I fled back to level 4 and then discovered a problem with my plan. While berserked, I was unable to drink any potions, which meant that I had no way to deal with the poison. My only solution was to fight through all the Nagas that came upstairs with me, run away from them until my berserk wore off and then drink a potion of healing, all before the poison killed me. I did that and somehow it actually worked, though that left me slow, with 30 hitpoints and facing four scary creatures. Luckily a summoning actually worked and a black bear from Trog took out the monsters for me.

With my piety very low, I moved on to the Hive and cleared it out. I then returned to the Snake Pit, summoned help and went down one last time. There weren't many enemies left by this point, and my summoned help quickly defeated them, which was good, as I immediately stepped upon a teleportation trap and was moved away from the battle. I found the room with the rune in it and used summoned trolls to defeat most of the enemies guarding the rune.

With two runes, I took the time to scour the shops for anything that would be useful. Of course, that meant that I ran out of money, so I quickly cleaned out the Orcish Mines.

My next stop was the Vaults. Nothing was too difficult until level 5, where I encountered a group of dragons and some other creatures I had never encountered before. There were two golden dragons, a shadow dragon, a titan and a few other creatures. I had no idea who I should fight first, or what I should do and ended up dying, as all those creatures can cause a LOT of damage in a short period of time.

So, once again, I died as soon as I encountered some creatures I had never encountered before. Stupid game.

Lessons Learned
1. Life protection is pretty much required in the Vaults.

Game #70

This game started out by annoying me with poison. I was poisoned on every level from the first all the way until the 10th, and there were a couple of times that the poison took me down to single digit hitpoints. Somehow I managed to survive and cleared the first 15 levels of the dungeon. Around the time I started clearing the Lair, I discovered my first scroll of acquirement, and managed to obtain a ring of poison resistance, so I easily finished off the Lair.

Before I ran out of time, I made it to the 5th level of the Swamp. I have not obtained the rune yet, but I have managed to defeat most of the hydras and swamp dragons that are guarding it. Tomorrow I will get the rune out of the Swamp and then try to get the rune out of the Snake Pit.

Game #69

2304   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, 0/109 HPs)
       Slain by a killer bee on Level 8 of the Dungeon.

Stupid open levels and my stupid non-thinking game play. I encountered two small creatures and a manticore in an open level with no hallways. I took out the small creatures, but struggled against the manticore, primarily because I was trying to identify an artifact mace I discovered, and I did not have any skill in Maces & Flails. While fighting the manticore, a killer bee arrived and my hitpoints rapidly dropped. I went berserk, but it was too late.

Game #68

148    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 3, 0/27 HPs)
       Succumbed to poison on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

My stupid fingers were the direct cause of this death. I entered a room and discovered a snake. I tried to move back into a hallway, but my fingers were on the wrong keys and I instead made two steps deeper into the room. This allowed the snake a couple of free hits (one of which poisoned me) and brought a second snake into view. I had no choice but to stand and fight, unfortunately the second step had trigged my hunger, so I was unable to berserk. I started swinging and took out the first snake. With very few hitpoints, I quaffed the only potion I had, hoping it was a potion of healing. No such luck.

That liquid tasted very nasty...
You are more poisoned.
You die...

Game #67

469    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 6, -2/46 HPs)
       Slain by a phantom on Level 4 of the Dungeon.

This turned out to be a fairly crappy game. I encountered a phantom on Level 4 and just could not do any damage to it. It took me down to red on my hitpoints, so I went berserk and managed to defeat it. I was then hungry and slow, with almost no hitpoints. I ate and started resting, when a beetle of some sort appeared. I used my wands to finish it off and started resting again. I was immediately set upon by a rat, a cockroach and an orc, but managed to defeat them all, still with my hitpoints very low. For the third time I started resting and this time a second phantom appeared. Still unable to hurt it, I went berserk, but it kept teleporting away, and my berserk quickly wore off, allowing the phantom to easily defeat me.

Lessons Learned
1. Retreat away from any unexplored areas when resting to regain hitpoints.

Game #66 Finished

159613 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 17, -30/245 (248) HPs)
       Killed from afar by a shadow dragon on Level 8 of the vaults.

I abandoned the Snake Pits, due to the presence of Boris, and dove deeper into the dungeon in order to search for the Vaults. I found the entrance on the 18th level of the dungeon, and started clearing the levels. The Vaults are not super easy to fight through, due to the large open areas and the presence of large numbers of foes. I managed to stay alive and ended up with a bunch of different types of dragon armour by the time I cleared level 7.

Now, I had never been this deep in the Vaults before, so arriving at level 8 was a new experience, and one that I was woefully unprepared for. All three down staircases arrive in the middle of a circle of 24 Vault Guards. Surrounding the guards were various other powerful monsters, including two Shadow Dragons. The only plan I had was to pull up the guards (8 at a time, taking 8 hits on the staircase), summon help and berserk. That worked, though not perfectly, as I was pretty lucky not to die from all the hits I was taking. I managed to defeat all the guards, one of the Shadow Dragons and a swarm of yaktaurs that attacked me from the "cleared" level 7.

It was at that point that I got a little overconfident. I went down to level 8, and all that remained was a single Shadow Dragon, a spider type creature (that turned out to be a shapeshifter) and a yaktaur captain. I foolishly thought I could fight the three at once, but I quickly got into trouble. I was very low on hitpoints after a couple of bolts and draining attacks, but I had stepped away from the staircase, so retreat wasn't even an option. I ended up berserking and trying desperately to survive, but it did not happen.

I don't know if that is what the entrance to the 8th level of the Vaults always looks like, but if it is, I need to figure out a better way to deal with the creatures there.

Lessons Learned
1. How not to clear the 8th level of the Vaults.

Game #66 Continued

So, when we last left our intrepid hero, he had just finished clearing level 15 of the dungeon and I was planning on moving on to the Lair. I easily completed all 10 levels of the lair, despite the fact that I have been unable to find a good artifact axe. The two I have suck, in that they have negative or very small bonuses and the recurse special rule, which means that they aren't the greatest for a main weapon.

Once the Lair was cleared, I moved on to the Swamp. Nothing interest occurred on the first four levels, but I really struggled on the last level. Even with my summoned help, there were times where I was down to around 25 hitpoints and facing two hydras. Luckily, I managed to survive, though it took a lot of my favour with Trog, and I made it back to the Lair with the rune.

Next up was the Snake Pit, as I figured I could use the first few levels to regain my favour with Trog, prior to using it all up on the final level. Level 1 was a breeze, but Level 2 featured a unique I had never encountered before - a lich named Boris. He appears to be obscenely powerful, as his spells hit hard, he is immune to most everything and he can turn invisible. Upon encoutering him, I shot a wand of fireball, as what undead creature is immune to fire? I guess liches are. I then summoned help, but I only get wimpy ogres after a couple of attempts, due to my lack of favour. Boris quickly killed my Ogre, turned on me and turned invisible. I had to switch helmets in order to gain the ability to see invisible, but by the time I took off my one helmet, Boris had me down to 30 hitpoints. I immediately teleported and was lucky enough to get away.

Unfortunately, I only teleported a short distance and as I started walking, Boris appeared again. I tried to summon more help and managed to get two Ogres after six or seven attempts and used them to block Boris while I ran down a different hallway, helped out by a potion of speed. While I did that, a couple of snakes started chasing me and I encountered a naga warrior and three nagas at the end of the hallway. With my hitpoints in the mid-50s, I started swinging and somehow managed to defeat the nagas and get out of the hallway to a staircase down.

I explored level 3 and found all the up staircases. With some trepidation, I went up to level 2 and slowly explored until I found an up staircase that allowed me to leave. (I guess I should mention that the staircase I originally came down was not a great option, as it was sitting behind a trap of Zot.)

Tomorrow, I guess I will continue exploring the dungeon.

Game #66

Despite my busy schedule, I actually managed to start a second game this week. I have not finished it yet. Currently, my character is on level 15 of the Dungeon with a decent set of resistances and a couple of artifact items. I haven't explored the Lair yet, but that is where I am heading next.

Unfortunately, that will have to wait until after Easter is over.

Game #65

1123   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 7, -1/81 HPs)
       Slain by an orc warrior on Level 6 of the Dungeon.

I have been super busy at work, which has meant that I have not had the time or energy to play any games of Crawl. Unfortunately, not playing means that you fall back into making old mistakes. This game was fairly uneventful until level 7 of the Dungeon, where I encountered a room packed full of orcs. I went berserk and immediately realized that was a mistake. There were far too many enemies and I was guaranteed to lose my berserk status before defeating them all. I killed as many orcs as I could and then teleported away, which worked fine as an escape option. Unfortunately, I did not rest to regain all my hitpoints and when I next encountered an orc warrior, he was able to quickly defeat me, as he had a magical weapon.

I must try to play regularily in order to maintain my skill in the game.

Game #64

28     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, 0/23 HPs)
       Succumbed to poison on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Stupid, annoying game.

A kobold with a short sword of venom on level 1. Screw you Crawl. That is almost unwinnable by any character or any tactics.

Game #63

3865   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, -4/78 HPs)
       Slain by an unseen horror on Level 9 of the Dungeon.

Everything was going perfect in this game, until I arrived on Level 8 of the Dungeon. One of the down staircases brought me next to a room with an altar to Beough and a staircase down to the Orcish Mines. Of course, that room was filled with orcs. It was a tough battle, especially when the orc priests arrived, but I managed to survive.

Later on in the level, there was a room where the middle half was full of water, with treasure on the far side and a single water statue (or ice statue) in the middle of the water. Like a moth to a flame, I felt compelled to see what was on the other side of the room, so I walked up to the edge of the water. The stupid statue waited until that point to do anything, but once I got to the water, it let loose with a vengeance. Freezing blasts, frozen vapours and ice beasts surrounded me. I quickly read a scroll of teleportation, but figured I was dead. I escaped with 3 hitpoints and the realization that statues simply should not be f@#$ed with.

The next level saw my death, as an unseen horror arrived. I tried to play smart and trap it in a hallway, since I did not have anyway to see invisible. Unfortunately, it was getting 4 to 10 hits in to every one hit I was, and that quickly took down all my hitpoints. From now on, I think I will avoid unseen horrors, if they are unseen.

Lessons Learned
1. Do not go anywhere near statues without a wand of disintegration.
2. Do not fight unseen horrors without the ability to see invisible.

Game #62

132    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 4, -5/36 HPs)
       Slain by a gnoll on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Stupid game. There were at least 5 gnolls, if not more, on the first level of the dungeon, as I only managed to explore 2/3rds of the level before dying. I first encountered three gnolls early on. I backed into a hallway, went berserk and dealt with them. A little while later, I encountered a hobgoblin with a club that was really hurting me, so I went berserk again in order to defeat him. After that came my second encounter with gnolls, and my third time berserking on the first level of the dungeon. This meant I was hungry and had already exhausted my starting food source, as well as a number of questionable corpses. So, when I had my third encounter with a gnoll, I had no choice but to fight him normally, as I could not go berserk. Of course, he had a runed halberd and quickly took me down below half hitpoints. I had a couple of potions, so I drank one and prayed for the best. Unfortunately, it was a potion of confusion, which gave the gnoll an easy target.

Stupid game. I really had no choice but to berserk in the three situations I did, as if I had not, I would have died. However, that left me hungry and without food and still facing dangerous situations, with absolutely no way to escape. The early game in Crawl really needs to be tweaked, so that early dangerous battles do not leave you with no options for later battles.

Game #61

868    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 7, -4/82 HPs)
       Killed from afar by Blork the orc on Level 5 of the Dungeon.

This game was yet another entry in the "berserking doesn't help while fighting multiple enemies" category. I was in one of those levels that has very large open hallways, when I encountered a scorpion, an imp and Blork. Blork had a wand of ice, which he used immediately upon seeing me. I went berserk and quickly dealt with the scorpion and the imp. While I was doing that, Blork continued to blast me, and the noise attracted two Ogres. I should have tried to escape at that point, but instead continued to fight. Both Ogres went down quickly, but I was running low on hitpoints and a final blast from Blork killed me before I could get close to him.

Game #60

169    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 3, -4/31 HPs)
       Splashed by acid on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

I truly wish that so much of the early game did not rely on damn luck. Early in the second level, I encountered a snake, which meant I got poisoned. I had a single unidentified potion, which was not a potion of healing, so my entire game hinged on whether or not the poison would run out before it killed me. There was nothing I could do from a gameplay perspective other than rest and hope for the best. I hate that, because playing the random number generator is not a game. Crawl really needs to do something so that the user can actually think and play themselves out of early poison situations. Maybe having poisonous snakes so early is a bad idea, because they cannot be outrun. Perhaps the first poisonous creature that is encountered should be slower, so that escaping to a different level is an option.

After resting, I died at my next encounter, with the another of the dangerous early creatures, a jelly. Things should have been OK, as I had enough of the level mapped that I could pillar dance, plus I had a sling and a bunch of stones. Unfortunately, I was also wearing a large shield, which would slow down my firing and cause me to take damage from the jelly, even when firing from a square away. I decided to remove the shield, not realizing that it would take so long that the jelly would get three or four hits in. I died before the shield was removed. I think that it would be nice if you could find out how many turns an action is going to take. Perhaps Crawl also needs a confirmation if you start a multiple turn action when near an enemy.

Lessons Learned
1. Do not remove armour when close to an enemy.

Game #59

152824 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 17, 0/146 HPs)
       Slain by a stone giant simulcram on Level 19 of the Dungeon.

Ouch! Who knew that a monster could do 46 hitpoints of damage in one attack, even though my armour class was in the 30s?

Except for the end part where I died, this game went very well. Went down to the Lair and cleared it out and obtained no less than 5 options for poison resistance. I ran into difficulties in the last level of the Swamp and almost died. I got surrounded by swamp dragons, hydras and frogs and it was only a lucky teleport that got me out. Regardless, I was able to obtain the rune from the Swamp. I then cleared the Snake Pit, and for some reason the final level was quite easy this time. I ran into a Greater Naga early on in the last level, and it teleported me into the room with the rune. I thought I was in big trouble, but I was able to summon a couple of helpers and then retreat to a spot where only one enemy could attack me. That made it quite easy to clear out that room and get a second rune.

With two runes, my next goal was to clear the dungeon down to level 20, but I ended up dying on level 19. I kept encountering and dealing with enemies, but I wasn't watching my hitpoints close enough, since I foolishly assumed that unless I was in the 30 range that everything would be OK. *sigh*

Lessons Learned
1. Keep your hitpoints up, even as you get more and more hitpoints.

Game #58

43     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, -1/22 HPs)
       Slain by a hobgoblin on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Stupid game. There is no way that I should have died to a hobgoblin. When you get in trouble on level 1, you are really in trouble as you never have any escape options. Either you haven't found any potions and scrolls, or you haven't identified any of them.

Stupid f@#!ing game.

Game #57

274    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 5, 0/46 HPs)
       Slain by an orc on Level 4 of the Dungeon.

I just played stupidly. While exploring level 3, I took a down staircase and arrived in a room with Sigmund. I was strong enough that I wasn't too worried about fighting him, so I moved over to him and berserked. I quickly dispatched him and then another monster appeared. I probably should have retreated, but I pressed the attack in order to keep my berserk up. That monster quickly fell, but my movements brought me into sight of two orcs. As I moved towards them, my berserk wore off.

At that point, I was quite far away from the staircase and slow. I should have enacted an escape plan instead of just walking back towards the staircase, which allowed the orcs to get in four attacks every time I made a move. They quickly took me out.

Game #56

385    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 5, -7/45 HPs)
       Mangled by a scorpion on Level 4 of the Dungeon.

Not a very good game. I got poisoned, but did not have any potions available. I may have lasted longer, as I made a mistake and ended up fighting the scorpion and a kobold at the same time, but who knows. Being poisoned without any way to get rid of it is a quick way to die.

Stupid game.

Game #55

2955   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, -4/114 HPs)
       Slain by Erolcha on Level 9 of the Dungeon.

Wow, can Erolcha ever do a lot of damage quickly. I discovered her alone in a room and her first move was to turn invisible. She hit me a couple of times, so I berserked to try and take her down fast. Unfortunately, that did not work and she easily dispatched me, even with my extra hitpoints.

I suppose I should have tried to escape once I realized my hitpoints were dropping fast, but even that would have been difficult to do, given that I was facing an invisible spellcaster. I did not really learn anything this came that I did not already know.

Game #54

104220 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 16, -7/146 HPs)
       Killed from afar by a smoke demon in The Abyss.

Another awesome character lost to the stupid Abyss. I tried to do things in a specific pattern this game, as I am determined to get all the way through the game, and the best way to do that is to always play the same way, so that anything I learn from dying can easily be applied to the next game. So, I cleared the main dungeon all the way down until level 15. I then returned to the Lair and cleared it completely. By that point, I had found a number of possible poison resistance options, so I picked one and quickly dove down to the fifth level of the Swamp and obtained the rune. My next step was to clear the Hive, which I may or may not do again. I have only cleared it a couple of times, so I wanted to make certain that I knew how it looked and how it should be played. I then started going through the Snake Pits to get the rune there. I easily made it through the first few levels, until I encountered Louise. She cast a few spells at me, I hurt her a little bit and then she cast me into the Abyss.

Thus ended another promising character. I wandered around the Abyss, attracted a number of demons and managed to get killed while attempting to teleport and reset the level.

Stupid game.

Lessons Learned
1. Teleport before you get down to half hitpoints in The Abyss.

Game #53

78     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, 0/22 HPs)
       Slain by a kobold on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

Sorry for the lack of games recently. The cold I currently have has been extremely viscious and that has really cut into my ability to play Crawl.

I could not buy any luck this game. I had to berserk an early goblin, as he reduced me to 3 hitpoints. Then, upon arriving at level 2, a goblin and a snake arrived beside me. I had already been poisoned on level 1 and identified a potion of healing and I still had one in my pack. After defeating the goblin, I was left at 5 hitpoints, with a snake beside me. I made the tough decision to quaff my potion of healing, so that I would have enough hitpoints to defeat the snake, even though I risked dying to poison.

I was able to scare the snake away, but he did poison me. I popped up to level 1 and rested. Luckily for me, the poison went away when I was at 1 hitpoint. I rested up and went back down to level 2. Sure enough, the snake was right beside me, and the exact same thing happened. I scared him away, got poisoned and then went up to level 1, where the poison wore off at 1 hitpoint. I then rested. When I had 8 hitpoints, a kobold arrived, and quickly killed me.

Stupid game.

Notes
Turn   | Place   | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1     | Bill, the Mountain Dwarf Berserker, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1     | Reached XP level 1. HP: 16/16 MP: 0/0
   286 | D:1     | Reached XP level 2. HP: 19/22 MP: 1/1
   700 | D:2     | Acquired Trog's second power
   755 | D:2     | HP: 1/22 [snake (2)]
   770 | D:1     | HP: 1/22 [poison]
  1016 | D:1     | HP: 1/22 [poison]
  1123 | D:1     | Slain by a kobold

Game #52

242    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 4, 0/36 HPs)
       Slain by an orc on Level 4 of the Dungeon.

I've been hit hard with a cold the past few days, so it has been difficult to find time to play Crawl, as well as to find time to play it well. However, I will only put half the blame on myself, as the orc in question hit me three times and took me from full hitpoints to death. I should have done something more intelligent than attacking after the second hit occurred.

I know better than to play that way.

Game #51

22     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 1, -1/24 HPs)
       Slain by a kobold on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

From a great game, with a rune, to a game where I only fought three monsters. The kobold threw a bunch of darts at me and then quickly reduced me to one hitpoint. I pillar danced for a bit, until I had 3 hitpoints and then I went berserk. Unfortunately, the kobold hit me before my extra hitpoints arrived.

Stupid game.

Game #50

96388  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 15, -4/130 HPs)
       Killed from afar by a smoke demon on Level 7 of the Elven Halls

Another game where I did quite well. I made it to the Lair and cleared all 10 levels of it. I had not found any poison resistance, so I did not attempt the Swamp or the Snake Pits. After the Lair, I decided to go to the Orcish Mines, as every once in awhile, you find some armour of poison resistance among the orcs. I quickly found the entrance to the Elven Halls and decided to check it out, since I need to learn what you may find in each of the branches, as that controls whether or not you bother to visit the branch.

The first couple of levels of the Halls were not difficult, but each successive level was a bit harder. I stopped on level 5, as I had to flee from a couple of situations where I was massively outmatched. I bought a number of cool items from shops in the Halls before leaving.

I ended up making a number of purchases, though I haven't obtained poison resistance yet, as I don't have enough money to purchase the artifact scimitar that provides poison resistance.. So, I took the time to dig my way around and clear out the entire Orcish Mines, before heading deeper into the dungeon. Dungeon level 15 was interesting, as there was a room surrounded by crystal walls full of wierd monsters (including a statue) and all the access routes were protected by teleportion traps (and other traps, including the first trap of Zot I have ever encountered that took away four points of my intelligence). I figured out how to get past the traps, by using a wand of digging to create a path around them, and even managed to kill everything in the room, but there was no interesting treasure inside.

Dungeon level 17 was insane. It was a large area of alternating walls and open spaces, arranged so that you could only walk diagonally. Inside the diagonal spaces were a number of shadow dragons whose breath attack reduces your level. I spent a bunch of time switching between levels 13, 14 and 15 and barely surviving, even with the summoned help from Trog. Behind all of this were some treasure rooms. The first was protected by a spear trap, but the second was protected by a Zot trap, which threw me into the Abyss. ARGH!!! That is the second time in three games I have ended up in the Abyss. This time I actually got lucky, and after my second teleport, due to being surrounded by demons, I found a gate out.

There was a lot of treasure on 17, so I took the time to identify some of it and found a bunch of poison resistance, so I went through the Swamp in an attempt to get the rune at the bottom of it, as well as to gain back some of the favour I lost using my summoned helpers in the Abyss. I obtained the rune from the Swamp and then went back to the dungeon and cleared it all the way down to level 20.

I then went through the shops and bought a few things to make my character tougher, which took me back to the Elven Halls. As I was there, I figured I would explore all the levels, just to see what they were like. I easily defeated all the elves, with the exception of the few guarding something special on the last level. There was one that summoned a bunch of demons, including a type 1 demon, and they quickly defeated me.

Lessons Learned
1. How not to fight on the last level of the Elven Halls.

Game #49

340    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 4, -1/51 HPs)
       Slain by an orc wizard on Level 4 of the Dungeon.

I'm going to chalk this death up to a complete and utter lack of randomly generated items. I cleared the first three levels of the dungeon, and the only armour I found was some cursed -2 splint mail, which I wore, since it was better than the animal skin that you start with. I had three unidentified potions, but a whole bunch of scrolls.

Upon arriving at level 4, I encountered two orcs, an orc wizard and a scorpion. It took me so long to kill the scorpion, even while berserked, that I was poisoned multiple times, which drained my hitpoints so fast that I was dead before I could kill the orc wizard, have my berserking end and then hopefully get lucky with one of my potions. I guess this was a bad time to go berserk.

Stupid game.

Game #48 Finished

136767 Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 17, 0/152 (153) HPs)
       Slain by a death drake zombie in The Abyss

I really, truly despise The Abyss. I was moving deeper into the dungeon, successfully clearing each level, when I stepped on a Zot trap that threw me into The Abyss. My character was not a wimp and actually survived for quite some time, but eventually the sheer number of foes overwhelmed me. The Abyss is stupid, because it is completely random. You wander around and hope that you find an exit before you die.

Stupid game.

Game #48 Continued

This game continues to go well. My foray into the Snake Pit ended well, though I have to say, I'm not certain how a character on their own defeats all the nagas surrounding the rune. As it was, I had to waste most of my piety with Trog summoning creatures to fight on my behalf, while I kept bouncing upstairs to heal. So, this character now has two runes, which is very cool.

Given that things are going so well, I figured I may as well try and get deeper into the dungeon, so that is what I spent the rest of my playing time doing. I managed to make it all the way to level 18, though clearing level 18 was an adventure. The first staircase I went down dropped me in a circle of 17 humans plus a couple of uniques. I quickly ran back upstairs and tried a different staircase. Unfortunately, the second staircase led to the same location. Luckily, the third staircase led to a different part of the level, and I was able to split up all of my opponents and defeat them. My biggest struggle occurred when I encountered one of the uniques in addition to a deep elf summoner, who quickly filled the room with 3s and 5s. Luckily he blinked right beside me at one point, so I was able to kill him, while my summoned rock troll took care of his summoned demons.

Reading those last couple of sentences remind me why I actually like this game.

Game #48 Continued

Surprisingly enough, I am still finding wands, not that this character uses them a whole lot. There are also three rings of poison resistance available in shops. There are so many games where I struggle to find poison resistance and this game is positively overflowing with it. Anyway, after obtaining the rune in the Swamp, I cleared out the entire Lair before going to remove all the orcs from the Orcish Mines. As usual, the Mines are fairly unconnected and I have not seen all of level 3 or level 4, but I did not see any reason to try and explore the entire area.

I then went down a couple of more levels into the dungeon, but decided to explore the Snake Pits. I have cleared the first two levels, though I keep switching to my sling, forgetting that it is my axe that provides me with poison resistance. My plan tomorrow is to see if I can get the rune out of the Snake Pits before going down as deep in the dungeon as I can.

Game #48

Now that I've figured out how to get the rune out of the Swamp, it probably shouldn't be surprising that I have managed to do it again. Hopefully this character will last longer than my last character that obtained a rune.

This has been an interesting game due to the sheer number of wands that I have found. I am currently carrying 14 and I have 5 in my stash. My primary weapon is an artifact executioner's axe that Trog gave me. It provides poison resistance and, provided I hit, does an obscene amount of damage. Good armour has been hard to find, as I am still wearing the +3 orcish ring mail of cold resistance that I took from Igyb on the second level of the dungeon. I have a mottled dragon hide, but I haven't seen a scroll of enchant armour since the last one I found was destroyed by fire.

All in all, this game has been going well, though I am finding that when I don't die before finding the Lair, it means that the game takes a long time to play. That means that I struggle to play one game a day, as I often don't have that much free time.

Game #47

7297   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 10, -33/81 HPs)
       Killed by triggering a blade trap on Level 2 of the Lair of Beasts.

I thought this was going to be another good game, especially as I found a ring of poison resistance. However, this character really struggled to find a decent weapon. I had an artifact short sword, as well as a long sword of freezing, which I used as my primary weapon, but I really wasn't causing as much damage as I usually do.

I did make it down into the Lair and prepared myself to explore it. Upon arriving on level 3, I was hit hard by a black snake, but managed to escape. I returned to level 2 to rest, but a giant slug was there and took me down to 1 hitpoint before I was able to defeat it. Rather than just resting, I moved, though I don't know why, and stepped on a blade trap, which did 34 hitpoints of damage.

Lessons Learned
1. When low on hitpoints, rest where you are - don't walk to a different location to rest.

Game #46 - My First Rune!

33193  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 13, -7/168 HPs)
       Mangled by a five-headed hydra on Level 9 of the Lair of Beasts.

SUCCESS!!!! Sweet, glorious success. It hasn't even been two months since I started this journey and I have finally obtained my first rune - a decaying rune of Zot - taken from the fifth level of the Swamp.

Message History

Trog accepts your collateral kill.
Your two-headed ogre looks more experienced.
You enter the shallow water.
Moving in this stuff is going to be slow.
There is some shallow water here.
You see here a decaying rune of Zot.
O - a decaying rune of Zot

.#.##.####{..#{## 
.#.##    ##.#####      . 
.#.#   ###{.{{{.###  .{{ 
.#.#  ##{{..#{{{.%##.{{{ 
.#.# ##...{{.{.{..#{# 
...# #..{{{#{{{..{.{# 
...# ##.#{##{.#{{.{## 
...#  ####O{.{{..{## 
####   ###@.#{..### 
         ######## 


You can see a friendly two-headed ogre.

At first, there wasn't anything super special about this game. I made it down to the 10th level of the Dungeon, where I found the entrance to the Lair. The entrance to the Swamp was on the second level of the Lair, and after I explored the Lair a bit, I headed down. I had received an artifact flaming axe from Trog, which I was planning on using on any hydras, while I had a staff of poison to give me poison resistance. My plan was to wield the staff and use summoned creatures to help me get to the rune. Surprisingly enough, it worked. My summoned creatures took down a number of hydras and swamp dragons, while I stood around and watched. I finally discovered the room with the rune and managed to pick it up and make my way out of the Swamp.

With my first rune obtained, I decided to finish exploring the Lair. Unfortunately, I did not manage to survive my first forays into the 9th level of the Lair. I still need to realize that when the stairs descend into an open area with a lot of monsters visible, it is not safe to keep going down the stairs, as eventually you will be surrounded. I thought I was doing the right thing by popping down the stairs and then dragging a couple of enemies up the stairs, but eventually the enemies surrounded the stairs and by simply arriving, I lost almost all my hitpoints, putting me in an unescapable situation.

Lessons Learned
1. I am able to obtain a rune.
2. Avoid situations where you can become surrounded.

Game #45

5411   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 10, -1/85 HPs)
       Slain by a troll zombie on Level 11 of the Dungeon.

One of the things that makes Crawl so replayable is the fact that each class type plays just a little bit differently. Unfortunately for me, that means that there are certain rules regarding playing a Berserker that I am struggling to learn. The rule I violated in this game is regarding hunger management. When you encounter a large group of enemies (in this case, a room full of zombies, led by an orc priest), you must ensure you are not going to become hungry during the fight.

Given the number of enemies, I knew that immediately berserking was not the correct solution. The first thing I did was summon help, and a berserked ogre took out 2/3rds of the zombies. During that time, I became hungry, so when my ogre died, I did not have the option to berserk. (Note: While my ogre was fighting the zombies, the orc priest was busy blasting me with his god's wrath. Stupid priestly spells that don't need line of sight.) I was low on hit points and decided to summon another helper. Unfortunately, I failed, which gave the nearest zombie the time to move right beside me. My next move was irrevelant, as the zombie hit me and killed me before it occurred.

Lessons Learned
1. As a berserker, you must keep your food level up, especially when encountering dangerous opponents.

Game #44

1273   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 8, -13/75 HPs)
       Killed from afar by an oklob plant on Level 6 of the Dungeon.

Honestly - what the hell is an oklob plant? You rarely encounter one and I am pretty sure that the other times I have encoutered them, I have been at a much higher level. This one was blocking part of the level and I did not think it would be that difficult to defeat. However, I could not get my summoned creatures to attack it.

Eventually a summoned black bear did attack it and almost destroyed it before dying. I then berserked and walked towards the plant, but it managed to corrode all my armour before I even got there. Then, to make matters worse, my berserk wore off before I arrived and I was unable to defeat the stupid plant.

Yet another example of needing to die to a new monster in order to figure out its strengths and weaknesses.

Lessons Learned
1. How not to fight an oklob plant.

Game #43

14494  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 11, -16/90 HPs)
       Kill from afar by a firedrake on Level 6 of the Lair of Beasts.

I'm not really certain what mistake I made this game. I was fighting a large group of yaks in a chokepoint and I was berserked. After killing the last yak, a firedrake appeared and blasted me with fire.

I ended up moving through the chokepoint into an open room to kill the last couple and at that time a firedrake appeared. The first flame hit me hard, and I was already down on hitpoints from fighting the yaks. As I was still berserked, I was in a bit of a bind. I could not use a wand, put on my ring of fire, or drink a potion of extra healing. I was too far away to get into close combat, so I backed up and got out of sight. My berserk almost immediately wore off, which meant I was slow. I immediately summoned a troll, but it appeared behind me. As I moved to swap places with it, the firedrake blasted me with fire twice and killed me.

Stupid game.

Game #42

3464   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, -2/75 HPs)
       Slain by an orc wizard on Level 9 of the Dungeon.

Who knew that dungeon level 3 could be so dangerous? I encountered an area surrounded by water and full of jackals, gnolls and the odd orc and ogre. At one point, I had 9 gnolls on the screen before running away to level 2. All the berserking in order to defeat kept making me hungry, but gnoll meat is only partially edible and I swear that every piece I ate made me sick, so I spent a lot of time recovering from my sickness and then recovering my hitpoints.

Regardless, I managed to survive. Below is my list of vanquished creatures at the end of dungeon level 3, where I was already at level 7.

Vanquished Creatures
  An ogre (D:3)
  A centaur (D:2)
  A giant frog (D:3)
  3 snakes
  47 gnolls
  An ooze (D:1)
  10 giant bats
  2 giant geckos (D:2)
  8 goblins
  5 hobgoblins
  22 jackals
  5 kobolds
  9 orcs (D:3)
  3 giant cockroaches
  5 giant newts
  9 rats
132 creatures vanquished.

47 gnolls and 22 jackals, and they were all in one fairly large area. And it did not end there. Level 4 contained a bunch of small rooms, each filled with gnolls! Too bad you can't take a racial emnity in Crawl.

I won't bore you with the rest of this game, which sucked because I foolishly wielded an axe I found on the ground, which turned out to be cursed. I made it from level 4 all the way down to level 9 with a -3, -2 hand axe, but I never found a single scroll of remove curse. I should know better than to wield unknown weapons.

On level 9, I got annoyed with the game and essentially played poorly in order to die. I walked down a staircase into an open area with a lot of bad guys, so I went berserk and waded in. Once my berserk wore off, I kept swinging and was quickly defeated. I finished the game with 71 gnolls killed, which should put a solid dent in the gnoll population of Crawl.

Game #41

49     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 2, 0/23 HPs)
       Killed by triggering a dart trap on Level 1 of the Dungeon.

At least this stupid game was merciful and killed me before the game even got remotely interesting. The random number generator decided that I was going to be unable to hit the kobold. With 1 hitpoint left, I started retreating in order to pillar dance until I was strong enough to deal the final blow. However, I managed to step on a dart trap and die.

Stupid game.

Game #40

6579   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 10, -2/72 (76) HPs)
       Slain by a glowing hand crossbow on Level 9 of the Dungeon.

I thought things were going very well this game right up until I died. I had found an amulet of the gourmand as well as an artifact spear of orc slaying. Since I had it, I decided to clear the Orcish Mines, which I did (kind of, as the majority of the mines was inaccessible and I did not feel like risking a teleport). After that, I continued on into the dungeon until I ran into a mimic. Now, I've defeated many mimics in the past, so I'm not sure why this one took me out. I was below half hitpoints, so I'll have to remember for next time that mimics can attack very quickly, as this one got in three attacks to my one.

Lessons Learned
1. How not to fight a mimic.

Game #39

31466  Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 13, -11/114 HPs)
       Killed from afar by a lava snake on Level 4 of the Swamp.

This game was played over the last three days, as I was home alone with the kids, so the amount of time I had for playing games was limited.

I made it to down to the 10th level of the dungeon on a wing and a prayer. I kept making mistakes, but an array of wands and potions kept me in the game. It was after a tough fight with a hydra on dungeon level 11 (since I did not have any non-slicing weapons) that I remembered I had the ability to summon help from Trog. I must remember to do that when the battles warrant it.

I found the entrance to the Lair on dungeon level 12 and decided to clear the first two levels so that I could create a stash. On Lair 2, Trog decided to be extremely nice and gave me an artifact war axe that was flaming (take that Hydras!) and provided electricity and poison resistance (take that Lair and Swamp!).

So, I went through the Lair and the first three levels of the Swamp easily, given my weapon and abilities. It got tougher on level 4 of the Swamp, but I managed to explore around 1/2 of the 5th level of the Swamp, while taking out a lot of swamp drakes, swamp dragons and hydras. Every once in awhile, I would end up with my hitpoints getting low, mostly due to the swamp worms, fish and other water creatures that would pop up and attack. For most of the level, I had been retreating to a hallway to restore my hitpoints. However, at one point I had been reduced to 50 hitpoints and I was near a staircase up. I thought that going up a level to rest would be the best option, completely forgetting that this was not the dungeon and that the levels above were not cleared of foes. I arrived on the 4th level of the Swamp right beside a large pool of lava and a number of lava worms. I had no fire resistance and died as I was attempting to go back down the staircase.

Unbelievable. I was so close to a rune and yet I still did not manage to obtain one.

Lessons Learned
1. Always remember to use your special abilities, such as summoning aid.
2. Either clear every level, or remember that you have not cleared a level.

Game #38

6056   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 10, -23/139 HPs)
       Annihilated by a hill giant on Level 9 of the Dungeon.

Wow! That hill giant really hurt me fast. I walked down to level 10 and encountered a bunch of orcs, a gila monster and a hill giant. I went berserk and started hitting the hill giant, but he took me down from 180 hitpoints really fast. I attempted to run upstairs when my hitpoints got below 50, but the gila monster hit me and then the hill giant hit me for 31 hitpoints of damage and I died.

Lessons Learned
1. Berserking does not make it possible to survive being surrounded.

Game #37

1641   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 8, -7/68 HPs)
       Mangled by an orc on Level 7 of the Dungeon.

We'll label this game as "berserking doesn't win every battle". On level 7 of the dungeon, I encountered a large room full of orcs - probably 10-12 regular orcs plus a few orc priests and a few orc warriors. Since they were bottle-necked in a doorway, I figured I could easily go berserk and stand in the door until they were all defeated. However, even berserked fighters are not immune to the smiting attack of orcish priests. As I easily defeated the first few orcs and orc warriors, the orc priests quickly knocked me down to 1 hitpoint. I immediately fled and got just into a hallway when my berserk wore off. I tried to read a scroll of teleportation, but due to my slowness, an orc was able to walk up and kill me before I could read the scroll.

Lessons Learned
1. Even with berserking, certain battles are dangerous.
2. When you berserk for a dangerous battle, you better be sure you are going to win, as if you do not, the exhaustion effect will make it very difficult to survive.

Game #36

79     Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 3, -3/30 HPs)
       Killed from afar by Sigmund on Level 2 of the Dungeon.

Damn it - Sigmund is far too powerful a character for when you encounter him. I did not even know it was him, as he was invisible when I encountered him. My first knowledge that something was wrong occurred when a magic dart hit me out of nowhere. I paused, figured out that it was likely Sigmund and then took a step away from the area where the magic dart came from. He immediately confused me, after which I was dead.

Stupid game.

Game #35

274    Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 5, -4/45 HPs)
       Slain by a phantom on Level 3 of the Dungeon.

Bah. Another game where I played stupidly. Why can't I just accept that there are many times when you should not keep fighting an enemy to the bitter end? I had a multitude of escape options, yet chose to continue beating on the phantom when I had only 9 hitpoints and was slow after berserking. Stupid!

Game #34

3340   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, -16/79 HPs)
       Demolished by an abomination on Level 8 of the Dungeon.

This was a very strange game, full of things I had never encountered before. On Level 6, I discovered an artifact buckler surrounded by translucent rock walls. I annotated the level, intending to return once I found a wand of digging, only to have the imp I was fighting teleport inside the translucent rock room. He picked up the bucker and teleported out. After I killed him, I took the buckler for myself.

On level 7, I encountered a wizard. He had the same icon (@) as the unique humans, but I don't think he was unique, given that he did not have a name. However, he did have the ability to cast Crystal Spear, which I have never encountered before. It took me from full hitpoints to 6 hitpoints in one casting. Luckily, I had a potion of extra healing and was then able to go berserk and kill him.

Finally, on level 8, I discovered a couple of small rooms. The first was full of treasure, but the second was full of abominations - four capital X abominations and six lowercase x abominations. I had never fought them before, so I immediately went berserk. However, the capital X abominations are extremely tough foes, and it took me so long to kill them that Trog would not allow my berserking to continue, so I became exhausted after killing one and severely wounding a second. I had absolutely no escape options (no blinking, no teleportation) and no fast attack options (such as a good wand - I had a wand of flame that I quickly discovered was empty). The abominations quickly killed me, as the big ones hit for a lot of damage. Not really sure what I should have done in that situation. It seems like once I opened the door, I was dead, no matter what tactics I tried.

Lessons Learned
1. How not to fight a large abomination.

Game #33

1751   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 8, -6/68 HPs)
       Mangled by an ogre on Level 7 of the Dungeon.

I am now playing a Berserker, since the first month of playing a Hunter did not go well and because I had so much luck with my tutorial Minotaur Berserker.

Things went very well in this game until dungeon level 7. There, I encountered an ogre immediately after my berserk wore off. Being slow and fighting an Ogre does not work. Luckily a scroll of teleportation saved me, even though I likely should have died, as I waited until my hitpoints were very low before reading the scroll. Then the exact same thing happened a second time - after using berserk to kill the second ogre, what should appear but a third ogre. Even worse, I zapped an unidentified wand at him and it turned out to be a wand of invisibility. So, I was slow and tired, with an invisible ogre chasing me. For a second time I waited too long to use my scroll of teleportation and this time I died.

Lessons Learned
1. Use your escape option as soon as you realize you are in trouble. Don't wait for your hitpoints to fall to nothing.
2. Don't identify wands by zapping them at dangerous opponents.