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.