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