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 #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 #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 #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 #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 #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 #17

838    Bob the Mountain Dwarf Hunter (level 7, -4/50 HPs)
       Shot with an arrow by a centaur on Level 6 of the Dungeon.

I really tried to play slowly and methodically, but this game did everything it could to defeat me early. I descended to the second dungeon level and after three steps I found myself directly beside Sigmund. My inventory contained one unidentified scroll, 4 unidentified potions and the weapons and armour I started the game with. What exactly are your options in this situation? Running away is difficult at best, due to Sigmund's magic abilities. I thought about it for awhile and could only come up with two semi-viable options.

1. Run away from Sigmund and hope that he does something that gives you a one space gap on him. After that occurs, hope that you can find a staircase before he kills you with magic or before another monster appears and you are stuck.

2. Pick your strongest attack option and try to defeat him before he defeats you.

I chose option #2, betting that the best defense is a good offense. My only skill was with crossbows, so I switched to my crossbow and started firing. Sigmund started swinging and got me down to 1 HP when my final shot finished him off. Truly, that fight was completely random with no skill involved. Running away would have involved just as much randomness, just in a different manner.

Later on in level 2, same situation - I walk out of a hallway and find Ijyb a couple of spaces away and Jessica a couple of spaces behind him, but distracted. I backed up, but she noticed me. Again, I chose to blast away, though escape may have been possible in this situation, given the spacing between me and the monsters. Luckily for me, a couple of bolts finished her off.

After that, things went fairly well, mainly because of all the experience I gained from the early uniques. On level 6, I had just found the temple, picked a god and organized my stash. I then stopped playing slowly and got killed because of it. I walked into a room and discovered a frog and a centaur. A tough combination, so I planned to hit them with my wands. However, rather than just doing that, I moved around trying to get the two monsters to line up for a single lightning bolt. (I really wasn't thinking - I could have just aimed at the centaur and the bolt would have gone through the frog.) My movement allowed them to do a lot of damage and then my lightning bolt missed.

My next move was to use a wand of enslavement on the frog, which worked. I ordered it to attack the centaur and backed off to shoot it from afar. Unfortunately, the centaur was too smart and continued to shoot me until I was dead.

Lessons Learned
1. I really, really, really need to think about my moves when I am in combat.

Game #8

333    Bob the Mountain Dwarf Hunter (level 4, -1/33 HPs)
       Slain by a gnoll on Level 6 of the Dungeon.

I'm still not used to all the new features that have been added to Crawl since last year. Apparently there are now traps where you fall through a shaft to a lower dungeon level. That happened to me here, where my poor level 4 hunter fell from dungeon level 4 all the way to dungeon level 6. While I was attempting to find a way back up to level 5, I encountered 3 gnolls and 4 jackals.

I did quite well, killing 2 of the gnolls and all the jackals (thank goodness for an identified potion of might in my backpack), but I got a little overconfident with the last gnoll. I didn't notice that he was armed with a halberd and I let my hitpoints go down too low.

Lessons Learned
1. Watch your hitpoints very, very closely. Once below 50%, start looking for escape options (or keep moving until your hitpoints go back up).

Game #6

797    Bob the Mountain Dwarf Hunter (level 7, -8/57 HPs)
       Killed from afar by an orc priest on Level 6 of the
                                   Dungeon.

I was playing very well until I got impatient with the game, as this game was all about giving me enemies that I was not able to handle. I had to completely abandon level 4 due to the hippogriff (!) and ghost of Bob that I was unable to defeat. Level 5 contained a couple of jellies, but I was prepared (with a sling and stones) and managed to defeat them before falling through a trap into level 6. Level 6 was my final undoing, as it contained a number of orcs, including orc priests.

The first priest I encountered hit me hard, but I was able to escape to level 7 to rest, before returning to level 6 and making a pincushion out of him. By the time I encountered the second, I was sick of running away and foolishly stood and attacked him. I don't know what god the orc priests worship, but he hits you like a ton of bricks.

Lessons Learned
1. Orc priests are very dangerous.

2. If you want to finish the game, keep running away from dangerous opponents.