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 #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 #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 #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 #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 #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 #16

2519   Bob the Mountain Dwarf Hunter (Level 9 -3/72 HPs)
       Slain by a slime creature on Level 9 of the Dungeon.

Just to reiterate - stupid game. I'm fairly certain this was the first time I had ever encountered a slime creature, and unless you have died to a creature, you have no idea how to defeat it. Slime creatures are apparently very tough - they must have a lot of hit points and they hit hard.

This is by far my biggest complaint with Crawl. Whenever you encounter a new enemy, it is extremely easy to end up in an unrecoverable situation. Once I get to around level 10 or 11 of the dungeon, every monster I encounter is new, which means that every monster has a very good chance of killing me. Since I only rarely make it that deep, it is very, very hard to learn the tactics required to defeat each enemy.

This game also reminded me of another flaw of Crawl. Poison resistance is absolutely required at certain points in the game, but you are never guaranteed to obtain poison resistance, making certain parts of the dungeon impassable. This occurred on dungeon level 8 in this game, as it contained a number of killer bees. Killer bees are difficult to defeat with poison resistance and absolutely impossible without.

Stupid game.