Dungeon Crawl : Stone Soup

[DotCommunist]

Not seen that item before. Looks pretty good, are the demons friendly when you summon them?

You look pretty set, got everything there. I've been trying octopodes, got started with one a couple of times but then fucked it up. Might give it another go in a bit.

I died as soon as I had finished boasting basically. I'd skipped elf by mistake but that would have been fine if some cunt hadn't summoned a hell sentinel to fuck me on vault 1. Pride before a fall etc.

are the demons friendly when you summon them?

yeah, so you have a good chance at taking out most things but theres too many potential situations where not being able to make a swift exit would be deadly.

 

[tommers]

done another full rune run. And finished a ziggurat.

Can't decide whether to grab the orb and finish it off, or do another ziggurat (they get harder every time you complete one. NG+ innit). The last one gave me the one moment in this run where I got slightly worried so might do it anyway, see what it's like.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

this post stinks of crawl privilege

I died during a meeting again btw

 

[DotCommunist]

I had a quality run at in on weds, was annoyed not to go the distance cos everything was in tune with me, the correct gear early enough to train hard with, good mutations etc etc. But it got to one am and instead of honourably retiring for the night and carrying on tomorrow I pushed my stoned self through another disastrous half hour and died. Without a single rune. I suppose one day I'll have a proper try at what its like using a spell casting character but I want to see how many runes I can do with a proper demonspawn tank.

 

[tommers]

Ice Elementalist. It's the best. Frozen Ramparts and Hailstorm will see you through the mid game easily.

Get some long blades going for the ripostes. I picked Barachi this time round. Good skills, a hop to get out of trouble and no problems with water. Just a bit slow.

 

[tommers]

Did the 2nd Ziggurat,

 

[DotCommunist]

Treasure troves are always demanding pricks but I feel this is taking it to new heights:

 

[tommers]

Haha, nice. Do it and let us know what's in there.

Maybe get a better weapon first

 

[DotCommunist]

let us know what's in there.

4 rations, 133 in gold and a degeneration potion, for sure.


I was thinking on why I like this game so much, why it initially felt so familiar. I played rogue, and played the shit out of it, way before I'd seen wolfenstein or even sim city or anything early-modern. A green monochrome screen, wordstar for dos, dir/w/p thats where I first learned the arts technical. Ma was an early adopter on stuff so it must have been her 286 because I remember being impressed by the rm nimbus machines at school in comparison to our home one. Prince of fucking persia in monochrome. But that ease of transition into the game, it was hard as nails and there is tiles now but the architecture and flow of it is still the same bones.

This is why its my destiny to get a 15 rune win on this high end machine, the circle must be complete.

 

[tommers]

Rogue is being released on steam this month.

 

[DotCommunist]

fuckin...


I was tough as fuck there but having no resistances done me in the end. I got hoofed into abyss no less than three times on this go, my new abyss tactic is to keep heading low untill you get the rune or find an exit gate. So close to getting a win on this machine but not close enough, RIP beyonslay

 

[tommers]

How did you not have any resistances? That's unlucky. I've got Zot before without full fire resistance but never with absolutely nothing. Amazing.

 

[DotCommunist]

I had one ring of poison resistance but didn't use it except in snake pit. Just never came across the right set of items.
when you've got powered by death 3 you can almost guarantee survival for quite some time if you just keep hitting stuff with ranged weapons but even so this was a bit of a fluke in some ways.

after the third visit and survival in abyss though I did start to feel that the orb was mine, but it wasn't.

 

[tommers]

started a game for the first time in ages, in trunk. There's no food any more!

 

[DotCommunist]

And finally, first win on the new machine . A +6 amulet of slay plus boots with +2 slay. Before I grew claws I had gloves of archery which made my ranged shots +4 slay and this stacks so I was hitting with a +12 slay bonus with my slingshots/fustilabus. They were dropping like flies. Victory.

 

[DotCommunist]

Was weird to get Torment Resistance as a mutation late game, never had that before.

 

[tommers]

Was weird to get Torment Resistance as a mutation late game, never had that before.

Useful though. I've tried to get octopodes up and running but not much luck. Last one got killed by the minotaur.

 

[DotCommunist]

Useful though. I've tried to get octopodes up and running but not much luck. Last one got killed by the minotaur.

I skip labyrinth quite often tbf, I got stuck and starved once.

 

[tommers]

I skip labyrinth quite often tbf, I got stuck and starved once.

It's not labyrinth any more. It's a gauntlet now. Loads better.

 

[DotCommunist]

I started training stealth from the get go to see if I could get an edge, I've enjoyed shadow dragon scales a few times in previous runs but always too late in the game to really take advantage. This run on d3 a shop had stealthscales for 1200. I used every armour scroll to get them scales up to +10. This is new ground for me, I'm used to bellowing and crashing my way around, running into corridors, stair dancing.





Then the boots of assasin and the stealth arbalest. I didn't even need the arbalest by that point, stealth was maxed out.



Like a frozen ham.

Still died on vault five.

 

[tommers]

Got to admire your dedication to Demonspawn Berserkers.

I got an elf to the end of Spider's Nest. Opened a door to see loads of spiders. Used Ozocubu's refrigeration, which blocks potion use for a while after, got stung by Tarantellas, which cause confusion. Stumbled around unable to cure myself or cast anything. Died.

 

[tommers]

 

[tommers]

3 Ziggurats that time. Was halfway through #4 but got bored.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

never won it

keep dying

keep playing this stupid fucking game

 

[splonkydoo]

Second time ever playing through this game properly. I tried once a year back, put it aside and giving it a go again. I'm now on D10 with an octopode assassin and a rather nice little dagger.

 

[splonkydoo]

Just picked up my fourth rune from Vaults. Been a bit of a mad ride to get here, very very many hairy moments when I was sure I was done for, but magically made it out of! It's a tough life being a squishy octopode assassin, but early on I got a +6 dagger of Gehuteoz (drain, magic resistance+ and stealth+) which set me up. My early strategy was mercilessly wearing down foes with darts and javelins etc, then they'd get close enough to constrict (up to 8 at once I think) and boom - stab stab stab and the mightiest of creatures would lose all power with the draining effects of my little dagger. Have to always be careful about not getting swamped though, if that's the case then it's either lights out or tele time. Chebriados is really good for this too... step out of time is a godsend, and the slouch aint half bad either. Being so slow, you do have to carefully plan your attacks though - but for the huge boost in stats it's well worth it.

For the runes I cleared out Shoals, which felt like the first big challenge. Went back after clearing a few levels and then did Snake pit. Got cocky and tried doing all of Elven Halls, ran in to a big surprise at Hall 3 - another few hits and was almost dead, my tele scroll was in the works but taking -forever- ...then boom... suddenly, I was banished to the Abyss. This turned out to be a blessing I knew I was on for the third rune. Everything was tense though, no hiding in single lane tunnels there, and all these dodgy monsters flying about. I passed by a few exits which later I was cursing myself for ... just needed to get out, was being hemmed in everywhere and was waiting for the right ambush to knock me out of the game. Finally then, after an age had passed another exit opened up in this desert of the abyss... but wait...what is that beside it? Is this the rune? Game on... heavily guarded with a lot of unknowns (and these dodgy death stars with 1hp that halve your health if you vanquish them..) so had to go in there with all I had... box of beasts, summoning scrolls, all the wands ... i did a bit of damage, got to the rune but it was a bloody dummy, the real one was deeper in and it was coming to no good .... had to take the risk of stepping out of time. They don't always clear off, thankfully it did work, and I dispatched the remaining few that hung on. Got the fuck out of there then soon as a door opened up, which thank fuck was only a short trip away.

Think i'm ready to clear out for first floor in the realm of zot - i sneaked down there earlier for a look but it seemed well dodgy, was a sentinels mark on me straight away. Same thing might happen again, i'll have to be tactful. I do have a really good shield of reflection now too, which helps a lot alongside being so evasive. I'd considered going in for one level of the Ziggurat but it seems too dodgy and not built for my character.... could easily get crowded. Any other places I should go? Think i'm gonna avoid the Slime Pit at all costs...... is Pandemonium any use?

 

[tommers]

Ziggurats are easy for the first few levels but get progressively harder and you can get anything turn up - the hardest ones are always levels with ghosts of dead players.

Pandemonium is like the Abyss in that once you're in you can't always get out but levels are self-contained and you don't have constantly spawning enemies. You do get lots of demons though, and Pan Lords.

Hell is quite cool, maybe give that a go, you can always run away. Crypt will also be fine for you I would think but don't go to Tomb.

Basically at this stage you need to worry about Torment and hellfire. Things like Tormentors, Fiends and those pink demon things are all dangerous. Have you completed a run before? Might be worth doing that before messing about. I found it essentially impossible to do the end game without some form of Torment resistance (RN can give you a little bit, or there is a demonspawn mutation but mainly it's either being undead or using Necromutation).

I still don't know where you and Dot get that interface from. You're really close to doing it, just watch out for the orbs of fire

 

[tommers]

Oh you can run through slime pit BTW, just have RCorr and have a plan for the Royal Jelly.

What spells have you got?

 

[splonkydoo]

Ziggurats are easy for the first few levels but get progressively harder and you can get anything turn up - the hardest ones are always levels with ghosts of dead players.

Pandemonium is like the Abyss in that once you're in you can't always get out but levels are self-contained and you don't have constantly spawning enemies. You do get lots of demons though, and Pan Lords.

Hell is quite cool, maybe give that a go, you can always run away. Crypt will also be fine for you I would think but don't go to Tomb.

Basically at this stage you need to worry about Torment and hellfire. Things like Tormentors, Fiends and those pink demon things are all dangerous. Have you completed a run before? Might be worth doing that before messing about. I found it essentially impossible to do the end game without some form of Torment resistance (RN can give you a little bit, or there is a demonspawn mutation but mainly it's either being undead or using Necromutation).

I still don't know where you and Dot get that interface from. You're really close to doing it, just watch out for the orbs of fire

I've been putting up ok so far with the Torment... it is damn annoying... but i can see it definitely tipping the balance the wrong way with enough numbers. Oh i've already done Crypt, that was easy.
Around the 1/2 way - 3/4 part of my game I started training up my spells.... i just knew for a game this complex that they were needed somewhere, but up until then hadn't used them, and even know have only used them the odd time. Really hard to tell with all the different schools but I went for hex + transmutation. Spells I have right now are: cause fear, dragonform, ensorcelled hibernation, gell's gravitas, and irradiation. There are so many spells it is really hard to figure out which are the most useful ones... I still have space to learn new ones too.

What do you mean by completing the run? By finishing the whole game y'mean? Nope... this is furthest i've got so far - think im in a strong place but dont want to be too cocky either with it after all these hours of game play!

 

[tommers]

You finished it yet splonkydoo?