A malevolent force .. drops you 3 floors

I do like the mechanic in general, although it does feel like you randomly get punished and can’t do anything to prevent it. Usually the force randomly teleports you or drops you one or two floors. Two floors early on is already fairly nasty and generally requires some luck to survive. Three floors is just too much. Yes some characters survive but this is primarily about luck and encountering easy monsters and stairs before you encounter level appropriate monsters.

This may be observation bias but I had the impression that the dropping several levels primarily happens on the first handful of levels of the dungeon whereas later on you usually only get a teleport. Which seems a little odd because later game chars have a lot more ways to escape OOD monsters or just trouble in general.

And yes, this post was inspired by a troll shapeshifter who randomly dropped from floor 4 to floor 7. Even a bulky troll at that stage can’t take on a lot of the monsters that appear so it becomes a game of explore in some direction, turn around the moment you see the first too dangerous monster and then be cornered the moment you encounter a second one coming at you from the opposite direction.

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Dropping three floors always generates a moment of terror, yes. It’s obviously worst for a non-stealthy character like a troll. As long as you notice sleeping monsters before they notice you, there’s a chance to find stairs before having to fight.

Personally, I don’t mind if the game sometimes treats you unfairly (I’m an old-school roguelike fan). It’s a nice feeling when you escape a dangerous situation. Unavoidable deaths are surpsigingly rare anyway, proven by the astonishing streaks some players manage to pull off…