or The Rise and Fall of the Dwarves.
The core idea of DDs was pretty radical: what if you couldn’t regenerate health? Would it be possible to play with such a limitation? Now we know the answer: it was possible for a while, but then the game changed so drastically that the best option was to remove the dwarves.
Previously, I played DDs mostly during tournaments, and my best turn count char is also a dwarf: DDFi of Oka, won in 8.5k turns. Some players really liked playing them, but for me the dwarves were too restrictive and too stressful to play, and so I had the whole 13 of them left.
To my surprise, after splatting the very first one in a totally unnecessary way, I streaked 12 of them in 0.26, but stumbled on the last one, 0.28’s DDCA.
The dwarves had decent melee and ranged aptitudes, but you could also turn them into blaster mages. Because of the +20% HP apt, even 12 Fighting gives you 170+ HP after XL 20. Combined with the damage shaving, this made lightly armoured dwarf mages quite durable.
The main question for each and every dwarf is how are you going to heal? There are gods with healing abilities, vampiric weapons, and the Vampiric Draining spell. Vamp weapons were more common than I expected, but once in about 5 games you get such a bad floor luck, that, even after clearing both S-branches, your only vampiric weapon could be a low-enchanted dagger or whip.
Makhleb was the obvious and best choice because of the HP-on-kills, but Trog and Ru were also viable options. I haven’t tried Ely this time, mostly because other gods appeared earlier. On the other hand, trying to heal using Nemelex’es cards was a total disaster. 0.28’s Jiyva also was an option, but more about that later.
The dwarves peaked in 0.18, when they could worship Pakellas. 0.19 was pretty good for them too: it was the last version that had wands of healing and when DDs could recharge wands and rods. In 0.20, the top-tier wands were removed, and the dwarves got a direct healing ability instead.
This was the first serious blow to DDs: previously, you could find plenty of recharge scrolls, which allowed to worship a non-healing god or to be more picky about your vamp weapon. The recharging ability worked in the same way as the scroll and could give you 1-7 charges for top-tier wands, and always permanently drained 1 MP. On the other hand, the healing ability had a 1/4 chance to drain your MP, but unlike the wand, it had a chance to fail healing you. So it was less reliable and you can’t stash healing charges. Note: the healing ability, the potion, and the wand all used the same formula and restored the same number of HPs.
It doesn’t matter that, statistically speaking, the total number of healing remained the same across thousands of DD games. Trying to heal and getting your MPs drained two or even three times in a row felt pretty bad.
I played the most of remaining dwarves in 0.26, because Makh’s healing was nerfed in 0.27 and because monster melee got a serious buff too, letting (most) enemies to poke you every turn even with heavy weapons. My first char was a DDBe, and the first thing I noticed was that I could play without a stash! I was furiously stashing when I played halflings. Food/hunger, ammo, and curses/no step-to-id were the top 3 reasons that made stashing a necessity. It was technically possible to play without a stash before, but it felt like the game punished you each time you travelled around. Monsters stopped respawning in 0.21, but food and hunger were removed only in 0.26. This meant that any backtracking cost you permafood. Even when you had 30-60 rations before entering Zot, paying, say, 5 rations to do the final run through the shops felt ridiculous. Do you want to solve a travelling salesman problem and optimize your route all the time? I don’t!
Luckily, the devs removed food in 0.26, and the sky didn’t fall. Some think this is because the hunger system was immediately replaced with another clock, but I suspect that a global clock is unnecessary. Anyway, without food and hunger, you could treat the whole connected part of the Dungeon and its branches as one big inventory (with a clunky UI, but still!), and you no longer needed to stash.
This was so liberating, that I totally forgot about rHubris and splatted my very first dwarf trying to chop oklobs in Lair. In 0.26, Invisibility was available in its modern form, as an item ego, but the spell existed too. I didn’t have enough Evocations, so my invisibility quickly expired and I got corroded to death. The next DDBe got this amazing GDS before Lair, and I had no other choice but to win this game, which started my DD streak:
Trog was very helpful in this and other games: you get a healing ability at 2* and don’t lose much piety, as you don’t need to rest. Also, having Faith made this run even easier: I won DDBe with a bunch of MPs left and got many gifts from Trog still. And speaking about amulets, the dwarves didn’t have much choice: regeneration and spirit shield didn’t work for them, MPRegen gave only +0.25 MP/turn and was mostly irrelevant even for mages. So the choice was between Faith, Acrobat, and Reflection, and Faith was clearly the optimal option, not least because the dwarves had a +3 Invocations apt.
The next game was a DDCj, a ranged char worshipping Nemelex, which was one big disaster. In theory, ranged chars take less damage compared to pure melee fighters, and Nemelex gives you Elixir cards. The problem was that there were not enough Elixir cards, and that 0.26’s Elixirs restored only MPs at low power, so they were even less useful. I ran out of cards, potions, and MPs in my first S-branch, my only vampiric weapon was a +0 whip, and I had no M&F skill trained for it.
It looks pretty bad, right? Fortunately, I decided to switch to Makh, and after clearing just a half of the first Shoals floor, I got HP-on-kills and managed to recover and win this char.
As a side note, I was quite surprised when I got shafted several times in a same branch. It turns out, 0.26 had no limits for exploration-trap shafts at all!
Next were a couple of Makhleb and Ru games, which went pretty smoothly. Ru’s healing was sufficient and felt comparable to Trog’s without Faith, but my char was constantly drained and I used fewer Apocalypses than usual.
I played DDFE as a pure blaster of Makh, and the char was solid: -1 Conj and +3 Earth are good enough for blasting and -2 Spellcasting is not too bad. The real problem was the lack of spammable spells like Plasma/Permafrost in 0.26, so in general, my mages took about an hour longer than melee chars. Although, this version had a buffed level 6 Fridge and Absolute Zero, the most balanced spell ever!
The Wizard dwarf was the most interesting game of this batch. Initially I joined Ru, but shortly after that I found a vampiric war axe and decided to give Qazlal a proper try. I added another win to my streak, but it was stressful. Here’s a comparison I’ve never thought about previously: Qaz is a weaker and less interesting version of Ru. Instead of sacrifices you have perma-Mark, and healing-on-demand is replaced by summons. Even with Faith and DD’s +3 Invo apt, Qaz couldn’t match Ru in raw damage. My DDDe used Apocalypse 45 times, but this char managed to use Disaster Area only 30 times, and it felt weaker.
DDIE was another Makhleb’s caster. This background was quite strong in 0.26: the summoning cap for ice beasts was 3, which was enough to handle Rupert and Snorg. Also, these beasts were immune to Hailstorm. I got the Fridge only in Depths, but it was still OP despite giving you -Potion. And later I got Absolute Zero and spammed it in Zot. This was the first DD that didn’t carry a vamp weapon, except pre-Lair, and didn’t use Vamp Draining at all! I won this char with 45 MPs left, which was the maximum among my recent dwarves.
Next was DDNe, the game where I joined Vehumet and relied on Vamp Draining for healing. As it turns out, casting that spell just ~1100 times is enough to win a 3 rune game. Although, I had another source of healing: Majin-Bo, which I acquired in Vaults.
The unrand provides decent healing when casting AoEs vs. alive monsters, but you need to switch it to another weapon to conserve HPs when fighting undead and non-living monsters. 0.26’s Majin-Bo was worse than the current version: it had a 60% chance to heal instead of 100%. So my health swung back and forth from having 1/4 HPs left to the full bar. Also, it was a 2-h weapon.
My DDTm got a vamp battleaxe from Rupert on Lair:3, so I could do what this OP species was meant to do: win by holding down Tab. Also, apparently you could vamp-heal from durable wrath summons, so Trog was useful even after I abandoned them.
DDWn started with a hand crossbow, but later switched to a fustibalus. Lair:3 gave me the skin of Zhor, which was perfect for this ranged char. Also, the first version of the condenser vane was mega OP, and it recharged quickly.
DDWr got Olgreb’s staff on D:9 and was spamming its evokable OTR until the end of the game. Another surprise was boots of running, since I was sure they were removed already.
After I won all these 12 dwarves in a row, it was time to move from 0.26 to 0.28 and play the final dwarf, a Cinder Acolyte.
I switched from Ignis to Makhleb after clearing Lair, although there was a Jiyva altar in Lair, and 0.28 was the only version where DDs could get regeneration from Jiyva. I quickly found out that HP-on-kills, which was nerfed in 0.27, can’t sustain even a ranged char. On top of that, there were no vamp weapons, and I checked everything. After clearing S-branches, I had only 5 MPs left, so learning Vamp Draining for Vaults didn’t look like a good option. I kept searching for a vamp weapon in Vaults, hoping that having Faith would boost my healing, but got to 0 MP instead. “OK, game, you win”, said I and went to Lair to join Jiyva, even though I didn’t like that idea. I only needed 1* to get regeneration, but Vaults:2 was suddenly too hard and I couldn’t get to Crypt. 2 HW and 6 curing potions quickly disappeared.
The other unexplored branches were Elf and Depths. Also, there was an Abyssal portal in Lair, so I had a brilliant idea: Abyss:1 must be the safest option, right? And with Faith it shouldn’t take too long to get Jiyva’s regeneration online. Plus, I had some blinks and teleportation scrolls for running away from scary monsters. So I went there. The only problem was that 0.28 was the first version with unrewarding Abyss! This meant that it had no items and monsters gave no XP and no piety. Exploring the Abyss didn’t give any piety too. After realising my mistake, I searched for an exit, but was too low on resources and splatted this char, ending my DD streak.
DDCA MK-2 found a vamp hand axe on D:3 and switched to Jiyva immediately. But I was too reckless and splatted this char in Vaults.
Even though Jiyva allowed DDs to regenerate, other parts of the game weren’t aware about that. For example, autoexplore didn’t wait for you to regenerate HPs, so you had to rest manually. But the bigger problem, at least for me, was that regenerating DDs felt very wrong. We had and still have plenty of cases when god powers can overwrite species’ restrictions. Formicids could blink under Lugonu, Mummies and Vine Stalkers can use Gozag’s healing potions, and Xom can gift potion effects to species that can’t drink them. But these are limited options and they don’t overshadow the core mechanics of these species. On the other hand, Jiyva’s regeneration is an extremely strong passive ability, which you get almost immediately, as it requires only one star of piety. And it turns your dwarf into a generic humanoid with the damage shaving and a beard.
Anyway, these two splats were pretty motivating, so I won the 3rd DDCA in 2 h 31 min, which was faster than any of the previous 12 dwarves. But it definitely wasn’t an easy game! 0.28 was noticeably harder than 0.26 for a DD: even though my final char had a plate armour and shield, worshipped Makh, and had a vamp eveningstar (!) with some slaying since the first S-branch, the char felt significantly weaker than all the previous dwarves. Such well-equipped dwarf would waltz through 0.26, but, playing in 0.28, I won with only 6 MPs left.
Let’s quickly go thought the changes in 0.26 - 0.28 and then try to summarize what made 0.28’s dwarves so weak and ultimately killed them.
0.26:
- Palentongas and Delvers were added
- Hunger and food were removed. They were at the very top of the 99 reasons to play trunk instead of old versions, and these game mechanics survived the longest out of the top four
- Swamp got much scarier and interesting with the addition of new monsters
- Quiver, the best UI element ever, was added! Finally your casters could pew-pew monsters with Stone Arrows by holding down
p - Plants wither when you hit them! A seemingly small change that made Lair and S-branches less annoying
- Drain affects max HP instead of lowering skills
- Deep Elves got a +3 Bows apt, Kobolds got Nightstalker
- Contam decays 3 times faster, but Irradiate checks for AC now :(
- New item brands: spectral, rampaging, and shadows
- New items: condenser vane and potions of attraction. Scrolls of poison were added only in 0.29, and it was very weird to have one item without the other, since ?poison and !attraction is a natural combo
- Mirrors and boxes recharge with XP instead of breaking after use
- Amulet swapping became a slow action
- Charms were removed. Sticks to Snakes and Summon Butterflies were removed too
- Nemelex’es Exile can no longer banish the player
- Wands and spells show their damage numbers
0.27:
- Djinn were added. Did you know that they were a replacement for Halflings? Because I totally forgot about this fact!
- Random curses were finally removed! Now you can fully identify items via step-to-id, and you don’t have to worry about being stuck with a negatively enchanted or distortion branded weapon
- Ash was reworked, letting you choose which skills to boost with curses
- Shops can appear on D:1-3, which was another tiny change that made the early game more exciting
- New branch endings were added, so you could finally get a non-huts ending in Shoals!
- Stepdowns for Dex and EV were removed, letting the players get to even sillier numbers than what was possible before
- AC gives GDR instead of GDR being the property of body armour. It was a noticeable buff for lightly armoured chars, but for heavy armoured melee ones it was a nerf
- Reasons to not fly were removed
- After-berserk paralysis was removed
- You can shoot through ancestors and they can shoot through you!
- Makh’s HP-on-kill was halved :(
- Slime, Vaults, and Snake got new monsters
- Dread liches were added
- Monsters got unlimited ammo
- Manuals were finally goldified!
- Boots of running were removed :(
- Several spells were added or reworked, including Storm Form, Manifold Asssault, Anime Armour, and MCC. Summon (Greater) Demon spells, which somehow survived for so long being the duplicates of Makh’s summons, were removed
0.28:
- Cinder Acolytes and Ignis were added
- Hells became smaller and got new penalties
- Yred and Jiyva were reworked, Oka got Duel, Ely’s Pacification gives full XP now
- New item type: orbs
- Spider got new monsters and branch endings
- Abyss became unrewarding, but luckily it lasted only one version
- Artefacts could spawn on D:2-3, making the early game a bit more exciting
- The one exploration shaft per branch rule was added
- The player can choose which attributes to increase at every 6th level instead of every 3rd
- A bunch of late game XP was trimmed and the XP costs for high-level skills were lowered
- Action panel was added!
- The
Amenu shows mutation descriptions - “(A)lways ignore” option for autopickup was added
- Early game unrands™ were added
- Fixed skill breakpoints for shields were removed
- The quantity of throwing ammo was significantly lowered :(
- Regeneration was nerfed: one pip of regen gives 0.8 HP/turn instead of 1.0
- MPRegen amulets got a buff and now restore 0.4 MP/turn instead of 0.25
- Walking tomes were added
- Red devils no longer hop back
- Kills done by frenzied monsters give XP now
- Summons no longer steal XP!
- Yara’s dispells summons!
- Summon caps were lowered :(
- New spells: Cactus, Scorch, Flame Wave, Enfeeble (!), and Anguish
- Removed spells: Bolt of Magma, Corona, Shadow Creatures, and Invisibility :(
In very old versions, DDs’ gameplay felt very revolutionary. You didn’t have to manually rest between fights and that allowed you go through the game much faster. Because of that there were fewer fights with respawning monsters, less piety was lost, less food and corpse chopping was required. But over time the balance changed: the gameplay became more convenient for other species too, explore_auto_rest was turned on by default, monsters stopped respawning, and food was removed. But the dwarves had to do a lot of fiddling between fights still: you needed to heal via the innate or a divine ability, drink ambrosia or use excess curing/heal wounds potions. But everyone else could just press o to resume exploration fully healed. If your vampiric weapon did low damage, you constantly had to switch weapons; the same happened when you fought non-vampable monsters. Using Vamp Draining 1000+ times in a 3 rune game was a bit tedious too. Suddenly, a once streamlined species felt clunky.
It was a death by a thousand cuts, but there were five main changes that killed the dwarves:
- Removal of HW wands (0.20) and scrolls of recharging (0.21)
- Halving of Makh’s HP-on-kills (0.27)
- Buff to monsters with heavy weapons (0.27). Some monsters were nerfed in later versions, but 0.28 was brutal for melee chars. Wights and orcs with heavy weapons became more dangerous in the early game, but it was even more visible in the Vaults where a few humans with bardiches could chop you just in a few turns
- GDR reform. Combined with the previous change, it meant more incoming damage for heavy armour users
- Jiyva as the optimal choice (0.28)
In 0.29, Deep Dwarves were replaced with Meteorans, a species that had an even more radical core idea. But before playing Meteorans, I had to go through Centaurs v.2.0, also known as Palentongas. Stay tuned.
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