Morgue: https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/ForkInBrain/morgue-ForkInBrain-20240425-170039.txt
Perhaps my luckiest run yet. Or was it Beoh’s love?
Yesterday I lost a 10 rune MiFi of Chei in Tomb because I don’t have much experience there and didn’t have a plan: https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/ForkInBrain/morgue-ForkInBrain-20240425-024059.txt 
A typical “probably sholud have teleported 20 turns ago” YASD.
That build felt powerful, so I was trying for it again. RNG took the run in a different direction.
Playing trunk/0.32, so the “new” Beogh god was available. I’d tried and failed to win with “old” Beogh countless, frustrating, times, but from a few failed attempts I knew “new” Beogh was an improvement.
On D:6 I hadn’t found Chei yet, and a Priest smited me down to low health with no clear escape. I didn’t want to lose the run, so I took the Priest’s offer and became an Orc.
The run was already feeling pretty lucky. I identified a stack of 4 potions, all experience. I think I found about 5 acquirement scrolls, most early. Most of this before D:6, so I took Beogh for that immediate chance to heal up, rather than roll the dice and possibly lose the run.
With my MyFi brute and 3 Orc companions, the game was well in hand, I but I wasn’t quite steamrolling everything. They’d die and take a while to come back. Still, the S branches felt significantly easier. Any single target enemy was no match. I even o-tabbed Rupert almost without realizing it. I did skip Nikola, who is still patrolling Snake:2 as you read this.
Then at XL 15 I found a Granite Talisman and immediately trained Shapeshifting to 12. This was painful on a Mi with the -3 aptitude, so I didn’t take Shapeshifting much past 16. Worth it, even though I had already trained Armor to 11 and had an okay set of plate: it erased any worry over finding good armor, and made it easier to train spells (though I didn’t use lesser beckoning or blink as much as I did with my previous Chei build). The almost-steamroll gained momentum.
Beogh is a good, and entertaining, God for a slow lumbering Granite Talisman user. My 3 companions charging out ahead of me, with me tabbing my way to catch up and finish the job. At one point I had an Orc who could summon daemons, who sometimes summoned things that could summon things, and the screen filled with companions on my side. Very little companion micromanagement needed in this mid-game portion. Occasionally they’d die, usually to AOE attacks, but I was still a statue form MiFi that could handle things.
Elf:3 yielded two more run-defining items:
T - the +18 shield of the Gong (worn) {Loud rN+ Will+ rCorr EV-5}
(You found it on level 3 of the Elven Halls)
a - the +8 trishula "Condemnation" (weapon) {holy, anguish, *Noise Fly rN+}
(You took it off a deep elf sorcerer on level 3 of the Elven Halls)
I’d used the Gong before, but until now I didn’t even know anguish was possible on a weapon. A holy reaching weapon to boot. Perfect for a companion-focused build. Immediately skilled Polearms to min-delay and never looked back.
There, the game was on as “easy-mode” as DCCS gets, comparatively speaking.
- I didn’t have a great plan for Slime. I had rF++ but an attempt at Immolation spam failed. In the end my Orcs helped me get through with zero mutations by eagerly blocking line of sight. I took about three runs at the Royal Jelly before me and my companions’ DPS outmatched the Jelly’s. Cost: about 3-4 teleport scrolls.
- Depths wiped all my Orcs multiple times. I was able to o-tab Depths for the most part, teleporting upon trouble, and resorting to stair dancing a few times.
- Zot was harder, with Draconian gank squads and their friends forcing teleportation escapes and a few near death experiences. At one point I did a blind emergency descent into Zot:5 to escape at Zot:4 gank. I eventually took to exploration without my Orc friends, summoning them in as needed.
- Zot:5 was similar, but the Gong drew so much out of the lungs, in a comparatively slow and methodical way, that I was surprised when the lungs themselves were so empty and easy to clear.
- More RNG favor: only two OOFs in all of Zot, both took final blows from my Orc companions (but I like to think I helped). Never saw a cursed toe, either.
- Orb run, despite my slow statue form, went smoothly. 3 late game Orc companions are quite a help if you can manage to keep them alive.
Thoughts on “new” Beogh:
- Aggression works. Your companions charge enemies, and they survive more if you’re there to help, so you should charge with them. They don’t stand much chance against large packs. Felt like polearms was useful.
- For this reason, I’d be fun to try a Summoner build of Beogh. Hey Orc buddies, how would you like a Hydra or two to help you out? Maybe a whole forest of angry trees, some horrible things, or a hoard of dragons?
- For this reason, Beogh play feels more chaotic than even my past runs with Xom. With hep, you can just let your companion suicide while you run away to safety. With Beogh that can come at a painful cost of losing that companion for about 1 level’s worth of wait before you get it back, so you’re often compelled to put yourself in harm’s way for the sake of your companion. At any point you could round a corner and your companions could charge into their certain deaths. This can be uncomfortable.
- It is a bit like playing Hep with 3 buddies that do get hurt by your spells and projectiles, and that stay dead for a whole level’s worth of play.
- P.S. don’t play a Hunter of Beogh. Your companions get in the way and if you accidentally hit them you suffer pennance. I almost won with a GrFi of Beogh that found an awesome artifact arbalest of penetration that I just had to use, but it was a bit like playing without a God at that point… (Unless all you want is the Smiting).
- For much of the game it is possible to explore the dungeon with your buddies. In Zot I had to abandon doing that – they died too much.
- To cope I started forming my own gank squad: tell them to guard a stairwell, descend, pull up some enemies to their quick death.
- When Zot:5 was mostly cleared I’d explore without my Orc companions, and summon them in only if I couldn’t comfortably take the enemy down. Then I’d, painstakingly, walk my buddies back upstairs and park them. This got tedious, and would be impossible in Pan/Hell/Tomb. Not sure that Beogh would work out in extended. Might be interesting to be able to temporarily tell your Orcs to leave.
- I didn’t smite much, probably because with my build it felt more productive to attack or reposition instead.