https://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20240413-232630.txt
What, two wins in a week? I know some people get two wins in a night, but this is good going for me. After DDNe the RNG handed me VpWn (died in Lair:6) and then HOIE (lost one to Sigmund, one to a D:5 crocodile, then won) so this is one win from four games which is also pretty good for me. Mind you, I don’t have any strategic insights other than “arrange to find a +8 randart broadaxe on D:5”.
I found a runed hunting sling early - might as well wield it, I thought, even if it is cursed it’ll be better than no weapon - and it was +3, which went nicely with range-1 Freeze rather than trying to Throw Frost with HO’s limited MP. I took Chei on D:3 as the first viable god (it was that or Fedhas, and I don’t really get on with Fedhas). I am still not very good at using Chei abilities.
D:5 was make or break - HP: 1/59 [centaur/arrow (2)], potions of desperation gave me slow regeneration (just what I didn’t want) and toenails, and six turns later HP: 2/88 [worker ant zombie (1)]. After that, however, I found the broad axe (+8 with {drain, rC+ Str+6}) and things were looking up; I’d use this all game, alternating with a broad axe of electrocution I enchanted up for undrainable targets.
Bought a tower shield on D:6 (but with Chei stats I could continue to use low-level spells; later I’d have a kite shield of protection, and later still a tower shield with more Shields skill) and learned Magic Dart so I could train Conjurations (which I expected to use all game) rather than Slings. Mutrouletted out slow regen into rMut and Dex+2; good enough. Nasty moment on D:7 with vampire mosquitos and then an orc warrior.
Found the Lair on D:9 but I wasn’t going in until I could afford a +3 hand axe of flaming I’d seen in a shop on D:5, so cleared D:10 (acquiring a hat of magic resistance) and a bit of D:11. Even so the first hydra I saw (on Lair:1) nearly collected me, and the only other low-HP note in the Lair was also a hydra. Ozo’s Armour was giving me tolerable defences in a robe, but no more. Found boots of running on Lair:5 which I suppose is kind of inevitable if you go Chei.
A labyrinth yielded an amulet with {Gourm MR+ Dex+4 Stlth+ *Curse} - bcrawl-style gourmand healing on chunks means this was a decent find - and then it was time for Orc (not much trouble, but not much to buy either except a book or two to save up for); cleared the Dungeon, went to Snake, bought the book for Ignition, cleared Snake (with no rElec, shock serpents were nasty and Nikola demanded a resistance potion) then Shoals. Snake was full of uniques - Rupert, Nikola, Vashnia, Roxanne, Agnes.
Shoals wasn’t too bad with Ignition coming online with brilliance by Shoals:4. Unfortunately I only had one potion of brilliance. Next was Elf, finding a +0 hat with {rElec Slay+5} (where were you when I wanted you in Snake, hat?) on E:1, getting Ignition normally online by E:3 - and, for once, finding everything I might dream of in the E:3 loot. An amulet with {+Rage +Inv rF+ Str+8} - great. A ring with {rPois rF+ rC+ Int+4} taking the resistance situation from bad to pretty solid. +1 leather armour with {Str+6 Slay+3} - I was hoping to find heavier armour with my enormous strength (it got to 57 at one point) but this was very nice for now. A +5 fustibalus with {flame, rElec Dex+2} - goodbye, +0 hat of rElec, I’m wearing the Ponderhat.
Vaults was next and seemed so fine I went straight to V:5 to blow everyone up with Ignition. I was immediately paralysed by a sphinx for 3 turns (pretty bad luck, I had respectable MR) and things seemed significantly less fine for a while, but I got a teleport to a defensible spot and cleared it from there. V:5 gave me a +2 robe with {+Blink rN++ Regen+} - with no other good rN source I would give up the leather armour for the Crypt and the Tomb.
Depths was next. Hit a wizlab on U:5 which turned out to be Dorolokhe’s Tomb - I approached this with some trepidation but it tuned out to the version with gargoyles and the like which is much easier than the undead or demonic versions.
Crypt was next; Mennas turned up on C:1 but kindly let me cast Ozo’s before silencing me, so I could just chop him into bits with the axe, and he kindly dropped me a tower shield with some plusses on it. After that I had a fair bit of gold so bought two randart scale mails from an antique shop in Orc - no joy. Then to Slime, which there is not much to write about since I poked the Royal Jelly then blew it and its friends up with Ignition.
Then I was feeling ambitious so I went to Tomb. The Tomb:2 ambush was utterly horrible and could well have killed me - Khufu showed up and did his thing, at one point I had 18/261 HP after a mummy curse - but I managed to pull through with the help of tree potions. The corridor of greater mummies on Tomb:1 wasn’t trivial, but it’s more predictable. Tomb:2 had another go at me - HP 60/254 and Abyssed by a Zot trap. This was to A:5 and it was a pretty nasty moment - out of the frying pan into the fire of A:5 monsters. I found an exit almost immediately but if I took it low on HP I’d just be jumping straight back into the frying pan, but if I hung about I’d have A:5 hammering on me, would I even heal up? I managed to get up to about 100 HP and jumped, surviving what was left on Tomb:2.
By comparison Tomb:3 was relatively easy - knowing this was the last major battle I could use up tree potions and potions of magic with nothing else to conserve them for, and I was able to kill almost everything in one go at the entrance and clear the level without retreating to Tomb:2. I found a +3 chain mail with {rN++ MP+9 Int+3 Dex-5} - this did almost nothing to spell failure chances. It also did almost nothing to defences compared to robe or leather plus Ozo’s, but that meant in the chain mail I could start fights with 12 extra MP.
Bought all the consumables and then it was time for Zot - I tend to feel if I do Tomb I’ve proved my point and more extended runes is just gratuitous. This was pretty routine by comparison except on Zot:2 I found an amulet with {Reflect *Contam rPois Int+6 Dex+3 SH+3} which I decided to put on. Great move, me, you’ve just taken off your second pip of rF in OOF country and now it’s going to be hard to change your mind! Weirdly, OOFs weren’t actually much of a problem - weird because I only had one pip of rF, Ignition doesn’t work on them, Chei characters can’t really cast Orb of Destruction then step back and cast another - but I guess just hitting them really hard with an axe works too. Things got a bit hairy in and around the Orb chamber proper but never completely out of hand.
I saw two panlords on the orb run - no way to run, so I holy worded them and squashed them.
Spells were tricky here; HO’s terrible Spellcasting apt meant not many MP without MP+ items and few spell slots - so few that I juggled spells a lot with amnesia, learning Aura of Abjuration twice. I’d learn Ring of Flames but amnesia it out almost immediately - no use having a fire enhancer if you’re losing so much of the MP you might cast fire spells with. Perhaps by the end of the game I should have reconsidered it given the amount of MP I had.
Irradiate, Aura of Abjuration, and Yara’s saw almost no use, mostly because Ignition was working so well on almost everything, but it was nice to have them in reserve.
Very unusually for me I trained almost no Evo. There were always spell skills that could take more XP.
Yes, thank you forum software, I am aware my topic title is similar to other existing topics.