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Author Topic: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.  (Read 1682985 times)

Frumple

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3765 on: September 26, 2010, 07:34:10 pm »

Just to double check, isn't there still a casting penalty based on the -EV of the armor? As I understood it, the strength requirement was to prevent extra penalty on top of the base, not prevent penalty altogether.

Casting penalty also reduces as armor skill goes up, but how that relates to strength I'unno. Knowledge bot suggests that there's a multiplier to the base penalty based on skill -- the minimum is .45 at 27 armor.

Full formula via knowledge bot -- base penalty is the innate -EV of the armor:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actually, looking at it, extra armor skill should simply reduce the effect of the base penalty -- 45/45 is 1, so if your strength is fine, there's no extra penalty for not having the skill. Mo'skill mo'betta', though.

Argh, math. May be reading that wrong, I'unno. "Base penalty plus up to 3 times penalty, minus strength, multiplied by 45 - armor skill, then take that lot and divide by 45?" Is that the (poor) english translation of that thing? I guess not having skill is a non-issue only if you've got the 3*strength, but if you've got less it makes the penalty worse than it would be?
« Last Edit: September 26, 2010, 07:37:34 pm by Frumple »
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zchris13

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3766 on: September 26, 2010, 11:19:03 pm »

Armor skill reduces the penalty.  The whole thing.  More skill is better.

You have to have more than three times the base penalty in strength in order to not have an additional penalty on top of the regular penalty.  This additional penalty can be reduced by having more armor skill, just to make that clear.

Best run ever: Banished to abyss, grabbed rune, died to skeletal warrior.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: September 27, 2010, 12:51:05 am by zchris13 »
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3767 on: September 27, 2010, 01:09:09 am »

TBH there is more than a bit of fake difficulty in the form of "stupid deaths before level 3" (which means: early out of level monsters, kobold blowgunners, kobolds with branded weapons...)
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Mr.Person

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3768 on: September 27, 2010, 04:11:22 am »

The only things that irk me are branded monster weapons and lucky monster swings. They're annoying because it's a ton of extra monster damage and thus cheap early death that you just can't avoid unless you play really paranoid. For instance, you're down three out of eleven HP vs this kobold wielding a knife. Woops, he swings for 8, you die. Yes, this happened to me. I can't tell you how many times orcs or even goblins with clubs have hit me for 11 damage on Dlvl:2.

Brands are particularly odd since you would think the game would tell you about monsters wielded branded weapons. I mean, how can you miss the fact the sword that orc warrior is wielding is ON FIRE? The WORST brand about this is electrocution since it can appear really early, is hidden until the monster gets a shock on you, and can easily shock you for 20+ damage in a single swing.

Maybe the problem is how to tell the player this information? Tiles can of course just overlay a specific brand effect over the weapon. ASCII can display the brand in the monster list.

Orc warrior (pain hammer)
Orc wizard (freezing knife)
Orc (glowing knife)
Orc (club)
Orc
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Moron

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3769 on: September 27, 2010, 11:28:58 am »

The main annoying thing is not that there are sometimes out-of-depth monsters but that there are almost always out of depth monsters.

A typical chain of events that just happened to my latest character (minotaur gladiator.)

I clear level 1 easily, nothing particularly threatening, no particularly interesting items.

I go down to level 2, explore a few rooms, down a few corridors, and there's Sigmund. By luck, I am close to a corner so he can only zap me once before I flee, and though I can't go back the way I came because  it involves going down long straight corridors where he would have plenty of chances to kill me, I can keep him mostly out of LOS by fleeing into the unknown.

By even greater luck, I find some stairs down before he can kill me, and oh look, there's Dowan and Duvessa. So it's back up the stairs to face Sigmund,  stay here and get killed by them or flee into the unknown again, which I do.

I get zapped a few more times, bringing me dangerously close to death, but before I die I make it to another staircase down... and find myself in the middle of a group of orcs including a couple of wizards and priests. Game over. Again.

If this happened occasionally or even around half the time, I wouldn't mind so much, but when it goes on and on, game after game it just gets silly.

And even if I somehow manage to survive, if I've spent the first few levels mostly fleeing, that means I will have killed very little, so will not have been able to level up or train my skills, making me even less prepared for any deeper depths.
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Leafsnail

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3770 on: September 27, 2010, 12:46:57 pm »

"Agnes drowns".

The two best words I've seen all week.  I mean, she even had a fire wand (which she managed to scald herself with).

Also, apparently, if you confuse someone and then put them to sleep, they keep stumbling around.  Huh.

Is there any reason not to wear a buckler as a Spriggan?  As far as I can tell, the only penalty is -1 EV, which is made up for by 13 SH... right?
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Frumple

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3771 on: September 27, 2010, 01:04:46 pm »

Yeah, confuse+sleep=sleepwalking. It's neat.

As to the spriggan+buckler, the only reason to not use one is if you want to use hand and a half weapons; longswords, axes, etc. About the only category that's actually useful to the average spriggan build is staves, though. A staff of energy makes spriggans lawlworthy doomcasters, ferex.

If you're sticking to shortblades, though, and not doing much high-ish end casting, you'll probably want to stick to buckler+sabre or something. The additional defensive measure makes your hahaha35+EV thing even more exaggerated.
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Leafsnail

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3772 on: September 27, 2010, 01:23:30 pm »

Well, I got a +3 +2 Sabre of speed (gonna enchant it, don't think I'm gonna get any better non artifact weapons)... since it's 1 and a half handed, would it still be better to use a buckler?
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ShadeJS

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3773 on: September 27, 2010, 01:25:17 pm »

I get zapped a few more times, bringing me dangerously close to death, but before I die I make it to another staircase down... and find myself in the middle of a group of orcs including a couple of wizards and priests. Game over. Again.

If this happened occasionally or even around half the time, I wouldn't mind so much, but when it goes on and on, game after game it just gets silly.

And even if I somehow manage to survive, if I've spent the first few levels mostly fleeing, that means I will have killed very little, so will not have been able to level up or train my skills, making me even less prepared for any deeper depths.

and prior to that:

Quote
To a certain extent I agree that it's not so bad losing a character at low level before you've had time to get attached to it. But grinding the first 3 levels again and again and again just to get one that survives gets pretty tedious.

Is there any real reason why there need to be so many overpowered monsters on the first few levels?

First of all, I've never ascended, but I've gotten to the point where I've seen a fair number of branches, and snagged more than a few Runes, and even clawed my way out of the Abyss a few times...

Even if you want to avoid Mephic Cloud and Evaporate, you just shouldn't be 'splatting' that much. You could have really bad luck. You could be embellishing. You may very well need to refine your skills. I dunno, and I'm not picking a fight, but:

1. A glance at the wiki under wouldn't hurt. http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=CrawlWiki (For race class combos, etc.)
2. Throw things. Rocks and darts are your best friend. (Even if you are 'zappy'.) If you don't plan on making throwing a career choice, make sure you turn the skill off.
3. Always flee along your explored path. There's less chance of bumping into some new horror that way.
4. When fleeing use your diagonals. No sense in giving bad guys an extra step toward you.
5. Identify your consumables early. If you're playing and 'easy mode' character maybe wait until the end of D2 or D3, otherwise make sure you know what you have even if you have to waste a charge, or consume a scroll or potion. Then don't be afraid to use those things.
6. Hunger is not that bad-- Or it's not bad enough that you shouldn't take every chance to get close to full health (and / or mana). If you are walking around always starving, you're probably overkilling things with spells (or need more spellcasting / Int). Don't Stone Arrow it if 2 or 3 Magic Darts will do.
7. If you must take the stairs, always try to go up then back down at a different set of stairs. If you must go down, try to go back up at a different set of stairs if you're semi-sure it won't be certain death. (Like, oh say, by knowing that you can game the AI by knowing that packs diffuse over time, or by avoiding the area where the thing that drove you down the stairs was.) If you've fled down once and haven't gone back up, always assess your strength after you cleared the current level, and go back up if you think you can handle it. Because of the XP loss, before you have branch choices, if it comes making a stand or skipping a couple of levels really close together, you're better served to try to pluck away at the levels where you can. Or, as you said, you'll just get splatted by the first thing you see.
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Frumple

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3774 on: September 27, 2010, 01:34:21 pm »

Well, I got a +3 +2 Sabre of speed (gonna enchant it, don't think I'm gonna get any better non artifact weapons)... since it's 1 and a half handed, would it still be better to use a buckler?

Sabres are one-handed, not 1.5, unless this changed very recently. Scimitars are 1.5 (I think?) one handed too, but they're not short blades. So... yeah. Buckler. Sabres of speed are the best non-artifact shortblades in existence, according to the knowledge bot. Do note that, yes, most one-handed weapons count as hand-and-a-half for sprigs, but I'm going by normal size handedness, not sprig-size handedness. 1.5 weapons are two-handed for sprigs, etc.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2010, 01:38:51 pm by Frumple »
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Leafsnail

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3775 on: September 27, 2010, 01:40:05 pm »

The sabre says it's a bastard sword.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
(Curse was from a scroll of curse weapon, not inherent in it)

Although I just got a dagger with a +7 AC boost, so I guess I have to see what bonuses it has.

New: Apparently turning invisible makes monsters stupid.  I just saw a hydra step on the same blade trap twice, nearly killing itself.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2010, 01:48:40 pm by Leafsnail »
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Frumple

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3776 on: September 27, 2010, 03:49:19 pm »

That's the spriggan thing; they treat most one-handed weapons as 1.5 weapons, 'cause they're tiny. Crawl's nice enough to adjust the information based on your race. The sabre's a one-handed weapon to normal-sized creatures, and the minor bonuses you get from two-handing it are completely outmatched by the whole 'I has shield' situation.

Unless you're primarily fighting from a distance, that +7 AC dagger's still inferior to the sabre. The only way the dagger's going to top that speed sabre is with an abnormally high plus to damage (It'd have to be at least +13 to match the sabre at +9, for damage) and a kickin' (elec, preferably) brand. The sabre would still hit faster, assuming your short blades skill doesn't bring them both down to the speed cap; in which case, iirc (could definitely be wrong here, double check the attack speed spoiler info), the sabre would still hit faster.

If you're primarily stabbing junk, your stab skill will cap out on the bonus damage you can get from using a dagger probably around mid-game -- at which point there's more or less no point in continuing to use daggers at all. You can check the spoiler information for precisely when that happens, but it's somewhere in the mid teens, iirc.
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Moron

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3777 on: September 27, 2010, 03:57:31 pm »

So, if I get the mutation 'Armour fits poorly on your unusually shaped body,' as a fighter type, is it still worth trying to train the armour skill despite the reduced AC, in the hope of eventually curing the mutation, or should I abandon heavy armour and try to train dodging instead?
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Dr.Feelgood

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3778 on: September 27, 2010, 07:47:45 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Morgue file

This is my final game for 0.7. Playing a mummy wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be, but they're incredibly boring. Mummies aren't as boring as demigods, but I don't plan on playing them again. Ice magic is great and I prefer it over fire magic now. Throw Icicle and Refrigeration remained useful for the entire game.
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Mr.Person

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Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« Reply #3779 on: September 28, 2010, 12:21:32 am »

So, if I get the mutation 'Armour fits poorly on your unusually shaped body,' as a fighter type, is it still worth trying to train the armour skill despite the reduced AC, in the hope of eventually curing the mutation, or should I abandon heavy armour and try to train dodging instead?

That depends. What kind of armor are you using, what level are you, and how high is your armour skill?

Oh, and what race are you?
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