Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup - The Soupening

There are massive spoilers in here, obviously, but I made a chart of the dungeon:

https://i.imgur.com/OQhFNbL.jpg

Someone on reddit pointed out that in trunk the non-slime Lair branches have been shortened to four levels, which I think is fantastic. I've had that very idea for a while, and I must not have been the only one thinking that.

I love the portrayal of the Abyss in that thing.
I really need to get more than 3 runes... Actually, scratch that. I need to win again first, then start working towards more than 3 runes.

Very nice chart Michael!

I kind of wish they would shorten the Lair to 6 or 7 levels. I find it's my least favorite part of every run. But I'm not going to complain about one fewer level of Shoals.

Awesome chart! I liked the touch on the Abyss section, with the spinning levels. Nice!

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

One thing that I think helps a ton is to post a link to your morgue file here after a particular run and ask for feedback.

So I have a morgue file eh? Next time I die horribly I'll try and remember to add that. Thanks.

Michael wrote:

There are massive spoilers in here, obviously, but I made a chart of the dungeon:

https://i.imgur.com/OQhFNbL.jpg

Someone on reddit pointed out that in trunk the non-slime Lair branches have been shortened to four levels, which I think is fantastic. I've had that very idea for a while, and I must not have been the only one thinking that.

I want to look, but the mystery of peeling back the layers of this game is keeping me from it. I want to slowly explore this one I think.

Koz wrote:

Very nice chart Michael!

I kind of wish they would shorten the Lair to 6 or 7 levels. I find it's my least favorite part of every run. But I'm not going to complain about one fewer level of Shoals.

Also making Hell branches only five deep would be nice.

Unlike the rest of you, I'm not sure I'm such a big fan of chopping off levels from the various branches. My reasoning is that the more they chop, the less experience you gain. The last thing I want is to step into Zot5 at only level 22 or something. Perhaps they will compensate by adding monster density like they did in the depths.

Nah, I agree with you, Copinsaw. If anything, I'd like them to add levels to Orc and Elven.

I'm still hoping for a giant and/or yaktaur themed branch to appear somewhere in the depths someday. I think the spriggans could also have a decently dangerous branch. I'd also love to see the pan lords get 2 level themed branches someday. That is my hope. Cut down the length of some branches and make some smaller new ones.

Major commit today: Square LOS rather than Circular LOS.

That changes a lot.

I wonder if that will affect burst spells and abilities, like TSO's holy nova ability (or whatever it's called), which, previously, went 2 squares in the 4 cardinal directions, but 1 in the diagonals.

Copingsaw wrote:

Unlike the rest of you, I'm not sure I'm such a big fan of chopping off levels from the various branches. My reasoning is that the more they chop, the less experience you gain. The last thing I want is to step into Zot5 at only level 22 or something. Perhaps they will compensate by adding monster density like they did in the depths.

This.

I often get to a point where I'll want to churn some levels just to get experience for a particular level that is too hard, and losing those levels in Lair could potentially remove some valuable experience. I suppose I could pick that up elsewhere, but that's often not an option.

Alright, this game is just mocking me now. Last night I started up a Minotaur fighter and promptly got murdered. No big deal, par for the course. So I decide I'll give that class/race another go. Somewhere around D4 I run into "Skiptron's Shadow" who promptly murders me. This damn game is now using myself to kill me.

What was your new race/class combo?

Skiptron wrote:

Alright, this game is just mocking me now. Last night I started up a Minotaur fighter and promptly got murdered. No big deal, par for the course. So I decide I'll give that class/race another go. Somewhere around D4 I run into "Skiptron's Shadow" who promptly murders me. This damn game is now using myself to kill me.

One thing to note about player ghosts (and undead in general) is they can't follow you up or down stairs like other monsters can, so feel free to run away from them up a level.

Player ghosts are one of the hardest monsters early in the game, so if they appear as red text you're probably best off running away.

Yet another game where I find the Armour of the Dragon King and I can't use it...

Michael wrote:

Yet another game where I find the Armour of the Dragon King and I can't use it...

I don't think I've ever found that and had a situation where it made sense to use it.

I once found that on a MiFi run on D:4 or something similar. It was glorious. I think that was my first win too.

That's impressive Koz, crazy early finds like that are an absolute guarantee that I'll die to a careless mistake

My new character was a Minotaur/Fighter as well, which I'm guessing you folks in the know call a MiFi.

So I have a run going from months ago and I'm down in the Zot area, but it's been so long I am not even sure what my goals were at the time. If anyone has a couple minutes to take a gander at my morgue file and give me any kind of advice on what I should be doing at this point in the game, I sure would appreciate it.

My current MiFi

Thank you for your time.

Wow, I'm so rusty it hurts my head when I look at that.

That sure is a large collection of mutations, though!

quasiChaos wrote:

So I have a run going from months ago and I'm down in the Zot area, but it's been so long I am not even sure what my goals were at the time. If anyone has a couple minutes to take a gander at my morgue file and give me any kind of advice on what I should be doing at this point in the game, I sure would appreciate it.

My current MiFi

Thank you for your time.

Quick tips:

1. Put the rMut amulet on. You're on Zot:3 and that's Orb of Fire territory. Only having rF+ may be an issue too. Consider drinking a potion of resistance if you face one.
2. It may be too late for this, but train Fighting. Fighting = hp, and while 183 hp is pretty good, you always want more. AC could be a bit higher, but 27 EV for a MiFi is quite good so you're probably OK.
3. I would NOT drink a potion of cure mutation unless you get a real bad one. Your rF mutation is your only source of rF right now so it's very important to keep.

You might be OK to make an orb run, but you're on the weaker side of "normal". I'm also unsure how Qazlal plays on Zot:5 because if your noise summons the whole damn floor you could be in trouble fast.

Koz wrote:
quasiChaos wrote:

So I have a run going from months ago and I'm down in the Zot area, but it's been so long I am not even sure what my goals were at the time. If anyone has a couple minutes to take a gander at my morgue file and give me any kind of advice on what I should be doing at this point in the game, I sure would appreciate it.

My current MiFi

Thank you for your time.

Quick tips:

1. Put the rMut amulet on. You're on Zot:3 and that's Orb of Fire territory. Only having rF+ may be an issue too. Consider drinking a potion of resistance if you face one.
2. It may be too late for this, but train Fighting. Fighting = hp, and while 183 hp is pretty good, you always want more. AC could be a bit higher, but 27 EV for a MiFi is quite good so you're probably OK.
3. I would NOT drink a potion of cure mutation unless you get a real bad one. Your rF mutation is your only source of rF right now so it's very important to keep.

You might be OK to make an orb run, but you're on the weaker side of "normal". I'm also unsure how Qazlal plays on Zot:5 because if your noise summons the whole damn floor you could be in trouble fast.

It won't summon the whole floor, but it will summon quite a bit of it. There are some doorways you should be careful of as well as opening on can lead to summoning a large group. Your invocations isn't quite what I would like for Qaz's powers but it is ok, although swapping that amulet of spirit for the rMut would help you there as well. You might want to try and hope into one of the other branches a bit just to get your XL a bit higher and maybe find some more gear.

More fighting, more weapon skill and that ring of strength is junk at this point in the game. If possible carry rings of rF, rC and rN and swap in/out as needed. If there's a ring of slaying around that would be great. An extra pip of resist in whatever is trying to kill you will go a LONG ways towards keeping you alive in Zot though...I'd keep rF on by default.

You can throw out wands of confusion, slowing, random effects and polymorph as well. Brand Weapon and enchant armor are scrolls that can be dropped and picked up later if/when you need them.

Finally, being in negative resist (rCx) is a very dangerous state, especially when it's on an armor that can't easily be removed.

Last Edit: I also noticed that Eos is -Tele. I personally wouldn't use anything that gave me -Tele. When you need to blink, you usually don't have a turn to waste on removing a weapon. Are there any demon whips or eveningstars around that you could brand with that scroll to give yourself a fighting chance?

Homard wrote:

You can throw out wands of confusion, slowing, random effects and polymorph as well.

I've seen others say this before too. Is it just because monster MR gets too high in Zot or other end game branches? Can't higher evocations overcome that? It seems weird that a whole series of wands becomes completely ineffective in later levels.

Well, for the first two (confusion and slowing), yes, they have to overcome MR, which gets really high.
And yes, you can pump up evocations, but unless your primary stats are at max, is it really worth doing that?
Random effects can also haste, heal, and otherwise benefit the monster, which I think would be a nightmare on high level monsters.
As for polymorph, according to the wiki, "The new form will be of similar (but on average slightly higher) HD to the old one". Which again sounds dangerous on high level monsters.

Those wands all introduce randomness or are a very inefficient use of skill points for dubious effect. I usually toss them after Lair when a big axe or a bolt spell can solve most any problem without randomness of any sort. Uncertain outcomes are the most effective enemy of Crawlers.

I'll use the Wand of Random Effects on D1 or D2 maybe just for fun (when the consequences are less dire) but drop them after that.

Polymorph isn't bad to have around -- if you don't mind spoiling yourself or reading the wiki, I follow the list of Good or Bad Things to Polymorph and it has served me well: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Wand_of_...

Also, Homard I'm glad you mentioned the cons to -Tele. That's usually a dealbreaker for me.