BDR wrote:
I just went with Transmuter because I thought, "Hey, polymorphing class, might be worth a try.." Thanks for the information on starting equipment, my next attempt will probably be a Hunter (I like shooting things ).
And I heard it IS worth a try, but takes some skill and crawl lore to pull it off. It's one of classes I never played successfully.
My experience with Crawl is about on the same level as NetHack; understand the general stuff but not quite enough of the particulars to last very long even with good luck
Those particulars are very important in crawl, because the game is brutal even compared to other roguelikes. On the other hand, in many areas it feels very friendly. For example, as I mentioned, you can actually rest between fights because monsters respawn slowly. Another thing I like about crawl is that it has few quirks. Hydras require special handling, but it's quite obvious for anyone familiar with greek mythology.
Keep an eye on scrolls of blinking, they're the closes there is to amulet of lifesaving.
(like how to combine race and class to make for better inventories/stat mixes,
In general, crawl rewards specialists. Trolls, minotaurs, orcs, dwarves, make very good warriors. (Ogres are suprisingly hard to play, because they're awful at dodging and can't wear most armor). Elves, spriggans, demigods, demonspawn make very good spellcasters.
Crawl has interesting skill-based system, it allows you to mix various roles. If you have a good plan, it may be good to try a hybrid character.
I encourage you to *gasp* make use of spoilers, because crawl is much better spoiled than unspoiled ! Spoilers don't ruin the game because of
1) Marginal story
2) No quirky nethack-like tricks to abuse. Knowing rules better won't make you a great player, you still have to make good tactical decisions.
3) It's actually more like missing documentation than spoilers
You may skip the part about dungeon branches, it actually spoils the game a bit, but take a look at racial skill aptitudes:
http://swallowtail.org/crawl/species_skills.shtml
Smaller values mean less exp required to raise the skills. If you don't 'spoil' yourself regarding skill aptitudes, you risk some unnecessary frustration. It's not
that obvious kobolds are very bad at using maces and especially polearms.
Gods are really fun and important part of playing crawl. They're
not merely healing potions, like in ADOM. In fact, most of them can't heal you. They're quite specialised and have their likes and dislikes.
Some character classes start worshiping a god (Berserker, priest, chaos knight, death knight, paladin). Other characters can convert at an appropriate altar. Lone altars are very rare, but around dungeon level 5 you should find entrance to Ecumenical Temple. (special branches start with yellow staircases). It lets you choose from all 12 gods of crawl.
Okawaru, Makhleb, Yrredemhunl (sp!?!), Trog, Xom are nice for warrior types. Sif Muna and Vehumet are popilar choices for spellcasters.
Some gods grant you special powers you can activate. Some watch over you, can protect you from hits, unholy energy, starvation. Extremely devoted characters can even get gifts of various kinds, even demonic servants. Some require killing of specific enemies, other like item sacrifices. But you can offend them, too, if you're not careful. More here:
http://swallowtail.org/crawl/gods_spoil.shtml
how to handle ID'ing items without the spell/scroll
Don't count on ID scrolls, they're too rare and valuable for that.
http://swallowtail.org/crawl/identifying.shtml
[the vampiric blade was a guess; can/do monsters equip cursed items?], or how to gauge monster strength beyond simply attacking it and seeing if I die).
Yes, they can. You can examine monsters to see what items they're carrying. Be careful with war/broad axes, great swords, halberds, glaives etc.
Most magical items have strange appearance - they might be glowing, shiny, embroided etc.
Artifacts tend to be even weirder - steaming, smoking, bloodstained, crude, fine, brightly glowing and so on.
Edit: I'm watching you play again, and I noticed that you lost experience during a crisis moment (you had 14 HP and about 4 or 5 monsters trying to kill you, and you had had over 20K exp but then fell below 20K). What happened; did one of the monsters cast a spell or something that stole experience?
That was ugly. An orc with a dagger of draining. It didn't even have any suspiscious appearance, it only identified itself once I wielded it. I picked it up afterwards just to make sure no one else does. A single hit decreased my level by 1.
Weapons of draining have a big downside - by making monsters permanently weaker, they reduce amount of xp you get for killing them. But it's preferable to dying.
And what does the potion of restore abilities help with and why couldn't you use it to get back what you lost?
There's no way to get back lost experience other than do it all over again. Potion of restore abilities restores just that - abilities. Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity. If your stats are yellow, they're temporarily decreased. The potions are handy because it takes long time for abilities to recover on their own.
Some monsters and special attacks can reduce their your abilities. Mostly shadows, wraiths, necrophages, and other undead. Sickness can also lower your stats.
But you can prevent xp drain. Aside from not getting hit, there are rings of life protection. Shining One protects your lifeforce as long as you're praying, but people don't like him as he makes you fight honorably (no poison, no backstabbing).
Unfortunately, my naga died recently. The second orc warlord was just too much. Actually I killed him but his orc warrior sidekicks with weapons of flaming and electrocution were brutal. I should've been more triggerhappy with those wands...
Have fun ! I'm going to watch someone now...
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[Last edited by b0rsuk at 12-22-2006 09:27 PM]