[Crawl] Nondescript stone

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
K

keith

Distinguished
Mar 30, 2004
1,335
0
19,280
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

I've found a stone which when wielded and evoked and pointed to a wall
(for example) transforms part of the wall into an earth elemental. I could
probably generate other elementals with other square types. But... the
elemental is hostile towards me. So I threw it away! mistake?

Here's my char dump, I expect to die any time now. I've been to the Lair
but have gotten out as there were war hounds that I cannot handle very
well in there. I was thinking of tossing Corona for small mammals. I also
wonder why Sif does not shower me with books any?

Dungeon Crawl version 4.0.0 beta 26 character file.

qwe the Prestidigitator (Spriggan)
(Level 8 Enchanter)

Play time: 00:55:04 Number of turns: 9817

Experience : 8/1628
Strength 8 Dexterity 14 Intelligence 17
Hit Points : 35 Magic Points : 26
AC : 4 Evasion : 11 Shield : 0
GP : 234

You are on level 9.
You worship Sif Muna.
Sif Muna is extremely pleased with you.
You are not hungry.

Inventory:
Hand weapons
m - an uncursed elven dagger of electrocution
Armour
b - a +3 robe (worn)
Magical devices
j - a wand of disintegration (12)
x - a wand of polymorph other
z - a wand of invisibility
Comestibles
e - 2 bread rations
w - a pear
y - a choko
Scrolls
i - 5 scrolls of teleportation
l - 4 scrolls of detect curse
n - a scroll of curse armour
o - a scroll of paper
s - a scroll of blinking
A - 2 scrolls of remove curse
Jewellery
g - an uncursed twisted platinum amulet (around neck)
Potions
d - a brown potion
k - 2 potions of healing
Books
c - a book of Charms
q - a book of Callings
Magical staves
a - a rod of striking (in hand)


You have 0 experience left.

Skills:
+ Level 3 Dodging
+ Level 4 Stealth
+ Level 2 Stabbing
+ Level 2 Spellcasting
+ Level 7 Enchantments
+ Level 12 Evocations


You have 5 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

Your Spells Type Success Level
a - Corona Enchantment Great 1
b - Repel Missiles Air/Enchantment Very Good 2
c - Confuse Enchantment Great 3
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005, keith wrote:

> I've found a stone which when wielded and evoked and pointed to a wall
> (for example) transforms part of the wall into an earth elemental. I could
> probably generate other elementals with other square types. But... the
> elemental is hostile towards me. So I threw it away! mistake?
>
> Here's my char dump, I expect to die any time now. I've been to the Lair
> but have gotten out as there were war hounds that I cannot handle very
> well in there. I was thinking of tossing Corona for small mammals. I also
> wonder why Sif does not shower me with books any?
>
> + Level 3 Dodging
> + Level 4 Stealth
> + Level 2 Stabbing
> + Level 2 Spellcasting
> + Level 7 Enchantments
> + Level 12 Evocations

The probability of you summoning *friendly* high-level entities (like
elementals) is dependant in your skill in the relevant area. It looks like
you have no Summoning skill (let alone Earth Elementalism), so it would be
quite likely that summoned elementals would be unhappy with you. You could
have kept the item until you managed to increase your summoning skill, I
suppose...

As for why Sif Muna's not giving you books - she's not happy enough with
you yet. You need a very high piety (the highest you can be informed of in
the information page), and then a little bit more, before she started
giving you stuff. And then, it only happens when you pray, sometimes.

Sam
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith <johndoe9485@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<opsoyhs4uua64ohw@p200>...

> I've found a stone which when wielded and evoked and pointed to a wall
> (for example) transforms part of the wall into an earth elemental. I could
> probably generate other elementals with other square types. But... the
> elemental is hostile towards me. So I threw it away! mistake?

No, not IMO. If you identify the stone then you'll get a hint that the
tameness of the elemental is dependent on Earth Magic skill, so unless
you train that you won't get much use of it.

> Here's my char dump, I expect to die any time now. I've been to the Lair
> but have gotten out as there were war hounds that I cannot handle very
> well in there. I was thinking of tossing Corona for small mammals. I also
> wonder why Sif does not shower me with books any?

Keep Corona for now - forgetting spells has a piety hit with Sif Muna,
and you have the levels to spare. Small mammals are useful, but to
make it through the Lair I'd say you need to put a few levels into
Summoning. (Higher Summoning -> more mammals, and also tougher
creatures.) Scorpions might be good enough too (since most things in
the Lair aren't poison resistant), but you need a couple of levels of
Summoning for that.

As for why Sif Muna doesn't give you books - SM cares about only one
thing: casting spells. Since you're playing a SpEn, you're probably
using the rod a lot more than spells. If you have the food to spare,
stand in a quiet corner and cast spells at thin air until Sif Muna is
happy.

/Johan
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

> As for why Sif Muna doesn't give you books - SM cares about only one
> thing: casting spells. Since you're playing a SpEn, you're probably
> using the rod a lot more than spells. If you have the food to spare,
> stand in a quiet corner and cast spells at thin air until Sif Muna is
> happy.

This is probably inaccurate, as I am not casting spells at all almost
(just confuse sometimes) and she grew extremely pleased with me from
neutral.

Discussion:
What do you all say about a mummy Sif worshipper? A mummy can cast as many
spells at thin air as it likes without getting hungry.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith <johndoe9485@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<opso0nd2b8a64ohw@p200>...

> > As for why Sif Muna doesn't give you books - SM cares about only one
> > thing: casting spells. Since you're playing a SpEn, you're probably
> > using the rod a lot more than spells. If you have the food to spare,
> > stand in a quiet corner and cast spells at thin air until Sif Muna is
> > happy.
>
> This is probably inaccurate, as I am not casting spells at all almost
> (just confuse sometimes) and she grew extremely pleased with me from
> neutral.

Strange. Maybe using rods counts as using spells? (I thought it
wouldn't, I'd have thought that Sif Muna would see rods as
competition.)

> Discussion:
> What do you all say about a mummy Sif worshipper? A mummy can cast as many
> spells at thin air as it likes without getting hungry.

That's one of the few itemscumming strategies that exist in Crawl.
That said, it takes patience, just like some other poster mentioned,
and you usually get more than enough spellbooks with Sif Muna anyway.
Once they start coming they come pretty regularly.

/Johan
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith <johndoe9485@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<opso0nd2b8a64ohw@p200>...
> > As for why Sif Muna doesn't give you books - SM cares about only one
> > thing: casting spells. Since you're playing a SpEn, you're probably
> > using the rod a lot more than spells. If you have the food to spare,
> > stand in a quiet corner and cast spells at thin air until Sif Muna is
> > happy.
>
> This is probably inaccurate, as I am not casting spells at all almost
> (just confuse sometimes) and she grew extremely pleased with me from
> neutral.
>
> Discussion:
> What do you all say about a mummy Sif worshipper? A mummy can cast as many
> spells at thin air as it likes without getting hungry.

It does work, and using Crawl's scripts negates most of the boredom.
However, when I tried this I managed to create script that suicided my
mummy... Remember, if you make a script, NEVER, EVER HAVE 'Y' AFTER
'Q', no matter what lies in-between. 🙁

In my case, I was organizing my book collection, and had created a
script for dropping things.

Janne Joensuu,
Endoperez
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

"keith" <johndoe9485@yahoo.com> wrote in message news😱pso0nd2b8a64ohw@p200...
> > As for why Sif Muna doesn't give you books - SM cares about only one
> > thing: casting spells. Since you're playing a SpEn, you're probably
> > using the rod a lot more than spells. If you have the food to spare,
> > stand in a quiet corner and cast spells at thin air until Sif Muna is
> > happy.
>
> This is probably inaccurate, as I am not casting spells at all almost
> (just confuse sometimes) and she grew extremely pleased with me from
> neutral.

Casting spells from Rods pleases her. Not sure if it's that's intentional,
though.

> Discussion:
> What do you all say about a mummy Sif worshipper? A mummy can cast as many
> spells at thin air as it likes without getting hungry.

A well-known abuse is to have your mummy cast spells at the air in the
Ecumenical Temple until you've got all the books, then renounce Sif Muna, sit
down in the ET until she's forgiven you, then move on to another god.

I've done it. I don't think it's worth doing: first, spellbooks aren't really
_that_ difficult to find. 2, it's really, really tedious. 3, SM punishes you
with high-level miscasts, one of which summons a Soul Eater, which is probably
enough to kill you when you're first getting to the ET. Which means you have to
do the whole thing over again.

Somebody (Mark Mackey, maybe?) also had a scheme that involved getting all the
books then keeping SM and learning Identify. Since she protects you from
miscasts and mummies wouldn't hunger from the spell use, as long as there's a
nonzero success rate on the spell, you could identify every item in the game.
SInce that doesn't seem like much of a payoff, I'm pretty sure there had to be
something else to it, too. But I can't find the thread on google.

--
Jeremey
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith wrote:
> Discussion:
> What do you all say about a mummy Sif worshipper? A mummy can cast as
> many spells at thin air as it likes without getting hungry.

Works, but boredom kills all my mummies that try that...
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

On 10 Apr 2005 12:49:51 -0700, Johan Strandell <johan.strandell@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Strange. Maybe using rods counts as using spells? (I thought it
> wouldn't, I'd have thought that Sif Muna would see rods as
> competition.)

Ok 🙂 Try running a sprig sometime. Well, another question:

I see you people talking about evasion and dodging. Is evasion a skill?
And when should I turn off dodging?
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith wrote:
> I've found a stone which when wielded and evoked and pointed to a
wall
> (for example) transforms part of the wall into an earth elemental. I
could
> probably generate other elementals with other square types. But...
the
> elemental is hostile towards me. So I threw it away! mistake?

Dissenting opinion to Johann's: Mistake. (Until you find an alternate
source of plentiful digging/teleportation or you've finished the
Lair/Mines). When you get trapped on a spotty level (the type of level
you see in the Orc Caves and often in the Lair, where the staircases
are spread out over many separate sections) and starve to death, you'll
understand why. Yes, this has happened to me.

You asked later on in the thread about Evasion and Dodging. Evasion
affects your defense directly, by helping you get hit less often by
ranged and melee attacks. Dodging is a skill that affects your defense
indirectly, by improving your Evasion.

Erik
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

In article <gdb6e.27$ZM1.18@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com>,
noaddressgiven@yahoo.com says...
>
> > Discussion:
> > What do you all say about a mummy Sif worshipper? A mummy can cast as many
> > spells at thin air as it likes without getting hungry.
>
> A well-known abuse is to have your mummy cast spells at the air in the
> Ecumenical Temple until you've got all the books, then renounce Sif Muna, sit
> down in the ET until she's forgiven you, then move on to another god.
>
> I've done it. I don't think it's worth doing: first, spellbooks aren't really
> _that_ difficult to find. 2, it's really, really tedious. 3, SM punishes you
> with high-level miscasts, one of which summons a Soul Eater, which is probably
> enough to kill you when you're first getting to the ET. Which means you have to
> do the whole thing over again.
>
> Somebody (Mark Mackey, maybe?) also had a scheme that involved getting all the
> books then keeping SM and learning Identify. Since she protects you from
> miscasts and mummies wouldn't hunger from the spell use, as long as there's a
> nonzero success rate on the spell, you could identify every item in the game.
> SInce that doesn't seem like much of a payoff, I'm pretty sure there had to be
> something else to it, too. But I can't find the thread on google.

I played (and won) a game like that. The thread was "[crawl] mummy necro"
from 11/28/03, the character's name was Khuth. There was much controversy
at the time about whether this was a viable strategy. Also check out a
previous thread called "[crawl] an experiment" from 11/24/03.

>
> --
> Jeremey
>
>
>
Larry
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith <johndoe9485@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I see you people talking about evasion and dodging. Is evasion a skill?
>And when should I turn off dodging?

Evasion is the number listed as "EV" in the stat window. It's computed
by obscure mathematics from various factors. Just like every other
derived number in Crawl, in fact 🙂
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
My roguelike games page (including my BSD-licenced roguelike) can be found at:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~mpread/roguelikes.html
Good riddance to the Pope.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Once upon a time, Jeremey Wilson wrote thus:

> A well-known abuse is to have your mummy cast spells at the air in the
> Ecumenical Temple until you've got all the books, then renounce Sif Muna,
> sit down in the ET until she's forgiven you, then move on to another god.

> I've done it. I don't think it's worth doing: first, spellbooks aren't
> really _that_ difficult to find. 2, it's really, really tedious. 3, SM
> punishes you with high-level miscasts, one of which summons a Soul Eater,
> which is probably enough to kill you when you're first getting to the ET.

Point 3 is only a problem if you're not prepared for it (which would be a
shame, particularly given point 2). Summon spells only check squares 1 or 2
away from the target, which makes this side effect harmless for any character
which can sit around for a while with a group of skeletons or something.

You wouldn't even have to do that much if Sif Muna used divination mis-casts
instead of necromancy ones.

--
kwaheri, Kieron (reverse username to reply)
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

On 11 Apr 2005 05:04:01 -0700, Erik Piper <erik@sky.cz> wrote:

>
> keith wrote:
>> I've found a stone which when wielded and evoked and pointed to a
> wall
>> (for example) transforms part of the wall into an earth elemental. I
> could
>> probably generate other elementals with other square types. But...
> the
>> elemental is hostile towards me. So I threw it away! mistake?
>
> Dissenting opinion to Johann's: Mistake. (Until you find an alternate
> source of plentiful digging/teleportation or you've finished the
> Lair/Mines). When you get trapped on a spotty level (the type of level
> you see in the Orc Caves and often in the Lair, where the staircases
> are spread out over many separate sections) and starve to death, you'll
> understand why. Yes, this has happened to me.

That's a really good point. But the earth elementals are somewhat nasty.
They might kill me. I run away from them.

> You asked later on in the thread about Evasion and Dodging. Evasion
> affects your defense directly, by helping you get hit less often by
> ranged and melee attacks. Dodging is a skill that affects your defense
> indirectly, by improving your Evasion.

So it's worthwhile to turn of dodge?
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith <johndoe9485@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<opso2767zka64ohw@p200>...
> On 11 Apr 2005 05:04:01 -0700, Erik Piper <erik@sky.cz> wrote:

[Are stones of Earth Elementals useful?]

[Yes. If you get trapped in an unconnected level, they can untrap you
so you don't starve.]

> That's a really good point. But the earth elementals are somewhat nasty.
> They might kill me. I run away from them.

The earth elementals generated by digging this way might kill you.
Being trapped with no means of escape WILL kill you.

It's rare, but it happens. Once you get any better means of digging,
you can ditch the stone.

The reason it happens is that some stairs are one way. To
oversimplify, they're the brown ones. In the Orcish Mines or
occasionally in the Lair, the exit stairs of such stairs may not
necessarily be connected to a level leading to the exit, and if the
area they lead to is likewise disconnected, you're screwed unless you
can dig, passwall, or teleport out.

> > You asked later on in the thread about Evasion and Dodging. Evasion
> > affects your defense directly, by helping you get hit less often by
> > ranged and melee attacks. Dodging is a skill that affects your defense
> > indirectly, by improving your Evasion.
>
> So it's worthwhile to turn of dodge?

If you have an alternate means of Not Dying, it can be good. The three
main ways of Not Dying in Crawl are evasion, AC, and reliable
preemptive destruction (conjurers and conjurerlikes). It can be good,
yes, to start by developing one first. You can't be good at too many
things at once. High dodging can be powerful, though, especially for
fighterlikes from the "small" races.

Erik
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

keith <johndoe9485@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<opso098iiwa64ohw@p200>...
> On 10 Apr 2005 12:49:51 -0700, Johan Strandell <johan.strandell@gmail.com>
> wrote:

> > Strange. Maybe using rods counts as using spells? (I thought it
> > wouldn't, I'd have thought that Sif Muna would see rods as
> > competition.)
>
> Ok 🙂 Try running a sprig sometime. Well, another question:

I get bored with spriggans and their tiny little rods of striking. I
want things that go BOOM. :)

> I see you people talking about evasion and dodging. Is evasion a skill?
> And when should I turn off dodging?

In Crawl there are two defence values: AC (Armour Class, increased by
the Armour skill), which determines how much damage is reduced when
monsters hit you, and EV (Evasion, increased by the Dodging skill)
which determines how hard you are to hit.

Spriggans are really bad with Armour, so you should go the
Evasion-based route. You really can't have too much evasion/dodging
since you want monsters to hit you as little as possible, so leave it
turned on.

/Johan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom