Former advice thread for a Crawl char that went >, returned surrounded, & died

[vimpulse]

Hi all,

I would like your advice please.  I'm playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.4.4.  My character, a level 11 Mountain Dwarf Chaos Knight of Makhleb, is surrounded by eight orcs, including two orc warriors and an orc knight.  Here's how it happened:  When my character became level 11 or so, I entered the Orcish Mines.  I went down through a certain staircase from O:2 to O:3, but realized there was an open field containing dozens of enemies down on O:3.  I've never seen an open field like that in the Orcish Mines.  I immediately went back up.  I didn't set a level annotation containing an exclamation mark, though, and so I later accidentally went back down that staircase.  I was at full HP before I went down the stairs.


Now here is my screen.

                   #....####...#    J the Cleaver
           ####     ##....###....    Level 11 Mountain Dwarf of Makhleb
          ##..##   #####.###.....    Health: 14/90     ===---------------------
         ##....#  ##.######......    Magic:  13/13     ========================
         #....### #....## ##.....    AC: 18            Str: 17
       ####.....####....#  ##..##    EV: 12            Int: 13
      ##.#.......###....####...#     SH:  0            Dex: 12
      #...#......##.....#.#...##     Exp Pool: 110     Place: Orcish Mines:2
      ##........##.........#.##      Wp: a) +3,+1 battleaxe
       #.......ooo....#...#...#      Qv: t) 25 darts
       ##......o@o........#...##     Engorged
       #.......ooo#............#
       ##.#......###.#...[#...##     o _ orc knight
        ####.##...#...######.##      oo  2 orc warriors
           #####.###.##   #...#      ooooo  5 orcs
               ### ###    ##.##
                           ###

                                             

1.  Did I enter the Orcish Mines too early in the game?

2.  After I went downstairs into O:3 the second time, was it a mistake to immediately come back upstairs?

3.  Why is O:3 an open field?  I've never seen O:3 be a field.  Is this a bug?  A rare random occurence?  By design?

4.  What should I do now?  All I can think of is to wield my dagger of protection, or to read a scroll of teleportation, or to try to enslave the orc knight or an orc warrior with my wand of enslavement.  Do you have any better ideas?  What do you think is my best strategy for survival?

Please see the attached j.txt, my character dump.  Also, if you like, see the attached previous_message_log.txt also.  It has about two screens of Ctrl+P information.

Thanks in advance,
--vimpulse

[vimpulse]

Note:  The attachments were created on Linux.  If you have trouble opening the attachments on a Windows PC, try opening them in WordPad instead of Notepad.  Hold down the Shift key, right click on them, and choose "Open With".  Then choose WordPad in the Open With dialog box.

[corremn]

does rod of venom cast stinking cloud by chance?

[jim]

Vimpulse,

The basic rule of surviving in Crawl is divide and conquer. A MDCK at your level is probably in a position to defeat an orcish warrior straight up, maybe even two in a row - though possibly not simultaneously. An orcish knight will present a problem and warrants some kind of steroid use, even by himself. If you ever see an orcish warlord, run...

When you are in the kind of situation you've illustrated, provided that orcish priests/mages aren't going to screw you over, it can be worth your time to try and draw part of the threat upstairs with you and leave the rest downstairs. This is all with respect to the initial encounter.

In regard to question 2, that's highly situational. In your case, given that the lower level was unexplored, a desperation teleport versus a lost turn from fleeing upstairs feels like a wash to me. Crawl is mean like that.

[vimpulse]

does rod of venom cast stinking cloud by chance?

No.

a rod of venom (14/14)

 Spells                             Type                      Level
 a - Cure Poison                  Evocations                    2
 b - Venom Bolt                   Evocations                    5
 c - Poison Arrow                 Evocations                    6
 d - Poisonous Cloud              Evocations                    6

[Ancient]

If this character is still alive I suggest quaffing your potion of heal wounds. Next use your wand of fire to slay an orc and flee through created opening (assuming you survive next round). When you end up in a position where you are adjacent only to basic orcs read teleportation scroll then continue your refuge. Hope you land somewhere safe.

Alternatively you can enslave a basic orc and swap position with it to slow down other attackers. With a grain of luck the knight or one of warriors will take a swing at new buddy instead of chasing you.

Unfortunately your chances of living are slim.

[vimpulse]

Ancient, after reading your post, I tried to enslave a basic orc as you suggested.  Here's what happened:

Code: [Select]

The orc resists.                                                                                                              
This wand has 3 charges left.                                                                                                
The orc warrior misses you.                                                                                                  
The orc hits you but doesn't do any damage.                                                                                  
The orc knight hits you with a runed orcish war axe.                                                                          
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *                                                                                              
The orc warrior hits you with a runed orcish halberd!                                                                        
You die...                                                                                                                    

Thank you, corremn, jim, and Ancient, for trying to help anyway.

I still wonder:

1.  Did I enter the Orcish Mines too early in the game?

3.  Why was O:3 an open field?  I've never seen O:3 be a field.  Was this a bug?  A rare random occurence?  By design?

[jim]

1) I'd say not. Early to mid game, things can get dicey really quickly. Your only mistake was accidentally descending. Misclick-death.

I wanted to mention one other thing. There's sort of a trick you can pull if you create a situation where a horde of enemies have clustered around the staircase you're fleeing upward on. It's a pretty common roguelike convention to have time basically "freeze" on levels you're not presently stomping around in, or some variant of the time freeze. With Crawl, you can kick time back into motion, and thus disperse the crowd gathered around the staircase, by descending an alternate stairway to the same level.

3) Nope... that looks just about perfect for the orcish mines.

[Ancient]

Pity that. Going up/down stairs with monsters nearby effectively gives them a free turn. That and orcs on frenzy are nasty enemies. You were unlucky to have that knight use his war-cry immediately after sighting you.

1) No. That was fine decision. I often visit earlier.

3) It happens sometimes. Be cautious and backtrack to use another set of stairs. If you survive that is.

[corremn]

The main trick is to have a backup plan for this sometimes inevitable situation.  A scroll of phase door, a potion of invisibility, potion of haste etc. These are your backup options when exploring semi dangerous places. if you dont have any of these, you probably should not explore the mines, until you have some get out of jail free card. Gods are quite good here too.

Good luck.