Pixel Dungeon (now at v1.7.3)

[gravling]

Not sure how folks aren't starving to death in this game. Nothing drops food that I'm aware of, so I have to effectively run through a level looking for a piece of food, kill a couple of things then immediately jump down the next set of stairs before my hunger kicks in and I risk dying.

Then I get to the first boss and get slaughtered because I can't hit the thing fast enough.

Either you are walking around with seriously overpowered armour and weapons for your strength, or you aren't finding the secret doors to the rooms where most of the food is, or both.

[Herbrand]

What you do is to upgrade your favourite weapon up to whatever you can -- saving one scroll of weapon upgrade for a well of transformation.  transform that scroll, and then use it on your +a_whole_lot weapon. Hope you don't get 'blazing' as it is less useful against fire elementals. Enchanting a seriously positive weapon has not been a problem for me.  It's taking an already enchanted weapon and adding more + to it that tends to stop working as the + gets to 3 or above.  But I have started with a +3 blazing glaive, weapon upgraded it to a +9 regular glaive, and then used a scroll of weapon enchantment (which I made) to make it a +9 venemous glaive.  But I have only had the opportunity to enchant such seriously upgraded things 3 or 4 times -- perhaps I got lucky, but I do not think so.

The dwarf levels get easier with practice, but bring 4 scrolls of magic mapping (the last area does not need to be mapped).

Thank you for the tips. So you can actually enchant anything beyond +5? Didn't knew that, makes for some seriously overpowered gear.

Right now I am running around with a +3 Longsword, a +3 Plate Armour (found already like this!) and, especially, a +5 Ring of Haste (brought up from +2). Man, this must be my best setup ever.
Unfortunately I found only 5 Strength Potions in the whole dungeon - and yes, I finally cleared all the Dwarven levels.

Right now I have a +2 Glaive that I will be able to use once I bring it to +3. I've been farming Gnoll Shamans for 2+ hours but nothing - I have 26 Healing Potions from all the flies I butchered, but no elusive Upgrade Scroll yet...

[Veldrin]

Gnoll shamans never drop upgrade scrolls

http://pixeldungeon.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

[Herbrand]

Gnoll shamans never drop upgrade scrolls

http://pixeldungeon.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Are you really really sure? Because I have the distinct impression that they did. So I have no way of further upgrading my strength/weapons at all? Perhaps I can kill skeletons until one drops a +3 Glaive instead...

[Veldrin]

I've never found a scroll of Upgrade killing a Shaman...

But the skeletons sometimes drop enhanced weapons, even powerful weapons like War hammers and Glaives.

If shamans could leave Upgrade Scrolls, the game would be too easy with a little farming, enhancing weapons and armors to +7 or so

[Herbrand]

Not sure how folks aren't starving to death in this game. Nothing drops food that I'm aware of, so I have to effectively run through a level looking for a piece of food, kill a couple of things then immediately jump down the next set of stairs before my hunger kicks in and I risk dying.

Then I get to the first boss and get slaughtered because I can't hit the thing fast enough.

I was having the same problem at first, then I realized a couple of things:
- every level has at least one food item, sometimes more. Just, this can eventually be in a locked room or in a room that has been sealed with a wooden barrier, or in a room with a pavement made of traps;
- the game will always give you the potions you need in order to get through a room of traps; if the level has a wooden barricade, somewhere in that level you WILL find a potion of flame; if the level has a trap room, somewhere in that level you WILL find a potion of Levitation. This is incidentally very useful to identify some potions, although you may run the risk of having both in the same level and having to make the crucial decision of which potion to drink and which to throw. Either way, if I miss a room in the first 4 levels because of this, I usually start over.

If you don't have a decent weapon by level 5, you will most likely die to Goo. This may as well be the consequence of just bad luck. If you do get through though, and you manage to become self-sufficient in terms of farming potions from the flies in levels 6-9, you are most likely set for a win.

[Veldrin]

trap rooms are no problem: Throw objects such as darts, shuriken or even scrolls, not to use armor, to traps, first the closest to the object and then closest to you (the closest to you, which is diagonally.
Then go, close the door and wait for the gas to disperse to enter.

[Veldrin]

Another clue: Indeed, when a roadblock is a potion of flame at the same level, but if no is because it is inside a secret door or ... Because there is a fire wand! Be sure to search good!

[watabou]

I miss the old garden rooms.

I'd sort of like it if they could come back, though I can see that they might be overpowered.  So I had an idea:

Make a room.  Put an animated tree in there. Call it the room of the 4 seasons.

In winter the tree has bare limbs, no leaves, or fruit.

Spring:  The tree changes to show buds, shoots and  new light green things growing.  Here the room behaves just like the old garden room did -- heals you even when you are starving.

Summer:  The tree is covered with deep green leaves.  This room will heal you as well, but only if you are full or hungry.  Starving people will not heal.

Autumn: The trees' leaves change colour to red and gold.  This room will heal you, but only if you are full.  Hungry and starving people will not heal.

Winter:  The leaves fall off leaving naked tree limbs behind.  This room will actively drain you of HP if you enter it.

Then cycle through these for some reasonable amount of time.  It means that you can plan a strategy around being able to heal in the middle of it, but you cannot spend hours in there building up an unstoppable high-level character.

-------

bonus idea:  If you  zap the tree with a wand of regrowth in the Winter, the season changes to Spring.  If you want, you can attack the tree.  If you kill it, you get plenty of experience, but the room is permanently a Winter room.

I really like this idea, it brings back memories of playing Zelda: Oracle of Seasons . But it's too complex and because of its complexity it's hard to predict how playable it will be. Anyway I would make different seasons:

• Spring. The room heals you if you are not starving. Because it's time of growth, new life etc.
• Summer. The room hides you like the current version of the garden.
• Autumn. The room nourishes you, it's like eating, but the process is gradual. Because it's time of harvesting.
• Winter. The room drains your health like you said.

[gravling]

I am glad you liked my idea.  Your modifications sound pretty cool, as well.  I have a question about eating -- warriors heal, and mages get 1 charge put back on their wands, but do rogues get any benefit out of eating besides not being hungry any more?  If nothing special happens to them, then perhaps this new room idea the nourishing should happen faster to rogues, or something.

Another question -- sometimes I run into flies, and once into a skeleton on levels 2 and 3.  Is this just random, or do corpses tend to generate flies, so if you have been killing a lot on that level (I was) you have a greater chance of getting flies?

[Herbrand]

Another question -- sometimes I run into flies, and once into a skeleton on levels 2 and 3.  Is this just random, or do corpses tend to generate flies, so if you have been killing a lot on that level (I was) you have a greater chance of getting flies?

I believe that monster generation is random and affected by level depths. I also ran into flies on level 4 (a welcomed encounter by all means) and once I even met a Gnoll Brute on level 9. Seems like the probability distribution is made so that the "padding" level where the boss is helps to keep monsters in their own "habitat", but occasionally you might still encounter them in unusual depth if you are lucky (or unlucky!) enough.

[gravling]

Small bug with flies:
sometimes when then split into 2, the second one is created on top of a closed door.

[Korintheblack]

I make sure to visit every room in a level before heading down unless there's some dire circumstance such as hunger.

Unlock the doors, learned that certain rooms guarantee certain items to appear (fire pots, float pots, etc.)

But the game is getting to seem like if I have a good set of equipment that I either starve to death or get mauled by a roaming swarm of sewer crabs that have learned some form of kung fu.

Do our characters ever learn to parry half as decently as those friggin' crabs? Could be a nice addition to the rogue or warrior.

[gravling]

I make sure to visit every room in a level before heading down unless there's some dire circumstance such as hunger.

Unlock the doors, learned that certain rooms guarantee certain items to appear (fire pots, float pots, etc.)

But the game is getting to seem like if I have a good set of equipment that I either starve to death or get mauled by a roaming swarm of sewer crabs that have learned some form of kung fu.

Do our characters ever learn to parry half as decently as those friggin' crabs? Could be a nice addition to the rogue or warrior.

The magic item you are looking for is called 'a ring of evasion'.    a +5 ring of evasion does wonders.  And when your characters reach higher levels, should you ever come back to levels 3 and 4 where the crabs are, ... for instance because there is a nice well of transformation there which you finally want to use .... you will find that the crabs are no longer any challenge.

[Aron0621]

Have a +6 glaive(no need to be enchanted) and you`ll see DM300 torn into pieces before using 2nd healing potion.
Also make sure to level up on each floor.