Never beat Crawl? Enter here! :-)

[Rabiat]

Praying doesn't lower piety, with just a few exceptions. Followers of Zin who pray while starving get fed at the cost of piety. Followers of Elyvilon may be saved from death while praying at the cost of piety; they'll also lose piety and are punished for killing while praying.

Usually, prayer itself isn't beneficial to the player; it allows chars to raise their piety by sacrificing corpses or items. In the original Crawl, gaining piety from killing required praying. This meant you had to be praying almost continuously, so it was removed in Stone Soup.

Followers of Trog only need to pray to sacrifice corpses. As Omnivorous said, it's good to sacrifice often. Trog's always hungry. With enough piety he'll grant you abilities you may need to survive later. Using these abilities lowers piety, especially if you call in reinforcements. If you can raise piety to five or six stars, Trog will start giving you lots of useful items.

[Archaalen]

He was only on the 3rd level of the dungeon, so I wasn't expecting an Ice beast.  He was...3rd or 4th level.  Ice beasts are hard unless you have a good fire weapon, I lost another Ogre Transmuter, this one 5th level, to one just a few minutes ago.

[corremn]

Someone just posted a good guide for beginers to decide what characters to use.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.misc/browse_frm/thread/fa24bb56357b7b71#

Unsuprisingly his top choice was a MiBe.

Unrelated, I just killed a level 10 MiBe by the most common mistake a Berzerker can make. Berzerking to soon.  I really am disapointed in myself.
I had a coridoor filled with 10+ bees (no posion resist). Stupid me I berzerked straight away.  I should of killed about half of them, then with my hp running low gone berzerk.  Of course instead my berzerk ran out and I was slowed. Game over.

Never berzerk when you are completely outnumbered, unless you have resist slow.  I find it is always better to berzerk when you are getting low on hp, not on full health.

[myang26]

As a newbie to Crawl and Stone soup, I have a question... when do gods gift you with gifts?  Do you need to do anything to trigger it?  I've been 5 star and 6 star in piety and yet have never been gifted anything.

Right now I'm playing a Chaos knight... seems interesting but I'm not sure what his invocating ability is supposed to be used for.  Any ideas?  Also, I had no idea the amulet of the gourmand was so great!  Completely removes the pressure of food for me.

Thanks!

[Numeron]

Ive been killed bezerking around groups of bees too, I think if possible its best to seperate 1-3 at a time, like by stair dancing, otherwise you can easily get overwhelmed. The damn things are so hard to hit, and being slow around them is just asking to be killed

[corremn]

Once you get the highest levels of piety and sustain that for a while (after all abilities have been given) you will eventually be given gifts, assuming your god gives gifts.  When I play as a berzerker I usually get my first gift half way through the Orcish mines.

Chaos knight of Makhleb?  I assume you are talking about his invocating abilites, lesser/greater destruction and summoning?  The destruction abilities cast random conjuring spells and of course sommoning summons demons.  The power of the spells depends on you invocation skill only and high invocation skill also helps to prevent hostile summons.

Gourmand was even better in previous versions, it now has to be worn for a time before it starts to work. Previously all you had to do was wear it for 1 turn while you eat something then take it off.  Another example of removing farming/skumming behaviour, well done Stone Soup Dev team.

[Rabiat]

I could be wrong, but I don't think Makhleb or Lugonu give gifts at all; Xom does, but this is independent of piety, and his gifts can be endlessly annoying, useless, or lethal.

Regarding race/class choice: if you're a noob, I can recommend the tutorial choices. Play the Minotaur Berserker and the Deep Elf Conjurer, and if you feel like it, the Centaur Hunter. These are the archetypical melee fighter, spellcaster, and ranged fighter combos. If you get the hang of those, try some 'good random' characters. I think many players mistakenly emphasize the importance of race/class choice, while disregarding the importance of playing/survival skills.

The amulet of the gourmand is one of my favourites too, especially in the early game. It's seriously overpowered though, even after the (good) design choice to only make it effective after you've been wearing it for some time.

[Numeron]

I have my best character so far, a level 14 MiBe, and am kind of stuck because I dont have poison resistance... Ive cleared the top of lair and the first two levels of snake, but once the nagas really started appearing I had to leave because the poison was a bit too much. I poked my head into swap, but didnt do much exploring, cleared the orc mines completely, and now the dungeon all the way to level 17 looking for a poison res ring but nothing has shown up... cleared a little of hive too but feels too dangerous to continue there.

Im getting the feeling that if i keep diving deeper in the main dungeon that Ill start getting out of my league since I havent the experience from any of the branches except the mines....

What should I do from here? head back to snake or swamp and hope for the best? I have an enchant armour scroll, should I look for swamp dragons or will it be too difficult to reach them without the res anyway? maybe keep diving and risk meeting something too big to handle? I dont really want to lose this char to incaution..  



EDIT: Cleared the entire of lair now considering it the safest place to explore, still no luck..

[Rabiat]

Ooh, nice going.

I wouldn't try Snake without poison resistance. I'd say try the upper levels of the Elven Halls if you have magic resistance (or have enough piety to get it from Trog a couple of times). Then go for the Swamp and try to clear as many levels as you can without poison resistance, or, if you have corrosion resistance (and preferrably mutation resistance), try the Slime Pits. If you still can't find poison resistance, clear the main dungeon to level 20 or 21, but be very cautious.

I think the Hive can be done without poison resistance if you watch your health closely and go upstairs to rest regularly, but it won't be comfortable.

[Numeron]

Thanks for the advice, I put on 2 rings of magic resist and took to the halls...

I made sure not to let them get too much ranged attacks in and it wasnt so hard, elves a squishy lost a couple of scrolls and potions though, the bastards...

Found a ring shop on elf:3 with a poison res ring so Im going to head back to snake rather than pushing on here

Cheers!

[Numeron]

oh my GOD.

I dropped off all my crap from the halls at my temple stash, and headed for snake.

on the way got hungry, oops left my food back there. no biggie, keep going. then very hungry... hmm better go back... died of starvation on the way back wtf. seriously stupid death for such an awesome character...

EDIT: hmm, should have drank all my potions

[Anvilfolk]

Numeron, you twit!

[corremn]

I have done the same thing many times, dropping all my food in temple. I always keep going and are lucky enough to find a corpse.  I also have used the find command to find the closest food item once I realise what I have done.  Luckily enough I have so far never died from this stupidity.  Bad luck, you would of had a real chance of getting to the end.

[Karzack]

That always used to be the death of me (starvation).  I don't seem to have to much trouble with it anymore.  And after Numeron's tale, I think I will make sure to double check when I drop a bunch of items from now on.   

My condolences Numeron   

[Omnivorous]

I've stored up acouple of questions..

Lets see if I remember most of them!

1) Does wearing rings/amulets make you consume more food?

2) What gives you another level to spend in memorizing spells other than Spellcasting-skill levling up, and character level?

3) If you ignore races/classes, does anything affect chances of getting ill from eating food  like orc-meat, hobgoblins, goblins etc. or is it just random? For example, if you get 2 chunks of meat out of a goblin's corpse, and get sick from the first piece..does this mean there's a greater chance the second chunk will make you sick too, than if you were to consume a completely different chunk of goblin-meat?

4) Does wearing items that add Arm have ANY negative effects on, for example a spellcaster that has a low aptitude in Arm? I don't mean armour, compared to Ev, stealth etc. I mean stuff like helmets, boots, gauntlets, that only add +1 Arm. This is only a good thing, right?

5) Do you guys too find that you get more impatient and more often kill off your chars faster if you save, then load it days later, compared to playing a char for acouple of hours straight?


On a sidenote I have yet to die of starvation in this roguelike! I was close to on a MiBe but luckily found the Hive in time..

Any notable progress with anyone? =)

I have another Merfolk Enchanter, one that's going pretty well for now! Level 5 on D:4. Finally found a decent Trident early on. Got a ring of poison resistance, and an amulet of conservation. Anyone want to reccomend a God that will serve this char well early on (now) and throughout his life, however long it might be?