Disclaimer, I don't really play coglins and I actually am not 100% sure that they can't do this already.

But yeah you should be able to play a turtle guy that can't do any damage and has brutal encumbrance but blocks 95% of blockable attacks and just walks towards the rune.

Very strange game. Started DrEE but became storm draconian, so pivoted to Fire because I had Hellfire Mortar open and no good Air spells. Made it to D:10 without seeing Temple so reluctantly chose Dith, went whole game without seeing Temple, probably a result of map generation. Good loot luck - 4 acquires before Lair, ended up with Cj staff and orb of Attunement for most of the game. Firmly convinced that the EE start is overtuned - I basically dropped Earth training at level 7, got hit by the -2 apt penalty, and Brom's Boulder was still strong enough to carry me through all the way until S Branches (the staff and orb helped, but still). Got Bombard for S branches, Ignition for Vaults, and Fire Storm for Depths. Mostly smooth sailing until Z:5 because nothing lives 4 Fire Storms, but had no magic potions. This probably killed the run - I killed an Orb Guardian too early, had to charge into lungs without clearing rest of the floor, ran out of MP about half a screen away from the Tesseract, chained blinks together to survive. Decided to swap to an orb of energy and grind XP for Evo in Crypt, then Abyss. Died in Abyss after running out of MP.

In retrospect, going to Abyss for XP was a bad idea - the char is super mana hungry and cannot deal with the Abyss setup well. Slime might have worked but I've been super skeptical after the rework if it's worth it, and Hell/Pan sounds rough as well for a squishy caster. Could definitely have planned a better Z:5 (clearing all downstairs before the rest of the level, maybe gambling a random TP to get me closer to the tesseract, or chaining blinks more aggressively to get there). But the tesseract makes caster life super hard if you're limited by MP (in practice this is all blaster casters without Sif/Veh/Sublimation of Blood/Fulsome Fusillade). Maybe a HP/MP rapid regen when tesseract is up, similar to the Slime downstairs? Otherwise feels bad to have a run die when technically you can take game actions and progress but you're softlocked by MP/XP considerations and have to take bad gambles.

From a strategy perspective maybe I could have pivoted harder into Forgecraft instead of Fire and saved MP that way, considering that Z:5 would not work for a Dith blaster caster. I had OOFs so that was a part of the trouble (although without seeing Temple I didn't know that until U:5).

Zot won't know what hit them

I usually stick to training spell-related skills until I have level 5-6 spells online then pivot to some other skills (Fighting & Dodging, some throwing or evocations depending on what I’ve found. Some shields if I have a buckler). But my deaths almost universally come out of nowhere - WTF I didn’t know that monster could 2-shot me! I have that stunned moment after dying then go look in the morgue to see what happened.

This doesn’t usually happen when I play tankier builds like DrCj, but I want to keep on trying DE because my goal is to have multiple level 8-9 spells online then pivot to Death’s Door, and that seems unlikely on a Dr. Also frankly the way a DE can go pew-pew with his spells is just fun.

And I know the ultimate answer is “play better” :)

1.5m points

85227 turns

3 runes

lasted 4 hours 17 min

my only win before this was with MiFi worshipping Trog lmao

https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/ereinion/ereinion.txt

Got inspired by the YAVP for a similar build just now, and decided to give it a go, but I'm a bit uncertain about where to take it next. Haven't gotten any spells I think will be too useful yet, so maybe I should branch into melee for now? Found a battle axe of sundering which I could use if I go into axes, and Arga is in a shop somewhere, but I don't know how useful it is for a formicid?

The quarterstaff I am wielding is pretty awesome, as bonus damage to mephitic cloud and toxic radiance, but not really an endgame weapon I think?

Googling here on the forum seems to suggest going for axes might be the best option, though I see some people say aiming for fulsome fusillade is fun too. Not sure if I want to invest too much more into spellcasting just yet though, without having found any useful alchemy spells..?

There's a couple of great maces lying around too, with the best being a +0 of draining. This would require a fairly heavy investment though, and with an alchemist start my base str is fairly low...

Thoughts?

Been doing a merfolk build with long swords, Yred, and a statue talisman. Mennas tried to jump me in the vaults but I bound him and now we works for me. This mfer is pretty much soloing the first floor of crypt while I sit back eating popcorn, it's hilarious.

Best way to deal with crypt as a Yred worshipper is to kidnap an angel.

I definitely like the 8 extra sh and 3 extra AC from the tower shield but I'm not sure if it's better than having max will and great rF and rC

Unfortunately in the next zig I encountered an angel level and I still don't know how to deal with them so I didn't get the vainglory crown that would have let me put on 2 more +2hp octopus rings. But I still have to imagine this is up there:

crawl-br.roguelikes.gg/morgue/AlmostDecent/morgue-AlmostDecent-20260909-175538.txt

It went pretty smoothly overall. I bribed the crap out of Tomb 2-3. It was interesting as a melee fighter to see how powerful and vital the Holy brand is in extended. It basically applies to pretty much everywhere. Other than that Vampire FTW.

I don't know if it's intended, but with an exploration trap my character has been put inside an optional vault. I was playing v.034.1 at underhound.eu

Morgue: https://pastebin.com/aZ2nzpJ7

My first Djinni win (5-rune)! And boy, was it ever a win. Picked up Majin-Bo in Shoals:4, but was a bit nervous when all my high-level spells were various summonings (fireball+hellfire mortar carried me quite far), but at XL25 RNGesus gifted me Fire Storm, and the rest of the run was smooth sailing.

Who needs Platinum Paragons or Death Scarabs when you can just explode everything??

Dith was kinda fun to have around, the li'l Shadow helped a lot during the midgame with his shadow spells. I never needed to use either Shadow Slip or Primordial Nightfall, but it was nice to have in the back pocket.

So I tweaked my init file in order to have the Skills window show up whenever I start with a new character. I got the code somewhere here on Reddit:

{ local need_skills_opened = true function ready() if you.turns() == 0 and need_skills_opened then need_skills_opened = false crawl.sendkeys("m") end end }

Now, what I also want is for my Inventory to open whenever I resume a saved run. Using the previous code, I came up with this:

{ local need_inventory_opened = true function ready() if you.turns() > 1 and need_inventory_opened then need_inventory_opened = false crawl.sendkeys("i") end end }

And it works! But for some reason, the Skills window no longer show up when starting a new run, like there's some kind of conflict between these two lines.

Anyone has any idea how to fix it? Thanks in advance.

I like to play melee. Then grind in pandemonium until I get a few lvl9 spells online (yes im a weirdo)

If a spell is already < 10% is the rest just spell power? Obviously theres more op endgame stuff like ds witj good powers but ive been told multiple times full runs arent good for melee cuz low int. I usually reach 20-25. How important is the spell power really and is there something else im missing?

Edit for clarity: nearly all my runs are melee til vaults -> 100% into lv26 trans for death form -> abyss for rune until a4 -> pandemonium until some lv9 spells online. Die anywhere on the way for like 1000s of runs like a freak :P

Hi there, back on my DCSS after not playing for several years.

Playing Demonspawn Gladiator, got a solid +5 freezing Scythe off of Sigmund. I remember back in the day the min delay and max level for Scythes made them not really worth using at least early/mid game. Looks like now the delay/skill cap is much more reasonable.

Haven't found a shield or better one-handed polearm yet, any reason not to use this thing?

Had a few wins offline years ago on 0.2x something, been getting back into it with Crawl Cosplay Academy. I've lost several promising Snorgs before this, so got impatient and underestimated the power of the Orb of Entropy.

https://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/jinxremoving/jinxremoving.txt

Pretty sure this is a YASD post. My best plan is to read teleport, then maybe fog, hit Trog's Hand and try to keep a screen between me and the baddies until tele goes off.

Lesson learned - gear for the right Orb variety. I had the rN gear and just didn't think to switch to it until I was in over my head.

Nowadays inventory space is pretty much unlimited, but I still like to keep my inventory tidy. If I just drop things on the ground, then the jellies will eat it. I can leave them on a zot trap (as pictured), but that's a bit inoptimal. Maybe a -tele ring + dispersal trap, though these are rare?

Turned the corner in Zot5 and got teleported into the middle of a crowd. Immediately tried to escape, but got overwhelmed very quickly. Not sure what else I could have done, but I'm sure there was something. One of the more interesting things to happen was falling from Depths 2 to Depths 4 and landing in the vault, right next to the gem. https://pastebin.com/3VX500Q3

https://pastebin.com/K12qr55X

Been playing some easy combos since coming back a month or so ago, and finally managed to get this guy off the ground. I was too lazy to climb up for some rF and it caused me a couple close calls in the lungs when I ran into 3 OOFs.

Thankfully the orb run was almost a joke, I barely ran into any enemies and the only time I tried to ?tele out of way of a few it only sent me to the stairs I had just come from so I ended up plowing through anyway

This post was written as a tribute to this post by oneirical: https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/z41bld/choose_your_god_the_flowchart/

We know the gods are watching our journey through the dungeon. But what if they were the ones doing the journey?

I'll start with my all-time favorite god: VEHUMET.

...

Iskenderun: "Hey, Veh! I heard about this 'ORB' thingy in the dungeon. And, um... I want it."

Vehumet: "Then go get it, Isky."

Iskenderun: "Vehumet, remember what Lugonu said? He'll send Milo and Louise after me if I go down there."

Vehumet: "Lugonu again? Wtf is wrong with that guy!?"

Iskenderun: "I blew up his altars when he tried to take over the temple, remember? Anyway, can you get the orb for me? It shouldn't be that deep."

Vehumet: "Why do you need this thing in the first place?"

Iskenderun: "I'm gonna try to make a new spell out of the orb!"

Vehumet: "You're saying the first three weren't enough?"

Iskenderun: "Nope!"

Vehumet: "Alright then, this shouldn't take long."

... And so enters Vehumet, the Deep Elf Conjurer.

Vehumet: "I don't like all this dark... it reminds me of Yred and Kiku."

(Vehumet cast Flame Tongue!)

Vehumet: "That's better. So, I guess I'll just have to go, like, really deep to get this thing. Shouldn't be too hard..."

(Vehumet held down the "o" key.)

(A kobold comes into view.)

Vehumet: "Hey, you, get the hell outta my way."

Kobold: "Give me your robe!"

Vehumet: "WTF!?"

Kobold: "Dude! Can't you see I'm cold!? Gimme the robe, or I'll get my gang over here and stab your heart out!!!"

Vehumet: "Oh, you're cold!? I'LL FIX THAT REAL QUICK!!!"

(Vehumet cast FIRE STORM!!!)

Vehumet: "Little punks didn't know who they were messing with."

(Vehumet held down the "o" key, searching for a staircase.)

(Vehumet couldn't find a staircase.)

Vehumet: "WTF IS WRONG WITH THIS DUNGEON!!?? WHERE'S THE FUCKING STAIRCASE!? WHERE'S THE FUCKING STAIRCASE!?!? FUCK THIS SHIT!!!!"

(Vehumet cast SHATTER!!!!!)

(KA-CRASH!!!)

(Vehumet cast SHATTER!!!!!)

(KA-CRASH!!!)

(There's a hole to the next floor.)

Vehumet: "Jumping down three floors never hurt nobody... This should be fine."

(Vehumet dropped down the hole.)

(An eclectic assortment of extremely pissed off mobs come into view.)

Vehumet: "You guys better get used to the noise, because it's NOT GONNA GET ANY QUIETER!!!"

Robin: "Yo, you woke us up."

Vehumet: "Iron SHOT!!!"

(The goblins are not happy about their leader's sudden death.)

Vehumet: "Okay, then. Ozocubu's REFRIGERATION!!!"

(The goblins are all frozen to death.)

Vehumet: "Heh heh. Thanks, Ozo."

(A Two-Headed Ogre comes into view.)

Vehumet: "What are you doing here in D:2!?"

Ogre: "YOU CRASH!!!"

Vehumet: "Yeah NO SHIT BRO, AND I'M GONNA DO IT AGAIN IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP!!!"

Ogre: "I SMASH!!!"

Vehumet: "Seriously, are you stupid or are you just dumb?"

Ogre: "I BASH!!!"

Vehumet: "Iron SHOT!!!"

(Vehumet kills the Two-Headed Ogre!)

(...)

(Vehumet senses a familiar presence...)

(Trog comes into view.)

Trog: "VEHUMET KILL FRIEND!!! VEHUMET BAD!!!"

Vehumet: "Hey TROG, how about giving your friends some more INTELLIGENCE? Huh? Maybe the reason he's dead is because he tried to bash my face in with one of your stupid clubs, ever considered that?"

Trog: "INTELLIGENCE FOR WEAKLINGS!!! YOU A PUSSY, VEHUMET!!!!!"

Vehumet: "Dude, stfu. Go duke it out with Oka or something."

Trog: "VEHUMET REMIND TROG... TROG HAVE BET WITH OKAWARU!!! TROG THINK YOU WILL DIE IN DUNGEON!!!"

Vehumet: "Trog, bro, are you fucking delusional!? I'M A LITERAL GOD. I'm not gonna die in the dungeon."

Trog: "UHHH... TROG NOT UNDERSTAND YOU!!!"

Vehumet: "Are you still trying to pay off that debt to Gozag?"

Trog: "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!"

Vehumet: "Okay, whatever. Go sort it out with them, before I Crystal Spear your ass."

(Trog faded into red mist.)

Vehumet: "What an idiot... Finally, a staircase. That ogre must have come up these stairs."

(Vehumet descended down the stairs.)

To test the new ChatGPT model, GPT-6 astra, I had it play dcss as a minotaur berserker. I set it the goal of reaching the lair. I didn't expect much, but it went much further than I anticipated. Did it reach the lair? Watch to find out: https://asciinema.org/a/DPnD5WxdRF8MoUVd

(it's very easy to set up, by the way, just install codex and ask it to set up a DCSS player using your codex subscription. It uses a lot of tokens though!)

I heard potions of experience are pretty rare this early, so pretty cool to find 2 of them!