First, a little warning. Like all of the DCSS information here, the following isn't official. It's just the ruminations of a guy named Igor.
If you do not know what Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is, read this and get yourself educated.
This a cool game for old school gamers. If you want to be cool, you have to play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. There aren't any exceptions to the rule.
Lately, I have been monitoring the search terms that lead folks to the wonderful world of Glorious Igor. Some people pose actual questions concerning Dungeon Crawl. I'm afraid they did not get their question answered by my blog in some cases. The following FAQ represents an attempt to remedy that deficiency. I may modify this entry in the future if I detect any broad axes, I mean broad areas, that have not been addressed. You can see I've been playing Crawl a lot.
Spoiler Alert! Intimate Details of the Game Revealed Here.
Q. What is the best weapon for the strong?
A. When you pick up a weapon, examine it. Press I for Inventory, then the letter next to the weapon. The description tells you if the weapon is better for the strong or the dexterous (or neither). The short answer is that there is no best weapon class, although we all have our preferences. In the beginning, I preferred weapons that inflicted a high amount of damage. Now, I prefer weapons that are fast and accurate. But that doesn't mean I'm right or that my strategy will work for every race/class combination. You will have to experiment to find out what works best for you.
Q. How do I acquire magic resistance?
A. I'm not really sure how this happens, but I notice that as my characters rise in level their magic resistance improves. You can boost MR by acquiring magical items that confer resistance to magic, such as rings and pieces of "armour" as it is spelled in Crawl.
Q. I'm tired of dying all the time! How do I cheat in Crawl?
A. You bastard! That's called save-scumming! How dare you? Here's how to do it. In case anyone didn't get my humor, I cheat all the time. I'm a cheating advocate. If the programmers ever devise safeguards to prevent cheating, then Igor will employ his advanced hacking methods and bust the game a new one. But for now, it is unnecessary, and Igor keeps his spellbook closed.
Q. There is a monster I encounter (hydra?) that always seems to kill me! What do I do?
A. Duh, avoid that monster, for one, until you can devise an effective strategy for assaulting it. Run away! Or if you're too slow to run away, then pop out that teleport scroll. I like to conserve magical items such as potions and scrolls, employing them only when facing a tough monster. If you are popping a potion of speed to slay a kobold, then you are not conserving at all. Save magical items for when you need them.
Q. Which is better, light armour or heavy armour?
A. Depends on whether your character's race/class combo favors Dodging or Armour. You really should examine the Table of Attributes (press ? followed by %). Until you do, you're shooting in the dark. In general, spellcasters do best with light armour. However, this is not always the case.
Q. Why do you spell "armor" using the Commonwealth spelling?
A. Because that's how it is in the game. I assume that Linley, the original creator, originated from a Commonwealth nation. You may find that I alternate the spelling of armor from one paragraph to the next. Sorry. There's a conflict between the way I spell "armor" and the way the game spells it. Can't we all just get along?
Q. I have too much inventory! What do I do?
A. Beginners tend to drag a bunch of junk around that they don't need. Carry no more than two weapons. One should have an edge so that you can skin dead monsters and eat them. This way, you can avoid running out of food. The best edged weapon for this purpose is a lightweight knife. Specialize in one weapon class. Dump stuff like enchanted staves that you don't intend to use. Be honest with yourself. Are you really going to use that brazier to summon a fire elemental? If so, when? And what if your skill isn't good enough to summon a friendly one?
Q. I keep getting killed on the first level.
A. Not all race/class combinations are created equal. Some are awfully tough to play, a challenge for the advanced player. An easy combo would be Demonspawn Beserker or Minotaur Beserker. Try one of those. In general, warriors are much easier than spellcasters. Many crawlers will disagree with me, but in my opinion, magic is not all it's cracked up to be. The most powerful of my wizards all still pale in comparison to my twenty-sixth level Minotaur Beserker, which could blast through just about anything in the dungeon.
Q. What are the benefits of the three attributes, Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence?
A. Good question. Part of the charm of the game is figuring out all of these details on your own. But you have elected to read a spoiler, haven't you? You are determined to avoid that charm! Bad!
Intelligence is only important for spellcasters. If you don't cast spells, forget about it. But for spellcasters, it is the single most important attribute.
If you are a warrior, the attribute to emphasize depends upon your weapon class and armour configuration. Do your weapons and armour emphasize Dexterity and Dodging? If so, increase your Dexterity whenever possible.
Here's another general rule for Dexterity, which enhances the evasion ability. I think it is a very good thing to maximize your EV score, whatever you may be. That will help you to survive. To maximize your evasion gain from dodging, your Dex should be: 19: batform, spiderform. 18: spriggan. 17: halfling, gnome, kobold. 16: all other races. 14: naga, centaur, troll, ogre[mage], ice form. 8: dragon form.
Strength helps you carry more and do more damage in combat. I have heard criticism that these abilities increase at a low rate per point of Strength. But any increase is, well, an increase. Remember those times when you quaffed a potion of Might? Blasted through the monsters, didn't you? That tells me that Strength does make a difference.
Q. Why does Trog hate spellcasting?
A. A wizard turned his sister into a toad. From that day forward, Trog vowed to be an enemy of all spellcasters and of spell magic in general. One day I hope to post an interview with Trog on my blog.
Q. What race should I choose?
A. Well, don't be a racist. Try them all. The one that suits your game-playing style the best will be the one for you. My preferences are defended here and there.
Q. My game crashed! Or I encountered a bug of some kind. What do I do?
A. Be a good Crawl citizen and report the problem at the web site suggested here, where you can also obtain the latest beta version. Before reporting, search the database to see whether the problem has already been reported. They are well-aware of most problems. If the problem already has been tagged, reply to it with any additional information you may have. You may want to install the newest version to see whether it fixes the problem.
3 comments:
Thanks for advices you post on this blog, some of them are really helpful.
But are you really savescumming? I thought whole point of games like this was to play with constant threat of permadeath and not just run forward without fear of dying, cuz there is always quickload.
The objective of a game is to have fun. I prefer to have control over whether to continue with a character or not, rather than the game deciding for me. More often than not, I abandon weak or uninteresting characters using cleanslate.bat, which was designed for that purpose.
"Savescumming" is a derogatory term.
Igor and I, among many others, simply enjoy playing in a different way than the creators envisioned. It's not a negative thing to play any game in the way that makes it the most fun for the player, as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else.
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