I have played roguelikes for years, but always with the 'dying is fun' idea. So with Dungeons of Dredmor, I have always gone 'Random going Rogue with Permadeath'. Recently I started playing with builds and trying to go further than level 4. Now I am on level 5, and I am wondering if I just don't have the equipment or my build is bad? I have almost died 2-3 times, two of the monster zoos I only survived because of using coral wants and potions of replenishment. Note that in both I ended up stuck surrounded by monsters, so maybe it is my fault. I have also used up 2 squid bolts and 1 mass destruction bolt (but I have killed, but not gotten credit for, the level 5 monster zoo). Build: Arch 2 (to get the museum) Astro 3 (I had intended to get 4/5 but then stopped) Necro 4 (what I have been doing first) Arms 1 (for block/absorb later) Bsrk 5 (for body paint and killing blow, was awesome early) shield 2 (for duck and cover, not really that good, for block/absorb later) unarmed 2 (for damage and throw) I am really hurting right now, almost died for the 3rd or 4th time to an evil chest monster (level 5). I was down to 6 health, if I had missed... I still have 7 wands (used up a lot of coral), I have lots of arrows still (but less), but don't have so many potions now. Also I have been eating some of my dire sandwiches (to survive the monster zoos). gloves: pyromancers gauntlets (or battle mittens or artifact (2 fire resist, 1 melee power, 1 burly, 5 block, -2 enemy dodge ) ) neck: cybertonic amulet (or ankt amulet) crossbow: artificat (6 peircing, 1 putre, -1 toxic reist, -1 sag, -1 mana, -1 dodge, 1 savvy, -1 health regen) feet: sabatons (really good early find) legs: kilt belt: belt of iron plates (or artifact (2 peircing damage, 1 block, 1 absorbtion) ring: artificat (1 exist dam, 1 volt dam, 1 burly, 3 dodge, 1 counter, 1 absorb) ring: artifiact (1 crush dam, 1 frost dam, 2 peircing resist) (I also have resist rings and silver rings) shield: artifact (1 peirc resist, 1 trans resist, -1 nimble, -1 magic, 3 block, 1 absorb, 1 savvy, 1 magic resist) sheild enjeweled wooden shield (or mossy shield) chest: fancy leather haubrak (or magicians robe, or coat of tweed, or artifact studded leather coat (+1 peircing resist) hat: vampire hunter's hat (or witches hat or fedora or astrology hat) I also have a dark orb and an artificat dark orb (+ 1 absorb). I could easily have 10 necro resist. Any idea why things are difficult? I am intending to finish up both the mage branches next, but I think that I need to get more bolts of squid or something if I am to fight antoher zoo (and I would be worried even then). I might post a screen shot (with belt switched). JM
It might be your equipment. It makes a big difference if you can learn the order of the floors and start collecting equipment that will give you resists for that floor in advance. As far as I can remember, level 5 is the floor with a lot of toxic damage, and your crossbow currently has a negative toxic resist on it, which means any toxic damage done to you gets increased.
Post a screenshot of your character stats. General tips: Melee characters should try to become invulnerable to at least 1 monster type per floor. E.g. on Floor 5 try to have enough armour/resist to ignore Swarmy and Young Carrot monsters. This will give you breathing room during Zoos and (in your case) recover health using Necro. The trick with melee Necro is finding the balance between and to maximize Pact of Fleeting Life. You recover 0.65 * health per hit with Pact which means trading for at a 1:1 ratio is not advisable unless you have enough armour to mitigate all mundane damage (for Floor 5 this is 10). Your corrupted Crossbow gives you -1. This is another 1 you'll be losing per hit against a bunch of monsters and pretty much all of Floor 6. Replace it. If you feel like min-maxing I've got a pretty comprehensive interactive reference guide here: http://j-factor.com/dredmorpedia/
Hmm, I think I might have had more absorb than I needed. I definitely can have more absorb than I need. With the armor shown: 10 absorb 44 block 21 dodge 10 magic 38 magic resist resists: 5 athereal 2 transute 4 necro -1 toxic 1 volt 1 frost 3 fire 5 peirce edit: I could replace either shields with a dark orb (if I replace the artifact one, I increase magic a lot). I could increase the absorbe from my armor (and decrease it somewhere else). I could increase absorb with a belt (decrease magic). Jon
If you finish up Necro, you'll find that Tenebrous Rift is a zoo-killer of incomparable potency even at low power (though you may wish to take off your - armour first just in case). In general build terms (which admittedly won't help this particular character), you really want to make sure you always have a healing option and an escape option. Your current build only has the Pact for healing (which requires putting yourself in danger) and has no escape options whatsoever. If you want to stick close to what you've currently got, consider swapping out Astrology (an underpowered tree overall) for Psionics (healing, at-will knockback), Emomancy (healing, teleporting monsters away) or Alchemy (potions of healing, spatial displacement, and other cool things). As a general principle, one does not melee named monsters (like the Chest of Evil ones) on Going Rogue. It's just a bad idea. They hit way too hard for the level on which you encounter them, and have weird and wonderful damage types you can't resist. Since your current character has no escape options, I suggest throwing them or using Nightmare Curse to send them to sleep while you retreat (though it might get resisted), and then fighting from range with bolts etc. Eldritch Inhabitation, once you get it, is also highly effective against individual monsters (especially since you can cast it and then retreat while the DoTs take effect), though I don't know if your character will have the to pull it off. As you've mentioned, being surrounded by monsters is bad. While you traverse the dungeon, keep an eye out for choke points where only one enemy can come at you at a time. Then, when faced with too many enemies, retreat to them and fight safely. This is especially vital for melee characters facing monster zoos (though you do have Tenebrous Rift). You can get the level 4 Astrology buff, Syzygy, by drinking a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster (available from all good drinks vending machines). Given this, you can put off putting points into Astrology for a while. (also, see above under "Astrology is underpowered")
BTW, before now I didn't realize my crossbow was corrupted, obviously it will be removed unless I am actively shooting bolts. Yeah, I don't know what all the drinks do. I definitely should have started up the necro tree 3 levels earlier (skipped duck+cover, skipped 2/3 astro). I can get up to 19 magic power while dropping to 8 absorb. The awesome boots I have are not so good for magic power. My rings don't really absorb nor boost magic power, finding replacements which do both could be a focus? Jon
right now there are two ways to avoid corruption "This translation is all wrong" from archaeology can reroll your items bonuses, this only works if your item has a net of positive enchantments. "Flames of the heckforge" from demonology can remove corruption Any effect that grants you spell resistance can help you avoid corruption attacks.
Three ways, actually. The last way is to have at least one escape option that you can use at will, and use it with ranged attacks to avoid being in the proximity of corrupting monsters.
Probably the biggest thing is training yourself to accept the fact that there are certain monsters you should never melee under any circumstances, ever - and then plan around that. Make sure you have the highest damage crossbow you can get (don't just treat it as a stat stick) and have a few stacks of high-damage bolts, and when you encounter *monster with corrupting attack*, always shoot them down from ranged. Always. Same with any Named Monster that isn't a pure spellcaster - stay the hell away, because they do so much damage of a single damage type that you can never resist or absorb more than a fraction of the damage they deal. Again, back off and plink them to death. And of course, all this ties in every build needing an Escape Skill to be successful. If you can't use Knightly Leap or some sort of Teleport (Move in a Mysterious Way, the one from Mathemagic, etc.), chances are you're going to get boxed in or stuck in a corner and killed because you can't escape. Saving a stack of Spacial Instability potions for emergencies is also a good idea. Really, the two keys to a successful build (at least in my experience) are 1) Have an Escape Skill and 2) have a skill or spell or crafting profession that can heal you. Relying on basic movement and dropped food to survive rarely works.
So reroll? Losing is fun, but not sure if I should continue until I lose since it does seem to be a strong character (if I can find another potion and get to the final level of necro/get another bolt of squid before I get to the next monster zoo). JM
I couldn't agree with it any more than I already am. This is what every new players should learn to do, because it really is the way to increase one's chances of surviving. I agree that the first one is vital. If you have no way to move faster than monsters, then you aren't really controlling the flow of combat, and when there are other monsters, it can be fatal. With the second one, though, I'll say that it depends on the character. None of my "victorious" characters had any healing skills, and the closest thing to a healing one was Big Game Hunter. But then again, if you played a ranged character, then you could simply kill animals for meat, but for characters centred on melee it's not as viable. If you think you won't be able to do anything, then yes. But in most cases it's possible to get through it - you can just use Necronomiconomics to get rid of the corrupting monsters and slowly chew through the rest. Then again, it depends on how fun do you think it will be to try to get through this level.
I've lost many characters due to thinking, "I'm a heavily armored melee guy/gal, I'll just whack this Named Snow Baal a few times and kill it for some big XP." RIP Heavily Armored Melee Guy/Gal "They crushed like an eggplant" By Ohpeemeleemob the beater of overconfident heroes I dunno, every time I try to play a character that can't craft consumables (read: Alchemy) and has no access to a Healing Spell, they typically don't survive very long. I cannot recommend a character that's relying on the Random Number God for enough food and potions/mushrooms (or even + Health Regen gear) to offset the damage you're always taking.
Well, I never really had this problem, because I started as someone who heavily favours ranged combat, and actually had to get the "okay, I can melee this one to save some throwables/bolts/mana" attitude towards many weaker monsters. That is because it takes some serious experience with ranged (emphasis on ranged, it's much more difficult for melee characters to do that) characters to be able to do that, and some thinking on how to best utilize turns not to get attacked. I'm not a master of that yet, but I still managed to get to the point where I was only eating during the zoo sieges (and usually I only started doing that after half of the zoo was already dead, since that was when the "second" wave reached me after the corridor of traps stopped working), since in many cases I couldn't just retreat endlessly and had to hold one point for a moment. And with Big Game Hunter, I usually ended with enough ground meat (without even using the grills) that I could heal an entire legion when I was on floor 4~5 (I guess it would've been wiser to get Psionics, now that I think about it, but I am a weird game).
Fun fact: When I was playing with Ahnold, the build I created to prove that throwing was better than archery as a ranged attack skill, I found that, built properly, a thrown weapon user is actually a very terrifying combatant both at range and in melee (see this for details). He needed little healing at all because most of what got into melee with him was already below 25% health. Admittedly I never got below DL8 due to various RCs eating my saves, but Ahnold was a beast and no mistake. After that, I've made it a point to prioritize thrown weapons like nobody's business when playing a melee fighter. They're really a lot more dangerous than you'd think. And they play nice with the Diggle God of War. In short, it's very possible to be a Warrior who excels at all ranges. Doing so is an important part of the late game.
