1000 Ways to Die

Hmm... Monster Zoo. I kill 2 monsters, level up! Finally! First time I get the Rift from Necro Capstone!
Lets cast it, the AE cannot be too big... s*!t.
Also, the first time I try most AE thingies like bling and mass destruction bolts, because I dont know how big the AE is.
And the odd Necro 1 HP and deathly Hex cast.

 

Mass Destruction isn't too bad, I've been within the radius of its flamefield pretty much every time I used it, and took almost no damage.

 

That was on floor 2, with me being already quite battered by the Zoo..

 

If you build and equip for it, BoMD bolts do no real damage to you at all. Same for Squid bolts. Spam them like crazy. I sure do.

 

Recently I've been playing Vampire builds. The big problem with vamp builds is the first level or 2, when you have no method of healing at all outside of combat.

I'm playing a Vamp who is trying to use crystal healing as his main heal - which means I need 2 levels before I have any healing potential. First level came quickly and I grab shove - which I figure will keep me safe for the few minutes I need. I'm shoving enemies around, and trying to get the killing blows in melee, for whatever tiny heal I can get out of them.

I close a door behind myself, to safely disarm an acid bolt trap (free XP!) then I move forward and open another door - revealing a group of Zombys. I start backing up - but I end up in a position where I can't afford to spend the 1 turn necessary to re-open the door I just closed. I start dancing a frantic dance, shoving and trying to make my way around the Zomby horde. I get past them, but run out of mana, so I'm trying to stretch things out until I can get enough back to finish them off with a final flame breath. They back me on to a small peninsula with a fountain. I'm getting close to defeating them - but I have only 1 HP left! I make a wrong step, and they block me into a corner. I have enough mana for Flame breath - but I can only hit 1 of the two remaining Zomby! I cast it at one, and the other misses me! I attack the second one - critical! He's dead! I've won! And it's a level up! I grab crystal healing and watch my HP refill from the level-up. I can't believe I've survived! Maybe this build won't be a dismal failure!

Still feeling the thrill of victory, I drink from the fountain. It's acid. I die.

 

Ouch. Talk about evil games.

 

That is still far kinder than Nethack ever was to me in ~10 years playing it. I probably had several thousand characters altogether. Almost all died horribly. The few that did not Ascended and then had to pay Ascension taxes...

 

Could be worse.
You could have triggered him by accident by hitting a diggle with a A.O.E proc attack while right next to him. '

Also, I second this nethack notion of it's obscene difficulty.

 

Greatest hits of my deaths:

1. My first time playing as a Clockwork Knight, I rapidly became a nigh-invincible badass. I accidentally tagged Brax on floor 11 with the Parabolic Mechastomp (a right click accident, if memory serves). Cue a long slog as I try to track down all three Braxes in a floor I've barely started exploring and kill them so the Dreadies will stop spawning. Basically, I rocket jump around the place because the Dread collectors can't hurt me except with that spell mine they drop. So I have to keep on the move, but the dread collector situation isn't problematic. Over time I gradually lose health, it's no big deal, when I get really low I eat an omelette or something. I did not notice that the strong acid trap I triggered was doing WAY more damage than anything on that entire floor could do.

2. Blaze of Glory? Exactly what it says on the tin.
My clockwork knight unleashed the fury and charged into a monster zoo. Good plan so far. I Aim toward the center of the zoo on arrival with a bolt of squid. I get trashed by the bolt and by the jebus-load of magical monsters who RNG into a spellcasting frenzy. I rocket jump to safety, a stray bolt spell finishes me off.

3. Playing a Warlock/Barrier Maiden: I ran into a pack of mana hunters and got manadrained to 0 in about 15 turns of combat, not bad but still annoying, that one ambush room where the leftwall of a corridor deletes into a huge room? I had the tools to escape, but I was so sick of managing Warlockery/Barrier Maiden I just suicided on them. Probably should have held out for a Commando Diggle and an achievement.

4. It turns out playing a melee rogue is only realistically viable with 100 counter or 100 dodge. Signed, Big Red.

5. My most common cause of death: Getting cornered by monster zoos before I've reached build viability.

 

So I was on level 4, crushing, piercing, and putrefying my way through a monster zoo, warping away to safety whenever I was injured, due to some conveniently placed Displacement Glyphs, I was doing farely well for myself (considering I have never gotten past Level 4) and out of the blue, my werediggle power ran out, leaving my in my woefully weak human self, so, after having to slay some cocky thrusty who had decided to claim MY displacement glyph, I stepped upon it, warping into my "safety room" ... where a steam golem had taken a liking too. In a panic I ran away from the horrific, sauna dwelling beast, in my weakened state, I did not see the Mysterious Portal on the floor, which rapidly transported my to level 14...where I was ripped limb from limb by a Doppelganger.

 

I found a monster zoo, retreated to a hallway, and proceeded to clock-work bolt the monsters one by one. When I ran out of clock-work bolts, I tried to press the hot-key for my cruelly barbed steel bolts(I had 'em on 5), instead clicking the hot-key for my Bolts of Mass Destruction(6). You can guess how the rest of this went.

 

So here I am on Level 3, with a Rouge duel-wielding daggers. I'm just minding my own business, happily looting every room I enter and slaughter every monster I come across... And then I pull a lever and open the door in front of it, AND THEN BAM. Clones, clones everywhere. Each time I killed one, two more would take its place. I have no idea how this happened, My guess is that there was a tunnel leading to the monster zoo that I found, and all the monsters were getting out that way.

 

Drank Zaratustra's Hotfoot Potion and stood still.
While having Sugar Coat up (-6).
Stacked twice...
At level 2...
Yeah.

 

After having been lulled into complacency by a very easy early game, my steam communist smith tried his hand at the wizardlands. The first one was easy. The second one was a mistake. Forced into diggle hell, with nowhere to run, he somehow managed to clear his first few rooms, until COUNT DIGULA appeared. He made his escape, deeper and deeper into diggle hell, trying to find a way out... unfortunately, there was none to be had. He died to his own jump after one last valiant attempt at escaping.

 

Found a boss version of The Baron. Walked up to him and attacked.

He countered. He attacked. I died.

 

A fairly lucky run with a melee rogue build had me at almost or directly at 100 counter. I was just walking around without a care in the world, laughing as I pretty much murdered everything. Then, in a moment of overconfidence I charged at the Dungeon Floor 8's Monster Zoo. Suddenly I was Dazed and my hand turned to fist, making my counter chance miniscule. Big Red, Bling Golem and a Geologist Diggle surrounding me, dead in 1 turn.

In case you were wondering, the stone Diggles have access to some Geology skills. Lession learned: Don't be overconfident and always have an escape plan.

 

I take great joy in your meeting of the Diggle Geologists

 

The first time i saw them, I was like... oh ok. I see what you did there. I then proceeded to surround him with mines while he was standing still. If diggles have feelings, he must have had an "and i must scream" moment, because he was very dead the moment he came out of that.
Admitedly, I got slaughtered by the monster zoo just next to that one room, so I guess that, looking at me from diggle hell, he must have gone like 'ha, who's smart now biatch?'

 

But I hope that somewhere, someone has nuked an entire zoo. Then a Diggle Geologist comes out of his rocky lair saying "i hate you" and stuns him so that a monster can come from behind and beat him.

 

Speaking of, do we have any wizardlands-related deaths yet? So I'm either going to be preemptive- or -posemptive puting these up:

1. Pull a lever in the wizard-lands: get killed and replaced by your evil clones.
2. ENTER DIGGLE HELL! take up permanent residence after a demon diggle finds you.
3. Be within 10 squares of the bomb after it goes off.
4. Standing UNDER the meteor you get from paranormal investigator
5. casting a sandstorm... on yourself.
6. SIGGGGMUUUUUND!