Just Won Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup!

Since this is where I first heard about the game from Skavenhorde (thanks man - what happened to him?!?) a few years ago, I thought I would share my achievement with a group of folks who are most likely to appreciate it. I once read someone post on a message board somewhere that it is impossible to beat DCSS without reading spoilers. I guess you have no way to know if I'm telling the truth on this, but I played the entire game spoiler free. Judging by my high score list, it looks like I put in about 240 hours before beating it, with my winning run only taking 24 hours. I beat it on my 8th truly successful run - I had lots of failed runs that didn't go very far. Anyway, if you have never gotten into roguelikes, take it from me as I try and pay it forward from Skavenhorde - they are a ton of fun. I wouldn't be able to play them without tile graphics like DCSS has, but you won't miss the absence of a story. Assuming you like tactical combat in RPGs, you will love this game.

I can share more details if folks want to hear them, but for now, here is my attempt to paste in my high score list:

Well done!

I love DCSS. Amazing game.

Did you find any cool loot? How were your Skills looking at the end?

SirJames said:

Well done!

I love DCSS. Amazing game.

Did you find any cool loot? How were your Skills looking at the end?

Click to expand...

[SPOILER ALERT FOR READERS WHO DON'T WANT TO LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT THE STRATEGY I USED]



For the spellcasting character I used, really only the spell books and manuals matter a lot. In version 10, I used to highly value an object that could summon air elementals, because I used lightning spells a lot. They could shoot through my friends and hit the enemies, so they were perfect. Towards the end I would have four air elementals with me at all times.

Then I learned a month or so ago that I was playing a version about three years out of date. The game had undergone huge change, including greatly weakening summoning strategies like mine. I changed to full on spell attacks without summoning. I also learned over time that there is a huge benefit to attack spells that are only "a bit loud," like Bolt of Fire, as compared to the "extremely loud" lightning bolt.

I used the Spriggan Conjurer. They can't eat meat of any kind, but they consume very little food and most importantly are very fast at moving. This allows you to flee from almost any overly dangerous situation. As the game progressed, I learned fire spells, and I found a number of items to enhance my fire abilities, including two Rings of Fire and a Staff of Fire. The problem is that the Spriggan is poor at both Conjuration and Fire (-3 and -2 to aptitude), so it takes a long time to improve. By the end, I had maxed out Spellcasting, had 23 or so in Dodge, and had low 20s in both Conjuration and Fire.

There were two other spells that were also crucial. Orb of Destruction is a 7th level conjuration spell that is great at doing damage to creatures that have elemental resistance (like to fire). Controlled Blink is a very tough to find spell (only in one book in the game), but it lets you teleport out of danger. I worshipped Sif Muna, and if you stick with him long enough, you eventually get every spell you need. His ability to replenish mana in exchange for hunger became crucial at the end game.

I never did find any manuals to improve the skills i was actually using. I did have a ring and an amulet towards the end that increased Intelligence and Fire, so that was helpful.

I'm proud of the accomplishment, especially spoiler free, but I feel kind of drained and bummed now. Have you played DCSS much? Have you won? I'm thinking of trying the Dungeon Sprint or Orb Defense gamemodes.

3 years out of date! Huge changes, indeed.

If you haven't already, here's the newest version https://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/crawl-0-16-1-bugfix-release

One of my favourite changes in 16 is carry weight has been removed so everyone is limited to the usual 52 inventory slots but doesn't need to throw points into STR to actually be able to make use of them all. Would be a great change for a spriggan caster since they'd only start with 3 or 4 str.

But, yeah, I've played heaps. I'm not up there with the best, though.

This is my "best" win at the moment, on current version. Its only 9million points which isn't much compared to tournament players, but if you look at my monster kills list its got some good ones in there because I killed everything https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/jimeh/morgue-jimeh-20141209-091100.txt

I only recently started playing on webtiles after the aussie server was added and haven't been playing much. The offline version is better but I do like running into the ghosts of other players.

I'd say the next thing to do is a 15 rune win! That one linked above was gargoyle monk, but fighter is probably a better option. I hadn't decided if I wanted to go with weapons or spells when I started. Gargoyle is a great race for it. Low hitpoints but awesome racial mutations!

I did actually beat the game with its most recent version. It was nice that strength became something I did not need to worry about with my spriggan, but the greatly reduced utility of summoned creatures required a complete strategy revamp.

I of course now feel somewhat sheepish as to my own accomplishment after seeing yours. Very well done, sir. So did you achieve that spoiler free, or did you read about the game some? Very impressive that you got all the Hell runes, for example... I tried one level of the Ice hell and was constantly being smited by the dark powers of the place.

I have about 1,200 games in my backlog, including many unplayed roguelikes, so I will probably leave DCSS behind now that I've beaten it. Still, it was incredibly fun, and I would recommend it to anyone.

By the way, are there any cool secrets or easter eggs that I missed? How do you get through the tomb when every mummy kill has such a negative impact? Do you just run past all the enemies? I couldn't figure out a way to be immune to the mummy curse, but perhaps there is one?