Brogue

Hey everyone, welcome to this weekend's contest! This is our seventh Brogue contest. Sorry for the late start.

The seed for this contest is 592633.

How to compete:

1. The contest begins right now, on Friday, April 13, 2012 at 23:00:00 UTC (7:00 PM EDT.) You can start your game any time after this. The contest is open to anyone.

2. Start a game by control-clicking "New Game" in Brogue v1.6.2 and entering the seed.

3. Play through the game. You only get one chance. We are all on the honor system here.

4. Once you are finished, record your score and post the details of your game in this thread. Minimum requirements for consideration include your score, cause of death and lowest level reached. However, by request, I'm opening up the thread to all spoilers, so feel free to add screenshots, game recordings, character dumps, strategy tips, etc. You do not need to wait for the end of the contest.

5. The contest will run for three days (72 hours) and end on Monday, April 16, 2012 at 23:00:00 UTC (7:00PM EDT.) You must finish your game and post your results by this time to be considered in the contest.

6. As a result of point 4,

PLEASE DO NOT READ THE REST OF THE POSTS IN THIS THREAD UNTIL YOUR RUN IS FINISHED.
Again, honor system. I'll leave some white space below.

7. Good luck! Have fun etc.

Reserved.

Update: The winner is Nillo, with 30,514 points! Even though Nillo was killed by a centaur on level 19, with the amulet and six lumenstones, somehow nobody else managed to ascend. This despite what seemed to be an eminently winnable seed.

But three of us died to the same paralysis trap on 13, and two others wandered a little too close to shore on 8. This reinforces something I've suspected for a while: the absence of widowmaker situations is just as critical to a good seed as the presence of good equipment and allies.

Congrats to Nillo!

Uhhh, my 592633 screenshot does not look like the one posted. There's a big lake.

Is it version 1.6.1?

Yeah, it begins with a very big lake on level 1.

And I died with a score of 0 on level 3, killed by an explosion.

Killed by a cloud of caustic gas on level 23. 23115 gold.

Should have been a winner. I predict lumenstones will be required to win this.

After I had accidentally, fatally poisoned my tentacle horror on level 23 his second last act was to near-single handedly take down the last dragon on the level (I had build up a big stock pile of telepathy potions) with the aid of my (10/10) staff of poisoning and (7/7) staff of conjuration. I was forced to use the staff of conjuration because both of my staves of obstruction had been exhausted on the other dragon. The tentacle horrors last act was to set off a poison gas trap while I was on low health and on the wrong side of hte gas cloud from the exit. Trying to flee for my life brought me down to <10% health and decided that running wouldn't save me. Given the otpion between a potion of health and the (2/2) staff of blinking, I tried to blink away, and aimed the staff right at a spectral blade that was two steps away from me and right inside the gas cloud.

Equipment of note that I made use of (so most of the wands aren't mentioned):
+3 war axe
+4 banded mail of retribution (1 scroll of enchantment, no acid protection)
+3 ring of clairvoyance
+4 ring of regeneration (2 scrolls of enchantment)
+2? ring of transference
+2? ring of wisdom
(10/10) staff of poison) (7 scrolls of enchantment)
(7/7) staff of conjuration (4? scrolls of enchantment)
(3/3) staff of obstruction
(2/2) staff of obstruction
(2/2) staff of blinking
2 wands of invisibility

? denotes an uncertain enchantment level or number of scrolls of enchantment depending on location. I alternated between the 4 different rings. Clairvoyance was used the most. Regeneration was the second most used and I had only just started putting enchantment scrolls into it. I was surprised that the ring of wisdom was the one that was used the least.

Yup, I'm running 1.6.2 and I can confirm that the seed starts with a giant lake

Ended up dying on level 8 to a 3x eel/goblin combo while trying to retrieve the wand... Found myself at a pretty significant disadvantage once the acid mounds got to me and decayed both of my (uncursed) leather armours to a -2. I was focusing all of my scrolls on the war hammer found on level 3(?) but found that I was lacking the power to dispatch enemies before I got a chance to equip it.

Final score
3399
4/14/2012
Killed by an eel on level 8

While testing potions on depth 3 I drank a hallucination potion but I decided to risk it. I unwittingly ran into 2 vampire bats. The first one I defeated with no problems but the second was too much even with a monkey ally and a healing potion to help me.

0 Gold. Killed by a vampire bat at depth 3.

Died on level 13 to a troll while paralyzed by a gas trap. Didn't even bother to get the score, and it didn't make my top 30.

Pretty generous run, with a staff of poison and staff of obstruction in one of the first vaults. I held off for a bit before deciding to follow a poison + obstruction based build, but was forced into it when I found myself in a bad position next to the dar blademaster on level 6. I obstructed us, enchanted the staff, and poisoned him through the obstruction.

My next enchant scrolls went into the early plate mail, which was +0, and I still wasn't quite sure which weapon to invest in. I think I probably threw away the +3 war axe, wherever it was.

This was the first game I've played where I've found a unicorn. An invisible unicorn was a huge asset, until it set off the paralysis trap in the prisoner room on level 13, letting a guarding troll one-shot me.

I died the exact same room exact same way than Cybermg.

Followed a different build though, haven't played with poison and enchanted plate instead, was at death time close to enchant war hammer aswell to go for intensive melee.
Edit : forgot to invis the unicorn, god i am so stupid. I am playing this way too straight forward

Got killed by the bog monsters on level 7 haha. 1457 points.

24460 - Killed by a cloud of caustic gas on level 27.
Fell trough a hole on lvl 26... and i used up all my healing pots, poison gas pots, and left my slowing wand, so i had no change against a dragon+tentacle horror combo on lvl 27.

Edit
pic just before death:

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/5351/brogue6lumenstonefail2.png
http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/7041/brogue6lumenstonefail.png
http://www.solidfiles.com/d/f9570800ed/

This run deserves a massive facepalm. I died with no less than six lumenstones in my possession - six - to something as ordinary as a centaur on depth 19. In reality, the unfortunate series of events that led to my death was a bit more complicated:

1. I walked through a cloud of scalding steam together with my allied tentacle horror (who was extremely experienced at that point)
2. The tentacle horror, going crazy in its attempt to get out of the steam, batters me and nearly kills me in one hit.
3. I panic, and use my staff of blinking to get out of the cloud of steam.
4. A nearby flame turret shoots me and sets me on fire. Since there is no nearby water, I have no chance of surviving now.
5. The nearby centaur wakes up and shoots me, giving me the killing blow.
My score: 30514 - Killed by a centaur on level 19, amulet in hand.

The most humorous part was finding both a staff of poison and a staff of obstruction in one of the earliest treasure vaults. It's like the game wanted me to use exactly the same strategy as I used in the last contest. It was such a golden opportunity that I would've been a fool to pass it up.

Score 728, killed by a Pink Jelly on level 5.

I ended up getting cornered by vampire bats on a couple of occasions and burned through all my healing potions. I tried poisoning them, but that was not an effective tactic, even with 3 enchants dumped into it.

10303 - Killed by dar priestress on level 16,

though in reality my two lightning casting allies helped this to happen...(I think)
So a note, if allies really cast at enemies through you (I pretty sure they do), that should stop, it is very very bad.

Depth 9, died to Centaurs' arrows. 3399.

There was something about this eel-infested dungeon. It was fun, nice goodies, should have been quite easy. Just a mediocre mix of weapons/armour made it seem quite difficult.

I would say that this one seemed very easy, lots of good items. I simply died in quite stupid way... As someone said to win this contest one would probably will need to get some lumestones.

morphles wrote:I would say that this one seemed very easy, lots of good items. I simply died in quite stupid way... As someone said to win this contest one would probably need to get some lumestones and reach the surface with them.

Fixed that for you.

Even though I found six lumenstones, my death means that I would have less points than anyone who manages to ascend.

Killed by an Underworm on level 15.
5755 gold

Pretty fun seed! I started enchanting both my plate armor and mace as soon as I found them early on, and used that throughout the game. The mace hits so hard that the two turns it took to use it never seemed to be a problem.

I had a pet salamander that was doing good until it walked into a swamp and blew itself up. Poor guy. I then found a dar blademaster that I turned invisible and he was really kicking some ass.

I died when I encountered an Ogre Shaman that wouldn't let me kill it, all the while it kept summoning Ogre after Ogre. I decided to run away, only to encounter a Wraith in a hallway beside a statue that blew up to reveal and Underworm. I ran as far as I could until I stepped on a paralysis trap and the worm had it's way with me. Good times.

Killed by a naga on depth 11 with 3773 gold.

:-/

Depth: 10
Level: 9
Score: 3752

All my enchantments went into the war hammer, it was +5 when I died, so one short given Str 14. The blademaster on D:6 provided a serious challenge for me -- I had nothing enchanted by then, holding out for Detect Magic. (Ignore the soft cursings about hauling in the background.) Used Identify to realise that the last unknown potion was DM and obstruction to get there without the blademaster on my heels. Pumped the war hammer afterwards. By the way, what was in the other vault room on D:3? I had four good items but I never had anything flammable to get in there
Died to a salamander on D:10... I am still clueless about who to fight and who to avoid.

2 scrolls of remove curse, a scroll of identify, and a scroll of protect weapon. A very useful room in the absence of a potion of detect magic.

Er... 471, killed by a Vampire Bat on level 3

In my defence, I'm new to Brogue (& roguelikes in general) and I don't have a good way of dealing with the bats yet. Although I usually do a bit better than level 3...

Cybermg wrote:Died on level 13 to a troll while paralyzed by a gas trap. Didn't even bother to get the score, and it didn't make my top 30.

Pretty generous run, with a staff of poison and staff of obstruction in one of the first vaults. I held off for a bit before deciding to follow a poison + obstruction based build, but was forced into it when I found myself in a bad position next to the dar blademaster on level 6. I obstructed us, enchanted the staff, and poisoned him through the obstruction.

My next enchant scrolls went into the early plate mail, which was +0, and I still wasn't quite sure which weapon to invest in. I think I probably threw away the +3 war axe, wherever it was.

This was the first game I've played where I've found a unicorn. An invisible unicorn was a huge asset, until it set off the paralysis trap in the prisoner room on level 13, letting a guarding troll one-shot me.

This is literally exactly how I died too – on the same level, in the same room, with an invisible Unicorn setting off the trap. I pressed 's' three times before entering the room even. 8(

Killed by a spark of lightning from an allied Dar Priestess at Depth 23 with 19246 points.

It was a silly and educational death. I had to watch the replay to figure out exactly what happened.

I had 4 allies when I died:
2 Trolls, 1 Tentacle Horror, and 1 Dar Priestess
The Dar Priestess and Tentacle Horror were invisible.
One of my trolls could cast discord.

The Troll cast discord toward a fury, but apparently didn't know that my invisible dar priestess was in the way, and hit her instead. I didn't even know this was possible - I figured that since I could see all my invisible allies, they could see each other, too. Apparently not. I didn't even know this happened - I was out of sight of my priestess at the time. A few turns later, the troll, not having learned his lesson, tries to discord a fury again, and hits my invisible tentacle horror. I try to get in the middle of a fight between my trolls and my Tentacle Horror so that they don't kill each other off before my priestess can heal them, but then I find out that my priestess is also discordant when she starts shooting lightning bolts at us. Between being battered by my Tentacle Horror and shot at by my priestess, I went from 95% life to 5% life in two turns. Out of healing potions, so I tried to run away at that point, but the priestess was having none of that, and shot one final spark of lightning into my back as I ran away to finish me off.

On the plus side, this is the deepest I've been so far - This was a game of many firsts for me.
- Found & slew my first 2 Revenants
- Found & slew my first 2 Liches
- Found my first Unicorn (turned in invisible and kept it around for a while, but it got killed by a flame turret blast that had been aimed at me)
- Found my first Tentacle Horror, but just an ally - I've still never encountered a wild one
- First time I actually got a Troll to learn Fire Immunity, but he got negated by a pixie before it was ever useful.

Notable Equipment:
War Hammer (enchanted to +3)
Plate Armor (enchanted to +5, corroded down to +3)
+3 Ring of clairvoyance
+2 ring of awareness (enchanted to +4)

Also had a +2 ring of regeneration and a +2 ring of transference, but I didn't use them much. I had the +3 war axe, but I'd already dropped some enchants into the war hammer, so I wasn't using it.