In the early game I swear its random bad luck. If I get past to the arena I'm normally good for a while. What normally kills me is the build up of bad things. I start dropping stats to monsters that are really good at doing those things, or I hit something karmic in the dark. Lack of options kills too. I don't have a way to handle this jelly so I have to swing at it and before long there are 90 of them and I have a broken weapon, or weapons. Most of these are very newbish deaths because I'm still a very newbish player in my own mind.
I have been killed by the cat king once. The only time I ever got to him, and to be honest he is the only thing in the game I just can't stand. Having to the through the game without killing cats so I can get around him makes me insane. Just trying to learn to get around all the cats in the game (and there are lot of them in most games I play, and cats I have no real option but to kill) and knowing that means I'm going to more than likely die when I get to the king kind of ruins the game for me some times. Luckily I don't get to him often so I don't have to deal with it much, but I know that if I keep playing I will see him more and have to deal with that more and I'm not looking forward to it.
Why can't we just feed cats our food and get them to leave us be? I would gladly sacrifice the food I'm carrying to get cats off me. Hell, now that I think about it, I've never tried it so it might just be another thing I haven't learned yet.
The big majority of my game winners did kill a couple of cats on their way. Read the spoiler for some hints how I usually do it.
His level has got a special message, so you know when you have reached it. If you don't already wear it, you should first go back to the level above and equip the ancient mummy wrapping, so you can see invisible. Then you go back to his level and cast monster detection (by scroll or wand) to find out where exactly he is. If he is right next to you or extremely close, lure him a level up, teleport away, wait for him to engage you, teleport back to the stairs and descend without him. If he is rather far away, read a blessed scroll of magic mapping in order to find the downstairs. Then lock all doors between yourself and him and dig/sneak around him untill you reach the downstairs. From my personal experience, when I don't want to fight the cat lord, most of the time I succeed in avoiding him.
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Got plant killing weapon with pre-crowning. Sailed through animated forest twice safely killing everything up to the stair case. On third time some tree critical hits me to death.
Killed by Waldenbrook after accidentally stabbing a dwarven child. Game did not ask me for confirmation of attack, and nobody except the shopkeeper became hostile but that was enough.
Starved to death on quickling tree. Most spoiler sources tell you about two corruptions necessary to enter the tree. Unfortunately they forget to mention that those corruptions are also necessary to leave the tree...
Killed by Waldenbrook after accidentally stabbing a dwarven child. Game did not ask me for confirmation of attack, and nobody except the shopkeeper became hostile but that was enough.
i dont think this is a bug..this happened to me 2-3 days ago. i was swapping places with neutrals when the dwarven child didnt like being pushed around and got hostile...i was playing too fast since it was dwarftown and didnt realise this and the next turn tried to swap with him again and stabbed him instead. walderbrook 1 shot me from 250+ hp. gues i fed him a little too many sis.
also, in response to the thread question...my last 3 death have been in the skeleton king lair!!!!!!!!!!!!!! after never dying to him in the previous...ummm...40? attempts!! now i have to avenge the deaths of my characters..1 died weilding a vanquisher but had low Wi and got confused and i wasnt used to dying to him so i forgot to take care and he was eaten by piranhas, 2 died to piranhas again zzzz. 3rd which i the character i just finished playing died to skeleton king in melle...he was a L crowned high elven beastfighter who has 22 To and 20 St ..he decided to fight to the death in a blind rage and i didnt heal at low hp (actually medium hp) cause i thought i could take another round of beating (famous last thoughts)