The RNG giveth the RNG taketh away

[alchymist]

Just had a game with the best luck ever - and some of the worst creature spawns (partly my fault)

+ Candle born barbarian starts with (-1, +6) studded leather.
+ I meet up with Kranach immediately.
- Puppy Cave contains a tension room of cats and I have to fight my way out.
+ I do pick up a crystal tower shield though.
+++ Get to the bottom floor of VD - tension room of orcs so I practice pickpocket and steal Preserver.
+ I can now tank Hotzenplotz as I'm fast enough to heal up as necessary.

+ Through Unremarkable Dungeon. Two tension rooms of Karmic lizards and I have picked up some arrows of hunting.
- First room was in the dark though so I was doomed before I started.
+ Kill the Oracle then eat lots of lizards.

++ Head to CoC. Do the quests. When I go to clear out ogre Cave a surge of power gives me Boots of the Divine Messenger.

0 Pyramid, Griffyard; Meh.

+(ish) Clear out Darkforge - poisonous longsword of penetration but nothing else of interest.
+ My learning is 35 with all learning gear now
0 Poolsipping gives me a lot of resistances but nothing else

- I head over to Tomb of the High Kings to try to get a RoDS and ToEE equipment. Go from level 15 to 20 with no wand of ice, no ring of ice, no fireproof blanket.
- Spending most of the time strained as no belt of carrying either
+ There is an altar though so I give up on ultimate and get crowned lawful.
++ Vanquisher!
-- Go back down and get ambushed by hostile blink dogs. Fallen champion time (yes - in retrospect I should have sat there with amulet of law on)
- spectres summoned by angry god. Very few hit but I still lose about two points of strength & toughness

+ have now got climbing & stealth to 100 so think about Library but check equipment first. Last couple of battles give me AoLS, RoI and fireproof blanket (still no wand of ice though). Give up on RoHK and decide to bypass champion instead

0 start trying ToEE but still being hit hard so decide to go for CoC first

+ Save Khele, go through CoC graveyard one-shotting pretty much everything

+ Tank SfB easily

+ Lots of ogre & giant corpses on Banshee level. +4 strength with judicious starvation (still playing prerelease 5)

-- Mixed tension room on next level. Doppelganger King. Crit/crit. Ended on -179 HP.

[Superteeth]

That's why whenever I see myself coming at me, I look at myself to see if I am a doppleganger king, in which case I either use spells, wands, or just run. I rarely melee those things.

[Setremedes]

That's why whenever I see myself coming at me, I look at myself to see if I am a doppleganger king, in which case I either use spells, wands, or just run. I rarely melee those things.

I'm not sure I've ever killed a doppel king in melee. I hoard combat wands all game long, and those bastards are why. Not worth taking chances.

If they got the PC's intrinsics too, especially energy resistance/immunity, they'd probably scare me more than andy does.

[Superteeth]

Sometimes I do it by accident when I am running through the dungeon, but it is generally not a good idea unless you can drop them in two (or three, if you are lucky) attacks. It almost seems like they do "gravity" damage (if anyone here is a fan of the Final Fantasy series), meaning that they always do a certain percentage of your health (but a certain percentage of your maximum health, so that you can die of it). I don't see any other way they can do such massive melee damage, even to heavily armored (80+ PV) characters, without punching through armor.

[anon123]

I'm not sure I've ever killed a doppel king in melee.

That's pretty easy to do if you have darkness, or at least it used to be.

Their damage on non-critical hits is always 20% of the PC's max HP, according the wiki and "small things but undocumented" thread here.

[Superteeth]

I knew that the way they did their damage looked odd. So it is "gravity" damage. So they can kill you in at most 5 turns if you don't heal up.

[Setremedes]

That's pretty easy to do if you have darkness, or at least it used to be.

Their damage on non-critical hits is always 20% of the PC's max HP, according the wiki and "small things but undocumented" thread here.

I'm gonna just go on taking your word for that instead of trying it myself.

[alchymist]

That's pretty easy to do if you have darkness, or at least it used to be.

Their damage on non-critical hits is always 20% of the PC's max HP, according the wiki and "small things but undocumented" thread here.

You live (or not) and learn. First time I've got that far with a melee fighter and I was getting cocky. I didn't check what it was and piled in. I would still have beaten it without the critical hits though.