Live Blogs Let's Learn to Crawl: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Usht2011-04-29 11:59:09

Quick note, Crawl 0.8 has been released with lots of bug fixes, a new race, a new god, and several other little tweaks. You won't hear of me playing it until Update 11, but until then, have some fun with exploring 0.8.

Welcome back.◊ This time we'll be delving into magic as my favorite squishy wizard ever, Amane (Ever heard of Devil Survivor? They got a remake coming out soon on the 3DS, so go get it!). We'll also be getting an in depth look at Crawl's skill system. So, time to play one of my more favorite combos in this game, Amane shall be deep elf.◊ Deep elves have crap HP, crap strength, and moderately decent dexterity, and the inability to effectively use any heavy armor or heavy weaponry. Long story short, if you're playing a deep elf fighter, you're either doing it wrong or you're actually good at this game. However, deep elves do have an insane intelligence stat, a vast pool of MP, and very good casting aptitudes across the board.

Okay, you probably already knew the class I was going to pick.◊ The wizard is a catch all spell casting class that starts with a book that has a beginning spell for most non-elemental schools. While conjurers focus on shooting stuff, enchanters focus on enhancements, summoners focus on summoning, necromancers focus on dead stuff, and transmuters are kung fu dudes with blades for hands making potions out of corpses and busy being generally awesome, the humble wizard simply enjoys a little of everything.

That being said, each book you get to choose from at the beginning has a slight bias, but for now, I'll be taking the book of fire.◊ It really doesn't matter which one you pick early game and really only serves to help you pick out your specialized areas.

A few differences as a wizard to note: You now have an area in the HUD dedicated to your spells.◊ For now, we've just got the magic dart (think D&D's magic missile). Also, this is the first class so far that doesn't have a starting weapon. For you own sake, grab something decent immediately! Preferably a light weight weapon because you're not that strong, but anything will do since your MP pool can run out rather quickly at times when you're mobbed and it doesn't regenerate fast enough to keep you from being ripped to shreds, so grab the closest weapon to you.

As for our book (right click to read from inventory or press "r" and then select the book), we've got a decent selection of spells.◊ Light gray means we've already got that spell memorized, blue means we can memorize it, and dark gray means we don't have enough brain space to memorize it. See, every time you level up or you increase your skill in spellcasting, you get one more slot open for memorizing a spell. Some spells take 1 slot (like summon small mammals), while other spells take up more (conjure flame takes three slots). You'll also notice each spell has a type or multiple types. Basically, when you cast that spell, you'll get better at those classes of magic, which means being able to cast for less hunger and cast better spells more effectively. More on that later, let's go dart up some enemies.

I'd like to cast a spell.◊ Owwie.◊ See that nice puddle of blood? That appears when you hit an enemy sufficiently hard or an enemy hits you sufficiently hard. Anyway, he's gone in the next shot.

This is a potion of heal wounds. Basically, he heals you for a large chunk more than a regular potion of healing, but heals no status ailments.

Some killing later and one more level under Amane's belt, I feel in the mood to lecture about how skills properly work in Crawl. Okay, see this screen?◊ You get here by pressing "m". This shows what skills you currently possess. Most are self-explanatory, dodging is how good you are at avoiding stuff, stealth is how good you are at sneaking, spellcasting is how good you are at magic in general, and everything below that is the various schools of magic. To the right of the name is the level you have the skill (all level 0 skills are not displayed but can be obtained by using it enough), to the right of that is how close you are to leveling up in that skill (100% means a level up), and the last bit is aptitude. 0 means you're average at that skill, positive means you're better than average at it, and negative means you're not naturally good at that skill. As you can see here, the deep elf is quite fit at wizardry since they can sneak around quite well while using a lot magic.

If we were playing a fighter, you'd see points in stuff like "Polearms" and "Armour". Anyway, you actually can't put points directly into skills, you've got to do stuff related to that skill and the points will be naturally be put in. For example, fire magic? Just use fire magic a lot to level it up.

So yeah, that's skills in Crawl. Back to some more dungeering before we getting some of the more technical stuff about spells.

As I mentioned earlier, I leveled up, which means I now am of a high enough level to cast "Throw Flame". Throw Flame being a spell, where, well, you throw fire, it's a conjuration and fire related spell, meaning that using it will level up my skill in conjurations and fire.

Sweet. Also, notice how I have 8 spell levels left? Well, the deep elf's naturally high spellcasting skill helps out a lot with that. Also, you can potentially fail at memorising a spell. If you do this repeatedly, take it as a hint from the game that you're not quite ready to use that spell yet.

For the record, wearing heavy armor will inhibit your ability to cast spells.◊ The heavier the armor, the better defense it usually gives, which is why you want really heavy armor as a fighter but will never get it. As a wizard, however, Crawl will throw piles of these at you, like this really nice 7 AC banded mail on floor 1. Yes, the game has a sense of humor. Of course, the downside to this is that you're exceedingly squishy in a game where tanks aren't even all that tankish.◊ See how Amane's health was knocked down more than a third there by a single dart trap, the least damage trap in the game? Yeah... for the record, play it safe, don't melee, kill everything from a distance.

For the record, you can miscast spells every once a in while. This happens less as you get better at casting, but it's basically unavoidable at times when you get into the really high level spells. By right clicking on a spell in your arsenal or pressing "z", then "?" and selecting the spell you want to examine, you can get here.◊ It'll give a short description of the spell, the level, schools, (and in parenthesis to the right of it, how often you'll cast it properly), the power (how hard it currently hits, goes up with level), range of the spell, how hungry it makes you to cast it, and how noisy it is. For the record, some spells can get pretty noise, including ones that summon entire STORMS!

Okay, this is a potion of paralysis. It temporarily puts you into stunlock, which is why you should never drink unidentified potions while enemies are around. After identifying it, never drink it again. It's basically useless outside of a certain spell where it can prove to be insanely useful.

Meet this jerk. This is the worm. For most fighter characters, it's a push over. For wizard characters, they're rather durable to your magic darts and can literally rip you in half in the early game, as you can see with my very red looking health meter.◊ Luckily, you can easily out run them and that's exactly what I do until I shoot it dead from a distance.

Meet our second life saver spell (the first being the magic dart)◊. The Mephitic Cloud basically hits a large area and confuses all enemies inside that are not resistant to poison (READ: Almost all early game enemies and several into the midgame.) Got a large group of gnolls running at you? Mephitic Cloud. Ogre about to bash your face in? Mephitic Cloud. Got some enemies that can't swim, are near deep water, and you're feeling particularly mean? Mephitic Cloud. Have fun.

This is the potion of brilliance and is the first of a set of three potions that gives one of your attributes a temporary but great boost (in this case, intelligence, taking our already high 23 intelligence and dragging it up to 28!). Good for when you're in a tight spot and need more dakka.

Currently at level 4 and taking things in stride. I think that's a good introduction to magic for now. I'll stop with Amane for now and see what more we can do with her later. Next time, if we make to the temple, I can get into religion and heavenly politics of this game.

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