How to get good

[Tanker]

Is there any way to get good in this game, without having to restart every 30 minutes because of a random death (some throwing axe flying towards me and 1 shotting me full hp, boss levitating out of a wall behind me, blocking the exit, and killing me 2 hits, etc)?

Out of 5 deaths so far, only 1 was salvageable, the rest was really unfair, out of my control.

Any advice to lessen the chance of these deaths happening?

[vysionier]

Use your tactics. That’s an uppercase T. It lets you trade to hit and damage in melee for dv. That’s all I can help you with until you let me know about your other deaths.

General advice? Use a shield whenever possible. Don’t go to puppy cave or Druid dungeon. Village dungeon is safe early on. Concentrate on getting to the caverns of chaos.

[Tanker]

I am using the tactics, since I read up on how to play this game in general before I started my journey, that saved me tons of times.

I will try what you suggested, and will get back after a few runs. Thanks!

[vysionier]

Just keep in mind, there’s a big learning curve in this game, sometimes you gotta appreciate the fun ways your characters die!

[Seven ate you]

Tankier characters tend to be more forgiving for those who don't know what they're doing.

That and getting the PV talent line can make things really easy early on.

But this is just advice to make yourself not die early on.

The best way to improve in this game is to get in a bad situation, or out right die, and ask yourself "How do I avoid that in future runs?"

[Palandus]

I'm surprised that the suggestion is to avoid the puppy cave. All of my successful runs started out there, and all of my failed runs, I avoided the puppy cave. Now, granted the puppy cave has some floors that will eat new players alive, but you stay on the first floor for a few levels, then descend to the ant-floor, then get another level or so, and descend into the cavernous floor, while trying to stay out of there for as long as possible. If you manage to save the puppy (which is hard, as it like to suicide run at enemies, especially in the cavern), you do get a very valuable reward for completing the quest and you can always revisit the puppy cave after saving the puppy.

I find Cavernous floors to be very good at finding loot, as the respawn rate for enemies is so high.

Other than that, class and race choice has a huge impact on "difficulty". I find that the Dwarf Priest is one of the easiest to play, as it starts with good equipment, it has a wide variety of skills, and you start with some healing spellbooks, allowing you to recover from battle damage or heal allies.

Some star signs are better for different class/race combos. For the aforementioned Dwarf Priest, I usually like the Dragon or Cup.

As for a throwing axe one-shotting you, avoid Plains in overworld. Those are thrown by Gnolls, and the plains have tons of Gnolls in them. You may still encounter the odd Gnoll here and there, but if you want to avoid these particular early game deaths, avoid large groups of Gnolls.

These things should help you stay alive a bit longer. They are still a lot of cheap deaths later on, but it should help to avoid the early ones. ie The Banshee scream death in Caverns of Chaos, that occurs if you don't have bees wax and you preemptively plug your ears with it. I call that a cheap death because this is literally the only time in the entire game you do the action, and the keybind was buried in a list of something like 400 keybinds in the original ASCII. Anyway, enough of my rant.

[Yulgash]

Originally posted by Bonegrinder:

I'm surprised that the suggestion is to avoid the puppy cave.

The advantage of puppy cave over other starting dungeons is the vault and that herbs can show up. But there's not really any reason to start in a more dangerous location when you can freely visit later. Only saving the puppy is time-sensitive, and there is no practical benefit to doing this.

Some star signs are better for different class/race combos.

And the best star sign choice will always be Raven, Candle, or Tree. These three are head and shoulders above the rest.

Those are thrown by Gnolls, and the plains have tons of Gnolls in them.

There are no gnoll encounters on the plains. The most dangerous level 1 encounter that uses missiles is the hill orc patrol, which is a hills encounter.

[Palandus]

No practical benefit? Really? What about the huge alignment boost, which can be very useful for those going for a Lawful+ Pre-Crowning? True pre-crowning is difficult to achieve, but can be quite useful regardless.

Raven is situationally useful, and usually only worthwhile if you are going for an Ultra ending, which isn't a noob-friendly thing. The increased speed can be useful to avoid encounters. Noticing secret doors and mimics is useful though.

Candle is again situationally useful, as the rate of extra healing isn't much, most won't be praying whimsically to the gods (especially as you can't ever precisely know how much your piety is, and getting doomed/destroyed equipment is often a run-ender), though the free talent is nice.

Tree is okay. Good for those that don't want to accidentally change alignment, and the extra willpower / toughness is decent for early game. But, it isn't really that great mid to late game.

I like Dragon because of the reduced weapon skill marks (which get excessively high as is), reduced power point cost for spells, improved tactics settings, and extra strength/toughness.

Maybe I'm mixing up the locations, but Gnolls love to throw axes. Hill orcs do throw axes, but I've never been killed by one, even with an unarmored wizard.

[vysionier]

Originally posted by Bonegrinder:

No practical benefit? Really? What about the huge alignment boost, which can be very useful for those going for a Lawful+ Pre-Crowning? True pre-crowning is difficult to achieve, but can be quite useful regardless.

Raven is situationally useful, and usually only worthwhile if you are going for an Ultra ending, which isn't a noob-friendly thing. The increased speed can be useful to avoid encounters. Noticing secret doors and mimics is useful though.

Candle is again situationally useful, as the rate of extra healing isn't much, most won't be praying whimsically to the gods (especially as you can't ever precisely know how much your piety is, and getting doomed/destroyed equipment is often a run-ender), though the free talent is nice.

Tree is okay. Good for those that don't want to accidentally change alignment, and the extra willpower / toughness is decent for early game. But, it isn't really that great mid to late game.

I like Dragon because of the reduced weapon skill marks (which get excessively high as is), reduced power point cost for spells, improved tactics settings, and extra strength/toughness.

Maybe I'm mixing up the locations, but Gnolls love to throw axes. Hill orcs do throw axes, but I've never been killed by one, even with an unarmored wizard.

While Id agree with you normally, context matters. A lot. This guys played like 6 times upon writing this post, he doesn’t care about ultras or alignment at this point. Just surviving to CoC. That’s why there’s advice to skip puppy cave, the ants will destroy a newb. The cavern will also destroy a newb, and the vault may also destroy a newb.

[Palandus]

Well, yes, and reading my first post too. I do say that you should get a couple of levels before descending to the ants, as yes, they can destroy a noob. Rushing the puppy cave is generally not advised, especially if you are trying to save the puppy.

Another non-noob friendly location, though best to investigate earlier rather than later, is the dungeon which spawns enemies at twice your current level.

[Yulgash]

Originally posted by Bonegrinder:

No practical benefit? Really? What about the huge alignment boost, which can be very useful for those going for a Lawful+ Pre-Crowning? True pre-crowning is difficult to achieve, but can be quite useful regardless.

It's a base alignment increase of 320. You get just as much from telling her that her dog is dead. You could give a beggar 6 large rations for about the same alignment increase.

Raven is situationally useful, and usually only worthwhile if you are going for an Ultra ending, which isn't a noob-friendly thing. The increased speed can be useful to avoid encounters. Noticing secret doors and mimics is useful though.

Speed is pretty much always useful. The speed talents are quite good, and Raven gives you more speed than all three of them together.

Candle is again situationally useful, as the rate of extra healing isn't much, most won't be praying whimsically to the gods (especially as you can't ever precisely know how much your piety is, and getting doomed/destroyed equipment is often a run-ender), though the free talent is nice.

Health regeneration is, again, pretty much always useful. The extra regeneration is a better version of the Healthy talent, more than doubling how fast you regenerate health. The effect is even more dramatic for characters that don't have Healing yet. Candle might be overkill in the case of Priest and Healer, but otherwise you aren't going to have "too much" HP regeneration.

Tree is okay. Good for those that don't want to accidentally change alignment, and the extra willpower / toughness is decent for early game. But, it isn't really that great mid to late game.

Early game is the most difficult part of the game. If your star sign can make it a lot easier, it has done its job. Also, it's hard to imagine any star sign beating Raven if you are considering extra benefits in the mid-game.

I like Dragon because of the reduced weapon skill marks (which get excessively high as is), reduced power point cost for spells, improved tactics settings, and extra strength/toughness.

A 10% reduction in required weapon skill marks is almost completely irrelevant. You will never be more than a rank ahead of a character without that reduction. So the benefit is something on the order of +1 to-hit, +1 damage, +1 DV, but it only works some of the time, and not at level 1.

Improved tactics settings might be a bit better, but are also quite lackluster. The extra 10% is based on the to-hit, damage, and DV bonuses you get from tactics, which themselves are based on a percentage your total to-hit, +damage, and DV. Late game this might be giving you something like +7 to-hit, +3 damage, but early-on it's pretty much worthless because your base tactics bonuses just aren't that high.

Attribute bonuses are alright, but with point buy, you can't really beat Tree. Dragon is giving you 14 points worth of bonus attributes, less 9 points due to the Willpower penalty. Tree is giving you 23 points worth of bonus attributes. Dragon has some advantage if you want to max Strength, but maxing Toughness is more important, and Tree gives you more Toughness.

Maybe I'm mixing up the locations, but Gnolls love to throw axes. Hill orcs do throw axes, but I've never been killed by one, even with an unarmored wizard.

There are gnoll wilderness encounters on mountain squares, and on road squares at level 15+. It would take some serious effort to die to a gnoll encounter.