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Last time I made my first kill and generated the Small Cave with low-level monsters before heading to the Village Dungeon to find the missing carpenter. Time to explore my first dungeon!
I meet a kobold in the first corridor. Kobolds, along with most of the monsters I'll encounter here are weak and easy kills. I've shown a bit of combat already and will start skipping trivial fights (ie. most of them) from here on out. I'll take a moment here to show off the new display modes in the crowdfunded version. ASCII we've seen, as pictured above.
Tiles we've seen too but I'm show them off again here. This is the same view as the ASCII shot above. You can see how the area displayed is much smaller with tiles enabled. It does still have an ASCII minimap in the corner, which is what I found myself looking at all the time when I tried playing with tiles enabled. Might as well blow that map up to full window size.
This is the isometric view. Pretty cool but it suffers the same problems as normal tiles - a small view area and in the public release it runs slower than ASCII.
Mini-tile mode. Fits more on screen but the tiles are so squished you can barely make them out. I don't know why Biskup insists on making the game run in a tiny window, if it used the full screen he could fit much more on it clearly.
Double-mini tiles. Easier to see than normal mini-tiles but still runs slow.
First person mode, featuring a giant frog. Cool idea but it runs super slow and you can't see behind you without sloooowly turning around.
Third person view, with customisable camera angle. Same problems as other tile modes. Back to ASCII!
I explore more, kill a couple of trivial monsters and find some food. I kill an orc and hit level 2.
Whenever you level up you gain some more hitpoints and power points and get to pick a number of skills to improve. A higher learning score and certain classes and starsigns can give you additional skill picks. Notice that the level-up skills screen shows a max value for skills. I can use skills or get theoretical training from Yergius in Holeinthewall to increase this max. Ideally I want to pick useful skills where the best roll possible won't be wasted by putting me over the max for the skill in question, so as not to partially waste the pick. In practice I'll probably end up wasting a few points here and there as often the skills I want to raise won't be too far from the max.
I pick Athletics (rolled a 10), Pick Pockets (8), and Food Preservation (10). I don't roll over max for any of them, hooray! Pick Pockets had potential to waste a few points on a good roll but it only increased by 8 so no loss there. I need to put a few points into it to make it worth the effort of using at all before I can start practicing it so I can level it up higher. I was tempted to go with Dodge or First Aid before Food Preservation but both had potential to waste a few points on a good roll. More food isn't too bad early on anyway, it's a pain having to run back to Terinyo to buy more rations halfway through a dungeon.
Time to start practicing pickpocketing. I get a whole bunch of failed checks but then score a Scroll of Protection. Not shown: several more pages of failed checks. Scrolls of Protection are really nice (or will be when I can read them) as they permanently increase the PV of a piece of armour. I recognize the scroll for what it is from the shop in Holeinthewall which was selling one.
More pickpocketing orcs. I do all my pickpocketing in Coward mode as the monsters are actively trying to kill me while I attempt to steal their shit before killing them. A few hits still sneak through so I use First Aid while still in Coward mode to recover some HP. I eventually decide I'm losing too many HP while repeatedly failing to steal anything so I kill the orc and close the door while I rest up a bit before I move on. I might have to postpone my pickpocket training until I level up some more. Hitpoints will slowly recover on their own so you can just wait while you heal. This of course takes time and you will be growing more hungry in the meanwhile. The healing rate can be improved by playing as a Troll, as a Healer, as a character with the Candle starsign, with the Healthy talent, or with the Healing skill. Playing as a Candle-born Troll Healer with Healthy you will benefit from all five and recover HP very quickly. You can also drink Potions of Troll Blood to increase your healing rate.
With the first level fully explored I head down to the second level. I get a message telling me I sense I pious aura. This means there is an altar somewhere on the level. Notice also that my alignment is now N-. Pickpocketing is a chaotic act and will gradually push your alignment towards chaotic. This is capped however, pickpocketing can only push you to NC, not all the way into the actual chaotic alignments.
The door to the only exit from this room is locked. Doors are generated with one of a variety of keyhole shapes and you can find or purchase keys which will unlock them. If you don't have the corresponding skill you can open doors by force. The usual method is to kick them, but you can also smash them down by throwing an Anvil or a Huge Rock at them. Doors have a chance to be trapped and breaking them down by force will trigger the trap if present. Two of the traps will cause significant damage to anyone standing on the tile directly in front of them, so if you have to break a door down it's best to do it from an angle.
If you fail the kick check you will receive one of two messages, depending on whether or not the door is trapped. If the kick check fails the trap, if present, won't trigger. If the door is not trapped you get the above message. If it is trapped it will say the door doesn't budge "at all." This doesn't actually make a real difference for me at the moment, even if it was trapped, I still need to break this door down to proceed. I kick it down and continue on my way.
I kill a couple more monsters in the next room and hit level 3.
I pick Dodge (6), First Aid (11) and Athletics (6). I also get to pick another talent. This time I take Miser, which means gold will drop in larger quantities. Miser itself is crap, but along with Alert it is one of the prerequisites for Treasure Hunter.
Further exploration reveals my first dark room. I can only map it out by moving along the wall and can't see any dungeon features, loot or monsters in the darkness. If I move into a monster I will automatically attack it. This can be bad as I want to avoid killing one type of monster if at all possible - cats. Later in the game I'll meet a powerful NPC named the Cat Lord. If at this point I haven't killed any cats he will give me an extremely powerful artifact ring, one of the best in the game. If I have killed any he will be hostile, and the more cats I've killed the more powerful he will be. This isn't a total loss though as if killed he is worth a shitload of experience. I have received multiple level-ups from killing him in the past. Cats are very squishy and it is very easy to accidentally kill one by running into it in the dark. For this reason it's good to ensure you have set Coward tactics for exploring dark rooms without a light source. The presence of features or loot will be indicated with a special message if you move over them.
Hopefully that wasn't a cat! In retrospect I should have unequipped my weapon to explore this room.
I kill a Giant Bat and it drops an orange potion. Orange potions are always Potions of Carrot Juice. Carrot Juice has a couple of uses. Drinking a blessed PoCJ will increase your Perception by one. Doing so in a special room that smells like carrots will boost Perception by five. They can also be given to an NPC in Terinyo (who I will introduce later) in return for the Swimming skill.
I find a leather apron. This is a type of body armour. As it is unidentified, I risk being stuck with cursed armour if I put it on. Normally I'd just take the risk as I really need some armour, but I know there's an altar around here somewhere which, if it's a Neutral altar, I can use to determine if the armour is cursed. As I explore the rest of the level I kill an orc who drops some leather boots. I'll want to find out if these are cursed too. I've explored the whole level now and haven't seen the altar, so I must have missed it in the dark room.
Ah, this must be it! I drop all my loot on it.
Excellent! It was a Netural altar and I now know the gear is safe to identify by putting it on.
Equipping regular non-magical gear will identify its properties automatically, but not its Blessed/Uncursed/Cursed (B/U/C) status. Attempting to remove a cursed item will reveal the curse but the only way to tell Blessed or Uncursed is by dropping it on a co-aligned altar, by magical identification, or with the Detect Item Status skill (which I don't have). The numbers in the round brackets after the apron are its attack modifiers, the same as with weapons. Some armour is restrictive and will confer slight to-hit and damage penalties. The numbers in the square brackets are its DV and PV bonuses respectively. As you can see the leather boots do nothing, but I keep them on anyway as RNG fodder in case my gear gets damaged.
On to the next level.
My Appearance improves as I try to pickpocket a hobgoblin. Appearance is considered a physical attribute and can be passively improved with the Athletics skill. Forums user Kobold Sex Tape has informed me that Appearance has been buffed in the newer versions and is no longer useless! It now increases the amount of corruption points you can accumulate before gaining a mutation. Hooray!
The hobgoblin scores a few nasty hits as I try to pickpocket her. As I rest to recover HP I "sense a certain tension." This indicates that there is a tension room in the level. Tension rooms are packed full of monsters. When the door to one is opened the walls will collapse around the door enabling several monsters to move into melee range at once. This is easily countered by backing up when you find the room. I also run out of food as I rest. Bah. Back to Terinyo. That's what I get for trying to pick pockets with low PV and low PP skill.
As I head back I find a blanket has randomly appeared on the stairs. There are three types of blanket - regular (useless), fireproof and waterproof. The latter two protect gear in your inventory (but not equipped gear) from elemental damage. Very handy. I won't know which type this blanket is until I can identify it.
Still on my way back, I get a polearms skill increase.
I'm now a little more accurate and damaging with my spear. The rest of the trip back to Terinyo goes uneventfully and I stock up on food.
I'd hoped to get all of the Village Dungeon into one update, but this LP shit is time consuming and I'm out of time for today. Next time: I discover the fate of the village carpenter! Or I fuck up and die! Find out in the next installment!