My first Eyebrows to make it past around level 8, and my first to win! Hooray! As I was playing, I jotted down some thoughts on the experience, including what I liked and didn't like. I suspect a lot of these things are not unique to me, but hey, here you go anyway: In the past (always playing on DM/PD), I've tended to play mage-types, and they've always gotten squished. When I've tried hardier warriors, I get a little bored. So this time I went with a rogue, dodge-heavy build, inspired by somebody in the "Share Your Builds" thread (Mr. Strange? I can't remember. Whoever you are, thanks! It worked a treat.): Unarmed Combat Artful Dodger Perception Burglary Tinkering Archaeology Rogue Scientist A little bit of tough going very early on, and then again on dlevel 15. But most of the game was straightforward: make as many bolts as I could and shoot stuff before it got close. Anybody who did get close got the boot, or I'd use one of my nifty knockback skills (from Unarmed Combat or Rogue Scientist) to get them away. Things started to get hairy at the very end. It seems like there is a much bigger jump in monster power from level 14 to 15 than between other levels. Or maybe I was just spooked about running into Dredmor. (As it turned out, I just used all the mass destruction bolts and holy hand grenades that I'd hoarded on him; when he got close, I Moved in Mysterious Ways away from him. He took a lot of killing, but it wasn't too scary.) A nice thing about this build: it didn't use any mana, so I had Lesser Syzygy up permanently, and Thaumatic Rebreather much of the time. As soon as I picked up a point of alchemy, I turned all the booze I found into Aqua Vitae and then into healing potions, and a few mana potions. By the end of the game I had something like 70 healing and 20 mana potions. Speaking of which, let's talk about Rogue Scientist. I have mixed feelings about it. With Tinkering, you see some direct benefit (Barometric Pulse is a good knockback, and Barometric Vortex is great.) But the real benefit comes in the two free levels of Alchemy. Being able to mix up healing and mana potions is a HUGE plus, especially without having to devote a skill tree to it. If anything, it's a little overpowered and I'd say it might be worth it to rework the skill tree. Tomes are good fun with an unarmed build. After I found a copy of Universal Principles, I had a few levels of just paralyzing everything that met me. Eventually monsters started to resist, but while it worked, it was great! I've gotta play around with them more another time. Traps on the other hand... suck. At least, by contrast with bolts they suck. They aren't that powerful, they can't be buffed with a launcher (as bolts can) and they require more finesse to use. I've heard people talk about clearing a zoo with a thaumite nest, but I sure couldn't manage it. Maybe you could do the same with dragonsbreath caltrops, but I didn't start finding those until level 14 (I think), which was a little late. I get that traps should be less powerful than bolts, as you don't need line of sight for them to work, but maybe add a damage multiplier based on Tinkering for traps that the player sets? Following up on that, it strikes me as weird that the must-have skill for an archer is tinkering, not, y'know, archery. Maybe make bolt crafting based on archery skill (and add a fletching tool?) Then tinkering would be all about bombs, traps and clockwork whatnot. Two more criticisms: first, levels 11-14 got pretty dull. I take a lot of the blame for that, wanting to make sure I found every trap and chest on the level and not miss a bit of loot. Still, more side-quests would be neat. Maybe have the Diggle Gods exact some sort of tribute? I don't know whether mini-bosses will add a little variety. And finally, the screen shape is just bogus. It's annoying to have to line up monsters along a horizontal axis. I mean, I accept that games always have arbitrary restrictions built in, but this one really frustrates me. I don't know that I have a solution, but the current situation consistently makes me unhappy. I hope that the above criticisms are taken in the way they were meant- to help make this fun game even more fun! I had a blast and am looking forward to trying a new playing style. Thanks to the Gaslamp folks, and thanks to all the folks whose posts I've read and ideas I've stolen! Now, on to kill Dredmor 2 (Electric Boogaloo)!
A lot of traps scale to magic power. I will agree on player traps to have tinkering scaling though, but a lot of traps are still very good if used right. Brimstone Cloudbursters are excellent through almost half the game. They saved my punk rear end from a 200-strong monster zoo on level 9 as a prom mage. I was reluctant to use up my hoarded squid bolts until I really had to, so I tried those out first.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm sure I didn't use traps right. But the fact is that they're hard to use right- especially when compared with bolts! Maybe there is a way, short of an outright buff, to improve trap usability? And I didn't know that about traps scaling to magic power! It wouldn't have done me any good, this time, but it'd be worth it to experiment in the future.
You just have to prepare ahead of time, Zombie Dachshund. Or you can drop them to your feet (it takes no turn) and move while something big is chasing you, to make it step into it.
The downside of Rogue Scientist is that you put 5 skill points into it before you get that 2. Alchemy you only need to put 1 skill point into it. Also you can make some pretty sweet stuff with high level and get some awesome resist and .
It was me! Hooray! Though Shwqa has adopted the playstyle as well, and been overall more vocal in its support than I have.
The best way to use traps (it's not great, but it's the best way) is to put them on the ground, then kick them with your unarmed knockback skills. If you're fighting against a zoo, that's absolutely the best way to get AoE traps into useful position. I've also had occasional fun laying down traps while invisible. Not sure if that still works... Let me +1 a few other points you made: "Tinkering is what Archers need, not Archery" : +1! "2 is what makes Rogue Scientist so good" : +1! (I don't think it's OP, BTW.)
While I agree with everything OP said, I just wanted to say that this completely blew my mind. That is a great idea and I can't believe it never occurred to me to use the knockback to push traps into position!
Yes, it's terrific advice. I only wish I'd gotten it earlier! But that's the mark of a good game; you're always learning something new.
