[Crawl] Tactics for the hells?

[Dafty]

My MDFi has got down to Zot 3 with no problems and decided to venture
into Hell before trying to Zot 4 and escape. Any useful tactics?

Random summonings from the very ground in Dis are annoying, so far
nothing too threatening. Any point mapping each level or just best to
descend to find the boss of each?

Dungeon Crawl version 4.0.0 beta 26 character file.

Dwarfy the Axe Maniac (Mountain Dwarf)
(Level 23 Fighter)

Play time: 2 days, 04:34:31 Number of turns: 123613

Experience : 23/726483
Strength 31 Dexterity 13 Intelligence 10
Hit Points : 162/202 Magic Points : 38
AC : 35 Evasion : 9 Shield : 0
GP : 978

You are in Dis.
You worship Okawaru.
Okawaru is extremely pleased with you.

<how did that happen? Huge loss of peity for entering hell or
something?>

You are not hungry.

Inventory:
Hand weapons
a - a +5,+7 dwarven battleaxe of flaming (weapon)
x - a +5,+5 dwarven battleaxe of chopping
Missiles
K - 13 bolts
Armour
f - a +1 pair of boots of running (worn)
m - a +2 elven cloak of preservation (worn)
G - a +0 pair of gloves of strength (worn)
H - a +0 pair of boots of levitation
I - a +0 storm dragon armour (worn)
Q - the +2 helmet of Ovejiqo (worn)
It affects your intelligence (+3).
It affects your accuracy (-3).
It affects your damage-dealing abilities (+3).
It protects you from poison.

Magical devices
q - a wand of fireball (0)
u - a wand of digging (7)
y - a wand of draining (4)
D - a wand of disintegration (3)
N - a wand of lightning
Comestibles
l - 2 apples
n - 5 royal jellies
o - 4 pears
C - a bread ration
Scrolls
j - 4 scrolls of remove curse
z - 4 scrolls of blinking
B - 4 scrolls of detect curse
E - 10 scrolls of identify
F - 8 scrolls of teleportation
L - 7 scrolls of recharging
Jewellery
c - the amulet of the Four Winds (around neck)
This amulet protects its wearer from some forms of mental confusion.

It partially protects you from negative energy.
It protects you from magic.

d - an amulet of the gourmand
g - an uncursed amulet of conservation
k - the ring "Ibejoxt"
This ring allows its wearer to see those things hidden from view by
magic.

p - a cursed amulet of resist mutation
t - the ring of Life (right hand)
This ring increases the ability of its wearer to use magical spells.

It affects your damage-dealing abilities (+2).
It protects you from poison.
It enhances your eyesight.
It lets you turn invisible.

w - a cursed amulet of conservation
A - the ring of Exejucyrozx
This ring increases its wearer's resistance to hostile enchantments.

It protects you from fire.
It partially protects you from negative energy.
It lets you levitate.

M - a ring of protection from cold (left hand)
Potions
h - 3 potions of restore abilities
r - 6 potions of heal wounds
s - 11 potions of healing
J - a potion of cure mutation
Magical staves
b - a rod of destruction
U - a rod of discovery
Miscellaneous
e - a decaying rune
i - a serpentine rune
v - a silver rune
R - a silver horn


You have 18188 experience left.

Skills:
+ Level 20 Fighting
- Level 14 Short Blades
* Level 27 Axes
- Level 1 Bows
- Level 1 Throwing
+ Level 18 Armour
+ Level 1 Stabbing
- Level 5 Shields
+ Level 4 Traps & Doors
- Level 1 Spellcasting
+ Level 7 Invocations
+ Level 20 Evocations


You have 24 spell levels left.
You don't know any spells.

Mutations & Other Weirdness
Your flesh is heat resistant.
You are frail (-10 percent hp).
You have sharp fingernails.

[Dafty]

Hmm guess so!

"Die, mortal!"
Flickering shadows surround you.
You can no longer haste yourself.

Worth putting up with that kind of piety drain?

[Dafty]

Post by Dafty
"Die, mortal!"
Flickering shadows surround you.
You can no longer haste yourself.

I did nothing other than rest. I've not done any summoning, but my
peity keeps decreasing. You have my character dump and i'm completely
mystified. Why would the presumably to be expected summonings around
the character in Dis keep causing my peity to decrease?


Rich

[Erik Piper]

Post by Dafty

Post by Dafty
"Die, mortal!"
Flickering shadows surround you.
You can no longer haste yourself.

I did nothing other than rest. I've not done any summoning, but my
peity keeps decreasing. You have my character dump and i'm completely
mystified. Why would the presumably to be expected summonings around
the character in Dis keep causing my peity to decrease?
Rich

Okawaru piety decreases with time. This is hardly noticeable if you're
diving and thus generating kills for Okie at a normal pace, but if
you're spending a lot of time resting rather than diving, you'll notice
it, as you are now.

You can alleviate the problem by reducing the need to rest; if that's
not feasible, you'll just have to live with it. A silver statue can
solve the problem as well -- easy to get fairly quick kills in a
controlled situation to build up a reserve of piety.

Erik

[Erik Piper]

Post by Dafty
My MDFi has got down to Zot 3 with no problems and decided to venture
into Hell before trying to Zot 4 and escape. Any useful tactics?

* Don't even bother carrying scrolls in Dis and Gehenna; don't even
bother carrying potions in Tartarus and Cocytus.

* Carry icy wands in fiery places and fiery wands in icy places.

* Be able to lose 3/4 of your hitpoints in a single round and survive
anyway. This can mean anything from berserking to escape techniques to
superfast damage delivery to -- more usefully -- a combination of these.

* The ability to controlled-teleport is very powerful in the Hells,
since it lets you concentrate on navigating them rather than
fighting/navigating your way through crowds.

* Have enough food to survive an extended trip to the Abyss.

* Have a base camp set up in the foyer or by the portal to Hell you use
the most.

* Remember, any up staircase takes you back to the foyer. This is big.

* Don't bother getting bogged down in fighting as you descend except for
the fun of it... and it's not very fun anyway. You have magic mapping in
your rod; use it.

Thus...

Post by Dafty
Any point mapping each level

...No. :-)

Post by Dafty
You are in Dis.
You worship Okawaru.
Okawaru is extremely pleased with you.
<how did that happen? Huge loss of peity for entering hell or
something?>

No!

Okawaru only gets angry when you attack your friends or your friends
die; have you used anything that has summoned or charmed monsters recently?

It's great to see you this far, Rich! Good luck!

Erik

[Jeremey]

Post by Erik Piper
Thus...

Post by Dafty
Any point mapping each level

...No. :-)

Little bit of a point: a few types of vaults can be generated in Hell (Tina
Hall reported seeing a Guardian Naga room; I've seen little mini-vaults that
contain items but no guardians). Anyway, this is buggy and rare, but if you
want to be thorough, detect items should just about cover you.

(not that I'd bother, but just FYI...)

[Erik Piper]

Dafty wrote:

[Decision to do the Hells]

Tartarus isn't as obvious to find as the other Hells... its entrance is
about where you would think it would be; its exact location is an open
secret. ;-)

Bring royal jellies if you do Tartarus.

Erik

[Dafty]

Thanks again Erik. Must have been a co-incidence the summon at the same
time as my peity dropped.


Richard

[Erik Piper]

Post by Dafty
Thanks again Erik. Must have been a co-incidence the summon at the same
time as my peity dropped.
Richard

Just after my last post I realized you probably were thinking there was
a connection, but I'm already spamming r.g.r.m. today, so I decided to
at *least* wait until you replied. The summons are just a part of the
overall tortures of the Hells... they're flavored differently from hell
to hell, but summons figure among the tortures in all of them.

Erik

[Dafty]

UGH!

Hells are horrible for a pure fighter. I can kill everything but they
keep coming and I can't rest to heal and there's no other way to heal!
(potions just don't cut it like they do in some other roguelikes i
could mention).

Think I'm going to bail out and maybe see if pandemonium is any more
fun or maybe just go try win. There's always the slime pits, think i'm
fairly corrosion resistant...


Rich

[Erik Piper]

Post by Dafty
UGH!
Hells are horrible for a pure fighter. I can kill everything but they
keep coming and I can't rest to heal and there's no other way to heal!
(potions just don't cut it like they do in some other roguelikes i
could mention).
Think I'm going to bail out and maybe see if pandemonium is any more
fun or maybe just go try win. There's always the slime pits, think i'm
fairly corrosion resistant...
Rich

The closest I've ever done to a pure-fighter take on the hell is
berserker/evokers; they had rods for all situations. Generally even
still, the one they used the most was Discovery -- to shorten the visits.

Pan is extremely difficult and dangerous.

The Slime Pits are easier than the Hells, but don't even bother
wearing/wielding non-artifact stuff. You'll want an AoRM down there
rather than an AoRC, in my opinion.

Erik

[Igor D. WonderLlama]

Post by Dafty
My MDFi has got down to Zot 3 with no problems and decided to venture
into Hell before trying to Zot 4 and escape. Any useful tactics?
Random summonings from the very ground in Dis are annoying, so far
nothing too threatening. Any point mapping each level or just best to
descend to find the boss of each?

Don't stay on any level but the bottom level for longer than you have
to stay. Sometimes you can profit a bit from the earlier levels, but
it just isn't worth it.

If you can, magic map. Find the downstairs ASAP.

Use some kind of recurring healing if you can. Ely and Makleb make the
hells quite a bit easier.

If you can't heal, this is the best strategy I've found, which has
enabled me to beat some of the hells with pure fighters before. Go to
the first uncleared level. Find the nearest downstairs you can. Kill
all the enemies on the shortest path between the stairs. Then go
downstairs. If you need to heal at any time, don't rest. Go to the
closest stairs and exit hell (going down then up if necessary). Rest
in the vestibule. Repeat. Gradually you'll clear a better path so you
can get a little farther each time. Sometimes you'll get summoned on
and have to run, so you can get set back. But eventually, you might
make it.