Going Rogue - Part 06

Man, I'm gonna miss this series.

Polymorph is cool. Just don't use it at point blank in case... Ya know. But from across the room where you can react to the result, maybe polymorph again, it's a ok.

First and last thing about Rod Stewart: he was better back when he gargled with Dewar's instead of buried his voice under studio trickery.

I think Ben was joking about Gilligan's Island on an asteroid, but they did almost exactly that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan%27s_Planet

Love this series, your best one yet

This has been my favorite new series since VinnyVania. Sad to see Ben go, but best wishes!

RIP to a real one: Moist_Openings

I save-scummed my way to a victory awhile back and it was SO unbelievably difficult. I can comfortably say there is no way in hell I will ever beat the game legitimately. Ben, on the other hand, I have hope for.

I love that all these monster names sound like Old Testament demons, but then you look them up and they’re just like horses and birds.

You're gonna finish it.

"A centaur, you just cut that in half then you're just fighting half a person and a horse with no head."

Wiser words have never been spoken

Wow, the beginning parts of this one were harrowing! Lot of close calls. Good run!

What a run. I hope Ben at least grabs the Amulet once before he runs out of tries.

Also, was there a royalty-free version of “The Final Countdown” that played in Vinny’s music at some point or was I just drunk?

Ben I love you.

Vinny, MORE ILLUSTRATION / FAN ART PROMPTS LIKE THAT PLEASE, YOU WIL GET WHAT YOU SUGGEST. Also this sleeper hit of a series has ALL the goods of a Vinco production with Ben as our story's hero. And that music is EXTRA royalty, nothin free 'bout that. Or something i'm tired.

>open photoshop, stylus get

The videos in this series keep playing for a few minutes then cutting straight to the end for me, but only this series. What's going on with that?

I love every one of these videos.

It's good to hear someone finally talking about Maslow's Hierarchy of Griffons.

Ben really is leaving on a high note with this series. One of Giant Bomb's best. And I look forward to his reunion with Vinny, when they cohost the aftershow to the inevitable reboot of Gilligan's Island.

Woo, a solid length.

I hope you back to back shorter episodes in the future.

@arebuckle: This is fuckin incredible.

Fun fact: Gilligan's Island crossed over with Baywatch and watching Billy Warlock and Bob Denver interact is a strange sight indeed!

What a fun run. Hats off. I will say that quaffing a strength potion to restore 1 strength while being at full hp seems pretty wasteful though. But oh well that's the learning process!

@stuewe: for me, it loads another video. It's bizarre.

@staplegun: For the love of god, how do you not just die on floor 13-18 once trolls exist and take off like half your life in one hit? I save wands for it if I can, but even then a lot of them don't even have great damage. And player weapon damage is so bad.

Also how do you micromanage armour use with aquators? I'd love to exist in a world where I ever find the ring or scroll that gives "immune to Aquator" but this has never happened across dozens of runs. I basically walk around with my worst armour on, then as soon as an aquator comes into view take it off, though usually take a hit and lose some armour. Then I drop armour once it has permanently been reduced to armour 2. I know the dream is just enchanting leather amour over and over since it is aquator immune, but armour 3 is such a low starting point.

For fighting trolls, there's a couple of ways to prepare. First, take note of the level they start spawning at so you don't get caught off guard. Then, from that level onwards, the first thing you want to do on a new level (apart from finding the stairs) is to find a loop that you can kite enemies around for hit and run tactics. Mazes are great for generating these kinds of loops, which start spawning at around the same time. I'm not sure on the full mechanics but sometimes monsters will refuse to enter mazes, which make them a little safer to fight enemies in to avoid being disturbed.

Larger loops that involve running through multiple rooms work in a pinch, but it'll probably get you killed, so look forward to that! You can also (t)hrow paralysis at a easy monster to create a loop for dancing around (or =oStealth around a sleeping monster?), just don't hit either with an attack!

Ideally, you want to encounter them at range and throw arrows at trolls, don't even worry about bows or anything because the to-hit bonus isn't THAT worth it, unless you're in a rare position where you can squeeze off a ton of arrows. Wands are great too! Just be wary of magic missile wands, their damage is awful. /oTeleport Other isn't ideal either since trolls have a regenerate trait, but it's probably better than dying.

Getting to level 8 is vital, since it confers double hp recovery (rolling high on hp increases for leveling up is a huge plus). Getting to 8 is why the general strategy is to save your potions until level 7 is ideal. Sometimes, even if I have more gain level potions I'll save them until level 9 or 10 because that's when XP costs to level up really start to spiral out of control. The threat of a troll is pretty much the same at level 9 as it is at level 8. Those later levels are *huge*. By the time I was at level 12, going toe-to-toe with trolls was no big deal because of the regeneration factor.

Aquators are a huge pain in the ass, I'm still not sure of the best way to deal with them. If you have =oMaintain armor, I'd wear that at all times, damn the hunger penalty. I've gotten leather armor to +5 or so and the conclusion that I've come to is that it's just not worth it. It's a lot of investment into a piece of gear that'll leave you underprotected when eventually the game stops throwing aquators at you.

Before trolls show up, I'd use throwaway armor and just keep on enchanting the strongest armor I can find. Later, when trolls start showing up and I have no escape options, I would wear that enchanted piece of main armor and play it very safe- for instance: every time you enter a new (dark) room, rest for about 8 turns in the entrance to the room. During this time, you might luck into an Aquator approaching you from a diagonal, allowing you to safely remove your armor and avoiding any rust damage. If you get unlucky and they approach you head on, you only suffer 1 point of rust damage (or, if you have cancellation, you can zap them with it and avoid it entirely). At high AC Aquators will miss a lot more (I think the absolute minimum % for a monster to hit is 20%), which isn't something that you can count on, but is nice when it happens.

When trolls show up and I have escape options in my inventory, sometimes I'll just explore without any armor. The idea is that it takes only 2 combat rounds (1 of which gets the AC protection) to put on my best armor, but 4 combat rounds to take off throwaway armor and reequip my best. You probably shouldn't do this for more than a couple of levels, though.

I wrote a lot of words to conclude with "it doesn't REALLY matter, if this game wants you dead, that's it, reroll and hope for better rng". You're pretty much at the mercy of item generation if you're going to have a viable character before you hit clvl 8.

edit: also i'm playing the online version of the game here https://playclassic.games/games/role-playing-dos-games-online/play-rogue-online/play/ which isn't the same as the Steam version, so some stuff might not be accurate.

What a good good run, I think you got real unlucky getting a dragon

Polymorph is truly a double-edged sword. Dang - the first use was great! The second was... well, you know.

@staplegun: I just had a run where I leveled up on floor 1, and went from 12HP to 13HP. Like, just end my life, what is the point of anything.

You would 100% know if you picked up a cursed item because you wouldn't be able to take it off or put it down. If that sword is magically stuck in your hand, yeah, it's cursed.

How many times is he going to die from using that polymorph wand?

I greatly appreciate you started doing full clears!

I heard that this game made Ben go

Ro

Gue

@staplegun: I think I can't keep playing Rogue. The "drop down a floor, missing rooms full of items" trap. The existence of the aquator. Every room being dark once you're a few floors in, so you can never see stat draining enemies coming to play around them (why not at least include a ring type that permanently exudes light). Trolls having absurd damage output on the floors they first appear and seemingly +20 to hit. Maybe you actually have good items but just 1 food has spawned in 8 floors because there are seemingly no controls on the seed to govern item spawns, so you just start fainting and die to a centaur while passed out.

It's all just actually bad game design that turns the whole thing into a slot machine more than a game. I've switched my stance from "oh, it's from a different time so let's put it in context" to "this is actually just a bad game." It was the glimmer of a good idea, and thank god all the subsequent roguelikes improved on the formula. Rogue isn't actually worth my human time on this earth.

If you encounter a troll for the first time, and there's no obvious loop on the current floor so you can keep doing a hit and run (or you've just entered the floor and immediately find a troll), you're just at the whim of whatever wands you found, and if they turn out to be magic missile or teleport to you just die.

Rest in power Moist_Openings. What an ending!