Dungeons of Dredmor

[PizzaSHARK]

Not a new game and I'm sure it's been mentioned back when it came out a year ago, but I just recently started playing it again and figured we can have a little thread about it.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/98800/

For those not aware of it, Dungeons of Dredmor can be best described as "babby's first Roguelike." It's an entry in the Roguelike genre - completely randomized dungeons with a difficulty that's more like a sheer cliff face than a curve, and (optional, in Dredmor's case) permanent character death - but one that's geared for being more accessible than other examples like Nethack.

For one, Dredmor has a graphical interface instead of the bland ASCII common to the Roguelike genre. Second, it's far more accessible, being much easier (even on hardest settings) than other Roguelikes. And it's also pretty damn funny; it's a game that leans on and frequently paints the fourth wall and engages in almost constant lampshade hanging. It has a relatively deep stat system (though not ideally designed from my standpoint) and randomized loot combined with the graphical interface will make it something fans of Diablo games might be able to get into.

It has three expansions out, one of which is free. The game itself and its expansions are dirt cheap and you can have everything for $10, and probably half of that if you wait a month and snap it up during the upcoming Steam holiday sale. But come on, man - it's $10, not $60. Realm of the Diggle Gods adds an extra five dungeon floors to explore, while the Wizardlands expansion gives you more areas to explore and a new "encrusting" crafting option; both expansions add more monsters, more items, more skills, and more room types.



At any rate, I started again playing a fighter, with spears and warlockery being the driving skills I picked up. With the armor and shields skills, I have a very high block stat, and every time I block a skill in the warlockery tree causes me to perform a Puissant Touch (basically a mage's answer to a melee attack) in retaliation, which is in turn boosted by a self-buff I can activate. Leyline skills give me some extra mana and mana recovery options to help sustain that buff though since armor tends to harm wizard stats, I still recover most of my mana through heavy drinking. Smithing and alchemy round out my skill selection, giving me access to a wide variety of potions, grenades, encrustings, and ensuring I'm not reliant on random chance to get equipment.

Just started the 7th floor and at this point not much I encounter is much of a threat. Monster zoos largely consist of me just popping a Manacalypse (300+ turn cooldown world-ending AOE nuke at the end of the Warlockery tree that basically means you don't get to use spells for a long time) and then wading right in to mop up whatever's left. I died several times in previous playthroughs by using the portal system and new magic portals to visit the new wizardlands areas, so I think this time I'm just going to be patient and basically beat the game before going back to them and exploring them - after probably six hours into this character, it'd be pretty frustrating to die to monsters I'm not properly equipped to be facing yet.

[Deleted]

One of my favourite games ever. It's so easy to lose days in this =)

[PizzaSHARK]

Died to Dredmor on the 15th floor. Definitely think spears are underpowered compared to other weapons, and it feels like warlockery isn't worth taking past Puissant Veil if you aren't building as a mage - it seems like the last two skills are reliant on magic power so their damage output rapidly falls off for a melee-focused hero. Dredmor himself was a LOT tougher than I remember him being from killing him back before the expansions hit.

Started a new playthrough with a slightly modified version of the build I beat him with last time - hammers, shields, armor, throwing weapons, berserk, smithing, and geology. This was before the geology skills became part of the core game, they were still a mod when I used them. It's as completely gamebreaking as I remember. With a few points into the hammers line and using that first buff you get with geology I was literally one-shotting everything on the first floor and I was more or less two-shotting my way through the second and third. Starting the fourth and it ain't slowing down.

One word of advice: get the mod that allows you to melt down items back into their base components. It's well-balanced, and it lets you turn a steel sword you found into a steel ingot, which not only feels like it should've been in the game to begin with, but makes smithing a hell of a lot more powerful. It comes in a tinkering-oriented flavor or a smithing-oriented flavor so you can pick which one you want the melting to be attuned to. It particularly makes scouring the shops for cheap weapons to turn into ingots worthwhile. You can often find crude steel weapons in the first couple of shops that sell for a few hundred zorkmids and which can be turned into steel ingots, which are then turned into very nice weapons and armor.

[Deleted]

One word of advice: get the mod that allows you to melt down items back into their base components. It's well-balanced, and it lets you turn a steel sword you found into a steel ingot, which not only feels like it should've been in the game to begin with, but makes smithing a hell of a lot more powerful. It comes in a tinkering-oriented flavor or a smithing-oriented flavor so you can pick which one you want the melting to be attuned to. It particularly makes scouring the shops for cheap weapons to turn into ingots worthwhile. You can often find crude steel weapons in the first couple of shops that sell for a few hundred zorkmids and which can be turned into steel ingots, which are then turned into very nice weapons and armor.

Not sure I would describe that as balanced. That would allow people to make full boilerplate stuff in the first/second floor already.

[PizzaSHARK]

Not sure I would describe that as balanced. That would allow people to make full boilerplate stuff in the first/second floor already.

Don't the boilerplate recipes have to be discovered?

At any rate, I'd consider it fair since melee characters have an inherently tougher time than ranged characters. Almost every monster past a certain point does a significant amount of some kind of magic damage that will get through even if you have a lot of armor, and there aren't a lot of readily available items you can craft to do something about it.

Even with the mod, you can often run out of certain materials. Even buying everything I can to melt down, I'm still very low on steel and you can forget about a consistent supply of platinum, gold, and silver. You'd need 7 steel ingots to make the full plate armor to make boilerplate with, and that's on top of the materials needed to create the other stuff you need.

You'd also need level 5 smithing and level 6 tinkering to be able to craft those things in the first place, so it seems like a silly thing to worry about - either you're high level by time you can make both, or you rushed the crafting skills and consequently can't fight for shit.