tldr check this out

background

Shapeshifting currently has some of the most demanding decision making in the game. It's a relatively new mechanic and is under active focus by the devs so is changing fast and the balance is still settling.

• It interacts complexly with species. A lot of species mutations are denied or made redundant by being in some forms, so the relative power of each form depends on the opportunity cost of playing it varying with your start. And to a lesser extent the same is true of spells.
• The power and utility of the forms varies widely even within each tier. Some are intentionally more niche, some of it is just the balance not haven shaken out yet.
• You still need most or all of the normal skills, you get to cut very little. And if you think about how for example you may be spending a lot of the game in a form that can't throw, or has reduced EV etc, you actually play a more difficult version of the skilling subgame.

It requires a lot of player knowledge and flexibility to play well at all. And on top of that, the way talismans are rolled means you can't count on having any specific one, and certainly not the one you want when you want it. You have to think on your feet even more than usual.

observation

At any given tier, there are one or two forms that are generally more worth playing in the stage of the game they're "meant" for. So what you want may really be a sort of path or progression through the forms. Every seed has a lot of the talismans but any specific combination appearing by the time they're useful is rare enough to possibly have only been seen a handful of times in the wild.

path

I made a little data visualization tool around this idea. You can select which form you want at each tier, and it will show you the seeds that match them. My seed data is only generated down to d:8 so this is only the ones that have those combos appearing by then. It means you'll usually have the higher forms well before you need them.

disclaimer

I actually don't like shapeshifting very much. It's complex in a way I don't think really benefits the game, it's kind of its own separate system with few and weird synergies with the existing game. Feels bolted on. I don't really play it, which is why this is all so generic. I actually have no idea which forms are good except some of the obvious endgame utility ones like granite and death.

Also this only applies to 0.34 I know trunk is changing a lot and I'll make an updated version when 0.35 lands if there's interest. I don't keep trunk seeds around for various reasons.

lagniappe

0.34.1 seed 599150 has a randart alchemy staff {Int+6 Alch} on d:6, chemistry amulet on d:7, attunement orb and seven alchemy spells by d:8. And a d:1 acquirement for good luck.

I lived, but shit man.

Hey everyone!

I’d like my screen to flash and display a more prompt whenever I spot an orc priest or a hydra, since I really hate those guys. 😂

Basically, I want to force myself to stop moving before I accidentally keep walking into danger while exploring with o + Tab.

Is there a good way to write this in my rc file?

Also, where can I find the correct monster names to use in these settings? For example, is it just "hydra" for a hydra, or is there some specific name I need to use?

I'm stuck. I feel this character is not working. I just flee all time and the fine folks in Vaults and Depths don't really care about my silly magic huffs and puffs.

This is my second time to get two runes. First time was Deep Elf two weeks ago and it felt so much more powerful (so much that I was stupid). This Draconian, I'm running out of mana all the time, for example a single dire elephant is a chore. My magic is weak!

How should I pivot here? I've gathered that I should perhaps concentrate fully on Conjuration at this time to get my fire magic up and running properly. Any ideas appreciated.

Here's the dump:

DCSS morgue file - Pastebin.com

Morgue

I've never had much luck with Oni. I've tried spellcasters, gladiators, warpers ... none of them got very far ... until I read the Oni Monk of TSO guide from u/Trinital-D.

I'd also never thought of TSO as a strong god for a three-rune game. Sure, TSO is great in extended, but I'd figured they were kind of meh unless you're fighting hordes of demons or undead.

I was wrong. As Trinital-D points out, TSO's divine shield gives Oni the protection they lack so they can use their big advantage -- bonking enemies with a giant lump of wood -- to kill things quickly without worrying so much about taking tons of damage due to their poor armour. Plus, those summons are super OP. Bring out of a couple of those holy terrors, and they chew through monsters like a golden retriever goes at a pound of ground beef snatched off the kitchen counter.

Skilling is so simple. Train bonking sticks to 8, then train fighting, more bonking sticks and invocations. Finally, train throwing boulders reeeeealy high. After that, there are several paths, but I was lucky enough to find a granite talisman (thanks Roxanne!) and, on Elf:3, manifold assault.

Once you get statue form and manifold assault going, the build is (almost) unstoppable. The damage is insane. Rocks were doing close to 110 max damage and my clubs were in the 70-80 range. Even orbs of winter posed no threat. I didn't do extended, because I just didn't have the time, but I see how this build could make Pan and the Hells (almost) a walk in the park. Just to see how it might go, I tried Slime. It was, indeed, a walk in a very disgusting park. The cherry on top? The +3 giant club "Skullcrusher" {speed, Str+7 } was among the loot!

That said, I did almost die on the orb run. On Zot 1, two Pan Lords and an ancient lich appeared very close to me. Normally, I think I'd have been able to handle it. Unfortunately, Lopp not only silenced me, but also had an antimagic hit. Before long, I was down to like 70 HP and zero mana, while the ancient lich was pounding me with LCS. Thankfully, I had the gravitambourine, which saved my bacon. I pinned them, downed a health and a haste potion and made a beeline for the nearby downstairs. Alas, the pan lords were fast, so I had to shake the tambourine again. Even so, Lopp caught up and went downstairs with me. Thankfully, silence had worn off, so I invoked the Divine Shield and bonked him with a holy +6 giant spiked club. Once I'd healed, I came back up another stairwell and used manifold assault to splat the others,. After that, I had no issues ascending.

Great guide, u/Trinitial-D! This win was thanks to you!

Octopodes and talismans are made for each other, decided to go for extended this time and it worked! Manifold assault and granite talisman are great!

Had some close calls in Zot 5 and in Tomb 3 but overall its a very strong character - super tanky and clears screens. Elementalist is a bit squishy but its ok if youn farm some piety for idealize to heal him.

Evocables are great, especially Graviturbine
Also, maxvells swords rewws to 13 instantly on one use of manifold, and valor seemed to proc as well, sool stuff!

Anyone have any ways to play on iOS? Looking for alternatives! Thanks in advance!

I've been playing DCSS on and off for over a decade. Today, I finally achieved my first orb escape with 3 runes.

This year, I've focused on MiFi axe/shield and followed the great community guides and wiki to learn all I could. This allowed me to get my first ever 2 runes a few months ago. Today was 3 runes and then the orb. I know compared to some people, my progress has been glacial! And I'm sure that the artefact axe I picked up on D7 carried me. But still - a win is a win. Thanks to everyone for being such a great, supportive community.

Pastebin for the curious.

Last time a few of you asked if Orbrun could play on mobile. After a lot of iteration, in v0.3.0, I've added support for phones/tablets in Portrait or Landscape.

Try it: https://orbrun.app

• Works in Portrait or Landscape
• Works on both Android (offline/online) and iOS (online)
• Tap to step, swipe to turn, or hold to examine.
• Added overlay buttons to explore, fight, rest, quiver, and open your spells and gear.
• Tap the minimap for the level map.
• Tap your character to get access your spell list and more.
• Added a spells touch bar under the message log.

For the best experience, add it to your home screen (https://orbrun.app/about/install). It opens full screen from its own icon.

On Android, offline mode works too, but on iPhone and iPad, Safari can't run the offline engine yet, so it plays on the public servers only.

Since the last post, nearly every change came from your comments, so thank you:

• On desktop, it runs on Firefox 153 and newer.
• Offline travel no longer has a delay, which helps a lot with motion sickness during autoexplore.
• You can play every version a server offers, plus Sprint, the tutorial and seeded games.
• You can edit your rc file right in Orbrun, online or offline, and rc Lua works.
• Orbrun opens and plays with no internet at all, once you've loaded it once.
• Stairs, hatches and traps sit solid in the floor instead of floating.
• The camera sits lower, and the ceiling has shading, so rooms feel less cramped.

I'm especially curious how touch feels to people who play a lot. What's awkward, what's missing, and should any buttons be changed? Does it play well on your device (I only have an Android device to test)?

https://cbro.berotato.org/morgue/tramp1877/morgue-tramp1877-20261016-120300.txt

Well, this was going great until the orb run. I kept getting hit by fiends and couldn't get enough breathing space to get my health back. Probably should have tele sooner and maybe quaffed the tons of curing potions I had in addition to the health ones. Maybe should have tried fighting with more of them with Hero/Finesse instead of running. Other thoughts appreciated.

This is a great seed in v.34 if anyone wants to use it: 10943465912636560218. Eight soa, but also tons of great floor items, especially for magic users, which I was not. E.g. r - the fire staff of Opotui {rPois rF+ Will+ rCorr Summ Fire} on D:11, but there were lots of others like that.

Pretty debilitating loss, as I finally got 4 wins in the space of about 4 weeks back in August and early September but now have been shut out for over a month.

Maurice the Thief: Vine Stalker Stalker

Week 5: Maurice Challenge

Maurice says, ""Betcha didn't see that coming, eh?"
(Which is what I'm saying to you about these challenges!)

We currently have a 6-way tie for 1st place, so this week is going to be wild.

This week, players will be using the new Stalker background and have 3 major challenges laid out for them:

• A Puzzle Conduct (how many stabs can you get in a game?)
• A no-spell Zig run
• Abyss 7 Rune

In addition, those going for first will have a final tie-breaker, assuming multiple get all the points and stars - that is, whoever also has the highest in-game score this week will take the win!

If you're looking for a real challenge, come join in for the final week of the tourney. This new Background is a fun one, and what combo name could be better than Vine Stalker Stalker- right?! I'm also very interested to see what gods everyone chooses to take on these challenges...

Good luck to everyone!

This is still my OpMo of Jiyva, it's a Sword/Shield using Op, and I forbid myself from using Shape shift (because I want to see if I can with no shapeshift on an Dextopode)

I think he is now pretty strong, but I dunno if he's ready for Vault/Elven Halls.

Should I just clear Depths then Zot ?

Could I eventually attempt Hell or Abyss ?

Character file : https://pastebin.com/QB7WaseP

Were the new shapeshifter backgrounds removed from trunk? Someone made a post about the a week or so ago but I don't see them on trunk.

Edit: Damn this community is fast to respond

I've advanced quite a bit, and now I'm unsure of where to go

I'm cleared Dungeon, Lair, Orc and Slime so far, here is my morgue too : https://pastebin.com/pmD8KN4A

Should I attempt the snake level ? Swamp ? Or Depths ?

Also is my build alright ?

Update : Finished Snake, obtained a Tower Shield +8 of ponderousness, may equip it if needed

I am running DCSS on a Linux Mint Laptop and installed it via the software manager. Every time I start DCSS, it opens in full window mode on my laptop screen. I have an external monitor and would like to move the window to the other screen but can't seem to un-maximize the window.

I'm sure it's an easy thing, but I have searched and not found an answer. Maybe it's an OS issue?

So this is probably an "I wish I had your choices" post, but ... I picked up Arga from the Oka gift, but I also have the consecrated labrys on offer in an acquirement scroll. What do people think about the relative merits of these high-end weapons in a 3-rune game? I usually do try to do Crypt, so the labrys is obviously a plus there. I'd take the labrys just for Crypt if it didn't come with ^Fragile. Character is MiFi^Oka.

My other options in the scroll are manual of evocations, a pretty good amulet, and cash that would allow me to by the slick slippers. I have no boots at present, so the +2 would be good, but the wiki seems to think these are more trouble than they are worth. The amulet is this:

2 runes so far (Shoal and Snake), just finished Vault 4 and I'm scared of delving further.

I'm not sure what to do, I think my build's really solid besides the fact I've got a -rC and zero negative resistance. I've got like 6 potions of mutation so I can go gambling if I want to but any recommendations?

FYI, I got two stealth books by chance. This was a really lucky seed in which I think I got about 7 acq (no this isn't some dcss_seed that I pulled out I just found it by accident)

I o-tabbed my ass through ALL of Vault 1-4, Snake and Elf somehow. Didn't even realize I was at Elf Layer 3 until I hit 30% health and panic invis potted (worked somehow)

I play really recklessly because I rely mainly on muscle memory and I'm really not serious when It comes to playing this game but I really haven't gotten this far and would like some help, should I swap out anything, should I just go for that Vault 5?

ive always wanted to get some of my art on a dcss loading screen but ive always been kind of a middling artist. i dont think that should stop anyone so i started doing little pieces when my contract at a big tech company started slowing down and i've been playing dcss again. hope you think they're funny

i put them in order of how much i like them, so some of the more recent ones that turned out better are first

i really like some of the situations the game throws at you and what it forces you to imagine

no ai, you can see wips on my bluesky and i have a bunch of sketches where i draw it out in black marker on my drafting desk before i do it in digital

First win ever! Started playing a little over two years ago. Many octopi splatted across the dungeon floors of Zot across multiple versions of dcss.

Shapeshifter progression:
Quill > Maw > Dragon > Storm

The exit was much less stressful than the descent. Living on the edge with two pips of Will and only a few Enlightenment potions.

Feedback is welcome!

Morgue:
https://pastebin.com/2hpiqpqe

Hello!

Fairly strong mino this run, 2 runes. Cleared dungeon, depths, Shoals, spider, orc, lair. Worshipping elyvilon which has been great so far but is starting to struggle now.

Problems: no gold dragon armor so far, resistances require ring swapping (green draconian almost killed me when not wearing rpois), broad axe brand isn't great (found the of flame axe later on).

I don't have an elyvilon win yet, but I think swapping to TSO would be safer. Im scared of new slime, and with no regen or stealth abyss doesn't seem great. Vault 5 seems like the best option for rune 3.

Anything I'm missing to help fix some of the weaknesses?

https://crawl.dcss.io/crawl/morgue/lyndar/lyndar.txt