Part 36: Doctor Rocktopus - One

Draconian tranmuters!? We can do that, this is Octopode country!


Here we have the soon-to-be illustrious Dr. Rocktopus, fresh out of Doctor college, where he earned a degree in dungeon crawling. Now it's time to put those skills to the test and get that illusive Orb of Zot.



You'll notice that Doc Roc has got pretty mediocre to bad stats and low health. Also, because of his non-humanoid body shape, he is completely unable to wear a vast majority of armor, in fact, the only objects he can don are Rings, Amulets,
and spiffy hats (but not helmets!). That's perfectly alright, because...



Constriction! I octo-walk myself five steps from the entrance right into a gnoll and destroy him via a combination of pimp slapping him with one tentacle, choking him with another, and stabbing him with yet another tentacle-turned-spike. We gain a level off the first kill in the dungeon.



Nothing particulary exciting happens for the rest of D:1-2, I auto-explore/autofight my way through almost all of it, but halfway through D:3, I find a nice little sewer, I always love these little chunks of exp, even if the loot is rarely anything to write home about. When playing as a merfolk/octopode, these types of levels are cake thanks to the ability to swim.



And we meet our first unique of the run. Purgy is a thin troll that regenerates even faster than regular trolls. The game suggests he is extremely dangerous, but I think we can take him with a little liquid courage.



And of course the first thing I quaff-id happens to be a Potion of Mutation. Could've screwed me over, but I end up
getting three positive mutations. Our evasion was increased by +2, we can now blink at will (poorly), and we now have a nasty bite attack in addition to all our other body weaponry.



After luring poor Purgy out into the the sewer water, we choke him to death, hit level 5, and take his stash of potions. Looks like the good doctor is a double specialist in podiatry and proctology, because he kicks ass.



Sadly, constriction isn't the answer to everything. These phantoms and other enemies that blink just about never stay in one spot long enough to get a good grasp on them. This lesson is not lost on Dr. Rocktopus, as he gains level 6 from this phantom.



Now, I've talked about his race quite a bit already, but I haven't mention his skill set. As a transmuter, Doc starts the game with Beastly Appendage, a spell that gives you a random offensive mutation, like horns, claws(spikes in Doc's case), and tentacles if you aren't already blessed with them. It's a nice boost to unarmed early on, but the duration starts out quite short. Stick to snakes does just what it says. Transmuters start out with a stack of arrows and no bow because they can turn arrows, clubs, and a few other wooden sticks into friendly snake allies. Not so friendly if the weapon was cursed.

The rest we'll get to later as they come up.



And here's the first altar of the game. Fedhas isn't a bad god for OpTm. We later run into a Xom altar, but we already know all his shenanigans.



An early tomb to raid? Don't mind if I do.



This particular tomb wasn't bad at all, bunch of weak zombies and the "boss" was just a mummy. He curses our +4 evasion ring, but the jokes on him, we still have six more tentacles to fill up on rings.



This tomb is teeny tiny. This is the whole map, no noteable loot.



Here's a shot of what your average starter Sticks to Snakes spell goes. Stronger items used make stronger snakes, and occasionally you make two per cast. Somewhat useful in the early dungeon, but I feel it's somewhat situational. You have to wield the item you're transmuting, so either you're shuffling clubs into your hands or you are just creating shitty adders from arrows.



D:5 proves to be unqiue rich for us, we run into Edmund,



his cooler brother, Sigmund, and Duwan and Duvessa, however, I seem to have missed the screenshot of the last two.

We choke/slapped/bit/stabbed all of them. Not a good day for siblings.



A shrine to Ashenzari, who was nice enough to leave a book with Animate Skeleton lying around.



This dungeon has really been lacking in design flair. With no fanfare, I present to you the entrance to the Ecumenical Temple.



And with that, thread participation time! We are Octo-awesome Doctor with a PhD in asskickery. What god do you think he should worship?