Part 40: Tuna Taint - One

Tuna Taint, the Merfolk Venom Mage. I've changed my window size for better scaling in future updates. The original plan for this character is to showcase Fedhas, polearms, and poison magic, with a long-term goal of polearms and fruit, with just a dash of poison and charms for variety. I'll be going more into each as they're introduced.



We start out, as usual, on D:1. I'm trying something different from most advice - I'm not dumping it all into one skill or another via manual mode. Instead, I've merely put a focus on Spellcasting and Poison Magic. I haven't even turned anything off. I usually do, however.



Here, you see me running from my deadliest foe to date: The ooze. He is near completely immune to sting, so I exploit his greatest weakness: lack of opposable thumbs (well, his slow speed, really). I close the door on the guy. I will likely be employing this very same tactic on ice beasts in the future.



The 0.10 release introduced a new hunger system. Instead of randomly eating a chunk for full nutrition, or getting sick, you now eat all chunks for two-thirds nutrition. If the chunks are tainted then you might get Nausea. All Nausea does is prevent you from eating more chunks (or any food) unless you are (near) starving and reduce nutrition gained to half. If you eat chunks out of (near) starvation, you will get some nutrition, but you'll also get the old Sick status, which merely prevents health regeneration and causes minor temporary stat loss. Both will come back in time. All in all, you eat more often (and thus get nauseated a bit more simply because you'll eat more contaminated meat), but no longer get frustrating strings of no-nutrition chunks. Instead, you'll eat a contaminated chunk and run around at near starving and very hungry until the status wears off, shoving a LOT more chunks down your throat. Starvation deaths are more avoidable, less random, but you'll be just as desperate for new chunks to shove down your mouth, especially as a spellcaster or berserker.



On D:2 I happily learn Cure Poison, and find a ring of magical power. Very nice. This encourages me to continue focusing on magic, and not yet diverting any exp into melee skills. I don't toggle anything, leave automatic training on. I will need something for zombies and the like, but for now...



Here you see me accidentally learn Olgreb's Toxic Radiance before Mephitic Cloud. It has a higher casting chance, thanks to using only one school, and not requiring air (-2) and conjuration (2). No way Mephitic Cloud will be reliable enough at this point, anyways. A mistake, but not that huge - I'd rather be running away from things than burning three turns failing to get the spell off, only to have it be resisted by the monster HD*. I still want to fix this as soon as possible, but Toxic Radiance is actually useful this early in the game. Most characters only pick it up long after it has expired.
*_{hit dice, but think of it as a rough monster level, it determins a lot of things.}



So far I've identified Detect Curse, found three Blowguns I don't need (thanks, Cure Venom), a ring of levitation and another of +3 evasion, and a staff of earth. Next floor I'll be making it a goal to safely identify some more scrolls and that wand. I'm a little unhappy at not having any obvious stacks of potions of curing, but Cure Venom will solve half of the problem. I just have to be very careful of monsters capable of casting confusion.