Caves of Qud - "Swap stories with an albino ape mayor"

What’s funny is I expected a gunslinger with those starting stats and skills to die really fast but he turned out to be pretty dang solid. I like the daily and weekly challenges because it forces me to try stuff I never would, normally.

Below are the starting character stats and mutations for the character I’m currently playing. I just love axes and had an idea for an ultimate Axe Marauder build with two heads. I wanted to create an all-rounder with potential to boost ego up really high eventually and pick up a nice esper talent later to take advantage of it if I got lucky.

The idea with the two heads is that plus the 2-faces item mods gives me 4 faces to stack ego items on. That plus 2 gnollworm helmets allows for some serious ego boosting. Axes plus dismember fits right into this strategy, and indeed, I collected a bunch of severed faces to wear in no time. I went with Phasing because I wanted a way to get into places like Grit Gate and get around blockages. I could have picked Teleport instead but it also needs Clairvoyance to be useful and that combo cost too much for this guy.

I wanted something that wasn’t weak in any area. Agility and Toughness are important for a dual wield axe melee so I picked Triple Jointed and Two Hearted to boost those.

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Now at level 20, below is how it’s all starting to come together.

I waited quite a while to use 4 mutation points to buy a new mutation. My choices were Slime Glands, Space-Time Vortex and Sunder Mind. Space-Time Vortex tempted me a bit because you can use it to explore some crazy places and get insane gear early but Sunder Mind easily won because I needed more ranged damage and it synergizes really well with phasing and the damage scales with levels. I can cast it then phase out and the target can’t touch me unless they also have phasing or some other items to negate it. With the +5 ego bonus it’s already doing great damage. You can also attack phased enemies with it.

I have Tinker I and managed to find the two-faces mod this morning. I used it to add two new faces to my Gnollworm helmets. I now have +1 ego faces on 3 of my faces and nightvision goggles with a nav mod on the other one. So even with only +1 ego faces I still get a nice +5 boost. With +3 faces later, that bonus will increase even more.

I got lucky and found some Putus Templar under a beginner historical site. granted, they nearly killed me but I prevailed and when I killed their head honcho he dropped two nectar injectors which I turned into some nice attribute boosts.

I also just got lucky with books. I was level 18 but just cleared a historical site named the ‘Miozotara Scroll Quadrangle’. I figured with a name like that, it might have books. Boy, did it ever. I came out of there with 96 books that sent me from level 18 to almost level 21. All guarded by only a bunch of weak bears. I really do love this game.

This will be a funny tweet to bookmark for 2031 when it’s still in EA.

Aha, I remember that review being posted here. I just read this interesting article about the developers’ moderation/vetting of their Discord community as a result of Sseth’s ‘ban speedrun’ aside:

Those are some cool cucumbers. They have also given several interesting talks at Roguelike Celebration, including one just a few weeks ago:

Almost every negative review of the game on Steam is about their discord, not the game. I’ve thought about getting this one many times over the years. Maybe this weekend is the time.

Wow I didn’t realise that Sseth was such a lowlife. I don’t follow him at all, but that review he did was really entertaining. Shame.

It must be really tough having to deal with big streams of people whose sole aim is to try and sink your product.

I mean, the issue are his fans, that are stupid enough to not know he was doing a bit, not him.

The issue is him, for talking to people, too.

By ‘lowlife’ I was mostly referring to the initial racial/homophobic incident that got him banned from the Qud discord server, was that whole thing a ‘bit’?

If so I guess the devs were stupid too! :)

Not really, bit or not bit, he infringed the rules.

So the discord thing was a bit, just a really offensive/tasteless one or something? As was the call for his followers to also try get banned?

Won’t someone please tell me how I should feel about Sseth! :)

No he just didnt read the server rules and wanted to make a joke, but talked about something not allowed to be talked, as to avoid having a rush of weirdos - and oh boy, does this happen quickly on a discord who isnt carefully watched.
He should have read the server rules, his reviews are still entertaining, the people taking him seriously are still turds.
My pleasure!

This game is very hard. Even taking all of the “recommended for beginners” options I still meet swift death if trying to pursue either of the easily found quests in the very starting area.

Yeah, I worry it’s been in development so long it will never be for casuals at this point.

Is one of those recommended choices to play as a standard human? It was quite easier that way in my experience, although of course it takes a lot of the “crazy” out of the game.

There are different sets of recommended starts for humans and mutants.