Pangaea-world.dk

I made a Pangaea clan to play in the DCSS tourney running from Aug 10-26. Anyone interested in joining? We can have up to 6 players. All skill levels welcome (including zero skill).

Tournament info http://dobrazupa.org/tournament/0.22/
Clan page: http://dobrazupa.org/tournament/0.22/cl ... rtpor.html

Just checked a few videos now, I have no idea how to play that game
I don't think me and some others interested would be able to learn the bare minimum in such short time.
Would we?

Sure, it's no problem to pick it up and start playing in that time. These tourneys are pretty casual so no worries if you die a ton (which you probably will :p)

Ultraviolent4 is a good youtuber to watch if you like to pick it up that way. I've heard one person claim they won their first game after watching him.

Gargoyle of Lugonu is my most successful one this far. Lugonu allows me to escape the Abyss. Without the Abyss existing I would go Trog. The Abyss is a place in which you will die unless very high level, and some weapons may send you there if they hit you, also spells. Gargoyle gets awesome armor boosts and apparently even resists many bad effects.

Deep Dwarf is interesting, and potentially very powerful, but requires a vampiric axe type weapon to survive and you need it quite early.

For a complete beginner I recommend Troll Berserker. The Troll race is tedious since they can't, because of their size, use helmets, armors, boots, anything. And to make it worse, they fight best unarmed. Just robe/animal skin, shield and mace/flail if you decide to use weapons.

How the mage classes can survive? Spell points are low, spells miss, and armor makes spellcasting fail more, rendering you very vulnerable without armors.

---> goes to try a mace+shield Troll of Lugonu

On a dwarf, you can get around the need for a vampiric axe (which is pretty rare to find) by worshipping Makhleb:

Makhleb will grant followers renewed health in return for killing beings of all kinds.

This build's so strong that it's a common one used for speedrunning. Someone won a Deep dwarf of Makhleb in under 30 minutes a couple of weeks ago... :O

Mages are tough for new players since they're so fragile. You can offset that somewhat by playing a naturally sturdy species with good magical aptitude, like draconian, gargoyle or ogre. It's usually worth using a shield since, with enough skill, those don't penalize spellcasting at all. And worshipping one of the magic gods (Sif Muna or Vehumet) can help stretch your spell points further.

Today I managed to get a mace/flail troll of lugonu far, it leveled to ~15, and I know I shouldn't use maces and flails on trolls but I managed to get a nice collection of maces including some uniques.

I never manage to get enough piety for makhleb's healing to occur before running out of heals on deep dwarf! But I'll try to get a deep dwarf of makhleb running next.

Melee gargoyle of trog would probably be the best class for me overall, gargoyle is overpowered but I guess it's meant to be so.

Update 21 aug 2018:

1) getting Vampire (Short Blade) Fighters of Makhleb to character level 12 is my newest bravure, but what! A "giant slime" on dungeon level 12 kills me with just 2 attacks. I never could have figured a giant slime is that much worse than a dragon - I did slay a couple of real dragons with that vampire type earlier! Must find advice on prioritizing skills; I always fully ignore stealth for example, even with a high aptitude species, because I think it eats good points from the bruteforcing skills (fighting, short blades, armor, shields, dodging).

2) Still I'm unable to find altars of Makhleb in time for Deep Dwarves, not even mentioning vampiric axes. They don't tend to last long because of that.

Slime creatures can be deceptively dangerous! Especially when they group up and become gigantic or titanic, those things can one-hit most early characters on an unlucky roll. The whole dungeon tends to ramp up in danger around D11/D12, so I usually head into lair before going that deep.

I haven't played a deep dwarf in ages so I can't give too much advice on them, but did you notice they have a healing ability (in 'a' for abilities)? It's an instant heal, ie get-out-of-death-free card, but can only be used a finite number of times because it permanently drains your mana. Most dwarf runs, unless they're really lucky, will probably need to blow at least a few of those in order to survive to the temple.

And congrats on the level 15 troll That's solidly past the early-game, which is the hardest part of most runs.

Gargoyle Berserker, level 18 is my newest record, slain in Abyss of course. :D

Second best, Gargoyle Abyssal Knight level 17, abyss was naturally no problem but getting teleported in Snake Pits was a problem. Wasted all teleportation scrolls to get teleported to equally bad positions :(