Post your last instadeath

[eMeM]

I've had two instadeaths in ZAngband:

1. One of my first games, I was a beginner. About 400' deep I found a pit. I open the door and see a room full of swords! My first thought was, even if they are all average swords I will make a lot of money here! Next step and to my surprise I see a tombstone, killed by Death Sword. I didn't knew anything about mimics then.
2. It was my first strong char. I was feeling invicible going through deep dungeon levels close to game end and then suddenly I was fighting a Cyberdemon. Due to some software bug he did a 800 damage with rocket shot (which should have been more like 300). This death wasn't fun for me.

In NPP it's easy to die without free action on early levels. That was my last instadeath - Floating Eye in NPP.

[Nick]

Oangband Dwarf Warrior, 717HP to -95 in one turn. Phased to get away from Krotus, the Dark Lord; one storm of hellfire and one unresisted nether breath later, I was dead.

[DaviddesJ]

Originally Posted by Narvius

State: +10 Speed from being hasted. Single, temporary rPoison. Around 300 HP. 18/*** Intelligence, and capable of casting spells like Teleport Level or Teleport Other at 0% fail.

So what happened?

I stepped into the field of vision of a single Bile Demon, being confident that I could survive one breath (800 / 3 => 233, which is less than 300) and then teleport it away...

You no longer feel resistant to poison.
The Bile Demon breathes poison.
You die.

Murphy's Law at its finest.

Would it be better/fairer/funner if temporary effects expired just before your turn, rather than just after your turn (and before the monsters' turn)? So you know when it happens and can (try to) do something about it? I don't see any good reason that it should be the other way.

[LostTemplar]

Would it be better/fairer/funner if temporary effects expired just before your turn, rather than just after your turn (and before the monsters' turn)?

Currently they expire at some moment of time which is not connected with player's turns. Maybe linking them to player's turn will work, e.g. if just before player's turn remaining time of the effect is less then one player turn then expire it just now. (or just add a timer for effects in status line)

[DaviddesJ]

Originally Posted by LostTemplar

Currently they expire at some moment of time which is not connected with player's turns. Maybe linking them to player's turn will work, e.g. if just before player's turn remaining time of the effect is less then one player turn then expire it just now. (or just add a timer for effects in status line)

I think it's intentional that the length of time for the effect is variable and uncertain; I am not sure I would want to go so far as to display the remaining duration in the status line from the beginning. But it would be easy enough to expire the effect at the start of your turn if you have less remaining time on the effect than one player turn at current speed. Seems fair to me---occasionally you would rather have the extra fractional turn of protection, but more often you would rather have the knowledge.

[scud]

Not quite insta, but close... CL28 paladin @ DL26 or 27, bashing algroths in a corridor when BAM! Time Vortex outa nowhere, with the algroths in the middle!

One breath took me from >150HP to 80-90HP; I then failed to use a Staff of Teleportation properly – doh! – then the second breath plus an algroth bludgeoning and it was all over.

Quit the game in a state of shock without looking at the messages.

I'd grown quite attached to Dave V, too.

*sobs*

[Derakon]

Yikes, that vortex was out of depth. Probably a vault nearby. Time vortices are just about one of the worst possible enemies to face out of depth; they're fast, they're mindless and non-evil (thus hard for half the classes to detect), and they have a nasty, nasty ranged ability.

[scud]

Originally Posted by Derakon

they're mindless and non-evil

Dave V's grieving relatives would dispute the 'non-evil' bit.

I hadn't appreciated that they were quite so nasty. I guess my normal encounters with them are when I've got >500HP, a bit of speed enhancement, and quite possibly a couple of Rods of Restoration in my back pocket.

[Derakon]

They're not too bad when encountered in-depth, since by then most classes have some form of general monster detection and can see them coming. It's when they're out of depth that they suddenly get a whole lot nastier.

[Knight]

146 HP (that was at full) level 25 HE Mage, wandering around DLVL 42 looking for stairs, when a Patriarch appears and summons a Death drake. I went to cast Polymorph when I realized that I hadn't learned it yet. I took a turn to learn it when the Death drake breathed nexus for something like 263 damage--instadeath. Should have just teleported away but I didn't want to risk landing next to some other nasty.