Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup DCSS Dungeon Sprint VII #7 The Pits

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup DCSS Dungeon Sprint

Dungeon Sprint Guide: "The Pits"

I wish Sprint got more love (and development) because it's one of my favorite features of DCSS. Sprint #7, The Pits, is IME both the easiest and most fun of the Sprint maps. You have more wiggle room to explore backgrounds and gods, the start is less brutal, and by the end you are blowing up huge rooms of enemies with the kind of OP attacks that you wish were in the main game (but thankfully aren't). It is similar to Ziggurat Sprint without the high probability of dying in the first room and wasting the time you spent setting up your character.

The Pits are a series of vaults that represent areas of the dungeon but there is more enemy variety in each vault than in the main game. Unlike other sprints there is ample room to run and escape enemies when you get overwhelmed later on. Hover over the doors to each vault to get the name and difficulty level. Do them in order just like the main game.

Caveats:
Sprint is basically broken. The chance that you will get screwed by enemy generation is much higher.  Some gods are way overpowered, some hardly work. Many races and backgrounds are difficult to succeed with in Sprint.

General tips:
Use consumables. Your starting berserk potion is your first get-out-of-death card. Invis is awesome in this map due to the mixed spawns. Spam god abilities, piety generation is much higher in Sprint. Take a background that starts with something (Fi, Gl, As, Ar). I'm not the best at casters but book backgrounds seem somewhat weaker in Sprint because at the start melee is strong, kiting is hard, and new books drop too late. By the end you will need lots of area of effect damage, but it feels easier to get it from gods than magic. Summoning, necromancy, evo, clouds, and AoE are OP. High single-target damage is much less useful. Items generate at different rates. You will see insane jewelry drops but if you don't get a certain spell after the Coven vault you might be SOL. Scrolls of brand weapon frustratingly never drop. Neither do acquirement or experience potions. You are not guaranteed high base damage type weapons or all types of armour (all of the post-halberd polearms in one game were scythes). Wand charges are scarce. Thankfully high XP gain makes it easier to hybridize.

Go up to the Entrance Hall then left from the main spawn into The Storerooms. The first hallway's enemy can be as easy as a rat or as difficult as a worker ant or sewer rat. Sewer rat is the worst because it can be hard to kill without berserk but doesn't give much experience. You don't want to have to use your berserk potion on the first enemy, but if it's a worker ant you will at least get decent exp.

Go up and choose a god (you can do this before killing the first enemy if it's easy enough). The most OP gods in Sprint are Qazlal, Yred, and Nemelex. Mostly in that order. Qazlal is too-easy OP, capable of killing entire vaults with one Disaster Area (plus Elemental Force if even necessary). Play Qazlal if you've never won anything in Crawl and want to taste that sweet victory. Yred and a polearm will trivialize the entire map unless the final room turns out to be Holy Pan-flavored. Yred is OP in general, but here the undead, gifted followers, AoE drain life, and injury mirror, are nutso. Nemelex is similarly OP since you get constant decks and full piety.

I'm playing Jivya while I write this and feel like they might be a decent choice [EDIT: decent but annoying; hello spacebar, bye bye equipment]. Trog trivializes the first rooms but then becomes mediocre. I suck with Makhleb but AoE damage > regen on kills here anyway and his summons aren't strong enough. I haven't had much luck getting Vehumet to be useful enough to make magic strong. Sif, Ash, Ru, and other gods that have different piety mechanisms can be wonky in Sprint. Gozag is okay. I don't think I've tried TSO but because the enemy spawns are less narrow you might see more or less demons and evil creatures in certain vaults. I don't know if that's good or bad.

The next hallway south has one of each weapon type and items that certain classes might need. A really strong weapon might spawn by the end of the Storerooms. With a non-weapon start with a strong god I sometimes just train Fighting instead of weapon skill until then.

Further down is the first real vault. It is easy to split enemies and drag them into the main corridor to fight 1 on 1. You shouldn't have much trouble but if you do use a potion. Pick up some loot at the end of this first series of rooms. Sometimes you will encounter only low-XP popcorn in this first area, which will make the next one significantly more deadly. C'est la vie.

Head to the end of the first hallway in the storerooms and go down. There's another hallway and then a more open vault. This is the first challenging room. You want to be as quiet as possible. If the enemies wake up, go up the hallway and around the corner and try to limit LOS. Gnoll packs with smiting priests and mid-level Lair monsters are common here.

Open the door at the SE corner of the room. There will be a series of single-space rooms that can have difficult enemies inside. I often quaff my berserk potion for the first enemy here. Clear up the hallway to the L-shaped room. To the right is one last room. I usually quaff the invis potion before I go in here. There can be rough enemies in this room but only 1-2 will be able to see invisible. Kite to the hallway and use summons if you have them. Loot at the end.

After the Storerooms your character should be mostly trained up. Magic will still be weak at this point but god powers will be strong and piety full.

The Metal Vault right of the start is next. Beginning in this vault you will encounter larger amounts of diverse enemies. You will be swarmed. 1-tile corridors are rare. Being able to fill tiles with clouds or summons is important. It is not fun to be dragging enemies all the way back to the Entrance Hall or Storerooms all the time.

There are usually 2-3 medium rooms or one bigger vault with corridors and rooms inside. Be careful of noise in the latter. East of this area is a huge vault. If you're using one of the OP gods, this is fun time. Otherwise, buff /invis / fog / debuff / lure away and take enemies down in small groups. There is potentially strong random loot in the small rooms at the end.

Go back to the main room. The hallway to the east needs to be carefully cleared out, then you have a choice of destinations. The Armoury, Minivault, and Grid Vault are all labeled Hard. I usually do the Minivault first because it's one 8-tile room of difficult enemies. A few AoE attacks or summons will soften enemies up and block them from swarming you. Go into the side hallway to limit tiles around you. Watch out when you open the Minivault door because sometimes the door inside is already open.

Grid Vault looks easiest because of the pillars inside. I sometimes do it first but I think it's more dangerous. There are many more enemies inside the Grid. There are two tiles-deep lines of sight unless you go inside into a corner. If you retreat into the wide hallway you could potentially get swarmed by fast enemies and summons. Plus, evocables often spawn in the Minivault; a lamp of fire or wand of clouds make the Grid Vault so much easier. Pop invis and haste before you go in. Tanky characters will do much better in the Grid Vault. Good loot doesn't usually drop in the Grid Vault.

The Armoury has huge packs of high-level Orcs, yaktaur packs, and other Vaults enemies. You will wake them up. They will swarm you, even in the hallway. This room is hard without AoE and summons. Haste and run back to the starting area if you need to. On the left side you will find weapon loot. Ammo in the middle. On the right, armour loot. You might find a really nice artifact weapon/armour, or nothing.

Next you have two choices, west to the Steel Vault or SE to the Coven. I don't think I've ever done the Steel Vault before the Coven but that might be because I just realized they were rated the same difficulty.

The Coven has magic users like elves, nagas, draconians, and liches. Keep your distance or you will get blasted and swarmed. There are two rooms of jewelry and a hallway full of most of the books in the game. You can find one or more manuals as well. Trying on jewelry here is one of the most tedious parts of this Sprint. There are so many different randarts that you have to slowly whittle them down. Don't forget there's a second room full of jewelry!

The Steel Vault is more Dungeon/Depths enemies. This is a big vault. Most of the enemies here aren't that difficult and there are enough walls that you won't draw the whole vault at once. Not very notable. West of the Steel Vault is a loot room with mostly boring loot. South is a separate vault.

You can now choose from four Extremely Hard Vaults. The Slime Pits, Vestibule, Crystal Vault, and Hall of Sentries.

The Slime Pits is a long hallway leading to a huge square vault packed wall-to-wall with enemies. If you have massive AoE damage or some immolation scrolls, this is your moment. Animate Dead and Death Channel are insane here. The room is usually orcs/ogres/trolls or something not too crazy. At this point the loot is just okay; you might have found most of your endgame gear already.

The Vestibule is small and easy. Hell/Zot/Pan enemies.

The Crystal Vault is similar to the Steel Vault with harder enemies. Lots of Pandemonium/Hell/Zot enemies in here including Pan lords.

The Hall of Sentries has single-tile rooms leading to a slightly bigger room. There's another Extremely Hard vault halfway to the end. Be careful in the Hall. The most powerful enemies in the game are behind some of these doors. I once accidentally opened the Hall after doing the Coven and Gloorx popped out. Thankfully I was worshipping Qazlal and even that early I killed him with Disaster Area before taking damage.

West of the Hall of Sentries is the Iron Vault. This is the hardest Extremely Hard vault to me. The rooms are small but other doors can open while you're fighting. Very difficult enemies and uniques here, from Orbs or Fire to Mennas to named Pan lords.

All that is left is the Final Vault and Golden Pit, both Nightmare! level. The Final Vault is just the Orb Chamber and lungs. It's not harder than the Iron Vault but it is much more open and there are curse toes and ancient liches everywhere.

I clear the Golden Pit last. It's a bigger version of the Slime Pits, wall to wall with a Ziggurat-like enemy set. This one really depends. It could be dragons or Holy Pan (I don't remember other sets but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a Tomb one). This is your last hurrah so it's balls-out AoE and summon time. If you get depleted or overwhelmed, head back to the hallway and run for your life. By this point the whole map is cleared so if you can get away you can close doors and rest up. The loot in the Golden Pit is annoyingly excellent.

Go pick up the orb and walk out. If you die on this orb run I don't know what to tell you.

You won!