Temple diving
Many adventurers like to thoroughly explore the beginning levels, reliably gaining enough experience to successfully tackle the next level. A temple diver takes a different path.
A temple diver intends to worship a particular god, and wants to gain piety with that god as quickly as possible. The temple diver takes each stairs down as soon as they find them, in search of the Ecumenical Temple. After taking service with their god of choice, the temple diver returns to the first level of the dungeon, and proceeds more methodically, gaining experience and piety.
Temple diving gains piety more quickly than the usual strategy, as a lowly rat on D:1 generally gives as much piety as a dragon or tier one demon. This approach is particularly useful if the chosen god gives abilities or rewards at early levels.
This strategy is not for the faint-hearted. The low level mortality rate among temple divers is quite high. Fortunately, you probably haven't spent much time on a failed diver, though players on a win streak are ill-advised to dive. Just start another!
Delver
The Delver background, as the name suggests, is tailor-made towards diving. You start at D:5, with a scroll of magic mapping to scout, high Stealth, and a few other items.
Like all backgrounds, you aren't married to one, Temple-reliant strategy. A difficult monster is easily a reason to just go back upstairs. That is, if you aren't afraid of scumming, i.e, resetting characters until you happen to see and reach the Temple.
Tips & Tricks
- This strategy works because the vast majority of monsters before the temple are pretty easy. Even so, this approach calls for extreme cowardice. A temple diver should run away from pretty much anything not found on the first floor of the dungeon.
- If all pathways to the temple are blocked by difficult monsters, you can always revert to Plan A, return to level one, and start killing your way down. But there is usually a way through for the persistent.
- Spriggans are the quintessential divers. Their speed gives them the ability to run away from the vast majority of dangerous enemies.
- Other stealthy races may also be good choices for temple diving. Just remember that you are below your normal depth, and higher level monsters will usually see through your stealth pretty easily.
- While diving, only use stairs to descend levels. Using trapdoors means you have no reliable way to run away.
- If you get to the temple and your god's altar isn't there, it's often best to revert to Plan A. Overflow altars will be found between D:3 and D:10.
