The Wand of Create Traps is the easiest way to create Trap Doors, which can take you further into the dungon. Do any of the runs use this strategy?
I once cheesed through Castle 2 just by making trapdoors, savescumming at the end boss, then savescumming and escaping my way out of the dungeon. No clock running of course, it was just casual play.
Nope. No current runs take advantage of this, and it's unlikely to save time at any point except for the second stage of a part 1 run with the current strats.
Take a look at the videos up in part 2 for a better idea why, but essentially:
Part 2 requires you to come up and visit your undead grandfather with the magic helmet after killing Surtur. That assumes two things, you need to know stair locations, and they need to be fairly close together for a good run. The current strats that @SilentSigil and I run with make use of map level scrolls to save scum this info and reroll floors when needed.
Trap doors aren't garunteed from the wand, and they aren't sold. The enemies with the best chance to drop these wands are probably wizards, giants, and undead, all of which are not easy kills, and aren't very common in part 1 until the final levels of dungeon 2.
Please feel free to give it a try though! I'd love to be wrong.
FYI, the theoretical limit of Part 2 runs with the new strats is likely around 10 minutes, and 20 or so for Part 1 + 2, so there's a lot if time left to save either way.
Yep, you can, however the RNG to get a starting map level scroll and a decent weapon and rings is already brutal. All this on top of good RNG for 25 floors and good RNG with monster spawns, and good RNG for the wand of Create Traps and then finally good RNG on the wand charges and trap spawns and then trap doors that drop more than one level to make it worth it... We're talking amounts I can't even begin to estimate.
It could work and potentially save time, it's just extremely unlikely for all of this RNG to line up. Close to impossible without some outside influence to manipulate it. I've tried to execute RNG manipulations at an OS level before, but I've never been successful. It may be tied to system variables, in which case manipulating them might be illegal for a run.
Without a clear understanding of how RNG works, it's unlikely it'll be possible this way.
Like I said though, I'd love to be wrong! Please feel free to give it a try!
Well, I tried it:
Got lucky and found a wand with decent charges on a Part 1+2 run and decided to test. Out of 12 charges, only 4 spawned, and only 2 were more than a single floor. 5 floor drops are very rare, but are pretty much the only way this saves time. I guess it's possible with save scumming, but personally, I wouldn't base a run around getting one of these wands. I might experiment with save scumming it next time around.
Just an update - I ended up trying saving and reloading with the wand:
About 1 out of 4 tries produces a trap door. About 1 out of 20 trap doors are a 5 floor drop.
You could get lucky, but on average this eats more time than it saves.
