ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I dunno about you guys, but about 80% times I die, it always happens like this:
Situation:
I always play a roguelike, so I play veery caarefully. For like 15 hours I have been levelling up this char I have not made a single reckless action. And now I'm clearing a location 5 levels below me and it goes really easy - I kill most enemies in like 3 bump attacks, but I'm still very careful. I make a step, then think. Make another step. Think again. Step-step.. think. Step-step-st~ w-wait what?? some random rare necro has shot me for 500 darkness damage in first turn, then 400 more and I'm dead before I can even notice it.

Alternatively instead of amuck necromaner off-screen that can be some random monster spawning trap. The monsters spawn, block my way and I'm dead in 2 turns of bump-attacking them instead of applying shields, instant buffs or teleporting away.

Problem
The worst part of that story is that I was not instagibbed, I usually die in 2-3 turns when I don't pay attention to the game. That happens very rarely - like once in a few days. Exactly the average lifetime of my characters, lol.

Suggestion
But this can be prevented really easily. What if we make an optional swith that gives us an alarm(sound? visuals?) and prevents user input for about 2 seconds whenever you are hit for more than 50% of your life? I dunno, maybe make this value configurable? I don't mind thinking for 1 extra second whenever I'm hit for 30% too.

The run command will stop you once you see an enemy or take damage, as will autoexplore. Moving one step at a time is a surefire way to get killed through carelessness.

I've certainly died this way before. Actually, I died twice within 5-10 minutes in this situation. It is of course carelessness as Mewtarthio says - though I wouldn't actually be against this sort of option being added since for people who would rather move around with arrow keys or numlock this would improve their play.

Mewtarthio wrote:The run command will stop you once you see an enemy or take damage, as will autoexplore. Moving one step at a time is a surefire way to get killed through carelessness.

The thing is, on some locations I kill 95% of things with bump attack in 2-3 turns without even losing 10% hp. But the rest of 5% things can kill me in 2 turns if I'm careless. And run command wont help me because it stops on any enemy seen, not just those 5%.

Good suggestion Suslik. I've died way too often only because, good only knows why, I've explored a level via numpad keys and ran like 5 turns asking a corridor with skeleton mage bombarding me.

Since DG is rather busy with other stuff I believe the fastest way would be to create an add-on. If you've taken X% amount of damage in one turn then freeze your input devices for Y seconds where you have the option to set the values manually. If the input freeze is not possible then maybe a confirmation box of some kind, like lore pop-up boxes where numbers keys won't make it go away but a mouse does.

Other than that you could try learning to become a bit more cautious. I did that by doing NM mode where in order to survive you need to be careful.
Sadly whenever I do Normal now I easily revert back to my old ways.

I always play nigtmare roguelike nowadays and most of time I'm really careful. I just want to prevent those rare but very frustrating accidents from happening.

Another thing that happens to me often:
I always pump defense first and then offense so that I'm not 1-shotted by some rare off-screen rare. But my offense kinda sucks in the beginning as a shadowblade for example. So I can just bump attack most things in about 3-7 turns without losing any hp. I bump attack some random jelly once, it loses 15% its hp. Once more, it loses a little more. Then I hit it 4 more times in a row with bump attack wetween which some rare summoner spawns a ritch, a wolf and on top of that a minotaur that confuses me D: Once again, that happens Very rarely, probably once in 15 hours of gameplay, but it's extremely frustrating to lose a character to such occasion.

agreed