Two things that always kill me in crawl

Poison and drowning.

Poison is just finding resistance before doing anything aggressive. Is there any
clever tricks out there I may have missed?

Drowning is just stupid, but increasingly common. I include swamp worms hitting
you for a gazillion damage as part of drowning, but my most recent experience
was just failure to float.

My last good toon (a lvl18 Demigod Reaver) was wandering in the hive to make
sure I didnt miss any food. (Food is the main issye for demigods, as no one is
*allowed* to help you if you don't find Gourmand)

I had a randart blowgun that let me levitate. There was a fair amount of water,
so it was on... I went out into a sizable pool without paying too much attention
mostly due to trying to keep my puppy and young son both happy. The kid helps
with moving but sometimes overdoes from the keyboard buffer's point of view.

Saw the lev failing message and discovered dig doesnt work against wax.
Oopsie... Glub. glub.

Also my ability option for the blowgun just had cancel, not "renew". Had no
potions or a spell, would those have worked? What else might have?

In retrospect I should have sticky flamed the wall till it melted, (would have
been land or filled with water?) but I tried to teleport and it just dumped me
over a different bit of water. Bubye.

I had killed 4 ghosts and Erolcha, had nearly 75 attribute points, and ... feh.

How do people avoid infinitely stupid deaths?

Also on a different subject how do I get verbose death dumps from akrasiac? I'd
like to have seen his kill list, but haven't figured out how to get them.

Thanks to the SS team, akrasiac, and anyone who constructively repiles.


Snee

Early game poisoning: by the time you have 30 hp or so, most yellow
poisonings can be waited out unless you were hurt badly to begin with,
and even if you can't wait it out, the game has more than enough
potions of healing in it. So the real poison threat is in the
beginning, when you're low on HP and might not have a potion of
healing. Snakes, giant ants, and scorpions can take a chunk of hit
points, and then leave to fatally poisoned even after you've killed
them.

The answer to these is to minimize the amount of time you spend in
melee with them. Use whatever ranged attack you have available, even
if it's just a throw rock, even if you don't intend to be a ranged-
attack character in the long run. Softening them up before engaging
can be the difference between getting poisoned and not getting
poisoned, or having enough HP left to wait to poison out or not.

Conversely, for kobolds and orcs with blowguns, stay out of their LOS,
and make them come to you for melee. Treat them like you would a
centaur, orc wizard, or orc priest, because they won't use the
poisoned needle attack at melee range.

The Lair contains some nasty poisoners, especially spiny frogs and
black snakes, but by this point in the game you'll usually have begun
to develop a surplus of potions of healing. If you're not poison
resistant, exploring the Lair without a potion of healing is ill-
advised, and you should go back to the Dungeon or the Mines if you
don't have one.

The Hive can be done without poison resistance by heavy armour
characters who have already cleared the Lair and the Mines. It's
harder for light armour characters, but most can do it at a similar
point of development.

Going to the Swamp without clarity or poison resistance is dangerous
due to confused drowning. I've had to do it once, and a watching my
stash of potions of healing was key. A few times, I've had to do the
Swamp with just clarity. Again, it's key to maintain a stash of
potions of healing to deal with the swamp dragons. If you can help
it, wait until the dragon is dead to cure the poisoning. If I'm in
this situation, it will be a goal to get a swamp dragon hide and make
armour for the rest of the Swamp and then the Snake Pit. If I haven't
found PR yet, I will usually have cleared all of the Dungeon, the
Crypt, the Hive, and all but the last levels of Elf and Vaults looking
for PR before I take this step.

I consider the Snake Pit off limits without PR. Naga venom spittle,
black snakes, and poison arrow will eat through the stash of potions
of healing far faster than it can be replenished. With Cure Poison by
spell or rod, it would be do-able, but I'd try to pull a swamp dragon
hide out of the Swamp before doing the Snake Pit without PR.