Fall of the Dinosaurs

Fall of the Dinosaurs is the Fall 2022 special challenge path, introduced on August 15th, 2022. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "There's been a theme park accident, and dinosaurs have eaten all of the monsters in the Kingdom!"

Restrictions

• You cannot enter The Sea:

  That shack you saw on the main map was just a picture of a shack drawn on the ground.

Divergences

• Your adventure begins with "Fall of the Dinosaurs".
• A new area, "Dino World", can be found on the west side of Seaside Town, replacing (quite thoroughly) The Odd Jobs Board.
• Monster encounters are enveloped by dinosaurs:

• These are named "<dinosaur species> that <consumed> a <monster name>."
• This includes fights from any locations and sources, e.g. A Maze of Sewer Tunnels, Reminiscing About Those Monsters You Fought or The Naughty Sorceress' Tower.
• There are 9 types of dinosaurs with different stats and special properties, and a type that is chosen for a given combat is perceived to be random.
• Because dinosaurs are "fake monsters" and are effectively very sophisticated Monster Modifiers, combat properties such as monster drops are sourced from the original monster rather than the dinosaur that ate it. Additionally, monster-specific interactions with skills and combat items remain as normal. Others, like monster stats, are adjusted by the specific dino type.
• Most of the bosses are instead replaced by unique boss dinosaurs.

• Effects that would banish or attract a specific monster don't work, neither for eaten monsters nor for dinos themselves.
  • For example, Bowl a Curveball will end the combat at no adventure cost. However, the banish does not apply and you can immediately encounter the dinosaur or the eaten monster again.
  • Although the Adventure Queue still applies, queue manipulation methods like Transcendent Olfaction and Be Gregarious have no effect.
  • Map the Monsters, Back-Up to your Last Enemy, and combat lover's locket work as expected, however. Using them will start a combat with a random dino that has eaten the desired monster.
  • Miniature crystal ball predictions remain accurate.
  • Skills like CHEAT CODE: Replace Enemy re-roll both the dino and its stomach contents.
  • There are new ways to banish or attract a dino type, those being the dinosaur repellent and the dinosaur pheromone kit.

Dino World

• Entering Dino World takes you to the "Dinosaur Research Facility". Within are found:
  • Visitor's Center. Here you can get Dinodollars for research points collected when defeating dinos with the awkward dinosaur research harness‎‎ equipped.
  • Game Warden's Shed. Here you can get Dinodollars for trophy items dropped by defeated dinos.
  • Owner's Trailer. Here you can get Dinodollars for valuable dinosaur droppings found in a non-combat adventure in a randomly chosen location.
  • Gift Shop. Here you can exchange Dinodollars for many useful items (all of them are quest items except for the stuffed dinosaur).

Dinosaurs

• primitive chicken: Has 1 in all stats, can be forced by birdseed hat, does not drop any meat.
• glass-shelled archelon: Reflects spells.
• ghostasaurus: Only takes 1 dmg from physical sources. Only present in indoors and underground zones.
• (element) flatusaurus: Deals increasingly-large amounts of the related element damage, which can be stopped with flatusaur gasmask. Has much more HP than the base monster.
• spikolodon: Does stinging damage on melee attacks, gives +50% item drops from the monster.
• high-altitude pterodactyl: Attacks with a weapon miss, gives +100% item drops from the monster, can be one-shot with a skill from pterodactyl rifle. Only present in outdoors zones.
• supersonic velociraptor: Runs away on its first combat action, making you "win" the combat but gives no stats or drops (you need to get the jump and one-shot or stun it to get drops normally), gives +200% item drops from the monster. Note that special items like the bottle of Chateau de Vinegar can still drop even if the velociraptor runs away.
• kachungasaur: Triples the eaten monster's base Meat drop. Initially also tripled its stats, but does not currently do so.
• (element) dilophosaur: Attacks always hit.

Flatusauruses and dilophosaurs normally only replace elemental-aligned monsters (other dinos can replace them too), including bad spelling ones.

In addition to the chicken-specific birdseed hat, dinosaur repellent banishes a specific dino type until the end of the day (or until another is banished) and dinosaur pheromone kit attracts one for 19 adventures.

Dinosaurs are wishable and have their own factoids (you cannot get these factoids from fighting dinos in the challenge path the normal way). The dinosaur you fight will have an empty stomach.

Bosses

• Boss Bat is replaced by two-headed pteranodon with a two-headed bat inside it.
• Knob Goblin King has been usurped by a goblodocus.
• The Bonerdagon was eaten by a T-Rex thus requiring you to fight the T-Rex who ate the Bonerdagon.
• Groar is replaced by a refrigeradon.
• Lord Spookyraven's dried up body was but jerky to a herd of well-fed microraptors.
• The Protector Spectre was laid to rest by the protoceratops spectre.
• Dr. Awkward succumbed to a suruasaurus. Mmmffmmm!
• Ed the Undying was not as clever as the seven supersonic velociraptors which have eaten him. It is not necessary to actually defeat them to defeat Ed.
• The Man was ousted by the Oligarcheopteryx.
• The Big Wisniewski was eaten by The Slackiosaurus.
  • Neither of these bosses can be killed by the Flaregun to get the Order of the Silver Wossname in the alternate path.
• Naughty Sorceress is replaced by Naughty Saursaurus.

Lesser bosses are eaten by random normal dinosaurs, other Uncopyable monsters cannot be eaten by supersonic velociraptors.

You do not get mind control drops, except for Baron von Ratsworth.

Strategy

General

• Additional caution is needed when using autoattack macros or scripts, as any monster can be replaced by a dinosaur that reflects spells, is immune to weapon attacks or is immune to physical damage.
• While the combat is harder, especially with the awkward dinosaur research harness‎‎ equipped, Dino DNAde™ can provide a large buff to stats for a low price (one finished quest can buy 300 turns worth of it).
• You can also banish a dinosaur type you have problems with, and in the worst case you can always fight chickens using the birdseed hat at the cost of lower experience gain.
• A safe and reasonable way of dealing with most dinosaur types is by using an attack familiar, as this bypasses things like forced misses by the high-altitude pterodactyl or reflection damage from a spikolodon or glass-shelled archelon. Familiars with multiple elemental damage types are highly recommended.
• Levelling can be harder due to the decreased stat gain from monsters. Consider using edibles instead -- for example, dieting pill + Ready to Eat + guilty sprout gives ~2500 to all stats for 2 fullness.

Specific quests

• Some quests with changes or different strategies:
  • All:
    • For many quests where progression is advanced by winning a fight, such as the Cyrpt, a running away supersonic velociraptor advances it.
  • Level 9:
    • A trivial way to cap cold damage for Blech House in The Smut Orc Logging Camp is to force very weak primitive chickens with the birdseed hat.
  • Level 11:
    • McClusky files still drop from velociraptor devoured accountants, regardless of whether they run or are defeated.
    • Bowls of scorpions are still consumed by drunk pygmies, consumeception?
  • Level 12:
    • Dinosaurs that ate gremlins in The Junkyard don't attack with the Yossarian's tools but the molybdenum magnet still works on them.
    • Chickens can mess up your math in The Themthar Hills and with the Mysterious Island Arena sidequest, because they don't drop meat and have very low Monster Level.
    • Contrariwise, the Kachungasaur is very desirable in The Themthar Hills, as it carries a huge Meat drop bonus.
  • Level 13:
    • The birdseed hat makes killing the wall of bones trivial so if you have it you don't need an electric boning knife.
    • Your shadow is not eaten by a dino so the strategy for defeating it is not changed.
    • There is no need for Wand of Nagamar.
• Be sure to spend all of your Dinodollars before freeing the King, as The Dinostaur will disappear and the Dinodollars are quest items that cannot be carried over to another Ascension.
  • Apart from potentially useful reflective vest and camouflage vest, an obvious target is a bunch of Dino DNAde™.

Shopping and Souveniers

• There are 3 ways to get Dinodollars that you may want to save for a stuffed dinosaur and/or spend on useful in-run items:
  • Adventuring in specific locations for The Owner‎‎. This looks like a very bad idea for a speedrun as most of the locations aren't useful otherwise, similarly to getting skills on a Journeyman run, and you cannot even choose or reroll the location. (However, see below.)
  • Wearing an awkward dinosaur research harness during fights for The Chaosthetician. This is simple and even provides +10 to Monster Level in a back slot, but makes fights harder and, as an additional problem, makes velociraptors more likely to run away due to the significant init penalty. Note that it requires manual unloading of research points every time it's full.
  • Passively collecting trophies for The Game Warden. This doesn't require anything but the progress can be blocked if you don't have enough trophies of a certain type.
• Some spending tips:
  • The birdseed hat is useful for tower killing, getting Blech House, and avoiding hard fights where you don't care about the stat gain or meat.
  • Dino DNAde™ is a cheap and powerful stat boost.
  • The dinosaur repellent is a free run which is very useful for certain strategies.
  • The pterodactyl rifle is in no way required as pterodactyls can be killed with spells (and it costs as much as 13 dinosaur darts).
  • Similarly, the flatusaur gasmask is not required to survive and defeat flatusaurs.

IotM Seeds, Strategy and Synergy

• The following Items of the Month (and derived skills, items, etc.) have special functionality or otherwise noteworthy uses in this path:
  • The Jurassic Parka has an additional functionality in this path: Engage ultra-attractive parka mode. This lets you force specific dinosaurs for 3 encounters, which means +200%/+100%/+50% item drops or tripled meat drops.
  • Map the Monsters, Back-Up to your Last Enemy and combat lover's locket offer ways to fight specific monsters. They function as expected, despite the path's divergences (see above).
  • The miniature crystal ball also functions as expected.
  • June cleaver: The Strange Daydreams can be used to advance the countdown on The Owner's quests. That is to say, they don't cost a turn, but they do count towards Droppings, Sweet Droppings. If you can predict them (which will likely require KoLmafia and the TourGuide script), you can get free Dinodollars.

• There are several Items-of-the-Month that provide bonuses in a certain, non-random order. The details can be found in this spreadsheet. Here are some relevant items that might come in handy around the margins, if you're trying for a leaderboard-worthy run:
  • Our Daily Candles™ order form: Seal Clubbers get a Salsa Caliente™ candle on day 1 and day 2. Turtle Tamers get a Scent of a Human™ candle on day 1, Pastamancers on day 3. Disco Bandits receive a Napalm In The Morning™ candle on day 1. Accordion Thieves and Pastamancers receive a Smoldering Clover™ candle on day 1 and day 2 respectively.
  • MayDay™ contract: Pastamancers get a survival knife on day 1, Turtle Tamers on day 2, and Saucerors on day 3.
  • Bird-a-Day calendar: Turtle Tamers get +20% item drops on day 1, +10% item drops on day 3. Pastamancers get +40% meat on day 2 and +30% item drops on day 3. Saucerors get +80% meat on day 1. Disco Bandits get +20% meat on day 3.

Aftercore

• There are no significant aftercore differences.
• However, you do keep any items you've bought from the The Dinostaur. Dino DNAde™ gives a huge boost to all your stats, which might be useful for high-level areas like The Sea. The reflective vest and camouflage vest might also come in handy.

Text

See The Council of Loathing/Fall of the Dinosaurs

Rewards

• Finishing a Fall of the Dinosaurs run while it is the current special challenge path -- between August 15th, 2022, (and November 14, 2022????) -- gives players 50 (in Normal) or 100 (in Hardcore) extra karma points the next time they visit Valhalla.
• Players will receive a Thwaitgold mosquito-in-amber statuette upon defeating the Naughty Saursaurus.
• Players in Hardcore gain the stainless steel equipment for their class.

References

• Basically everything in this path is some kind of reference to the classic American science fiction media franchise known as Jurassic Park. See the individual pages for details.

Ascension Paths
Boozetafarian	Teetotaler	Oxygenarian
Special Challenge Paths
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