Surviving Encounters with Uniques

''This is an article that gives options for players that have trouble escaping from or engaging early-mid game uniques. ''

It's extremely easy for players to die to uniques. Believing your character is strong enough to take them on, you engage, watching miserably as they proceed to grind you to dust with their powerful spells. Even if you try to run, the unique confuses or paralyses you, and you feel like there's nothing you could do. And, to an extent, this is true: If you find a D:2 Sigmund, and his first action is to confuse you, you're probably going to die. But at the same time, you should be equipped to handle most uniques if you are willing to burn consumables and utilise your character's traits fully.

Below is some information on surviving with two Uniques that are most likely to kill you: Sigmund and Grinder. Note that with a lot of Uniques, the advice for counter measures overlap- for example, you can fight Prince Ribbit with almost the same strategy as you would Grinder (taking into account the trade-off of Grinder's Paralysis for Ribbit's high damage and speed).

Sigmund
Sigmund is a powerful early game Unique that is notorious for ending the runs of many an adventurer. Wielding his trusty scythe, he aims to ruin your day with high damage, dangerous hexes and hard-hitting conjurations.

Abilities

 * Confuse - Sigmund's strength lies in his ability to quickly lock you down and then pelt you at range with conjurations. His Confuse spell forces you to stumble around blindly for several turns, during which time he can catch up to you or just kill you from afar.
 * Throw Fire - This spell is identical to the level 2 Fire Elementalist spell. While it hurts quite badly, you can probably survive one or two shots.
 * Invisibility - Sigmund's ability to go invisible makes him one of the most terrifying enemies in the early game, especially for inexperienced players. The fact that in Crawl stealth does not limit actions means that he is free to hit you, throw fire on you or confuse you all while in stealth. If he goes stealth, hide immediately and recover!
 * Scythe - Of course, Sigmund would not be Sigmund if he didn't have his scythe. Usually this misses a lot, but if it does hit it will hurt. Note that Sigmund gets a free attack with it on you if you try to fight him at melee range, because of the reaching ability of polearms. However, his Scythe is also has a fairly exploitable drawback: he strikes extremely slowly, allowing you to create a crucial one-tile gap (two if he hits you from a tile away) once he attacks.

So how does one survive?

Counter Measures

 * Run. If you run and don't get confused, you'll probably live easily. Aim to turn corners to try to lose him; if you stay in his LOS he's bound to shoot fire at you or confuse you. Diagonal movement is key to survival - it saves precious turns and provides quicker cover. Once you have escaped upstairs, you can either elect to skip the floor or recover and face him again (skipping the floor is probably best if you don't have a readily available way to deal with him).
 * Check your inventory. Random potions that you haven't ID'ed can actually save you; berserk rage, agility or might are good examples of this. Note that bad potions (slowing, confusion, etc.) have a very good chance of killing you, but at the same time trying to fight without a buff is often suicidal. Throwing Nets are great at disabling Sigmund, as are a lot of ranged weapons. Javelins, Tomahawks and poison needles are particularly good at 0 skill.
 * Use God Abilities. If you're a follower of Trog (a Berserker, most of the time), using Berserk can make short work of Sigmund. If you follow Okawaru, Heroism also works. Note that this option doesn't apply to every character; For example, Sif Muna, Vehumet or Ashenzari won't help you in a straight up fight this early in the game.
 * Use a combination of the above. Run around a corner to stop him from seeing (and hence blasting you from range), start quaffing a potion or two and then use any abilities to power yourself up. The more you get used to the game, the better you understand how to deal with early game uniques.

Grinder
Grinder is very similar to sigmund; he's rather sadistic and has a deadly disable. Grinder is sometimes even worse than Sigmund because although his melee attacks are quite reasonable, he can hit you several times after he paralyzes you. He's slightly tankier than Sigmund, and has the Pain Spell.

Abilities

 * Paralyze - can be very deadly in a fight, disabling you for several turns.
 * Blink - a VERY annoying trait that Grinder uses a LOT. Be prepared to run out of LOS if he blinks away, because any time you're at range he has a good chance of paralyze/paining you.
 * Pain - Similar to the level 1 Necromancy spell, Pain does ~10 damage, which is often lethal after a few shots. I don't think it hurts him, though.

Counter Measures

 * From experience, Wands and Nets are reasonably reliable ways of taking Grinder down. Nets hold him in place, and Wands blast at him from range. Even a flame or Frost Wand can take him down after a few shots.
 * Berserk, Might and Agility potions are very good to quaff before a fight with Grinder.
 * Trog's Hand ( Berserkers only) gives you MR, letting you resist Paralysis more often.
 * Run! You can leave Grinder on a floor (Sigmund too) and continue to explore the rest of the dungeon. Once you're strong enough to handle him, you can return to that floor or leave it alone.

Note
For an experienced player, it is often doable to take Sigmund or Grinder on by about D:4-5. If you find either on D:2, you may want to run. At that point you might simply not have the tools to fight them.