Definitely my best character yet. (I keep making MDFi's. It's boring, I know, but I enjoy them.) I've got the Snake Pit rune and equipment to confer every resistance. Now I just need to decide where to go next; I've cleared out the Lair, the Snake Pit, the Hive, and the Orcish Mines; I'm tempted to try the Elven Halls next, but perhaps I should do the Swamp or the Vaults instead?
Look for a cutting weapon that has the flaming brand or a kickass blunt weapon before you tackle the swamp. If you don't manage to find one try to clear vault 1-7 and get some magic resist and head to the hall of blades. Should have a decent chance of finding a weapon that will let you kill hydras with ease.
My backup weapon is a +5 great mace of protection; it's served me well so far when I've encountered hydras.
I'll vouch on penalty of banning that it's clean, but of course you should scan everything you download off the net, especially archives linked by strange men on strange forums etc etc.
edit: Right. Make that four in a row.
1061 Carl the Geomancer (level 7, -5/38 HPs)
Began as a Sludge Elf Earth Elementalist on July 22, 2009.
Killed from afar by Carl's ghost (34 damage)
... with an orb of energy
... in The Abyss.
The game lasted 00:30:27 (8030 turns).
Really crawl? Really? Now my GHOSTS are waiting for me in the Abyss?
How did you get in the abyss at level 7? Either way crawl seems to hate you sooo much.
Some fucker punched me in the cock with a distortion weapon .
edit: pardon the language, I just lost another earth elementalist.
No, EEs famously die early, it's not just you. And sadly it's not just the level 1 spell, Stone Arrow is pretty terrible for quite some time compared to the level 2 fire/frost spells. And Lee's Rapid Deconstruction is almost worthless for much more than removing walls (unless I'm just an idiot and can't figure it out.) And there's no way you'll be summoning elementals in time to help you when that's your first summoning spell. And did I mention that stone skin is no ozocubus armour? I'm almost positive the formulas are supposed to be the same but ozocubus actually seems to lengthen in duration and increase in AC, and I sure don't seem to see stone skin giving me more than +4. One day I'll have to learn a bunch of ice magic and see if they've just got it set to use the wrong form of elemental magic.
Basically the trick with the level 1 spell is to wield stones while you do it, which increases (drastically) the power of the spell. Of course then you run out of stones. So what you REALLY do is waste 3-5 mana to kill things like kobolds and giant bats so you can save stones for the things you need to kill right away (like snakes... or hobgoblins with clubs, which seem to be secretly branded 'slay earth elementalist'.) When you find a fair number of stones things are much easier, except for the stuff that's dangerous if it gets in close (like ogres.)
Thankfully once you start getting better at casting, Stone Arrow eclipses the level 2 fire/ice stuff by a decent margin.
Honestly the only redeeming features of the class (other than how you're learning Earth Magic straight from the get go, which I'm sure is why generally they're balanced to suck so bad early--and it IS a big advantage) are the comparatively insane damage that sandblast+equipped stones do and the ability to dig with the default spellbook.
Transmigration might be an edge too, but I've never found the changing form is worth nearly as much as summoning is.
Ego - thank you much for the upload. I'm off to the tutorial!
Oh hey, missed your post, glad to help out .
edit: as promised... because my earlier post was so bad for the top of the thread, I decided to write a PA-crawl tutorial.
Ego (The Very Experienced Newbie's) Guide to Dungeon Crawl. Part 1.
Dungeon Crawl is a game that's about making you cry. It's a very deep game, though, so it may take you a considerable time to realize this. In the interim, you'll have lots of fun killing monsters, and eating them, and donning their skins like Hannibal Lector. Or was it that guy Hannibal was trying to catch? It doesn't really matter. The point is, you kill monsters, eat them, and steal their shit.
Eating monsters? That's right, because if you don't eat monsters*, Dungeon Crawl is going to kill you. Dungeon Crawl is always trying to kill you, and hunger is the first attack. While there's food in the dungeon, there's never enough food to go around (save real food until you're near starving.) So if you find a monster and you're hungry, remember that you'd better chop it up and eat it or you're probably going to die. Also remember that eating some monsters can poison you or rot away or other generally unpleasant things.
So whatever you do, eat the monters you kill. Unless you're not suppose to eat them. In such a case, whatever you do, don't eat the monsters you kill! Clear?
Also, just to be a jerk, your character probably can't eat monster meat unless he's actually hungry. And it rots away in your pack. So you may very well not have it when you need it. Amulets of the gourmand, mutations, and playing as certain races (kobold, troll, ogre) will let you eat flesh while not hungry.
More sincerely, though, monster meat is colour coded in game. When you chop up (shift-C while standing over a corpse) a monster, check out what colour the meat text is. Brown meat is contaminated, and has a 1 in 3 chance of making you sick instead of nourishing you. Purple meat is mutagenic, will not nourish you, can be eaten while not hungry. White meat will nourish you and not make you sick. Green-texted food is poisonous. Poisonous food becomes white if you have poison resistance.
So just remember:
-Never eat actual 'food' you find in the dungeon unless you're near starving.
-Find something sharp as fast as you can so you can cut up monsters. The first sharp thing you find will automatically be picked up.
-Always chop up monsters you see unless you know you can't eat them. Don't wait till you're hungry.
-The Lair is a great place to get food in an emergency.
-Drinking from fountains provides a small amount of food in an emergency. Always worth drinking if you're a spriggan. Note that sparkling fountains are not regular fountains and can have potion effects.
*Spriggans can't eat monster chunks. Spriggans do however have a slower metabolism, and therefore can generally find enough in the dungeon to keep going . Spriggans are also smart as heck, which makes food costs less of an issue for them as INT is directly related to spell cost (along with Spellcasting skill.)
So now that you understand about food, it's time to pick your class and race. Everyone tells people to start with Ogre Fighters and that sort of thing, but a) the closest thing I play to a fighter is a merman ice elementalist (seriously) so I'd be pretty bad at that kind of guide and b) PEW PEW PEW! Who doesn't like spellcasters? and c) someone already did this for melee characters, do a search on 'Tor guide to crawl'.
So after calm deliberation, you've decided to be a Deep Elf Conjurer. You can pick either Conjurations [Ice] or Conjurations [Fire] for your spellbook, unless you picked Conjurations [Fire], because we aren't picking that today.Pick Conjurations [Ice]. Already picked Fire and started the game? Well go die and start over... looks like you get a head start on that valuable skill. Trust me, you'll be using it often.
We're picking Ice because it has mephitic cloud and Fire doesn't.
Casters generally blast things with cheap low level spells, and in this case (Magic Dart) the spell is the same whether we pick fire or ice. Magic Dart is also non-elemental damage, so things aren't going to resist it. Since both spellbooks have dart, our choice is based on utility spells. The only utility spell in Fire is conjure flame, which helps a lot in a pinch but is absolutely not on the same level as mephitic cloud. Which is in Conjurations [Ice].
The plan is simple: walk around the dungeon. Find a monster. Kill it with magic dart. Rest until our mana is full. Repeat until we find something sharp, then continue killing things with dart while also chopping them up for food. We're going to do this until we run into something we can't handle with magic dart alone, at which point we're going to break out mephitic cloud.
Mephitic cloud confuses things. Things like Ogres, Priests, Killer bees, Orc Warriors --things that like ripping your arms off or smiting you dead in one or two turns or outrunning you and poisoning you repeatedly or smashing you with halberds. It also comes in handy against casters to prevent nasty spells you don't want to deal with (like the orc mage who's going to haste that warrior.)
So when we run into an Ogre, that's our plan. We're going to confuse it, then pelt it with magic dart (and if we run out of mana, real darts or whatever the hell else we have) until it goes down.
Mephitic cloud, by the way, is just like an emergency item (except it requires mana.)
When you walk around a corner and go 'oh shit, that thing is going to kill me', the first thing you ask yourself is: what do I have for emergencies? You ask the same thing when you fall down a shaft into a room full of baddies. Or get teleported into one. Or get tossed into the abyss. The game is turn based, so always calmly evaluate what your emergency options actually are before you commit yourself to action. OR YOU WILL DIE, THEN LOOK AT YOUR CHARACTER/EQUIPMENT AND REALIZE YOU HAD AN EASY WAY TO LIVE. This is part of the way crawl attempts to make you cry. Resist!
There are lots of things to use in emergencies, not just spells.
Here's a short list:
-scrolls of teleport
-scrolls of blink
-scrolls of fear
-potions of healing (mostly to cure confusion and poison.)
-potions of heal wounds (this is your raw HP potion.)
-potions of berzerk rage
-potions of speed
-potions of invisibility
-wand of healing (casts 'heal wounds')
-wand of teleportation
-wand of polymorph
-and wand that can blast the shit out of the thing that's going to kill you.
OK. That's part 1. Part 2 will actually deal a little bit with the life of a caster.
Is there any downside to having cursed equipment apart from being unable to remove it? I just bought the +11/+11 Scythe of Curses from an antique shop for 111 gold on my latest Merfolk Ice Elementalist. Needless to say, I'm potentially extremely happy.
Is there any downside to having cursed equipment apart from being unable to remove it? I just bought the +11/+11 Scythe of Curses from an antique shop for 111 gold on my latest Merfolk Ice Elementalist. Needless to say, I'm potentially extremely happy.
No real downside outside the fact you can't switch your stuff out. That weapon is really bad btw, It curses everything you have and scythes are generally not worth using unless they have a speed brand. Switch it out as soon as you find another polearm.
I've been using a halberd since D2, and I've enchanted it up to +6/+8, and I can temporarily brand it with Freezing or Venom. Should I really just stick with that?
I've been using a halberd since D2, and I've enchanted it up to +6/+8, and I can temporarily brand it with Freezing or Venom. Should I really just stick with that?
In the future save your scrolls for glaives/bardiches but its is fine for now. I think scrolls of enchant weapon III will make your brand permanent also so save one or two.
I'm still not sure I've ever seen a Glaive or Bardiche drop yet, heh. I thought it was Vorpalize Weapon that permanizes a brand?
I see plenty of glaives laying around but I have only ever seen three or four bardiches ever. Voropalize scrolls used to in an earlier version but 0.5 I am certain that enchant weapon II does it now.
Cool little tutorial there, gave me a different perspective as I've mostly played fighter types. The color coded corpses re: edibility was a brilliant help, I was sortof guessing what was good to eat and what wasn't.
I broke my personal record, got around 10k points and saw the entry to the hive, took down a vampire but didn't have what it took to get through the massive swarm of rats and bats involved in the room... he had me pretty weak. I was pleased overall, disappointed to need to start over. I had found some +6Plate with a slowing drawback, but it seemed to make me sooo tough I kept it anyhow. Electricity Axe +2/-1 represented hard.
Some questions~
Fucking acid spitting jellies what the fuck?
Armor: good to wear "off class" armors to train Armor skills on casters or Evasion on fighters?
Shields: Worth it to use bigger ones?
Casting: I had learned Spellcasting on the above noted character before death but found no book. How does that happen? Random? Read lotsa scrolls and/or use wands? Pump INT?
How do new skills in general work?
Enchantment Scrolls can do more than add +1's to Dmg or Accuracy?
Armor: good to wear "off class" armors to train Armor skills on casters or Evasion on fighters?
Shields: Worth it to use bigger ones?
Casting: I had learned Spellcasting on the above noted character before death but found no book. How does that happen? Random? Read lotsa scrolls and/or use wands? Pump INT?
How do new skills in general work?
Enchantment Scrolls can do more than add +1's to Dmg or Accuracy?
You shouldn't come across acid blobs (which should be the only J with a projectile attack, I think), unless you go into the Slime Pits, or maybe come across a jelly vault or shapeshifter.
Evasion is essentially useless on a heavy armor character. Heavy armor on a caster is a viable choice, but not necessarily recommended. I'm not sure the armor skill even has any effect if you aren't wearing heavy armor.
It's generally worth it to use bigger shields unless you're a caster and it would have a big impact on spells you're likely to use, or if you have a smaller shield with resistances or something.
Spellcasting can be learned by anyone by reading scrolls. Higher intelligence makes it take less time/experience, I believe.
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking about new skills, but any time you take an action that involves one of them, you might put experience into it. It's still all based off of your aptitudes and everything. It's basically like a Level 0 for the skill, and it works the same way as any other level, just that you can't see it or turn it off.
One enchantment scroll adds to damage, one to accuracy, and Enchant III does both with a chance to attempt two bonuses for each.
Armor: good to wear "off class" armors to train Armor skills on casters or Evasion on fighters?
Shields: Worth it to use bigger ones?
Casting: I had learned Spellcasting on the above noted character before death but found no book. How does that happen? Random? Read lotsa scrolls and/or use wands? Pump INT?
How do new skills in general work?
Enchantment Scrolls can do more than add +1's to Dmg or Accuracy?
You shouldn't come across acid blobs (which should be the only J with a projectile attack, I think), unless you go into the Slime Pits, or maybe come across a jelly vault or shapeshifter.
Evasion is essentially useless on a heavy armor character. Heavy armor on a caster is a viable choice, but not necessarily recommended. I'm not sure the armor skill even has any effect if you aren't wearing heavy armor.
It's generally worth it to use bigger shields unless you're a caster and it would have a big impact on spells you're likely to use, or if you have a smaller shield with resistances or something.
Spellcasting can be learned by anyone by reading scrolls. Higher intelligence makes it take less time/experience, I believe.
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking about new skills, but any time you take an action that involves one of them, you might put experience into it. It's still all based off of your aptitudes and everything. It's basically like a Level 0 for the skill, and it works the same way as any other level, just that you can't see it or turn it off.
One enchantment scroll adds to damage, one to accuracy, and Enchant III does both with a chance to attempt two bonuses for each.
Yeah, I can certainly say that I was finding acid blobs in the deeper levels of the Lair, but that is just hearsay.
So I am in this orc fort, owning shit, and I found this swirly gate to a bazaar. Magic Books for sale woo!
What are the chances the portal will close once I leave once? I can almost afford Geomancy and Stoneskin sounds useful.
I'm using a Deep Elf Ice Conjurer, per Ego's notes above. Level 9, throwin Mephitic Clouds and Throw Frost and shit. I also *JUST* found a Book of Fire [Summon Ele reachable now-ish, other stuff possible down the road]
Assuming the portal to this place will poof when I leave ~ I can afford one of these from the shop - recommendations?
**Earth [Dig Passwall Magmabolt] - meh
**Minor Magic [Blink, Repel Missiles, Slow and some basic summons] - sounds good to me for the non summon stuff
**Wizardry [Tele, Fireball, Haste, Identify] - looks good as well
**Charms [Repel Missiles, Invis, Silence, Enslave] - another strong contender
**Necro - meh
I'm pretty sure all bazaars disappear when you leave. Some will disappear after a certain amount of time once you've accessed the floor they're on, while others won't ever disappear until you visit them.
Haste is the most useful spell in the lot and Teleport is decent enough to have around even though you'll probably never run out of scrolls/wands for it.
But Blink/Repel missiles is a great combination that you should be able to cast immediately. If it also has summon butterflies or small mammals, then that's three really good low level utility spells that I'd have a hard time passing up.
I'd skip charms. Enslave is only marginally useful, especially if you have low enchantment skill. And silence is practically useless except as an emergency escape measure if you're a conjurer (it can be a pretty awesome escape measure depending on the situation, but probably not worth the investment). Invisibility is pretty nice if you know where to use it, though.
Thanks for the input, that's what I was about to go with ;o I was thinking that stuff like Haste and ID looked nice when I could get to them, but what I really need is survivability. Minor Magic (summ) it is.
Assuming the portal to this place will poof when I leave ~ I can afford one of these from the shop - recommendations?
**Earth [Dig Passwall Magmabolt] - meh
**Minor Magic [Blink, Repel Missiles, Slow and some basic summons] - sounds good to me for the non summon stuff
**Wizardry [Tele, Fireball, Haste, Identify] - looks good as well
**Charms [Repel Missiles, Invis, Silence, Enslave] - another strong contender **Necro - meh
For the record, delving into Necromancy makes anything that is either living or undead into your bitch.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Pain was good when I dabbled as a necro but I've already got nukes, and skellies seemed terrible.
Agony reduces a living creature to 50% of their current health, Vampiric Draining hits hard and heals you, and Dispel Undead is the best anti-undead option you can get.
With those 3 spells and enough mana you can brutally murder any non-demon.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Pain was good when I dabbled as a necro but I've already got nukes, and skellies seemed terrible.
Agony reduces a living creature to 50% of their current health, Vampiric Draining hits hard and heals you, and Dispel Undead is the best anti-undead option you can get.
With those 3 spells and enough mana you can brutally murder any non-demon.
Summon Skeletons is shit thought. Wait for Animate Dead.
Pain was good when I dabbled as a necro but I've already got nukes, and skellies seemed terrible.
Agony reduces a living creature to 50% of their current health, Vampiric Draining hits hard and heals you, and Dispel Undead is the best anti-undead option you can get.
With those 3 spells and enough mana you can brutally murder any non-demon.
What do you guys like for anti-demons, btw? Abominations? Dipping into another spell school for a bit?
I think the necro bone shards spell will damage just about anything including demons, but I'm not sure how strong it actually is. I don't generally play necros (I do conjurers) and as them I branch into either earth or summoning.
Conjure flame is a good way to stop non-confusable monsters in a corridor if you've got conjurations skill (like mephitic cloud, generally you'll be able to cast it even if you're, say, an ice elementalist.) That said, it doesn't help you against plenty of things that are immune to fire, so ultimately it's a good idea to either have summons or at the least something like iskendrun's mystic blast (or if you're willing to branch into earth magic, to go stone arrow and/or bolt of iron to crystal spear.
Level 9 with Magic Dart, Mephitic Cloud and Throw Frost. Past time I get some more spells, and I have some good stuff to choose from with plenty of levels to learn right away.
Book of Ice [ Bolt of Cold, Freezing Could, Static Discharge ]
Book of Frost [ Freeze, Throw Frost, Ozocubu's Armor, Ice Bolt, Summon Ice Beast, Freezing Cloud]
Book of Power [ Animate Dead, Tele Other, Venom Bolt, Bolt of Iron, Invis, Mass Confusion, Poisonous Cloud]
What should I learn in what order?
I'm in D9 wearing 2 Rings of Ice, if that matters.
Is there something other than level range that factors into memorization? Power is all 4 through 6, the other books are 1 through 7.
Bolt of Cold is 6 and Ice Bolt is 4.
Venom is 5 and Iron is 6... is it better to stay in cold spells or diversify some nukes? Should I get multiples in the same level range of different types?
e~ swapped in a Fire Prot ring based on the idea of burning to a crisp ;o
e2~ took Ozcubo's just because everything is so lethal... still thinking about which nukes to use.
Is there something other than level range that factors into memorization? Power is all 4 through 6, the other books are 1 through 7.
Bolt of Cold is 6 and Ice Bolt is 4.
Venom is 5 and Iron is 6... is it better to stay in cold spells or diversify some nukes? Should I get multiples in the same level range of different types?
Bolt of cold is probably the best overall bolt ignoring resists. Grab bolt of iron along with it and you should be fine.
Posts
My backup weapon is a +5 great mace of protection; it's served me well so far when I've encountered hydras.
Some fucker punched me in the cock with a distortion weapon
edit: pardon the language, I just lost another earth elementalist.
I must be doing it wrong.
Basically the trick with the level 1 spell is to wield stones while you do it, which increases (drastically) the power of the spell. Of course then you run out of stones. So what you REALLY do is waste 3-5 mana to kill things like kobolds and giant bats so you can save stones for the things you need to kill right away (like snakes... or hobgoblins with clubs, which seem to be secretly branded 'slay earth elementalist'.) When you find a fair number of stones things are much easier, except for the stuff that's dangerous if it gets in close (like ogres.)
Thankfully once you start getting better at casting, Stone Arrow eclipses the level 2 fire/ice stuff by a decent margin.
Honestly the only redeeming features of the class (other than how you're learning Earth Magic straight from the get go, which I'm sure is why generally they're balanced to suck so bad early--and it IS a big advantage) are the comparatively insane damage that sandblast+equipped stones do and the ability to dig with the default spellbook.
Transmigration might be an edge too, but I've never found the changing form is worth nearly as much as summoning is.
Oh hey, missed your post, glad to help out
edit: as promised... because my earlier post was so bad for the top of the thread, I decided to write a PA-crawl tutorial.
Ego (The Very Experienced Newbie's) Guide to Dungeon Crawl. Part 1.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
No real downside outside the fact you can't switch your stuff out. That weapon is really bad btw, It curses everything you have and scythes are generally not worth using unless they have a speed brand. Switch it out as soon as you find another polearm.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
In the future save your scrolls for glaives/bardiches but its is fine for now. I think scrolls of enchant weapon III will make your brand permanent also so save one or two.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
I see plenty of glaives laying around but I have only ever seen three or four bardiches ever. Voropalize scrolls used to in an earlier version but 0.5 I am certain that enchant weapon II does it now.
The horror.
It was The Children's Crusade meets Saving Private Ryan.
I broke my personal record, got around 10k points and saw the entry to the hive, took down a vampire but didn't have what it took to get through the massive swarm of rats and bats involved in the room... he had me pretty weak. I was pleased overall, disappointed to need to start over. I had found some +6Plate with a slowing drawback, but it seemed to make me sooo tough I kept it anyhow. Electricity Axe +2/-1 represented hard.
Some questions~
Fucking acid spitting jellies what the fuck?
Armor: good to wear "off class" armors to train Armor skills on casters or Evasion on fighters?
Shields: Worth it to use bigger ones?
Casting: I had learned Spellcasting on the above noted character before death but found no book. How does that happen? Random? Read lotsa scrolls and/or use wands? Pump INT?
How do new skills in general work?
Enchantment Scrolls can do more than add +1's to Dmg or Accuracy?
You shouldn't come across acid blobs (which should be the only J with a projectile attack, I think), unless you go into the Slime Pits, or maybe come across a jelly vault or shapeshifter.
Evasion is essentially useless on a heavy armor character. Heavy armor on a caster is a viable choice, but not necessarily recommended. I'm not sure the armor skill even has any effect if you aren't wearing heavy armor.
It's generally worth it to use bigger shields unless you're a caster and it would have a big impact on spells you're likely to use, or if you have a smaller shield with resistances or something.
Spellcasting can be learned by anyone by reading scrolls. Higher intelligence makes it take less time/experience, I believe.
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking about new skills, but any time you take an action that involves one of them, you might put experience into it. It's still all based off of your aptitudes and everything. It's basically like a Level 0 for the skill, and it works the same way as any other level, just that you can't see it or turn it off.
One enchantment scroll adds to damage, one to accuracy, and Enchant III does both with a chance to attempt two bonuses for each.
I definitely was hitting acid spitting red jellies in regular old levels.
Yeah, I can certainly say that I was finding acid blobs in the deeper levels of the Lair, but that is just hearsay.
So I am in this orc fort, owning shit, and I found this swirly gate to a bazaar. Magic Books for sale woo!
What are the chances the portal will close once I leave once? I can almost afford Geomancy and Stoneskin sounds useful.
I'm using a Deep Elf Ice Conjurer, per Ego's notes above. Level 9, throwin Mephitic Clouds and Throw Frost and shit. I also *JUST* found a Book of Fire [Summon Ele reachable now-ish, other stuff possible down the road]
Assuming the portal to this place will poof when I leave ~ I can afford one of these from the shop - recommendations?
**Earth [Dig Passwall Magmabolt] - meh
**Minor Magic [Blink, Repel Missiles, Slow and some basic summons] - sounds good to me for the non summon stuff
**Wizardry [Tele, Fireball, Haste, Identify] - looks good as well
**Charms [Repel Missiles, Invis, Silence, Enslave] - another strong contender
**Necro - meh
Haste is the most useful spell in the lot and Teleport is decent enough to have around even though you'll probably never run out of scrolls/wands for it.
But Blink/Repel missiles is a great combination that you should be able to cast immediately. If it also has summon butterflies or small mammals, then that's three really good low level utility spells that I'd have a hard time passing up.
I'd skip charms. Enslave is only marginally useful, especially if you have low enchantment skill. And silence is practically useless except as an emergency escape measure if you're a conjurer (it can be a pretty awesome escape measure depending on the situation, but probably not worth the investment). Invisibility is pretty nice if you know where to use it, though.
e~ fuck i immediately died. fucking rock troll.
For the record, delving into Necromancy makes anything that is either living or undead into your bitch.
Pain was good when I dabbled as a necro but I've already got nukes, and skellies seemed terrible.
Agony reduces a living creature to 50% of their current health, Vampiric Draining hits hard and heals you, and Dispel Undead is the best anti-undead option you can get.
With those 3 spells and enough mana you can brutally murder any non-demon.
Summon Skeletons is shit thought. Wait for Animate Dead.
It's Sigmund, Terrance is the blue guy.
Anyway, looks like you got your spell book advice already 8-)
What do you guys like for anti-demons, btw? Abominations? Dipping into another spell school for a bit?
Conjure flame is a good way to stop non-confusable monsters in a corridor if you've got conjurations skill (like mephitic cloud, generally you'll be able to cast it even if you're, say, an ice elementalist.) That said, it doesn't help you against plenty of things that are immune to fire, so ultimately it's a good idea to either have summons or at the least something like iskendrun's mystic blast (or if you're willing to branch into earth magic, to go stone arrow and/or bolt of iron to crystal spear.
Earth Magic nukes are irresistible; branching into Conjuration / Earth is a good choice for a dedicated caster.
I didn't want to train up several new schools on my last Necromancer, so I killed demons with Haste and a Bardiche.
Level 9 with Magic Dart, Mephitic Cloud and Throw Frost. Past time I get some more spells, and I have some good stuff to choose from with plenty of levels to learn right away.
Book of Ice [ Bolt of Cold, Freezing Could, Static Discharge ]
Book of Frost [ Freeze, Throw Frost, Ozocubu's Armor, Ice Bolt, Summon Ice Beast, Freezing Cloud]
Book of Power [ Animate Dead, Tele Other, Venom Bolt, Bolt of Iron, Invis, Mass Confusion, Poisonous Cloud]
What should I learn in what order?
I'm in D9 wearing 2 Rings of Ice, if that matters.
Probably bolt of cold or ice bolt, but I don't have enough experience with frost magic to really say.
If you have enough skill in venom magic, then venom bolt is supposed to be good.
Be careful wearing those 2 rings of ice; a stray fire spell might one-shot you if you don't have something else to boost your fire resistance.
Bolt of Cold is 6 and Ice Bolt is 4.
Venom is 5 and Iron is 6... is it better to stay in cold spells or diversify some nukes? Should I get multiples in the same level range of different types?
e~ swapped in a Fire Prot ring based on the idea of burning to a crisp ;o
e2~ took Ozcubo's just because everything is so lethal... still thinking about which nukes to use.
Bolt of cold is probably the best overall bolt ignoring resists. Grab bolt of iron along with it and you should be fine.
Just to clarify though:
Bolt of Cold L6
-text just says "bolt of ice and frost"
vs.
Ice Bolt L4
-text re: "cutting edges and impact", notes still effective vs. cold resistant enemies.
Did you mean Ice Bolt?