The Tavern

Thought I wanted to go something with melee this time. Tried DrMo, and was able to proceed surprisingly well (found ring of slaying really early).

At this point I don't know if I'm going well-couldn't train armor (don't know why, maybe because I don't have any gloves/helmet/etc.) Trained dodging. I think Monk is quite different from a regular melee fighter, but I'm not sure if that is indeed the case. Also, with all the chei-enhanced attributes thought I would learn some spells. How is it so far? Can someone give me advice on what to do now? Perhaps train more invocation, or equip rods (found them, but I don't exactly know how does a rod work)?

Monks are the same as Regular Melee fighters, they just use the mighty weapon known as the Fist.
This deadly weapon is always the same, and always start with. It also has great damage potential, especially when backed with Transmutations.

I dont know why you put 12 SL into maces, you might have gotten more more mileage if all that went into UC.
But forget about UC for now, focus on maces.
Getting enough invoc to have all of Chei's escape spells working is never a bad idea.

Try picking up some ice spells.
Freezing Cloud, Summon Ice beast. You might find these spells fun with this character.

I've never found rods to be useful. Equip it and press "v" if you want to give it a go.

Draconians can no longer train armor skill (and since you can't wear body armor, it would be extremely suboptimal to do so anyway.) On the plus side, you get free "armor" from your scales that exceeds the best light armors.

Welp,got my character killed, and had to start new one. But now I've taken a liking to Chei of DrMo, and will keep trying until I get 3 rune win (or possibly 15 rune!)

About the weapon, why would you recommend uc? I was planning to find a decent weapon and invest on that skill...it's not like you would come across transmutation book every time you play DrMo. I'm thinking monk as a fighter who gets extra piety as a boost. If I find transmutation book early on I might consider going bare fists, but I don't see how UC is better than holding weapons.

For the spells, I will go whatever book I might stumble upon (with chei's stat boost it would be pretty easy to cast spells). But I'm more inclined towards skald spells. Plus, I didn't find summoning spell that useful except butterfly and imp. Played Naga IE before, and those ice beasts weren't that useful, except perhaps taking down undeads in a open corridor. I feel summoning in general is ok only in certain situations.

If you want to use a weapon why are you starting as a monk? Why not pick gladiator or fighter and start with a weapon instead?

I thought I could use the extra piety nicely. But what is the benefit of UC over weapon?

Starting as a drmo but using a weapon is almost always worse than starting as a drgl with the weapon you want because you are dramatically weaker until you get a god and most likely weaker for some time afterward since it is generally easier to gain piety than it is to find good equipment. In the specific case of chei the extra piety is arguably a bad thing anyway since you get more of a movespeed penalty right away with no real benefits (you need time to train invo).

Benefits to UC:

You have your endgame weapon on turn 0
You don't need to enchant it
You can benefit from spider form/ice form/blade hands
By far the best one-handed weapon at skill 27

Benefits to using a weapon:

Stronger at low skill (takes less xp to be good)
Brands like vampiric or antimagic
Two-handers are potentially stronger than UC if you have the right brand and good enchantment

I might try chei of DrGl then. One more question though. What's the difference between fighter and gladiator? To me the two classes seem really similar. GL starts with light armors, but don't most players end game with heavy armor anyway? (except draconians, probably).

Gladiator gets more weapon/dodging skill and can choose a quarterstaff and also gets nets. (Also you get a buckler in 0.11 and earlier.)

Fighter gets more fighting/shields skill. You also get a regular-size shield.

In 0.11 and earlier for sure gladiator is overall stronger (your shield has less penalties and your non-weapon equipment is better). In 0.12 gladiator is probably still stronger but if you really wanted a shield for some reason you have to choose fighter.

As far as "don't most players end game with heavy armour" that is maybe a yes but it's not a large majority if so. I can't look through most of my logs (they're on CAO) but I would suspect I probably have more characters who won in mottled dragon armour or lighter than in anything heavier than that.

I had success with DrMo that switchech to transmutation later on. Start with beastly apendage -> blade hands -> dragon form. This is enought to get 3 rune.