The Tavern

I decided to play another GrFi (my last one made it as far as L:2). I was originally planning to play a mostly melee with some magic to back it up, until I found the book of Debilitation (Arcane Marksmen starting book). I started to shift my original plan to that of training a GrAm with some M&F for melee, and now I have found a book of Geomancy. I now have two questions:
1. What spells are valuable for gargoyles from both books.
2. Should I a) continue with my current GrAm style build, b) go back to my original GrFi build w/ magic, or c) go with something else.

As GrFi of Okawaru you want to wear the heaviest body armour you find so branching into spell casting makes your game harder unless it is done very late in the game when your natural armour is very high already. Haste is the main reason to use magic but with Okawaru you do not need it so much

Yeah, mostly this.

You already worship Okawaru, and you do'nt want to face his wrath. He should give you some nice armors, most of which will greatly impede your spellcasting.
Moreover, your two books share no magic school (Leda's doesn't count, as it is too high level), and stoneskin is not as useful on a gargoyle than on another character (nerfed for them, as part of their original AC boost).
You already learnt the two most efficient low-level spells you have access to, so I would say that there is no need to forget them, and, as your previous character "only" went to lair, you should focus on the fighter part of your gargoyle, for now.
You've got a ring of wizardry so you may still be able to cast later in the game, especially if Oka gift you a nice "medium-light" armor, but that's not something you should focus on

[EDIt] Yeah, my bad, I misread :/

What do you mean? wiki does not list any limits for Stoneskin, just for Statue Form.

Stoneskin isn't effected by gargoyle-ness:

The spells are probably ultimately useful, but the fact is your short term goals should be to focus on one method of killing stuff (branch out later)

I'd get M&F and armour up and running, none of the spells you'll be able to cast will be as effective in the short term as training more of your killing/defending skills.

Once you're comfortable with your ability to beat things up, re-evaluate your spell options and decide what's going to be effective to work on from there.

You don't need a bow to make the AM book effective. All those Hex spells (except maybe Inner Flame) are perfectly fine for melee dudes.

Both books will be useful to you. Looks very suitable for the GrFi with magic build you say you wanted. Oka is a good god for that too - Heroism means you don't have to train as much weapon/Fighting/Armour/Dodging.

Btw, find better armour. You realize that Gr have innate rPois right?

Edit:



With Heroism, his M&F is at 12.5, just 1.5 away from min delay for a mace. Fighting at 12, Armour at 8.2. Seems pretty decent to me, especially considering he's only in ringmail. Maybe need more Dodge. But I think it's pretty close to the time to hybridrize to magic, if you want to go that way.

I just realized OP was asking which spells would be good for this character. I'd say Corona, Slow, Enslave, Cause Fear in AM book (not sure about Leda's). Stoneskin, Stone Arrow, and eventually LRD from Geomancy.

Thanks for the help!

Yeah, but this armor had better AC then the one I had before.

Leda's is really good. I never knew how good until someone told me that you can use it under Che to outrun things:

Leda isn't good if you're going to be meleeing things, especially since it no longer action-slows monsters (just movement-slow). It might not be double-haste any more, I don't know how the movement slow works and removing the action-slow may have messed with how it slows monster movement.

Can you !learn del ledas_liquifaction[3] please? It is now probably a terrible spell for Che worshipers .

I was changing armor when an orc priest showed up. I tried to use Heroism to run away. Did not work out so well.

Heroism (also AC/EV/SH) does not help vs Orc Priest. Potion of invisibility would help.

<insert Brave Sir Robin joke here>

I don't know what you meant by that exactly, but you had 8 scrolls of teleportation you could have used to escape instead.

Can a priest smite you while you're invisible?

I think they have to guess at your location like other ranged attacks.

I kind of panicked due to the lack of armor and thought that I would be killed by the smite attack before i would teleport. In hindsight, I should have read the scroll and cast Heroism.

Armour does not help vs Orc Priest. Its smiting attack ignores AC, EV, SH and all resistances. Only HP is "defense" vs smiting attacks. It is similar to hellfire in this regard.

That's why Heroism does not help vs smiting attacks.

heroism helps you kill the smiting thing to make it stop smiting you

I am sure it is a bad idea to spend a turn on Heroism instead of attacking/retreating/approaching the monster with 9-21 HP.

I thought Heroism increased your speed as well as your attributes? Or maybe I am mixing Heroism up with berserk?

Nope, the only thing heroism does is +5 to some skills. Even finesse doesn't make you faster; that is, if you define speed as a movement speed.

Also note it is not a good idea to berserk when you are trying to run away because berserk ends really fast if you don't attack monsters and thus you better just run instead of spending an extra turn on activating the ability.