So how do I get a transmuter past D:2?

[John Milferton]

Dear DDSS community,

I would rly like to play a transmuter but I have some serious trouble surviving early.

Any tips?

Which skills should I learn first?

[Sandman25]

Which species? Most players train UC until XL 3, then train Transmutations + Poison to get Spider Form below 30%, then more UC.

[John Milferton]

Currently Draconian

[tasonir]

I tend to start out slightly more monk like than sandman, and will train UC up to 5-7, train some dodging, and then train transmutations. This will depend on race and god - one reason I tend to train dodging so early is I am often about to get +15 dex from chei and can see fast returns there. So rather than specific rules, here's some guide lines:

Unarmed gets significantly better very rapidly at low levels. Ie, there's a huge difference between UC 3 and 7. Ballparking it, UC 7 is roughly 100% more damage per aut. Really, raise UC some asap.

You have terrible defenses. Any items you can find to up your defenses is important. I'll frequently toss on a ring mail or even scale mail if I can find them. This will make getting spells online harder, so feel free to go dodging and stay in the robe if you like. You're playing draconians anyways so you can just ignore this.

Spider form doesn't have a speed increase anymore, so I often skip it. You can still get it, of course. I'm lazy as hell and play transmuters like monks who start with blade hands. There's probably 20 people reading this who think I'm a moron for skipping it, and half of them are right.

Sticks to snakes is still a real life saver on weaker races, though. Mi's probably don't care because they'll just overpower everything, but if you're not that strong you'll want this. This is about the only thing you'll have in time to save you on d:2 anyways, so this is probably the best advice. Summon more snakes.

[Sandman25]

Yeah, I haven't played Tm since latest changes to Spider Form so the spell is much less useful now. I would probably train more UC first too.

Edit. Forgot to mention. Don't go Chei until you win with no Chei.

[daggaz]

Take the stairs down to D:3.

[Eyesburn]

Use Beastly Appendage in every fight early on.
I found Spider form useful (it gives some bonus Dex and EV), I like to use it against ogres, orc packs, etc.

[Jeremiah]

If you're playing a species with great transmutations apt (i.e. Mf) you could try starting by just training transmutations and kill everything dangerous with sticks to snakes.

Spider Form is still good since the speed was nerfed, as it has a significant EV boost, though it's not so great for a Dr as you lose your scales AC.

[XuaXua]

Ice Form is great against hydra when you have no other choice.

[Hopeless]

Stick to Snakes is annoying (because you have to equip arrows as a weapon, and because your arrows will run out if you have luck at all like mine, long before you are ready for them to. And also because the summons will sometimes just be ineffective meat puppets, but usually if they die you get a chance to run from whatever 1 shot them so there is that.) and if I can I try to avoid using it but with some races/dungeon layouts it is the only way to go until you can get spider form online (mainly so you can get away from X monsters that can kill you, where X is basically almost everything. The spell is also pretty durable so if you do get it, it won't be obsolete for a long time. It has been ages (5+ months at least) since I last rolled up a Transmuter Draconian but as I recall they aren't that splattable unless you work at it. Running away (teleporting, stairs hopping, blinking, moving around corners, etc) is probably the best way to survive the early dungeons with them.

[John Milferton]

Thanks for the great tips I just reached the emenu..... emere... eme... this temple thingy. Investing heavily in unarmed combat instead of trying to get spells online early really helped a lot.