Summoning demons

[Frandu]

Hey, i almost really like the 2 demon summoning spells, but in the end, the high risks of using them made me prefer forgetting them to knowing them so..... is there anyone that can teach me to use those spells properly? They are so very cool but.... yeah... help?

[pratamawirya]

Learn Abjuration, so you can get rid of them when they're hostile. That's all I know :p

[Frandu]

Haha yeah of course, i tried that, issue is that they got all those cool awesome skills but i found no case i wouldnt replace summon demon and summon greater demon with summon ice beast and summon hydra. They have caused me issues whether i try to use them before battle when summoning troops, when having either the upper or losing hand in battle, and when trying to escape. I've come to prefer having nothing memorized over having them memorized because i try to make them work since they are so great when they are on my team, but crawl already has more than enough random elements to kill my chars, i didnt enjoy almost causing my death so many times with these 2 spells.

Anyway, if you got situations you're confident you can make those 2 spells work out in, please share them, i really wanna learn to use them since they are so cool, but killing myself ruins my fun something fierce, so no more demons unless someone helps me figure them out!

[Stormfox]

Going from my experience as a Makhlebite...when you get a hostile, fire off a teleport. While you're waiting for it to kick in, summon another demon or two. The odds of getting multiple hostiles in a row are low, so you'll give your hostile one another target. (Butterflies would work even better for that, if you've got it. The point is to keep the hostile one busy while you wait for your teleport to kick in.)

Abjuration is a must, as already stated.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is the idea that "it could backfire on me, so I won't use it unless I know it'll work". Crawl is a game of very few absolute guarantees, so that applies to cases other than the demon summoning spells.

[Happy Corner]

Speaking of summoning demons the Makhleb way... early on, when I'm not sure my Invocations is up to par, I'll fire off the teleport before summoning the greater demon. So either the demon is hostile and then you already have a leg up on escaping... or it takes care of the threat while you're away (and if you were summoning greater demons, you probably feel pretty threatened!).

[Waywinkle]

In my experience summon demon is way better than summon ice beast. But this was from paying Mummy wizards of Sif = no worries about mana pool = keep summoning until you have a couple of 2's and heaps of 3's. I've never had any trouble with dealing with hostiles from summon demon, seems to be rare at high power.

I would usually not use summon greater demon as ugly things, Haunt and then summon dragon are much better. Summon Hydra I don't like as much though.

[eharper256]

Yeah, just make sure you have Abjuration as well, its in the same book, after all. It only affects hostile summons; and those become rarer as the power of the spell goes up.

Summon Greater is a lot riskier in general though; as noted by others, stick to Haunt, Horrible Things, Tentacles, and possibly Dragons for the lategame, if you can get them. But basic demons is the best mid-game summon that replaces your previous 'savage it with dogs' button.

As for Makleb; don't even think of summoning demons until you've victory danced Invocations up the wazoo with Minor Destruction (I'd say bare minimum of 5).

[Frandu]

Ok i followed the advice and picked up summon demon once again and now that my spell power is pretty high it is indeed quite good and mostly reliable. It was a major contribution in my successful clear of tomb 3 without necromutation! However Summon Greater Demon seems to remain bad even at 9# of power.

Also for anyone who hasnt tried it yet, summon shadow creatures makes zot very close to being trivial. Weird how its not so good at all anywhere else i tried it but it crushes zot so thoroughly.

New question, how good is summon dragon? Is it a long time summon or a short time summon? I found its book and was wondering if it was worth to try to make it castable before going into hell. Thanks for the help everyone!

[Waywinkle]

Summon dragon is amazing - they last for ages and destroy everything.

It can summon gold, iron and quicksilver dragons which is disastrous for your enemies. It made fighting Bov trivial for me.

That being said I was a mummy of Sif at the time and so mana and food were not constraints.