What do I do with this?

[Atma]

I'm at a loss for what to do with my Kenku Monk. On d4 I've already found a ring with -hunger, +4 str, +2 int and -3 dex, a +6 ring of strength, a +2 buckler and a storm dragon armour. An suggestions on what to do with that? I can use the armour, but is it worth it? And what do I do to take advantage of my 23 str?

[eharper256]

Not really. If you're going to fight unarmed as your main attack, you should never be armoured, since it caps your attack speed.

If you also find an amazing weapon, and never get blade hands, you can move over to using unarmed as support, and go from monk to knight, mind you. You probably want to make the switch earlier rather than later though. Keep in mind that if you go the armour route, you'll limit your spell effectiveness.

Your large strength, well, you can carry alot of stuff. No reason not to lug a gazillion heavy javelins around if you find them I suppose. To be honest, STR buff items are, for most characters, to only be treated as a mildly useful side effect. They're only actually essential for weak-ass elf and spriggan casters who have 5 STR and can't carry a backpack without falling over. They don't add a huge damage boost or anything: its literally 1.2% extra damage per point! (and actually, thats just weapons, STR adds no damage to unarmed unless you have blade hands, or are in dragonform / statueform).

Keep that hunger randart ring off for now. Hunger is very bad in the early game. It becomes sort of managable (if never desirable) later on. Even so, that randart ring is not really worth it IMHO. Its only a net gain of +3 stats, and has hunger on top? No way. If it had something else, like rF++ or Wiz or something, might be worth it, but I'd just dump it.

Bucklers are always a good idea. You'll suffer initially until you eliminate the penalty, but an extra defensive layer saves lives.

[slowcar]

its -hunger, not +. i'd say nice ring, especially if you want to cast some buffs.
the armour is not worth it i think. not that you have to go unarmoured as a monk, but you need quite some armour skill to avoid most penalties, and starting with a EV-5 is not going to do it.

keep the buckler, it needs skill 5 to be penalty free. it hinders the auxiliary attack, but that's not that important anyhow. there was a recent discussion about unarmed+buckler, read it up. i think as a kenku you have peck anyhow.

good luck with your char!

[Atma]

Sandwiched between an Ogre and a Jelly on d5 and quickly pasted. I guess we'll never know how that would have worked out.

[Happy Corner]

Maybe we won't... but Crawl has such a huge variety of items and sheer randomness, it's only a matter of time until the next interesting gear decision is upon you.