Straightforward stabbing build with no summoning?

[AlexAllen]

Not a lot of experience. Made a Spriggan Assassin and had a lot of fun stabbing, but chose the card god and pretty much became a summoner until I died. Wasn't much fun.

Would someone help with a simple stabber strategy?

[mageykun]

Okay. Stabbers have basically three principle concerns:

1) Getting the stab in. You need some way to get to your target (or targets) without waking them up. Training stealth and stacking stealth boosting equipment are the most straightforward way to do this. Invisibility (spell, evocation, potion, wand) is a big help. Potentially darkness too, since it shrinks LOS (though I've never gotten hexes that high). Swiftness and/or haste can help you close the distance before they wake up, or controlled blinking if you really need it or can spare it.

2) Setting the stab up. Not everything you come across will have the decency to be asleep and waiting for your dagger when you find them. So you'll need to disable them. A variety of spells work nicely towards this, including ensorcelled hibernation, mephitic cloud, confuse, evaporate, mass confusion, metabolic englaciation, etc. A needle-er can turn to needles of confusion, sleep or paralysis (and needles have the advantage of working even on high end demons with enough skill!). Wands of confusion and paralysis work early on. Failing this, one can also set up stabs by using allies or summons to distract enemies (opening for "?" stabs).

3) Plan B. Stabs cannot answer every problem. Even dedicated stabbers need a backup for when sneaking in fails, and your target is immune to your disabling measures, or it's just not safe or otherwise feasible to attempt to disable your target. You need other tools to fall back on- another way to either kill things or escape in an emergency.

Nemelex, by the way, can work quite well for a stabber. Different cards and decks offer both panic buttons for escape and healing, summoning for covering retreat, for fighting side by side with for distraction stabs, and for letting completely destroy dangerous targets (seriously, decks of summoning rock), destruction as an occasional alternative to stabbing, and finally there are even means by which to set up a stab (foxfire paralysis, anyone?).

[cjo]

Not a lot of experience. Made a Spriggan Assassin and had a lot of fun stabbing, but chose the card god and pretty much became a summoner until I died. Wasn't much fun. Would someone help with a simple stabber strategy?

I actually like summoning with stabbing, because you can use your summons to get stab attacks. Wait until the enemy shows a question mark, which means it's engaged with your summons, then come in from along side or behind. Nemelex Xobeh, on the other hand, is probably the most complicated deity that crawl has, and is a bit complex for my taste. My advice is to come back to Nemelex after you have experience with some of the simpler gods.

You might try a Spriggan Enchanter of Kiku. Ensorcelled hibernation to put enemies to sleep before stabbing them, followed by confuse and enslave once things start to resist your level II spell. You won't get as much damage when things are confused as when they are asleep, but it's still good. Necromancy makes a good backup for when you get detected - and you always will get detected some of the time, no matter how great your stealth is. The animate skeleton / animate dead spells are basically another kind of summons, but you might like them better when coupled with the spell "recall," which Kiku will eventually give you. (It's in the third spellbook gift.) Recall will call any undead allies to your side, which means you can park them someplace, try to sneak up on stuff, and only call them in when you need them. I'm not an expert and haven't won using this strategy, but I have had a lot of fun with it.

[hayenne]

Okay. Stabbers have basically three principle concerns:

1) Getting the stab in. You need some way to get to your target (or targets) without waking them up. Training stealth and stacking stealth boosting equipment are the most straightforward way to do this. Invisibility (spell, evocation, potion, wand) is a big help. Potentially darkness too, since it shrinks LOS (though I've never gotten hexes that high). Swiftness and/or haste can help you close the distance before they wake up, or controlled blinking if you really need it or can spare it.

Note that in 0.10 trunk Swiftness halves the Stealth bonus. Lantern of shadows can help with reducing the LOS when you are sneaking too - basically it's a poor man's Darkness.

[Blade]

Okay. Stabbers have basically three principle concerns:

1) Getting the stab in. You need some way to get to your target (or targets) without waking them up. Training stealth and stacking stealth boosting equipment are the most straightforward way to do this. Invisibility (spell, evocation, potion, wand) is a big help. Potentially darkness too, since it shrinks LOS (though I've never gotten hexes that high). Swiftness and/or haste can help you close the distance before they wake up, or controlled blinking if you really need it or can spare it.

Note that in 0.10 trunk Swiftness halves the Stealth bonus. Lantern of shadows can help with reducing the LOS when you are sneaking too - basically it's a poor man's Darkness.

You mean the same lantern of shadows that sets stealth to 0? I don't think it'd help much.

[AtT]

Not a lot of experience. Made a Spriggan Assassin and had a lot of fun stabbing, but chose the card god and pretty much became a summoner until I died. Wasn't much fun.

Would someone help with a simple stabber strategy?

One thing you can do is worship trog/oka and bring throwing to at least 8. This way he will gift you needles (and daggers, etc) and you can use paralyze needles/sleep needles to stab. This is a fairly difficult build to pull off I think, I recommend a Sp/Vp/En of Kiku. You could also consider Ko/Ha Be, or even a SpBe(don't berserk unless absolutely necessary) I had a lot of fun on a SpBe before. donate all those corpses, get a good dagger really really early just don't berserk often (or at all) or you might starve to death.

[cerebovssquire]

Emphasis on "at least" because past early game Throwing 8 isn't going to do much and is definitely not serving the purpose needlestabs are there for - basically guaranteed repeated stabs on very dangerous enemies (like oneshotting dudes like Frederick or Gloorx Vloq or Mara).
Kiku is a really bad idea for this because you need the god gifts to do this effectively. I second Ko/Ha/SpBe though, and have completed nearly all Hells/Pan with needles and a KoBe already, which was hilarious. Only Tomb and sucked so much I only 12-runed in the end.

[AtT]

^also I mean't kiku for the enchanters not the assassins

[cerebovssquire]

Emphasis on "at least" because past early game Throwing 8 isn't going to do much and is definitely not serving the purpose needlestabs are there for - basically guaranteed repeated stabs on very dangerous enemies (like oneshotting dudes like Frederick or Gloorx Vloq or Mara).

http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=blowgun

It's not much good to be able to "one-shot" those enemies if you have to spend 10 turns in their LOS trying to get the needles to actually work.

1) Corners exist, are common in Hell/Pan and are central to doing this.
2) It is, from experience and maths, seldom that you need even three tries for this. Gloorx, for instance, has 16 HD only, so at 27 Throwing, which isn't hard at all on the species I named... and 21 HD (Frederick, Cerebov) is nowhere near hard either. Also, comparing this to other pan/hell lord kills these will usually spend a lot more than 10 turns in their LOS. It's definitely not the easiest strategy for extended in general but offers one of the quickest ways of dispatching lords (besides cTele...).

[spurious]

Endgame, schmendgame, this guy wants to get rolling with no summoning. let's assume he doesn't want to deal with any personal undead armies with Kiku [edit - although the pain brand is nice]

Spriggan Enchanters are the stabbiest stabbers in Stabbytown

Try a Kobold (really any background will do) pick up the first dagger you see. I would worship Makhleb because he's easy and wont mind. But, you can play KoBe and do tons of stabbing too, with Berserk as your panic button, but I think KoBe end up doing a lot of Berserking because it is so easy for them to get full again. But,you really could stab with any Ko, so you might try a Warper or Wizard and start with a useful spellbook.

Others - Pick Vampire, Kobold, Naga,Halfling or Spriggan and play Enchanters or Warpers or Assassins or Hunters or Stalkers or Abyssal Knights.

[AtT]

Spriggan Enchanters are the stabbiest stabbers in Stabbytown

I had to lol

SpEns stab for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Vegetables, that is.

[AlexAllen]

Thanks for the tips. My first try was a Spriggan Assassin of Trog. I trained fighting, short swords, dodge, stealth, and stab with the intention of turning off short swords at 8. I had to use a sling to kill many things. I ran away from any named enemy I could not sneak up on.

I ended up stalled with a army of giant kobolds in the lowest dungeon level I'd visited, an angry mob of orcs at the stairs in Orc Mines 2, and a bunch of angry ogres and two-headed ogres in Orc Mines 4.

Anyway, I "scum-saved" and made an attempt on the ogres in Orc Mines 4 with a sleeping potion. My stealth was in the high teens iirc after having consumed a potion of experience. The ogres were not impressed with my stealth or invisibility, so I ran away and hit them with flame and draining wands until I ran out, then meleed / slinged the leftovers. After that, I was able (with a gifted short blade of frost) to kill the orcs and to line up and kill the giant kobolds.

After that, I found myself out of offensive items and unable to sneak up on much of anything I found in the dungeons. I could stab elves in the Elven Halls, but had to teleport away when I ran into groups.

A decent character, but very item dependent and unable to carry many items. I meleed as much or more than I stabbed. I think this character would be more fun as a halfling or kobold. I wont start a real game with a Spriggan Assassin of Trog.

I'll try a spriggan enchanter or sludge elf stalker next, but I have no idea how to train so many stats. Any help appreciated.

[Blade]

Don't save-scum. It ruins the game.

[AlexAllen]

Just scumming to learn the game. I don't enjoy guessing my way through character creation. When I get things figured out, I'll play the game for real.

[TehDruid]

Then you can just play in wizard mode, it's gonna be much faster to learn stuff than save-scumming I think. Of course, don't alter your skills, just deny the death message.

[Sojiro]

1) Getting the stab in. You need some way to get to your target (or targets) without waking them up. [...] Swiftness and/or haste can help you close the distance before they wake up, or controlled blinking if you really need it or can spare it.

No it won't, now the monsters get an "awareness roll" against your Stealth for every on your actions. So a Naga and a Spriggan approaching a monster at their regular speed both have to pass as many stealth tests as the other.

And as of .10, Swiftness halves Stealth, and is therefore very bad for sneaking up. On the other hand, Levitation (or Flight) will give a small bonus to stealth (not quite as good as an additional point of Stealth).

2) Setting the stab up. Not everything you come across will have the decency to be asleep and waiting for your dagger when you find them. So you'll need to disable them. A variety of spells work nicely towards this, including ensorcelled hibernation, mephitic cloud, confuse, evaporate, mass confusion, metabolic englaciation, etc. A needle-er can turn to needles of confusion, sleep or paralysis (and needles have the advantage of working even on high end demons with enough skill!). Wands of confusion and paralysis work early on. Failing this, one can also set up stabs by using allies or summons to distract enemies (opening for "?" stabs).

And also nets. Netted enemies suffer the most deadly stabs, just like sleeping and paralyzed ones.
That won't help Sp and Ko, though.

Nemelex, by the way, can work quite well for a stabber. Different cards and decks offer both panic buttons for escape and healing, summoning for covering retreat, for fighting side by side with for distraction stabs, and for letting completely destroy dangerous targets (seriously, decks of summoning rock), destruction as an occasional alternative to stabbing, and finally there are even means by which to set up a stab (foxfire paralysis, anyone?).

Those "means by which to set up a stab" are so unreliable that you won't be setting up stabs that way. You may have the good surprise of getting a stab where you weren't expecting it, but that's about it.
The Escape decks for when things are turning sour, or the Destruction deck to kill things you can't disable are both nice for a stabbers, as alternatives. The Summoning deck can do both.

[dondy]

I usually play VpEn, where stabbing is usually just a option to get to lair somewhat reliably.
depending on what i get i usually switch to training other spell classes ASAP, necromancy and summoning are quite ideal - haunt is great and access to either class is decently easy (Animate Skeleton is quite underrated, Abjuration is a staple skill everyone should get) - problem is later some stuff simply has abjuration/sinv/high mres (mara?)... which simply ruins your day D:

air seems kinda underpowered for killing stuff with spells (0.9.1), airstrike is only really usefull vs flying enemies or when your summons (!) surround a target to support them, the damage is quite underwhelming overall though... didn't get tornado running yet ever; the charm/air skills are really strong though - if you have a decent weapon. (which is unlikely since vampires can't wield holy weaps and training longblades+air+charms seems slow :/)

ice is the other option and seems to be a strong one too - though i never got around to try it. throw icicle seems nice, freezing cloud too; should go well with ensorcelled hibernation - thing is: your defensive options are really meh, if you don't hurt something for good you're quite out of options... and your conjurations aptitude sux :[

so basically you're stuck with summoning/necromancy until you can branch out to conjurations/ice, charms/air ... at least that's what i usually do since it seems to be the most reliable (as of v0.9.1) way :[

at least that's what i experienced on bunch of VpEn tries

[Konebred]

It takes a bit of an investment, but try going Kiku. You get a really powerful spellbook right off the bat at the first level of piety that can carry you through a lot of tough spots. regeneration for healing, animate dead for targets, dispel undead is really powerful, even without a lot of training and lethal infusion can give a bit of extra oomph against living things. You can also enchant a weapon with the pain brand when you max piety out, which is entirely possible to do by the end of lair/orc. There are a few drawbacks though. You have a period where you are leveling necro and not working on stealth stuff and are a bit more vulnerable. Spriggans have a little trouble with food because of this too. For me necro is worth it just for the dispel undead though, but I am a bit of a noob.

[snow]

spen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzhFTAWcIgk

killed almost everything with stabs

[omegasean]

have you tried MF ? you can start as a WZ, IE, or AE get mephitic cloud and then train up polearms.

Merfolk have a lot of bonuses and few weaknesses in my opinion. Stabbing things with tridents is good fun.

[XuaXua]

Not a lot of experience. Made a Spriggan Assassin and had a lot of fun stabbing, but chose the card god and pretty much became a summoner until I died. Wasn't much fun.

Would someone help with a simple stabber strategy?

One thing you can do is worship trog/oka and bring throwing to at least 8. This way he will gift you needles (and daggers, etc) and you can use paralyze needles/sleep needles to stab.

Wait wait.

Wield a needle, then attack someone sleeping? What skill is used, just Stabbing?

[Blade]

...no.

Wield a blowgun, fire a needle at a dude, wield a dagger, stab said dude.