Spear of the Botono and its 'reap' ability...

[white_noise]

I am playing MiFi with polearm specialty, and I've found this artifact for sale:
+2, +10 spear of the Botono {reap, Noisy, rPois, rN+, -3hp}
Although I already have a sweet glaive, I am wondering about this 'reap' ability. I think it can be useful in some situations, but how does it work really?
- Does any corpse become a zombie with 100% chance?
- Does strenght of a killed monster is anyhow related to strenght of a zombie?
- How many zombies I can make and how long will they follow me?
- What will become with zombie horde if I remove the spear?
- And what do you think of this unrandart in general? Should MiFi use it, or it's a waste?

[nago]

From the bot: reaping is a weapon brand that turns everything you kill into friendly zombies if a corpse is generated
So, any corpse will create a zombie - the chance a monster leave a corpse should be 50%.
Zombie stat are related to the monster type base stat: the biggest differences are they're slower and with slightly worse defensive stat, and they take damage from their maxHP, until they're destroyed (they can't regenerate health!).
Numerically, their stat are, in comparison of the monster type base stat: -2 speed (min 3), AC/EV -2/-5, d5+5 hit die.

A character can have an "infinite" number of friendly zombies on any floor (if there's a a limit, it's so huge anyone shouldn't bother about it). Anyway, they can't follow upstairs/downstairs, but only wait patiently for your near the stairs until your return back on the floor.

I wouldn't suggest to use the spear as main weapon: spear base type is quite bad (low base damage, essentially) and a good weapon is the most important thing to use for a Fi. Furthermore, Mi have very good apt to polearms, and awesome defensive stat, so you should really switch to that glaive as soon as you reach a decently low delay - until you can afford to use a bardiche.

Anyway, if you can stand the boredom of switching weapons (and the little risk involved, you lose 1 turn for swapping, plus most of your damage output), it could be worthy to land the last blow with that spear against enemies which can became powerful zombie minions. For example, in Lair spiny frogs, (death) yaks and obliviously hydras can be very powerful thrall. Killing things behind a solid meath-shield make things a lot easier!

Oh, I don't know if you're a follower of Okawaru: he dislikes - piety loss - when allies - including undead - are killed, so in that case don't bother to use the spear (except against maybe really really really good potential zombi, like a 8-head hydra)

[wolloloo]

Learndb should answer most questions:

A weapon brand that turns everything you kill into friendly zombies if a corpse is generated. Can appear on scythes and unrandarts. Considered evil by the good gods.

Anyway, it's only a spear and probably costs much gold. If found on the floor it _might_ be worthwhile to use for some time early in the game, but then it is _noisy_ and may attract dangerous enemies when you least need them (unless you unwield when not needed). And a glaive or bardiche without bonus deals more damage that that spear. Oh, and you might run into trouble with food because you won't get corpses unless you use a different weapon.

[nago]

Oh, I didn't read the spear was in a shop. Skip it unless it's cheap for your finances

[white_noise]

Thanks. Now I'll skip it for sure because I've found an artifact pearl dragon armor in another shop. Although it unidentified and cost 3k, I think a will save some gold for it.

[Tiber]

If the monster leaves a corpse, it has a chance of being raised as a zombie. I believe this chance is based on how much damage you did using the reaping weapon, as a percentage of its max HP.
Citation (from trunk/changes):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ef8f590 | Adam Borowski | 2011-09-13 04:24:54 +0200

Rewrite the melee reaping brand.
The killing blow doesn't matter anymore, this fixes the main problem we had
with the brand, and the reason missiles of reaping have been removed: no
more sniping. If you use multiple ways to deal damage, the chance depends
on percentage of damage done with reaping.

My last experience with the reaping brand was on a randart bow. I found it kind of fun, but weak. It doesn't help you kill the monster at all, and you can get the same results more reliably with the level 4 spell 'Animate Dead'.

[wolloloo]

and you can get the same results more reliably with the level 4 spell 'Animate Dead'.

Or with the lowly level 2 spell Call Imp, if you have the patience and MP to get a shadow imp and let it raise corpses.