Other backgrounds for Spriggans

[danr]

There are the obvious backgrounds for Spriggans (enchanters, warpers, assassins, venom mages) and lately there's been some buzz about SpBe as pretty decent.

I started thinking about some others that are not recommended but that would make it easier for frail spriggans to train fighting. Generally, their spellcasting ability makes them great as any kind of caster. After trying a wizard, I decided to try a Spriggan Fire Reaver and I really like it. I VD'ed conjurations to start to get magic dart to ##... power, and then went at it.

It works really well. You get lots of MP to soften things with magic dart, but you also have fighting and short blades right off the bat so you can finish things with melee. And although you are using two weak magic aptitudes (fire and conjurations), you are at least focused in those, unlike a Wizard having some summoning and translocations and poison / air etc. I found a short sword of electrocution that is simplifying things somewhat on the melee end!

It really helps that you can run away if you are out of MP and you aren't strong enough to finish with melee. I think this might be a new favourite.

The other one I'm wondering about is chaos knights. With makhleb, I just think it would be cool for a tiny spriggan to be summoning balrugs, but I think the hunger cost of all those invocations would be bad news. With lugonu - a spriggan starting in the abyss could probably collect a lot of loot due to their speed. Being able to run fast AND corrupt dungeon levels could be really handy. And, a distortion branded quick blade could be pretty cool, though I know a lot of people don't like this brand. I do, I can just never find it.

[mageykun]

I'm one of those crazies all abuzz about the SpBe. I've also had success with SpCK of Lugonu. Right now, the little buggers are probably my favorite race.

We've known for a long time that spriggans work well as casters. They're natural born kiters and stabbers. Which is what makes the mele inversion so interesting. You're already fast enough to run from almost anything, which is always good. Not having to build up casting frees up a ton of xp that you can dump strait into fighting, long/short blades, evasion, stealth, and stabbing. And sprigs have phenomenal attributes with half of those. I find the only way not to be intangible by zot is to actively steal xp and training from evasion with a shield.

If it seems weird to anyone, think of it this way: a mele spriggan is just a SpEn, backwards. Instead of stabbing everything you can and trivializing enemy attacks with ensorcelled hibernation, you stab everything you can and trivialize enemy attacks with godly evasion and actually having hp if you get hit. And it keeps working when everything starts becoming ensorcell-proof.

Annother advantage of the fightin sprig is the hp clock almost disappears. As a race, they've always had a slow metabolism, but without constant spellcasting draining your reserves, it's even less of a problem.

If you're less interested in spellbooks, there's also no need to go Sif or Veh. This frees you up to worship a god who has a use for all those useless bodies you accumulate. You have the options of rapid gift accruement, or using rapid piety restoration to abuse god abilities.

Finally, I just love the idea of a tiny little sprite dual wielding a katana nearly his own size and cutting through everything. It's even funnier if you find yourself a double blade.

[danr]

What I don't like is the food cost of berserking. I think I'll try Lugonu, that could be fun.

This reaver is working out really well. I'm just using the spells that have 0 hunger cost, and those plus a decent melee game and the ability to escape almost anything (speed + conjure flame) make a killer combination.

One thing that's really good is the combination of speed + conjure flame. If a fight gets tough you can back off and create space, conjure flame, and the monster either stays on the far side allowing you to either blast it or get away, or it steps into the flame and now it is taking constant flame damage in addition to whatever you dish out with spells or melee.

I'm also liking, ironically, starting with the skills that Spriggans have weaker aptitudes in - fighting, conjurations, fire magic - because the weak skills are exactly where you need a head start. So these are useable from the beginning rather than having a long tedious amount of victory dancing to get them to useful levels.

[szanth]

Yeah... often I wish the food cost of berserking were reduced or removed in place of something else; anything else, really. But I know damn well that'll never happen. :p

[joellercoaster]

the weak skills are exactly where you need a head start. So these are useable from the beginning rather than having a long tedious amount of victory dancing to get them to useful levels.

That's a dangerous idea you have there

[danr]

the weak skills are exactly where you need a head start. So these are useable from the beginning rather than having a long tedious amount of victory dancing to get them to useful levels.

That's a dangerous idea you have there

I'm not sure what you mean - did I state the obvious, stumble onto something that only better players know, or point out a flaw in game design, or what?

It's the reverse of what I've been trying to do so far with character builds - just try to find a class that only uses strong aptitudes for a species.

[Zicher]

What I don't like is the food cost of berserking.

With spriggans, it's much less an issue than one might think, at least past the early game (say, upon reaching the Lair). There's little use of zerking for a spriggan when you just can't get hit, and thus can take your time to pinch monsters to death.
In the early game though, it can become a major PITA.

[danr]

It's odd because I think of zerking as Trog's main perk, but I guess Trog's Hand, Brothers in Arms and weapon gifts are pretty good too.

Does the food cost of things decrease over the game, or is it just that by then you've found a lot of food?

Spriggan Warper of Okawaru could be a good build too. So much to try!!!

I find that more of my games end by distraction than by death now. I get characters to XL 10-14 and then I just abandon them for another build I want to try.

[Zicher]

Does the food cost of things decrease over the game, or is it just that by then you've found a lot of food?

The latter, food cost is IIRC the same throughout the whole game for all Trog's abilities. It already happened to me though, that I was running badly out of food by, say, D:7 or the like, but that was like once in fifty games.

Don't know about other gods, who use Invocations.

[joellercoaster]

did I state the obvious, stumble onto something that only better players know, or point out a flaw in game design, or what?

Hmm, I'm not entirely sure what I meant there either to be honest.

Maybe "point out something fundamentally true, but against the spirit some developers have expressed as their intention, potentially causing loss of sleep"

Also "point out something likely to cause a whole bunch of experimentation on my part with counterintuitive or unworkable combinations, definitely causing loss of sleep"

[mageykun]

I've been rolling a few spriggan paladins out of pure stubbornness- trying to force pure spriggan awesomeness to overcome the anti-stab build, and a god who initially gives you nothing to work with.

They never last long.

I actually managed to set a new record with one of these the other day- "I will make this work- dangit" came in dead last on my high scores list, with a grand total of three.

[danr]

mageykun, congrats on finding a background that Spriggans can't dominate!

I just thought some other potentially good ones: Spriggan Hunter and Spriggan Arcane Marksman.

Spriggans are good with bows, and their high speed helps them keep things out of melee range. For the hunter, the fact that they are not casting spells helps with their hunger situation. For the AM, they have the appropriate magical aptitudes to make them a good fit for this class.

[joellercoaster]

I wish my Spriggan Gladiator had started with Shields skill, as well as a shield

That said I think this is the first time I've seen what your job title is when your strongest skill is Dodging

[joellercoaster]

Actually it's been overtaken by Throwing now, making my title even funnier.

Early altar of Fedhas plus a dagger of returning, this is great!

[mageykun]

Actually, it is sorta doable. Just not easy by any stretch. Here are the rules I've found to keep a SpPa alive, at least till the lair, as I've painfully eked out through trial and error.

1) unequip your buckler on the first turn, or use your initial pool of xp on the first thing you find to victory dance up your first level in shields. An unskilled buckler hurts way more than it helps on the first few levels.

Longterm, I haven't decided if training shields is worth getting spiritual shield up to something useful, or if you should just go twohanded (priggs don't have many options for one handed long swords).

2) Downgrade your falchion to the first short blade you find. The speed penatly you start with will get you killed, and you can always go back to long blades later. Besides, spriggs have awesome short blade aptitudes, and skill there will help cross-train the -2 in long blades later.

3) You have no gimmick. You need to remember that you don't start with any good way to kill things, and so you're going to have to run from anything moderately powerful. Luckily, you are a spriggan. You just need to hold out till you find something with a useful brand, a few good wands, or lucky spellbook. Something that provides a gimmik. This is hampered by TSO's aversion to poisoned blades and certain wands though. You do run the risk of the rgn failing you completely though, or of being underpowered due to too much missed xp. It's tricky.

Hope for the future: either a blessed quickblade w/ shield, or twohanding a holy eudemon blade. Not that I've come close to making it that far yet, but a little green bearded sort-of man can dream, can't he?

[danr]

Hmm. Paladins no longer exist as a starting class now in trunk...

[XuaXua]

It took me reading an iteration of this thread (a while back) to realize that "darkened classes" does not mean "restricted from use for this race" and have been playing with Spriggan Berserkers for a while.

[XuaXua]

Yeah... often I wish the food cost of berserking were reduced or removed in place of something else; anything else, really. But I know damn well that'll never happen. :p

Find an Amulet of Rage, it helps.

[szanth]

...? Does it?

[Kate]

...? Does it?

It makes you less likely to pass out. Doesn't affect the food cost though.

[danr]

Does Trog not also reduce chances of passing out?

IMO this is a dynamic that never factors into my decision to berserk or not. The slow effect is enough on its own to make be careful about berserking.

[Gabriellk]

Try Spriggan Wizard. I'm running one right now in CDO because i wanted to test the new wizard. Their first book is pretty ridiculous. Repel Missiles AND Blink AND Mephitic Cloud? Yes please!

With this combo the first levels are a breeze. You can just Magic Dart everything while using your ridiculous speed to outrun monsters. Also you start with very high mana, and gain a lot as you level up because of their nice Spellcasting, wich helps them a lot with food costs and with the spells they may have trouble with because of -3 conjurations.
Once you get some exp and can victory dance transloc/charms/air (for blink and repel) there's very few things that can cause trouble to you in the early game.
I went Nemelex because i found his altar in D:2 and the summonings decks really helps a lot in the early game and Spriggans can build their piety fast with him. Summoning ugly things in D:3 is nice.

Not sure what to do now, tough, I guess i will have to branch into melee or luck with spellbooks because Magic Dart will soon become useless.

Oh yeah, also you have really crappy strenght, so make sure to add some when you level up.

[XuaXua]

...? Does it?

It makes you less likely to pass out. Doesn't affect the food cost though.

Really? Haven't gotten one this round with the SpBe, but last time I recall hitting (a) and not seeing a food cost.

The penalty is not being able to do it 100% due to requiring evocations. Maybe it was a high evocations skill canceling it out?

[mageykun]

You never pass out from 'zerking under Trog. Wearing the amulet doesn't do a thing for you Trog doesn't. Also, evoking an amulet can fail. Calling on Trog for rage can't.

Trog doesn't impose a food cost for invoking rage. However, bezerk has it's own inherent hunger cost, regardless of your source of rage, that kicks in right as you cool down (the same time you slow, and possibly pass out). This can easily push a normal character down to hungry, or even very hungry if you were unlucky. If you can eat meat, this is trvial, it just wastes a few turns after 'zerking to eat them corpses. But if you're a herbivore who hasn't collected much food yet this can be a big deterrent to going berserk. This forces SpBe's to use rage sparingly, whereas other races can use it much more often.

Hmm. Paladins no longer exist as a starting class now in trunk...

Part of the reason I'm trying somewhat seriously to get this wacky idea of mine to work, before it's gone.

It took me reading an iteration of this thread (a while back) to realize that "darkened classes" does not mean "restricted from use for this race" and have been playing with Spriggan Berserkers for a while.

Restricted classes are where it's at. I think I might enjoy getting whackjob combination to work more than actually attempting to win.

[Zicher]

You never pass out from 'zerking under Trog.

This only applies if your piety is 150 or greater.

To be exact - the chance of not passing out under Trog is piety/150, and is applied after the other checks, e.g. wearing the amulet or knowing the appropriate spell.

[danr]

I just tried a SpAK, and I was able to collect a bunch of scrolls and gold and potions and a bread ration in the Abyss before prudence got the better part of me in front of a smoke demon and I escaped to the dungeon.

You start with 8 str, enough that you don't need to waste further points on it, the same goes for dex (15), so you can focus on Int with all your level-ups.

[LunarHarp]

SpNe worked very well for me. They have a -1 skill in necromancy which causes no problems at all (same as kobolds). Your High EV and lots of mp from spellcasting makes vampiric draining even more awesome as you can usually get it off a few times between getting hit. That was the game I learned that haunt is awesome, but not awesome enough for 3 orbs of fire.

[vintermann]

I just tried a SpAK, and I was able to collect a bunch of scrolls and gold and potions and a bread ration in the Abyss before prudence got the better part of me in front of a smoke demon and I escaped to the dungeon.

One undocumented feature about starting Lugonites is that their initial abyss is a special case; it does not have eq at above D:1 quality. Scumming it probably isn't worth it (except looking for an exit to save piety).

[Megabass]

One undocumented feature about starting Lugonites is that their initial abyss is a special case; it does not have eq at above D:1 quality. Scumming it probably isn't worth it (except looking for an exit to save piety).

Maybe I'm just like, lucky as all get out, but the exit for my numerous AKs have always been visible two or three steps from where I spawn in. Wouldn't really call that scumming.

[vintermann]

Let me rephrase that: scumming isn't worth it. Looking for the exit is worth it.

[mageykun]

If you start with Lugonu, the exit will always spawn nearby. You have a choice of exiting through the portal and starting with a little extra piety, or hitting aa and getting your invocations up a level on the first turn. :p Looking for the exit is definitely not scumming.

The start abyss does only have D1 loot, yes, but it's unlimited loot. Why not start the dungeon with a few more stacks of scrolls and pots if you have the opportunity? The stuff you'll find on the dungeon floor is not unlimited- it's a scarce resource. No shame in augmenting it if you have the chance. There' also the opportunity for hunting- there are a few abyssal monsters a level 1 character can kill for the early windfall of xp (Ufetubi, brain worms).

In the case of the SpCK/AK, you're certainly fast enough to scoop up a floor's worth of loot before being corned and forced to depart the abyss. And you might make a profit in permafood, which is quite nice for an early sprigg!

[danr]

Yeah, it is a bit start-scummy though, not in that I quit if I don't find good loot, but in that I often get killed because I think I can get away just one more time...

Gonna go try it again.

[LunarHarp]

SpTm are interesting too. That +3 to transmutations goes to waste in a lot of spriggan builds. The early game can be challenging as you have to get over the food-cost hump of the tranformations. However, once you can cast blade hands at an acceptable hunger level they become extremely powerful.

[Stormfox]

I've had decent success with SpTm. Like most Sp casters, turn off everything but Spellcasting in the early going. Distill every corpse you generate -- you'll make more ammo for Evaporate than you can possibly carry. Once you get Spider Form, use it -- unless the EV bonus has been nerfed in trunk, you will NOT get hit much as a spider Spriggan.

And then once you have decent success and hunger rate with Ice Form and Blade Hands...that's all she wrote. I haven't gotten quite to this point (Ice Form yes, Blade Hands no), but it looks promising.

[Daydreamer]

That's funny, I was just considering SpTm today. Does the -2 unarmed combat aptitude hurt a lot early on? And what god would work best?

[mrbobbyg]

I've been playing a lot of Tm lately, and I have to say, contrary to the wiki's advice, Okawaru is not a good choice. He still drops plenty of weapons even though they're useless.

[LunarHarp]

The -2 UC and the -2 to fighting does indeed hurt a lot in the early game. In particular character level 1 can involve lots of running away. Once you have evaporate you end up using that quite a bit against anything that is remotely threatening. However, once you can get spider form at least cast reliably (choko hunger is fine for a long time as long as you don't over-use it) you can make it to the lair. Note that with spider form and evaporate you can make a bee-line for the hive and get more food. The bees give you potions of poison and are themselves weak to poison. Just have to be careful not to get surrounded.

I don't think spider form is as awesome as it used to be for Spriggans. It looks like you end up with about +4 EV about it seems (which is still nice). And note that you still go slower in spider form and ice form then without it.

I am playing one of these for the first time myself and am about to go into the vaults. Hunger for blade hands is down to a choko, but I found a staff of energy so spell hunger is not really important anymore. So remember to try out every magic staff you find. I had no clue what god would be good either. I went with okawaru for might and sweet robes, but really most of them are good choices. Okie doesn't really demand you change your playstyle very much either.

Nemelex - probably the best god for any spriggan build due to the amount of stuff lying around the dungeon floor that you can't really use. Later you can use the Evocations skill they have built up to kite enemies with rods.
Kiku - spriggans are not bad with necromancy. Agony, regen, and much later necromutation are all great with a transmuter build.
Sif Muna - Get other transmutations. Although statue form is probably not so great with a SpTm
Okawaru - yeah you get crappy weapons, but you get good robes/cloaks and stuff. Good choice if you don't really intend to actually use your diety for the abilities they give you
I am sure Yredelemnul, Fedas, or Makleb would be alright choices as well. Haven't played around with ashenzari much yet.

[mageykun]

Has anyone experimented with bow using spriggans? I usually go slings, since they synergize nicely with shields (and short blades), and since I always assumed there was some inherent size penalty (a good longbow would be as big, if not bigger than a sprig, right?). But they have fine apps for it, and recently I've seen some characters do well with that choice, so I'm wondering. Might be an excuse to go 2-handed long blades too, if the shield gets in the way.

Although, going from sling to arrow, you give up steel and silver branded ammo, don't you?

[danr]

I was going to do that with my last SpAK when I found a +8,+8 katana in a shop. But then I went wiz mode to get the gold for it, and then found a ziggurat so I wizmoded through that (never having seen the inside of one before) and unfortunately the game just stops being fun once you go wizmode. Unless you have very very strong self-control.

Does SpHu start with a bow?

Also, are there arrows of penetration? I have never actually seen this brand in game.

[lucy_ferre]

Although, going from sling to arrow, you give up steel and silver branded ammo, don't you?

Yeah.

Does SpHu start with a bow?

Also, are there arrows of penetration? I have never actually seen this brand in game.

SpHu starts with a bow. I don't think I've ever seen the penetration brand on anything other than bolts and javelins.

[Kate]

Bolts get steel/silver/penetration, bullets get steel/silver/exploding, arrows get... dispersal.

[zasvid]

I question how a tiny faerie can draw a bow.

[Grimm]

They use their feet.

[XuaXua]

I question how a tiny faerie can draw a bow.

Think CUPID.

Also it's not like they can use LONG bows.

[Jk]

Think CUPID.

Also it's not like they can use LONG bows.

This makes me think the graphic for a bow-wielding spriggan should switch to the sprite from Kid Icarus

[XuaXua]

I stopped using bows for my Spriggans and am strictly slings now.