Kiku: Pain Brand or Necronomicon?

[joellercoaster]

This is actually more of a general question about What to Do Next, but it's one of the questions open to me.

I have a DDNe, XL14 on the bottom floor of the Lair but he's doing it hard. Death Yaks are often fighting him to a standstill, running away just as he's about to polish them off, and happily resisting the Pain spells which are his normal response in that situation. And it's not just them... plenty of monsters are behaving the same way.

He's played it pretty much as a pure Necromancer with melee backup (Axes 10, with a +2/+4 Battle Axe of Flaming) thus far but appears to be running out of grunt. Doesn't know any other spell schools, but his Necro is at 17.

And food. Agony is becoming a standby (Death Yaks, and the Dungeon is starting to fill up with Ugly Things), and even with Slow Metabolism he picked up somewhere he's running out of edible stuff. Sublimation of Blood helps with the MP but the hunger is a serious issue.

So far, no source of Poison Resistance anywhere. In fact the only decent armour he has was a Steam Dragon Armour he made himself.

The question is, what to do next? Finish off the bottom of the Lair? Have a go at the Swamp? Maybe even try the Hive for food, even with the lack of RP?

And more generally, get the Necronomicon or the Pain brand from Kiku? The Necronomicon is tempting thematically, but the spells are all high-food and require other schools. Not a game breaker in itself but it's a consideration. The pain brand seems not quite as cool, though having an amulet of Berserk Rage does turn it into a powerful panic button... but then, the flaming axe he has now is OK too. And maybe he should save the brand for a better axe. Think he'll go with the book though.

The endless second-guessing!

[lucy_ferre]

The question is, what to do next? Finish off the bottom of the Lair? Have a go at the Swamp? Maybe even try the Hive for food, even with the lack of RP?

And more generally, get the Necronomicon or the Pain brand from Kiku? The Necronomicon is tempting thematically, but the spells are all high-food and require other schools. Not a game breaker in itself but it's a consideration. The pain brand seems not quite as cool, though having an amulet of Berserk Rage does turn it into a powerful panic button... but then, the flaming axe he has now is OK too. And maybe he should save the brand for a better axe. Think he'll go with the book though.

The endless second-guessing!

Use wands/rods to kill fleeing enemies. Learn Magic Dart if you have a book with it. It's pretty useful for a level 1 spell. It's easier to play a DDNe as a melee-focused caster, unless you're worshiping Chei.

Clear the Hive if you have food troubles, though you shouldn't be running out of food at the Lair. Maybe you're wasting rations or avoiding contaminated chunks?

Damage shaving protects you from mild (yellow) poison (and later from severe poisoning), so don't worry too much about rPois. What's in the Necromonicon that you'll actually need? Unless you're going for all the runes, just get a broad ax of pain with a shield.

[tromboneandrew]

Yes, the Lair should be providing plenty of free food from butchered monsters. And the Hive shouldn't be too hard to clear out with very high necromancy skill. The first several bees might be able to sting you once, but after you start an animated zombie wave, which is poison immune, you should be fine. Carry some corpses down the stairs to be animated if you have to.

[Kate]

Unless you really want to dedicate yourself to casting Haunt (which is a fun tactic as well), definitely get the pain brand. It'll destroy essentially everything in a 3-rune game.

[RangerC]

Revivification is now in the Necronomicon, though - so now melee necromancers actually have a choice to make now. I still think pain brand is too strong to pass up for most melee/necro hybrids, but at least now you have to think about it.

[joellercoaster]

Thanks for all the advice; I had decided to go with the brand (and had located a suitable axe) when I had some trouble with an alligator and a certain berserking unique (who's given me a fair bit of trouble before, come to think of it) on Swamp:1. Teleporting away from them bleeding heavily, I landed literally right beside an 8-headed Hydra and that was pretty much it.

*sigh*

[Sealer]

Yeah, Rupert can be pretty badass.

[joellercoaster]

Yup.

So far it's Rupert 1, Joel 1, Other 1 (this game Rupert didn't kill me, but he definitely got me into the mess that did).

Last time I went to pretty elaborate lengths to kill him even when I didn't really have to, just because I was so angry about the game before. And now I'm back in that mood again.

*shakes fist*

[joellercoaster]

OK, I'm playing another DDNe and it's going a bit better now. This time I took the Pain brand and have been happily slicing my way through the various dungeon branches - have cleared the easy ones (Hive, Lair, Orc) and dipped into a few others but not very far.

My problem is, all my ways of really hurting things (including melee) are negative energy-based. When I run into something big and tough that ignores Pain and Agony and isn't undead, I start to come unstuck. Current examples of things blocking downward progress are a Shadow Dragon in the main Dungeon and a Tentacled Monstrosity in the Lair (followed me up from Swamp).

The latter I can just run around as I trot up and down the Lair, and the former I'll fight when I make one more level of RN, but I assume these kinds of encounters are going to get a lot more common. I'm asking here because it's around this point in the game I don't have much experience... I usually die shortly before or after my first rune.

I have a decent selection of spellbooks stacked up and a lot of spare spell levels... is there a usual course of action at this point? Or just a case of "you really can't beat 'em all"?

[szanth]

What does Haunt actually -do-? The description isn't very... descriptive. Is it just another summoning spell?

[lucy_ferre]

Haunt is the 2nd best summoning spell. It summons several (various) ghosts that surround a monster. It has smite-targeting, so it's good for quickly ducking out of an enemy's LOS.

[joellercoaster]

Aha.

It turns out the book on the other side of the deep water in the Hive was a Necronomicon. Haunt it shall be. I have 18 in Necromancy already, and -1 apt for Summoning can't be too awful. Can it?

Now, after a complicated dance involving some potions of brilliance, learning/unlearning Levitation, Selective Amnesia and Summon Canine Familiar, the victory dancing commences.

(Hooray, I'm up to 'Cruddy' already.)

[MrMisterMonkey]

Haunt's biggest downside is Sickness, so if you're a deep dwarf with sustain abilities, you can just ignore that and spam it.

As for other ways of hurting demons and shadow dragons, do you have any bigger weapons, or perhaps some self-buffs to sustain you while you pick away at them? Note, also, that shadow dragons and tentacled monstrosities probably aren't handleable for most characters that early on, so you may simply want to skip them for now.

[MrMisterMonkey]

It's a piety-based chance, but I can't recall exactly what. Undead are also immune.

[szanth]

It's canon. Kiku worshippers are down with the sickness.