hybrid help

[ManofMetal]

I've always been interested in hybrid builds (by which i mean characters using both magic and weapons from early or mid game onwards), but the farthest I've ever gotten was a little past lair with a MfIE. I really wanna try a FoEE (the list of abbreviations doesn't have formicids, so I made one up) because giant club+statue form seems hilarious, so if you have specific advice that would be welcome, but I'm looking for more broad hybrid knowledge such as:

If you start as a spell caster (EE, IE, etc.), when should you start training your weapon? is it generally better to go unarmed?

If you start with a weapon (SK, etc.) when should you start focusing spells?

When are enhancer staves worth using in melee/better than a more traditional weapon?

and other hybrid discussion, stories, etc are all welcome

[tedric]

Starting as a caster, I have recently become enamored of using weapons at 0 skill until I have everything I want from my starting book solidly online. That's generally sometime in Lair. The question which weapon to use at 0 skill for all that time is hard to answer, depends on weighing the base type against the brand. Unarmed is probably not a good idea unless you're a Tm.

[crate]

In general I'd recommend starting as a book background because it is much easier (guaranteed) to find a decent weapon (great mace, great sword, glaive, lajatang, etc.) and a decent armour (ego robe, ego leather, plate armour, dragon armour) than it is to find specific spellbooks. Also book backgrounds are generally stronger to begin with.

Hitting things with 0 skill weapons is perfectly fine as long as you are smart about how you do so. It has the obvious advantage of MP efficiency: it doesn't take MP to swing a scimitar. The disadvantage, of course, is that you are probably less effective per turn, so you don't want to e.g. try to kill spiny frogs with a 0 skill scimitar when you're a fire elementalist ... save it for the green rat packs! Generally you should specialise your offense at first and then get a bit of defense and after that you can branch out.

[and into]

I've always been interested in hybrid builds (by which i mean characters using both magic and weapons from early or mid game onwards)

Well, probably transmuters and enchanters come closest to a "hybrid" in Crawl, so maybe try that. If you are having a hard time figuring out how to integrate spells and melee, I'd probably ignore the other "Warrior-Mage" backgrounds for now, to be honest, as they are less straightforward. Though I wonder if maybe the real thing here is that you are still trying to master the tactical aspects of positioning and melee in Crawl.

At any rate, any background that starts with a book can pick up melee whenever, its just a question of exactly when, which will vary from game to game. Any of the nine backgrounds listed under "Mage" are strong in the early going just with magic, so focus on that first. Get your staple spells (not always the highest level spells) reliable. Then dodging. Then melee and pick up any other spells that could be useful and don't require much additional training. By end of Lair, unless you went with a mummy as species or something, you can be proficient at melee, have good defenses, and still cast everything from your starting book just fine. Draconians, gargoyles, merfolk, humans, demonspawn, etc. have good starts as various book backgrounds and can take a hit pretty well.

Skalds are okay but just starting with an elementalist picking up a decent weapon is probably a stronger and more straightforward way to make a "hybrid" character, actually, unless you are really focused on hitting stuff and casting right from D1. The problem there is that dividing yourself between both of those tends to mean you are worse at either. Enchanters and Transmuters have ways of dealing with this problem, as their spells integrate nicely with melee or stabbing, but Skalds feel more like gladiators with a book and a more well rounded stat distribution at start.

So if you start as an elementalist or conjurer, don't spread your experience thin, focus on getting good at one thing then introduce the other (however don't feel you have to get everything in your starting book memorized before you start hitting stuff). In terms of priorities, it is important first to get a decent means to kill stuff online first, then get not crappy defense, then branch out into whatever else you want.

Final two cents would be that conjurers are really good at crossing into melee early on. Just magic dart + searing ray + dazzling spray, which you can have online pre-Temple, can take you a long way, and if you want to use those three spells and get good at melee before picking up iskerendun's mystic blast and battlesphere, that's a perfectly viable (and pretty fun) way to play conjurers. Obviously though if you try to get all the magic spells and also get better at melee and also not neglect your defenses, something is going to give, and you'll end up not being good enough at any one thing to survive. So prioritize and delay gratification a little bit, at some point in Lair you can get everything caught up and then really you can continue training up your character in any number of ways and still win.

[Wahaha]

I recommend starting as FE or Wz, and training enough conj/fire to cast sticky flame with FE or conjure flame with Wz. These spells are good because they're very strong and don't need spell power to be strong (so you only need enough xp in spell skills to cast them and not more). As soon as the failure is something like 8% or less, immediately switch to training a weapon skill and dodging. Hit enemies with a weapon while they are sticky flamed and/or standing in fire clouds. Later if you want a true hybrid experience, learn ring of flames.

EE is in my opinion the worst book class to try to hybridize early. Stoneskin is good but needs many levels in earth to be effective, and the other spells scale a lot with spell power and therefore also need a lot of spell school levels to be effective. This is bad because you don't want to train spell skills that much.

[crate]

and the other spells scale a lot with spell power and therefore also need a lot of spell schools to be effective. This is bad because you don't want to train spell skills that much.

and on the other hand, LRD is single-school so it gets to high spellpower with much less xp than the level 5 (4 for ice) spells of the other elementalists.

[banei]

EE is also good for stabbing, although the loss of digging makes it less so

[hannobal]

If you pick a background with swiftness or conjure flame(wz, ae), polearms are great.
Spears are easy to find on dungeon floor and reaching allows you to hit things behind the flame cloud in corridor, if they are not willing to stand in the flames.
Ranged threats, casters and tough melee mobs you should still eliminate at range with conjurations.
Alternatively you can use swiftness and reaching to kite.

Sticky flame that was mentioned above works too, but you should run away from the enemy while they are burning (if its regular speed melee enemy), and finish with melee if necessary when the flames go out.

Don't be afraid to train the weapon skill a little after you've got the most important spells from starter book below 10% failure rate - first 1-2 skill levels are really cheap XP wise and you will gain some damage, accuracy and speed compared to 0 skill. Quick and accurate weapons of electrocution (dagger, whip) work nicely with low or zero skill, so you should use one if you find one.
Polearms i mentioned crosstrain with staves and axes so even that small amount of XP will not be completely wasted if you find a nice axe or staff later on.

[duvessa]

EE is also good for stabbing, although the loss of digging makes it less so

"background where the best spell in its book makes more noise than tornado every time you cast it" doesn't really scream out "stabber" to me

[Klown]

DsNe
HECj
MfIE
VpEn

[Magipi]

DsNe
HECj
MfIE
VpEn

?

[sanka]

Transmuters and Enchanters are special that they do want UC/short blades skills early, before learning all of their spells.

If you do want to try some other background to hibridize relatively early, I suggest Necromancer.

Necromancer needs about ~8 skill in necromancy to be effective. You may want some small level of charms for regeneration. This can be reached quite early.
After it you usually want to train dodging (I usually aim for about ~20 EV). You can use lethal infusion for 0 skill melee till this point, and after this point you are ready to choose a good weapon you found and train for it.

If you go Kiku, you can have a guaranteed pain weapon by the middle of Lair, and you can also easily reach min delay with it (because you bless a spear for example, which requires few levels) , while you can also go for some higher level necro spells.

Necromancers are not different because they learn melee (every character will at some point), but they can be good at it much earlier partially because necromancy needs really low investment, partially because they have spells that helps it, and partially because Kiku's pain weapon also needs low skill investment, and has synergy with your spells.

[Sar]

Vamp Draining has a great synergy with melee, too.

[and into]

Yeah Necromancers in particular are very good at it, but any background under Mage is solid "hybrid" material really, assuming you choose a species that doesn't feel like it is made of papier-mâché.

Transmuters and Enchanters have their own special things going, but the other "Warrior-Mage" backgrounds are actually a bit harder to make "click," in my opinion. It took me a long time to figure out how to use Arcane Marskmen to a reasonable level of effectiveness given their starting tools, and they still are far from being in my comfort zone. (Yeah of course you can just play them as hunters with slow and corona for a long time and be totally fine, but that's not really taking advantage of everything they have to offer uniquely as a background.)

[Sar]

Yes, that's true. I still have no idea how to play, say, Skalds, so I just level them as I would level a regular melee guy, cast Infusion a lot in the early game and get Spectral Weapon and Regen around Lair.

[and into]

Yes, that's true. I still have no idea how to play, say, Skalds, so I just level them as I would level a regular melee guy, cast Infusion a lot in the early game and get Spectral Weapon and Regen around Lair.

For the most part I feel same way (shroud is good though!). But they kind of intrigue me for that reason, every now and then I'll play through several early game Skalds or AMs to try to figure them out better. With AM I feel I'm getting closer to (maybe) "getting" them, with Skalds they basically feel like net-less gladiators who spam infusion and use shroud, until around Lair. Warpers kind of the same, you get app, shroud, and blink, then basically raise them like gladiators for a while before developing their other skills, with launchers and javs being slightly better valued due to portal projectile I guess. In both cases the spells and melee don't mesh as organically as tm and en, though maybe it only seems that way because I haven't figured out how best to use the starting books for sk and wr.

[Lasty]

That's pretty much how you play Skalds. The only other thing is to get Shroud ASAP and cast before every fight.

I'm fairly certain that Skalds are best off not training magic skills until at least getting a weapon to min delay and getting some decent Dodging.

[dck]

Tele other is a pretty good spell since it removes dudes from your LoS and thus they might as well be dead for all you care.
Of course it's not like crawl is short of ways to remove dudes from your LoS, but it's still good.

[Sar]

Getting Spectral is probably better before getting min delay unless you have absurd apt for your weapon and/or it doesn't require a big investment to work.

[Lasty]

Leaving aside polearms, spectral doesn't work in corridors and most other forced 1v1 scenarios, but min delay does.

[rchandra]

Spectral works fine in corridors, you walk to the end and will have a 2v1 as the enemy exits and again if he steps out. That said reaching is really nice with spectral weapon - try MfSk in linesprint!