The Tavern

Since my last topic, I've switched things up for a change of pace, and am finding myself doing particularly well with a TrFi build using unarmed (which I rolled mainly because the idea of conquering the dungeon with nothing but my fists amused me). However, I am wondering if later on I should pick up a weapon of some kind; on my last run, I ended up picking up a nice demon branded longsword shortly before getting murderated by a kobold demonolgist who summoned sun demons. On further reflection, I probably should have just donned that fire dragon armor I stumbled upon, but on the run before THAT I died to some deep elf unique who absolutely murderated my sorry ass with ice magic and I was waiting to get a ring of protection from ice. So can I go unarmed for the entire game, or is there a point where I should be picking up a weapon, even with a troll?

Unarmed Combat is stronger than most weapons, especially with troll claws. Stick with it.

Q: should I use this weapon on a troll? the weapon is--
A: no

On the dragon armor idea that was also mentioned, you generally always want to move to some dragon armor (unless you're using a CPA, or possibly ego plate, or certain ego robes like archmagi), and fire/ice are excellent dragon armors. If you use them though, try to already compensate for the -resist, don't go around vulnerable to something. Same for rings of fire/ice. But if you can compensate for the negative resist, they're all great items.

Well, at least I'm regularly getting somewhere with a fighter background. Trying to find the holes in my mages that keeps them from getting that far, but no luck yet. Might try training unarmed on some of them, see if that helps.

The main downside to unarmed is it is a lot of experience to get it powerful. So if you're learning a lot of magic, and dealing damage through spells, then unarmed is probably not the best melee choice. You still could, of course, but depending on what weapons you have there's probably something you could put 10-14 skill into and be done with, rather than putting more and more into unarmed. Depends on race, drops, etc.