advice on playing stealth classes

[Francis]

I've started a new game as a kobold stalker. On the wiki page for stalkers, it says:
"As with other stealth classes, remember to hit m and deactivate Stealth when you enter the Dungeon, as your XP need to go into your offensive skills first."
Is this good advice? Also, what would be a suitable god? I'd guess Okawaru, as it seems hard to go wrong with him.

[Whart]

I'd say yes, turn it off, and stabbing as well. You need to get some spells skills going so evaporate will be reliable. Distillation and evap will be key. Curious why you'd pick a stalker over a transmuter, though. The book of changes has blade hands and stalkers will train transmutation a lot anyway. I don't get a lot of use out of petrify and passwall.

[ghend]

I don't turn it off. Stealth is amazing and lets you one shot hard enemies while they sleep. And doesn't the stalker start with poison darts/curare at the beginning, making early survival really easy? No real reason to switch it off, imo.

[galehar]

I don't turn it off. Stealth is amazing and lets you one shot hard enemies while they sleep. And doesn't the stalker start with poison darts/curare at the beginning, making early survival really easy? No real reason to switch it off, imo.

Stalkers has been changed in trunk. They are now a Tmut/stealth combo instead of stealth/poison (which overlaps with assassin). Stealth is useful for them. If you have crappy spell success due to low intelligence race, you might want to disable, but otherwise, I'd leave it on. Passwall and petrify are good for stabbing, which is what this background is about.

[dassem]

I'd say to leave them on. Maybe not being noticed for 1 extra turn could save you just as often as the other skills?

Gods:
Oka is usually a good god choice as he might provide cool stuff.
I haven't explored some of the new god options.

For sneaking, I'd consider a magic-based god that can help with going invisible or fast, or can provide some firepower to finish things off.
Alternatively, since I like slightly off-beat takes on roles, one that gives you a nice escape/summoning option could be good (eg Mak or Trog). This would be used when that baddie you're trying to stab in his sleep wakes up and alerts all 5 of his friends who were just out of your LOS on the previous turn...
For example, I recently had a good stealthy-stabby hill orc priest. Despite the poor aptitudes he got to XL27, and could take out dragons in a single stab, because he could just recall followers and surround them with warlords when subtlety failed.

Also, in trunk, I've had some luck going with where my early finds take me: If you see an altar then consider that god; an amulet of guardian spirit can be a lot of extra HP for non-casters; I'd like to try Lugonu if I ever get an early teleport control; and so on.

edit: I didn't see galehar's comment about the change in trunk until after I wrote that - you might not want to worship Trog as a caster.

[galehar]

Ashenzari's detect creatures can be useful for sneaking on monsters and using passwall to stab them.

[Jk]

The logic of turning off stealth to focus on offensive skills is:

- The only way to survive the dungeon is to have your character progress and gain enough power to stay alive long enough to grab the orb and ascend.
- The way to progress is to gain experience and increase your skills (equipment alone can only do so much).
- Stealth doesn't actually let you kill anything, which is how you gain experience!

Stealth is great for avoiding enemies you can't defeat... but you still need to be able to defeat SOMETHING. And while the first few levels can be carefully navigated, fighting only rats, bats, and goblins... using stealth to avoid hobgoblins, kobolds, snakes, gnolls, orcs, and so forth ... eventually you'll run out of easy enemies, you'll step on a trap that does enough damage to kill you, something will 1-hit smite you, or some other tragedy.

And if you lack the means to outrun enemies, avoiding their ranged attacks and magic, eventually every battle turns into "can I do enough damage to kill this enemy before he does enough damage to kill me"... which means the best defense is a good offense!

[galehar]

With stabbing, stealth can be used offensively. And a few levels of stealth is very useful for anyone who's not wearing heavy armour. Picking your fights is key to winning. Also, there's no need to min-max any build. Gaining a few levels in some skill won't impair the development of your main ones.

[Francis]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. By the way, I'm playing 0.7.2, not trunk.

[vintermann]

Training stealth is such a pain, I never turn it off if I'm aiming seriously for it.

A great god choice for stabbers is Ash. Not because of scrying, primarily, but because of reskilling. You can get rid of things like the necromancy you accumulate from Fulsome Distilliation, and turn it into increased stealth/better hexes to cast invisibility ASAP.

Oka may be an OK secondary choice, as Heroism affects stealth, as well as combat skills which are nice to have if the stab attempt fails. Don't be afraid to use it often if you go that way: his gifts generally give poorer return on the piety investment.

[Stormfox]

When I'm playing stealthy (0.7.2 here, not picked up trunk), I do indeed turn Stealth off upon initial entry...but I turn it back on once the XP starts rolling in around Lair. In the very early stages when almost everything is giving you piddling XP, you need every point going into offensive power. For the less common big kills (uniques, hounds, ogres), those large XP infusions are useful for bootstrapping skills that you don't have like T&D, a missile skill, and Fighting. Even then, with racial apts helping out, it's rare that I don't pick up an additional level of Stealth even with it turned off.

But definitely start building it when you have reliable XP coming in. Its direct effects are subtle, but the indirect effects can be very powerful.