Kited enemies as food source?

[flamingo]

Has anybody tried kiting mobs of weak enemies through the dungeon to use as obstacles/food? Also, is it possible to exclude certain enemies from interrupting autoexplore?

[Laraso]

Why would you do that? There is already way more food in the dungeon than you will ever actually need. I just recently played a DDHe who was blowing through permafood every other second as I spammed Elyvilon healing, and when I ascended with the orb I was still holding onto over twenty rations...

Not to mention you would never be able to rest and heal if you have an enemy following you.

[Hurkyl]

The obstacle thing has its uses. I've had a few games where I've killed hydras / elephants / death yaks by letting a water moccasin block the way and putting clouds of flame behind it for the other monsters to walk into and patiently wait for the water moccasin to die. (which doesn't happen because I'm hitting '.' instead of 'tab')

[and into]

Yeah, tactically you can often use an enemy to either to block LOS of something else or to provide a buffer between yourself and a stronger melee opponent. With the exception of just a few specific things with weird movement patterns (like bats and orb spiders), the way enemies move toward you is very predictable, so you can control how they move by carefully planning your own movements.

However, kiting around an enemy just for this purpose would be a profoundly bad idea. It would be extremely obnoxious and unfun, for one thing, and it really wouldn't give you any advantage, since you wouldn't be able to rest and also you'd be greatly restricting your own movements. As you explore, your weak dude would be following behind you, so anytime you come upon a situation in which you would like to back up, that weakling you were kiting would block your way.

[crate]

Leaving things alive to vamp drain when you play a DD/Vp is a thing players actually do (and is realistically a thing you should absolutely be doing, though most players probably don't bother).

Doing so for food isn't useful because there's way more food than you ever need in a game to begin with and you'd spend enough nutrition to go back to find the monster to make it not worthwhile anyway.

Also, is it possible to exclude certain enemies from interrupting autoexplore?

Yes, check the options guide.

[Siegurt]

I sometimes cart a silent specter around through the abyss with a trogladyte, it's kinda fun.

[Sprucery]

I sometimes cart a silent specter around through the abyss with a trogladyte, it's kinda fun.

That would also be very useful in Crypt.

[and into]

I dunno, scrolls are pretty good, and so are Trog's invocations, and so are elemental evocables which spawn allies that will probably kill the silent specter, so for the most part I think you are, again, shooting yourself in the foot if you cart around a silent specter. The costs outweigh the benefits for nearly all practical situations. (Also note that silence doesn't stop demonic spell casting which you see a fair amount of in Abyss.)

[Sprucery]

I still think that in Crypt it could be useful. Eidolons, liches, aliches, vampire knights/mages, ancient champions, revenants, death knights/mages... Although I'm disappointed to notice that curse skulls are immune. If something pops in that you'd rather fight non-silenced, it shouldn't be too difficult to kill the spectre fast.

That said, I find that too boring to do anyway...

I said this somewhere else and I'll say it again: silent spectres should spawn (also) somewhere else than Crypt (or Abyss/Tartarus/Zigs).

[Sar]

The thing with silent spectres that makes them usable is that their damage is absolutely pathetic and they are very easily dispatched if you find an enemy you want to use a vocalized ability on (since they're right next to you and will die in 1-2 hits).

(Note that I'm not really calling for a buff here.)

[Jeremiah]

I also found that reading a scroll of summoning in Crypt can get you a friendly silent spectre. Which could be either good or bad depending on circumstances.