Alternatives to Wizard

[joellercoaster]

I like the idea of the Wizard class. Specialist in magic, but not in a magic school - see where the game takes you, travel the world, meet lots of interesting monsters and cast interesting spells on them. Crawl by design gives you lots of scope for adaptation.

But, for whatever reason, I'm not getting along with Wizards even though their starting book is great.

My best idea so far has been Sludge Elf Necromancer of Sif Muna - Conjurations and Charms are deprecated, but you have good aptitudes for whatever else comes along - and a God who will make sure that whatever early path you take won't turn into a dead end, and with whom you gain piety doing what I wanted the build for! Plus Necromancy is arguably the most flexible single school in the game, and the starting book has a lot of bases covered for the early part of the journey. My current attempt is in the Lair, with Necro still the frontrunner but rapidly being caught by Earth Magic and a minor in Translocations (books of Burglary and Minor Magic on the floor). The balance feels good.

But what about you? What do you play when you want to cast spells as your bread and butter, but don't want your build to decide too much what those will be up front?

[asdu]

But what about you? What do you play when you want to cast spells as your bread and butter, but don't want your build to decide too much what those will be up front?

Wizards (of Vehumet)

[slowcar]

If there was a starter package that would do the same it would be kind of redundant, wouldn't it?

[eharper256]

But what about you? What do you play when you want to cast spells as your bread and butter, but don't want your build to decide too much what those will be up front?

I don't think any magic class really shoehorns you; and it shouldn't, else you'd be massively disadvantaged by Random Book Spawns, especially if you didn't pick Sif. My Air Elementalist pretty much switched over to Poison without an issue since those were the books I got; and it meshed with Mephetic Cloud anyway. Nothing wrong with two majors anyway, eh?

I do think its quite ironic that Necromancers don't feel the need to worship the gods of death: Kiku is mostly redundant except for corpse delivery, as all miscasts are covered by Sif anyway, you have the starter book, etc, and the only biggie is the guaranteed Necronomicon or Brand (and Necro can be given by Sif, I think). And Yredremmul is giving you abilities you already have to some degree; with the only main advantage to grab Bone Dragons and stuff.

Although maybe I missed the point. All of my necromancers die by Lair so far; so I can't give a full picture.

Now, if only some class started with JUST spellcasting and nothing else, that would be nice (maybe Artificier, thats pretty 'eh' at the moment), which is possible only with delete-restart scumming a Wanderer I think at the moment. Speaking of which, getting Magic skills and starting spells or books without having any spellcasting is just silly; I think there should be a check against that (and Vampire Wanderers with 8 Stealth and Crossbow for much hilarity in D1).

[Galefury]

Transmuter works nicely for a hybrid generalist. Pretty big focus on unarmed melee, but your starting book also makes it very easy to branch out from Transmutations into many other schools. And distill/evap and spider form will always be useful and easy to cast, no matter what else you end up casting later.

For a pure caster generalist you can simply start as an Air Elementalist, Conjurer, Ice Elementalist or Summoner and worship Sif. As a pure caster you're probably going to use either minions or conjurations to kill stuff, so getting started with that and then branching out depending on what you find works nicely. You just have to actually branch out, this is an active decision and it will usually weaken you at first. Focusing on your starting schools will often be enough to get you through the game with these backgrounds, playing differently is your choice. Also conjurations has lots of dual school spells, so it's easy to get into most elemental schools if you're good at conjurations. You just have to switch to a different low level attack spell (most conjurers have a small gun and a big gun, switching out the small gun is very easy) and your new elemental school will automatically train fast. EE and especially FE are more focused, so they don't work as well for this IMO. I like playing necromancers as hybrids, but I guess turning them into generalist casters works just as well.

Worshipping Kiku or Veh is a good alternative to Sif, even for generalists. There are schools you're going to focus on, especially in the early and midgame, and if you know beforehand what you want them to be picking one of them via starting book and one via god choice will work nicely. AE of Kiku will cover your bases pretty well for example, letting you use air, conjurations, charms and necromancy from a very early point. Air/conj means easy access to all cloud spells, which is awesome, and conjurations lets you easily pick up any element you want. Necromancy and charms support any kind of caster really well. No really easy ways to segue into summonings, translocations and transmutation, but you cant have everything I guess. There is a fair bit of stuff in the gift chains of Veh and Kiku that will be useful to any caster. Sublimation of Blood and Abjuration are the best examples, but there are a few other nice support spells from Kiku, and Vehumet gifts have great variety in secondary schools.

[mrbobbyg]

I have been having a lot of fun with DeCr of Vehumet.

It seems goofy, but you get a weapon, early game survival, and a good start on your fighting skills. Mid game, go ice magic, with guaranteed abjuration later on.

For real though, I like HuAE of Sif. You have swiftness and a great cannon in lighting bolt, I just now 1 shot an ice dragon with a quadzap. AE gives you a lot of flexibility in case sif decides to grant you "Sif Mauna's Guide to Useless Magic" for your first 2 books.

[joellercoaster]

Worshipping Kiku or Veh is a good alternative to Sif, even for generalists.

Maybe I've been doing it wrong, but every time I've taken Kiku, necro has ended up dominating everything else in short order (even when I start with Earth Magic, which is a favourite). It's just so darned useful in the early and mid game, then it sucks you in later with Necromutation and friends. I end up with 20 in Necromancy and single digits in everything else, followed by a great deal of very careful victory dancing if I want to stay general.

*shakes fist at Kiku and Its extreme usefulness*

[Galefury]

As I said, playing as a generalist is a conscious decision, most chars work great (and often better) as a focused caster. Necromancy has some excellent (and extremely varied) low/mid level spells in sublimation, regeneration, dispel undead, vampiric draining, corpse rot and animate dead. Going further is very useful, but not strictly necessary.

[joellercoaster]

Ah, I think I can articulate my problem better now.

What I'm trying for is a build that can go in most directions, depending on whatever books turn up during the game. I don't mind specializing eventually, I just want to not know how it's going to work out before I start. With Kiku, "whatever turns up" generally means "Necromancy, and a lot of it". Don't get me wrong, I love Necro (and indeed Kikubaaqudgha), it's the predictability I'm trying to avoid.

[morazor]

If you like hybrids, I think something like NaCr of Vehumet could do. As a Naga, you should build up Charms as a priority anyway.
Vehumet IMO is better than Sif Muna in a hybrid gameplay because of the mana recover on kill.
The big problem with this choice is the lack of escape methods and the lack of Mephitic Cloud in the beginning (it's expecially nice to have it for a Naga, because of poison immunity).

PS: If you are going to try that, change the starting leather armor for a robe ASAP and remember to spit a lot in the beginning.

[DemonOfWrath]

I've personally found DrVM to be rather fun for the kind of game you're after (I originally tried necromancers but it ended up too dominated by necromancy). You get the random colour to give some unpredictability to where you'd want to go (I keep getting purple, which is even more awesome for generalist), and in my experience at least, you have to branch out, as staying too focused on poison leaves you open to hydra-rape and other similarly nasty ends.

[asdu]

I've personally found DrVM to be rather fun for the kind of game you're after (I originally tried necromancers but it ended up too dominated by necromancy). You get the random colour to give some unpredictability to where you'd want to go (I keep getting purple, which is even more awesome for generalist), and in my experience at least, you have to branch out, as staying too focused on poison leaves you open to hydra-rape and other similarly nasty ends.

A simlar (but IMO stronger) build would be DrAE. Draconians get innate controlled flight which means that levitation from your starting book is as good as flight and so at level 2 you get the full benefit of the switfness/flight combo without even having to find a book with flight. Depending on which books you find and the colour roulette you may end up learning other magic schools, but you'll never regret having trained air. If you don't want to air magic to dominate your build early on, you can play it as a hybrid too, which is a good fit for both draconians and air elementalists.

[Shade]

But what about you? What do you play when you want to cast spells as your bread and butter, but don't want your build to decide too much what those will be up front?

Uuugh. Right now I have the nastiest streak of dead less than 10 K point wizards on my hands. Xom is hating on me right now. I don't know how many games later, but I've only been finding books without a 3rd or 4th level 'zap' spell in them. It's been like, "Oooh, more utility spells and level 7, 8, or 9 conjurations"... At a certain point these characters all just peter out because nothing else matters if you can't kill the other guy dead.

Yes, I know that's the chance you take with a Wz, and it's just the RNG. I just needed to rant. (But I do love the diversity that the Wz offers.)

[mumra]

Uuugh. Right now I have the nastiest streak of dead less than 10 K point wizards on my hands. Xom is hating on me right now. I don't know how many games later, but I've only been finding books without a 3rd or 4th level 'zap' spell in them. It's been like, "Oooh, more utility spells and level 7, 8, or 9 conjurations"... At a certain point these characters all just peter out because nothing else matters if you can't kill the other guy dead.

I personally feel there are not enough level 3 and 4 attack spells. There's a range of level 1 and 2 starter spells, a tonne of heavy cannons at 5-7; and by the time you're capable of casting level 8 or above you are pretty certain to have the top spells for your skillset already available. There's just this kind of void where you're ready for a level 3/4 blaster but all that's typically available are very tactical and situational spells like Meph, Static Discharge, Conjure Flame. Finding IMB at that stage is basically a game changer because suddenly you can reliably kill most things in almost all situations.

I think a few more varied low-mid missiles could add some much-needed decisions in that bracket, and open up some more natural skill progressions for moving into different schools and training to higher levels. I mean, the only reason I ever keep Conjure Flame around after a certain point is to have a low-cost way to victory dance Fire if I want any chance of Bolt of Fire / Ring of Flame / Fire Storm.

Edit: I did forget Icicle. I generally seem to find IMB more often though.

[XrBob]

I find air elementalist to be pretty general and similar to wizards. Low nuking power, but many utility spells. It really lends itself to hybrid play though, as shock and static discharge often aren't enough to kill everything until you get stronger spells. Even if you don't focus on air, there are a lot of great air spells that will be useful for every character.

To the guy above me: mystic blast and throw icicle are wonderful mid-level nukes. Sticky flame is actually very good as well, you just need to be a little more tactical and careful in its use. Earth has stone arrow, while level 3, is actually still very good, I can comfortably kill hydras with it. Static discharge kinda sucks, can be effective, but too unreliable for a close range nuke. Air has the level 5 lightning bolt which is pretty good, and bolt of magma fire/earth/conj is quite good as well, though it is 3 schools.

[Sojiro]

I like the idea of the Wizard class. Specialist in magic, but not in a magic school - see where the game takes you, travel the world, meet lots of interesting monsters and cast interesting spells on them. Crawl by design gives you lots of scope for adaptation.

But, for whatever reason, I'm not getting along with Wizards even though their starting book is great.
[...]
But what about you? What do you play when you want to cast spells as your bread and butter, but don't want your build to decide too much what those will be up front?

I had this exact same problem with Draconians. I wanted to play a spell casting Dr who didn't have to choose how to specialize before I knew the color, or what sort of books I'd find, so I started playing Wz. And proceeded to kill lots of draconians, for whatever reasons I just couldn't make it work.

So I eventually tried a Transmuter, and wow! It worked great, Evaporate and Sticks to Snakes give an equivalent of Conjuration and Summoning, then the forms are buffs with various uses (water-walking, cold resistance, speed, etc ...). And you can use the Tm spells to train up Fire, Ice, Poison and Necro, so you have lots of ways to branch out if you get a powerful book (and you can train a spell Skill to get Sif to give you books with those sort of spells too).

You are going to use Unarmed rather than being purely a spell-slinger, but it doesn't mean you can't have your spell-slinging be your bread and butter (at least by mid game). I have often managed to stop training UC at 5, and 10 works just fine even I you don't find the magical offense you want to use early. UC5 isn't very powerful, but with Evaporate and S2S to provide support and the forms to boost, you don't need more against most opponents until you start going deep into the Lair.


For a pure spell-slinger, Air Elementalist works too. The spells you get there are basic utility all casters will want eventually, so you can start by using it as your main weapon and witch to something else whenever the situation presents itself, your level in Air magic won't be completely wasted (and your Conjuration can be used on other elements).

[sanka]

What I'm trying for is a build that can go in most directions, depending on whatever books turn up during the game. I don't mind specializing eventually, I just want to not know how it's going to work out before I start. With Kiku, "whatever turns up" generally means "Necromancy, and a lot of it". Don't get me wrong, I love Necro (and indeed Kikubaaqudgha), it's the predictability I'm trying to avoid.

I usually play with Ogre Wizards of Ashenzari, or sometimes Ogre Necromancers of Ashenzari. Ash's skil boost will give enough skill to cast spells from any school with low xp cost, and with the great spellcasting aptitude you can memorize a lot of spells. You can also transfer xp from unused schools later into more useful ones. If you start with a wizard, cursing a club or whip will be harder - you need to find a spell that can generate chunks. It's perfectly good to curse a bladed weapon tough - few skill points are enoug and you can transfer the skill later when you find animate skeleton, LRD or Orb of destruction. If I start with a necromancer, I usualy focus on maces and flails early, and switch to a GSC asap.

I think that a lot of species with flat aptitudes in spell schools can work really great with Ashenzari - humans, draconians, mummy and demonspawn are my other favorites. I simply use long blades or axes with them (except with mummies), that solves the weapon cursing problem.

[Mychaelh]

I made altar descriptions for the DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce. The idea I have for these descriptions, is to give a basic general idea and condensed subsumption about the in-game 'play-style' of each god. Here are the descriptions I made for the main magic-gods:

A basalt altar of Yredelemnul
An evil altar worked from columnar basalt and
apparelled in the silence of a graveyard. This
sanctuary of dead is consecrated to the mighty dead god
Yredelemnul.
Located below the altar is a tomb, sealed with
hieroglyphic curses, blaspheming against the Holy
Trinity. This crypt contains the bones of a
distinguished kinght commander, waiting for the call of
his master to arouse him again.
A plaque offers necromantic powers to all who volunteer
for the Lord of the Dead's crusade too.

An ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha
Bones are piled here since long time ago, adducting the
attention of a vicious entity called Kikubaaqudgha out
from the void.
In turn, this shunned lieu has attracted those, who
audaciously dabble in abhorrent necromantic arts of the
worst kind.
This place is now used for feculent rituals, but it's
even not clear if 'Kikubaaqudgha' is a real name or
some part of a very ancient summoning-formula. Beware,
lest lunatic fools unlash undead horrors beyond
imagination, feared even by demons and gods.

A radiant altar of Vehumet
A shrine made out of red marble, ablaze in lights from
within, promising great destructive powers. It houses
an altar dedicated to Vehumet the Battlemage and is
open for all, who want to follow this god. Inside the
sanctuary the walls are decorated with reliefs,
depicting old engagements. You see the conjurer
cardinals of Vehumet in grim battle with undead and
beasts, fought during Yredelemnul's Apostasy.
The Vehumetists seem occupied with magical fighting,
don't praising their god, who just observes these scenes from
above.

A deep blue altar of Sif Muna
An shrine of the deepest lapis lazuli, covered in intricate patterns
and writings in long forgotten scripts, devoted to Sif Muna the Loreminder.
Before the altar a magical circle is engraved into the stone floor,
enclosed with arcane sigils, representing all known skills of magic.
You have to demonstrate some real practical knowledge,
to be accepted as a disciple of Sif Muna.


Critics, suggestions from players are very welcome.