Getting enough food for the post-endgame.

[Jeremiah]

I've just had my first experience of the post-endgame with a HuEE (got 7 runes but died in Tartarus.)

I noticed that by this time, I was running pretty low on food. I did eventually find a staff of energy just before I died, but if I had not done so, I think it would have been impossible to get all 15 runes without starving.

I was working on getting Necromutation castable, and with the staff of energy that should have solved my hunger problems, but they are very rare and not guaranteed to be found.

So are there any hints on conserving food through the mid to late games, other than hoping to find the things that help - eg gourmand or sustenance, playing a species that does not need food, or worshipping Zin?

I guess trying to avoid casting high level spells except when absolutely necessary, and raising int and spellcasting as much as possible would also help.

[slowcar]

your bread and butter spells should be castable without any hunger costs, only the storms/nados and other 8/9th level spells cost food with high int/spellcasting.
i played a full ziggurat and 15 runes with a tornado caster without getting any hunger problems. in fact i found so much food in pandemonium that i had to leave some of it.
and that did not include my stash of 30+ honeycombs i had on some dungeon floor.

[mikee]

Usually this is not what happens in extended, and at the very least, there is plenty of food just lying on the ground in pan.

I can only guess what happened to you, but I'm thinking that with 0.8/0.9 earth spells, you may have had a tendency to rely on lrd or iron shot for almost all opponents. Either that or you rushed up earth to get shatter castable, which isn't necessarily wrong but will leave you with lower spellcasting than normal.

If I'm right, you should consider developing melee on your casters, at least enough that you can kill weak opponents without using spells. This will save food because it's 'hungerless' and also because you won't need to rest to regain mp.

Hope this helps...

[Jeremiah]

Actually, I did use melee quite a lot - I had a staff of earth, which did great damage once I got evocations up (though it used up some food training it using evocable rings.)

The time when I burned through a lot of permafood was in Tomb, where I had LRD and Bolt of Magma castable without hunger, but found I had to use Haste and Shatter a lot more than I would have liked.

[njvack]

Especially if you have a source of Hunger- and something that reduces movement delay, Abyss has plenty of food laying around, and it's a whole lot easier to leave than Pan. It should be really, really rare that you need to cast something that incurs a hunger cost there.

Also, remember to quaff that porridge before someone freezes it.

[Bim]

I always leave all the food I find in the lair stashed away for emergencies, with the exception of 3 royal jellies that I take around for restore attrib.. That means if I need to do anything intensive (like tomb) I have a back up ready. I've never found it to be too much of a problem though, but I'm always pretty conservative/necromutate/gourmand if I can.

Abyss is definitely worth scumming if you're in need. I remember I had a DrEE that I traipsed round Abyss and Pan scumming for food and potions for a zig trip. Died in the first 30 seconds of the zig, but it is very possible to scum enough food up, especially if you use a staff of energy/sustenance rings whilst you do it.

[KoboldLord]

The trick for conserving food in the early- and mid-game is to evaluate and pick your battles carefully. If you can separate enemies from the throng and pick off stragglers, you can quickly wipe them out with your high-hunger spells and then replenish your spent nutrition with the chunks rather than permafood. It may simply not be worth trying to kill off that entire death yak pack at once if you have to alpha strike to kill the first couple, flee to regain mp, and then come back and wipe out the survivors. The xp they represent will still be there later, once you can kill them more cost-effectively. Fear of imminent death is not the only reason to pass on killing something immediately. Sometimes it is simply more profitable to head to another branch for a while even if you could bullishly force your way through.

[LunarHarp]

Also, if you don't really care if you can reliably cast shatter, you can get iron shot hungerless on a human sometime in zot before you start going places with less chunks. Shatter at 'fair' is plenty to use it for breaking into metal vaults quickly and earth miscasts are pretty minor comparatively. In fact, unless I am playing a DE, I tend to turn off my main spell skills at some point to get my spellcasting to a comparable level. You want the added mp for blasting anyway. Sure you have less spell power in the end game but having that staff of earth makes up for most of this.

[smock]

rPois helps you eat poisonous chunks.