Yet another noobie question

[Painted Lady]

I seem to have noticed something, but am not positive my observation is correct. I'm playing a SpEn, and I have a Dagger of Speed. It seems to me that when I wield it I get hungry faster than when I wield an ordinary dagger. Am I nuts?

[KoboldLord]

You may happen to be taking more damage this game. Even for a spriggan, resting is a major nutrition expenditure. If you typically assemble some decent AC and EV, but this game you're stuck with +0 robes and no other defensive equipment, then you might need to rest longer after each combat. Or you could be running into a bad streak of rolls where you take extra damage, meaning extra time spent resting it off.

For reference, a spriggan will spend 100 nutrition points every time you mash 5 and it runs to the end. Each attack with a weapon will cost 3 nutrition points, and by nature speed weapons give you more attacks with your weapon. Early on your Ensorcelled Hibernation will cost around 70 nutrition points per cast.

I'm skeptical, to be honest. There's a lot of random variation over the course of a typical game, and a series of misfortunes can have a long-lasting effect that's difficult to trace to its source.

[Mackerel]

If I understand the math correctly, the speed brand dagger should be making you less hungry, not more. If it takes x average hits with a dagger to kill monster y, the speed brand just means that you get to take your turn more often than the monster does. If you are one-shotting an ensorcelled monster, it's just one attack regardless. If the monster is hitting back, it will get fewer turns to attack you than it would if you were using a regular dagger, so it will hit you less, and you'll spend less time resting up. Fewer turns spent on recovery means less hunger.

If you are actually getting hungry more quickly, my guess would be that you are taking advantage of your speed dagger and either (1) killing harder monsters, requiring more damage than the easier ones you used to do, or (2) killing things in less actual time (not fewer swings, but fewer ticks of a real world clock). Or both. But I expect that (2) is the stronger factor. It used to take you, say, 20 minutes to kill and rest enough to experience hunger; now you're maybe killing and resting that much in 15 minutes.

[smock]

I think there are three things involved in hunger cost in this situation. First, number of attacks. Second, the number of turns spent attacking. Third, the number of turns needed to heal.

But, as KoboldLord mentioned, spell hunger likely plays a bigger role. The SpEn guide on the wiki is pretty good. Basically, train stabbing until you can be sure to kill sleeping foos that you are fighting with one shot. Then focus on spellcasting until hibernation and confuse are hunger free, or nearly so.

[Painted Lady]

Thanks all - I appreciate the advice. I think it is time for me to switch my focus to Spellcasting............