When should Zin-ites use recite?

[Reptisaurus]

Trying to win an Ogre Wanderer of Zin, and I'm still not quite sure when Recite is my best option (rather than beating on enemies with my + 9 giant club.) It works best against groups, demons, and ugly things, I guess?

[Cimanyd]

Recite doesn't cost piety, so I think a better question would be "When shouldn't Zin-ites use recite?"

(It doesn't stop you from hitting things with your club, either.)

[Airwolf]

When you have breath and there's something susceptible in view. The only cost is breath. Spam away!

The 2 exceptions I can imagine are when trying not to make too much noise or if you want to save your breath for something worse that you think will join soon.

[Siegurt]

When you have breath and there's something susceptible in view. The only cost is breath. Spam away!

The 2 exceptions I can imagine are when trying not to make too much noise or if you want to save your breath for something worse that you think will join soon.

Maybe, sometimes if there is only one thing left to kill and it is already in range of your club.

[Midn8]

When your invocations + 3 is greater than or equal to the highest HD monster in LOS and you have breath up, and there isn't only one thing in melee range that will die to one punch.

Edit: Sorry, I meant invocations + 2. It doesn't affect the monster if your roll is the same as their HD.

[Airwolf]

Note: I'm pretty sure nothing happens (no Recite & no breath cost) if you try to Recite and there's nothing in LoS that you could affect (because your Invocations are too low for monster HD; monster is animal, insect, holy, nonliving), so you can try to Recite with no cost even then.

I do remember someone catching a corner-case bug recently: I think it was Recite at 27 Invocations not being allowed on monsters with HD 30...

[Midn8]

First, using recite when nothing CAN be affected doesn't cost a turn.

Second, the 27 invo thing is not a bug, you just can't affect HD 30 monsters with recite. Even with 27 invo you don't have enough power to break through their HD.

[Airwolf]

27 + 3 >= 30 is true, though.

I haven't looked at the details and I think OoFs are the only monsters with HD >= 30, but they're immune to Recite since they're nonliving.

[dowan]

Reciting is done at shouting noise level isn't it? So you should use recite around the same time you would use other loud spells. When it's worthwhile enough to kill the enemies you see now, knowing you'll probably attract more enemies in the process. I certainly wouldn't just do it at popcorn (ok ok I do because it's fun to see what happens to them, but it's not a good idea)

[VeryAngryFelid]

I suspect Zin has diet restriction for limiting recite usefulness, otherwise you would lure monsters even more than with other gods. Also breath timer is conveniently expiring while you are luring monsters.

[ydeve]

I suspect Zin has diet restrictions to imitate Nethack's "lawful" conducts, just like TSO's conducts reflect Nethack's "lawful knight" conducts