Necromancer, why is DD so good? Other options / opinions?

[speciesxx]

I've seen many posts that the easiest character by far is a DDNE. As i can agree with a Necromancer to be easier than others (perhaps same as summoner?) i can't really see why a DD would be so good?

Damage reduction is nice ofcourse (any info on exact numbers?), but other races offer different stuff. Or is it simply the fact a necromancer can regen HP with necro spells that they become better than other species?

[RFHolloway]

I would agree that the easiest DD is a necro (for the healing) but the easiest necro? I am having fun with a troll necro at the moment - the extra strength sure helps moving corpses between levels.

[dpeg]

Many are not so happy with the wand of healing. We were just unable to find a better substitute. On the one hand, DD would be playable without the wand but on the other hand, it would restrict the style/god set (to Elyvilon, Makhleb, Trog, Yredelemnul, necromancy and perhaps some more). On the other hand, a Deep Dwarf could be expected to use a scroll of acquirement on wands...

Perhaps there are better ideas?

[Stormfox]

It also helps that the DD's damage shaving negates the feedback damage from casting Pain, so it's on par with low-level conjurations (albeit resistible) without the drawbacks.

[asdu]

Damage shaving formula: 1d(1+1d(1+XL/3)). It's a lot, and it works on every source of damage. Also, as mentioned, they get a free wand of healing.
Personally I see the "Ne" part of DDNe as an early game thing for the most part: vampiric draining is extremely helpful to stay alive until you've found a Makhleb altar, pain is a good lvl 1 conjuration (well, technically it isn't a conjuration...), and dispel undead is a great spell that will stay useful all the way to your 15th rune. Once I have enough Makhleb piety that healing is not a problem anymore I tend to play them as hybrids, pumping necro to mid levels for more dispel undead power and in the hope of finding a pain weapon, but I skip the minion part entirely (slow-moving allies that cause message spam are no fun); vampiric draining sees almost no use in the mid and late game, though it's still good to have if things get hairy. I may go back to necromancy in the late game if I find a Necronomicon for things like Haunt (lots of message spam, yes, but at least it's a fire-and-forget spell), Borg and Necromutation (if I feel like going for 15 runes).
As for non-DD necromancers, I play them similarly (i.e. as little use of Animate Dead and similar spells as I can get away with), but, since they lack damage shaving, they tend to be less successful

[speciesxx]

Personally i find it nice to see such a different species, because it plays totally different. The damage shaving surely helps, but not being to heal over time can be a pain. I've not been into DD that much yet, but i do have fun with them, as necromancer atm. I tend not to use the wand at all, just for emergencies, and to drain my HP back with spells. But ofcourse if you have no spells yet, it must be really hard to get some HP back, at least in the early levels.

About the damage shaving, if i understand the formula right, on XL 27, the max damage shaving is 11 right?
1d(1+1d(1+XL/3)) -> 1d(1+1d(1+27/3)) -> 1d(1+1d(1+9)) -> 1d(1+1d(10)) -> 1d(1+10) -> 1d11 -> 11



About the wand. What you basicly saying is that you wanted to give the DD a source of healing, but limit it at the same time to at least have a penalty for the advantages you have playing a DD (most important damage shaving).
Though can a DD be played even with a wand not following the said gods or use necromancy, and sololy rely on the wand? I think not, because not being able to heal at all and only rely on potions and the wand won't get you through the game?



Edit: more on topic, atm i'm trying different species as necromancer. Browsing the site scores to see what species have been done. So far tried Centaur and Demonspawn. Centaur died fast .

[dpeg]

You can go very far on the wand alone. Remember that you find a lot of heal wound potions, and recharging scrolls, and that a DD can recharge innately. If you avoid melee, a lot less total healing is needed than generally expected (also by us: the first versions of damage shaving were way too large).

[minstrel]

Many are not so happy with the wand of healing. We were just unable to find a better substitute. On the one hand, DD would be playable without the wand but on the other hand, it would restrict the style/god set (to Elyvilon, Makhleb, Trog, Yredelemnul, necromancy and perhaps some more). On the other hand, a Deep Dwarf could be expected to use a scroll of acquirement on wands...

Perhaps there are better ideas?

Here's a random, totally off the wall idea:

Health by exploring. Every x uncovered floor tiles regenerates y% or some fixed # of their health, perhaps scaling by dungeon or character level or depth or branch.

This could fit the inquisitive nature of dwarves: deep dwarves have no natural ability to repair damage, but making progress closer and closer to the Orb/center of the earth exposes them to the Orb/Core's magical radiation, which to them acts as healing.

Of course there could be a million other explanations, crafted by some wordsmith better than me.

It would give them a danger/benefit element to exploring: hurt? Go explore more (and get hurt more)!

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

Many are not so happy with the wand of healing. We were just unable to find a better substitute. On the one hand, DD would be playable without the wand but on the other hand, it would restrict the style/god set (to Elyvilon, Makhleb, Trog, Yredelemnul, necromancy and perhaps some more). On the other hand, a Deep Dwarf could be expected to use a scroll of acquirement on wands...

Perhaps there are better ideas?

Here's a random, totally off the wall idea:

Health by exploring. Every x uncovered floor tiles regenerates y% or some fixed # of their health, perhaps scaling by dungeon or character level or depth or branch.

This could fit the inquisitive nature of dwarves: deep dwarves have no natural ability to repair damage, but making progress closer and closer to the Orb/center of the earth exposes them to the Orb/Core's magical radiation, which to them acts as healing.

Of course there could be a million other explanations, crafted by some wordsmith better than me.

It would give them a danger/benefit element to exploring: hurt? Go explore more (and get hurt more)!

That works right up to the point where you get hurt really badly and your only option is to run into the black at 20% hps

[minstrel]

That works right up to the point where you get hurt really badly and your only option is to run into the black at 20% hps

Exactly

The idea wasn't to make it easy for DDs, just to maintain the flavor of not regenerating by sitting down in some safe place and hitting 5 and to eliminate the need to give them a wand of healing at level 1, trivializing the early game. They can still use potions, wands, etc (though depending on the power of the regen-by-explore, maybe potion healing would have to be halved, like with bloodless vampires).

[XuaXua]

That works right up to the point where you get hurt really badly and your only option is to run into the black at 20% hps

Exactly

The idea wasn't to make it easy for DDs, just to maintain the flavor of not regenerating by sitting down in some safe place and hitting 5 and to eliminate the need to give them a wand of healing at level 1, trivializing the early game. They can still use potions, wands, etc (though depending on the power of the regen-by-explore, maybe potion healing would have to be halved, like with bloodless vampires).

Desktop Dungeons was inspired by Crawl, let's not take it in reverse.

[minstrel]

My knowledge of roguelikes doesn't extend to Desktop Dungeons...I take it it's crawl meets Dwarf Fortress (in terms of harshness)?

I didn't think the exploring for health thing was toooo hardmode, actually I figured it could be scaled down enough to be useful in the early game (when running away at normal speed for a while to regen is a viable strategy) but not much of a help in the endgame when you can't just run around with an executioner at your heels, mostly just aiming at eliminating that wand of healing get out of D1-5 free card.

[mad]

I quite enjoy DD when I do play it - it's a roguelike that you can beat in about 15 minutes. It's not as hard as Crawl in that you can definitely win quite a few combos, but they have lots of challenge modes that I'm sure are harder than that.

However, I don't personally find it AS fun as Crawl, but it's a nice change of pace.