Spell list for Gargoyle

[Piroco]

I love playing spellcasters, and Gargoyles are one of my favorite races, so of course I've been playing spellcaster Gr for a few days now . The problem is that I'm not sure how to optimize them due to their somewhat awkward aptitudes. I don't mind playing them as warrior mages, in fact I favor it better than pure mage or stabbers. The problem is mostly about which spell schools should I train with the Gr's aptitudes.

Wandering the forums for advice I've seen the following said about magic: Necro ties for best magic school in balance and effectiveness, with amazing stuff like Agony, DDoor, Borgjnor's, Regen, and other good stuff like Haunt, Animate Dead and Dispel. It also synergies pretty well with melee and doesn't depend too much on god support, though worshipping Kiku gives a significant boost. But Gr has a glaring -2 aptitude for it so, is it worth the investment?

My current run is an IE so that's covered (Summon Ice Beast is amazing); Earth I've read has cool stuff like LRD, Iron Shot and Shatter, plus the Gr has +2 apt for it; Summons I already train because of Summon Ice Beast, and because know a mage shouldn't be tanking everything alone; Conjurations is almost every damaging spells, so that's trained too. What other schools should I consider? Fire maybe?

How much should I invest in melee combat? Fighting is a necessity since Gr has -20% less HP than most races, and my current +2 ele long sword has saved my chara many times. M&F has better apt than LS but I've yet to find a good one (currently stashing a +3 venom morningstar).

Armor is trained to 12 because of a manual I found early, Dodging is 7. Will low EV come back to bite me later, even with innate AC and Ozu's armor?

I picked Sif for this run to have more magic options, since previous runs had a severe drought of good spellbooks, but MPRegen and protection from miscast is pretty good as well.

Sorry for all the questions, I'm still newbing hard . Below is (half of) the morgue file for details. Playing offline since my connection can't even load WebTiles.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that a shop sells ring of the Mage and ring of SInv; the second I should get, but is the first as neccesary considering I have a +5 Int and +5 Protect ring?

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.20.0 (tiles) character file.

Kasamn the Protected (Gargoyle Ice Elementalist)   Turns: 21867, Time: 01:55:36

Health: 92/92      AC: 21    Str: 12    XL:     14   Next: 6%
Magic:  24/24      EV: 14    Int: 19    God:    Sif Muna [*****.]
Gold:   1125       SH:  0    Dex: 12    Spells: 10/27 levels left

rFire    x . .     SeeInvis .   B - +2 long sword (elec)
rCold    + . .     Gourm    .   (no shield)
rNeg     + . .     Faith    .   I - +1 leather armour {MR+}
rPois    8         Spirit   .   d - +0 helmet
rElec    +         Reflect  .   r - scarf {repulsion}
rCorr    .         Harm     .   (no gloves)
MR       ++...                  (no boots)
Stlth    ++........             (no amulet)
Regen    0.3/turn               A - ring of ice
MPRegen  0.2/turn               E - +5 ring of protection

@: flying, studying Armour, repel missiles
A: big wings, negative energy resistance 1, electricity resistance, unbreathing,
petrification resistance, rot immunity, AC +9
a: Stop Flying, Divine Energy, Channel Magic, Forget Spell, Renounce Religion


You are on level 7 of the Dungeon.
You worship Sif Muna.
Sif Muna is extremely pleased with you.
You are not hungry.

You have visited 3 branches of the dungeon, and seen 16 of its levels.

You have collected 1125 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand Weapons
 a - a +1 quarterstaff of protection
 h - a +3 shortbow
 B - a +2 long sword of electrocution (weapon)
 Q - a +4 war axe
Missiles
 e - 326 arrows
 l - 430 stones (quivered)
Armour
 d - a +0 helmet (worn)
 r - a scarf of repulsion (worn)
 I - a +1 leather armour of magic resistance (worn)
Magical Staves
 y - an uncursed staff of conjuration
Jewellery
 t - a +5 ring of intelligence
 A - a ring of ice (left hand)
 E - a +5 ring of protection (right hand)
Wands
 x - a wand of iceblast (?/15)
 F - a wand of random effects (?/48)
 K - a wand of random effects (?/48)
Scrolls
 j - a scroll of blinking
 n - a scroll of fear
 o - a scroll of amnesia
 v - 5 scrolls of teleportation
 z - a scroll of remove curse
 D - 3 scrolls of immolation
 G - a scroll of enchant weapon
Potions
 b - a potion of flight
 f - 5 potions of curing
 g - 2 potions of might
 i - a potion of haste
 m - 6 potions of heal wounds
 p - 2 potions of berserk rage
 C - 3 potions of agility
 H - 2 potions of resistance
 N - a puce potion
Books
 J - a manual of Armour
 M - Sif Muna's Tome of Darkness
   (Sif Muna gifted it to you on level 6 of the Lair of Beasts)   
   
    Spells                             Type                      Level
    a - Vampiric Draining            Necromancy                    3
    b - Animate Dead                 Necromancy                    4
    c - Agony                        Necromancy                    5
    d - Dispel Undead                Necromancy                    5
    e - Simulacrum                   Ice/Necromancy                6
    f - Death's Door                 Charms/Necromancy             8
 O - a book of Spatial Translocations   
   
    Spells                             Type                      Level
    a - Blink                        Translocation                 2
    b - Shroud of Golubria           Charms/Translocation          2
    c - Lesser Beckoning             Translocation                 3
    d - Gell's Gravitas              Translocation                 3
    e - Teleport Other               Translocation                 3
    f - Passage of Golubria          Translocation                 4
Miscellaneous
 L - a crystal ball of energy
Comestibles
 c - 8 bread rations
 k - 9 royal jellies
 q - 7 fruits
 s - 4 chunks of flesh


   Skills:
 + Level 12,9 Fighting
 - Level 5,0 Long Blades
 - Level 13,0 Armour
 - Level 6,0 Dodging
 - Level 4,0 Stealth
 - Level 7,0 Spellcasting
 - Level 8,0 Conjurations
 + Level 5,7 Summonings
 - Level 10,3 Ice Magic
 + Level 4,1 Invocations


You have 10 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Freeze                Ice            ####         1%          1    None
b - Ozocubu's Armour      Chrm/Ice       #####...     4%          3    #......
c - Summon Ice Beast      Ice/Summ       ######..     4%          4    ###....
d - Blink                 Tloc           N/A          19%         2    None
e - Throw Icicle          Conj/Ice       ######..     2%          4    ###....
f - Conjure Flame         Conj/Fire      ###.....     7%          3    #......


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (9/15)             Temple (1/1) D:5            Lair (6/6) D:9
 Shoals (0/4) Lair:3        Snake (0/4) Lair:4        Slime (0/5) Lair:5
   Orc: D:9-12     

[Vajrapani]

First of all, take off the ring of ice, rF- is pretty bad.

Ice beasts will carry you at least through the lair branches, it's incredibly strong. I would try and train some earth magic now(LRD is especially really damn good) to take advantage of the +2 aptitude. You can probably get iron shot online really quick due to your previous conjuration training (if it's generated at all.)

'ctrl+f' for a buckler, you only 4 shield skill to eliminate the shield penalty. That will add slightly to your defense. I would also ctrl+f for 'staff' and see if there's any good magical staves, there's not much point having a melee option at this stage. Especially since you're with sif you should have not very many problems with MP.

Spellcasting and summoning could be slightly higher, and armour does not need to be that high at all. With 13 armour, you should probably try wearing ring mail since that will likely not encumber you much now.(or alternatively wear TLA and cast ozo in that, I just personally don't like the inconvenience of casting it over and over)

[VeryAngryFelid]

Armour skills give you (Base AC * Armour Skill)/22, where Base AC is total of base AC armour pieces you are wearing (3 for leather armour, 1 for cloak/gloves/boots) for the character it means (4 * Armour Skill) / 22, so Armour 13 gave you just 2 AC, that's why you should never train Armour in leather armour this high this early.

[Siegurt]

Armour skills give you (Base AC * Armour Skill)/22, where Base AC is total of base AC armour pieces you are wearing (3 for leather armour, 1 for cloak/gloves/boots) for the character it means (4 * Armour Skill) / 22, so Armour 13 gave you just 2 AC, that's why you should never train Armour in leather armour this high this early.

If you want to invert that formula, you get that it takes 22/<base ac> skill to get one point of ac (so 5.5 skill gets you 1 ac with 4 base armor)

Some people find that easier to remember.

[Piroco]

Thank you all for your responses

The relatively high Armour skills is because I went nuts with a manual obtained early. It still hasn't run out but yeah, it's better to stop training that. Plus ring mail may be the better choice until I get longer range skills than Throw Icicle.

Earth would be nice to train at least for LRD , but I've yet to find a book for it. Hope Sif's next one has some good Earth spells...

Sadly haven't found a good buckler yet, but previous experiences with longer runs have shown a lot of good bucklers and shields in later treasure vaults. One with a good ego may drop later.

Still... Is Necro out of the question (ignoring panhelltomb and its infinite exp)? Should Dodging be kept at 7?

I know this chara is likely to get splatted, but I'm still experimenting with spellcasting. If that explain all the questions

EDIT: Forgot to reiterate that I play offline, since my current internet connection cannot load online :/

[Vajrapani]

You could probably train necro for something like sublimation of blood/regen/animate skeleton, but higher level spells are out of the question unless you're doing extended.

Gargoyles have a crappy dodging aptitude, it's worth it to train it but 7 is fine for now. Also, you mentioned that there aren't any 'good bucklers', but even if there's a normal +0 buckler, that's still worth it to pick up and train. Any egos or enchantments are just extra nice stuff, but not necessary really.

[WingedEspeon]

If you are planning on staying in relatively light armour, Long blades are good. -1 apt is fine and riposte is good, especialy as it still works when you are casting spells.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

The way I see it, Summon Ice Beast is the best weapon you have available right now. Anything that reduces your ability to summon ice beasts, like wearing plate armour, would probably hurt the overall power of this character.

If you are going to stick with Ice Beasts, and I think you should, then stay with light armour and add more useful spells. More summons would be the route I'd take, because they are really strong, and Sif should give you access to many of the good spells.

You could also head down the ice conjurations route. In that case you would really like Freezing Cloud and probably Bolt of Cold.

Necromancy is certainly not out of the question, and at the very least you should add Animate Skeleton very soon, if available, or add animate dead a little later. Later Simulacrum is easy for you to learn, because you are already invested in Ice!

I would train more dodging on this character. You should be able to get another point of EV without too much investment.

As far as weapon choices go, I would have a look for a good polearm. There's nothing wrong with the other weapons, and you have already trained some longblades, but polearms allow you to attack over you summons and over your flame clouds. This is both strong and very convenient.

I'd get a bit more translocation skll to drop the blink spell failure chance. In the medium term I'd also recommend adding Passage of Golubria.

There probably are a bunch of useful wands lying around, so training ~5 levels of evocations is cheap and give good returns.

[Reptisaurus]

Few quick corrections to what other folks are saying:

1) What, no! Leave the ring of ice on (!!!!) until you run into a fire dragon or an efreet or something. You are an ice elementalist! Ring of ice makes a significant impact to (among other things) throw icicle damage and ozo's armor - although the last is less important on a gargoyle. Throw icicle at almost-full-pups in amazingly nasty.

Also I don't believe gargoyles can use sublimation of blood.

Long sword of electrocution is fine on this character. (ANYTHING of electrocution is great!)

Freezing Cloud and Orb of Destruction are my go-to spells for high level conjurers types. Keep your eyes open.

[Piroco]

Thank you all for you advice

I paused this character after the initial post, real-life got kinda busy. Your post, plus some advice around the forums, gave me a better understanding of mage classes and I thiiiiiiink I messed up, but not too much, so for some things to do when I continue this game:

- Train Ice, Summons, Conjurations and Earth if I get a nice spell like LRD
- Get basic Necro stuff like Regeneration and Animate Dead, Similacrum may be good later
- Keep light armor, change if I get a nice ring mail, stop training Armours
- Keep ring of ice on unless a fire user appears, if so change to +5 int ring
- Train Dodging for one or two EV points. Get a buckler and train Shields to 4
- Fighting stays forever on
- Keep ele long sword unless I get a nice polearm or stave, since it has riposte and I'm not meleeing much
- Train evo to 5 or 7 to use wands, since I do have some acid and desintegration wands (and clouds, I'm not sure)

One last question for now: Which is better for a mage: ¿Gourmand, MRegen or HP Regen? The first is irrelevant if I get a staff of energy, but that's a big if

I probably will splat this character since it was for experimenting anyways, but I'm kinda hopeful with how far it's gotten. In any case, I ended up learning more from the posts than from playing, including a few splatted characters, and all your info will help me (and hopefully others reading this!) on future playthroughs.

[Sprucery]

Don't keep Fighting on forever. The later skill levels are very expensive and you get more bang for your buck training something else.

[Siegurt]

One last question for now: Which is better for a mage: ¿Gourmand, MRegen or HP Regen? The first is irrelevant if I get a staff of energy, but that's a big if

Gourmand *should* almost never be relevant, if you encounter food problems, then you're probably using overleveled spells on wimpy combats (or haven't yet developed a taste for what things are wimpy, and are overkilling just because)

Similarly MPregen is only useful if you are exhausting your MP supply, which shouldn't happen if you are cautious and separating your monsters and luring them back to cleared areas, if you aren't doing this (or aren't doing it effectively or regularly enough) then you may find MPregen helps you keep blasting away when you would otherwise be stuck whacking things with your preferred whacking item (if you don't have a preferred whacking item, or aren't any good at whacking things with it, running out of MP is more of a problem, you shouldn't be doing that though since getting enough skill to kill run of the mill grunts in the early mid game costs a trivial amount of XP, and there's nearly always something ok to whack things with, and doing so keeps you out of lots of trouble with running out of MP)

HPregen doesn't *seem* very useful if you mostly kill things at range, and most of the time it's not, what it does do is: 1. Lets you spend less turns resting so you don't lose as much piety, 2. lets you kite more effectively. 3. Helps keep your hps up in areas where attrition can be a problem.

Honestly none of the mentioned amulets would be my first choice, that'd probably be a nice amulet of reflection (since you can combine it with a shield, and one handed weapon or staff which is great for a conjurer) Possibly an amulet of faith, if I felt like my god's piety was a resource I was likely to use with any frequency.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I like mp regen the most. It does the same role as hp regen does for melee: less resting, more piety, longer figgts before retreating

[4Hooves2Appendages]

- Keep ring of ice on unless a fire user appears, if so change to +5 int ring

Honestly, this is not a good idea. Fire damage isn't that uncommon and can be very dangerous with rC-. That's 50% extra damage. Consider the possibility of auto-exploring into Azrael. Azrael has Fireball (undodgeable) at 3d20 damage. That could hit you for 90 damage in a single cast. You have less than 100 HP. I'm sure you can see the problem.

I can't think of many circumstances in which semi-permanent exploration with rC- or rF- is justified. In the case of this character it isn't. You can comfortable kill things with Ice Beast and it does not benefit notably from spell power. I suspect the AC diference for Ozo's armour is going to be 1 or at most 2 AC. That is not worth the risk.

Just use the +5 Int ring.

[duvessa]

people are waaaaaaaaaaaay too scared of negative resistances
neither fireball nor bolt of fire has LOS range, ac applies before resistances, and it only takes 5 aut to remove the ring. i'd be wearing both ice and +5 int on this character personally

Consider the possibility of auto-exploring into Azrael. Azrael has Fireball (undodgeable) at 3d20 damage. That could hit you for 90 damage in a single cast. You have less than 100 HP. I'm sure you can see the problem.

I can't think of many circumstances in which semi-permanent exploration with rC- or rF- is justified.

the probability of autoexploring with rF- or rC- killing you in a way that autoexploring without rF- or rC- wouldn't, is extremely, extremely small and it doesn't make sense to even take it into account. and even if you do insist on being paranoid about this, it makes a million times more sense to stop autoexploring than it does to gimp your character in every other regard in an attempt to make autoexplore safer, which is what the "take off the ring of ice" suggestion is. BUT because the idea of "autoexploring with negative resists will kill you" is bullshit in the first place anyway, there's no need to do either one.

[WingedEspeon]

What about not auto exploring with ring of ice, just swapping it in every encounter?

[duvessa]

that'd also work, sure

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I think it's a question of benefit vs detriment. The benefit from the ring seems marginal. It's about 1-2 AC on Ozo and some damage increase to Icicle. The potential downside is death. It's not particularly uncommon for people to forget swapping their rings in certain situations.

I wasn't even talking about auto-explore deaths. Just auto-exploring into anything that uses a ranged fire attack, and then starting the fight with the wrong ring on half health. That's survivable, but surely not ideal.

[Majang]

Given the way dungeon layouts work, I suspect that most monsters are not encountered at LOS, but several tiles closer to the player; with auto-exploring an encounter at melee range is not uncommon. So I'd expect to be painfully hit once or twice when running around with negative resistances, and that would start off a dangerous fight in a very bad way.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Well, autoexplore with negative resists can kill you is not bull shit. In my last game I got my first naga barding with rf-, mr++ and slay+3. Of course i didn't use it as i didn't want to stop autoexploring

[4Hooves2Appendages]

[...] gimp your character in every other regard [...]

I genuinely don't understand this. How does taking off the ring gimp the character in every other regard? It's not like Summon Ice Beast, Conjure Flame, EV, SH, MR+ or indeed most properties of the character are even affected.

And it's also, of course, quite possible to just put the ring on when it's useful.

Hyperbole can be amusing of course.

[Sprucery]

It's not particularly uncommon for people to forget swapping their rings in certain situations.

This is the main reason I personally don't like negative resistances. I don't even think I remember off-hand which spellcasters can have a fire spell. (Also the fact that I love to autoexplore everywhere.)

[duvessa]

summon ice beast is affected...its duration, its HD and therefore its accuracy, AF_COLD damage, and HP, are all affected by spell power, and a ring of ice gives you a lot of spell power

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I know this of course, but just wanted to exaggerate a bit too.