The Tavern

I was thinking about running as a NaTM of Chei, but I'm having trouble getting him off the ground. Right now, I'm looking for suggestions on how to train my stats up until I can get Blade Hands and Ice Form. I'm running in .10.

I was thinking about focusing Transmutations until I got enough to cast Spider Form at around 10%, and then focusing Fighting and Unarmed Combat until they were around level 5-6, then switching back to Transmutations until Blade Hands was down to around 10%... But where should I put in Dodging, Spellcasting, and Invocations?

Also, note that by "focusing", I mean turning all other skills OFF.

This sounds good, except that Fighting is unimportant early on and you should instead train Unarmed Combat to a higher level for your "second step". Dodging is for later, Spider Form is your EV. Invocations is something I would get after Unarmed 10 and Blade Hands, and then only enough for Slouch success to be under 20% (Slouch damage does not scale with invo).
In Lair I would start adding 10ish levels of Fighting and Dodging, and training UC to 15.

Ignore them until you get ice form ~10% failure and unarmed to 10. Blade hands can come a little later IMO since ice form will carry you through the lair. Spellcasting isn't that vital for a Tm since the hunger costs aren't generally that important since you're not constantly casting and the spell slots are also not that necessary.

After that, it's somewhat of a tossup if you want to train up dodging a bit or go for 15 UC. I'd lean toward dodging, personally.

And che is not the best choice for a Tm - you'd be better off with Okawaru IMO, because while the extra 15 strength and dex will improve your blade hands damage a lot, it won't improve it as much as finesse / haste does.

Edit: cerebovssquire's advice is better.

Well, of course Ice Form is going to be more useful in Lair, but in my experience 10% Blade Hands usually comes with 10% Ice Form and not more, because it's dual-schooled. In any case, it will never be more than one level of Transmutations' difference while giving you a tool against fire drakes, Harold, wand of fire dudes, centaurs with arrows of flame, flaming weapon dudes, etc. better than Ice Form and Spider Form. I don't recommend going all Blade Hands through Lair, of course.

Do you guys think maybe I should start out training UC instead? I seem to be dying before I can reach D:4.

I do not. Use split poison. A lot. Gather all arrows you can, and use sticks to snakes for dangerous enemies when you still cannot cast spider form. Use spider form to escape rather than fight when the fight is too dangerous. As a naga, you have good poison aptitude, so maybe try to raise poison a little - it will help with spider form and it's cheap. (Not very useful later tough.) Only train UC after spider form is good - spider form with your starting UC is way better then a little more UC without spider form.

I've never really used S2S. It seemed like too much of a pain in the ass. But you say it's good? Right now I seem to be dying most to Orc Priests.

Early on, use clubs since they will turn into adders and not puny ball pythons. When your Transmutations is high enough, use arrows instead.

It's summoning without having to train summoning! Of course it's good!

For convenience, use = to map your arrows to b. Make sure nothing is mapped to a. You can then uses ' to swap back and forth from unarmed to arrow weilding in one key press.

Things S2S is good for:

• Guaranteed summoning spell, in your first book, that trains with one of your key skills
• Additional sources of damage in a fight.
• Poison.
• Crowd control (many v many is better than going up against a crowd alone).
• Overwhelming Snake Spam (not recommended or doable early on, but occasionally worth it later).
• Distracts enemies- they take some of the hits.
• Retreat aids- keeps the enemy busy, or blocks hallways.

You can also use spears / javelins / giant clubs (well, not as a naga) / magic staffs. Bigger things have better odds of better snakes, but since they're equips they have a chance of being cursed (unlike arrows). And cursed weapons will often make hostile snakes.

If there's anything you don't want to accidentally snake-ify (a staff for example) inscribe it with !D.

That is probably the most important comment in your post.

Yes, it's important.

Important to note is that I think snakes have some good evasion, which should mean that their ability to face off against high damage, low accuracy monsters is really good.