The Tavern

I've been on a mania for Spriggans + Vehumet lately. I'm trying to figure out though the best way to start and run them, particularly in regards to spell hunger and esp. with higher-level spells - Spriggans make great blasters except that it's not really sustainable to keep blasting away with spells that cost you a honeycomb or even a choko each time. Here are my thoughts, I'm curious what others would say:

Wizards
Pros:
- start with more Int than other backgrounds and thus have a head start on the hunger game
- start with all L1-L3 spells, which also become castable without hunger very early on
- Conjure flame can actually be a very powerful offensive spell once you meet monsters that tend to ignore it, e.g. hydras.
- Summon Imp can also be a very good "attack" spell
-All their spells are pretty useful (blink for escape, Meph Cloud for neutralizing centaurs / orc priests / wizards, many early uniques)

Cons:
- The only conjuration attack they start with is Magic Dart, the next guaranteed one from Vehumet is Throw Frost or lightning bolt, which sort of railroads you into Ice / Air a bit
- Summon Imps might steal some XP from kills and get in the way of your magic darts

Conjurers
Pros:
- Start with L1 and L2 attack conjurations, and an L5 one. L5 is a sweet spot because it becomes castable hunger-free much sooner than L6.
- Also have Meph Cloud
- Already have Vehumet's first book, so will get the second one (with IMB) that much sooner

Cons:
- Wastes a gift from Vehumet because they already have it.
- Lower Int than Wizards

Fire Elementalist
Pros:
- A whole range of great attack conjurations, including Fireball and Sticky flame, both of which are awesome

Cons:
- Bolt of Fire isn't gifted by Vehumet
- Fire Storm will likely never be a reasonable hunger cost for a Spriggan unless you get insane Int boosts or a Staff of energy, which I think is pretty rare

Venom Mage:
Pros:
- Sting is a great L1 attack conjuration for Spriggans who are natural kiters.
- Also get Meph Cloud

Cons:
- Maybe you don't like Poison?

My general approach to spriggan casters is to rush spellcasting so you get spells you can spam without hunger sooner. You've got great apps for it, after all. You really only need to burn food when you're in a situation where you need to burn expensive spells before you're ready.

Yes, that's what I do too. The question is, it seems to me that counting on casting anything above L6 regularly is not guaranteed, so which school is best for relying on L6 and below spells?

I forgot above to add "Poison Arrow" as a pro for VM. After going through the exercise of writing the OP, I'm leaning toward VM. Poison Arrow is L6 and kicks butt on everything. It's good for killing single monsters at the edge of LOS and then retreating, which is a great tactic for Spriggans given their speed and squishiness - they have both the need and ability to keep things at a distance and only deal with them one at a time.

To cover off your other bases, Vehumet will give Magic Dart, Throw Frost, both of which are good for popcorn that Sting may not be good for, and IMB
IMB as a great go-to mid level single target conjuration (although with V's cost reduction, Poison Arrow is probably more MP-efficient than IMB, but IMB can be great until PA is hunger-free). For bolt-style attacks, there's Venom Bolt, Lightning Bolt, or Bolt of Magma that are guaranteed. You also get Freezing Cloud.

Huh. I just realized that Vehumet isn't that great for Fire Elementalists, spell-wise. The only fire-based spells Vehumet gives are Bolt of Magma which isn't that great IMO, and Fire Storm, which has never yet become castable for me before I die.

EE have a good variety of damage spells that don't care about resists and don't always involve a Sp's terrible conj apt. Early on, LRD and Stone Arrow kill everything, and later on LRD, Iron Shot, and Shatter kill everything.

Fire Storm got me murdered in Tomb:3 because I cast it a bunch of times and died to torment.

V does have some appeal for a FE, the extra range, blastiness, and mp for kills. But yeah, not being guaranteed several nice fire spells is annoying.

SpEE does work pretty well. SpAE also synergizes well, you can use spriggan speed to set up and abuse multizapping.

I love SPVes. Parrow plus spriggan equals win.

Interesting about SpEE and SpAE. I'll have to try those. I think multizapping has been nerfed though, I can't seem to get more than two zaps anymore.

Re Vehumet - of course V is still a great god for a conjurator, I just meant in relation to the spells in his gift books. But V's benefits for conjurators apply equally to all of these classes, so comparatively FE is not as good for V as other conjurator classes.

Trizapping was removed a few versions ago.

I'm trying to run a SpVM. Having some trouble; there's just so many Imps, Phantoms, Undead, and Water Moccasins. Running away is neat and all, but I'm being forced to retreat into very unsafe floor levels because they won't leave me alone...

I just started one too, but I got very lucky - by D:6 I've found, on the floor, the Book of Conjurations AND the Book of Power, so I don't need to wait until having ****** piety to get those!

Doesn't Venom Bolt also cause material damage, regardless of poison damage?

Can't cast Venom Bolt that early (Pre-lair), and even when you can, spamming it sucks up a lot of hunger for quite a while.

Its a lot easier if you get a lucky weapon or book, but I'm having trouble otherwise...

So I guess the Con for SpVM is that it's starting attack spell is useless against a number of early monsters and it's next attack spell is L5

I suppose there's nothing wrong really with starting an FE or EE or Cj and then just branching out into poison once you get Poison Arrow. You're going to multi-school to some extent anyway.

Just trying out SpEE. Sandblast is good against some stuff, not others - I just bumped into Terence wearing a scale mail and multiple "rocky blasts" didn't even scratch him.

That applies the same to most other low-level direct damage spells, too. Sometimes a weak enemy just gets on a hot streak with their AC or EV rolls, and when you're using a low-level spell the damage cap sometimes means even an average AC roll nullifies all the damage.

The magic triple AC that everything gets against sandblast does seem to make a difference.

It's nice not to have to worry about whether it will work on undead/ice beasts/crimson imps/etc though.

That's why you back an EE up with a sling.

Terence appears early enough that a sling is not guaranteed, and even if one shows up it's unlikely to do more damage than Sandblast. Thankfully, you can just run away from him and come back later.

I'm coming back around to Wizards again. I like the extra 3 points of Int. Also, if you really use all your starting spells, they can take you surprisingly far. In my current game I only found the temple on D7, found no other good conjurations until I got my first gift from Vehumet on Lair:7, and really didn't have much trouble.

One thing that is extremely helpful is Conjure Flame. I used to only use it as a barrier, but I've realized that especially in the Lair there's a surprising amount of stuff that will happily run into a cloud of flame. As a speedy spriggan it's very easy to just keep retreating and adding to your avenue of flame, while Slow can also help them spend more time in the flames. And if they stay behind it, you have ample time to chip away at them with Magic Dart. Most intelligent creatures, including nasty ranged ones like Orc Priests, Wizards, Centaurs and early uniques meanwhile are neutralized by Mephitic Cloud. In a real pinch a gaggle of imps can save your skin.

My current SpWz went from 0 to 60 in no time when I got the book of conjurations. I had found +8 Int from jewellery so as soon as I got it even the L6 spells were hungerless. Oh and I had conveniently taken a staff of cold off of Fannar and found a ring of ice on the floor.

Freezing cloud rocks, by the way, and pretty much makes conjure flame look like a party trick.

Wizards make full use of Vehumet's gifts because they are not already locked into another spell school. It's no problem then to go into Ice/Air, which are the focus of the Book of Conjurations.

This also works for normal-speed casters. Enemies will catch up to you, but can only stand by you for a few turns before succumbing to flame damage. Usually, they won't get a hit in. Add Sticky Flame (or decent melee) into the mix, and you've got a lot of dead yaks.

As a spriggan I now try to pretty much never stand next to anything remotely dangerous in melee.

Would it be useful to just start as a SpEn? It doesn't take much to get confuse hungerless. It works on undead and 5 levels of stabbing are pretty easy to get. Just follow Veh as usual and start pumping conjurations and other skills while confuse stabbing everything in the early/mid game. I haven't tried this yet though.

Starting off as a SpEn, none of your starting spells lets you train conjurations. The only skill available early that helps get blaster type spells online is Ice, and even if you find an early altar, you're going to be waiting a long time before getting your first book, during which time you'll get very little use out of Vehumet. Also, your Int and Spellcasting start much lower. SpEn is more suited for a hybrid style than a blaster.