Any general tips for DrVM?

[thmsdrew]

I'm pretty new to Crawl. Probably less than 50 games played. I'm interested in trying out a DrVM for a while. No particular reason, I just find it more enjoyable for myself to pick some combination that interests me and try it instead of trying to find some powerful combo that I'll more likely get far with.

So, any general tips you can give me for DrVM?

[BlackSheep]

Focus more on training Conjurations than on Poison skill. Poison spells run into a wall later on, and you'll want to branch out to another element. Conjurations will help your poison attack spells and will make other elements' attack spells easier to learn.

Have a plan for dealing with undead and demons. This can be a ranged/melee weapon or just walking away. After level 7, you may have a breath weapon which, assuming it's not poison breath, will help you to kill poison immune enemies.

Poisonous Cloud is very good at killing things it affects, Poison Arrow is very good at killing everything. Worshiping Vehumet will get you both of these as gifts eventually, along with a host of other very good spells. Don't hesitate to go after other elemental spells before that, though. The sooner you have ways of dealing with poison immune enemies, the better.

[nordetsa]

You can take out weak skeletons/zombies like adder, kobold or orc with your weapon. But others you would want to avoid until you learn other spells. Imps you can lure them to stair, ascend with it, and just leave it there (called imp parking, I believe).

[TwilightPhoenix]

The early game for virtually any VM is pretty easy. Kill stuff with Sting, confuse stuff with Mephitic. Kill lots of weak stuff with Olgreb's + Cure Poison (especially bees). Kill tough stuff with Venom Bolt and Poisonous Cloud. Branch out into something, anything, other than poison while in Lair if you do not get Poison Arrow early. The easiest branches are likely pure Conjurations for Iskeredun's Mystic Blast and the like or air magic, which you probably started training for Mephitic/Poisonous, so getting stuff like Lightning Bolt and Freezing Cloud up aren't too much of a stretch. But if those aren't options and there aren't other spells available, training melee is probably the best bet. As a Draconian though, unless you turn green at level 9, you'll get a breath weapon that may very well be good enough to cover for your lack of options against rPois foes until you start to branch out.

Vehumet and Sif are the obvious god choices. Vehumet will give you new attack options by Lair and also eases the switch to pure Conj or Air, but also lets you branch to summoning pretty easily too if you wish. Sif will give you lots of whatever, eventually every spell in the game, but isn't guaranteed to give you something good to branch into for awhile (getting a book with Firestorm is cool and all, but not helpful without low level fire spells to use in the mean time). Kiku is another good option as he lets you branch into Necro, a good school on its own, and your undead minions won't even notice you spraying poison everywhere (and, in fact will be immune to it). Yred also works for the same undead minion reason, but Kiku is probably the superior option since you're already training magic whereas Yred would require branching into Invo for the same effect. Of course, every other god could work too. Except TSO, he hates poison.