Easiest Build for Extended

[scott9027]

I tried to do it sooner, but I was weak. Trog's Hand had a hold on me. My top score sheet reads like a who's who among Berserkers.

But now I am resolved to stop playing Be. Every time I burn a spellbook it crushes me. I want to be one of the cool kids who gets to cast Haste or Controlled Blink. I have so little experience that I can't even list more of the useful spells.

So, I'm looking for the ultimate cookie cutter hybrid. Easiest species and background to do extended without Trog. Someone who can cast spells and not get squished too easily.

Can't wait to see what some of the other gods have to offer!

[Igxfl]

What if you transition in softly via a Gladiator of Okawaru or Makhleb? It will play somewhat similarly to a Berserker, except that you can pick up spells.

[khalil]

Ash is great for hybrids. He'll boost your skills depending on what you curse. Curse jewelry and a weapon and you can get a nice gish build.
Failing that, Malkheb has a bunch of abilities that replace conjuration and summoning spells.
TSO is nice for extended too. I suggest you follow trog/okie first and switch to tso before going to crypt. as he sucks early game. If you get forest instead, you might have to grind in the abyss or something, I don't know.

[DeathKnyte]

Hybrid style is much harder to coordinate than a pure fighting, or a pure magic type of character. There's a lot to juggle, especially knowing what to skill when, and becoming bewildered by all the choices of; fighting, spell casting, item use, god abilities.

There are even different hybrid styles; deliberating stabber, combat magic support, thief burglar evader, blaster melee finisher, etc.

I'd suggest that since you think you are now confident enough with the pure fighting part, then try a pure magic user. You can consult this thread, for a recent discussion on that matter.

Then once you have learned some ins and outs of magic using, try and combine the two styles, into something you might enjoy.

[XuaXua]

Merfolk Gladiator with polearms, use trident and shield, Okawaru, then transform to TSO at end.

[Psieye]

Nothing wrong with going Be -> TSO. Just don't burn any books ever, invest into Int, save Crypt (assuming v0.12) for after Zot:1~4 (i.e. after switching to TSO) and always be ready to teleport away whlie Trog wrath is around.

[bobross419]

Minotaur Fighter with polearms, use trident and shield, Okawaru, then transform to TSO at end.

[cjo]

I say if you're trying to wean yourself off of berserkers, go whole hog and play something radically different. A lot of melee starts are going to feel weaker than a berserker for a big part of the early game. Instead of missing that early power, why not instead shift gears and plunge yourself into a different way of approaching things?

Deep elf fire elementalist is highly squishy, but it doesn't matter because your goal is to kill everything before it gets close enough / has time to squish you. Sif Muna, Vehumet, and Ash are some good deity choices. Kiku is pretty decent, too, since Kiku can offer you some early diversity. Or, spriggan enchanters offer a fun way of combining spells and melee that plays very differently than a berserker.

[mopl]

IMHO, I feel like for "easy extended" as asked, pure fighters are great. Extended provides enough XP to have Haste online if you want...
Here is my first character who went extended : no spell before extended, easy to set up
It is a MiFi of Oka -> TSO who went with M&F because I wanted to try blessed scourge, you can do the same with Polearm and bless a demon trident

[crate]

Pick a combo. Get 3 runes, then get 12 more.

There's nothing special to it. If you can get 3 runes you can get 15, pretty much always.

[rebthor]

Well, you'll probably mess up the first few times, but yeah. And it's good to be spoiled and know things like "dive the hells, don't bother exploring" and "if you don't like the pan level you're on and it's not 1 of the 4 rune levels, just go to the next one."

[Konebred]

DEFE of TSO. Fire mages are one of the easiest classes to get through the regular game with. Pick up iron shot and OoD as soon as you can for fire resistant things. Holy brand a weapon of your choice for tight spots. In extended firestorm tough stuff that isn't fire resistant and angel spam/cleansing flame everything else. The biggest problem is damaging something that doesn't see you in the regular game and incurring TSO wrath, but honestly it was never a big deal for me. FEs are fairly self reliant.

[Klown]

Merfolk Transmuter
Vampire Enchanter
High Elf Arcane Marksman

[scott9027]

Well, a few dozen DEFE down the tubes, best one got to be level 8 and got absolutely wrecked by the first centaur to show up. I agree that it seems like the easiest caster start based on the other books, but I still can't do jack with it.

Seriously don't understand how a squishy caster can possibly handle ranged threats, it's so easy for them to wipe out my health bar while I try to break LOS. Guess I should have had fireball online by then and nuked him before he could hurt me.

Here we go again.

[scott9027]

Well I guess I'm getting better. Sort of

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13-a0-2368-g1f063cc (tiles) character file.

3088 Valendir the Conjurer (level 9, -17/45 HPs)
             Began as a Deep Elf Fire Elementalist on July 17, 2013.
             Was a Believer of Vehumet.
             Killed from afar by an orc (19 damage)
             ... with a wand of draining
             
             ... on Level 7 of the Dungeon on July 18, 2013.
             The game lasted 01:30:05 (10806 turns).

Valendir the Conjurer (Deep Elf Fire Elementalist) Turns: 10806, Time: 01:30:05

HP -17/45        AC  9     Str  5      XL: 9   Next: 48%
MP  35/37        EV 12     Int 27      God: Vehumet [**....]
Gold 195         SH  0     Dex 15      Spells:  4 memorised, 13 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .   J - +2,+1 long sword (protect)
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : .   a - +0 robe
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .   (no shield)
Res.Poison: .       Res.Corr.  : .   (no helmet)
Res.Elec. : .       Clarity    : .   k - +1 cloak
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   (no gloves)
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : .   (no boots)
Res.Rott. : .       Flight     : .   (no amulet)
Saprovore : . . .                    A - +3 ring of intelligence
                                     w - ring of magical power

@: drained, somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments, fairly stealthy
A: no striking features
a: Renounce Religion


You were on level 7 of the Dungeon.
You worshipped Vehumet.
Vehumet was greatly pleased with you.
You were not hungry.

You visited 2 branches of the dungeon, and saw 8 of its levels.

You collected 175 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 J - a +2,+1 long sword of protection (weapon)
Armour
 a - a +0 robe (worn)
 k - a +1 cloak (worn)
Magical devices
 s - a wand of frost (5)
 y - a wand of polymorph (4) {unknown}
 C - a wand of flame (15) {unknown}
 E - a wand of fire (7) {unknown}
Comestibles
 c - 6 bread rations
 f - 2 pears
 n - a chunk of orc flesh
 q - 2 apples
 r - 3 oranges
 x - 2 meat rations
Scrolls
 d - a scroll of amnesia {unknown}
 h - a scroll of curse armour {unknown}
 j - 5 scrolls of teleportation {unknown}
 l - 4 scrolls of identify
 t - 2 scrolls of remove curse {unknown}
 u - a scroll of curse jewellery {unknown}
 z - a scroll of enchant weapon II {unknown}
 F - a scroll of noise {unknown}
 G - a scroll of random uselessness {unknown}
 H - 2 scrolls of enchant weapon I {unknown}
Jewellery
 g - an uncursed ring of ice
 w - a ring of magical power (left hand)
 A - a +3 ring of intelligence (right hand)
Potions
 e - 2 potions of restore abilities
 i - 7 potions of curing
 m - a potion of flight
 o - a potion of resistance
 v - a potion of agility
 D - 4 potions of brilliance
Books
 b - a book of Flames   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Flame Tongue                      Conjuration/Fire             1
   Throw Flame                        Conjuration/Fire             2
   *Conjure Flame                     Conjuration/Fire             3
   Inner Flame                        Hexes/Fire                   3
   *Sticky Flame                      Conjuration/Fire             4
   *Fireball                          Conjuration/Fire             5


   Skills:
 - Level 2.4(1.6) Dodging
 - Level 2.4(1.6) Stealth
 - Level 9.0(8.0) Spellcasting
 + Level 9.1(8.1) Conjurations
 + Level 9.1(8.1) Fire Magic


You had 13 spell levels left.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Flame Tongue          Conj/Fire      #####        1%          1    None
b - Conjure Flame         Conj/Fire      ######..     1%          3    None
c - Sticky Flame          Conj/Fire      ######..     1%          4    ##.....
d - Fireball              Conj/Fire      ######....   6%          5    ####...


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (7/27)             Temple (1/1) D:4             Orc (0/4) D:7

Altars:
Cheibriados
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Okawaru
Sif Muna
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
the Shining One
Beogh

Shops:
D:4: (*

Message History

You continue eating.
You start resting.
Casting: Flame Tongue
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Flame Tongue
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - orc
Aim: an orc, wielding a battleaxe and wearing an orcish leather armour (lightly wounded, hasn't noticed you)
The flame hits the orc. The orc appears unharmed.
The orc is lightly wounded.
The orc zaps a wand. The bolt of negative energy hits you! You feel drained.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Casting: Flame Tongue
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Flame Tongue
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - orc
Aim: an orc, wielding a battleaxe, wearing an orcish leather armour and carrying a wand of draining {zapped: 1} (lightly wounded)
The flame hits the orc.
The orc is moderately wounded.
The orc zaps a wand. The bolt of negative energy hits you! You feel drained.
You die...

#.#..#..#.....o
#.#..#..#.....     .
#.#<.#..##8'8#####8'8
#.##'#....)..........
#.......##.)##%.###..
#...........)...#
#.........>..<..#
#...........)...####.
#%...................
#).%........)........
#.)...).....)........
#)##########o###.....
#.#.......@....#....
#.#....!.......# ...
#.#............#
#.#............#
#.#............#
#.#............#
#.#............#
#.##############
#..........
#..........
#..........
#..........
#..........


You could see an orc.

Vanquished Creatures
  Grinder (D:3)
  A necrophage (D:5)
  3 orc warriors (D:7)
  A phantom (D:4)
  3 ice beasts
  2 ogres
  2 centaurs
  Sigmund (D:4)
  A giant frog (D:6)
  Blork the orc (D:5)
  9 wights (D:7)
  3 crimson imps
  5 hounds
  A giant frog skeleton (D:6)
  Crazy Yiuf (D:3)
  4 orc priests
  6 orc wizards
  2 worker ants
  Ijyb (D:3)
  A hound zombie (D:5)
  4 gnolls (D:4)
  9 adders
  3 worms
  7 giant geckos
  An ooze (D:1)
  32 orcs
  16 goblins
  16 hobgoblins
  3 quokkas
  2 ball pythons
  6 bats
  3 giant cockroaches
  A giant cockroach zombie (D:6)
  2 giant newts (D:2)
  16 jackals
  A jackal skeleton (D:5)
  15 kobolds
  11 rats
  A fungus (D:3)
198 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (others)
  2 orcs
  A giant newt (D:5)
3 creatures vanquished.

Grand Total: 201 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Valendir, the Deep Elf Fire Elementalist, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 10/10 MP: 4/4
   305 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 15/15 MP: 6/6
  1009 | D:1      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 19/19 MP: 6/9
  1517 | D:2      | Found a blossoming altar of Fedhas.
  1790 | D:2      | Reached skill level 4 in Conjurations
  1971 | D:2      | Learned a level 3 spell: Conjure Flame
  1979 | D:2      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 24/24 MP: 8/11
  2822 | D:3      | Noticed Grinder
  2931 | D:3      | Noticed Crazy Yiuf
  2988 | D:3      | Killed Crazy Yiuf
  3344 | D:3      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 28/28 MP: 16/16
  3504 | D:3      | Noticed Ijyb
  3516 | D:3      | Killed Ijyb
  4006 | D:3      | Killed Grinder
  4006 | D:3      | Reached skill level 5 in Conjurations
  4006 | D:3      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 9/32 MP: 18/18
  4236 | D:3      | Learned a level 4 spell: Sticky Flame
  4285 | D:3      | Reached skill level 5 in Fire Magic
  4467 | D:4      | Reached skill level 6 in Conjurations
  4817 | D:4      | Reached XP level 7. HP: 36/36 MP: 20/20
  4896 | D:4      | Learned a level 5 spell: Fireball
  4902 | D:4      | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple.
  4917 | Temple   | Entered the Ecumenical Temple
  4936 | Temple   | Became a worshipper of Vehumet
  4959 | D:4      | Found Qietipao's Assorted Antiques.
  5044 | D:4      | Noticed Sigmund
  5174 | D:4      | Killed Sigmund
  5748 | D:4      | Found Hyfyups' Weapon Emporium.
  6181 | D:5      | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon
  6352 | D:5      | Reached skill level 7 in Fire Magic
  6710 | D:5      | Reached XP level 8. HP: 30/41 MP: 22/22
  6825 | D:5      | Acquired Vehumet's first power
  6825 | D:5      | Offered knowledge of Shock by Vehumet.
  7204 | D:5      | Got a jewelled long sword
  7394 | D:5      | Reached skill level 8 in Conjurations
  7921 | D:5      | Noticed Blork the orc
  7932 | D:5      | Killed Blork the orc
  8320 | D:6      | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul.
  8492 | D:6      | Identified the long sword "Twucen" {pain, rF- rC+ Str+4} (You found it on level 5 of the Dungeon)
  8655 | D:6      | Offered knowledge of Sting by Vehumet.
  9275 | D:6      | Reached skill level 9 in Conjurations
  9457 | D:7      | Reached XP level 9. HP: 19/45 MP: 20/24
  9479 | D:7      | Reached skill level 5 in Spellcasting
 10480 | D:7      | Offered knowledge of Static Discharge by Vehumet.
 10481 | D:7      | Found a staircase to the Orcish Mines.
 10481 | D:7      | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh.
 10805 | D:7      | HP: 2/45 [orc/wand of draining (19)]
 10806 | D:7      | Killed from afar by an orc


Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Unarmed           |     1 |    11 |       ||    12
       Whip              |       |     9 |    30 ||    39
       Long sword        |       |       |    34 ||    34
 Cast: Flame Tongue      |    79 |    96 |   269 ||   444
       Conjure Flame     |       |     4 |    13 ||    17
       Sticky Flame      |       |       |    23 ||    23
       Fireball          |       |       |     1 ||     1
Evoke: Wand              |       |     1 |     6 ||     7
  Use: Scroll            |       |       |     5 ||     5



[Sandman25]

Read your scrolls, you should not have unknown scrolls on D7 (teleport could have saved you).
I train some dodging (4-5) on DE at this point, it's cheap and helps against ranged monsters (it is not needed much if Mephitic Cloud is available). I think you overtrained spellcasting (especially since you had ring of magical power)

[BlackSheep]

When you hit something with a spell, and it's unharmed, and then it responds with a bolt of draining to your head, casting the same spell again is probably a poor choice.

To add to Sandman's advice, you should also identify your wands. A wand of fire is a very powerful tool in the early part of the game, but you didn't know you had it.

[Igxfl]

Once you have Fireball online, cast it at anything remotely threatening. Flame Tongue is for rats and goblins.

[Tiktacy]

If you are looking for easy and cookie cutter, Lichform+summon dragons+staff of channeling+Crystal ball is pretty difficult to NOT win with. Getting there is a different story, however.

But if you are looking for a hybrid, a VpEn of Nemelex is probably the "easiest" for inexperienced players, but doing extended endgame is MUCH easier said than done. But if I had to give you some advice, here it is:

1) Your worst enemy is torment, get around it and you might be ok.
2) Your second worst enemy is Hellfire.
3) The tomb will squash you(or anyone, for that matter) like a bug if you don't have torment resistance. And sometimes even if you do.

[ackack]

If you want to play a character that is primarily using conjurations to damage stuff, that's fine and DEFE is obviously a popular choice there. I've recommended DrCj elsewhere, which I think would fit your issues better.

If you're really looking for a "hybrid" though, realize that this describes pretty much every character that isn't a Be. (Lots of people build their casting backgrounds as "pure casters" but this is kinda blah.) There's sort of a core package of spells in the game that are incredibly useful and pretty attainable for most characters, and thus unless you're barred from having them you'll almost always want them. These kinds of things include Swiftness, Repel Missiles, Regeneration, Apportation, Blink. There are then other utility spells that are either more specific or more investment but also generally very good. Haste is the big one here, but Phase Shift, Ozocubu's Armour (only useful if you're wearing very light armour but it's then incredibly useful), Control Teleport, possibly Controlled Blink (lot of investment here though) are on this list.

Anyway, most characters can cast most of those spells reliably by the end of a 3 runer and probably want to. (This is actually, to my mind, a negative feature of the flexibility of backgrounds in Crawl --- there is a pretty strong tendency to converge toward very similar characters.) Certainly they make extended much easier. So if that's your ultimate goal, my recommendation is actually that you start with some melee-focused non-Be and just proceed normally to start. When you find books with those spells, start training Charms. And pick whatever non-Trog god you want. Extended is indeed about torment mitigation, but that can be accomplished just fine without divine help.

[njvack]

extended endgame is MUCH easier said than done

Extended will probably kill you a few times. There are tricks to most of it. The Hells in particular are reliably really dangerous to me; the threats are less predictable than in, say, Tomb. In most of extended, the situation can go from "I am crushing everyone hahaha" to "I am being crushed oh no oh no" really, really fast -- even faster than the rest of Crawl. Turns matter.

You don't need rTorment to get all the runes. You do need learn to deal with tormentors. And you need to think really carefully about where monsters are and what they can do (hellions can smite you with hellfire, which is a Big Problem unless you're a Djinn) and managing positioning and lines of sight.

But! I wouldn't worry overmuch about what the best build for extended is. If you can win, you can probably do extended; Zot:5 is as hard as anything you'll find in the whole game. I probably wouldn't terribly enjoy mummies (potions are really good) or trolls (food management would piss me off unless I were with kiku). Trog and Yred and Fedhas and Oka aren't super awesome extended gods (though everyone other than Yred is at least somewhat viable). TSO and Zin and Ash are pretty great.

[Tiktacy]

extended endgame is MUCH easier said than done

Extended will probably kill you a few times. There are tricks to most of it. The Hells in particular are reliably really dangerous to me; the threats are less predictable than in, say, Tomb. In most of extended, the situation can go from "I am crushing everyone hahaha" to "I am being crushed oh no oh no" really, really fast -- even faster than the rest of Crawl. Turns matter.

You don't need rTorment to get all the runes. You do need learn to deal with tormentors. And you need to think really carefully about where monsters are and what they can do (hellions can smite you with hellfire, which is a Big Problem unless you're a Djinn) and managing positioning and lines of sight.

But! I wouldn't worry overmuch about what the best build for extended is. If you can win, you can probably do extended; Zot:5 is as hard as anything you'll find in the whole game. I probably wouldn't terribly enjoy mummies (potions are really good) or trolls (food management would piss me off unless I were with kiku). Trog and Yred and Fedhas and Oka aren't super awesome extended gods (though everyone other than Yred is at least somewhat viable). TSO and Zin and Ash are pretty great.

In my honest opinion, mummies are ONLY consistent if you scum early levels and go with Nemelex.

Mummies are pretty much the Nemelex of species: they are both difficult to understand and use correctly, they both are really gimmicky, and they are overpowered. But, I don't particularly enjoy them for a few reasons: Nemelex makes the game a lot more complicated than it needs to be, obtaining and using lich form is a lot more rewarding than having it from the start, and most of all: they take forever and get boring fast.

Although, they aren't NEARLY as boring as demigods. Seriously, I have more fun taking a dump than I do playing a demigod.

[bobross419]

Seriously, I have more fun taking a dump than I do playing a demigod.

Don't talk shit about taking dumps.

[Amnesiac]

I'm playing a DgAs now. While he can't worship a god, he has same aptitudes in everything and he has high enough stats, so he can do everything at once(and be good at nothing) which gives a lot of options. Oh and you don't have to think should you sacrifice a corpse or eat it, it's relaxing(I have autosacrifice in init.txt, though). My Dg can stab things, he can break stone walls with LRD because he has a lot of INT(helped me with miasma ending in swamp:5), he has quite good defences and he is quite good at melee combat. If you can't find a fun way to play a Dg, it's only your problem. It's actually quite refreshing after all the fuss with gods, once in a while.

[Bloax]

hellions can smite you with hellfire, which is a Big Problem unless you're a Djinn

Unlike everything before extended that has hellfire, Hellions, Brimstone fiends and Hell sentinels are actuall Pretty Cool Guys that won't lob hellfire at you IF it'll hurt something not rHellfire adjacent to you.

I'm not sure where exactly they start ignoring this (they certainly ignore normal skeletons and lob it at you anyways), but you can safely get adjacent to something like a Green death/Blizzard demon/Reaper/Neqoxec/whatever and they won't make barbeque out of you.

Hell sentinels still have iron shot, which isn't much better if it does manage to hit you - which is still much better than defense ignoring hellfire. (Though Brimstone fiends can and will still torment you.)

Just an important detail I can't recall seeing being mentioned here.