Cheibriados

[scott9027]

Good morning,

What is the best species/background if you plan from turn 0 to worship Chei and pursue 15 runes without leaving him?

No other "conducts" besides liking Chei. Also -- any spells/weapons/etc. that you really like to use with Chei or have good synergy would be great to hear.

Thanks!

[bel]

Since you're going to be slow anyway, Naga is good; and the slow movement speed even helps since you'll gain piety faster. You can use all kinds of weapons and all kinds of spells, since Na has decent, flat aptitudes for basically everything, and good invo aptitude.

Many other races are viable too.

[sanka]

I suggest Troll. Troll is good because it is powerful enough to survive Chei early, when she is very weak, and Chei dex helps to mitigate the slight drawback Trolls actually has (low defenses beside hp). Chei int also lets you cast some spells as a troll. I would start as Hunter for ranged option.

I personally think that Naga of Chei is harder than many other race of Chei, since very early on it is a very, very weak combination: very bad defenses + very slow movement is not easy. Later Naga of Chei feels different from other Chei characters. I would start as Ice elementalist.

[Majang]

The new Barachi species also seems to be very good. It is slow (not as slow as Naga, though), and has the bonus of a jump move which works almost like a controlled blink. This can get you out of trouble in many situations.

Chei worshippers are good at anything from their stats - they have high INT and therefore can be powerful casters, they have frighteningly high STR and can therefore bash anything, and their DEX makes them very nimble, even in heavy armour, thanks to their strength. The biggest difficulty can be to decide which direction to focus on. A hybrid fighter/caster seems to be the obvious solution. The extended game gives you a prospect for using level 9 spells, but you should not rush your background towards it.

[VeryAngryFelid]

1) FoFi. Fo because you cannot haste anyway. Fi because you will have shield from turn 1 and shield is awesome for Fo. (My Fo of Chei died to Lom Lobon bug).
2) NaTm. Slow anyway, huge HP, Tm is great with Chei because you will have forms much sooner and you don't spend many MP so you will have them for Slouch/Temporal Distortion (my first 15-runer was NaVM of Chei with ice storm, tornado and lichform) and NaTm is even easier due to statue form and awesome melee damage, though I won NaTm of Chei with just 3 runes)
3) GhXX. Extended should be easy, you don't even need high level spells because you ignore tormentors and have high HP for Hellion to kill you. I didn't try it though but this is my impression from playing Mu of Chei and Gh of Makh in extended.

[sanka]

It's just a personal opinion, but I do not think Formicid is easy with Chei (compared to other races with Chei), as while you cannot haste anyway, you also cannot teleport or blink. Step from time needs lot of invo and costs a lot.

Tm is also not the easiest chei starts, as it is quite XP demanding. Furthermore NaTm of Chei cannot use spider form's normal speed, statue form is not guaranteed and gives worse defenses for high level naga than blade hands anyway.

Both of these could be fun tough, if you like chei.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Furthermore NaTm of Chei cannot use spider form's normal speed

What do you mean here? OpTm of Chei in spider form does not become normal speed either, it's still slower than normal character.
Na does have +20% HP and intrinsic AC, it helps a lot when low on Chei's piety.

Edit. My main idea for NaTm and GhXX was easy extended, not easy early game. I believe statue/lich form is a must with Chei for comfortable play when going for 15 runes unless you are undead of course.

[Majang]

One final warning: I like playing Chei, but I also begin each game with the understanding that I am not likely to survive. I die a lot. When converting to Chei, the player is immensely vulnerable for a fairly long time. Chei's panic button (slouch) only works from piety ****, and requires Invocations of 7 or 8 for reliable use. But once you have it, and all the stat bonuses, you will have a much easier time, even fun!

And another, really final warning: I never understood the point of Step from Time. Whenever I use it, I find myself facing the same monsters right away; they are rested and refreshed, I'm not. Why should I use a God ability that helps the monsters?

[VeryAngryFelid]

And another, really final warning: I never understood the point of Step from Time. Whenever I use it, I find myself facing the same monsters right away; they are rested and refreshed, I'm not. Why should I use a God ability that helps the monsters?

You probably were unlucky or used it in corridor where monsters didn't have much room to retreat. Step from time saved my life several times but of course it is not as reliable as Sanctuary.

[Majang]

Glad to hear that!

[sanka]

Furthermore NaTm of Chei cannot use spider form's normal speed

What do you mean here?

I just meant that while Tm is a good start for Na, I do not feel that it is a good start if you intend to go for Chei.

Also, if you talk about extended than the starting class is not very important.

I do not wanted to contradict you, just give some opinion if - based on your answer - the OP thinks that these are (relatively) easy Chei combinations.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I do not want to contradict you either, your post is correct. Tm is a good start when you want either statue form or lichform, both use Transmutations school so transition will be natural and easy. I assume that if player is going for 15 runes with Chei, they are good enough to win 3 rune Chei games consistently so having harder early game is not a big deal.

[Lavandula]

I suggest --Su or --IE. DESu, BaIE & TeSu in particular.
The problem with Cheibriados is one thing: ze takes away ability to flee and regenerate by pillardancing. Summoners can avoid melee and block line of fire by swapping places with their summons, which is almost as good.

[tasonir]

Troll is probably the best, although all the high powered races are also great: VS, Gargoyle, minotaur. Troll/VS are best with statue form and unarmed, gargoyle or minotaur have much more flexibility and can take up weapons or unarmed, and can use blade hands or dragon form if preferred.

Ogre is also a very powerful option, which can again go either statue form or just train a weapon. Statue form with GSC is an option but I've never bothered with it. I'm generally wary of using a 7 aut weapon in statue form, as that means your final swing is 10.5 auts, which is rather slow. Adding 50% to unarmed (5 aut base) isn't nearly as bad. Of course you probably won't be at min delay as soon as you get statue form online, but you should be able to take it to at least 7 aut or lower pretty easily, by the time you have statue form going. You still get the huge hp and large rocks, but you lose the claws and regeneration, which are the two reasons troll is a stronger statue form race.

Barachians are also probably very strong, I've tested a few but haven't really played the race very much yet to confirm, but seems like a good fit. +1 unarmed is pretty nice if you're going to commit to the slow life with statue form.

If you do go naga, use blade hands. They're still very strong once you get them 'established' but they're now hell to get through the early game. Back when I highly recommended them, they had constriction from level 1 which made the early game a lot more bearable. They're still really fun once you finish lair, but that's quite a bit of floors to get through with a fragile character.

If you're really okay with the "weak early, strong later" thing, I'd recommend octopode EE, IE, or TM. If you can manage to get ice form online it's pretty decent right up until you get statue form going. Eventually you'll be strong, but there's a reason why octopode has one of the lowest win rates of all species, that 1 ac for early game is rough.

If you want to troll the forums, use a felid. Really, who needs fast movement when you have 50 ev! I'm not actually kidding about this:

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Tason ... 052647.txt
http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/tasonir/mor ... 155739.txt

It's of course hell until you get statue form going, but once you do, fun 'til the cows come home, I promise.

[TonberryJam]

I would say species with AC problems would be the worst to use with Chei. And, species that rely on higher movement speed to stay out of range.

I don't think Formicide has a problem with early Chei. Digging tunnels is the best thing ever in Dungeon, you can control how many monsters are adjacent to you. And, you should always be using bend time.

Slow species work with Chei, provided you use the abilities of Chei as needed.
Species that already have a high Str, Int or Dex tend to do better with Chei.
Casters tend to be at a disadvantage if they have no translocations.

[bel]

I understood the question to be "good/strong combo throughout a 15 rune game", not "which combo maximizes my chances of winning in a one-off game". The OP can clarify what they meant.

I think Naga (with any background) is a good answer for the former question. For the latter question, since the "very early game" is the one that matters most: Tr, VS, Mi etc. are probably all "strong". But that's the boring answer for any question of this sort, regardless of whether you worship Chei or not.

[Airwolf]

GhGl! The only real drawback to Ghouls is crappy Int and Dex, and Chei fixes that.

[duvessa]

I understood the question to be "good/strong combo throughout a 15 rune game", not "which combo maximizes my chances of winning in a one-off game". The OP can clarify what they meant.

I think Naga (with any background) is a good answer for the former question. For the latter question, since the "very early game" is the one that matters most: Tr, VS, Mi etc. are probably all "strong". But that's the boring answer for any question of this sort, regardless of whether you worship Chei or not.

Tr is amazing in extended though. +30% HP aptitude, best melee damage in the game, best or second best throwing damage in the game, plus a usable earth magic aptitude. I think it's the best species for Chei for the entirety of the 15-rune game, from D:1 to orbrun.

Edit: To clarify, a troll that does not worship Chei is even better for the entirety of the 15-rune game, from D:1 to orbrun.

[bel]

Yes, but Nagas have their own advantages, including much more AC, +20% HP, constriction, resistances, SInv, better apts and so on.

I did some "Berdering" for fun. In particular I used the following Sequell queries:

  Code:

!lg * recent urune>5 god=chei s=race
!lg * recent urune>5 god=chei !won s=race


And looked at all races which had at least 15 games for the first query. (I also ran some other queries with all 15 runes; didn't make much difference. I also checked for speedruns and stuff, again didn't make much difference).

I then divided the 2nd query by the first query, to calculate the winrate.

The top species was...Felid, with 88% winrate. The extra lives helped, I suppose.

Ba had about 80% winrate. Na, Op, Gr, VS all had about 62-65%. Tr was about 55%, around the same as Mi and Fo. Lowest was Ds with about 42%.

(Ghoul had good winrate (75%), but too few games. HE had 100% winrate, but too few games.)

Since Op scores so high, I am rather skeptical of the whole exercise. It's not too unbelievable, since as an Op you're likely to have a shield and/or statue form/Dragon form at that point. But whatever.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

(after >5 runes) Since Op scores so high, I am rather skeptical of the whole exercise. It's not too unbelievable, since as an Op you're likely to have a shield and/or statue form/Dragon form at that point. But whatever.

At that point an Op is wearing 9 pieces of great jewellery while in forms, instead of just 3 like the rest of them. Even if artefact jewellery has been sparse at that point, they can wear the best stat+ jewellery and/or even some of the weaker slay/ac/ev+ rings that gives Ops some edge. At least that's my experience. Or maybe the statform constriction is really that good.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Or if you manage to bring an Op of Chei that far, you just actually might know what you're doing.

[scott9027]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

I will be digging into tasonir's tournament thread as I think I saw 5+ Chei worshippers amongst the dumps. (that's an unpleasant sentence...)

One common thread I seem to be noticing, HP > AC when choosing Chei. Would you agree with this observation? How would a Gr fare? I might try this out first now since I'm curious, or at least once I've killed 3-4 OpTm of Chei.

Take it easy!

Edit. I totally forgot, the Gh suggestion is incredibly tempting. This seems like a virtually perfect fit, wouldn't even have to spend the XP for necromut/statform. If I didn't hate the chunk/rot minigame with such a burning passion this would be a sure winner, but perhaps I'll see how my tolerance for it goes.

[emikaela]

I did some "Berdering" for fun. In particular I used the following Sequell queries:

  Code:

!lg * recent urune>5 god=chei s=race
!lg * recent urune>5 god=chei !won s=race


And looked at all races which had at least 15 games for the first query. (I also ran some other queries with all 15 runes; didn't make much difference. I also checked for speedruns and stuff, again didn't make much difference).

I then divided the 2nd query by the first query, to calculate the winrate.

next time you can make it easier on yourself and have sequell do the math for you (or maybe this is what you actually did and you just didn't go into detail, but just in case):

  Code:

[16:02] <emikaela> !lg * recent urune>5 god=chei s=crace / won o=% ?: den.N>14
[16:02] <Sequell> 209/336 games for * (recent urune>5 god=chei): 14/16x Felid [87.50%], 18/22x Barachi [81.82%], 18/23x Draconian [78.26%], 10/15x Gnoll [66.67%], 35/54x Naga [64.81%], 25/40x Octopode [62.50%], 18/29x Vine Stalker [62.07%], 12/21x Minotaur [57.14%], 13/23x Formicid [56.52%], 30/55x Troll [54.55%], 16/38x Demonspawn [42.11%]


crace is the same as race except it merges all draconian colors, which is usually a good idea to do imo. turns out they come in 3rd place here.

[njvack]

+1 for Tr; TrEE is good (though marginally less so with the removal of stoneskin). Having something useful to do other than moving is nice. Use the hell out of Bend Time; it's a big debuff to melee foes.

I felt like statue troll ^ chei was good, though smarter people have assured me that it is not. Watching the play field update when taking a step as statue troll is hilarious, especially vs fast monsters. Don't do that if the monsters are dangerous at all.

[Airwolf]

For ghouls, you're thinking about chunks wrong: they're a cheap source of out-of-combat healing, effectively giving you amazing HP regeneration.

[tasonir]

+1 for Tr; TrEE is good (though marginally less so with the removal of stoneskin). Having something useful to do other than moving is nice. Use the hell out of Bend Time; it's a big debuff to melee foes.

I felt like statue troll ^ chei was good, though smarter people have assured me that it is not. Watching the play field update when taking a step as statue troll is hilarious, especially vs fast monsters. Don't do that if the monsters are dangerous at all.

Statue troll of chei is amazing, and probably one of the most powerful melee characters that it is possible to build. One caveat is that it's more difficult to get statue form castable with troll's aptitudes (earth is good, but transmutations is terrible and spellcasting at -5 is legendarily bad). So it'll take longer to get that going in the mid game, during which time you're dumping exp into something that doesn't have any immediate benefit. If you get over this hump though, statue troll is amazing. I still managed to splat one that had 3 runes by going to extended, wearing myself down killing a few fiends, and then dying to a final fiend which cast bolt of cold vs my zero cold resistance. Mistakes happen.

I feel like I had once made a tier list of all the races for melee chei characters, but I'm not sure if I'm just imagining that or not. I probably should add that to my chei guide, and make it generic for all races.

[tabstorm]

troll, minotaur, gargoyle, vine stalker, formicid.
reasons:
Troll statue melee is powerful
Minotaurs and gargoyles are good and can survive the early game easily
vine stalkers with chei will get a big strength and dex boost that will trigger their aux attack every time. this will lead to a Yuge increase in damage output.
Chei at least gives Formicids a way to clear the screen that it otherwise lacks.

Chei ghoul is okay like some others said, but I don't see the appeal, since part of the point of Chei is to take advantage of the strength boost with transmutations (or at least it was before 0.20)

I think chei with statue form is weaker than in 0.19 due to fiddling with the damage formula, but it is probably still easy to beat extended, since you get torment and pseudo-hellfire resistance. Chei statue extended is actually very easy despite the movespeed penalty, easier than many melee characters that don't use one of (Statue | TSO | Makhleb), imo

One thing to not do is fall for the Chei book background meme. This is a bad idea. Start as a fighter or gladiator or a transmuter if you want to use unarmed with transmutations.

[nago]

Why chei + book is bad?

A good book background is still better than a melee start, and it is kinda easy to transit from spell dude to melee dude + support spell once you get chei.

[Majang]

I agree with nago. Even for a caster character without any melee ambitions Chei is a good start. His INT boost translates quickly into more powerful spells, and that helps to keep the bad guys off your skin. But you have to play carefully, of course, and you have to train spellcasting to get your MP up.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Well, Chei makes autoexploring with magic background much worse idea than with warrior background because MP-limited spells are your main way of dealing damage and you cannot retreat with Chei.

[Majang]

Agreed. Autoexploring might get you into deep trouble.

[scott9027]

Phew, rough night of crawling... think the best I did was a XL9 or so VSMo. I was really surprised by how annoying Troll was to play, that increased metabolism is not fun at all. Why a strong race should be balanced by tedium is beyond me, but plenty of normal metabolism species left to work with! If only mummies were as good as humans, I would be set for life. FR: species that doesn't eat or suck.

I can confirm that Chei seems very punishing of autoexplore, but I really don't see an alternative because the one time I manually explored on a NaWz I took one step too far towards a centaur and splat. Is reflection the best amulet choice for Chei?

the point of Chei is to take advantage of the strength boost with transmutations (or at least it was before 0.20)

Is this a big deal... should I go back to 0.19? Is Chei no longer the best in 0.20?

Or... are Minotaurs so OP that they can make any god seem worthwhile?

[bel]

You should generally use autoexplore or "safe movement" keys (which stop when a monster comes into view) while playing with Chei.

[sanka]

  Code:

#rebind safe move
bindkey = [B] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_DOWN_LEFT
bindkey = [H] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_LEFT
bindkey = [J] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_DOWN
bindkey = [K] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_UP
bindkey = [L] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_RIGHT
bindkey = [N] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_DOWN_RIGHT
bindkey = [U] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_UP_RIGHT
bindkey = [Y] CMD_SAFE_MOVE_UP_LEFT


This is part of my options file. If I press SHIFT alongside with the movement key, then it "safe moves", meaning that it won't move if there is a monster in view. It is especially useful with Chei.

[emikaela]

Phew, rough night of crawling... think the best I did was a XL9 or so VSMo. I was really surprised by how annoying Troll was to play, that increased metabolism is not fun at all. Why a strong race should be balanced by tedium is beyond me, but plenty of normal metabolism species left to work with! If only mummies were as good as humans, I would be set for life. FR: species that doesn't eat or suck.

i was confused about how metabolism would have anything to do with tedium, until it struck me that perhaps you haven't set up your rc file to deal with it. try this:

  Code:

confirm_butcher = never
auto_eat_chunks = true

:if you.gourmand() or you.race() == "Felid" or you.race() == "Kobold" or you.race() == "Ghoul" then
auto_butcher = very full
:else
auto_butcher = hungry
:end


there could be a cleaner way to write it but that works for me, and i really wouldn't want to play troll without something like it. (nb this is probably a bad idea if you care about turn count, but since you dislike tedium i assume that you don't.)

I can confirm that Chei seems very punishing of autoexplore, but I really don't see an alternative because the one time I manually explored on a NaWz I took one step too far towards a centaur and splat.

don't worry, we can fix this too with rc magic.

  Code:

force_more_message += into view


this one is more subjective i guess, it forces you to press space whenever a new enemy appears. i like it but it might not be for everyone.

Is Chei no longer the best in 0.20?

chei was never the best.

Or... are Minotaurs so OP that they can make any god seem worthwhile?

yes.

[scott9027]

chei was never the best.

Until you go down the stairs next to an ice cave portal and...

  Code:

You can feel time thicken for a moment.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the orc priest!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
Cheibriados raises the support of your attributes as your movement slows.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the wight!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You kill the white imp!
Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace.
You feel somewhat more hungry.
Cheibriados lowers the support of your attributes as your movement quickens.

14 kills in 1 turn at XL11.

Seriously, thanks for those rc edits, much appreciated!

[tabstorm]

Why chei + book is bad?

A good book background is still better than a melee start, and it is kinda easy to transit from spell dude to melee dude + support spell once you get chei.

Moving slowly with a character who is essentially helpless at 0 MP is asking for trouble. Think of how much time one usually spends running away or pillar dancing with a typical book character that isn't a Deep Elf.

[Lavandula]

Is Chei no longer the best in 0.20?

chei was never the best.

Except being the most common god for speedrunning. Cheibriados has most high scoring games.

[emikaela]

Is Chei no longer the best in 0.20?

chei was never the best.

Except being the most common god for speedrunning. Cheibriados has most high scoring games.

sure, i just didn't get the impression that this thread was about speedrunning. i could be wrong. but you're right in that "best" is impossible to answer without knowing what you prioritize. chei is high risk high reward, not so great for general winrate but occasionally awesome.

[nago]

Why chei + book is bad?

A good book background is still better than a melee start, and it is kinda easy to transit from spell dude to melee dude + support spell once you get chei.

Moving slowly with a character who is essentially helpless at 0 MP is asking for trouble. Think of how much time one usually spends running away or pillar dancing with a typical book character that isn't a Deep Elf.

Yeah, sure, but I was suggesting that if you plan go chei you can start to "hybridize" earlier than usual in order to have a melee dude able to deal some good damage at ranged\buff\debuff (in base of starting book) too, which is good with chei speed. That surely isn't 100% failsafe, but a plain melee dude going chei isn't good for a long time as well.

[njvack]

Except being the most common god for speedrunning. Cheibriados has most high scoring games.

If you want to score a win, you want to do whatever you can to limit the variability of your run, so with decent play you can get through it without surprises.

Chei does the exact opposite. You get potentially a very strong character at the cost of situations you simply cannot deal with (or that require a lot of skill to deal with). On your best runs, you can get lucky and finish very fast. In exchange, you'll splat a shitton of times.

So Chei is excellent for speedruns (because who cares how many characters you splat) but not very good on average.

[tabstorm]

Why chei + book is bad?

A good book background is still better than a melee start, and it is kinda easy to transit from spell dude to melee dude + support spell once you get chei.

Moving slowly with a character who is essentially helpless at 0 MP is asking for trouble. Think of how much time one usually spends running away or pillar dancing with a typical book character that isn't a Deep Elf.

Yeah, sure, but I was suggesting that if you plan go chei you can start to "hybridize" earlier than usual in order to have a melee dude able to deal some good damage at ranged\buff\debuff (in base of starting book) too, which is good with chei speed. That surely isn't 100% failsafe, but a plain melee dude going chei isn't good for a long time as well.

I think if you made it far enough to hybridize, you're far enough in to win, especially with chei. Your spellpower is really not going to be that great if you hybridize early-ish in the game, even with a +15 int boost - you really need 2 enhancers to do serious damage. Alternatively, melee/conj is already known to be bad, and chei won't make it any better until dumping the XP into conj becomes superfluous. When I do chei characters I prefer to train translocations, transmutations, and sometimes Summoning.

also re: plain melee not being good with chei, you'd be surprised. of course I'm biased towards heavy armor in the first place.

[VeryAngryFelid]

It depends on combo I think. If you are already a weak melee character (like MuGl with bad weapon) and you already retreat a lot, then Chei is really bad. Yet if you are an ok caster (MuIE/Cj), then Chei does not make it too bad because you continue killing things at range and if you do run out of MP, you still can take advantage of Chei melee boost.
Of course the opposite happens when we are talking about TrMo of Chei and MiFE of Chei I haven't tried MiFE though.

[biffMalibu]

I would recommend the new Barachian. I won with BaFi of Chei the very first time I tried the race (http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/biffMalibu/morgue-biffMalibu-20170618-214420.txt). Granted, it was 3 rune, but the character felt strong enough to go on. I dabbled in Pan a bit before getting scared of things that torment and not finding any spells that had generated anywhere to help with it. Towards the end, I was just dumping skills into whatever for fun.

I found that hop was very useful escape/re-positioning mechanism. Slouch was also incredible, firing off a few of those in a row every now & then nuked a lot of stuff. I also like how the aptitudes of barachi allow you to start as a melee dude to get yourself well established at least through lair and then easily hybridize in any # of directions later in the game. It is one of my favorite combos because you can go so many different directions and I find the variety fun.

[tasonir]

I think if you made it far enough to hybridize, you're far enough in to win, especially with chei. Your spellpower is really not going to be that great if you hybridize early-ish in the game, even with a +15 int boost - you really need 2 enhancers to do serious damage. Alternatively, melee/conj is already known to be bad, and chei won't make it any better until dumping the XP into conj becomes superfluous. When I do chei characters I prefer to train translocations, transmutations, and sometimes Summoning.

also re: plain melee not being good with chei, you'd be surprised. of course I'm biased towards heavy armor in the first place.

In general I think this is decent advice, but there's some exceptions. Certain backgrounds that I'm fond of tend to be ones that are hybrids almost from D:1 - Necromancers and Venom Mages. I typically play these by training their spell schools for D:1 and D:2, and start picking up melee skills quite early around D:3, as you're going to run into resistant monsters pretty early. But the power of pain and poisonous vapors against non-resistant monsters is so high that even only "half trained" they will still take out serious threats. Here's my skill table from my VSVM where I started out training spellcasting, but didn't even raise poison at all, since 3 poison starting skill was enough to cast the spell effectively (with some raised spellcasting):

  Code:

Skill      XL: |  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 |
---------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Spellcasting   |     3  4  5                       7  8                 9 11    12 14 15 16    18 | 18.4
Fighting       |              1  3  4           5  7        8  9 10       12          13 14 15 22 | 22.2
Dodging        |              2  3  4        7  8     9 11 12 13          14       15 16 17 18 20 | 20.0
Unarmed Combat |                    3  7 10    11 13 14 16 17 18 19                         20 25 | 25.2
Invocations    |                          2  6  8    10                                     11 14 | 14.1
Shields        |                                                  8 13 15                      26 | 26.0
Earth Magic    |                                                             12 13             26 | 26.0
Transmutations |                                                                 6                |  6.6
Translocations |                                                                 4 11 12       18 | 18.6
Necromancy     |                                                                          5  6    |  6.8
Charms         |                                                                          5  7  9 |  9.4
Air Magic      |                                                                                7 |  7.4
Summonings     |                                                                                3 |  3.6
Stealth        |                                                                                  |  2.4
Conjurations   |                                                                                  |  1.0
Poison Magic   |                                                                                  |  3.0

And I cast poisonous vapors 448 times, so it's not like I could have just been a fighter/monk and played more efficiently. It's very helpful for cutting through enemies with high AC, such as orc warriors with chain/plate armor. Once I have the spellcasting I need, I train some defenses first as I'm still a "mage", but picked up melee killdudes (unarmed) starting around D:5, character level 7. The point being sometimes it's a good idea to hybridize very early on, when you might not yet have a "won game". At this point I hadn't even found Chei's altar, although it was later on in D:5.

Definitely agree that plain melee chei characters can be very strong - 15 str is effectively +38% damage. That used to compare somewhat unfavorably to haste, but now that haste is much more strictly an emergency consumable, having +38% damage at all times is a very strong effect. That and about +7 accuracy, which can definitely help early on, although you can't get max chei piety super early, you can still have accuracy issues in lair which chei will help quite a bit with. Especially if you're wearing heavy armor which is lowering your accuracy.

[MrPlanck]

any

[Odds]

I find NaMo very fun, and somewhat good. Very early, you are pretty weak - Mo is a bad start. But once you find an altar of Chei, you are strong for the rest of the game. My distribution of wins/deaths with NaMo (all taking or planning to take Chei) bears this out:

  Code:

[09:34] <Odds> !lg Odds NaMo s=place
[09:34] <Sequell> 10 games for Odds (NaMo): 4x D:$, 3x D:2, 2x D:4, Lab