Xion350 wrote:If I don't particularly care about the bonuses to my sword skills, can I keep my sword and staff uncursed so I can swap whenever I need to slash stuff as opposed to blasting stuff? There's no other benefit to being fully bound if your piety is already pretty high right?
You can do whatever you want
What you're suggesting is what I do, although I'm pretty sure (p>.95) that cursing your weapon gives bonuses to the weapon skill AND lets you see whether weapons are cursed or not, so you're gonna be missing out on that.
lxl wrote:I'm a DE mostly Ne/Su XP:27, have cleared Zot:5 and have 8 runes so far; I'm missing Gehenna, Slime Pits and the 5 Pan runes. I've never made it even *remotely* close to this far before. I can't get decent rF and have extremely lacklustre equipment susceptible to corrosion (leather armour and shield are the only artefacts I have). Yes, it's been a rather unfortunate game as far as equipment goes (but great with early spells)...
My strategy is mostly Necromutation, Summon Dragon, Haunt and Sif Muna's channeling. I've never entered either Pan or the Slime Pits. Am I right in understanding that Pan is harder than Hell (of which I recovered 3 of the 4 runes)? And how do the Slime Pits compare difficulty-wise?
If you can do Hell you can do Pan (IMHO the majority of Pan is easier, although Pan lords (if you meet a HD 30 pan lord that can cast Fire Storm...) are no pushover. Your lack of rF is a fairly substantial problem, because if you stumble upon Cerebov's realm without at least rF++ (Fire Storm is ~8d16 damage per cast from him, I think) a 15 runer is probably not possible.
You can probably do Slime Pits now, if you tread very carefully. Summon Dragon and Haunt can get you down to Slime:6 almost no problem, provided you don't get unlucky w/ Acid Blobs. The Royal Jelly's spawned allies may end up in front of your summons (if your summons surround TRJ his spawned allies have no where to go but further away from him...and closer to you), but that's the only hitch I can think of. I'd do Slime Pits before Pan to see what equipment/loot I can get on Slime:6 after killing TRJ.
Also, have you posted this in the CIP subforum?