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[inaluct]

Chaos knightz of Makhleb are pretty good, they end up being able to summon hordes of demons later on. It's like being a summoner, except with combat skills!!

[Mr.Person]

A little less reliable since Makhleb's summons aren't always friendly but still valid because of hunger issues. And of course Makhleb's heal-on-kills is fantastic.

[ChairmanPoo]

Summons aren't always friendly either. And chaos knights of makhleb tend to develop a good invocations level thanks to minor destruction, so they have a very good chance of having the demon they summon be friendly.

[Frumple]

Summons aren't always friendly either. And chaos knights of makhleb tend to develop a good invocations level thanks to minor destruction, so they have a very good chance of having the demon they summon be friendly.

Scorpions, Demonic Horde, the summon demon spells... ugly things. Everything else is either always friendly or can be made so (Elementals). Hostiles can usually be dealt with just by summoning more of the critters. I haven't messed around with the summon demon spells, though. Having a hostile Executioner pop up beside you is a good formula for one-round death.

[inaluct]

Summons aren't always friendly either. And chaos knights of makhleb tend to develop a good invocations level thanks to minor destruction, so they have a very good chance of having the demon they summon be friendly.

Scorpions, Demonic Horde, the summon demon spells... ugly things. Everything else is either always friendly or can be made so (Elementals). Hostiles can usually be dealt with just by summoning more of the critters. I haven't messed around with the summon demon spells, though. Having a hostile Executioner pop up beside you is a good formula for one-round death.

I've had hostile 1's pop up near me. I immediately start summoning more demons, and invariably most of them are not hostile, but maybe another 1 is. It gets completely insane very fast. I had it happen early on (with 3s) recently, while I was surrounded by other enemies, and on one of those big-room levels. I ended up teleporting away from the massive demon-yak war and barely running away from the swarm of ufetubi that were near my teleport spot.

[Taxus]

Yep, this is why I don't enjoy playing Mahkleb, and if I'm a summoner, I don't bother with the demon spells other than Demonic Horde.

[Mr.Person]

Summoners can just learn Abjuration to deal with any hostile summons they accidentally make.

[Frumple]

Really sucks if you run into Mara while knowing abjuration, though. Learned that in sprint. Having a clone of yourself that buggers around wrecking your summon horde constantly is a pain inna' tail. Though, as with pretty much everything else, continuing to spam haunt at the problem eventually solves it, hohoho.

Really, though, the issue is mana cost; having to bleed off another three points for damage control instead of sinking it into something more useful can cause death. You can generally get by without the dangerous hostile-producing summons, unless book access has been seriously poor for you that round. Demonic Horde and the scorps (once you're summoning 3+ regularly) generally deal with their own hostiles and ugly things seem to have a pretty low hostile-proc.

Are the summon demon spells really worth it for a primary summoner? I'd like to say 'probably', as there's some seriously nasty 3s and 1s out there, but there's also some bloody close to worthless ones, so it's a bit more of a crap shoot than, say, summon ugly thing or haunt.

[Dr.Feelgood]

My latest victory, and my first victory going for any of the bonus runes at all:

     6663159 FreeHugs the Minotaur Barricade (level 27, 278/278 (286) HPs)
             Began as a Minotaur Fighter on Sept 7, 2010.
             Was a High Priest of The Shining One.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 13 runes (of 13 types) on Sept 10, 2010!

             The game lasted 1day21:08:04 (204665 turns).

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/FreeHugs/morgue-FreeHugs-20100910-225549.txt

Nice win. Why did you stop at 13? You killed the hardest demon lords.

Really sucks if you run into Mara while knowing abjuration, though. Learned that in sprint. Having a clone of yourself that buggers around wrecking your summon horde constantly is a pain inna' tail. Though, as with pretty much everything else, continuing to spam haunt at the problem eventually solves it, hohoho.

Really, though, the issue is mana cost; having to bleed off another three points for damage control instead of sinking it into something more useful can cause death. You can generally get by without the dangerous hostile-producing summons, unless book access has been seriously poor for you that round. Demonic Horde and the scorps (once you're summoning 3+ regularly) generally deal with their own hostiles and ugly things seem to have a pretty low hostile-proc.

Are the summon demon spells really worth it for a primary summoner? I'd like to say 'probably', as there's some seriously nasty 3s and 1s out there, but there's also some bloody close to worthless ones, so it's a bit more of a crap shoot than, say, summon ugly thing or haunt.

Demonology sucks. The only useful spell in that book is Demonic Horde. Summon Horrible Things and Haunt are the best summon spells.

[Mr.Person]

Abjuration is mostly to deal with hostile enemy summons. Also, AFAIK, monsters don't cast Abjuration. I'm not even sure player ghosts can. Instead, whenever they summon something, they just have a chance of abjuring instead if you have friendly summons.

Demonology has Abjuration and Recall in it, although I don't normally learn Recall.

[Taxus]

Nice win. Why did you stop at 13? You killed the hardest demon lords.

I never found ResCorrosion, so I was afraid to do the Slime Pits. I did about half of the Tomb and after a few touchy moments, decided that 13 was enough for my first extended game. I'm playing a DSNe of Kiku this time, and hope to go for all 15. If that doesn't work out I may try a Crusader of some sort. Necromutation would be nice.

[beorn080]

Really sucks if you run into Mara while knowing abjuration, though. Learned that in sprint. Having a clone of yourself that buggers around wrecking your summon horde constantly is a pain inna' tail. Though, as with pretty much everything else, continuing to spam haunt at the problem eventually solves it, hohoho.

Really, though, the issue is mana cost; having to bleed off another three points for damage control instead of sinking it into something more useful can cause death. You can generally get by without the dangerous hostile-producing summons, unless book access has been seriously poor for you that round. Demonic Horde and the scorps (once you're summoning 3+ regularly) generally deal with their own hostiles and ugly things seem to have a pretty low hostile-proc.

Are the summon demon spells really worth it for a primary summoner? I'd like to say 'probably', as there's some seriously nasty 3s and 1s out there, but there's also some bloody close to worthless ones, so it's a bit more of a crap shoot than, say, summon ugly thing or haunt.

If abjuration is your highest lvl summoning spell, the ghost will know it. Interestingly, if your a summoner, and you ONLY know summon spells, according to the wiki, the ghost will only have the highest lvl summon spell you know. Still, let me do some testing.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Anyone know what it means when "you have a feeling of ineptitude"?

EDIT: Also, would it be worthwhile to throw potions of confusion or poison at monsters, or would that just be a waste of a turn?

[3]

Throwing potions is useless; you need the Transmutations spell Evaporate for that.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Oh, alright.

One more question: Earlier I found the sewers, but left when the things inside were a bit too strong for me. 3 levels later I went back to clear them, but the entrance is gone? The green water is still there, but the gate is missing... Can I ever enter them again, or was it a one-shot thing?