Stood up and Befriended, the Nagas of Crawl (a lil NSFW)

[Ashery]

Here's the main issue you're having at the moment: You're playing a character that spans three different backgrounds, two of which have absolutely no synergy. While melee and translocations don't synergize all that well, you're able to almost completely ignore spellcasting, which is a major xp drain, and translocations can be turned off around 7-8 if you need to focus on training up your melee skills. Translocations and fire/conjuration synergize better, as one requires spell casting and the other certainly benefits from it, but subspecing (so to speak) in conjuration early on isn't something you can plan on when you create the character. The problem is that you're trying to mix too much together. Either your melee or your conjurations will suffer horribly.

Halberds aren't horrible per se, but they pale in comparison to other polearms. It's probably better than your starting spear, especially if you don't have access to a buckler. One of the biggest potential problems is that your swing speed is going to be shit because your polearms skill isn't even high enough to swing your spear at cap speed.

At the rate you're going, you're probably better off focusing entirely on casting skills and just melee weak mobs when you have spare xp to train fighting (turn off polearms entirely). I'd need to see a char (Or at least a skill) dump to make a better judgment, though.

 

[Zomg]

Trog completely gimps warpers, heh.

As warpers, yeah. But it turns them into weaker berserkers, and beserkers have every tool you need to win, including berserk at incredbly low piety, almost no matter how crappy your situation is otherwise. You can have any disrecommended unsynergetic combo and if you find a trog altar on D1-D3, you should probably go trog if you only care about maximizing win%.

And with a warper you still have a blink scroll and the darts, which matter a lot. Plus a book to burn, and a fire cloud can take out one serious enemy.

 

[Ashery]

Sacrilege! You *dare* suggest burning that sacred book!

Oh, and berserking also prevents you from fleeing combat, so you're committed for the entire fight even if you can tell after the first turn that you're fucked.

 

[Zomg]

I suggest not using it incorrectly in that case

Berserkers are a pretty bad whole-game choice for inexperienced players because you have to have a lot of memorized threat and HP/AC knowledge and cautious habits, and know how to get every drop out of every invocation (and all the skill points you save on getting a no-skill-investment god) but it can also handle anything in a normal win from orc priest on d2 to Mennas. I even thought berserkers were all you needed in 0.6-0.7 when heavy armor was still useless, slow hadn't been nerfed and a bug caused the post-berserk slow to cause quarter speed.

 

[Malakal]

So why are you using polearms on nagas? The only weapon type they have -1 in. Better pick axes or swords. I had a good run with swordsman naga conjurer using KATANAS of doom (seriously crawl devs are weaboo as fuck, katana is +3/14 one handed wtf) but died to summoned hellion. Derp.

 

[Ashery]

Eh, katanas aren't too bad. Also, they're 1.5 handed, meaning that you get some type of penalty for using them one handed and the smaller races are required to have both hands free. And they're not that much better than demon tridents, 10% faster and +2 on accuracy.

For another correction (At least in trunk): Naga's have the base aptitude with polearms. Their -1 weapon apt is in staves.

 

[Yeesh]

Yes, I've only paid attention to nagas in trunk, and in this version they have 0 aptitude for every melee weapon but staves. Also, for starts where I get to choose a weapon the choice has always been between short blade, axe, mace, or spear. I avoid short blades because it's my understanding that by halfway through the early game, they start to suck for a long time or forever if you don't find a quick blade. It's also my understanding that maces and axes are roughly equal in trunk, and that polearms start crappier but end slightly better.

I'm sitting on an update about a guy who was supposed to be a throwaway but who instead bathed in good fortune and didn't die yet. I don't want to clutter things up with another ongoing narrative, so I'll turn back to Nipsy now. But if anyone has any thoughts on how strict the prohibition against using items that emit mutagenic radiation should be enforced, I'm interested in hearing them.

 

[Yeesh]

Nipsy has a lot of missiles to pick up, and a lot of health to regain. She's also got some victory dancing to do, or in this case Pyrrhic victory dancing.

Nipsy plays the ID game and comes up with nothing. What a stark contrast her crappy luck is to that of another fellow we'll meet when she dies. She heads down to D5 with her unbranded +0 weapon which is the best she's found in her class so far.

Ice beast? Burny-types live for those. Enjoy the feeling of power while you can, Nipsy.

Six casts of Throw Flame later. Way to bring the pain, honey... (the ice beast eventually succumbs after a chase through half the dungeon).

Nipsy finds a randart robe which we can categorize as Stupid but Ever So Slightly Better Than Nothing. But Stupid.

MUST CONTROL RAGE. I take a minute to review the thread to remember what I'm supposed to do when I see jellies. I decide to polymorph it.

Oh, I just could not be more pleased with how that turned out.

Nipsy relies on her superior evasion to keep the ogre from smashing her, and she achieves eighth level. Good for you, Nips! Str increases of its own accord, because of course it does.

Nipsy finds a fucking food shop. A cock sucking fucking piece of shit food shop. Fuck you.

Well this is a fine way to start a level. Let's try another stairway. Eustachio, by the way, is one of my least favorites. All demon summoners are my least favorites. I don't even understand how they're in the same universe as any other type of monster. WAIT let me try to polymorph him! Research on this subject is inconsequential, although I wonder if I'm just missing something that's so obvious to everyone else that no one thought to write it down. I give it a shot.

Oh, that is sweet.

You menace. I believe you won't find Nipsy such easy prey this time. Maybe.

Either that's a mimic, or who fucking cares anyway? (It's not a mimic. I've never actually seen a pearl dragon. Hmmm, the armor that would result from this either has a -2 or -3 EV penalty, depending on whether you believe the wiki or the LearnDB. -2 wouldn't be SUCH a gimping of spellcasting, and it could be a ghetto artifact...)

The question is academic since I lack any enchant armour scrolls. Plus armor doesn't fit right on nagas anyway. And where's the fucking temple, anyway? And why are people on the street below my window loudly protesting Domino's Pizza, of all places? You can't make this shit up.

Frigging centaurs. Nipsy backs away....

...and stumbles into a sewer level! Very nice. Retroactively repeating myself, I remind you that nagas suffer a movement penalty in water, but no combat penalty.

This is the suckiest, most tedious, least dangerous, most loot-less-est shit sewer ever. And Nipsy makes ninth level. I choose Int.

Time to take out the trash.

(Nipsy subsequently discovers a scroll of Enchant Armour, rendering the Pearl Dragon Hide question un-academic.)

Woe, this again (retrospectively).

Battle turns ugly. Do you know what I DON'T expect to read when I'm wielding a halberd (base dmg: 13) and sporting a 20 Str? "You hit the big kobold, but do no damage" twice in a row. WHAT THE FUCK?

The fight goes on forever, and I see that accursed message so many times that my brain shuts down. It's a very close affair, and I wonder if I'll ever get a naga character who can actually kill anything because the Nipster does not seem to be that character at all.

Bit of a party at the entrance to the Mines. The Nipster discovers an artifact dagger, wonder how awesome THAT will be. (As usual, since it's a useless item type, the properties are useful)

Nipsy's first few steps on D7 take her to a shaft which deposits her on D10. Guess the game doesn't want her to have a god. And look who's here to welcome the new arrival! 3 zaps of the poly wand are still a small price to pay. (The resulting killer bee actually takes more than half Nipsy's health before it's vanquished, the sort of thing which is leading me to believe I don't have a viable character on my hands here. :sadface: )

After a long, ugly haul, the Nipster is back where she started. Can she have a god now please? Also note that she's got one scroll of detect curse and zero scrolls of remove curse, which limits her ability to try stuff on.

Burninating a necrophage gets our godless heroine to level 10. Level 10, no temple, two rings and no amulets the entire game. Still using a 0, +1 unbranded weapon. Bravo, Nispy. Bravo.

I haven't been trying out wands, I'd better remember to do that. (2 wands get resisted, which annoys the fuck out of me)

I got your stupid fucking temple right here (rude gesture omitted)! (Inside are all 15 altars you might hope for.)

I'm thinking Cheibriados, because frankly I'm always thinking Cheibriados. No one is giving up less by agreeing to go slow than a naga. Him or the blow-stuff-up guy. But I'm definitely playing her more as a hybrid, and Che is good for that.

3 more scrolls of Enchant Armour, but not one of Remove Curse. Sure would like to try out that plain trident I found, but it's probably not worth the risk. And any thoughts on the Pearl Dragon hide?

And Nipsy should probably memorize some more spells.

   Skills:
 + Level 3 Fighting
 - Level 5 Polearms
 - Level 2 Throwing
 - Level 1 Armour
 - Level 2 Dodging
 + Level 6 Stealth
 - Level 1 Stabbing
 + Level 5 Spellcasting
 + Level 8 Conjurations
 - Level 3 Translocations
 + Level 8 Fire Magic


You have 13 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Success   Level  Hunger
a - Apportation           Tloc           ###.......   Great       1    None
b - Throw Flame           Fire/Conj      #####..      Excellent   2    Strawberry
c - Conjure Flame         Fire/Conj      #####....    Excellent   3    Choko

 

[Zomg]

PDA will be -3 in the latest trunk. It's pretty amazing, and I would use it. You get half as much AC out of it as a race without the bad armor thing, but full 40% GDR which can turn ~20 AC into enough to let you stand and wait for stuff like yaks and elephants to roast in conjure flame while they punch you. A naga will not be able to economically get a good enough defense with dodging to come close to what you can get from PDA and eventually a shield. But you will need to get lucky with cloak/helm/gloves/barding and enchant armor to be able to get enough AC to make the GDR pay off. If you want to you can turn off conjurations and fire once you get conjure flame back up to great, it has tremendous damage for the investment and is enough to get through lair.

Also PDA can eventually be enchanted up to +10 (freakin') AC and is a good place to "store" excess enchant armor scrolls, because you will never find anything superior and once it gets over +4 it can't get corroded. Enchantment-type AC doesn't get reduced by the oddly shaped body thing, only base.

I once again find everyone's affection for chei bizarre but w/e. Although I think extreme slowness would be bad for a character that's depending on conjure flame for punch, because it will be hard to do much tactical repositioning to lead enemies into it etc.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

Che fucking sucks. I pondered only one item and it shows. Pick Makhleb and change to Mufa in endgame.

What God to pick for level 18 Vampire Assasin?

 

[Ashery]

That PDA alone should qualify that character as one of the luckiest out there. It is arguably the best hybrid armour.

Chei's actually pretty damn good...for warpers. Once you're able to cast controlled blink (The level seven translocations spell) you eliminate what is arguably a Chei worshiper's biggest weakness. There's still issues on levels that restrict teleporting, but you at least have access to a semi-controlled blink. A terrible choice for your current build, though.

 

[7hm]

Mut weapons are fine. Just don't use them constantly, switch them in as needed.

And the PDA is the best armour you'll find. Use it.

 

[Yeesh]

I find the god choice to be an agonizing decision, but I really don't like Makhleb because of the whole demons-might-eat-you thing, and I choose Che. Again I try to convince you that Che's biggest drawback is the thing nagas are born with. Of course moving slowly sucks ass, but which race are we playing here, people? When you start out covering ground very slowly, you're not giving much up to drop your speed down a few more notches. Plus, there's the whole Warper thing. I'm not working on it now, but those spells will eventually be part of the package.

Another agonizing decision is what to do about having no Remove Curse scrolls (I did use one earlier, so I know what they look like) and just one Detect Curse. I've played these first few levels an awful, awful, truly awful lot of times, and I've never experienced this problem ever. I hope it will clear itself up, but for now I can't really try anything on. If I discover something exciting, I can use a scroll of ID, but that's about it. Needless to say, I find this as annoying as fuck.

Also, the weapon situation is preposterous; and with the whole not-being-able-to-wield-anything-new situation, I'm concerned.

Nipsy drops a bunch of stuff, including her new Pearl Dragon Armour, which completely gimps her spellcasting at this stage. Actually, some disheartening research into the effect of armour skill on armour penalty suggests that this gimping effect will not be diminished by even 1/3 until her armour skill reaches level 15. So we'll look instead to an increase in spellcasting and intelligence.

Whatever, let's get this young lady killed.

Seriously, do you fuckers just follow me around or what? God knows how many items you've eaten already. God I hate you so much. (Nips chucks the artifact dagger at it, I knew that thing would come in handy eventually.)

Artefact boots because of course.

Glowing orcish trident, you say? Perhaps Nipsy might acquire this item...

And then Nipsy looks like she's going to die. I threw not 1, not 2, but 3 darts of dispersal at this thing, and they all sailed harmlessly past. Ok, I'm all ears. What should I do? Never play Crawl again? I'm ok with that. Obviously I don't know how to put together a character that can handle the most basic threats in the game.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

Is Blink instant. I think it is. Blink. Chung the potions. The 5 or 4 number ones. They are healing potions. Or Blink and Teleport. Or just chung the potions and melee. :lawl:

 

[7hm]

Blink to the edge of LOS. Drink a healing pot (maybe two). You want to get the troll to move towards you, at least two squares away from where he is now.

Then blink back onto the stairs and go up.

e: Use scrolls rather than spell if possible.

 

[desocupado]

Is Blink instant. I think it is. Blink. Chung the potions. The 5 or 4 number ones. They are healing potions. Or Blink and Teleport. Or just chung the potions and melee. :lawl:

That assumption usually screws me over. After I'm dead, the 4 or 5 potions I have are potions of brilliance or potions of restore abilities. And the potion of healing is the one I only have one of.

On this situation, though, you should risk it.

 

[korenzel]

Use the blink scroll to move away and make use of your lightning wand. Try to go for multizap patterns if you can, but it shouldn't be necessary to take care of the troll. Then go back up the stairs, rest, and go quaff-identify your potions in the temple.

You really underestimate the threat some monsters pose. Previously : slime creatures. Now : trolls. They are extremely dangerous in melee, don't let them get close to you. I wouldn't play potion roulette when in such a dangerous situation unless I have no better options. If one of your potions is confusion or paralysis, you're dead. Brilliance or might will just waste one turn. Healing will give you 10 hp but the troll can still one shot you. Heal Wounds is the best you could get, but it won't kill the troll either, and you're already low on mana.

I think most of your problems come with trying to diversify, especially in the early game. Hybrids are already starved for xp with high aptitude races like Merfolks or High Elves, and you want to do it with a Naga... Choose between melee and spellcasting and stick to it. Disable dodge, stealth, armor and weapon skills with spellcasters, focus on only a couple schools. Disable everything but fighting, one weapon skill, armor/dodge and shield for melee characters.

Chei is an awful choice for spellcasters if you lack good spell selection. His powers need heavy investment in Invocation and cost a lot of piety, so it's not an option for every tricky fight. Stat boosts are useful but not as useful as the guaranteed spells and mana recovery powers Vehumet, Kiku or Sif Muna give. He's good if you find powerful books early and want the intelligence to reduce hunger and spell failure, but that's rarely the case, and mana recovery is critical for spellcasters anyway.

I don't play melee characters outside Trog berserkers, so I can't comment on how appropriate Chei is, but if you don't have a good weapon and want to keep some spells Okawaru seems like a better choice. I certainly wouldn't rely on finding specific randarts in the dungeon.

 

[Yeesh]

I should have mentioned that I have already discovered healing potions, so I'm surely not carrying any. Heal Wounds is a possibility, though, as I'm used to there being more of those than most other sorts of potions. I think.

I really, really can't believe that 3 darts of dispersal in a row can miss. What are the chances of that?

So whatever, let's blink.

Check it out, the 5 and the 4 stack of potions were Confusion and Paralysis, respectively. And you say my characters aren't lucky!

Nice Blink.

The last dart of dispersal hits home, and the troll blinks closer. Sweet.

Well, ok. After an unlucky blink, Nipsy read a scroll of Teleport. Then after a lucky blink, she made it to the stairs but the teleport kicked in before she could use them. That landed her (with 1 HP) in between a sleeping centaur and a sleeping griffon, so she immediately read another teleport scroll and passed the time quietly drinking potions. Once of them was agility and the other was mutation. Nipsy picked up Carnivore I and Slow Metabolism I. So that's nice. The monsters slept peacefully and the teleport kicked in to an as-yet unvisited part of the level where she waited quite a while for her HP and MP to regenerate, being interrupted only by a jackal.

So I guess that worked out. Although she never managed to pick up that glowing orcish trident. Let's see whether she survives the rest of the update.

Hi, asshole.

Nipsy's rate of finding scrolls of Remove Curse doubles to one for every 5 dungeon levels.

One, as in one (1), bite from a komodo dragon makes Nipsy sick enough for three full presses of the 5 key, and takes points from two stats. Awesome. And look, there's that thing that's based on Evocations and not Fire skill. Evocations is a skill Nipsy lacks entirely.

And here's a Steam Dragon. Certainly not threatening to most characters, but then it doesn't take much to kill the Nipster, and surely this beast may do her in. It doesn't help that she started worhipping Che so very, very late and still hasn't gotten 3*s. And is this some kind of minivault here? Fuck it.

No, seriously. Fuck this. Fuck this fucking bullshit. What the fuck? Nipsy was fighting one fucking steam dragon. Where did that fucking frog come from? Why are there 4 monsters here all of a sudden? Fuck this game.

 

[Zomg]

I don't think you should think of Chei Nagas as losing less than other combos from dropping in speed. Being at normal Naga speed still allows you to do some useful tactical movement - you only lose conventional matched-speed escapes on normal speed enemies. Chei's piety goes up so fast with only one ponderized piece of gear that you can still bend time and slouch quite a bit and save trying to go quasi-immobile with ALL ponderous gear for the late late game when you have semi-controlled or controlled blinks. But a 1-ponderous naga is slow enough that tactical movement is really restricted and you can easily take one step against a fast enemy and they hit you three-four times.

 

[Globbi]

inspired by this thread I try playing NaWr too. After a few tries I now have a game with broken RNG:

Found 2 large piles of disperse darts! Also an additional scroll of blinking but I had to use this one. And item which was lying on the ground near my starting position was +2+1 axe, nice, I started with axe.

 

[Globbi]

It was a very funny game, not too long though. On D4 ogres, player ghost (merfolk tranmutter - he only spammed poison coulds all the time but I was too scared to fight it ), shop (the worst one I have ever seen), and temple.

I had lots of poison needles and naga posion spit which worked nicely (and slowly) with blinks and darts. Still, there were tons of shit to run from - imps, pack of wighs, ice beasts. I used up almost all of those dispersal darts. I had to constantly run from one level to another and rarely could rest. Got only to D7 and had to go back up where orc warrior killed me.

The sucky thing is, I could have survived but didn't really cared to run away from orc warrior. I thought I could kill him afer I killed some ogres and ice beasts.

I was 1 level away from having teleport self while my chances to cast both controll and self teleport was very good, it would change the game etirely I think.

 

[Yeesh]

Time for a little TCB. Nipsy wields her mace of protection and gets to blinkin'.

Eventually the enemies are defeated. But will there be time for Nips to regain her health and MP?

Yes there is, and Nipsy discovers this was all just the entrance to the Lair. She also discovers a book of Fire, with even more spells she can't cast yet. But she does finally get around to memorizing Sticky Flame. I've heard good things about that.

The Nipster wanders around the Lair for a bit, looking for goodies. Like a single amulet would be nice. And where are all those magic staves my other characters inevitably find? Her new plan to simultaneously burn and poison everything pays dividends, and now she's eleventh level. Bravo.

The early Lair is not too scary, but Nipsy is in a position to play very carefully since her Slow Metabolism hopefully stacks with Che's halving of food usage, and then throw Carnivore on top of that and she's resting to full after every encounter because why not? Slow and steady, that's the Cheibriados way.

I was under the mistaken impression that those bushes blocked LOS. Live and learn.

Elephants already, huh? Fuck. Let's go around the other way.

Yaks too, huh? Let's just give up. Excuse me for not having mephitic cloud. Or being able to kill things.

Back at the entrance, Nipsy drops a few things. Note how I'm packing her inventory so I can use one of my two lousy Detect Curse scrolls without feeling guilty. But not until I recover that frigging glowing trident.

Seriously, fuck you. You'd better not have eaten anything good.

"Not Without my Trident!" - by Yeesh. Let's see if this Troll is still a tough customer now that Nipsy's packing some flames that stick.

The Troll is nowhere to be found. Pretty anit-climatic. (And I might as well tell you that the trident ends up being +0, +1 of nothing.)

I'm really not used to seeing this many jellies. I just know they ate my barding.

Let's finally do this thing, bitch.

Yes, combat can be pretty random.

Ye olde potion shoppe. How handy that would have been before I was emergency quaffing Confuse and Paralysis potions... (not actually, this one only has non-harmful potions, not that I'm complaining)

Nipsy finds an antique weapons store which sells no artifacts, and exactly one NON-magical polearm which she buys anyway. She finally decides to burn one of her Detect Curse scrolls. Survey says...

Nothing interesting. She has a cursed ring which she feels compelled to ID with a scroll, seeing as how I've seen cursed evasion and wizardry rings. But this one turns out to be the classic: hunger. Her two other rings don't ID from being worn, casting fire, or blinking. Checking the ID spoiler page, and taking into account Nipsy's inherent resistance to poison and sharp eye sight, and seeing as how from personal experience wizardry auto-IDs in trunk (I think), that leaves sustain abilities as the only one I could figure out myself, and I don't think I want to do that one by hand. Having worked this through, Nips busts out more ID scrolls.

And fucking don't you know it, See Invisible and Poison Resistance. Nipsy continues to wear just one ring and has yet to discover a single amulet.

I'm really trying to put together the tools here, but damn. I haven't found a single piece of ego armor, nor a branded polearm. (And when I do, you know it will be Reaching. Which maybe isn't so bad with Conjure Flame. But maybe it still sucks), 1 wearable ring, and no amulet.

But you know me, I can't complain.

 

[7hm]

The trick to crawl is surviving long enough to find what the RNG will give you.

You'll get something soon enough. Just live long enough to make it.

Do you have conjure flame? Sticky flame + conjure flame will rape yaks.

 

[Ashery]

Using that +0, +1 trident beats the hell out of using a mace you have no skill in. Hell, my current naga was using that exact trident beyond the 14th level.

The mace could still be useful for panic blinking/teleporting, but beyond that, stick to polearms if you're planning on meleeing even moderate threats.

 

[Yeesh]

I don't think you should think of Chei Nagas as losing less than other combos from dropping in speed. Being at normal Naga speed still allows you to do some useful tactical movement - you only lose conventional matched-speed escapes on normal speed enemies. Chei's piety goes up so fast with only one ponderized piece of gear that you can still bend time and slouch quite a bit and save trying to go quasi-immobile with ALL ponderous gear for the late late game when you have semi-controlled or controlled blinks. But a 1-ponderous naga is slow enough that tactical movement is really restricted and you can easily take one step against a fast enemy and they hit you three-four times.

Well, I don't really know what the difference in speed is for each ponderous item, since the game sort of hides the ball where speed is concerned, but again I feel that a naga's base speed is so terrible that mobility is no great loss. You don't just lose against normal creatures but slow creatures as well, because a naga starts out covering ground very slowly. I haven't tried it, but I wonder if casting Swiftness would only take a naga to normal?

Anywho, while other approaches might work hard to try and compensate for this glaring weakness, Chei turns it into an advantage. Nagas Slouch best and gain piety like crazy, and not moving in combat isn't so bad when you've got the stealth to pick your engagements. And then throw in this Warper stuff, and then throw in Chei's very expensive but novel escape mechanism, and you're cooking. Theoretically.

The other thing Chei brings to the table is stats. I know 2 of them don't matter quite as much, but a +10 to Int is really going to make a difference in what you can cast. I noticed a change just from going from +3 to +6, so I think Nipsy will actually be an effective caster if she ever finds a helmet. If a barding were to appear, forget about it. And while Dex and Str ain't all that, having +10 to each is probably pretty helpful if it comes down to having to whack a monster here or there.

I think in terms of +10 because you generally, eventually find the more common 4 slots' worth of items. Not that Nipsy's been so lucky.

The trick to crawl is surviving long enough to find what the RNG will give you.

You'll get something soon enough. Just live long enough to make it.

Do you have conjure flame? Sticky flame + conjure flame will rape yaks.

I do indeed. Sticky Flame is frighteningly awesome by itself, and if something stands in the flame too, it's curtains for them. But I do need to find some other school of magic as a backup soon...

Using that +0, +1 trident beats the hell out of using a mace you have no skill in. Hell, my current naga was using that exact trident beyond the 14th level.

The mace could still be useful for panic blinking/teleporting, but beyond that, stick to polearms if you're planning on meleeing even moderate threats.

I was chastened and I learned my lesson. Nips carries the mace but doesn't smack anybody with it. If it comes down to melee she switches. The reason I'm so scared of the packs in the lair is that I've been killing stuff purely with magic, and obviously her MP cannot support taking that approach with 4 or 5 monsters in a row, even if they obligingly line up in a corridor. But then speaking of...

I'm at the point where Bolt of Fire and Fireball are getting to almost maybe somewhat castable. Which one really brings the awesome?