| Summoned Creatures List |
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This only deals with summons available to starting parties
(elf, wizard, dwarf and knight) There are 10 (villain?) summons available to starting parties. Summoned creatures are found on portal weapons. So you can have a two handed portal weapon, a portal weapon and a normal weapon or (if you are lucky) two portal weapons. Throughout this, the term "weapon" shall be used, this refers to items held in the hand, and so includes both hand to hand and ranged weapons, as well as shields. Portal weapons operate as normal weapons but they allow you to gain a specific summon. A summoned creature can’t be equipped with any magic items found, costs no command, and is respawned after every battle. Therefore summoned creatures are designed for suicidal manoeuvres (if a summon survives a battle and someone else didn’t then something has probably gone wrong). In general a one handed portal weapon is amongst the best items you can find (except items with advanced spells or high stat increasers), even a Goblin can help out your party. Summons can loosely be divided into four groups (well, that’s my opinion anyway, and it's my guide, so ha!). Group 1: FodderThe main use for fodder varies depending on which party it is in. If you are short of trap finders then the summon can run through all the doors, grab all the treasure, and generally die without actually being attacked by enemies. If your party has find trap members (especially so in the case of elves), then fodder can be used to distract attacks (running it into the centre of the room to distract the enemy while you pick them off), or used solo to explore in one direction whilst everyone else goes the other way. Also, fodder can absorb curse spells (which reduce defence to 1) that would otherwise severely weaken the main party members. Good examples of fodder are the goblin, orc, ghoul and (in crypt) scorpion. Group 2: BackupThis group is used pretty much like pikemen, archers and such. The main use is to attack the enemy after they have been reduced in size. It doesn’t matter if they take some damage because it speeds up the clearing out of enemies. Knight parties below level 10 can benefit most from this as they tend to be very slow at doing damage but impervious to damage in return. The spider and slime are particularly good at this as (like pikemen) they have a range of two and they also have +1 to hit. Good backup are (as mentioned) the slime and spider, as well as the villain, ghoul and troll. Group 3: BlockerThis is the role of guards, duellists and anyone with enough mist armour. They stand at the front and absorb lots of damage whilst the enemy get pummelled (by magic spells, arrows, crossbow bolts, pikes or the blockers themselves). Any of the summons can be used in this role with enough mist armour on. But 4 mist armours on a goblin is rather a waste of useful spells. Knights and dwarves are less needy of blockers as most of their members can qualify for the role and they tend to be short of many mist armour spells, elves and wizards are therefore much more suited to using summons this way (though that doesn’t mean a dwarf should overlook the potential of a slime). The slime is extremely good at this as it resists everything except spells and crypt boss attacks, as well as having the highest defence amongst the summons (6 defence!!), the villain is also useful, as are the scorpion (occasionally), the skeleton and wraith (who resist missile attacks, so are useful in the caves), and the troll (due to his high life blood and powerful attacks). Group 4: MagesA fairly self explanatory name. This is the wraith and the slime. The wraith is offensive, the slime defensive. The wraith, being losable, is better at this than mage hirelings, a flamejet to clear little goblins (or whatever) out of the way, an incinerate on the boss and then a nova as the enemies close in, then the wraith can be considered fodder (in the unlikely event that he’s still alive). The slime can be used as a blocker (above) but with healing spells so the party can regroup and recover (especially in dwarf and knight parties, where healing is at a premium). This way the party is unlikely to get anyone killed. Special Note: ScorpionThe scorpion is a special summon. Unlike all the others it does a specialist damage, poison. If it was fire or evil it would be easy but all undead (skeletons, bone soldiers, bone casters, skeleton mages, crypt kings and death kings) resist poison. Therefore, in the crypt (1 and 2) the only things a scorpion can harm are the zombies and (in crypt 2) the ghouls. This makes for a fairly useless summon.However, in temple 2 there are enemies called slimes and, like the summon of the same name, they resist close range and missile attacks, the only way to kill them is with special damage or magic. For elves this isn’t too bad as many of them have a sprite spell and half the slimes only have 1 LB (resulting in around a third of the slimes on the level being killed), if a party has a fire blade spell (or, if they are lucky, a hell blade spell from a powerful item), they can have one of their party as a slime hunter. However, for non-leather knights and dwarves this helpful situation doesn’t always arise, and so a scorpion summon can mean the difference between a futile withdraw from a solitary slime blocking a passage and glorious victory, plus the slimes can be worth 9 experience each. BestiaryAnd here it is, a vague description of the 10 summons: Goblin Fairly worthless, 3 LB means only a vague hope of doing more than taking out a trap or two or distracting an enemy (though they are okay against fellow goblins) Orc Exactly the same as the goblin except that he has an extra LB, still fairly worthless. Troll A massive 8 Life Blood and 2 attacks at +2 to hit with wound make this a powerful summon. With some mist armour and a thorn blade on it can handle anything except a boss, mage or slime with relative ease, so it can fit many roles. Unfortunately, with a move of 4 it tends to lag behind, particularly in elf parties. Skeleton Fairly rubbish in combat (only the wraith and slime can be said to be worse), but a resistance to missile weapons means a good distraction to archers. A high defence (5) makes it a potential blocker. Speed is (like the troll) a let down, and it can’t be healed using Life Blade. Overall slightly better than the goblin. Ghoul Like the orc except an extra Life Blood (putting it on 5) and Wound ability. Best against small groups of moderate enemies (such as orcs or bone soldiers), due to wound ability it is better against enemies with an even LB (no use doing 4 damage to a 3 LB enemy when you can do 4 damage to a 4 LB enemy). A lesser version of the troll. Wraith The weakest fighter, but the only offensive mage. Unfortunately this means that, after three spells it is worse than the goblin, still, with a potential 9 damage to an enemy, only the final boss can survive its onslaught. Also, like the skeleton it resists missile attacks, so (with it’s low defence and LB) it is a great absorber of missile fire (those goblins just keep on shooting). Can’t be healed with Life Blade (not that it is really designed for long term fighting). Scorpion As already noted it’s poison attack means that it can’t damage undead but can damage slimes. Otherwise a slightly better version of the orc (1 extra LB and an extra Defence). Spider With a range of 2 this is a really useful summon, a move of 6 means it can keep pace with elven parties and scout around other parties, a fairly good Life Blood means that it can survive stray attacks from enemy archers or devious traps, but it doesn’t function well as a blocker without mist armour. Slime With the highest defence amongst the summons, and resistance to all physical attacks, plus healing spells, this is the ultimate in blocker. Its lack of speed means that it slows down elven parties when used for this role and its weak attack means that it needs backup to kill things within a few turns, traps are a problem, as are enemy spell casters (mainly in crypt 2 and Underworld), but if it can retain a high life blood even spell casters will tend not to hit it with spells. If you are fortunate enough to get two slimes you’ll have an easy job in the caves and temple levels! Villain The best attacker in the group, plus a fairly good defence (second only to the slime), makes the villain a perfect choice for backup, plus a good solo character in his own right (due to his To Hit he’s guaranteed to kill any non-underworld underlings except dusk scorpions, ogres, slimes and war orcs in one blow). This is the main reason I’m dubious about his availability to first round parties. |
