Dungeon Crawl Reference

Okay, closing then. New comments on necro/Kiku are welcome, but we won't
allow zombie herding anymore. It's just not fun.

Nah, discard, i misread. It is even commented as // HACK: there.

Eino: Peeked into code, first 3 books seem 10-20 points lower than i
suggested. Altar prayer @ piety 160 seem to work only when
!you.num_gifts[GOD_KIKUBAAQUDGHA] ... so if you received at least one of
the 3 other books (rather likely) then no choice of BOOK_NECRONOMICON or
pain brand blessing offered. I may be misread, but ... did you try that it
works?

Kiku currently does grant the books in the same manner as kotk suggests.
(Not sure what the precise piety threshold numbers are). Also, Kiku does
grant the 'nomicon - the final gift is a pick between pain-branding a
weapon and the book.

--Eino

You mean in trunk? As i understand it correctly then Kiku has been nerfed
there so he does not give necronomicon anymore and so i have avoided trunk
Kiku.

Kiku gives book of necromancy at *.

This is other issue with Kiku (when i last tried), that he did give all the
books at piety 160+ in rapid sequence. I think it would be nice if he
would give books like (tweak piety levels):
50: NECROMANCY
90: DEATH
130: UNLIFE
170: NECRONOMICON
Then bolt of draining is yours at piety ~90 and that is reasonable by
D:10.

OK, I'm yet to play latest trunk. Will try it out...

BUT, in regard to the earlier comment, I think its BS to say any temple
god class can get to exalted by dungeon lvl10, and hence get Book of Death
(unless you find the Lair first, OM is too risky atm).

Meriander

By Andy:

Since Kiku now gifts corpses, anyone with high piety, a good supply of
food (or playing as a Mummy or Vampire) and the "Animate Dead" spell can
summon a veritable army. Keeping the player's undead from leaving the
level they are spawned on prevents Kiku from being too overpowered. I mean
it: I created a mini-army in Wizard Mode of more than 40 zombies a couple
of weeks ago, just to see how many are possible. Suffice to say, THAT
level was quickly and brutally cleansed of everything but me and my undead;
there were so many zombies that they killed everything before I could even
get close!

By level 10, Bolt of Draining should be usable. Whatever boosts Necromancer
may need after the zombie change, we will not go back to zombie herding.