[Frog] Playing Crusade/Trump Priest - I don't get Trump

[GrimaTheBold]

I don't know how to do dump form angband.live, so I'll keep this general. Playing Dwarf - Combat - Priest - Crusade - Trump. Currently CL 27.

I don't really see much value in the Trump side of things and I wonder what I'm missing. Maybe the issue is that I've never gotten much use out of summoning, and that seems to be the main value in Trump. I finally got Phantasmal Servant online, so when tackling Clear the Tunnels I had a couple of servants by my side, but it just didn't feel like they are that useful. Before that I just had Trump Spiders & Kamikaze, but I feel like I'd far rather use those SP on Star Dust or Holy Orb.

Other than that, Trump Spying is nice until you get Thranduil. Phase door/Teleport are nice but not crucial when Crusade has Portal. Basically Trump feels underwhelming, and I'm trying to picture how it will help me get past mid-game.

Right now I'm killing things with melee and the Crusade offensive spells.

Overall Crusade/Trump combo could really use more utility - sucks that no illumination, food creation, detection, mapping, haste, healing, etc. Puts lots of pressure on inventory. Sorcery feels like it would have been a lot more useful.

Also curious if any suggestions on other Priest combos to try.

[Pete Mack]

@Grima-
You're undervaluing temporary ESP. Thranduil just isnt that good a hat, and you are likely to find better soon enough. With unlimited temp ESP, you get a lot of freedom in equipment choice.
While i dont often play Pos derivitatives, I always keep a couple mushrooms in V for the final fight, just in case.

[wobbly]

Trump magic doesn't make much sense unless you are using the summons or are a rogue and mostly just want to carry book 1 and 2. It's not that it lack good spells, book 1 is amazing and book 2 has banishment and dimension door. It's just that sorcery has everything trump has plus more.

[ster]

Every Trump summon spell is pretty bad at being used in combat but summons as a whole are great - once you get Trump Monsters and a few capture balls you have a free path to Oberon, or even winning the game outright.

Also it has the best book 1 out of any class, because telepathy and teleport and teleport other and even a crappy summon since they're sometimes useful are in it.