Spell books for casting classes?

[melphen]

I've been playing around with casting classes and with VERY mixed results largely based on the spell books I come across. Characters that just get healing spells and the like live for a while, but always die because they have no way to do real damage at a certain level. I've only had one character really get a bunch of spells with damage rolls and the game crashed out from under him on D:27.

So where are the spells coming from? What am I missing here that is making this the challenge it is? I really don't want to have to grind my way through I:1 - I:6 or 10 to try to get to spell books and frankly feel that grinding takes away from a game and shows poor game design if you have to grind to play the game
(read: Having to grind pisses me off a lot). There is already a little grinding in ADOM from time to time, but at least it doesn't really feel that way because you are going to a new place that matters to do it. Digging around the infinite dungeon for blink dogs sucks bad enough, please tell me there is a good way to play a caster without grinding.

[plllizzz9]

Easy, even as a spellcaster, don't focus on spellcasting. Grab a decent weapon, armor and shield [basically guaranteed from SMC], some ranged weapons and focus on your spells to serve a supporting role till you find more books. Ultimate cosmic power comes in mid-game, when you overflow with loot, a big part of that is spellbooks for main-casting classes.

[mjkittredge]

You've just had bad luck. You can reroll right away if you get a caster without an offensive spell. It's pretty common to get bolt spells or burning hands with most.

Remember (if you have enough food) to walk around "Strained" to increase your strength into the teens. 17-18 str can be gotten with "Strained!" but drop off the excess stuff when in danger. This works good if you finish the Kranach quest and can buy out the rations from Munxip.

And use a weapon and shield & ranged weapon like bow/crossbow as much as safely possible too. Train up your fighting skills on the weaker enemies and then use spells on the stronger ones.

[Moeba]

Or play a necromancer, guaranteed frost bolt. Or a druid, guaranteed lightning bolt. Or an elementalist, guaranteed burning hands. According to the wiki, even wizards have one guaranteed offensive spell.
So unless you play priests, this should not be a problem.

[JellySlayer]

Easy, even as a spellcaster, don't focus on spellcasting. Grab a decent weapon, armor and shield [basically guaranteed from SMC], some ranged weapons and focus on your spells to serve a supporting role till you find more books. Ultimate cosmic power comes in mid-game, when you overflow with loot, a big part of that is spellbooks for main-casting classes.

This is the key. Especially in the early game, and especially as a priest or druid, you need to conserve your offensive spell castings. These spellbooks are somewhat uncommon for divine casters, so you can't use them to kill every rat and goblin. Train up weapons and missiles just like normal, except use your spells to clear big groups or particularly dangerous monsters. As the game progresses, you'll eventually end up with more than enough spellbooks.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Also take into account the following:

- Not all classes tend to find the same amount of spellbooks. Wizards and necromancers find the largest amount of books, by far. It's really a big difference. Elementalists, despite being casters, find very few books. Wizard is ADOM easy mode.
- Arcane casters find more arcane spells, clerical casters find more clerical spells.
- The treasure hunter talent will significantly increase the amount of spellbooks that you find, as with the other loot.

[JellySlayer]

I think Priests and Druids find the same number of books as Wizards and Necro (although I think it's fair to say that divine casters find poorer quality spellbooks overall...)