Fastest method to train basic pets (dogs, raccoons, cats etc)

[sylph]

Hi folks!
What's the fastest method to train basic companions? It's the one part of ADOM I've always had absolutely terrible luck at. My go-to method has been to tame an animal, trigger a wilderness encounter, kill all the hyenas or whatever except the last few wounded ones, then take a step so that my companion shows up, but it seems to take forever just to get it to level 2-3 times, and it's still too weak to really defend itself in a dungeon...

What's the fastest way to, say, get a pet big dog to a decent enough level where it can kill werewolves and ogres and things?

[Blank4u47]

I used this method with my ME farmer; take dog to teryino kill children/ good wives, then farmers with it, take to smc then let it kill everything while you are still lvl 1. This should get it to a pretty high lvl. Then Proceed to VD/DD.

[sylph]

I think my difficulty is doing it without the smc. For most characters companions come when you're higher than level 1. I typically get my first decent companion somewhere between level 6 and level 12. I can get it a few levels on wilderness squares, but before long it's stopped really levelling, and I start taking it into dungeons.

Typically, a pet will kill every monster I order it to in a single turn, but at some point a monster that I totally thought it could defeat will just insta-kill it.
For example, I just lost an experienced pet that was dealing out 4 attacks doing about 8-40 damage, to a giant ant warrior!
If I've spent 45 minutes helping feed this thing xp and it still can't kill a giant ant warrior, I feel there must be a faster way of doing this?

[Blank4u47]

Sometimes you need to pick and choose your companions opponents. Giant ant warriors are pretty deadly to companions with less than 9pv. It'd be quicker to get them to experienced then have them kill jackal summons instead of giant ant warriors.

As for lvl 1 chars, if you have the gold, you can always buy a beggar companion with food. Or if you're lucky with food shop and get a couple fresh meats you can feed wild cats with it (or was that cave tiger/lion?)

[JellySlayer]

I think my difficulty is doing it without the smc. For most characters companions come when you're higher than level 1. I typically get my first decent companion somewhere between level 6 and level 12. I can get it a few levels on wilderness squares, but before long it's stopped really levelling, and I start taking it into dungeons.

Typically, a pet will kill every monster I order it to in a single turn, but at some point a monster that I totally thought it could defeat will just insta-kill it.
For example, I just lost an experienced pet that was dealing out 4 attacks doing about 8-40 damage, to a giant ant warrior!
If I've spent 45 minutes helping feed this thing xp and it still can't kill a giant ant warrior, I feel there must be a faster way of doing this?

If you're up to level 6-12 already, is there any reason you couldn't use a stronger pet to start with? Is this for some specific challenge?

If your pet has decent PV and you have a light source, gremlin cave is probably okay for this.

I'm pretty sure that pet XP is essentially independent of the monster that they kill, btw. Killing 100 jackals is better than killing 3 balors.

[Soirana]

The fastest way would be having heal/cure wound spellbook and concentration...

[sylph]

Can you ellaborate?

[Blank4u47]

Can you ellaborate?

Pretty sure soirana is pointing out that it speeds up training pets if you heal them because you don't need to wait forever for them to heal naturally.

[Soirana]

Can you ellaborate?

It is not a rocket science... You either support the pet or choose one who has decent starting stats (PV, speed and number of attacks are most important, IMHO, aproxim in this order, of course regenerating pet (clay statue, some oozes) is ideal).
~lv20 tiger will probably just die to few fire breaths on him.

[grobblewobble]

One of the strongest possible monsters that can be tamed might be the berserker emperor. They have zero PV, but you could give them a moloch armor and a few other good pieces of equipment before taming them.

[Blasphemous]

I seem to recall Ln and his extremely experienced berserker emp, taking on emperor liches and their summons without batting an eyelash.

[sylph]

I wasn't trying to break the game. Just a much more humble attempt to get a pet that could kill cats without having music, SOFS, necromancy, or midgame treasure. Ended up with one that could clear darkforge with ease, but I'm not sure I want to give up all that tasty xp!

Oh, btw, it's getting a levellup for every steel golem it kills, so the idea of pet kills being independant of monster XP values is probably somewhat wrong. Maybe they just don't get a 'you're too strong for this penalty' or something?