Hurth Monk (personal best 35114 turns)

[prime]

I think it's because there's two priorities for healing - one if your health is <25&#37;, which takes precedence over pickaxes, and one if your health is <75%, which doesn't. The problem is that being around 50% is enough to get you instakilled on a lot of characters so you really can't afford to wait until 25%.

[SirTheta]

Also, a pickaxe requires your piety be at least very close (iirc). Since I had crowned moments before the tower, my piety had not had much time to decay.