Repairing Skeletons

[Turos Kensei]

If my skeletons get a broken part from battle, are they just screwed? I have all these bones in storage and I was figuring I could use them to replace broken limbs/skulls but I don't see a way to do that. Is there no way to recover them or do I just have to trash them? So far I just put all my collapsed warriors on guard duty and they just crawl around patrolling.

[di eshor ribly]

In unmodded play the wounded undead are just kept around as cannon fodder, or Swarming boosters.

With mods, there are the "Sew it Back" and "Lost Tomes" mods, both of which have a repair spell similar to gnomes for their automatons. Sew It Back is just the repair spell, Lost Tomes adds magical grimoires in the game that can teach the reader spells, in addition to the repair the Necromancy tome (and necromancer keeper by default) also get a pet skeleton that follows them around and fights on their behalf. If you choose to use these mods, only use one of them. They don't exactly play well together.

Edit: If you choose to use Lost Tomes, keep an eye on your Keeper's pet skeleton. I've noticed it has a tendency to, erm, steal all of your gold and carry it around. The pet can get pretty strong too, so killing it to retrieve your gold can be hazardous. Once killed, a new pet will spawn some turns later. Keep your Keeper busy and away from your gold treasury (poetry table helps).

[Turos Kensei]

Yeah outside humor does the poetry serve a purpose?

[di eshor ribly]

Originally posted by Turos Kensei:

Yeah outside humor does the poetry serve a purpose?

Yes, actually. It's a debuff for enemies. Your Keeper's poetry is so bad that just hearing it saps their will to live. They'll lose a couple points of attack/defense for a few turns.

Edit: Oh yeah, sometimes you'll randomly summon a demon through poetry too. The humanoid ones usually have an enchanted weapon (-of bleeding, -of collapse, -of poison), or are a mount. They can be fairly strong, but only last a couple hundred turns before going back to Hell.

Edit two: Strategically speaking, the poetry table is also great for knowing where your Keeper is. The Fine Arts task is pretty high priority, so your Keeper will spend most of their time in their poetry room, safe, and not wandering around punching minions in the back of the head. Their odds of being killed by a random enemy while you're not paying attention drops significantly.

[Turos Kensei]

Do we ever get better at it at least? Like a hidden art stat?

[di eshor ribly]

Nah, Keepers don't really get better at it, but there is a chance to make various tiers of poetry, I can't remember the names of the tiers off the top of my head (not enough caffeine yet), but there are something like 4 tiers.

[Jonlissla]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

With mods, there are the "Sew it Back" and "Lost Tomes" mods, both of which have a repair spell similar to gnomes for their automatons. Sew It Back is just the repair spell, Lost Tomes adds magical grimoires in the game that can teach the reader spells

I have the mod installed, but is there a way to make minions autocast it? I'm going to pull my hair if I have to do it manually each time I go on a raid or similar.

Edit: Seems like casters do use it automatically.... sometimes.

[di eshor ribly]

Originally posted by Jonlissla:

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

With mods, there are the "Sew it Back" and "Lost Tomes" mods, both of which have a repair spell similar to gnomes for their automatons. Sew It Back is just the repair spell, Lost Tomes adds magical grimoires in the game that can teach the reader spells

I have the mod installed, but is there a way to make minions autocast it? I'm going to pull my hair if I have to do it manually each time I go on a raid or similar.

Edit: Seems like casters do use it automatically.... sometimes.

It's both a "touch" spell (melee range) and has a long cooldown. My solution for automatic undead repairs was to designate a room (I use an 11x11) as a leisure zone. Minions go there when they're idle, and eventually bump into a zombie mage (I give these Morgue/Alchemy/Darkness basalms, evil clerics!) or my Keeper.