Have some questions

[menkaure]

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie at portralis, and could use some advice. I've been playing monster race lesser demons, and I'm still getting the hang of things, but here are my questions:

When can I evolve from a lesser demon to something else, and what triggers this? Dungeon level, or character level?

Would it be beneficial for me as a monster to use actual weapons instead of the innate attacks? If so, should I put skill points into the swords skill(assuming I am using a sword), or into martial arts to boost damage(since I am a monster)?

How do I improve my armor? I have noticed that if I wear body armor, my mana, and sometimes AC actually go down. Even with very light body armor such as clothes from the general store, yet I seem not to have any problem with peripheral armor like gloves, boots, and cloaks. Will investing more into the defense skill help?

Also, this is not so much a question as it is a suggestion. Owing to my newbieness, I often get killed and resurrected in the buff. Since I don't have any money and overland is a pain in the neck, I often don't bother returning to town, but just go back into the dungeon until I get through. When I get hungry, I kill something and hack some meat off it's corpse. When I am in the ruins quest, the monsters are all undead. I have still been able to hack into and eat meat from zombies and walking corpses with no ill effects. Now I am not thinking this is quite right. These are rotting corpses brought to life by dark magic. I doubt they would be very healthy things to eat, so maybe they should be made poisonous, or cause some other ill effect if you eat them?

Thanks in advance.

[Variaz]

If you wonder how come you can eat zombies without getting poisoned, perhaps reading my signature will help. ;D

Weapons vs Natural attacks? That depends on the monster you're playing. If you're playing, let's say, a Dragon Caller, then your melee is extremely weak(did I even give her a melee attack at all?), so a weapon would be good. In fact, a weapon can be good for most humanoid monsters. As for losing AC when wearing armor, you get extra AC from Martial Arts if you don't wear armor. You lose it when you wear one. To make up for it, yes, you can increase Defense. I suggest a mix of Agility and Defense for maximum results though. Some experiments revealed that raising both is more effective in having high AC that raising only one of them.

Lesser demons right now currently requires 50% more levels, the original idea being that Greater Demons will be so powerful that it has to take more experience, so evolution will take more time. In the current release, Lesser Demons are probably not worth it as a Monster choice. But for the next release, I've decided to make Greater Demons unplayable, and remove the 50% extra requirement. Lesser Demons will actually be very powerful later on though. Greater Demons(or Archfiends as I like to call them) won't be random enemies. They'll be Unique NPCs only.

Dragons will keep the 50% thing. They'll be the only ones. And really, really powerful dragons won't be playable either, as the maximum playable depth for dragons will be 66. Ancient Dragons will appear at dungeon level 50, so at 65 or 66, it will probably be something like Elder Dragons or Great Wyrms, though I wonder if Great Wyrms should even be random enemies, for the same reasons as Archfiends... There aren't THAT many Great Wyrms you know...

[menkaure]

Ah, I'm god-like, that explains everything.
Thanks for the advice.