Kingdom of Loathing November IotM

This month in the Kingdom of Loathing we saw the release of the Nanorhino, a new familiar you can buy with a Mr. Accessory.

Cute little bugger.
I named mine Rhymenocerous.

I've always wanted to do some reviews for the Items of the Month for Kingdom of Loathing, because I love that game and I've always wanted to contribute back to it in some way. I'd also like to tip the scales back in a better direction after some other blogs just trash everything Asymmetric releases. So, how does the Nanorhino compare to other IOTM of past?

Let's talk about it's abilities first. The Nanorhino acts as a full weight Barrrnacle and will sometimes delevel your opponents at the beginning of a fight alleviating some of the difficulty of fights. He will also sometimes attack in combat with elemental damage, but from what I've seen the damage is mostly negligible. The Nanorhino also gains a charge after each combat of 2% (3% if you have his familiar equipment) and when it reaches 100% it endows you with a buff dependent on what type of skill you use when it's at it's full charge. It also starts each new day after rollover with a full charge.

What do these buffs do? When you use a muscle based skill, such as Lunging-Thrust Smack as a Seal Clubber or Headbutt as a Turtle Tamer, you'll be imbued with Nanobrawny. When using a mysticality based skill, such as Cannelloni Cannon as a Pastamancer or Saucestorm as a Sauceror, you're enchanted with Nanobrainy. And finally when using moxie based attacks, such Sing as a Accordion Thief or Disco Dance of Doom as a Disco Bandit, you'll be blessed with Nanoballsy.

Each of these buffs offer moderate bonuses, but the real benefits of these buffs are triggered when you use the ability "Unleash Nanites". This familiar is actually comparable to the He-Boulder from August of 2009, but instead of having to read the He-Bo's combat message to determine which ability you could trigger, the Nanorhino allows you to choose which ability you'd like to use if you have the skills to trigger the one you want. Just like the He-Bo, there is a major effect tied to using "Unleash Nanites" and a minor effect, the major effect only working if you have 40 or more charges of the buff active, and the minor effect triggering if you have 39 or fewer turns of the buff remaining. Nanoballsy is the outlier, as it's major effect will not actually work if you have any turns of the buff "Everything Looks Yellow".

For Nanobrawny, when you use "Unleash Nanites", it permanently banishes an enemy from an area. You can only have one enemy banished in this way at a time, so when you banish a new enemy the old one will return. The minor effect is that it will drain some HP from the enemy and heal you.

For Nanobrainy, the major effect is that it turns the enemy into a Grey Goo monster, whom gives fairly good stats upon defeat, similar in function to the Mini-Hipster and Artistic Goth Kid, but this combat is not a free one. The minor effect is that it deals damage to the enemy and restores some of your MP.

For Nanoballsy, it's major effect is that it acts as a Yellow Ray, instantly destroying the monster and forcing it to drop all it's non-conditional drops, meaning that it will drop anything that it will normally drop in a fight that doesn't require something to be done to get that item to drop. It's minor effect is another delevel and it restores some HP and MP.

So, what's my opinion on the familiar? It's good for people who don't have access to the Yellow Ray ability, but at this point there is a wealth of options for that (He-Bo, Pumpkins, Tome of Clip Art). The banisher is also good, but once again, there are a lot of things that already allow you to do something like that. I guess it should be noted that this is the first familiar that allows you to banish monsters. It's other ability, turning monsters into the Grey Goo creatures, is interesting but I think it might be difficult for low skilled players to defeat these monsters. Moderate skilled players should have no trouble, and for high skilled players, these fights are absolutely trivial.

Another thing I would like to mention is that in order to gain the Nano buff one must use an ability in combat that is based on the type of buff you want as I previously mentioned. This is no problem for someone with combat skills from each class permanently on their character, but for new and low skilled players they'll only have access to one of the buff types per run until they get some more skills under their belt.

So, if you don't access to Yellow Rays or Banishers, or your just a new player looking for ways to make your runs easier, I highly recommend this Item of the Month. If you already have access to these skills, there are easier ways of using them with past IOTM's, so this one isn't quite as critical. Turning monsters into Grey Goo is definitely interesting, but so far it looks like you only get some stats from the fight.