Best race/class combo to win with?

[Sky]

you would take kobold rogue over half-orc rogue ???

pls don't say it's because of the rPois ..

[Pete Mack]

The rpois is nice. The early stealth is nicer.

[brbrbr]

Kobold because of stealth.
Rogue playstile is "come, see, steal", which requires stealth.
Half-orc style is "come, see, brawl", which is more aligned with warrior.

The other small thing is using devices, I get frustrated if using staff or rod fails, for that reason I do not choose Half-Troll or Half-Orc for warrior.
That is personal preference, though.

[Mondkalb]

Hobbit Rogue has even more stealth.

[Sky]

half orc is my preferred race for just about everything; the rDark means you don't get blinded by dark hounds and elf wizard-thingies, because they use specifically a dark attack (blind traps still blind you). the +2 STR is really helpful at the beginning and neither the stats nor the XP penalty are bad (no DEX penalty like the dwarf and HT have, no STR penalty like hobbits and kobolds, no ridiculous 200% XP like the dunedain).

see, when i play rogue, i find i really just need one spell - detect object. Sure i like to be able to cast Identify and maybe even Teleport Other, but by the time i'm CL33, i can wait around for some stat potions, get a helm of INT, maybe even store at home a ring of INT. Endgame rogues have 300sp regardless of the starting stats, and you don't rely on TO as much as a Mage does.

for warriors, i generally prefer dunedain because of the stat bonus. There's no need for a warrior to rush to the high levels as around CL30 you are already hitting near your potential, but the DEX/CON bonus really helps cap everything in the endgame.

I also use dunedain for mages, because of the CON bonus. The lack of SI really hurts in the beginning, but you're gonna grind the beginning anyway, so ...




even though lately i've come to appreciate more the usefulness of stealth, i'm still not a stealth player. i'm just not going to sneak by that greater wyrm, i can either kill it, or i need to leave. i'd rather use patience and the behaviour of the dungeon to get what i need.

[Pete Mack]

@sky--
Legendary stealth is essentially a zero-fail for rogues. I once snuck through a small room with 3 sleeping high level monsters, including Huan (mostly because I could.) Very good stealth (Heroic or better) gives you almost complete control of gameplay. It is very, very powerful. And good to_hit combined with 5x (hero/berserk/haste/shield/resistances) makes for powerful melee. (Yeah, rangers eventually get Rune as well, but their melee sucks.)

[SethaWetha]

Originally Posted by Estie

If you want to stick with mage, high elf has more hit points than gnome, though it still takes a while to get to the critical ~650 mark where youre all but safe from 1-shot.

I took your advice but chose half-elf mage which has the same hit points as high-elf but not the xp penalty. I'm happy to say I won my first game!

[Pete Mack]

Half-elf is a hard choice, actually! Half-elf has serious stat issues. I don't find the high elf EXP penalty to be an issue until pretty late in the game (sometime after cl 35.)

[SethaWetha]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Half-elf is a hard choice, actually! Half-elf has serious stat issues. I don't find the high elf EXP penalty to be an issue until pretty late in the game (sometime after cl 35.)

The EXP penalty was actually somewhat annoying to me at the beginning with high-elf. It wasn't bad, but I was used to leveling up faster. After getting to around DL40 with under 200hp was really bad though, I have hundreds of hours in Moria so I just played slowly and strategically. Only had about 2-3 close calls. After I got my CON maxed I got some good gear and ended up with 910hp just before Sauron and Morgoth

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Half-elf is a hard choice, actually! Half-elf has serious stat issues. I don't find the high elf EXP penalty to be an issue until pretty late in the game (sometime after cl 35.)

Half-Elf got its stats improved awhile back. It's still not what I'd consider especially great, but their HP is now only a little under par instead of being really substantially penalized like it used to be.