Your favorite Variant

[Nero]

I am looking for a variant. Please tell me your favorite variant and why, I want a little more flavor, more races, classes, items, etc.

[EpicMan]

-Lots of races, some of whom play quite differently (android, specter)
-Lots of classes, and a number of spell schools to further specialize
-optionally further specialize your character with a personality (defensive, offensive, combat-focused, etc)

-Multiple towns and dungeons
-Really fun quest levels
-Weapon and spell proficiencies - use a weapon or spell a lot and you will get better with it.

[Zikke]

I like FAangband because Nick has made the itemization and spell system very interesting and fun. And the First Age only thing is pretty neat for lore reasons, though I've never actually read the Silmarillion (but I just bought it on eBay and it's in the mail! So excited)

I also like PosBand because you can play monster races (including a "Q") and the different monsters can fight each other, which is fun. And it has a Soul race where you can possess the corpses of things you kill.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Nero

I am looking for a variant. Please tell me your favorite variant and why, I want a little more flavor, more races, classes, items, etc.

Did you try a search? The search function isn't great, but there are so many old threads comparing the features of different variants that you really didn't need to post this.

[d_m]

I like Hellband and Steamband for their totally different takes on Angband (Dante's Inferno and Steampunk, respectively).

I still have a huge soft spot for the first variant I played, Cthangband (now Scthangband) just for adding in all the Cthulhu-mythos and being really strange/hard. Those variants have been dormant a long time though.

Despite it being kind of sprawling I do like ToME just for how huge and crazy it is. That said I don't envy the maintainers of it.

Finally I have been playing Un and FA a lot recently, and would definitely recommend those.

That said, I miss many of the newer V features (monster list, item list, lack of *identify*) in most variants--one of the benefits of playing Un, FA, Daj, or other "newer" variants is that they tend to have (or absorb) more of those features.

[Tatami]

Hellband will always have a place in my desolate black eart because I love the source material and it is very well excecuted by konjin_. The run through dis is easily one of the funnest experiences one can have in a roguelike.

I guess I should say Hengband though becuase after beating vanilla and hellband 6 months ago it is all I have been playing. Really enjoying the J-madness amid the accelarated chardeath.

[Taw]

Hellband is made of awesome thanks to, in part, the themed levels and huge number of uniques (I generally treat them with a "gotta catch 'em all" mentality) keeping things interesting. Gets pretty tough around mid-game, though.

I love TOME and Fury's sprawling quality; it's a lot more interesting to dive to level 70 in three different dungeons with different flavors than to scum level 70 three times in a single dungeon. (In the interest of full disclosure, the sheer brokenness of Fury in particular allows me to reach Moria with reasonable regularity, whereas in harder variants I generally die in the teens at best. Let me tell you, Jedi and SoulKnives are awesome.)

Steamband has a really interesting theme. And pants. Do any other *bands have pants? There's a neat skill system there, too.

As a huge Silmarillion person, I love FA in theory, and what I've seen of it is really nifty with some unusual takes on gameplay stuff, but at this point in time it's way too hard for me.

(ETA: I mean SoulKnives, not Mindblades. Mindblades is a skill, not a class.)

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Nero

I am looking for a variant. Please tell me your favorite variant and why, I want a little more flavor, more races, classes, items, etc.

I'm pretty sure this is the given description of DaJ. It's like Vanilla, but different. Experience life as a golem for a change, a melee heavy character with no HP regeneration.

[Zikke]

Originally Posted by d_m

That said, I miss many of the newer V features (monster list, item list, lack of *identify*) in most variants--one of the benefits of playing Un, FA, Daj, or other "newer" variants is that they tend to have (or absorb) more of those features.

I think this is the main reason that I keep going back to V. You get used to the really nice features in the new versions of V and then you don't have some or most of them in the variants.

[NotMorgoth]

Sangband, because I love the way it has a complex and flexible skill system without fixed 'character classes,' but keeps the simple V-style dungeon without wildernesses, multiple towns etc.