ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi,

I was doing well with my caster class but you know when you start getting further into the game hitting areas where you dont know whats comming then casting can be a big overhead, all be it powerful.

Anyway what would be a really solid longterm choice for a kinda hard hitter solid character race combination if I were to reroll?

To further help anyone asses what would be a good setup for me then consider this:

What put me of melee in various roguelikes was that not far into game you would think your were tough then along comes some speedy ranged/maybe magic user and wham, 2 hits and dead before you can get near them, also consider some situations where there are multiplee caster mobs...........what kind of tactics do people with melee based characters employ to deal with the more tactical enemies who will not face you blow for blow? e.g do you always have some ranged weapon? How feasible is a ranged weapon on a primary melee character when there are mutiple primary emey ranged mobs all over you?

Been playing many differant RLs at the momment so the whole caster master mentality is away now

A rohanknight assassin is a nice combo, where the various disadvantages cancels each other out.

Lots of speed, okay hitdices, good stats, combined with the assassins stealth. This very quickly makes sure of you only having to deal with one monster at a time.

Thanks! rolling that race class combo know. Just seems like a nice adaptable mix of things which is good!

Zombie RohanKnight Swordmaster is the standard overpowered fighter. Worship Tulkas for the to-hit advantages, Melkor for Curse (my preference), or use Antimagic to neutralize spellcasters.

Trolls and ents are more powerful, but the speed boost of a RK is better.

In terms of tactics, you need to learn how to use the terrain to avoid getting surrounded. Of course RKs can blink away from trouble. The RK light attack gets to be effective at clearing out vermin and mobs, but don't expect it to help with an undead pit.

Most people would agree that in many circumstances Mindcraft is overpowered. You could feasibly create a RohanKnight Mindcrafter and throw some points into swordmastery just in case you run into a Flying Skull or something.

My personal preference for overpowered goodness is Ent Swordmaster with Antimagic. The Ent has incredible hit dice and cannot be stunned -- so no more worrying about being knocked out by mystics. Antimagic makes you immune to all distance attacks (which matter) except breaths. The only disadvantage is the low speed at the beginning (-1 with appropriate Tactics settings), but you can easily compensate for that with some artifacts which are guaranteed early finds.

You'll also have to use a Dark Sword (+0,+0) which limits your damage a little bit compared to other weapons, but I've never found it to be a problem.

If you want to go with Mindcrafting, pick a Paladin instead of a Mindcrafter. Paladins get Mindcrafting at only .1 less than Mindcrafters do, while getting better Combat/Weaponmastery rates and a much better Prayer rate. Sure you're "stuck" with Tulkas, but he's the warrior's best friend anyway since you get the always-useful Stone Prison spell. Melkor's auto-cast Curse is pretty obscenely powerful too, but ToME tosses you into too many situations where you need to be able to make your own walls.

For tanking, pick a Zombie or Skeleton, and find a class with plenty of constitution and hit dice.

Mindcraft isn't so much overpowered (at high levels anyway) as excessively useful; it gives you tons of very cheap utility spells. IMHO it wouldn't be hard to balance it by making the spells cost more as they get more powerful.

For power though, it has absolutely nothing on school spells. Not when e.g. Fireflash and Manathrust can do 1000+ damage per hit.