How big is your character roster?

[Zizzo]

I'm just curious to see if anyone else does this: How many active characters do you currently have? I don't mean how many character types have you ever played; how many characters do you have going now? That is, if I were to look in your .tome/2.2/save/user.your-UID.svg (or whatever it's called in Windows), how many characters would I find described as "is alive"?

See, I used to do this in Angband, switching between characters with the -u option. My stable back then was fairly small: typically a Dwarf Priest, a Human Mage and a Hobbit Warrior. I carried the same habit over into ToME, and it... kind of got out of hand... Lemme show you what I mean; here's my current roster, in order of creation:

• Wood-Elf Archer -- Very first character ever, straight out of the Newbie's Guide.
• Yeek Hermit Sorceror -- I remember examining this combination and deciding that the Hermit and Sorceror INT bonuses would offset the Yeek's INT penalty, and vice versa for experience modifiers. I must have either not noticed that the hit-point penalties all went in the same direction, or decided that it wouldn't be too bad as long as I didn't let anything hit me. Famous last words...
• Dark-Elf Alchemist -- There was, I believe, a discussion on the Forum at the time about alchemy and what it could do, and my curiosity was piqued.
• DeathMold LostSoul Possessor -- Similarly, a discussion on Death Molds had sprung up, and I was curious. This particular combination seemed to be the most common.
• Ent Symbiant -- As I recall, I was reading through the class descriptions, wondering how on earth wearing a mold could be a winning strategy; so I decided to find out. The choice of Ent as race seemed intuitively obvious -- moss growing on trees, that sort of thing.
• Human Mindcrafter -- My Symbiant got Mindcraft as an early Fumblefingers reward and it was enormously useful (this was in 2.1.2, mind), so I decided to try a character based on it.
• Hobbit Summoner -- Again, curiosity; there were some threads on the Forum about pets and such.
• Thunderlord Thaumaturgist -- Around this time, someone had posted a Thaumaturgist winner to the Ladder (I don't recall who) and had claimed that Thaumaturgy was overpowered -- so I decided to see if it was. Must kick in at higher levels; I haven't seen it so far...
• Petty-Dwarf Hermit Runecrafter -- By this point, a couple of my characters had picked up Runecraft from Fumblefingers, hoping to use it for cheap identifying; I was curious whether there was enough there to base an entire character on.
• Half-Ogre Barbarian Swordmaster -- Just wanted a change of pace from all the magic-based characters I had accumulated.
• High-Elf Bard -- The Bard class had, I believe, either been recently re-instated or recently modified at the time; I was curious to see what the fuss was about.
• Vampire Kobold Necromancer -- Yeah, by this point it was getting a bit silly, but this one just kept poking at the corner of my brain going, "Come on, you know you wanna..."

A couple months ago, I succumbed to temptation and added a few more:

• Human Demonologist: Again, idle curiosity; a mostly Swordmaster with some magic on the side sounded interesting.
• Gnome Monk -- I'd been playing my Bards bare-handed (<SPAN VOICE="Austin Powers">"That sounds vaguely dirty..." </SPAN>) and it was fun, so I decided to try the full combo.
• Maia Hermit Sorceror -- I was getting sick of my Yeek Hermit Sorcerors dying all the time, and decided to try something a bit more rugged...

I think my problem is that I never give up on a race/class combo; as soon as a character dies, I start up another just like it, out of sheer cussedness. It's led to quite a stable, though. And the truly sad part is, I'm beginning to feel a Zombie Troll Mimic coming on...

So, am I alone in this, or does anyone else do this?

[Neil]

I play one at a time. The games are fast enough (win or lose) that I can get variety by switching characters from game to game.

[Blackdog]

,
Around this time, someone had posted a Thaumaturgist winner to the Ladder (I don't recall who) and had claimed that Thaumaturgy was overpowered -- so I decided to see if it was. Must kick in at higher levels; I haven't seen it so far...

Having run a series of Thaumaturgists, (actually Warpers with the Thaumaturgy skill) it seems that the player must get fairly lucky to have powerful Thaumaturgy spells. That said, an Area-Time combo or some such in the 'i' batch would be devastating, but I think you're more likely to win if you Fireflash your way to victory.

[Maylith]

Currently alive: Four. Currently being *played*: Two.

Alive and being played:
- Wood Elf Loremaster
- Wood Elf Assassin

Alive but not being played:
- Another Loremaster that used to be my best one; lost recent backup to a major computer backup and this particular copy dates back to about CL12 or so. I really should delete it, but.... *sob*
- Yeek Hermit Sorceror (from the competition). I may run it again to experiment with sorcery more, but I've lost interest for the time being.

I'm toying with starting a Thaumaturgist, another Alchemist, a Runecrafter or a Mindcrafter.

The games may be fast enough for *Neil*, but my only fast games are the ones where I lose

[Canderel]

I voted one... though... actually it's one *per* machine... I play tome at work (though try not to do it too much)... at home, and now, I'll play at my brother's home too (I am going to look after it during the holidays).

Currently running:
Vampie RohanKnight Demonologist ... at home clev 27 about...
My character at work was an alchemist... just started, but then went to wizard to do an alchemy posting... Can't remember which race, but it might've been a vampiric human.
I am interested in playing a possessor, but Vagabond mailed me a list of the monster bodies... and it doesn't seem worth it until you can kill a kraken. Although killing the Dark God would be good... 55 speed I just haven't a clue where to start... Maybe that Lostsoul Deathmold Possessor idea... Hmmm... in fact... skip the alchemist for now...

-Canderel

[Xeno]

Voted "one", though me too really have one per machine (home, over at me dad's and n at school. ATM they're all Vampire Hobbit Sorcerors... I used to have a few chars at once earlier, but now I just choose a different class/birth-mod (and, very seldom, even race) for some games (get to have all the monster-info then).

[zasvid]

Voted one because most of the time it is one - my main char, played for 4 months, tho' from time to time I start and lose fast some other characters. And now I'm getting very close to the end, so finally I will have a chance to switch to something else - because of victory or more likely from death...

[Vagabond]

I have 5 atm. 1 axemaster, about level 20, all the others are between 40 and 42.. swoma, mage, mindcrafter. I usually find the game boring when I reach level 40..

[Lord Dimwit]

I usually run one at a time. On some occasions I'll start two at a time, but bad things inevitably happen; either one of them dies or I just suicide them because the other character is doing so much better.

I don't recall ever having pulled off a 'double win' though.

[Teber]

one usually. there are a few live combos, since abandoned, i don't count them.

currently i'm playing a zombie wood elf archer.

[jhauser]

Usuall have 2 characters. Whichever one I happen to be running, current a Zombie Wood-Elf Druid. (Yes, I play random characters). And a character for the competition I have with a friend. That is one where we make the game up and email it on the 1st turn to the other. High score makes up the next one.


Joe

[Ludvig]

3 chars - 1 normal char, 1 everlasting char and 1 cheating char (for testing etc)

Why? I don't want the list of known monsters from the halls of mandos to annoy my normal chars (they tend to die before lvl 30 anyway so no need to scare them half to death with Master Q's etc for no reason)

[Guest]

Currently: Two computers, one character each.

Deathmould Posessor, and Wood-Elf Summoner, with a minor in Archery.

[Zizzo]

Currently alive: Four. Currently being *played*: Two.

A fair point; some of my characters don't get as much screen time as others:

• The Alchemist and the Possessor I have to be in the right mood for, as they're in "high-energy" situations (the Alchemist is deep in Angband, the Possessor has ironman-rooms on).
• The Symbiant and the Mindcrafter are holdovers from 2.1.2, so they sometimes slip my mind.
• The Thaumaturgist and the Runecrafter I actually find myself actively avoiding sometimes. I think it's because of the degree of randomness in their spell suite (for Runecrafters, it depends on what runes you've found so far, and in what order); since I'm not playing them full-time, I tend to forget what spells they have and which ones I should be using in a given situation. I suppose better note-taking or some clever macros might help with this.

I do try to visit all of them at least every so often, though. I've even gone so far as to cobble together a Perl script to randomly choose a character to play. (But I always go a few levels with the Yeek Hermit Sorceror first; I'm determined to get somewhere with him...)