Your best character

[Faeryan]

What kind of character is your best ever? (not necessarily one that has highest standing in the ladder, but one you think is best.)

What I'm looking for are race (including subrace), class, gender (just for fun), possible character dump, auxiliary skills you've got from FF (if you think they're worth mentioning), cause of death (for those too lazy to look your character dump) and one thing you think has made your character that succesful.

Remember, only one of your characters can be the best.

Here is a poll included. Not too detailed, but it's there just to give the big picture.

Runecrafters and Alchemists are not welcome in this discussion for the reasons you all know.
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My best would be Ocaet, the classic male hobbit swordmaster.
( http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=2556 )

Symbiosis has made Ocaet's life much more easier, thanks to a Greater demonic quylthulg named Diimoni (6100 hp).
Diimoni's summoning skills were not used that often, but controlled teleport came in handy *MANY* times.
Ocaet was killed by ripe old age (that's a tough monster. never saw it coming. )after killing Morgoth. The Void was no option since at the time I didn't know how to get there.
One think I believe made Ocaet that succesfull was luck. He found great artifacts during his adventures. Especially two rings, both randarts which gave him +5 and +8 speed /extra attacks giving him 28 attacks per round.[/url]

[Tirpen]

My best character is probably Fluffser, the Entish possessor. Partly because ent possessors are usually very powerful, they have insane strength and constitution bonuses, but mostly because he was so mind bogglingly lucky.
First he found the Phial of Galadriel just lying about on dl 2 . By the time he came out of the Downs the first time he was in a dark elven mage body, wearing a elvish leather armor and wielding a sword of westerness.

He made it up to level 42 iirc, then he died from chain summoning dragons somewhere, Erabor I think.

[Neil]

I don't see how one can discuss best characters without spoiling, so I'll move this thread to the Spoilers forum.

[Faeryan]

Well, maybe it can get a lil' spoily.
Now we know that there are chain summoning dragons in Erebor and that you can't see Ripe Old Age even with see invisible.

[Kejardon]

I would have to cast my vote for archer, though I have to admit many other classes can be more fun. Unfortunately, I don't keep track of my characters and so I don't remember exact things. >_<
Male Classical Wood-Elf Archer, worshipping Manwe (regreted that)
I leveled up by killing a Mature Dragon first (not counting a few villagers). all the way to mid 20's. That obviously gave me a huge jump in the game - Archery level 20 let me immediatly begin converting junk to arrows. By the time I cleared out BD, I had a set of impressive randart arrows, and could psuedo-id all the equipment I picked up fairly reliably. My only gripe was that my pathetic strength made it necessary to watch my speed and WoR often, but that wasn't any serious problem.
FF gave me a few useful spells, I was mainly interested in Divination and Conveyance and got Conveyance in BD. But I never got a chance to power it up...

Although I've raised other characters to higher levels and deeper depths, that one definitely had the most potential. I had a long bow of Extra Shots and could kill pretty much anything in one hit, except for some of the uniques. However, that was the very first time I took on a God Quest, and I went straight to it right after I got it, thinking that since it was the first one, it couldn't be difficult, especially since I had speed-leveled to mid-20s.
I also lacked a source of See Invis. For those that forgot, I was worshipping Manwe. >_> Now I specifically check for that before any Manwe quest. Quite a recipe for doom.

What made the character so potentialy powerful was that he had a good bow, great arrows, and decent speed. Despite the fact that he had low hp (and I was careless with resists back then), I never really worried about dieing, even in the Gondolin quest. As soon as I saw something it would be killed. Mobs were fine too, though I know now I would need more speed, or at the least conveyance for groups of summoners. I didn't really worry about my equipment because of this, all I really relied on was my bow and arrows, and the only resist I truly worried about was rconf - fear doesn't bother archers, and besides that a single missile hit once in a while didn't worry me.
Now, if I actually covered my resists, found good equipment including an artifact bow, and had See Invis, that character would quite likely be alive today. Assuming some other noobish mistake didn't kill him off... >_>

[Kalon]

Kaardoldric ( dump )

I read a forum somewhere commenting that Pure Mages play better than Sorcerors. Having tried my hand at a Dark Elf Sorceror (with some limited success - Lvl50, but unable to tackle Angband) I gave it a shot, and rolled up a Dunédán Mage, worshiping Manwe. I didn't regret that.

With my FIRST attempt after moving from Sorc to Mage, I finished the game! (Good, not Ultra Good though...)

The extra HP *REALLY* helps - far more than I thought it would. Although I don't remember any specific near-death experiences, I know that his sheer power punched through a lot of problems. Manwe helps a LOT - a lot of people go for Eru, but I found the intrinsic flying and speed bonuses were totally worth it. All of the benefits from other spells from the other gods are reduced when you know what to specialise in, and Manwe gave the biggest natural benefit.

Overall I find mages far more interesting, however they tend to be rather repetitive. They tend to be rather repetitive. They tend to be rather repetitive. Thieves, dragon hunting, spelbook then artifact hunting in Worm Lair, main dungeons. Maybe it's just my difficulty gettting a half-decent Swordsman (or Axemaster! ) to be able to handle the variety of monsters out there...

I love the Dunédán - naturally lucky, good natural bonuses, not-too-heavy XP penalty. What's not to like?

[Nerdanel]

My best character was Honeysuckle, the Eru-worshipoping hobbit sorceror. She had luck, great natural stealth, and great natural disarming which was very helpful especially in the beginning. And her magic was not to be sneezed at...

Her strategy was to hit monsters with an applicable spell before they knew what hit them. In tougher situations she would avoid melee and back up from the monsters, relying on her speed and healing abilities, and hurl spells when she was out of immediate melee. With her luck Honeysuckle found and wore the boots of Thror, and found and not-worse two of the 'thancs.

She died on around level 74 in Angband after picking up a fight with Lungorthin and some two dozen escort greater demons. She was in the line of sight of way too many distance-attacking demons and they killed her in one turn.

[Shadowdweller]

The best I've done so far (keeping in mind that a char needs to be entertaining for me to put much time into it) is with a Dunadan Assassin Melkor Worshipper. Got to level 46, then decided to take on the Minas Anor Thunderlords (which I've done before). Doing something on the order of 900 damage per turn. Unfortunately, neglected to bring along more than a handful of teleport scrolls which ended with me getting mobbed and slain most foolishly. URGH! Those things have insane hit points.

[BauMog]

Ratatosk, a Dwarven Barbarian Male Warrior is my best character. (I won with a High-Elven Sorceror, which was almost as fun.)

I chose zero quests this time because the 98 quests I beat with my winning sorceror got very annoying towards the end. Also because I like fast diving.

It was my first warrior ever to have reached character level 50 and dungeon level 85 (Dim Gates). His death was a bit silly -- was trying to reach a jumpgate instead of fighting summoned higher demons. (Didn't notice at the time that Doomcaller has -50 AC... but it had higher mel.dmg than Vorpal Blade). Well, AC was not my worry. Sanity was. Some turns before I was about to jump to the corridor with the Hell Wyrms, my poor dwarf was sanity-blasted into an unthinking vegetable. Bah. I didn't even need That Ring. He was wearing a randart +6 ring and a RoS (+11), which I had no intentions of replacing. Taught me a lesson, though.

The reason this warrior survived when my others didn't, was because I paid more attention to getting good rods/tips and because I figured out the automatizer so I could check every drop. Gained me quite a few early (not only random) artifacts. Investing points in archery and ammo creation was also a smart move. [Edit: Find Passages, the dwarven version of probability travel, helped a lot when I was sneaking up to enemies.]

[Wolfe]

I voted warrior. I wouldn't say it's exactly my favorite, but it's the one I stick to for the moment. I figured I want to win with a 'basic' character before using one more complex.

Best char? http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=2563

[Yottle]

If by "best" you mean most powerful/successful, then this lost soul death mold sorcerer: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=2747

By the time that it got out of the Halls it was pretty much invincible. In retrospect, it could have been even more powerful if I had pumped mimicry up to the point that it could wield two mage staves. As it was, the void was a bore. The Nether Realms were a bit of a challenge, but only because it didn't have nether resistance until it got Phasing. Tiki and Melkor were trivial.

By the way, check out the randart ring, and imagine having it with a possessor...

[Groothewanderer]

I like the assassin because of the insane stealth, critical hits and backstabbing. I love sneaking up to moderately high level creatures and taking them out in one turn. My best was a Rohan Knight Assassin. I took some time to get his stealth up, but once it got there, he was a killing machine.

He was the first to get to the Gondor Maeglin (spl?) quest and died to those darned summoners. I think a greater balrog summoned a boatload of other greater demons (pitfiends/bile demons and worse) and something summoned in some great worms also. Being somewhat new to ToMe, I was egotistical and thought I could kill everything, especially with Immunity to fire. The main problem was the lack of the ability to teleport on that quest and the fact that I wandered into the middle of the dungeon. Way to far away from any stairs before I found out I couldn't teleport out of trouble. It was a long fight but after using up all the healing potions in my inventory, the ending was inevitable.

I didn't make a final dump for this character and the ladder dump was a couple levels old but here it is:
http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=2603

They never found the body. Just a few bloody scrapes and a whole lot of char marks on the dungeon floor.

[Tachyon]

Mage - yeah, a plain, standard mage. Those guys get damn powerful at high levels, can have decent combat, don't have the HP penalty of a sorceror, and overall, IMO, are the most versatile class. I've run some elemental mages with generally iffy combat (they use liberal amounts of Water, Fire, and Nature magic, but generally rely on a good old magical pick for digging), a couple of warrior mages (iffy offensive spells, use a lot of utility spells, and have decent combat - mindcrafters minus the cheese ), and even a thaumaturgist-mage, though that one worked out very badly.

[Lord Dimwit]

I would have to say http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=1799 Alberich for the flexibility, though some other characters of mine have had greater killing power.

Really the only question with the mage / sorcerer debate is whether you'd like more spells that are more powerful, or more hit points. Alberich did a good job of boosting his spell power enough to make his spell damage sufficient to take out nastier foes, but mages do have a problem with this.

[Tachyon]

The "new" mindcrafters (in the Mindcraft module) rock. It's cool having powerful spells and regen at high levels, but also knowing that getting in that one last spell could get you killed...