Most Natural Combinations

[danr]

Okay, here's what I'm working on (and I realize it goes totally against the game's philosophy) but I'm trying to create a list where I match each species to its most naturally-fitting class.

The catch is that I'm not allowing for any overlap - each background can only be matched to one species. Why? I don't know. Because I'm a big dork. So here is my list, with brief comments about why I came up with each combination.

EDIT: Here's the main reason: this is a manageable way to try to experience the full range of character options that the game provides. If you play through this list, you will have played every species and most backgrounds.

EDIT 2: This is for DCSS 0.7.1.

Halfling Hunter. Slings + shields + short blades + stealth + stabbing + dodging = awesome. Make actual use of all those sling gifts from Okawaru (btw, Might is awesome with a short blade of speed).
Demonspawn Chaos Knight. Invocations + Demon summons + cool mutations. Flavourwise I like Lugonu more, but have more success with Makhleb.
Deep Dwarf Necromancer. Damage resistance + necro healing abilities + whip of pain = fun!
Hill Orc Priest. Good fighter + hordes of allies + a racial god + plentiful racial equipment.
Mountain Dwarf Fighter – Excellent at fighting and armour, and start with all dwarven equipment with racial bonuses.
Minotaur Gladiator – A legendary combination. Use throwing for ranged (esp. javelins, needles), works well with shield, any melee weapon you find, and choose AC / EV depending on equipment you find. Trident really fits the theme and is a very effective starting weapon and cross-trains axes.
Deep Elf Wizard. Total magical power.
Naga Stalker. Stealth + Poison Magic + decent HP for melee range after stab attempt.
Kobold Assassin – throwing + short blades + stealth = natural combo. Also, w/ Trog: berserk + carnivore 3 saprovore 2.
Spriggan Enchanter: spellcasting + enchantments + short blades + stabbing + stealth + dodging.
Sludge Elf Transmuter. Unarmed combat + spellcasting + transmutations
Troll Berserker. Total ravenous melee painbringer meat shredder.
Kenku Conjurer. As squishy as Deep Elves, but Conjurations + Flight help to keep out of harms way, better at fighting than DE if you get close.
Merfolk Crusader. Polearms + magical buffs + good EV = powerful melee.
High Elf Arcane Marksman. Bows + Magic! What could be more elvish?
Draconian Venom Mage: VMs have to branch out from poison before endgame. Draconians can do so once they know their flavour. Natural AC is good boost for spellcasters.
Ogre Warper Portal Projectile with boulders anyone? Blink helps with low AC to escape in tough spots. Okay Throwing aptitude to go with starting +1 darts. Warper spellbook pretty confined to one school, and warper is mostly a melee/ranged support school anyway.
Vampire Summoner - nice theme - turns into a bat and can call other bats / rats etc.
Centaur Wanderer - the ability to run away can really help a wanderer, as can the ability to fire things from a distance. And really, who would wander further than a Centaur?
Ghoul Monk - Use that unarmed aptitude!
Mummy Ice Elementalist. Freeze makes D1 easy. Hunger-free casting lets you use higher level spells earlier. Not having potions on you makes freezing cloud and ozocubu's armour safe to use.
Human / Demigod - do random. Skills are undifferentiated so they are very versatile. You just choose between better stats but no god, or better aptitudes and the ability to choose a god.

[evilmike]

Ghoul Monk - Use that unarmed aptitude! Go Trog for similar reasons to Kobold

Ghouls can't berserk. Going with trog as a ghoul/mummy is basically a joke combo - people do it because it's one of the worst mismatches possible. The only real benefit you get out of this is brothers in arms.

[MrMisterMonkey]

MuEE and OgWr are also bad.

On OgWr, I hope you have animate skeleton or LRD before you disto your GSC or you won't be able to butcher.

Should also note that in trunk stalkers don't use poison magic.

Honestly, the premise of this list is kind of really flawed, especially with the rule against overlap.

[chrysalis]

I was actually just thinking about this the other day (Sans the overlap rule). I want to ascend once with every race and was trying to figure out the easiest play combos for each one. Anybody wanna throw out some lists?

[danr]

Okay, edited the OP to Mummy Ice Elementalist and to remove the Trog reference for Ghouls.

Here's the point of the exercise: I'd like to be able to play each species with something unique. Hunter may be playable with High Elves, but why do that if Halflings are better in just about every way as hunters?

Granted, many species are sufficiently different with the same background, eg. a KoBe is very different from a MiBe.

I guess I just like the idea of each species having a niche background. Call it flawed if you will

[danr]

I realize that some of these combos are a bit of a stretch, like OgWr or GhMo. And Centaurs are just bad all around.

Here's my challenge though: If OgWr is bad, what background is there that I've listed where an Ogre would be a better choice than what I've listed? OgBe? OgWz? Until I have at least one win under my belt I'm not interested in suboptimal combinations.

The notion of the list I guess is to find the best background for eac species and the best species for each background. If there's a species or a background that isn't best with anything then I just won't put it in my roster.

I do realize though that many are not better, just different. Eg. MDHu and MDBe are very strong builds as well. I want to find the most "special".

Flavour is a big part of it too - like the MiGl is just such a classic concept.

[MrMisterMonkey]

GhMo is really good, but GhCK is better.
OgIE and OgVM are probably two of the best ogres, but they may not seem natural as OgBe.
Really, the best combos often aren't the most natural-sounding, species share best professions, and there are multiple great (and often thematic) combos where picking one really doesn't do justice.

[Zicher]

Yet again, I have to advocate my favourite and by far the most succesful char: Spriggan Venom Mage.

Who is better suited for VM's hit-and-run tactics than spriggans, being well able to to both hit and run?

[danr]

Okay, I've tweaked the OP a bit.

There have been two alternate suggestions for VM: OgVM and SpVM. I'm more drawn to SpVM, but either way I'd need to figure out something else for Draconians, etc. Mummy was easy to switch to IE because I hadn't chosen anything else for that background.

To open it up a bit more, I would assign the remaining backgrounds as "second choices" so that all the backgrounds are covered as well. Again, my main idea is to try to cover as much of the range of options as possible, so that playing through the list would expose you to every species and background. I would then give any remaining species a "second choice", with no restriction on overlap, just to provide for some really great combos that were not possible because of the restriction on the first go-round.

Anyone care to attempt that list?

[szanth]

You could consider CK's with different gods, different classes. I mean, it really does make a difference.

[danr]

You could consider CK's with different gods, different classes. I mean, it really does make a difference.

True. Same with priests.

Then of course there are the different starting books for wizards and conjurers.

[Zicher]

OK, let's give it a shot. Following are, IMHO, the most viable or "most easily imaginable" backgrounds for each race.

Humans: Don't really excel at anything, don't really suck at anything. Probably the most viable choice for Wanderers.
High Elves: I always tend to envision them as Legolas from LotR. They would make excellent Paladins, Crusaders, or Arcane Marksmen.
Deep Elves: Excellent casters of whatever sort, preferably Wizards or Elementalists of all four sorts.
Sludge Elves: Kung-fu elves. Their aptitudes make them great Transmuters and also good Monks.
Mountain Dwarves: Gimli or Thorin would definitely agree on being the best Fighters in the game.
Deep Dwarves: Somewhat more mysterious, they make very good Artificers and Earth Elementalists, but Chaos Knights of Makhleb also work very well. Also, they can help themselves by becoming Healers.
Hill Orcs: While most would envision them as brutes, the option of Beogh make them very interesting Priests.
Merfolk: As natural shapeshifters, they make one of the best Transmuters, and are also extremely succesful as Crusaders and Gladiators.
Halflings: Small, stealthy, stabby and slingy, they make great Hunters and Stalkers.
Kobolds: Same as halflings without the slings, but due to their evil nature, they can be easily seen as good Assassins.
Spriggans: Venom Mages!!! (sorry, couldn't resist ) And also probably the best Enchanters in the game.
Nagas: Their insane stealth makes them natural Stalkers, Warpers and Venom Mages.
Centaurs: Ever seen a Centaur without it's trusty bow? Hunters are an easy choice here.
Ogres: Smash everything into the ground! Gladiators and Berserkers of choice.
Trolls: Tear everything into pieces! Excellent Berserkers, and also well suited for Monks, although this is a bit difficult to imagine .
Minotaur: Fight, fight and fight, that's their life. Their place in the tutorial as Berserkers is definitely well-earned. They also work surprisingly well as Paladins or Monks.
Kenku: It's fight and fight again, but this time with great conjurations support. Their many auxilliary unarmed attacks make them very good Monks, and their aptitude for destructive magic makes them viable Reavers, Conjurers or Summoners.
Draconians: As they mature later, they are a challenge for players' flexibility. But some backgrounds are not too dependent on their colour - mostly Necromancers, Transmuters or Wizards.
Demigods: Bad aptitudess and great attributes tend to balance out. They can play pretty much anything, Transmuter or Warper is a particularly good start.
Demonspawn: Naturally imagined as Chaos Knights and Priests of Yredelemnul.
Mummies: Summoners, Necromancers and Ice Elemenalists spring to mind.
Ghouls: Use those claws and stealth - become a Monk or Assassin.
Vampires: Natural Enchanters, Summoners and Necromancers.
Felids: Very good as Warpers or Enchanters, but also viable for the hit-and-run tactics used by Venom Mages.

In advance, I apologize for not mentioning your beloved combo .

[galehar]

with good conjuration and air, Kenku make great AE in trunk.

[raalph]

Mummy Ice Elementalist. Freeze makes D1 easy. Hunger-free casting lets you use higher level spells earlier. Not having potions on you makes freezing cloud and ozocubu's armour safe to use.

I hope you are kidding.

[Grimm]

Another flavoury way to think about combinations is to imagine what classes would naturally appear in a given race's culture. So for example if you went to a dwarf colony you'd have fighters, priests maybe, earth elementalists, and maybe artificers. There would be no assassins - that's undwarfly. So determine that set of classes and play them all and you get bragging rights, "I did the dwarf set" or something.

[mageykun]

I hope you actually tried a MuIE instead of having a knee-jerk reaction of "all mummies suck." (Also, that's Ozocubu's Refrigeration, not Ozocubu's Armour.)

I've tried several MuIE's, and can never get them past D2. You've got too little mp, freeze fails too often, and you're not fast enough to pillar dance half the things you face. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but they certainly don't seem easy. Not that hungerless poitionless careless recklessness with ice cloud doesn't sound awesome.

Another flavoury way to think about combinations is to imagine what classes would naturally appear in a given race's culture. So for example if you went to a dwarf colony you'd have fighters, priests maybe, earth elementalists, and maybe artificers. There would be no assassins - that's undwarfly. So determine that set of classes and play them all and you get bragging rights, "I did the dwarf set" or something.

Of course there are dwarf assassins, you need them for dwarf politics! It's all about probabilities though. Sure, the average dwarf is much more likely to take up a certain class. But in a large enough sample set (we are talking a whole species, not just one colony) you're going to find the oddball whose life dream is to be an air elementalist, works hard at stealth, and shaves.

But hey, at least there are classes you can argue are dwarfish! Only dwarven cavemen, archeologists, and valkyries are welcome in Nethack- the normal axechoppers have to find other dungeons to commit suicide exploring.

[Grimm]

Of course there are dwarf assassins, you need them for dwarf politics! It's all about probabilities though. Sure, the average dwarf is much more likely to take up a certain class. But in a large enough sample set (we are talking a whole species, not just one colony) you're going to find the oddball whose life dream is to be an air elementalist, works hard at stealth, and shaves.

Shaven dwarves...the dream simply will not die, will it.

But you are absolutely right - all classes are possible for all races in the Crawliverse. All I wish to establish here is the stereotypical classes that one would find among a settlement of a given people. For flavour purposes. You're not going to find a merfolk earth elementalist in the shoals any day soon.

[MrMisterMonkey]

sorry to nitpick, but mummy paladins

[Un67]

Isn't dwarven "assasination" just dumping magma on (insert your noble of choice)?

[chukamok]

I hope you actually tried a MuIE instead of having a knee-jerk reaction of "all mummies suck." (Also, that's Ozocubu's Refrigeration, not Ozocubu's Armour.)

I've tried several MuIE's, and can never get them past D2. You've got too little mp, freeze fails too often, and you're not fast enough to pillar dance half the things you face. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but they certainly don't seem easy. Not that hungerless poitionless careless recklessness with ice cloud doesn't sound awesome.

I recently won an offline MuIE, and was challenging but very fun. You just need to remember and play to mummies strengths. You don't have to worry about the food clock, you get hungerless casting and channeling, point blank Mephitic Cloud, Oz's Refrigeration without worrying about potion destruction, and two Necromancy power boosts if you last that long. Stealth is also important, as it lets you pick and choose when and where you will fight. And the hungerless casting and channeling means you can unload your big damage spells whenever you want. For the Elven Halls, if I saw even a single elf asleep, I'd just Oz it to death before it could wake up and then channel back the MP/rest to restore lost HP, then rinse and repeat. If it woke up and charged me, I used Throw Icicle to finish it off. If things got dangerous, I'd go up, rest a bit, go down different stairs, and start fresh. Once you get one going, they're very fun to play

[omndra]

Ogre Hunters are pretty good because you start out with Boulders, but then again the warping gear helps them out with survivability thou.

I really want to try one of these out... ummmmm.... ALL OF THEM SOUND SO GOOD!
I'll just go down the List.

[Sometimes]

Isn't dwarven "assasination" just dumping magma on (insert your noble of choice)?

This is a vile slander that serves only to perpetuate a tedious and undeserved stereotype. The dwarven nobility are held in great esteem by their peoples, and the odd rash of freak accidents that have occurred in every single fortress that has ever been are just that, accidents.

[Un67]

Isn't dwarven "assasination" just dumping magma on (insert your noble of choice)?

This is a vile slander that serves only to perpetuate a tedious and undeserved stereotype. The dwarven nobility are held in great esteem by their peoples, and the odd rash of freak accidents that have occurred in every single fortress that has ever been are just that, accidents.

Ah, right. That practice is reserved for elves, correct?

[Sometimes]

reserved for elves

They are quickest to reassess their ridiculous demands when they are melting.

[Sjohara]

A few comments:

I've always personally found Merfolk Ice Elementalists to be demonstrably stronger than Crusaders. A variety of nukes and the AC from Ozocubu's Armor gives them a more reliable early game, and they can easily cast Haste late-game anyway as long as you can find it. Mummies might need the class more, though.

Vampire Summoner has no actual synergy that I'm aware of. They're neutral in both spellcasting and summoning. Vampires' only positive aptitudes are Short Blades, Stealth, Necromancy, Enchantments, and Transmutations, and self-transmutation has the same limitations as berserk, so Necromancer and Enchanter are pretty much their only synergistic options. In trunk, they have an incredible +4 in Hexes, which makes Enchanter even more appealing (doubly so given that their stealth improves up as they lose blood). I'd suggest switching it up to VpEN and SpVM. I don't know what Draconian should be, though.

I've always found Arcane Marksman kind of lousy, and I've been experimenting with High Elf Air Elementalists lately. They have good aptitudes with bladed weapons and not-too-terrible HP, so with luck they can get a nice sword and use it to beef up that stretch in between Shock becoming obselete and finding a proper mid-level nuke that plagues Air Elementalists so much, and Swiftness, Deflect Missiles, and Mephitic Cloud makes them good skirmishers. KeAE, DECj, and HEWz is another potential combination; Kenku are in a similar position as far as being melee hybrids go (though they're really fragile), and then there's the whole Swiftness/Flight synergy. Or maybe stick with HEAM, switch to KeAE and DECj, and give Wizard to Draconians. It's relatively unspecialized as casters go, so it helps them adapt to their color better than most backgrounds.

[danr]

I thought vampires had +1 in summoning, but I could be mistaken.

As I think about this more, I think it would be good to choose two backgrounds for each species, with none used more than twice. Anyone care to attempt such list?

[Svankensen]

I must go for High elf Reaver (Ice) as my tipical choice for a strong character. Ice has a great balance between defence and ofence, wich blends very well with an hybrid. It also gives you mephitic cloud, a great battlefield control tool far into mid game. As they are good with blades and spellcasting, you get to choose your focus between fighting and casting acording to the items you get, and thus arent too limited by the RNG. As far as gods go, im partial to okawaru, at least for beginner play. Finally, they are a blast to play, and getting to cast freezing cloud is always a treat for any character.