Suggested classes/combos for 15 runes

[Mats1]

...Other than Minotaur (which seems really boring).

I just had a go with KoFi and died getting the Abyssal runes. =/ So little health young kobold!

[Abominae]

Demonspawn are my favorite. By the time you're entering extended, you have already progressed past the two biggest limiting factors of the race: low(ish) aptitudes and horrendous XP growth. Plus, it gives you a chance to use your tier 3 mutation for more than just 1-2 dungeons.

[archaeo]

A better way to approach this problem is to play whatever combo you'd normally want to play, and then get three runes and make a decision. Sometimes, the dungeon gives you a bunch of good junk that will make extended fun to play, and sometimes you just have regular, bad junk and it'll be a huge pain. I find extended tedious enough that I just won't do it if I don't have a nice set of equipment with which to crush it.

Of course, basically every combo that isn't outright terrible has access to so much XP that they can usually find an "extended solution" before venturing into any dangerous territory. If you do Elf, Slime, Crypt, and Zot:1-4 in addition to the rest of the game, the only reason characters might have any trouble is if they make serious strategic errors or run into awful RNG. Otherwise, every caster can learn necromut/borgs/ddoor, every melee bro can switch between TSO/Zin, and every stabber has enough time to learn the full suite of ninja skills.

All that said, I think most people would agree that extended is most tolerable with a strong, melee-oriented species worshipping Makhleb or TSO.

[The Ferret]

Kiku with strong necromancy skill and possibly an amulet of faith can make extended trivial: Receive Corpses -> Simulacrum, lather, rinse, repeat. At 27 Necromancy a few corpse deliveries produce enough strong simulacra to take down Cerebov easily. Amulet of faith lets you abuse Kiku corpse delivery even harder, though it's not strictly necessary.

[Airwolf]

Ghoul! They are very strong in extended because they are immune to negative energy, torment, poison, and sickness; do not mutate (although malmutate gives stat loss instead, which can be brutal without rMut or sustAttr); and have rc+, which gives you more flexibility with resistance gear. They are susceptible to holy damage, so you have to look out for big melee threats with holy wrath and the few spellcasters with Dispel Undead.

Kiku is a strong choice in extended for corpse delivery to heal rot, but there are enough corpses and potions of curing (for which they have no other use) to do that too, so other gods work.

Both unarmed and weapon are viable.

Their stats aren't great, so you do have to work around that to get decent EV and casting.

Their apts aren't great, either, so they can be tough to get started. As usual, don't spend much early XP outside of your damage skill, which should probably be melee. With their claws and +2 apt compared to other melee weapons, unarmed is a good default unless a great weapon drops early, but unarmed is generally more XP hungry than weapons.

[njvack]

DD of Makhleb.

More seriously, what archaeo said.

[partial]

strong agree w/ Ds suggestion

[hannobal]

Centaur. Why? They're fast and have good HP, exactly what you need in extended. Ely->Tso/Zin switch should work, or Makh all the way.
Don't be fooled by aptitudes - Even on 3 rune game, melee Ce can have OK defence, haste and other usual spells etc. with medium armour.

3-rune Melee Ce example with sub-optimal skilling (because of glaive and bow in early game, dtrident and shield (of resistance) later on).
Shields compensate for their (minor) difficulties of getting of AC/EV as fast as some others.
Warp weapon is nice with polearms.
http://underhound.eu:81/crawl/morgue/hannobal/morgue-hannobal-20150216-191429.txt

[duvessa]

The characters that are best for 15-rune games are almost without exception the same as the characters that are best for 3-rune games.

[aracanid]

The ones that's I've got 15 runes with in order of ascension:

VpAs of Dith (Boots of the assassin + demon tridents), FoFi of Zin and GrFE of Veh (First zig!).

I would say the Formicid felt the easiest and most reliable. High defence and high offence along with the option to reliably disengage from a lost fight. Recite was probably the strongest part though. The ability to daze the hell and pan lords as well as killing lots of the lower level but still threatening demons is crazy strong.

[nago]

I would say the Formicid felt the easiest and most reliable

What

High defence and high offence along with the option to reliably disengage from a lost fight

wait WHAT

[Sar]

Zin is pretty good, I guess?

[radinms]

Vp is an extremely bad choice for extended game.

[njvack]

Zin: The god of "I SURVIVE, SUCKERS"

[TwoLeggedMammal]

My one 15-runer was a HEIE of Ash that also transitioned into Translocations for Singularity (when it was still in the game). It felt noticeably less squishy than a DE but still really good at magic so I had a tool for everything, and Ash is just the best. I'd recommend it.

[Nebukadnezar]

11 of my current 12 wins are 15-runers:
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/playe ... nezar.html

It depends on what kind of char do you want:
a) My melee-fighters were mainly melee (where I stopped skilling early after getting things done) with strong magic support (haste, ctrl-Blink, silence, Abjuration and ***Tornado*** )
b) Strong melee fighters with higher damage output than a) . Payed for that by not getting Tornado but used all the support spells.
c) The Conjurers had fire storm + glaciate (learned Necromutaion once but never used it).

Any char who can either be a), b) or c) can more or less reliably win a 15-rune game imo. (Haven't tried d) or even e) )
Escape options are very important.
Consider ZIN for Extended if you want a fool-proof option (Sanct. unless silenced)

[radinms]

i always suggest berserker throwing penet javelin and firing confusion or paralysis needle.
or UC fighter using statue form.

[Lyrick]

postgame vp without reliable healing is rough, would not recommend

[WingedEspeon]

I would suggest GhMo^Mak. Lot's of healing, torment immunity, large HP pool, and claw 1 and +1 UC apt to get you though early game.