Best race for Monk?

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Out of curiousity and a desire to keep a monk alive past lvl 3, which
race is the best in terms of Monks? Or can any race be good enough with
the opening questions answered correctly?
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Malte Helmert wrote:
> The only other classes with this property are Beastfighters and
> Elementalists.

Mindcrafters as well
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

> Um sorry, Malte, but what is <foo> supposed to mean? *hates being
> not-knowledgeable*

It's old UNIX / programming slang. Basically the equivalent of 'x'.
Just a variable, basically.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Urza wrote:
> Out of curiousity and a desire to keep a monk alive past lvl 3, which
> race is the best in terms of Monks? Or can any race be good enough with
> the opening questions answered correctly?

I've been playing Drakeling monks lately. I don't like playing without
Food Preservation, plus they are quite strong and tough, and their acid
spit ability is very handy for things you don't want to melee early on.
Even later it can be handy - since you won't be even Burdened (to avoid
the massive penalty to your unarmed combat skills) they use up food quite
slowly, so you can afford to spit acid a lot.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

"Stephen White" <fake_email_address@fake_domain.com> wrote in message
news:420c89e7$0$65413$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net...
> Urza wrote:
> > Out of curiousity and a desire to keep a monk alive past lvl 3, which
> > race is the best in terms of Monks? Or can any race be good enough with
> > the opening questions answered correctly?
>
> I've been playing Drakeling monks lately. I don't like playing without
> Food Preservation, plus they are quite strong and tough, and their acid
> spit ability is very handy for things you don't want to melee early on.
> Even later it can be handy - since you won't be even Burdened (to avoid
> the massive penalty to your unarmed combat skills) they use up food quite
> slowly, so you can afford to spit acid a lot.
Not only "afford", but happily use it even without any nearby targets - just
to be able to nibble on that tasty something (which you get more of thanks
to your Food Preservation).
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Stephen White wrote:
> Urza wrote:
>
>> Out of curiousity and a desire to keep a monk alive past lvl 3, which
>> race is the best in terms of Monks? Or can any race be good enough with
>> the opening questions answered correctly?
>
> I've been playing Drakeling monks lately. I don't like playing without
> Food Preservation, plus they are quite strong and tough, and their acid
> spit ability is very handy for things you don't want to melee early on.
> Even later it can be handy - since you won't be even Burdened (to avoid
> the massive penalty to your unarmed combat skills) they use up food quite
> slowly, so you can afford to spit acid a lot.

Actually I'd advocate against Drakeling monks. Some of what follows
might be spoily, so...

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Drakelings are among the races that need the most experience to advance
(only Trolls are worse). Monks are among the classes for whom quick
advancement is most desirable:

1. Monks get special benefits with each new level.
The only other classes with this property are Beastfighters and
Elementalists.

2. Monks get extremely powerful special abilities at a comparatively
early level.

With that reasoning, choosing a race that advances quickly would be
useful. Of the points you mention, good toughness and Food Preservation
are indeed important considerations. High strength is good, but less
important, since it is so easy to get to 16 at least.

These criteria place Hurthlings as one of the top choices. They have the
second lowest experience requirements (beaten only by Gnomes), have Food
Preservation and very good toughness. Trolls have much better toughness,
but apart from them the only races with higher toughness only have one
more point, which is not that significant. Thrown rocks with the
hurthling bonus are at least as useful initially as acid spit, and after
a while, you are powerful enough to stop relying on them and switch to
bows and crossbows.

Having said that, despite the recommendation of playing a low-experience
race, Trolls also make excellent monks because of their truly extreme
strength and toughness. In my opinion, Trolls are so different in
playing style from the other races that Troll <foo> and non-Troll <foo>
play as if they were different classes.

Malte
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Batman? wrote:
> Malte Helmert wrote:
>
>> The only other classes with this property are Beastfighters and
>> Elementalists.
>
> Mindcrafters as well

True, even more so. Any others I forgot?

Malte
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

drakalor.tourist@gmail.com wrote:
>>Um sorry, Malte, but what is <foo> supposed to mean? *hates being
>>not-knowledgeable*
>
>
> It's old UNIX / programming slang. Basically the equivalent of 'x'.
> Just a variable, basically.

Yep. A lot more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo

To Christian: It's used roughly similarly to German "dingsbums".

Malte
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Malte Helmert wrote:
> Stephen White wrote:
>
>> Urza wrote:
>>
>>> Out of curiousity and a desire to keep a monk alive past lvl 3,
>>> which race is the best in terms of Monks? Or can any race be good
>>> enough with the opening questions answered correctly?

The opening questions are a relatively weak effect. Too much effort to
bother with; I always just do random.

> Actually I'd advocate against Drakeling monks. Some of what follows
> might be spoily, so...
>
> s
> p
> o
> i
> l
> e
> r
>
> s
> p
> a
> c
> e
>
> s
> p
> o
> i
> l
> e
> r
>
> s
> p
> a
> c
> e
>
> Drakelings are among the races that need the most experience to
> advance (only Trolls are worse). Monks are among the classes for whom
> quick advancement is most desirable:
>
> 1. Monks get special benefits with each new level. The only other
> classes with this property are Beastfighters and Elementalists.
>
> 2. Monks get extremely powerful special abilities at a comparatively
> early level.
>
> With that reasoning, choosing a race that advances quickly would be
> useful. Of the points you mention, good toughness and Food
> Preservation are indeed important considerations. High strength is
> good, but less important, since it is so easy to get to 16 at least.
>
> These criteria place Hurthlings as one of the top choices. They have
> the second lowest experience requirements (beaten only by Gnomes),
> have Food Preservation and very good toughness. Trolls have much
> better toughness, but apart from them the only races with higher
> toughness only have one more point, which is not that significant.
> Thrown rocks with the hurthling bonus are at least as useful
> initially as acid spit, and after a while, you are powerful enough to
> stop relying on them and switch to bows and crossbows.

As far as I recall, hurtlings and gnomes are tied for the lowest race
experience requirements, along with humans. Drakelings and Orcs are the
worst besides troll, but neither come anywhere close to troll of course.

Monks themselves have pretty high exp requirements too I think, second
only to Barbarians (which are practically the trolls of the class world).

> Having said that, despite the recommendation of playing a
> low-experience race, Trolls also make excellent monks because of
> their truly extreme strength and toughness. In my opinion, Trolls are
> so different in playing style from the other races that Troll <foo>
> and non-Troll <foo> play as if they were different classes.

Definately. They're fantasic in the early game, but once you get past
the mid game or so they're just a burden with no redeeming attributes
(besides maybe their ability to eat dopplganger kings, hehe). I can't
stand playing them anymore myself, but they are a great choice for new
players.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Twinge wrote:
> Malte Helmert wrote:
>
>>
>> s
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> As far as I recall, hurtlings and gnomes are tied for the lowest race
> experience requirements, along with humans. Drakelings and Orcs are the
> worst besides troll, but neither come anywhere close to troll of course.

Could well be. The information I posted was from experimental data that
somebody sent to the newsgroup some time ago (sorry, can't find the
reference at the moment, but I did check it for my last post).

If you got your data from looking at the code, note that there are other
factors influencing advancement (stats and speed, for example), and
these are correlated with race. As an extreme example, if there were a
race that started with speed 10000, it'd have extreme experience
requirements even if there is no racial penalty. So racial modifiers
don't tell the whole story. On the other hand, the experimental data
that was posted is obviously subject to random fluctuations.

>> Having said that, despite the recommendation of playing a
>> low-experience race, Trolls also make excellent monks because of
>> their truly extreme strength and toughness. In my opinion, Trolls are
>> so different in playing style from the other races that Troll <foo>
>> and non-Troll <foo> play as if they were different classes.
>
> Definately. They're fantasic in the early game, but once you get past
> the mid game or so they're just a burden with no redeeming attributes
> (besides maybe their ability to eat dopplganger kings, hehe). I can't
> stand playing them anymore myself, but they are a great choice for new
> players.

In my opinion Troll Monks are still easy to play late in the game, maybe
simply because *all* Monks become extremely powerful with time. I chose
Troll Monks as the Carbon Fibre Man combo, so this is one of the combos
I know best. I think they play very nicely even at high levels.

Malte
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

Urza wrote:
> Out of curiousity and a desire to keep a monk alive past lvl 3, which
> race is the best in terms of Monks? Or can any race be good enough
with
> the opening questions answered correctly?


well, i never bother with opening questions. i have that option set to
random.
regarding the race question, well, one day i said to myself "i'm going
to play an orc monk". he won.

as a matter of fact, in case you're interested, here's the boring flg:

http://adom.brinkster.net/hof/flg_disp.asp?display=sark.txt

i reckon orcs have enough strength and toughness to go through all the
meleeing a monk will have to do, without the exp requirements that
trolls have.
you could always just play a dwarf because they have detect traps, but
roleplaying-wise, for me, it was much cooler to play an orcish monk.
once you get to the late game, monks become next to invincible. they're
fun to play, and a different kind of melee class.

--
Ignacio
http://ignacio.phyre.org
The annihilator is hit by the lightning bolt and annihilated.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)

"bartalak" <el_robo_violento@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:1108375949.417739.152240@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

>
> Urza wrote:
>> Out of curiousity and a desire to keep a monk alive past lvl 3, which
>> race is the best in terms of Monks? Or can any race be good enough
> with
>> the opening questions answered correctly?
>
>
> well, i never bother with opening questions. i have that option set to
> random.
> regarding the race question, well, one day i said to myself "i'm going
> to play an orc monk". he won.
>
> as a matter of fact, in case you're interested, here's the boring flg:
>
> http://adom.brinkster.net/hof/flg_disp.asp?display=sark.txt
>
> i reckon orcs have enough strength and toughness to go through all the
> meleeing a monk will have to do, without the exp requirements that
> trolls have.

I play orcs almost exclusively (so kill me), and I'll back this up - they
seem to be Trolls-lite with all the fun and none of the blatant
disadvantages, apart from the ludicrously short lifespan. I also managed to
produce a YAVP with an orcish monk on my first time of seriously playing
the class. One of the few advantages that trolls have over orcs - Food
Preservation really doesn't enter into the equation with monks' reduced
food consumption.

Now orcish wizards I just can't seem to keep alive long enough to even get
to the Water Temple...
 
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