Champions you have never used

[oh_brother]

A different thread got me thinking about the champions I have consistently overlooked in my 24-ish years of playing DM. I went through the list on the encyclopaedia, and realised there were a number that, to the best of my knowledge, I have never used:

Boris
Tiggy
Mophus
Gando

Mophus is quite an obvious one to omit, but the other 3 made we wonder if I was biased against small people. I reassured myself that this was not the case when I remembered that Stamm was always one of my favourites.

What about other people? Have you ignored champions, or did you make sure that you tried out every different option?

[beowuuf]

Yeah, I tend to avoid the journeymen (Mophus, Leyla, Gothmog only played in one specific instance, Sonya) though Halk and Stamm are funnily staples.

Gando, Linflas (sorry linflas), Hawk, nor azizi tend to not get much play. Nor Nabi, Eliza nor lief really (I keep thinking I play him because of Conflux)


Really, I stick to a set group of people in the end Solid fighters or ones that are flexible, and Boris/Wuuf as the go to spellcasters!

[Chaos-Shaman]

i ended up writting down all their stats and chose from there for the second time i played it. i used all magic with the first time played, fireballs and more fireballs, i never used the nija until later in the game to gain easy levels.

[Sophia]

I don't think there is a DM champion I've never taken, but I pretty much never use Tiggy because she's just plain too weak. Boris or Chani have decent enough spellcasting and are a lot less frail. I even managed to make Hissssa into a pretty badass wizard once.

In CSB, I never really liked all of the weird creatures that you get as characters. I don't think I've ever taken most of them. This is, admittedly, based on flavor rather than stats, but whatever. I tend to take Petal, because she's badass, or team Uxmal, mostly because they're human. My most recent CSB completion (in DSB CSB! It's coming together!) is with team Uxmal, actually.

[beowuuf]

I liked Aroc in CSB for being a solid fighter and spellcaster. Can't recall if the rest of the bird people were any good now.

[oh_brother]

Yeah, there also some in CSB that I never used, mainly because I tend to take my DM party with me. Given my fondness for Gothmog I tended to take Plague as a surrogate (though Plague was a female...who knew!).

Though now I look, I probably took most at some point. The only one I know I never used is Leta, because I had no idea what that picture represents. Oh wait, I have literally just got it...it is a bird!! I always thought it was some sort of monkey. That makes much more sense. Actually she looks quite cool.

[linflas]

I never picked Wuuf (sorry Beo), Gando, Azizi (because she's hot), Tiggy, Mophus, Wu Tse.

[Chaos-Shaman]

what is the difference in being male or female in the game?

[beowuuf]

Mechanically nothing I believe. It's a hidden stat associated with the characters. I'm going to be happy to have that revelation in my DM story regarding Wuuf, and it mean nothing much in the end

[Chaos-Shaman]

hmmm, i'd tend to give the female npc more persuasive, luring, convincing, less aggressive, blabbering stories of love they dream about, capable of infiltrating any society not to mention their curves of suduction on males. females tend to think things through longer, plot more and conjure jealousy spirits , how to incorporate that in a DM, not sure we can

i read a puffer fish story yesterday, a new species that makes crop circle on sandy bottoms that the females inspect and lay their eggs in the middle of it. they looked like some alien had made them. it was a 10cm long little fish making this beautiful near perfect circle 2m in diameter.

[terkio]

As far as champions male or female this is much like the question about angel's sexe.


One of Melozzo's musician (seraphim) angels from the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli, now in the sacristy of St. Peter's Basilica

A fine candidate to the DM hall of fame. He or she is level 5 Seraphin

1 Chayot
2 Ophanim
3 Erelim
4 Hashmallim
5 Seraphim
6 Malakim Messengers, angels
7 Elohim "Godly beings"
8 Bene Elohim "Sons of Godly beings"
9 Cherubim
10 Ishim

[Chaos-Shaman]

hehehe, i love those who know things like that terkio, but from a ignorant glance i can still see... nice, a real show of both sexes

[Seriously Unserious]

back to the original topic...

I'm pretty sure I've used all of the champions at some point. I don't often use Mophus, Tiggy, Wu-Tse, Leif Elija Stamm or Hawk though. Not anything in particular that I have against them, but I always seem to find someone else for their roles that I like more.

When selecting a party I usually like to have at least 1 good fighter for the front, and either a ninja or fighter for the 2nd front member, in back I like to have 1 wizard and 1 priest. If any of the back members can double up as a competent ninja from the start I view that as a bonus. In recent games, espicially in some of the RTC custom dungeons, I've also discovered just how useful a good ninja with a good bow and slayers can be. just for kicks I killed a death knight with nothing but my 2 ninja/spellcasters each armed with a speedbow and about a dozen slayers, it took at most about 12-14 slayers to kill the death knight.

I even managed to make Hissssa into a pretty badass wizard once.

I've done this too. I've even managed to make Halk into a pretty good wizard once or twice. I think 1 of those times I had Chani in my party so I was able to give him Chani's moonstone and got him to wear it and practice stamina potions until he gained a priest level.

[Chaos-Shaman]

I've done this too. I've even managed to make Halk into a pretty good wizard once

same here, give him a mana potion and start training. i'd have to say maybe tried half the champions with DM, it was so long ago, how do you guys remember it so well?

[sucinum]

War Cry helps a lot to get the no mana-guys started in spellcasting.

[MasterWuuf]

I never picked Wuuf (sorry Beo), Gando, Azizi (because she's hot), Tiggy, Mophus, Wu Tse.

Never picked Wuuf? That really surprised me.
Wuuf has always been one of my 'go to' heroes, when taking on a 'team' of heroes.

[terkio]

Never used:
Iado, Zed, Hawk, Boris, Alex, Nabi, Hissa, Leyla, Mophus, Wuuf, Stamm, Tiggy, Halk, Syra, Gando, Linflas.

Used:
Chani, Gothmog, Sonja, Azizi, Leif, Wu tse, Darou, Elija

[ebeneezergude]

Always use Boris, Tiggy, Wuuf, Darouu. The classic four. Reincarnated of course.

[PaulH]

Probably used them all, but am convinced Stamm is the best character of all.

[Chaos-Shaman]

why is Stamm the best? i found Chani the best for me, just due to her quick level ups.

[sucinum]

Stamm has a great Stamina combined with a high vitality, so he is quite capable of running and slashing a lot. He has an awful Wisdom, though, which makes him combined with the low mana a bad spellcaster. But since you usually fight and run more than you cast spells, that's ok.

I can remember a thread about the best heroes, but basically it's quite simple: the lowest Anti-Magic and Anti-Fire (which are both pointless) means the other stats are (usually) higher. How you value those depends on your playstyle...

[beowuuf]

Indeed, there's a reason I had him as the sole champion in my dungeon He was a very capable fighter, and combined with the axe just means he's a solid person. I found fighters worked better for my style of play than spellcasters if you had to build a character from the ground up.

[Chaos-Shaman]

yes, my first 4 characters i used spells only, it wasn't until later i discovered it is better to 4x4 fight them as long as one has a good weapon. it was always the ninja as the last one that went up in levels for me. i needed some brass knuckles, kicking didn't seem all that great either. my latest ai the punch and the kick some monsters dodge, so it's even more difficult. i think everyone basically used the fireball at first, they seemed to do the most damage, so i leaned towards the characters with more mana, but always had one tough guy to carry items and swing the sword.

[Seriously Unserious]

Stamm has a great Stamina combined with a high vitality, so he is quite capable of running and slashing a lot. He has an awful Wisdom, though, which makes him combined with the low mana a bad spellcaster. But since you usually fight and run more than you cast spells, that's ok.

I can remember a thread about the best heroes, but basically it's quite simple: the lowest Anti-Magic and Anti-Fire (which are both pointless) means the other stats are (usually) higher. How you value those depends on your playstyle...

I haven't used Stamm much, when I go for the 0-mana thugs I usually end up choosing Halk, but I do love Stamm's axe right off, that's something I probably should have taken into account. Of course, at the time I did most of my DM playing, my style was very Wizard oriented, preferring to toss fireballs at everything I came across.

It wasn't until later that I discovered how useful a good fighter can be, or how many early level monsters a ninja can kill off. The ninja's especially useful in killing of those numerous but glass-jawed trollins and tough but slow as molasses in winter rock piles at a distance without having to use up your mana on them.

I disagree that anti-fire is useless, it's probably one of the most useful resistances you'll find in the game, just go anywhere where there's fireballs flying about and you'll know what I mean. The low AF guys will get slaughtered every time you take a fireball hit, while the high AF guys will be able to keep on going. Of course, I've also discovered that a priest's fireshield can be very helpful in those areas as well. I also discovered that some monsters are actually more vulnerable to poison then to fireballs, and others are immune to all but lightning (golems, animated armors [original DM only, not some clones such as RTC where immunities of these monsters were changed for some reason]).

[Ameena]

I think lightning has a physical aspect to its damage as well as the fire or whatever else its damage is, so monsters normally higly resistant to magic still take damage from the physical part.

[Seriously Unserious]

In RTC monsters handle lightning as a separate spell resistance category, but 'm not sure how the original engine handled it, or how other clones do either. It may be that what you said is right.

[Ameena]

I just remember reading that somewhere. It's possible that was in reference to RTC, though - I pretty much exclusively use the Fireball as far as offensive spells are concerned (Harm Non-Material Being aside, of course) and always have done so I've never done any comparisons between the effectiveness of various spells against different creature types. I expect one of the other clone makers (Sophia or Paul Stevens) might be able to describe in proper details how monster resistances work, since they've gone all "behind the scenes" on the mechanics in order to build their clones, I expect .
Alternatively, it's possible this kind of info is available on the Encyclopaedia, if you've not checked there yet - it seems to have info on pretty much everything DM-related, after all .

[terkio]

Yes, the Encyclopedia has everything. Here it is: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/1363

All about creatures.
See how a monster is resistant to fire, poison and fear.

[gerganrab]

why evryone so down on Mophus? Given the standard DM set of champions he's always on my list. it's Mo and Gotghmog bringing up the rear with Stamm and Halk (or maybe Darou) as tanks. Ninja is a skill I don't really worry about since it seems easy to make ninja levels just tossing random stuff. I'll admit the usefulness of a healer is dependent on when you find a flask GB

[Ameena]

The thing about Mophus is more of an in-joke on the forum based on the fact that his grin is kind of creepy, that's all .
Finding a flask is easy if you take Wuuf, because he starts with one. Otherwise, you can find several on Level Two, so it's not too long of a wait anyway .
I tend to neglect the Ninja skill until later in the dungeon (maybe around Level Nine), when I train everyone up to around Journeyman level by having each person take turns to throw a boulder or chest over and over again - once it travels more than one square (so I have to move to pick it up again), I stop and go onto the next person because I'm lazy .