Best Four Champions...

[Duckman]

You do not pay attention to titles do you? Mophus has title "the healer". Healers never kill anyone if not necessary, because they try to make people healthly, and killing is unhealthly.

[beowuuf]

Actually, FTL placed the space a space in, not realising "thehealer" means "murderer". Also, do a pixel count of his smile to anyone else's. It's too wiiiiiiiiiiiide!

[Ameena]

Yeah, and how do you know that his title isn't just some kind of sadistic one based on the way he tortures/injures/maims people and then heals them back up so he can do it all again? I don't think he uses that apple for eating, you know .

[Gambit37]

I don't know about best 4 champions, but I just started a RTC rules game of DM as I haven't played it for years. I chose reincarnated Wuuf, Mophus, Hissssa and Daroou. Quite interesting training the characters in the first few levels without any interesting magic (no runes available.)

The party have done pretty well so far, but there does seem to be some tension. Mophus keeps running away, hiding behind corners and leaping out and grinning at everyone. It's shameful and I've never seen this behaviour before. I wonder if GG added it as a special feature?

[Trantor]

Gambit: Just wait for my dungeon...

[Duckman]

What about big smile? Some people just have big mouths... it could be because all the preaching.

[Gambit37]

@Duckman: There is a long running joke on the forum (for several years) about Mophus having a scary grin. You'll see many of us referring to this in different threads. Check out some of the Christmas Story threads for examples

[Trantor]

The two "Quote of the week" threads are also good sources (and always good for a laugh in general; they still crack me up even though I have read each of them at least 20 times).

[Duckman]

Hmm ok. I will check the quote topic

[dayday2008]

The champions i'm using at the moment are Gando, boris, wuuf and tiggy. I chose them because i knew they would grow to be a formidable party of great mana. I've tried my best to make them good strong fighters, they've managed to defeat the dragon through hit and run tactics but are now struggling against lord chaos.
Is there any hope for them?

[beowuuf]

Lord Chaos should be the easiest task. Blast all his demons and flames and then you should be able to dance around his spells until you can do what you have to do!

[dayday2008]

Cheers Beowuff, I kicked Lord Choas' ass! Unfortunately Tiggy fell in doing so and it was down to Wuuf to do the fusing. What a good boy he was, he got a good back rub and a treat for his efforts!

Anywho....Does anyone have any recomendations as to the next 'four champs' I should use to get the other ending? Perhaps some good all rounders or a party or four tough guys or galls?

[Ameena]

You know you don't have to take four people, right? You could mess around with different combinations and see which party size suits you best. Four is good for a first-time run through the dungeon but once you know what you're doing and you know all the crap you actually don't have to pick up, it's perfectly possible to take a champ through solo.
Personally I prefer two people - you can still double-hit in melée, quick-click two spells, can turn to dodge incoming projectiles if you so wish, have a bit more inventory space than if you took a single person...what else...oh yeah, all the exp that would be divided between four people killing monsters before, you now only have two people doing all the work so in theory they should level faster. Less people to worry about healing/dying. Umm...there are some other reasons why I like two people but I can't remember what they are right now. Three would be a bit of a weird number to take, I think. And a solo run is probably the biggest challenge, especially if you do it with someone who has crap hp like Tiggy (though she probably kicks arse later in the game once she can chuck several Mon-Fireballs one after the other without running out of mana ).

[dayday2008]

Thanks for the advice Ameena I shall bare that in mind. I think i tried solo once but found it too big a challenge so maybe two would be best!

[Ameena]

Yeah, two gives you more fire-power and carrying capacity than just one, but you need less food and stuff. And now you've played it through once, you'll know what kind of stuff it's okay to just not bother picking up.

[dayday2008]

I hope this isn't going too off topic but which two champs do you think would be best?

[ian_scho]

Top tip: Don't be afraid to take a champion with 0 Magic (Manor). At the first screamer get the champion to War Cry at it 10 or 20 times and see what happens
Also I hear that Stamina becomes more important when you have less than 4 champions

[Ameena]

I think there have been various people taking each champ through the dungeon on solo runs in order to compare stuff like how their stats improve and all that and their general usefulness in the dungeon and stuff. I suppose it depends on what kind of playstyle you favour. Casters will be fairly weak early on (as you might expect, with their crap hp), but probably kick arse later once they can lob a whole load of spells at stuff. Melée characters are probably a challenge if you want them to become good casters, since they won't have much mana to start off with. Like Ian has suggested, you can use War Cry to gain them a few Priest levels (and therefore some mana), or there are also a few items which, when equipped, give you some extra mana points as long as they're being held/worn. But I won't tell you what they are .
Maybe try a few different combos - just take two people (if you are going to try it with two) and play through, say, just till the end of Level 2 (which shouldn't take too long). If you don't like the "feel" of it by then, restart and take a different team down. I exepct you can get through that level in a couple of minutes once you know what you're doing and start to learn the route through it off by heart and stuff. My usual two-person team is (re-incarnated) Hissssa and Wuuf, mainly because I don't like "human"-looking characters. I'm already a human - why would I want to play one in a Fantasy game? So I rename them of course...it works out that re-incarnation is better for your party's stats than resurrection, in DM. If you didn't already know that, I mean .
All in all, I reckon one stat that it is annoying not to have would be Stamina. At least, it is in my case where I hurtle round the dungeon at full-pelt using the keyboard, and refuse to go any further if someone is in the yellow because the drop in speed is just frustrating . But like I say, everyone has their own preferences. You might find that a team consisting of, say, Tiggy and Boris is fantastic for you, or you might prefer something like Halk and Stamm.
Try a few combos and see what happens .

[PaulH]

I think Stamm is the best character. Team with someone like Leif who has a bit of Mana, reincarnate and you will have a strong team.

Cold steel work better than magic in many places.

[Ameena]

And sometimes, heavy doors work even better than cold steel .
But apart from that, long live the step-dance .

[Sophia]

But apart from that, long live the step-dance .

You should (or shouldn't, depending on your feelings) try DSB. Defeating the effectiveness of the step-dance was my #1 priority in monster AI.

[Ameena]

Heh, what did you do, make the monsters able to turn faster or something? Hey, I like buggy AI - it means I can take advantage of innate mechanics without feeling as though I'm cheating .

[Sophia]

Heh, what did you do, make the monsters able to turn faster or something?

Something like that. DSB monsters can move and make a 90 degree turn in one step (DM monsters can too) but they can also turn and attack in one step. In addition, if you're doing the step-dance to a group of monsters, it will fragment and try to surround you, and an individual will try to double back to confuse you, or pause on a diagonal and wait for you to move, and then attack as soon as you step in front of it.

[dayday2008]

My daughters current favourite four champs are: Daroou, because he should be able to give the monsters a good whack. Hissssa, because he looks cool. Sonja, because she has a really good sword and is a good fighter and Gothmog, because he looks cool and is a good wizard.
Well thats why she picked them so she tells me. Bless!

[Ameena]

Hehe, when I started playing DM in RTC, I took a four-person party of (re-incarnated) Hissssa, Gothmog, Wuuf, and Gando. That was before I'd read on this forum about people making runs with less than four people - before that, the thought had never even occurred to me! These days, like I mentioned, elsewhere, I take re-incarnated Hissssa and Wuuf. Because they look cool . And I like them anyway. Hissssa gets renamed to Ameena Shadowscale (hey, reptiles can change sex before they hatch, and re-incarnation is basically rebirth, isn't it? ), and Wuuf becomes Fippy, though I can't remember whether I gave him the surname "Darkpaw" or "Shadowfoot"...

[Twiggy]

My party nearly always had the same 3, with the 4th person interchanging through the runs.

Always had Daroou, Wu Tse and Gothmog. Daroou was always my main figher, but for some reason only I will ever know...which I don't really, Wu Tse was the 2nd figher. She gained levels pretty fast on the whole and while she might not of been as strong as Daroou by the end she'd generally hold up pretty well. Gothmog was always down back lobbing spells - did anyone else ever find that he'd just die like nobodies business? You'd be having a fight, and there'd suddenly be a pile of bones, and they'd be Gothmogs. Still couldn't not have him in the party though.

The 4th would change depending on what I was doing with Wu Tse, but I'd generally be Halk/Stamm or just a random wizard to be honsest.

[Simon]

Just so you know, tiggy is a man. It's a bug, glitch, typo that it says female in the code.

<fingers in ears la la lal la>

I did the game solo as tiggy, and also as stamm, stamm was awesome, and I didn't realise you could priest it up a notch with warcry when I played him.

Ideal 4 party is Stamm, Tiggy, Wuuf (for the potion bottle), and Halk.

It's the most D&D party you can get really, except for Wuuf. Your mages have to be weak and puny and your main characters crap at magic or it's just not right!

[iconofsin]

For some reason, Zed is an automatic pick for me. Mainly because I've always viewed his versatality as useful to the party. However, after immersing myself in these forums for the past week, I've only now realised the full depth and scope of DM and I've yet to get out of my habits I established when I was 8 years old! Is there any reason Zed isn't valuable as I hardly ever see his name mentioned?

My party is almost always: Zed, Linflas, Daroo, Gothmog, but as I say, habits! I'm halfway through a proper playthrough as an adult (I've never once finished DM) but I realise now I've made some bad mistakes that have probably made my party underpowered. I think I'm going to start again!

My only dilemma is which flavour of DM to choose, CSBWIN or RTC. I appreciate the fine tuning in RTC, and the spell book system is certainly fair, but on the other hand I'd like to play it as it was originally intended, even if the cool looking shields do nothing (this was quite a disappoing revelation to me!)

[oh_brother]

I picked Zed for the first time since I was a kid recently - I decided to play through with characters that were new or that I had not chosen for a long time.

I found Zed awful. I reincarnated him (as I do with all characters) so I am just talking about his stats. Really average. I chose him as my main fighter, but Leyla has higher strength and much higher dexterity than him. His wisdom, etc., is not that hot either. I think he is a poor choice.

I took Wuuf (possibly for the first time ever) and was really impressed. His (her?) mana gets very high very quickly, so I would say he is better than Gothmog, my normal main spellcaster. High wisdom too. And he has a flask, which can be useful (although he does wear a tunic without any pants, something that is only acceptable for cartoon ducks).

As for CSBWin vs. RTC I have never played RTC so I don't know. Some people complain that certain creatures are over-powered in RTC though.

[Jan]

Hello, Iconofsin, and welcome to the forums!

RTC is definitely a much more powerful and versatile platform, but if you want to experience the true DM, CSBwin should be better. Personally, I tend to prefer CSBwin.

I think the character selection is not that important and Zed is versatile enough - training, as you point out, is much more important. But you don't need to start again - you can return to some training area (depending on how deep you are in the dungeon - e.g.,

Spoiler

the Screamer room, the Rat room

, etc.) and train your current charaters there.

get out of my habits I established when I was 8 years old!

I hope it only relates to the DM!

Good luck in the game and keep us informed on your progress!