Champions you have never used

[Seriously Unserious]

I'll admit that Mophus is a very useful healer. In fact, he's the most experienced and powerful pure healer in DM, he lives up to his name of Mophus the Healer in that regards. It also helps that he comes with 3 items of food as well, which can be scarce before the screamer room puts a permanent end to all food shortages.

I think the main thing about Mophus that puts people off is that huge, creepy smile of his. For me it's mostly that he does get shortlisted for priest duties, but I usually end up finding someone else I like more, for me he's the proverbial 2nd placer, good but just not quite good enough.

As for ninjas, IMO in the original DM games they didn't really realize their full potential until the arrow holding quiver item came about in DM2: Skullkeep, which allows a ninja to be equipped with about a dozen arrows at a time. As I said before, I actually killed a death knight with nothing but arrows, letting my ninjas take the glory that time, just to see how many arrows it would take. They were using slayers and speedbows and it took maybe a dozen arrows or so. Even if they don't kill a monster, they sure can soften them up for your fighters, while saving mana for when you really need it. I never really realized how useful those ninjas could be until I started actually using them on a regular basis.

[Trantor]

People liking Mophus? What has the world come to?

Over the years, I think i used every single champion, though many only got picked because i usually never take them. Boris remains my favourite, but Wuuf, Chani and Stamm are definitely up there as the most useful ones. My classic party was Boris, Tiggy, Gando and Wuuf, the ones with the highest mana. Ah, the old days when I didn't know about the power of Wisdom or the efficiency of melee fights...

[Ameena]

I've recently got someone into DM - she started with Halk, Sonja, and I can't remember who else. But she decided she wanted them to be better at casting spells because they kept failing, lol (all characters reincarnated). Now she's trying an "all-mage" team consisting of Elija, Gothmog, Syra, and Wuuf (again, all reincarnated). She's been mapping out the game as she goes and intends to train her party when she can find some respawning Screamers to practice on and keep a steady food supply - I have told her that there is a good Screamer regenerating area a bit later in the dungeon and that the magic skills will come naturally anyway, with constant practice as you go (I never bother specifically stopping to grind-train so this works for me ), but I think she wants to be able to Fireball everything to death . She figured out Fireball by herself, incidentally, after reading the PDF of the manual that I sent her and messing around with runes based on their meanings. She's also managed to cast Open Door ahead of finding the scroll for it (and was fortunately facing a door at the time so could see the spell's effect) ..

[Seriously Unserious]

Awesome, fresh interest in this old classic.

@Trantor: that fav party of yours must've really been loving the fights with things like the animated armors and stone golems, all that spell casting power and no spells to do enough harm to those things for it to make any difference!

And what you you mean "people"? by my count only one person has admitted to liking Mophus. I myself don't care one way our the other about him. He's got a creepy smile and looks like the classic charlatan, but can cast a mighty fine Vi potion or fireshield when you need them. He's the only Journeyman Priest at the start, all others are Apprentice at best. Yet still, there's that whole creepy smile and charlatan look he's got going on, kinda hard to get around that, mad Priest skills that leave him living up to his tittle of "the Healer" or not. He just looks too fake and creepy. Still I can look past the looks and evaluate him as a Priest candidate which is why he still comes up near the top of my priest/healer list, he is one of the best at that.

Also, he's not the only one who looks creepy. I find Gothmog and his jet black cowl shadowed face and glowing red eyes quite creepy too. Still, he's the most skilled Wizard in the game and so he often makes it into my party. Besides, he's a Wizard, they're supposed to look at least a bit creepy to intimidate their enemies. Mophus, on the other hand, is a Priest and self proclaimed healer, they should look friendly and trustworthy, IMO, which Mophus does not. That's probably one of the reasons why he ends up a perpetual 2nd best when choosing my Priest.

[Ser Xav]

We used to call him 'Mophus The Feeler'.

Nuff said.

[Seriously Unserious]

Good one!

[Trantor]

I was just joking about Mophus. Read through the two quote of the week threads to find some of the stuff that made hating Mophus a running gag. I know at least two custom dungeons (Surgical Strike and Doom Blade) that have some weird Mophus stuff in it.

And yes, fighting Deth Knights and Golems was pretty hard with my team back in the day, but I still managed to do it eventually.

[Seriously Unserious]

So am I. I do that a lot. My user name here pretty much says it all.

[KayBee]

I'm pretty sure I've used them all at some point over the years, but there are some I only use on rare occasions, like last night. I haven't played in a long time and started a new game. I picked the ones I seldom use--Tiggy, Alex, Wu-Tse, Darouu. I think it will be a very long time before I pick Mophus again, though. I think I resurrected him once and named him Stranger Danger.

[gerganrab]

Prejudism! altho I admit he looks like a guy you would not want near your children, how would you react to an anthropomorphic spider or lizardman? or like Michael Jackson? GB

[Ser Xav]

Someone should put a secret 'shrine to Mophus' area in a dungeon as an Easter egg...

[gerganrab]

is there a way to connect dungeons? DM takes so little space on a modern compiter I would think a buildable world ala minecraft is npossinle like going into each others dungeons/ strongholds or even MMORPG but more dynamic GB

[gerganrab]

and is pvp possible, or coop? GB

[KayBee]

Maybe I'll pick Mophus the Skeever for my next game, haha.

[Trantor]

Look no further than Surgical Strike or Doom Blade if you are looking for custom dungeons that poke fun at Mophus. And I have an idea about a dungeon with him as a central character.

gerganrab: I think you can import your champions in any dungeon in RTC. Long ago, there was a project about an overhead DM with pvp and maybe coop, but I don't think it went to playable status.

[Seriously Unserious]

No, and I was working with the dev on testing it last spring, but it never really went anywhere, the engine needed to run such a thing just isn't finished yet. If I really wanted to and had more time on my hands, I could easily buy the latest version of RPG maker, learn Ruby scripting and build up a game with DM rules and possibly even DM characters, that would give us an overhead version of DM, just not of the original which IMO wouldn't port well to overhead, too many puzzles are based on 1st person and would be broken in an overhead view.

[Simon]

I think I've played with all of the characters, and I've solo'd the game twice, first with Tiggy (who is male regardless of any hidden stats) and secondly with Stamm. I didn't know about war cry either so I ended up having to get a wand or similar and levelling up that way.

Staples: Stamm, Wuuf, Zed, Boris, Halk, Gando.

Azizi is probably the only one I've never used because their starting equipment is crap and they're useless at spells.

Most disliked are Nabi and Iaido although I have completed it with them both in my party.

Tiggy is my favourite character though. He's just badass. Yes. He.

Also bonus shout out to gando because he looks like a shifty ass hobbit and whenever he casts fireball I imagine the monster being absolutely astounded with surprise before it explodes that the little bugger could do magic.

[Ameena]

Gando can't be a hobbit/halfling - he has a beard .

[KayBee]

I like Tiggy too, but I was never really sure if they were male or female, but I always leaned more towards "male". He usually ends up being named Leo Sayer if I play the reincarnated version. Solo Tiggy is definitely on my list of things to do.

[Seriously Unserious]

Also bonus shout out to gando because he looks like a shifty ass hobbit and whenever he casts fireball I imagine the monster being absolutely astounded with surprise before it explodes that the little bugger could do magic.

I've always thought of Gando as being a gnome, the smaller, more studious cousins of the dwarves.

I've never used Tiggy much, but that sounds like an interesting challenge, to complete the game with little spell hurler Tiggy going solo. Tiggy's high mana usually gets me wanting him, but his low health and stamina usually scare me away from him and to other good spell casters that can actually survive a scream from a screamer

[Clodius_one]

A weird impression I had on champions with high Mana was I tough they will never be great on other techniques. Most of the time I always chose those who were balanced in all the techniques. Later, has of rare occasion, I chose a character only to give myself a challenge. You prove to me I was wrong.

[Seriously Unserious]

I'm not sure who else uses this expression, but where I live we call someone who's able to do a bit of everything a "Jack of all trades" and have another saying about such people, "A Jack of all trades, a master of none." IMO that about sums up the generalist DM characters vs. the specialist characters. None can out cast Gothmog, Borris or Tiggy when it comes to magic and pure wizardry and, creepy as he looks, no one can out heal Mophus. Leyla can put an arrow in the dragon's eye long before its fireballs can even reach the party, and Halk and Stamm can smash that dragon's face in so bad the only thing it'll be spitting up is its own blood.

In other words, the specialists may only be able to do one thing really well at the start, but they do it extremely well. A well-rounded generalist, such as Zed, can do a little of everything but none of it particularly well. The main advantage of the generalists is that they can fit in pretty much anywhere you need them to, or can serve as a backup to your master of a single trade.

[Chaos-Shaman]

i love that description SU, hahaha, smash the dragons face in, hehehe. that's how i kill them

one other good thing about the generalists is they not only are rounded out, but carry good stats because they have leveled up the easier early stages which is why i loved Chani so much. she was able to learn everything quick. they placed her perfect in the hall of champions near the beginning.

[sucinum]

In other words, the specialists may only be able to do one thing really well at the start, but they do it extremely well. A well-rounded generalist, such as Zed, can do a little of everything but none of it particularly well. The main advantage of the generalists is that they can fit in pretty much anywhere you need them to, or can serve as a backup to your master of a single trade.

I think the opposite is true. With the same experience it costs to train a single hero from Artisan to Adept, you can train another hero from Neophyte to Artisan That makes a huge difference in your total power level:
*Your heros all have more health and mana. This helps taking blows (and fireballs) and in tight situations, you can cast far more fireballs and Vi Potions.
*Having 4 fighters means to you can swap your heroes around and have all of them attack.
*Your attributes are higher with more levels. For example getting Ninja levels also increases your Str and Dex, which also makes you a good fighter. An adept fighter/no ninja is inferior to an artisan fighter/artisan ninja.

[Seriously Unserious]

Note the words "at the start". Meaning that a novice wizard is more likely to fizzle his fireballs then a journeyman. A neofite fighter is more likely to get hit and less likely to hit when fighting hand to hand.

Over time I always get everyone cross training to other skills but if you have a spell caster's spells being all over the place he may not have the skill needed to get the spell off in an emergency. Being able to cast, say 6 fireballs as an artisan/artisan as opposed to being able to cast 4 fireballs as an adept/apprentice, but those extra 2 fireballs don't do you any good if the artisan/artisan can't cast them as powerful or fizzles half of them. The extra mana's only useful if they can cast powerful enough spells at a reasonable enough success rate, and the extra health is only beneficial if they don't get his so many times that they take twice as much damage.

Generally, I prefer to start out with my characters specialized so that what they do, they do it well, then as the game progresses, I start to work in cross training to their weaknesses and eventually work them towards becoming more diversified in their skills, because I do agree that in the long run, the extra stats do help out immensely, but in the short term, just being able to do what they do successfully is essential to surviving long enough to make it to the long run in the first place.

[Chaos-Shaman]

Generally, I prefer to start out with my characters specialized so that what they do, they do it well, then as the game progresses, I start to work in cross training to their weaknesses and eventually work them towards becoming more diversified in their skills, because I do agree that in the long run, the extra stats do help out immensely, but in the short term, just being able to do what they do successfully is essential to surviving long enough to make it to the long run in the first place.

yeah, at first it is a bit more difficult for spells so the party should be working on weapon and ninja attacks and change who was the leader every so often.

[Winnfield]

I generally never took any of the non human characters. Just didn't seem right to me for some reason.

[Ameena]

Ha, the opposite of me, then - I try not to take human-looking characters (not just in DM, but in RPGs in general) because I think they're "boring". I mean, I'm already a human in real life, so why would I want to RP as one as well? I try to get something that doesn't really look human so elves and dwarves and stuff are usually out as well. meant my initial character optins in Morrowind after flipping through the Race descriptions were limited to Khajiit, Argonian or, at a push, Orc .

[terkio]

If they don' t throw stones at you, likely you are a human being, or look fairly enough like one.

[Chaos-Shaman]

I sometimes choose the ugliest of the bunch, hoping to find a hidden attribute.