Why I Like Troll Merchants

[Cirruz]

Little time filler while at work.

I love Troll Merchants, why you ask?

A few factors.

The skill set. Wide range of useful skills. Drawback being low Learning, but a lot of the skills self train with time & you can save your level ups for key skills. Detect Item Status, won't max it, but knowing every now & then you can equip an item to test it is nice. Combine with auto ID of your speciality & it can be real handy. Herbalism, all good. Literacy despite your poor Le. Mining so you won't break your pick axe to often. I just like having lots of skills.

Nice & tough. You can muck round in the SMC looking for the blanket & normally get out fine without leveling too high that Kranach runs off.

By the time you save the carpenter you can get healing, then you can go for Thieves Guild membership nice & quick with your starting Pick Pocket.

i just like them.

Sure your class powers suck but so do a lot of classes.

Why do you like your fav race/class combo?

[Soirana]

Why do you like your fav race/class combo?

Female human assassin.

Guess that comes to the point of view. I always do imagine my RPG character not being me but something what works under my orders.

Well, if i associate starting screen as I am pick someone to do dirty job for me that combo wins about every time, lol

Oh, and food preservation. I do struggle a bit without that one.

[anon123]

Why do you like your fav race/class combo?

For me, that'd be dark elf wizards. I pick dark elves because I have always done the same thing in any game that features them as a race, for no reason I'm particularly sure of. And wizards, because this is a fantasy game and if magic exists, damn right I want to learn and use it!

The skill set is fine, I guess. You start with Alertness to dodge magic bolts, Concentration (taken to 100 within the first two level-ups), Find Weakness for melee, Healing (although it's not a big deal thanks to the Candle starsign), Literacy at 100 (obvious advantages), Stealth and Ventriloquism (useful to deal with cats or confuse and then run away from a dangerous foe).

The low physical stats are a problem in the early game. You have to stay out of melee range, and try not to be a hero in general, because you'll die. Early sources of PV, one of which can be Barnabas' shop if you started a potion of invisibility and are lucky enough to grab some items before he spots you, are precious. Even then, you never know where the next stone block trap is... although since you have Herbalism, this becomes less of a problem once you get to an undisturbed herb-supporting level - get that Toughness up! As much as having to deal with the potentials will let you, well.

[ScrollOfCureBlindness]

Female HE druids.

Druids get no trouble from animals. That means a very high chance of completing the kitty quest, no trouble from ants on PC:2 and bees below Dwarftown. (bees will still leave wax when they all leave their hive) They're clerical casters with a guaranteed bouncing offensive spell and this specific combo nets you a nice wooden shield that might save your arse in the early game. The lightning bolt will have no trouble frying Kranach. Neutral blink dogs can be provoked with no penalty once you get your hands on that blessed amulet of balance.
High elves make good casters but aren't such marshmallows as gray elves tend to be. Plus, they're supposedly awesome with bows which I abuse once I get my hands on one.
Last, females have a good time shopping, especially high elves with remarkable Ap. (before corruption sets in that is) Skriek will get rid of his keys at half the price which can save you from a lot of trapped doors later on.

The notable skills from the skillset include Concentration, Literacy, Healing, Herbalism and Swimming. Lack of Food Preservation can be a dick but I manage.

[Silfir]

... All combinations of druids have a wooden shield. High elves aren't really any more talented with bows than other races except for Dexterity score and a one in seven chance to receive Sun's Messenger upon crowning. They still make decent druids thanks to their magical stats.

[Phoobnahr]

Funny this is here... Was just on my way here to make a topic about my troll merchant...

I could probably use a few pointers... This is my first character to make it this far where I let [f]ate decide...

Ron specializes in magical potions... got the sapphire amulet "preserver" from a surge of power level in the DDL...

He's only level 12 (curse this slow trollish leveling) but he's already saved Khelevaster... I'm ready to do the griffyard and the pyramid.

My Wi, To, and Dx are all up to 25... ready to start downing my potions of gain attributes.
I've also found three (count 'em), THREE magical potion shops, meaning as soon as I get my alchemy up to 100, I can realistically expect to be able to make a large (if not unlimited) supply of potions of gain attributes.

Current melee weapon is a flaming mithril flail that I stole from Barnabas with my starting potion of invisibility, but I'm considering switching to a light mithril spear of mayhem that I found recently... the flail has better damage capability with the flames, but the spear has much better base damage if the flames are taken out of the equation (which many monsters seem capable of doing). Liked rocking flails for RP reasons though... so I'm kinda torn about it.

I can post a vlg a little later, but for now I'm pretty excited, as this is my first "non-premium" character to make it this far, with such promising prospects for the future.

I agree with the topic of this thread however... GO troll merchants!

[BrianL]

Recently, I've started tormenting myself by trying to force a GE Healer to kill Kranach and rescue the stupid puppy before I can "really" start playing. The way I look at it, GEs start with the most overall stats, which I reroll until I find a set with >10 ST and TO--that really helps the early game. I choose healer because I actually like the class abilities, but more so because of their high overall stats along with the inclusion of Alertness, Concentration, and Find Weakness; if I were to switch back to my original human combo, I could nab Food Preservation at the cost of a few stat points overall.

I've had a few good characters that were blasting spells, dodging everything, and either beating the rest of the game to death or shooting them with the bows skill that I train from the fight with the raiders onward.

[Lotana]

Why do you like your fav race/class combo?

I have an unhealthy obsession with Dark Elf Necromancers. Just can't get enough of them.

There are many reasons why I love them... Skills are certainly just awesome: Alertness, double to Find Weakness, Herbalism, Alchemy, Appraising, double to Stealth, but most of all: Food Preservation! Necromancy skill is also handy, but I tend to play as a wizard until I find a quickling corpse. Animate a quickling skeletal warrior in the small cave and prepare for frustration of not getting anymore experience because he kills everything in sight. Necromancer has no issues with getting rid of cats either . Just awesome crowning rewards as well! Yummy spiders are common. Starts with frost spells, so ice bridges are available right away.

Another definite plus is that he just got style. This is a character that is just pure evil and loves it! Bonus points if you start using Shadow Touch starting from level 25. Level 50 class power rightly makes you feel like the god of undeath that you are !

Though this race/class combo is just simply overpowered, it doesn't feel as cheap as going with a wizard or priest. Early game is brutal (It feels harder than wizard somehow anyway), especially if you start with tract of chaos instead of frost bolt. Dark Elves got the worst HP regeneration in the game: Make sure to take that healing quest (Don't forget to animate that healer corpse if it drops ).

You get terrible prices in shops since Dark Elves are hated by everybody. Books are common, but you won't be swimming in them like wizards. Library got scrolls instead of books except for the secret hallway.

Applying necromancy to anything except some version of quickling results in just annoyance of waiting for them to catch up, especially on deeper levels where you just can't spare the turns due to corruption. Even quickling slaves are a chore: You can't just teleport stair to stair: You got to walk it. And if there is a river, you got to build an ice bridge for them. Careful of those fireball traps/doors/level 48 or you might find yourself next to a very pissed off level 80 former-slave.

All the difficulty of the early game just makes you feel proud when you finally reach level 25 after those hundreds of deaths. It is a fun combination to play.

[Blasphemous]

No single favorite class (although GE Wiz cuts it pretty close), but several that I like playing with:

DE Necro - reasons explained in the post above.
Trollish Healers - somewhat easy in the beginning, the super regen makes it even more interesting. Candle born, healing skill, crown, rings, bracers of regeneration, necklace of rapid healing = almost cheating.
Dwarven Bards - skillset is ok, starting stats quite decent St and To-wise. Heir gift is superb, taming greater claw bugs and later killer bugs at lvl 1 is a nice feature and there's an infinite supply of new ones if you lose your current bug pet. No risks of it turning against you either. Plus if your starting wand of light has >7 charges, you can usually get to lvl 6 in gremlin cave. Fun.
Human Druids - I had some really nice games with this class combo, lack of hostile animals really makes going through dungeons simpler, especially early in the game. Versatile combo, decent both as spellcaster and melee sort of char.
HE Archers - although grey elven archers have better starting equipment, I prefer L alignment initially and press to dwarftown very soon, often at levels below 8, with more or less success. Altar is generated L and I don't change alignment in the game. As soon as I get my hands on some hatchet, logs and fletchery sets usually found on various CoC levels and possibly in DT shop, archery fun starts for real.

[#13]

You forget one thing. The specialty of any merchant class allows you to shove missile coins right up the ass of any hostiles. Sort of like Gambit with playing cards in X-Men series.