Originally Posted by
Nevermore
What are the best races and classes combinations to begin the ADOM experience? Thank you from a novice player.
First of all, I want to state that I haven't played the pre-releases. All I'm going to say is based on 1.1.1. Here we go.
I definitely think that you should begin with a tough melee character with the only objective of making your games longer so that you have more time to learn the basic mechanics properly.
In my opinion, the best characters for this are trolls (practically any class, although barbarian is probably the toughest). Trolls have the problem of having high food consumption, which shouldn't be an issue if you read what corpses are safe to eat and what aren't (assuming you play with spoilers). If you play spoiler-free then an orc barbarian may be a better choice.
TL;DR: First objective: learn basic mechanics. R/C combination: Troll Barbarian. If high food consumption is a problem, Orc Barbarian.
Once you begin to feel invincible in the early game and make some progress you'll come to realize that playing a melee character has limitations. You'll reach a point where meleeing some big monsters isn't safe and your progress will be cut. At this moment I recommend that you begin playing wizards. The objective from now on is to get your first win.
The wizard is the most powerful class in the game by far. This is so because of three factors: (1) the high damage that can be dealt to several enemies (while melee and archers can only damage one at a time); (2) this damage can be dealt at a distance, which is safer; and (3) utility spells like teleport and invisibility improve your survival greatly when things get rough.
The most powerful race for a wizard, potentially, is the gray elf. The problem is that the early game may be difficult because you have very low toughness. However, you can play them anyway, just assuming that you are going to die a lot. At the moment that one of your wizards goes through the early game, you'll have in your hands a very powerful character. Other possibility is to admit a less powerful wizard in the late game and choose a tougher race for the early game. Drakeling looks like the best choice to me followed by dwarf. A third possibility is to play a gnome wizard. Gnomes are a little bit tougher than elves and still very suited for magic, resulting in very powerful characters in the late game.
TL;DR: When you are able to stay alive with the tank character, switch to wizards. Objective: get your first win. Suggestion of races, ordered from low to high survivability and from high to low power in the late game: gray elf, gnome, drakeling, dwarf.
Finally, another possibility of a very easy and powerful class is an archer. It doesn't deal damage to several enemies at a time but it deals *a lot* of damage to a single enemy from a distance. Races for an archer: high elf (easy early game thanks to the elven chain mail and the long bow with a lot of arrows they begin with), dark elf (potentially more powerful than the high elf, but they don't start with bows nor crossbows).
TL;DR: Archers are other great alternative for getting your first win. Races: high elf, dark elf (tougher early game).
1 ULE, 1 UNE, 18 regular endings. Won with every race. Trying to win with every class. Never won with farmer, merchant, mindcrafter and thief.