of devastation

[blunk]

So of all possible rolls I find a scalpel of devastation in PC6.
Awesome weapon (5d3+7) and as always on these occasions if only...
Then thinking again it could have been worse as spear and any 2h are crap for duallist.

Dark elf seems like a very powerful duallist race.
Does duellists have any caster prospects?

[Grond]

Dark elf seems like a pretty bad duelist choice to me, given that Alertness and Find Weakness are class skills. Then again, I am pretty biased against races with crap Toughness.

Caster prospects are not great, despite having Concentration. Probably need to be higher than level 20 with high learning, even for simple spells.

[Blank4u47]

Dark elves are a great duelist race, if you are only looking at stats and equipment. As for casting... You're going to need a lot of luck with Le attribute, gotta bless them books, but with dark elf mana, you can have decent book casting prospects. Just need a boozed up wand of wonder.

[Grond]

Dark elves are a great duelist race, if you are only looking at stats and equipment.

Really? It seems like their starting equipment is worse than the other elves (leather armor instead of elven chain mail), and on par with most of the other races. Stats are debatable, but I would value To over Dex and Mana for a primarily melee character.

[Blank4u47]

Really? It seems like their starting equipment is worse than the other elves (leather armor instead of elven chain mail), and on par with most of the other races. Stats are debatable, but I would value To over Dex and Mana for a primarily melee character.

Yeah you're right about the equipment, I misremembered and thought they got elven chain.

As for the stats, meh. Toughness is overrated in my book. I'd much rather have decent book casting prospects with high mana. As for dx, its one of my favorite stats, and can help an early duelist fight those karmic creatures with their non-existent missle skills. Also dark elves can start with whips, which is a duelists dream weapon(ok not really, maybe my favorite though)

Anyways... I don't think there's such a thing as a bad duelist race, as they always start with the best skills and it's a very overpowered class.

[blunk]

Race was random choice.
I did start with an awesome +3+5 leather which I recently lost to an acid vortix but soon to get mummy wrap so.
Learning is high, now at 21 before oracle. More troublesome is manaregen and number of castings for noncasters.
Dex potential is crazy high, does fighting with a whip train dex? I've never bothered with whips before.
Oh and can I get penetrating backstabs?

[Blank4u47]

Sorry, whip fighting does not train dx however returning weapons do. Just not very efficiently.

Yes you can get penetrating backstabs one of the perks.

As for pp regen, it'll be just find after you train concentration some more. Just don't try and read anything except light and darkness until you're much higher leveled and have at least 30 Le. There's a chart somewhere that shows what the requirements are. But basics are this lit=100 is 10% conc.100 is 20% Le is 1% per point blessed book 20% book born 20% 1%per level. Minus the spell difficulty. Light and darkness is +8% bolt spells (guess) -10% teleport 0%

[Blasphemous]

Of all the elven races, dark elves have the highest toughness and toughness potential so it's a decent choice for a duelist.
Also consider the fact you're at a disadvantage with spells and ranged weaponry so any aging monsters will have to be dealt with in melee.
Well, you can technically use wands or just shoot a crapload of undead slayers but it's not very efficient.
With a dark elf you just close in with them without worrying about getting aged to death.
Plus they typically benefit from high dx, which is quite useful throughout the game, especially at the time when many monsters punch through armor so DV is your only defense.
I played gray elven duelist and was very satisfied with how they worked. Then again, I only play gray elves so my opinion is biased

[blunk]

Same character still, weapon was somewhat of loosing its edge and I poked into Darkforge.
Found no less than 2 artifact weapons! and got crowned with a third.

All in all none of the extreme weapons but choices choices:

   blessed scalpel of devastation (+2, 5d3+7)                          [2s]
   uncursed lead-filled mace "Big Punch" (+1, 8d5+3) [-6, +0]        [800s]
   uncursed dagger of death (+1, 5d5+4)                               [10s]
   blessed rune-covered club "Skullcrusher" (+12, 3d6+2) [-3, +0] {St+4}
   uncursed adamantium short sword of mayhem (+0, 3d6+12)             [22s]
   blessed rune-covered long sword "Trusted One" (+1, 5d3) [+7, +7]   [60s]

Big punch is too heavy.
Skullcrusher is awesome vs anything humanoid so will practice it some.
Dagger and sword is fairly similar damage with dagger being iron but better backstab multiplier.
Runecovered looks useless even for duelist (last artifact was soaker).

[Gref]

Same character still, weapon was somewhat of loosing its edge and I poked into Darkforge.
Found no less than 2 artifact weapons! and got crowned with a third.

All in all none of the extreme weapons but choices choices:

   blessed scalpel of devastation (+2, 5d3+7)                          [2s]
   uncursed lead-filled mace "Big Punch" (+1, 8d5+3) [-6, +0]        [800s]
   uncursed dagger of death (+1, 5d5+4)                               [10s]
   blessed rune-covered club "Skullcrusher" (+12, 3d6+2) [-3, +0] {St+4}
   uncursed adamantium short sword of mayhem (+0, 3d6+12)             [22s]
   blessed rune-covered long sword "Trusted One" (+1, 5d3) [+7, +7]   [60s]

Big punch is too heavy.
Skullcrusher is awesome vs anything humanoid so will practice it some.
Dagger and sword is fairly similar damage with dagger being iron but better backstab multiplier.
Runecovered looks useless even for duelist (last artifact was soaker).

With the dagger being iron, would it be easier to increase damage potential with scrolls (if you have them)?