Remember that the duelist has an armor piercing attack that kicks in *quite* often, though, so PV is a non issue. (especially considering the number of attacks they get in the same amount of time compared to a Paladin) I haven't found out what % of the time it happens, but it was enough to allow my WoTS wielding, RoTMC wearing duelist to just rip through absolutely anything in a couple of hits.
Duelists are far and away the best melee class. Barbarians, Paladins, and Monks aren't bad either - a Paladin or Barbarian is certainly easier to start.
Mindcrafter with GTB, teleport and confusion can probably beat anyone, no matter in open space or in tunnels.
I'm going to win with Dark Elves of all classes.
Mindcrafter, Necromancer, Beastfighter, ULE Archer, UNE Barbarian done.
Perhaps a more thorough framework of this discussion would be beneficial. This goes with some assumptions:
1. Every race/class combination ONLY has the skills they start off with.
2. All skills are maxed, all stats are maxed to whatever their potential was when starting and every PC is level 50.
3. Anything of slaying is banned
4. Equipment can only be selected from a standardized list. Allow a maximum of one artifact per PC.
5. Standardize spells somehow. Elementalists obviously can only use the spells they automatically learn. The rest can perhaps pick a number of spells to cast.
6. Necromancer immortality uses the actual toughness value to calculate whether the necro is dead.
7. The danger level is equal to D:50 (i.e. teleportation costs 100pp, summon monsters can lead to supreme shenanigans etc etc)
8. Piety level starts the same as everyone (needs to be relatively high so paladin and priest actually have their class skills)
Who, then, would be the strongest? Probably mindcrafter because you can still pray for PP. But it would be significantly harder for them to just zip around.