Mist Elves & Ratlings (spoilers)

[Alucard]

Let's start with the manual entries:


MIST ELVES -- Mist Elves are a truly ancient race, literally born from
the mists of time. They are almost immortal and some of their ancient
members are believed to have been present at the dawn of creation.
Their incredible lifespan gives them a very different and aloof outlook
on life and civilization as they regard even Gray Elves as mere toddlers.
Combined with the fact that Mist Elves are a very magical race, their
bodies being made from magically solidified mist, they appear frightening,
uncaring, cold and wise at the same time. They scoff at the views of the
younger races and life doesn't mean much to them, having seen many empires
rise and crumble within the span of a single Mist Elves life.

Mist Elves are even larger than Gray Elves but thin and frail beings.
Their skin is almost white, their hair is pearly white and it seems to
move with a slight breeze all the time. Their breath is misty and their
eyes are pearly, violet, pink or yellow. Mist Elves move almost without
sound. They physique is weak and they are not very strong. Additionally
they are the most fairy-like of elves, going so far that the prolonged
touch of mundane metal burns their skin like acid. Thus their prefer to
wear and wield weapons and armaments of precious metals, like mithril
or adamantium. Despite their weak physique they are dangerous warriors
as the mist-like makeup of their body greatly reduces damage taken in
melee combat.

Grey Elves despise Mist Elves, viewing them as uncaring beings devoid
of emotion and lacking the general elven love for life. Mist Elves just
chuckle about the antics of their baby cousins. Mist Elves, having been
lifted from the mists of time themselves during creation, have a very
specific grasp of necromancy. Most of them - if not drawn towards Chaos
due to boredom - hate undead and are very powerful in combatting them by
using their magical powers to wreak great harm upon undead. Mist Elf
necromancers are able to create special creatures and engage in an act of
creation rather than in infusing dead beings with unholy energies, called
white necromancy by themselves.

Mist Elves are the rarest of all elves. You will encounter a thousand
Gray Elves before you see one Mist Elf. They are rumored to live in misty
areas high in mountain valleys or deep in the hills but no mortal known
has ever seen one of their settlements. Some sages believe them to be
physical manifestations of the dreams of gods, others regard them as
leftovers from the act of creation itself. Mist Elves just chuckle and
move on at such useless ponderings.

Mist Elves train in the following skills: Literacy, Stealth,
Concentration, Dodge, Alertness and Necromancy


RATLING -- Ratlings are one of the numerous yet rarely noticed races.
These humanoid lean and wiry rats thrive in larger settlements and
enjoy interacting with other races. Whether they are the result of an
ancient lich trying to create a servitor race, chaos-spawned descendents
of plain rats from the dawn of time or just one more example of the
abundance of life forms in Ancardia still is a matter of dispute with
sages. No matter what they are accepted as skilled traders, quick
warriors and crafty thieves - acceptance in the latter case meaning
careful observation and quick reaction from other races.
Ratlings grow to about 5 and a half feet in size and weight
90 to 120 punds. They usually sport brown hair although black, gray and
a rare albino white are not unheard of. Their eyes are either black,
brown, yellow or red in color, black being dominant.

Ratlings train in the following skills: Appraising, Climbing, Detect
Item Status, Haggling, Stealth, Survival and Swimming.

[sqrt-1]

It seems ratlings don't like ratling merchant food any more than other races :( I think I'll RFE that.

[Alucard]

Mist Elf Chaos Knights start with Mithril gear.

[Carter]

Well, thats the first time i've made it to dwarftown with sub 20 hp! mist elf definitely interesting to play.

[grobblewobble]

The bard starting pets are new monsters. Gargantuan rat and mist wolf.

[JellySlayer]

Ratlings skillset is pretty dreadful...

[Unforgiven82]

Roger the lvl 1 mist elven wizard visited 1 place and was burned to death by the touch of inpure metal after 2 turns of playing.

Mental note: Check the material of your rings before you equip them.

[JellySlayer]

Mist elf stuff:
Mist elf assassins start with new mithril short swords.
Mist elf archers/rangers start with a pile of mithril arrows.
"You need a lump of clay to use white necromancy."
Chaotic mist elves can use necromancy as normal.
Mist elf leveling rate is fairly slow... maybe half as much as trolls. Ratling is about the same as orc.

[Carter]

"You need a lump of clay to use white necromancy."


wondered why that stuff was dropping!

[Carter]

Ratlings skillset is pretty dreadful...

detect item status is an interesting one for a race

[Aielyn]

It seems ratlings don't like ratling merchant food any more than other races :( I think I'll RFE that.
If you play as a Ratling Merchant, do you get to start with some ratling food, perhaps? If not, that's worthy of another RFE.

[Carter]

some weird things about shops with Mist Elves. One shop had literally nothing over 1gp, got to DT and a ring of invisibility is like 10k.

[Unforgiven82]

Mist elves don't seem to get hungry. Just out of habit I ate myself to satiated from corpses. A couple thousand turns and I'm still satiated. Tried eating (cursed) stomacemptia, got the rumbling in stomach, but was still satiated.

[tapi]

Started a Mist elf Merchant. Died on the second turn.

Due to "impure metal contaminating your flesh" or something.

[Carter]

Mist elves don't seem to get hungry. Just out of habit I ate myself to satiated from corpses. A couple thousand turns and I'm still satiated. Tried eating (cursed) stomacemptia, got the rumbling in stomach, but was still satiated.

it drops it just takes an absolute eternity. I think its supposed to be half. I walked from terinyo to CoC and back and went from bloated to satiated

[Carter]

Started a Mist elf Merchant. Died on the second turn due to "impure metal contaminating your flesh or something".

ring merchant?

Its strange because they can use shields with impunity, probably a bug.

[tapi]

ring merchant?

Its strange because they can use shields with impunity, probably a bug.

Yup. Ring of the fish ftl :)

[JellySlayer]

True. For class with good skills already, it's a nice perk. I don't think ratling merchant gets a single new skill.

[Carter]

True. For class with good skills already, it's a nice perk. I don't think ratling merchant gets a single new skill.

do we have a potential new worst class/race combo?

[Spellweaver]

And how about stats or racial abilities?

[grobblewobble]

do we have a potential new worst class/race combo?

Try mist elf thief.

[Spellweaver]

Why is it worse?

[_Ln_]

Successfully animated homunculus with lvl5 archer (25 Necromancy). Drains 2 Ma, some PP. Doesn't seem to decrease alignment. Trains Mana as usual.

Edit: It is considered as companion, but on death you get "You are annoyed by the death of your slave." Bug?

They also adjust in power.


Edit: On a related note - mist elves are absurdly frail. I've literally killed off around 10 consecutive characters to various traps. Talk about 50% damage reduction.

[JellySlayer]

Ratlings have decent St, To, Dx, and quite high Pe. Other stats are fairly low. I haven't tried aging myself yet, but my ratling barbarian started at age 14, so if past precedent is any indication, expect lifespan to be very short. No special powers that I've noticed, and none of the ratlings I've talked to so far say anything different.

Mist elves have good Le, Wi and Dx, VERY high Ma, Ap, lowish St and To. They get very, very few HP regardless of their To score. I just rolled a ME healer with 14 To and 9 starting HP, and you don't normally get more than a few points of HP per level.

[Carter]

Edit: On a related note - mist elves are absurdly frail. I've literally killed off around 10 consecutive characters to various traps. Talk about 50% damage reduction.

you literally can't kick doors, a firetap is insta gib. even at level 14, 32 hp so i guess the ultra healing trick has to be done.

[Unforgiven82]

Already mentioned in CK thread but I'll put this here also. Mist elves seem to have a racial crowning gift: staff of Creation (+4, 4d6+4) [+9, +1] {Wi+16} 20s. Obviously very nice for a caster/crafter. Wasn't too bad for my CK either. Only got this once so I guess confirmation required, but this doesn't sound like a CK gift to me.

[Grey]

Seems mist elves benefit most of all from the Hardy talent line...

[JellySlayer]

Problem is rolling a mist elf with enough To to take advantage. Getting 10 for Hardy is possible. But even ME barbarians and healers can't roll the 15 To needed for Very Hardy with any consistency.

[edit]
Base stats for a male mist elf appear to be approximately:
St: 10
Le: 15
Wi: 8
Dx: 14
To: 6
Ch: 9
Ap: 23
Ma: 22
Pe: 15

Which are then modified by class multipliers as usual...

For male Ratlings, they are:

St: 9
Le: 7
Wi: 8
Dx: 12
To: 12
Ch: 7
Ap: 5
Ma: 10
Pe: 13

Results are averaged over 10 rolls, not accounting for starsign.

[Spellweaver]

How about questions system? Just choose answers that lead to maximum To.

[MegatonMan]

It seems ratlings don't like ratling merchant food any more than other races :( I think I'll RFE that.

They should like it and maybe forage worms and bugs instead of plant seeds.

[grobblewobble]

Mist elves can benefit greatly from drinking a potion of exchange.

[Masque]

Tree starsign granting +2 To and +1 PV in pre7. Quite useful for Mist elves.

[AlterAsc]

Are there any crossbows that don't make ME suffer?
Except Far Slayer of course.

[Masque]

Why Mist Elves, whose whole life highly depends of touching metals didn't learn metallurgy skill for 8 thousands years? :)

[tootboot]

Do we really not know anything about ratlings or are they just that bad?

[SirTheta]

I think someone had inquired about what ME gods appreciated; they appreciate spellbooks. they do not appreciate amulets or rings. All I've thought to try so far.

[Aielyn]

I think someone had inquired about what ME gods appreciated; they appreciate spellbooks. they do not appreciate amulets or rings. All I've thought to try so far.

How extensively did you test amulets and rings? Did you test both iron rings and non-iron rings, for instance?

[grobblewobble]

Do we really not know anything about ratlings or are they just that bad?
I find them not really bad, but unexciting. They have decent stats and detect item status, which is somewhat nice.. that's about it. (Detect item status comes with low skill value and dice, so in the early game, when it would be most use, it doesn't help that much.)

[SirTheta]

The amulet & rings I tried were non-iron; I haven't done any further testing (not terribly interested since it's never really worth it, and it'll be put in manual eventually anyway).

Also, looks like that request was from p7 discovery notes thread.

[manedhel]

Trying to do an ultra ending would be fun with a mist elf, taking into account that totrr is made of iron.

[Carter]

Trying to do an ultra ending would be fun with a mist elf, taking into account that totrr is made of iron.

such low hp would be impossible to kill andor i would think. You'd have to scum jarrod / have a wish engine.

[Grey]

I don't think I've ever taken significant damage in the Andor Drakon fight. It would be very much doable overall - keep the trident unequipped until you are close to killing him with slaying ammo.

[Carter]

btw playing a ratling archer... good dex, good toughness, actually might be a better combo than HE archer

[Silfir]

How's the ammo?

[Carter]

you start with a decent amount of quarrels. Found it nice to play because i was able to continue on even after my crossbow was lost in an acid trap. Normally with a HE if you lose your long bow your pretty much shot.

[Bieks]

I'm pretty sure that wearing gloves allows you to wield the TotRR normally, so no real harm there.

Also, ratlings are easily great. Appraising and detect item status is a very nice combination, they have amazing stat potentials (dexterity and toughness high) and good overall stats. Only bad thing is the lifespan, even all the shop prices are great. I'm well underway of getting an avatar of order finish with this ratling wizard I'm playing now.

Also, it seems pretty obvious to me that thomas likes mist elves a whole lot more than ratlings. Just look at the respective lengths of the manual entries.. But I digress, tl;dr I love ratlings.

Ratling gods seem very pleased when I sacrifice si's, didn't really bother to check otherwise. Got rid of all of them now I got the chaos pieces, just need to survive until I can acquire the TotRR..

[Mobius]

Ratling gods' preferred sac type:
[spoil]artifacts[spoil]

[Aielyn]

Ratling gods' preferred sac type:
artifacts
Has anyone tried selling an artifact to a Ratling shopkeeper? I ask mostly because I know that they sell most things for 1gp, but I wonder if they rate artifacts differently.

[_Ln_]

Can you use both types of necromancy with mist elves? For some reason a mist elven Chaos Knight used standard necromancy by default.

[SirTheta]

Was it C? C MEs use regular necromancy (I believe this is in the manual, though not 100% sure)

Edit: the wonders of PoEx on ME Elementalist....Ma <-> Wi; Ap <-> To. Not sure I could have gotten any luckier, excepting maybe having Wi & To switched in the before.
http://ancardia.us.to/adom_users/sirtheta/death.vlg

[_Ln_]

Was it C? C MEs use regular necromancy (I believe this is in the manual, though not 100&#37; sure)

Ah, makes sense. Thanks!

[paivi]

Also, it seems pretty obvious to me that thomas likes mist elves a whole lot more than ratlings. Just look at the respective lengths of the manual entries...

I agree that the ME racial description looks silly and a bit... gushing next to other, much shorter entries.

I love ratlings too, they're surprisingly adept at a variety of things. Mist elves, on the other hand... I started a clean hiscore for pre7, and it's now populated almost solely by mist elves: explosive door, pit trap, vortex, crushed by a door, explosive door, sickness, pit trap, vortex, explosive door (and so on ad nauseam).

[Mobius]

I agree that the ME racial description looks silly and a bit... gushing next to other, much shorter entries.

I love ratlings too, they're surprisingly adept at a variety of things. Mist elves, on the other hand... I started a clean hiscore for pre7, and it's now populated almost solely by mist elves: explosive door, pit trap, vortex, crushed by a door, explosive door, sickness, pit trap, vortex, explosive door (and so on ad nauseam).
Sixth Sense - trap avoidance is key then. Or Detect Traps and two rings of searching.

I'm working my ratling weaponmaser, and he's doing OK. Just wish I could find a decent forge.

[JellySlayer]

I agree that the ME racial description looks silly and a bit... gushing next to other, much shorter entries.

I love ratlings too, they're surprisingly adept at a variety of things. Mist elves, on the other hand... I started a clean hiscore for pre7, and it's now populated almost solely by mist elves: explosive door, pit trap, vortex, crushed by a door, explosive door, sickness, pit trap, vortex, explosive door (and so on ad nauseam).

Mist elf farmer is the way to go. On my way to Mana Temple.

[SirTheta]

ME Beastfighters and ME Barbarians also seem pretty easy to do. Before a crash, I had an ME Beastfighter prepping for ToEF run. With a little luck you could get 16-19 To or so [depends on starting sing] w/o using potential trick.

[Grey]

Ratling gods:

L - Fiit-Ssaaar
N - Sssaass
C - Fiit-Yaaar

Mist elf gods:

L - Order
N - Balance
C - Chaos

Ratlings really do have super toughness by the way. On par with orcs, but without the sacrifices to learning and mana. They're also fast-levelling - seems about 20&#37; less xp needed than normal. However they do tend to start with poor equipment.

[SirTheta]

There's definitely some weird stuff going down when Mist Elves have corruptions---looks like -x Wi, +x St, +x To, +x Dx, +x Ma where x is one for every, maybe, 3 corruptions?

this would mean that ME CKs get quite powerful as the corruptions roll in (though also easily confused).

[SirTheta]

Despite getting a message about impure metal destroying your skin, it's possible to take no damage edit: thanks to anon123--if you have Immune to Pain

[bl_dw]

scale skin corruption will look good for this :D

[biomateria]

How is everyone doing with their Mist Elves? I'm having a really hard time being successful with such a low HP pool. Wanted to try the new ME Necro but even at level 7~ I still only had around 14 HP, and without Healing... I also had a ME die on the FIRST step off a staircase (dlvl 1 VD) to a fireball trap. I'm guessing the Sixth Sense trap-dodging talent I took doesn't help with those :/

Seriously how do these guys live thousands of years with like 7 HP. They would die if they broke a finger.

Edit: Played a little ME Duelist, Necro, and Paladin. So far, satiation has been acting exactly like other standard R/C combos. I get hungry just as frequently as I normally do. Maybe the never-ending satiation thing was a bug Thomas fixed? I don't remember seeing it in the patch notes.

[SirTheta]

I had no problem finishing the game on an ME Beastfighter with 20 or less To the whole way through. They aren't that bad.

As for satiation, if it is now normal, that's probably a bug (haven't tried p8 yet). They are definitely supposed to hunger less than other races.

[Mobius]

Mist Elf food consumption is now closer to other races in p8.

[aerol]

Has anyone noticed anything race-specific or otherwise interesting regarding ratling diet? Not their food consumption rate, which seems to be a bit lower than humans at least, but their eating habits. What they like to eat, what they can eat, etcetera. I haven't experimented a lot, but from what I've noticed so far their eating habits are pretty similar to humans, which is lacking in flavor in my opinion; I'm pondering an RFE.

[aerol]

Successfully animated homunculus with lvl5 archer (25 Necromancy). Drains 2 Ma, some PP. Doesn't seem to decrease alignment. Trains Mana as usual.

Edit: It is considered as companion, but on death you get "You are annoyed by the death of your slave." Bug?

Has anyone submitted a bug/rfe? "You are taken aback by the death of your creation" would be a more fitting message.