Try mist elf thief.
Printable View
Why is it worse?
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.
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.
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.
Seems mist elves benefit most of all from the Hardy talent line...
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.
How about questions system? Just choose answers that lead to maximum To.