Races to consider for Eternium Man

[Arancaytar]

I'm trying to see how far I can get in the SMC. Fast healing is an obvious advantage, so a Candle-born healer is one thing I'm trying out. But which race? Trolls add another healing bonus (though I'm told it's not substantial), but their most significant attribute is the slow leveling. Not sure how that affects the difficulty. Does it make the game easier (because the monsters level up slower too, giving more time for items and weapon marks) or harder (because it takes longer, with more opportunities for the RNG to kill you)?
(Or is there something obvious I'm missing that makes the Healer class a bad strategy entirely?)

[Silfir]

Outfighting the monsters in the Small Cave is a pipe dream. As far as I remember Eternium Man relies on tricks to keep from fighting yourself at all until you land enough items to rapid-level yourself to 50. A couple of wishes, an invisibility item and a couple of magic missiles wands should do the trick. For instance gremlin bombs constructed with alarm traps so the gremlins kill each other (you'd want to have digging tools and a wand of trap creation - I think this was first pulled off with a wand merchant).

[Arancaytar]

Ooh, thanks. Yeah, the approach didn't last long. It's easy to believe it's possible at the start, but I just ended up getting slaughtered by rats before even reaching level 6.

[Knight]

Yeah, you want to avoid doing any of the fighting yourself, as the monsters' strength is based on your level. The easiest way to do this from the beginning is to start with a bard. That way, you can have your pet(s) fight everything for you, and you can stay level 1 until you have enough items, like Silfir said, to reach level 50 quickly. At some point, starting a gremlin bomb using your pet to kill the gremlins is probably your best bet. To that end, it would be smart to start a char with the Pickpocket skill.

As far as race/class goes, I imagine that a Candle-born Drakeling bard with the Pickpocket skill would work out nicely, especially since Drakeling bards get the giant lizard, which is one of the strongest early game pets.

[JellySlayer]

I think Dwarf bard with pickpockets is the traditional choice.

[edit]Or roll and SMC with an altar, hack your save to trigger "your luck has run out" and then sacrifice maybe 8 monsters

[nathrakh]

I did it with the traditional pick pocketing dwarven bard. Merchant with a wand of trap creation and a scroll of familiar summoning is an option too. I vaguely remember someone having done it once with that combo.. I could be wrong tho.