Critically-hit for 600 HP, jolly good

[Grey]

The list of random artifacts JellySlayer linked to is correct. It has been tested in game with multiple precrowns (which showed a roughly even spread of probabilities for each). To be honest I can easily recite that list by heart from my max precrown games... Is the list in the GB? If not it's worthy of mention somewhere, perhaps in the precrown section. It's worth noting that many of them are fairly undesirable, especially for beastfighters - multiple precrowns often lead to disappointment. Also any of the random arts weighing 10s or less can be pickpocketed (that's BoW, Preserver, IronFist, RoI, Soaker and Whirlwind). All of the artifacts can be generated in greater vaults, surges of power, shops, uselessness gifts or just at random, assuming they haven't been preselected as the crowning gift and the danger level is high enough.

[vogonpoet]

Meanwhile, back on the topic of the OP, if you absolutely must melee a doppelganger king, do so with a humanoid slaying weapon. My current archer just Executed two of those bastards in the TotHK waiting for my Ogre Mage to turn up, barely broke sweat.

[omega_red]

Just wondering... which random monsters are capable of doing most damage in melee in a single round in the game (not counting SMC and infinite dungeon or other ridiculously experienced monsters)?

Demented ratlings seem to have 392 hitpoints on the average. Usually they
attack 16 times. A hit causes 86-159 points of damage (114 on the average).
They seem to have a speed of 124-244 (140 on the average).

16x114 = 1824? And that was with just 6 artifacts..

[Sradac]

Or poke the doppleganger king with a phase dagger works wonders, especially with skill level 7+ in daggers you do decent damage then.