Best melee character is the fighter, for sure.

But you didn't mention the second best - the rogue. His backstab ability grants very high damage output later. When dualing thieves daggers (or with Fang or Bloodlust), they are very deadly.

Third place goes for monk with martial arts in my experience. Slow raising of the power, since you can't just buy a better weapon. But with 125 ma skill, their raw damage is better than about any weapon, and the do ko the opponents a lot.

[ 01-16-2004, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: Wereboar ]

With a rogue dualling stilettos is also a good idea, because of the instant kill rate, and the still decent damage.

With a Rogue I generally go for a sword and dagger (stilleto or Canazou). I agree they are second best to a Fighter but more fun. Monk with MA is a close third. Next would be a well-developed Bard, using a sword with shield for AC, and then Ranger, Samurai and Ninja. Samurais and Ninjas do well but their weapons aren't quite as good. This is just my observation on melee play, everyone has their favorites!

@Zig; Muramasa.

@Ragash; Recycle, not switch classes. Your new Sam or Lord starts brand new all over whole new person. No need to qualify. Then you can wear/wield the stuff from the original char. That duo is a good one for most things, biggest concern will be bux, but not so badly because it's only 2 chars.

I think I may have got Muramasa once, light sword never and Excalibur (with practice) two or three times out of about 30 games...I consider them a bonus but I don't play for them.

Zig, i'd call this bad luck. In my experience, Marumasa is in queens chest at least 1 time in 3.

From a training standpoint, the slower your character gains levels the more accomplished he or she will be per level. If you advance in levels fast, but your skills don't, you might end up underpowered against random opponents.

Having a larger party doesn't necessarily help, since the skill point gains are split into more characters, too. So...

Related to an idea I saw here recently, you can bring along baggage characters that never attack; they just protect the main hero or heroes. Perhaps there's a hero that's compelled a few Lizardmen to be his personal shields, cart-horses, and XP sinks. He'd never take much damage, and would suck up all the skill advancement for himself, too. He would be named Nietzche. [grin]

Horpner Sneed