Talk:Doppelganger (starting race)

Awesome?
I'm no expert in the ways of Nethack (yet), but this race seems to be a bit unfair. Even forgetting the incredibly useful ability to polymorph (without losing body armor no less) and Liquid Leap, the stats dominate those of other traditionally preferred caster classes (elves and gnomes), except for the nigh useless charisma. Sleep Resist is easily acquired and infravision, while very nice and impossible to obtain through other means, does not seem worth the hit in stats alone. Is there some non-obvious flaw that balances out this race? I guess the existence of the Tourist supports the thesis that Nethack isn't particularly concerned with game balance but the Doppelganger seems disgustingly overpowered to me.

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, I guess it could be argued that one or two more points over 18 in a stat aren't all that amazing. Gnomes have enough Str+Con for max carry capacity so 18/** Str only +3 damage and +2 to-hit and a further +2 to-hit from 20 Dex. 20 Con is still +4 hp/level and Int+Wis/15 is presumably rounded off so even power regen doesn't improve (this is assuming that these calculations don't change for SLASH'EM). But +3 damage with +4 to-hit is probably better than infravision, not to mention all the polymorph malarkey, so tell me your thoughts on the power of this race and if I'm on the right track. DemonDoll 14:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)