Best non-pretender SC's?

[Taqwus]

One that might be overlooked would be the amphibious Elemental Queen of Water. If memory serves, she comes with all item slots, decent although not outrageous hp, zero base encumberance without the vulnerabilities associated with being undead (can't recall whether she has the 'magic unit' flag however, possibly), and most niftily she regenerates half her hit points every turn.

[Edit (Correction): QoW do not get feet slots. This is somewhat alleviated by the fact that with water magic they can cast Quickness themselves, but it does make it harder to, say, have them fly (no Winged Shoes -- do you want to give them Stymphalian Wings instead and take the armor lot) or reinvig (no messenger shoes) or tough skin (no Boots of Stone, so prot needs to come from armor slot mostly, which probably means no ethereal unles you use a Wraith Crown, etc)].

If you wanted to go to an absurd extreme, a Tartarian Titan with Sun Slayer or Mage Bane, Aegis, Amon Hotep, Elemental Armor (or Robe of Shadows?), Boots of Quickness, Pendant of Luck, Talisman of Antimagic would be pretty nasty. For more fun, prophetize it and replace a misc item with the Ark.

[Edit: Sun Slayer is 2-HD, so cannot be combined with Aegis on a Tartarian Titan. Since the Sun Slayer's effect is 'Area Death', however, it may be a worthwhile exchange...]

[ May 20, 2004, 00:59: Message edited by: Taqwus ]