Info and data for fans of the play-by-mail games Duel II, Forgotten Realms, and Hyborian War from Reality Simulations, Inc

Staple Lunger Design

594 views

Statistics
Strength: 10
Constitution: 7
Size: 9
Wit: 17
Will: 15
Speed: 17
Deftness: 9

Comments_advice: I hate Speed; it’s a very annoying attribute, and it’s certainly not what you could call ‘sexy’. We all know what the sexy attributes are; WT,DF and WL. Regardless, the RUG’s not only enjoy sending out a large perentage of non ‘keeper’ WT/DF/WL rollups, but also with high Speeds. What do I usually do with a high SP rollup?

Lunger.

I don’t particularly like Lungers; they’re not what I’d call sexy. In fact, the’re downright boring. Sure, they have great bases, and will often win for a good portion of their early careers (until they hit middle AD, where skills begin to make things more of a race); but I find them dull. But I’ve got to do something with the high SP rollups I get, and I usually make’em Lungers. Don’t talk to me about Strikers; I hate those too.

Speed is a prime Lunger attribute; it gives good Defense, and a lot of Riposte. It also helps with fighting frail little toothpicks to duck more often than they oof.

As always, CN and SZ lose because they’re not sexy, long-term attributes. If you have’em, they’re great; but high CN/SZ rollups are a different breed entiely.

WT, usual story. Nothing new.

WL, a good stat for Lungers, jumping around constantly is hard work. You want a guy who’s not going to pout when he gets tired.

DF is excellent for Lungers, but not crucial; you can get by with only minimal levels. 9-11 is sufficient.

ST is an interesting stat for Lungers. High ST will enable you to have a better chance for the upper damage categories. Lower will give some weapon selection problems, but also often have the very interesting side effect of generating long, active fights. What does this do? Gives you a warrior who often has popular fights that go for multi-minutes when their in charge of the action; which enables you to more often than not have an excellent shot at the ‘This Week’s Favorite’ and ‘Most Popular’ titles. Free fghts are free fights. Also, longer fights seem to increase learning chances, so it’s not all fluff.

Most Lungers like high to very-high Offensive Efforts, and high to very-high Activity levels. 10-10-7 is a staple tactic, but I’ll point out you should experiment a little; finding your favorite will often yeld better results overall than simply going with good old 10-10-7. Lunge or Decise are good tactics to try if you want the help, Dodge can be a good defensive tactic. If you want to run up some long fights with fairly low chances of dying, seek out the pure scums in your arena and challenge them continually. Lungers aren’t very good at penetrating heavy armor, but they’re often very good at maintaining initiative over scums.This leads to fights that o for several minutes and eventually end in an exhausted Lunger and a bemused scum. But you didn’t get killed, and did rack up a long fight that should help your learns. Methods to madness.

So, nothing particularly shocking about this design; just a basic Lunger layoutthat focuses on Speed and interesting fights. With any luck avoiding the Grim Reaper, you’ll see this staple warrior in AD after about a year or so in Basic. And then the RUGs’ll send you another design that looks something like 9-13-17-5-7-12-7. Fooey.

Dave of Dave’s World (DM33)

Tank Lunger

375 views

Rascally Rabbit and I (Pagan) have decided to compile our articles on the warrior style we call the Tank Lunger. I made my article (first!!) yet I concede that I did this only after I stole the concept off of a Rascally Rabbit warrior sheet at a Face-to-Face tournament! We chatted for a little bit on this specific 70 point roll-up, and then got excited when we started to think : LUNGER

We wanted physicals for endurance, hitpoints, and damage. Then we talked skills as a secondary necessity: a little Defense, a little attack, a little initiative. From there we came up with the tank. Had anyone else come up with anything like this before? (probably) But our inspiration was genuine.

Lungers have the highest natural starting skill base. So we thought that as long as we kick up those physicals like a plate-decked TP then this warrior should be able to win without ever having to get the first swing.

Pagan’s Note:

What you want to do is make the warrior with the minimum required stats to reach those expected physicals then strive to reach the following optimal physicals in the order listed:

1. Great Endurance
2. Tremendous amount of hit-points
3. Incredibly Quick and Elusive on his feet (at least 7 Defense skills)
4. Great Damage
5. Good Encumbrance

You’ll notice that AFTER the “minimal” design I give more importance to Damage wielding than Encumbrance.

This is NOT a Dixie design. In saying this, I did not give WIT a preferential classification, but if you want to have progressive wins with this warrior then I advise giving him the ability to learn skills (that means Wit).

Rascally hit it on the head when he says Wit of 17 OR 21.

You have the physicals to compete (and beat) any style early on. And if you are learning at least 2 skills per fight (hopefully more!) then you have the ability to compete later on in the warrior’s career.

The differences in the two warrior designs are VERY minor, but may be significant in certain parts of the game. My style denotes Endurance as the major factor. A warrior with a high endurance can beat scum, and will be able to scum opponents himself. However, Rascally’s promotes Strength which is two-fold: Encumbrance and Damage. I don’t think either is better than the other, just different.

Pagan – pagan@gte.net

Rascally Rabbit’s note:

Even though this article tends to mirror Pagan’s I feel comfortable about doing it since Ross got the Idea for it from one of my Lungers at the winter Face. I have to also give credit to “The General” who walked by while I was thinking waste and said “he can be anything even a lunger” so I made a lunger, who made it to round 14 at the face.

ST: 11 is the minimum, 13 seems to be the best use of points and 17 is without a doubt the high end. It’s extremely important to balance the physicals, you are striving to get good damage but with this design can live with normal.

CN: Try for 17, but if it comes down to a choice between a 17 CN or a 13 ST take the ST. Once again we’re trying to balance the physical side of DM with the skill side to get a warrior that will win at all levels of the game.

SZ: You’re stuck with what the RUG’s give you. Just remember the smaller the SZ the higher ST needs to be.

WT: No debate here “Survey Says” 17 0r 21, no other choices. This is critical for the design.

SP: 3 is perfect for this design. If you have extra points and want to add them to speed, DON’T! Put them into ST instead, by doing this you can potentially increase your endurance, Encumbrance and ability to deal damage.

DF: 11 is optimum for this design you can go higher or lower, but you might not like the end results. If you have to go lower try to offset the negative with another stat (VH CN or WT), if you go with a high DF try not to pull down the other stats to far.

Always remember physicals

ST = endurance, carry, damage dealing

CN = endurance, carry, damage taking

SZ = damage doing and taking

WL = effects a lot of area’s, look it up

I feel that encumbrance is the most critical physical stat for this design followed by damage taking, damage dealing and endurance. You can run this Lunger a lot of different ways and he will win, but since I have a few of these out there right now you’ll have to experiment on your own to find out what works.

Here are a couple of examples

1: 12-17-7-17-17-3-11

2: 12-16-8-17-17-3-11

# 1 TV’ed the last face, beat a 10-0-0 WS in round 11, using my standard strategy, he’s also the lunger mentioned in my opening paragraph.

# 2 Is entered in the current mail-in, his name is “Won Two Many”

As far as weapons and armor here’s my recommendations for what to use.

ST=11, LO/ASM/S backup LO

ST=12, LO/ACM/S backup LO

ST=13, LO/APM/S backup LO

ST=14, LO/APA/S backup LO

ST=15, LO/APA/F backup LO

The above #’s assume that you have used my design recommendation and may not work effectively with other designs or styles. Good luck on the sands, except against my warriors

Rascally Rabbit – steve.heidloff@worldspan.com

The Defensive Lunger

451 views
  Perfect   Minimums     Actual Characters
ST   13        11             11   13
CN    7         3              3   11
SZ    4         4             10    6
WT   21        17             17   17
WL   17        13             17   19
SP    5         5              9    5
DF   17        13             17   13

     The lunger, in my opinion, makes a much better defensive fighter than offensive 
fighter.  Fighting defensively will compensate for the speed at which lungers burn 
endurance.  They will still attack whenever possible but their defensive ability will 
allow them to dodge most attacks.  The most important part is their initiative.  When 
they do dodge, they'll usually steal the initiative and attack.  I haven't been 
fighting lungers defensively for long but my record is 14-5-0.  Don't fight 
defensively against other lungers as they will usually win.

     The strategy I use is:
Min  1    2    3    4    5    6   Desp
Off  4 ------------------------->  9         Weapon:  Any lunging
Act  6    4 -------------------->  9         No armor if low con
KD   4 ------------------------->  9         APL/H if average con
O.T. --------------------------->  L
D.T. -------------------------------->

     You can attack any location you wish but I suggest protecting the body.  The 
third character listed started with experts in attack, defense and initiative.  The 
last character had an expert in attack.

The Wild Boar, manager of Things (5) and many inactive teams.