Role difficulty

Role difficulty is the general difficulty of being able to successfully ascend with the various roles. It has been demonstrated that every role is ascendable, but opinions vary as to which roles are the easiest and hardest to ascend.

Most agree that valkyries and barbarians are the easiest classes - possibly followed by samurai - due to the strong physical combat options presented by the roles from the very beginning (arguably minimising the amount of strategy necessary).

Wizards are usually easy due to their good starting equipment (for this reason, wizards are often start scummed) and powerful late game (thanks to e.g. magic missile and finger of death). Those that attempt to play them as physical combat characters will, however, find them difficult due to their bad starting attributes.

The priest's innate ability to detect the BUC status of an item can be a tremendous advantage, but their poor choice of weapons can prove to be a burden.

The knight's codes of conduct can be cumbersome, though the penalty for breaking them (1 point of alignment) is minor, unless you are roleplaying or playing a pacifist.

Rangers and rogues can either be difficult or easy, depending on how capable one is of making use of their powerful ranged weapons (especially in the early game).

Cavemen can be considered a more difficult version of barbarians.

Monks are a unique class whose early game is relatively easy compared to its tricky midgame, mostly due to Master Kaen and armor and weapon penalties.

Healers and tourists have a reputation for being extremely difficult, due to weak starting attributes and poor equipment. Archeologists are almost as difficult but have the advantage over Healers and Tourists of starting with speed and stealth.