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Awhile back, PowerDiver and I were able to run a couple of characters all the way to a win using a slightly modified version that did not generate artifacts nor ego items. I was able to do this with a High Elf Mage, and also with a Dwarf Priest. However, I felt that the Dwarf winner was somewhat flawed, in that the character got unreasonably lucky (as in, I found a Ring of Speed (+23)). So the question as to whether or not a Dwarf Priest was a viable character in a no-ego's game was unclear. I have just now completed another run, and can say for sure that this is possible (http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12640)
This character did get 2 bits of luck: I found an amulet of Wisdom(+6) relatively early, and a Ring of Speed(+9) on level 69. I didn't think this was unreasonable, since while the amulet+6 was certainly nice, a +5 would have been enough to get the char to 18/200 wisdom and so get zero fail, and I saw several of those, and to get the Ring of Speed I had to clear a vault. And while I eventually found a reasonably large Ring of Speed(+13), this was kinda balanced out by the fact that I never managed to find an amulet of trickery with more than +2 speed. So I am satisfied that while this character did have somewhat better than average luck, it was well within the "normal" range.
The main reason the turncount is as high as it is, is that I spent a great deal of time resting (more than half of all my standard turns). This is because in order to survive with this character, I stacked huge amounts of Sense Invisible, Resist Heat and Cold, and Protection from Evil. So I would expend all my SP two or three (or four) times, and rest up to recover, before each trip down.
I used a lot of Runes, and a couple of ASC's against a select few uniques (e.g. Ancalagon). I tried to keep it to a minimum, but it's hard to dish out damage fast enough to keep up with the high level summoners, so I just don't really see it as being reasonable to get the win without at least some use of ASC's.
This character did get 2 bits of luck: I found an amulet of Wisdom(+6) relatively early, and a Ring of Speed(+9) on level 69. I didn't think this was unreasonable, since while the amulet+6 was certainly nice, a +5 would have been enough to get the char to 18/200 wisdom and so get zero fail, and I saw several of those, and to get the Ring of Speed I had to clear a vault. And while I eventually found a reasonably large Ring of Speed(+13), this was kinda balanced out by the fact that I never managed to find an amulet of trickery with more than +2 speed. So I am satisfied that while this character did have somewhat better than average luck, it was well within the "normal" range.
The main reason the turncount is as high as it is, is that I spent a great deal of time resting (more than half of all my standard turns). This is because in order to survive with this character, I stacked huge amounts of Sense Invisible, Resist Heat and Cold, and Protection from Evil. So I would expend all my SP two or three (or four) times, and rest up to recover, before each trip down.
I used a lot of Runes, and a couple of ASC's against a select few uniques (e.g. Ancalagon). I tried to keep it to a minimum, but it's hard to dish out damage fast enough to keep up with the high level summoners, so I just don't really see it as being reasonable to get the win without at least some use of ASC's.