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Interesting Party Breakdown 1
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IndyPendant A titch bored at the moment, so I figured I'd write a bit of an essay and add to the party list. Feel free to comment and/or add your parties if you'd like as well. Here's the short version: Lizard Fighter And now, why. First, a character by character breakdown: Lizard Fighter: As AtlusSeven likes to say (a whole lot:), a bit of a no-brainer. However, I've gone slightly differently from many people who play them. I gave him starting stats of Str 76, Int/Pie 25, Vit 85, Dex 67, Spd 52, Sen 30. Why? Two reasons: this way, he gets Iron Skin at 6th (!!!) level, Power Strike at 9th, Reflexion at 17th, and Snakespeed at 25th. (Then I work on Senses and Piety.) Three Expert Skills by 17th level is incredible, and Fighters are extremely powerful by themselves. Secondly, I am putting points into Speed and Senses last because I *want* my Fighter going last out of my party. That gives the three crit-hitters a chance to Instakill before my fighter wastes attacks on them--and also gives my casters a chance to make the enemy helpless just in time for his incredible damage. Also, I use a shield(!!) rather than a second weapon with him; I wanted one tank in front that I could basically forget about during battle, and usually I don't have to worry about my Fighter. I put points on levelling up into Shield, Bow, and Ranged Combat, and am letting Sword and Close Combat increase on their own, for fewer 'wasted' points. Finally, the Fighter and the Bard, with the Bishop helping, almost single-handedly carried my party through to Arnika. Felpurr Samurai: I decided to go with maxing out Dex, Spd, and Sen together with him, for max crit hits opportunity over actual damage. At the lower levels, he's average, but he gets *much* better the higher you go. By 5th level, I had already seen 3 or 4 Lightning Strikes. For magic, I picked two schools--in this case, Fire and Water, and concentrated on them, not even picking spells from other spheres. I picked Frost and Light, in that order, and tried to cast Frost once every battle, and Light after every battle. My magic skills went up *very* slowly, but they did go up... I *always* put 3 skill points each level into Critical Strike and Wizardry, and the final 3 went into either Dual Weapons, Fire Magic, or Water Magic. I'm quite happy with the way this one has turned out. His ac is lower than the fighter (of course) but it's no problem at all outfitting a single samurai well. His sword and close combat skills went up perfectly well on their own. Human Monk: I chose Human because the other 'best' choices had too low a starting Stamina. The HPs affected weren't such a huge thing--but the stamina *was*. With her, too, I'm maxing out Dex, Speed, and Senses, and am liking what I'm seeing. I did buff her Strength up to 50 though, since you lose 2% to damage up until then. For magic, I picked Mental (duh:) only, and chose Charm and Mind Stab for starting spells. Again, I try to cast Mind Stab once each battle. I always put 3 skill points per level into Critical Strike and Psionics, and I try to put the other 3 into Stealth, since that's so important for Monks and goes up so slow; again, Martial Arts and Close Combat go up perfectly quickly enough on their own. She's doing very well now too. Hobbit Ranger: Hobbits seemed to have the best points distribution, so I went with them. I chose ranger not for the auto-scouting (I rarely run anyways; never even discovered it until I had played it for a month!:) but for the ranged criticals and alchemy. He is perhaps my strongest caster, since he can afford to put 3 skill points into Alchemy, Water, and Earth each level; his Bow, Ranged Combat, and Scouting go up perfectly fine on their own. I've chosen to max out Senses, splitting the rest between Dex and Speed. He's just starting to pull his own weight now, with the better bows and arrows, but I am quite happy with him too. Mook Bard: Ah, the Bard. One of the two "must-haves" of my party. Who says you can't (before the recent patch:) have everything? My bard walked out of Arnika with 70+ Pickpocketing, Music, and Locks & Traps, with only 17, 0, and 11 points invested respectfully. See below for why. On level up, he's putting points into Bow and Ranged Combat because he doesn't shoot nearly as often as the Ranger, and Mythology because I have nowhere else to put them; Artifacts is going up rapidly on its own. So, he's becoming a master at no less than 8(!!) skills rather quickly. Who needs a rogue? On top of that, his music is incredibly powerful, and started that way. All-around, my favourite char in my party. On level up, I put 2 points each into Str, Dex, and Int; this is perhaps the only one I'm uncertain of. Going back, I probably would have maxed out speed first. Ah well. Elf Bishop: My second must-have. I decided on Elf over Faerie for the better armour and weapons, and Strength and stamina. He's concentrating for now on the Mage and Priest books; with all respect to AtlusSeven, I decided to specialize, and go after the Psionic and Alchemist when the Wizardry and Divinity skills approach 90. I started him as a Mage, and immediately dualled to a Bishop afterwards for the skill boost. Every level up, I put 3 into Wizardry and Divinity, and then boost up any spheres that need it. I try to cast at least one spell from each sphere each combat, in the orange, and I gave him a Sling for those (few) times he isn't casting. His magic is going up nice and quickly; no waiting until 10th or 14th level for this guy to pull his own weight (as I would have if I had gone 4-book). I concentrated on the status-inducing spells (Freeze Flesh, Web, Sleep, Terror, etc etc) to go with my tank-heavy party. He's constantly casting Light (it's cheap) and Stamina/Rest All (the Bard, and sometimes Monk and Samurai) to get those magic skills up. He's got the fewest kills of the group--but he's probably the second most powerful in my party (Fighter being most powerful of course:). Int and Piety maxed out first, followed my Speed and Senses to get that initiative up. Why nots: Why not the other classes? Well, I considered a Lord in place of the Fighter--but the reasons I wanted a Fighter didn't fit a Lord. A Valkyrie is picked up early in the game, and I will keep Vi for the areas she will stay with me for. I love the Ninja, but there's just not enough throwing weapons to go around to use its abilities to their fullest potential. The Rogue is a useless piece of (censored) in my opinion, compared to the bard. The Gadgeteer is like the 4-book Bishop: sucks for the first 2/3 of the game, and gradually gets better until it totally rocks for the last 1/5th. I decided to go with chars that are at least reasonably good throughout--and besides, the Bard is a perfectly good lockpicker. The Mage/Psionic/Alchemists 'early peakers' that don't really get any better; especially when compared to the Bishop. The Priest joins the Rogue in my 'worse-than-dirt' classification. Some tricks: Inspect trapped chests, over and over again. I go to 50 skill after a little over one hour's work within the Monastery; not bad at all! Cast spells whenever you can with your Bishop especially; don't stint; resting costs you nothing in this game. When you rest, make sure your back is to a wall or (preferably) a corner, just in case you get jumped. Don't put anyone in your flanks, and your front-line fighters will be able to strike creatures there; I put my Bishop at the very rear to protect him. Play the game on Expert level, except when you're practising Pickpocket and Lockpicking, for which *only*, I play on novice. (Why Expert? Yes, the battles can be much harder--but they're also much longer. Since you swing and shoot more, and cast more spells, this gives you a *much* better chance at increasing those most important combat and magic skills! Give all your tanks a ranged weapon, even if you don't put points into it, so that if something moves out of the way--or something dies too fast--you can still shoot at them. You may not hit, but you'll only lose your attack anyways if you don't have a ranged weapon. If the enemy is charging you, press the party move key--even if you don't intend to move; this will delay your char's actions until the enemy arrives. Yes, it sucks, and yes init shouldn't work that way, but it does. You *can* change your party's targets during your move; make use of that. There's more, but I've forgotten them. Tell me yours! zeckensack Regarding the priest: -----signature----- Shut up and get the lady a beer! NFLed I'm a fan of having a Rogue in the party as especially with Bloodlust and backstabbing (total of 3x damage with both) and pumping his Stealth as much as possible combined with the decent armor he's allowed to wear he's a good front line fighter with a great AC. He's sort of like a mini-fighter (though of course not as good overall) with great locks and traps skills. If you already have someone else (a Bard, for example) with maximum locks and traps then definitely do not choose a Rogue. Ed B. |
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