Analysis of Grimrock

[Ext3h]

But putting an archer in front row means that you have to fill the empty spot in the back row with yet another rouge. Having two mages is not much of an option, the spells are to time consuming and proper mage equipment is rare, also you cant risk to have your two main damage dealers running out of energy at the same time.

Also rouges already have the dodge skill which should be the primary skill if you want an evasion tank. What i miss, is crit (and combo) chance beeing bound to dex (not accuracy since that can be increased otherwise and you still want to be able to do crits with maces even when missing half the time!) so that the damage output of ranged characters would still depend on both strength and dexterity.

[Greco]

@LiamKerrington, @DarkLord, @Greco: Thanks for the kind comments.

Greco,

You make a very interesting point about the synergy between the Invisibility and Frost Bolt spells and the backstab attacks. I wonder, though, that in cases where you are faced with swarms of Scavengers or Herders, whether having the boost from Daggers might be more beneficial than Assassination, or do you find that the increased speed and criticals from Assassination compensates for the Accuracy and Attack Power that you are not getting from Daggers? (I ran a rogue who invested up to the Improved Critical feat and was not particularly impressed, but I also did not take advantage of the backstab attack more than a couple of times, just to try it out.) Also, since you apparently had a least one mage in the party, did you just have one backstabber in the back rank or did you also use them in the front rank as well? And, if you used them in the front rank, did you find the need to invest in Dodge?

Thanks!

athanatic_cube

Εach skill has its use! As useful and comfortable killing ogres Ugardians etc. may be using the assassination skill, so useless may prove against hordes of enemies, where your main concern is finding a proper place to avoid being hit from all sides! Moreover, I gained the assassination mastery lately in the game, where you don't have to fight so many enemies, but rather few but powerful. I found it very useful in those situations, since you avoid much time dancing around the enemy and killing it hit by hit. Regarding your question about my party's formation. My party consisted of two fighters in he front line. 1 mage and one rogue, which begun as a missile weapon thrower, mutated to a melee weapon user and concluded as a master assassin. Note that I invested 0 points to daggers, so I can't quite appreciate this skill. I invested some points, though, to dodge, but has to quickly abandon this skill, so that I can maximize assassination.

[athanatic_cube]

But putting an archer in front row means that you have to fill the empty spot in the back row with yet another rouge. Having two mages is not much of an option, the spells are to time consuming and proper mage equipment is rare, also you cant risk to have your two main damage dealers running out of energy at the same time.

Two mages actually work out quite well. There's enough mage equipment for about 1.5 mages, but it's not a real concern as you are still getting close to double the amount of spell firepower than if you had one mage fully decked out. Also, if you integrate the damage from mage spells over the time it takes to prepare them, I think you might find that they compare quite well against single-click attackers. But, two mages is somewhat a matter of playing style. If you are wedded to click-click-click-click lather-rinse-repeat, then two mages might not be for you. But, between Invisibility, Frost Bolt, Lightning Bolt, and Fire Ball, (and Poison Shield and Fire Shield), the entire party can certainly benefit from two. And, having more tactical options is fun....

[PizzaSHARK]

I'll chip in my own two cents here. I'm just on level 6, though, so I haven't completed the game. I play on Hard because anything less is for pansies.

- Strength definitely feels weak compared to Dexterity. At the very least, improving the AP gains from it might be a start. Or nerfing the Evasion gains from DEX.

- As mentioned, Protection feels like a worthless stat. I'm on level 6 with an appropriately leveled team and a single spear skeleton can still probably kill one of my front-line fighters if I decide to stand still and duke it out with them, despite both of them wearing heavy armor pieces and having plenty of health; trying to duke it out with a crab results in a short, embarrassing death. Honestly, on Hard it seems like the best solution is to simply not even let them TRY to hit you. Since you're virtually guaranteed to take some swings, it seems like you might as well pump Evasion to avoid as many of those swings as you can. This feels especially important in certain places if you don't want to cheese your way through them by abusing doors and things like that or have to chug healing potions constantly.

- If Protection as a stat is properly budgeted, it likely just means the Protection boosts from related skills and armor pieces needs to be increased. Vitality or Strength could also provide small bonuses to Protection, but I like the idea of just boosting the value on armor pieces, thereby making carry weight more useful. Vitality already provides enough benefits as-is.

- Willpower seems like a pretty useless stat if you aren't a mage. I'm not sure how to make the stat more valuable to rogues and fighters, though.


- Poison Cloud quite honestly feels useless. You get it at about the same level range as your first Fire spell, your first Air spell, and Ice Spikes, and it's definitely the least useful of the three. If it poisons something, the effect is negligible. Since the spell requires the monster to sit in the tile, and duking it out with monsters is a great way to die, it seems like there's never any reason to cast it - Fireburst and Shock do more damage and Ice Shards can hit multiple enemies. Poison Cloud should probably either be virtually guaranteed to poison the enemy, or should do much more damage.

- Earth Magic could be given an Invisibility-like spell that increases the Protection value for the party to make it a little more desirable compared rushing down Ice Magic for a quick Frostbolt. Rock armor, maybe? This would assume Protection becomes a useful, valued stat, though.


- Definitely wouldn't mind a tad more variety in weapon types. You find multiple dagger class weapons right away, but you're stuck with a Cudgel (and its accuracy penalty) until the very end of level 3.

[Merethif]

- Willpower seems like a pretty useless stat if you aren't a mage. I'm not sure how to make the stat more valuable to rogues and fighters, though.

Energy is required to make special attacks like Rampage, Flurry of Slashes or Kick. Defeating a monster without special attacks takes much longer. Energy may not be useful at the early stages, when your fighters/rogues have just one or no special attacks at all, but later on it is quite useful.

- Definitely wouldn't mind a tad more variety in weapon types. You find multiple dagger class weapons right away, but you're stuck with a Cudgel (and its accuracy penalty) until the very end of level 3.

I'm afraid you're wrong. You can find every weapon type on level 2 or before:
Swords: Machete
Axes: Hand Axe
Maces: Cudgel
Daggers: Knife
Missile weapons: Sling
Throwing weapons: Shurikens, Throwing Knives

[Sheogorath]

- Willpower seems like a pretty useless stat if you aren't a mage. I'm not sure how to make the stat more valuable to rogues and fighters, though.

Energy is required to make special attacks like Rampage, Flurry of Slashes or Kick. Defeating a monster without special attacks takes much longer. Energy may not be useful at the early stages, when your fighters/rogues have just one or no special attacks at all, but later on it is quite useful.

Combatants rarely run out of energy even without investing a single point in Will. I ran a Fighter where I maxed Will just to see how effective it was. Answer: not so much. There is a thread named "Will power on front row melee?" or something similar where I reviewed this setup. Conclusion: those points are better invested into Dex. Should a fighter run out of energy he can probably dish out some descent damage without special attacks and there are three more members in the party that can hopefully deal enough damage to kill the foes pretty fast anyway. If energy worked more like; the lower the energy,the less damage is delt things would mix up in an interesting way. Special attacks would also drain energy as things are now.

- Definitely wouldn't mind a tad more variety in weapon types. You find multiple dagger class weapons right away, but you're stuck with a Cudgel (and its accuracy penalty) until the very end of level 3.

I'm afraid you're wrong. You can find every weapon type on level 2 or before:
Swords: Machete
Axes: Hand Axe
Maces: Cudgel
Daggers: Knife
Missile weapons: Sling
Throwing weapons: Shurikens, Throwing Knives

This wasn't his objection.

[Merethif]

- Willpower seems like a pretty useless stat if you aren't a mage. I'm not sure how to make the stat more valuable to rogues and fighters, though.

Energy is required to make special attacks like Rampage, Flurry of Slashes or Kick. Defeating a monster without special attacks takes much longer. Energy may not be useful at the early stages, when your fighters/rogues have just one or no special attacks at all, but later on it is quite useful.

Combatants rarely run out of energy even without investing a single point in Will. I ran a Fighter where I maxed Will just to see how effective it was. Answer: not so much. There is a thread named "Will power on front row melee?" or something similar where I reviewed this setup. Conclusion: those points are better invested into Dex. Should a fighter run out of energy he can probably dish out some descent damage without special attacks and there are three more members in the party that can hopefully deal enough damage to kill the foes pretty fast anyway. If energy worked more like; the lower the energy,the less damage is delt things would mix up in an interesting way. Special attacks would also drain energy as things are now.

I was running out of energy pretty often fighting unarmed or with daggers.

SpoilerShow

Also with Axes, but it was in Toorum mode and energy rules are somewhat different in this mode.

Anyway, I've never said it's most important stat in case of melee fighter. I've just objected it is useless.

- Definitely wouldn't mind a tad more variety in weapon types. You find multiple dagger class weapons right away, but you're stuck with a Cudgel (and its accuracy penalty) until the very end of level 3.

I'm afraid you're wrong. You can find every weapon type on level 2 or before:
Swords: Machete
Axes: Hand Axe
Maces: Cudgel
Daggers: Knife
Missile weapons: Sling
Throwing weapons: Shurikens, Throwing Knives

This wasn't his objection.

I'm sorry, English is not my native language, so I may just have read it wrong, but how the phrase "you're stuck with a Cudgel until the very end of level 3" can be interpreted otherwise?

[Sheogorath]

I'm sorry, English is not my native language, so I may just have read it wrong, but how the phrase "you're stuck with a Cudgel until the very end of level 3" can be interpreted otherwise?

I think his objection is that the cudgel is a crappy weapon compared to say the dagger or the machete, and the next mace is found at the very end of level 3. He thinks that's too late if I interpret him correctly.

I can't say I agree though. There is no reason why everything should be fair and equal in a dungeon.

[fmatthew5876]

When talking about the dodge skill you should mention the fact that for investing only 2 points you can get an evasion+5 bonus. For any offensive rogue there is no reason not to grab this bonus. 5 points of evasion is pretty significant and you won't be locked out of maxing out your main offensive skill after diverting only 2 points.

I have a throwing weapons user and I'm not convinced its as bad as you say. They are great for fighting goromorgs and uggardians at a distance. Double hits means you wear down goromorg shields much faster. They can also start damaging enemies from a distance before they even reach you. I never found it an issue to pickup the thrown weapons from the ground and I rarely ever ran out of throwing items. You can keep 2 stacks of different ones ready. Also having a free hand available is great for torches or shields.

I haven't used missile weapons so I can't comment too much on those. My initial guess is that they are probably a little less useful because they require 2 hands. Enchanted arrows might be interesting though.

You might argue that its better to use 2 mages instead of 1 mage and 1 ranged but I'm not sure I agree because thats a very much a playstyle choice. Its hard to argue which one is "better" than the other. Mages might be able to deal more damage by preparing spells before combat but micromanagement issues come into play a lot more when you have a lot of enemies surrounding you. I also find it annoying when I'm trying to circle strafe around enemies. All the time I waste clicking mage runes my melee characters attacks are refreshing which means I'm losing melee dps to use the mage.

Finally you also claim that the light and darkness spell are not very useful. I found myself casting light all the time. Its great not having to waste precious hand slots on torches.

Have we confirmed that willpower does not affect spell damage?

Also have you considered converting this into a guide and submitting it to gamefaqs? You obviously spent a long time with your analysis and I would hate to see it disappear in the bowels of the internet.

[athanatic_cube]

When talking about the dodge skill you should mention the fact that for investing only 2 points you can get an evasion+5 bonus. For any offensive rogue there is no reason not to grab this bonus. 5 points of evasion is pretty significant and you won't be locked out of maxing out your main offensive skill after diverting only 2 points.

Sure. That happens to be one of my favorite low-hanging bonuses. But, really, you might want to up to the Stealth feat to get a shield bonus on a front line rogue, assuming that rogue is going to be holding a shield. I've found that Evasion starts to feel effective around 30 or so and is really good by the time you get above 60.

I have a throwing weapons user and I'm not convinced its as bad as you say. They are great for fighting goromorgs and uggardians at a distance. Double hits means you wear down goromorg shields much faster. They can also start damaging enemies from a distance before they even reach you. I never found it an issue to pickup the thrown weapons from the ground and I rarely ever ran out of throwing items. You can keep 2 stacks of different ones ready. Also having a free hand available is great for torches or shields.

I experimented with throwing weapons early on and disliked the micromanagement associated with them (going to the spot where a creature was killed and picking up the weapons again) and also the fact that creatures retain them until killed. (Same arguments apply against projectile weapons.) I agree about having the free hand available and listed that as a strength vs. missile weapons. But, if casting spells seems like too much clicking, then I very much understand why people would gravitate towards throwing weapons. (Definitely a playing style preference.) I personally found casting spells in combat not to be much of a problem, as the rune combinations for combat spells are only a couple of clicks and you quickly learn them and train your fingers for them. And, if you average the damage over the time it took to program them, then I think that they compare favorably to single-click attacks (such as with missile weapons).

Finally you also claim that the light and darkness spell are not very useful. I found myself casting light all the time. Its great not having to waste precious hand slots on torches.

Have you considered going torchless? It would lower your carbon footprint and be a very "green" thing to do in the world of Grimrock.
But, seriously, I was able to pick out dungeon features and items laying around on the floor just fine without a torch and that saved me a hand slot right there. Once I picked up the Orb of Radiance, I had light again anyway.

Have we confirmed that willpower does not affect spell damage?

I have not and that is a good question.

Also have you considered converting this into a guide and submitting it to gamefaqs? You obviously spent a long time with your analysis and I would hate to see it disappear in the bowels of the internet.

Thanks for the good suggestion. I'll look into it. I am hopefully going to finish posting the rest of this guide (some character and party builds) this weekend and then go from there....