Game Mechanics

[steyrhahn]

The default starting party is a good way to learn the game. I don't think playing the game with 4 mages is something one would want to do unless you have a specific set of goals and know how to accomplish them after having played a default game.

I had the same questions you did when I played my first game 6 weeks ago.

The default party has a bit of everything you need, a front line of close range weapons specialists, sword and mace, and a back line of ranged specialists, throwing/archer and a mage.

While there are no healing spells, the mage may be able to cast protect spells, and at higher exp levels gain protection for the entire party. There are potions which can be made with ingredients found in the dungeon according to alchemy recipes found on scrolls.

[Komag]

using the example of an all ice mage party is probably the best example of a straw man argument that could possibly be used regarding this game. No one but my 7 year old nephew would make a party with even two mages who both specialized in ice. If you have an ice mage, he'll be very useful the entire game and even during the final boss fight he can help clear out other baddies during the fight who get in the way.

Yeah, dex doesn't help ranged combat, but it helps other things (avoid shock damage and fireball damage, both very useful, and evasion as well, always good).

Any normal reasonable party will be fine. It would extremely lame to know exactly everything such as the percentage change each spell level does, all the exact dice rolling that will happen, etc. It completely kills immersion and storytelling, which is a big aspect of a game like this. If all you want is super hardcore strategy calculations, something else may be more to your liking.

[Hatti]

it seems to me you're more interested in maxing your party and upset that the game doesn't tell you how to do this right from the onset. i don't know of any game that gives all the game mechanic details for you right at character creation and it would be a badly designed game that does.

this game does a very good job of detailing what each stat is used for when you hover the mouse over it and tinkering with the stats shows you what secondary stats are affected by your decisions.

if you have no experience at all with these types of games, it's best to go with the default party and learn the system. anybody who does have experience, well i doubt they would be making an all ice specialized mage party right from the start unless they know what they are doing.

[jerryrowe]

I don't think anyone who has responded "gets" my need here.

I don't want to know the game front-to-back before I play it.

I just want to have an idea of what ANYthing means at character creation. Is a 10 in a stat half as good as a 20? I have no idea. What stat(s) do I need to increase to be effective at ranged combat? Do I even need any skill points invested in it?

I think everyone who has replied here enjoys (seriously) learning by trial-and-error. I have discovered though my life that I detest learning by failing in a playtime environment, especially when the time investment before realization of a failure is 10+ hours.

For instance, many people keep touting the default party, as though that tells me how to level those characters up. Is it better to invest a little in each, or pick one and stick with it, for any class? Is there anything beyond 10 skill points in a tree? (I read the complete skill lists in a link I gave earlier, but hopefully that point comes across.) I don't even know how many maximum skill points I will even have access to.

And about a "straw man" argument regarding the 4-ice-mage party: that was honestly the FIRST thing I thought about doing. I've played a lot of tactical RPGs, and a squad of glass cannon type characters can be overwhelmingly powerful, or absolute poop. I had no idea; I *heard* that "any party can succeed." But I didn't believe it, and I was glad to have found out early.

Look, if you like learning by trial-and-error, consider this post (I really mean no offence) to be evidence that you have encountered the error in your trial; you are not going to convince me that I think it's fun to play a game where I don't even know what the rules are.

For anyone who would like to question the wisdom of wanting to know the rules of a game before playing it, I would like to challenge you to a game of Rochambeau. Knowing what the rules are matters quite a lot for that. (Either we're going to play rock-paper-scissors, or I'm going to kick you in the privates as per the South Park episode. Just depends on the ruleset I mean, and which you don't know until you ask.)

And playing for 8+ hours only to find out that my strategy is stupid / unplayable eventually, just because I had no idea what the rules even were, is kinda like getting kicked in the nuts, only it takes 8-10 hours longer and makes you wonder if it'll happen again just slightly later in the game the next time you give it a shot.

Wanting to know what my stats MEAN at character creation is not at all the same as "learning the game." Someone saying "the best weapon in the game is a spear" (for instance) would be telling me about the game per se. Telling me what my stats mean tells me about the SYSTEM used to play the game.

I want to understand the system. I don't see why this is so difficult for some people to understand.

And I know that playing the game doesn't really inform you THAT much, because of all the people complaining over in the level creator forum. None of them know what anything does, either, and they find it very frustrating. How do they challenge a party appropriately if they don't know what the party's stats mean, let alone a monster's?

Anyway, I don't think anyone is reading my posts in their entirety. I'm going to just post a new thread later with what I learn, to help people who tend to enjoy planning more than trial-and-error.

[Merethif]

First of all, GameBanshee is good place to check out all skills to plan your party ahead. Not to mention equipment database and detailed walkthrough, but as far as I can tell you're not interested in that sort of things.
I can't provide you with exact numerical values of things like three points technique, because even though in three out of four parties I've finished the game with there was a character with maxed Unarmed, I've never really bothered to check it out. But I'll try to provide you with answers as good as possible. Be warned that some spoilers may appear on the way (but it is unavoidable if you're asking about final boss resistances and such).

SpoilerShow

[*]When do you ever get more skill points? At levelups?
[*]How many skillpoints do you get? (Is it based on class, or is it always just 1?)

As mentioned before 4 points per level. You will get a bit over 50 points at the end (with some optional bonus points). So you can max only one skill. There are some skills that works best when maxed and some that works better in combos with other. Some personal opinions below:
Weapon skills:
Unarmed - MAXED/COMBO - it boost your Evasion to the point when Protection is not necessary at all so you can focus on Unarmed and skip Armour/Dodge. For an ultimate tank you can combine Unarmed with Armour(16 or 25)/Dodge(24) - such monk will be less DPS but will be very resilient.
Missile/Throwing - MAXED - keeping your ranged characters in second row allow to skip defensive skills and focus on row DPS. Ranged combat is based on player's accuracy, not character's accuracy - unless a monster steps aside character always hits.
Swords/Maces/Axes - COMBO - Those skills are good to combine with some defensive skills because they don't provide enough protection/evasion for a first row characters. It is advised to put at least some points in Armour for some defence.
Daggers - COMBO - You can either use them from first row and in that case it works pretty much like any other melee weapon - so It is advised to put at least some points in Dodge for some defence. Investing 12 points in assasination though, allows you to use it from second row and skip Dodge entirely focussing on Daggers.
The good advice is to focus on one weapon per character. Every weapon type has one badass end game gear so don't specialize two characters in the same weapon type (unarmed included) unless we're talking about swords, because there are two of them that may be considered end-game weapon.

[*]How much influence does "attack power" give? (Is a "+1" just +1 straight out to any damage that connects, or is it +10% to whatever damage you dealt, or what?)

I don't know precisely, but keep in mind that every 2 points of Strength gives you +1 AP, whereas every 1 point in given skill gives you +1 to AP and Accuracy with given weapon. Increasing weapon skills is much more combat effective then increasing Strength. Strength is more a stat of carry weight (which is important for any heavy armour user).

[*]The resist fire / electric / cold / poison --- is this a %-based damage reduction? (e.g., 50 fire resist gives you 50% less damage to all fire, and 100 fire resist would make you immune)

I don't know really but keep in mind that even if you manage to get 100% resistance on one character, the other ones will be still vulnerable and when you're hit by spell-like attack whole party is hit so the best way to avoid fire/poison/electric/ice damage is to avoid spell manually by stepping aside. Generally try to distribute resistances equally because it's better to have four party members wounded, then one at full health and three dead.

[*]How does ranged combat work? How do hit and damage work?

As already mentioned it is based on player accuracy, so if there's monster before you you always hit. Dexterity is most important for melee fighters. Of course as Komag mentioned it is a stat that provide bonus to Evasion and some resistances so it is not a total waste on any character - mages included.

[*]What are the spell/skill lists for each of the 4 classes' skills/spells? Is there any benefit beyond 10?

Yes. Every spell gets more powerful with every skill additional point allocated to the skill. A Fireburst cast by a mage with 2 points in Fire Magic is a way less powerful the Fireburst cast by a mage with 50 points in Fire Magic. Apart from that every Magic skill has a level at which its primary bolt gets major boost (for example it's 27 for Air Magic). If you're combing a single Magic skill with other skills and can't maxed it out to 50, it is advised to at least get this major boost.

Is ice magic all utility, like haste and slow and shield? Is fire all offensive? Is lightning defensive? I have no idea about ANY spells of ANY kind. I also don't know if swords or unarmed would be better, since I can't see any of their effects later on.

No, all Magic skills are somewhat similar - each gets two offensive spells with one being range bolt. Lightning and Fire spells deal more damage, but Ice and Earth spells have additional effects - in case of ice it's either hitting multiple enemies or freezing, in case of earth it's poison clouds that deals damage over time (sadly also to the party). Also Ice and Fire spells cost less energy. The only utility spells are Invisibility (Air Magic) but it's hardly useful and Light (Spellcraft).

For instance, I have no idea what the text-only descriptions are. "Massive damage." "A technique only known to grand masters." Does this mean a million damage or 100 damage? Is it a 300% of normal damage thing? Does it require "energy" like mages use? What's the cooldown on ANYTHING?

Every special attack consumes energy. For example you gain special attack called Slash at 10 points in Swords skill. From now on every time you hit with sword you have a chance to execute this special attack for extra damage. The more you advanced in give skill the more special attacks you learn so the overall chance of executing one will increase and thus your energy consumption with increase as well. It is mostly noticeable with fast weapons with many attacks per minute (like daggers, unarmed and even swords). If you run out of energy you will make only normal attacks - it's not something really horrible but it hurts when you get used to those deadly Flurry of Slashes execyted by your rogue and then he is reduced to some mere regular dagger stabs

So an all-ice-mage party can take on the final boss (who is immune to ice)?

Yes, theoretically.

Speaking of final boss. The final boss doesn't has normal anatomy so it can't be backstabbed (as it hasn't got back). Assassination is useful skill and many of my characters had some points in it as there is only one regular monster without normal anatomy and defined back, but keep in mind that it won't add you a bit with final boss.
Also note that personally I find final battle easier with range attacks (missile, throwing, magic bolts). Melee fighters are helpful with minions though and also they can always use grenades. Anyway that last bit is very personal and final boss is totally beatable with melee weapons as well.

Speaking of magic resistant monsters. Quite a few common monsters are resistant to Earth Magic (poison) which makes it least useful skill IMO. From the other hand those monsters are rather easy to defeat so you can deal with them without spells at all (mages don't have weapon skills, but they still can use most weapons. Note that they always hit with ranged weapons like shurikens or throwing axes). There is one somewhat difficult monster immune to Fire Magic, and later on one very difficult monster immune to Ice Magic. To make your Fire/Ice mage useful in encounters with those two either invest some points in another Magic skill or use wands. You will find several "wand" class items with charges that can cast spells. Any character can use them, but they are useful for mages to deal damage to monster resistant to their spells. Also wands come handy to any melee character if he wants to deal damage from distance. Wands don't look always as wands - but they have spell-like charges so I'm calling them wands for convenience.

What stat(s) do I need to increase to be effective at ranged combat? Do I even need any skill points invested in it?

Weapon skill is most important - every skill point invested increase Attack Power plus you gain special bonuses (like fast attack or double attack) at certain levels. Those bonuses are great - especially double attack (even if it's ammo consuming). Strength increase Attack Power as well but not that much. For example investing four points in Assassination gives you +1 Strength and potentially +1 AP with your ranged weapons. But investing those points in Missile/Throwing Weapons gives you +4 AP with given weapon class. So basically ranged weapons are most straightforward ones - only Strength has any impact on them. With melee weapons you have to balance between Strength (Attack Power), Dexterity (Accuracy) and even Willpower (Energy for special attacks). Range weapons don't have accuracy nor special attacks.

You can use any weapon, ranged or not, even when you don't have any points in given skill. Only end game weapons have skill restriction. Early on the difference between knife thrown by rogue with 4 points in Throwing weapons and a knife thrown by mage isn't that visible to be honest, so it is advised to use whatever you find to gives your party an edge. Later on you'd rather focus on the weapon of choice of every character. I think it is wise to equip a mage with some throwing weapons - remember that he always hits.

[Dr.Disaster]

I give this one a try

I don't want to know the game front-to-back before I play it.

That's not needed. All you need is a rough cut how things work and some principles to stick with.

I just want to have an idea of what ANYthing means at character creation. Is a 10 in a stat half as good as a 20? I have no idea.

What each stat increase does can be seen right at creation. The general rule of thumb is "more is better". Now doubling a stat from i.e. 10 to 20 will not double it's effect; this would require all stats to work in a percentage base which most don't. As far as i know only resistances work on a percentage basis.

An example: If you want to create a melee fighter he/she will need to hit things so a focus - beside doing damage which is done by raising Attack Power - should be Accuracy which requires Dexterity. Now one needs to know that any melee weapon skill will raise both(!) Attack Power and Accuracy with more skill points spend into it. So over time the right skill build-up is key for an effective character.

What stat(s) do I need to increase to be effective at ranged combat?

Ranged combat in LoG does require YOU to aim correctly. As long as you don't fire at thin air your ranged attack will hit. Beside that all it takes is Attack Power and build-up of the ranged skill in use.

Do I even need any skill points invested in it?

Rule of thumb: the higher a certain skill is build the better it works out for that character.

Well you can go without investing into skill points but it will be a lot(!) harder this way. Yet it can be very entertaining; for example I had a lot of fun playing the game's hidden character as a rogue while he has absolutely no rogue skills.

I think everyone who has replied here enjoys (seriously) learning by trial-and-error. I have discovered though my life that I detest learning by failing in a playtime environment, especially when the time investment before realization of a failure is 10+ hours.

No problem, just get used to an old adventurers saying: "Save early. Save often". This way you can go back and re-do stuff you think you handled badly, including stat/skill point distribution.

Then again: LoG's game system is designed for doing multiple play-thru's with different parties.

For instance, many people keep touting the default party, as though that tells me how to level those characters up. Is it better to invest a little in each, or pick one and stick with it, for any class? Is there anything beyond 10 skill points in a tree? (I read the complete skill lists in a link I gave earlier, but hopefully that point comes across.)

The default party of 2 fighters 1 rogue 1 mage is nice to start out and discover things. Yet it may not be to your personal liking since their stat/skill points and traits are already assigned.

Here is the most important rule in building a successful LoG character:
Pick one(!) main melee/ranged/magic skill and stick with it, no matter what!
You can have secondaries but always consider them to be support, not more.

I don't even know how many maximum skill points I will even have access to.

You get 4 skill point per level-up. At the end of the main dungeon your characters will be in the 12..14 level range, depending on how busy you got killing stuff; the only way to get experience. So this boils down to 48..56 skill points.

And about a "straw man" argument regarding the 4-ice-mage party: that was honestly the FIRST thing I thought about doing. I've played a lot of tactical RPGs, and a squad of glass cannon type characters can be overwhelmingly powerful, or absolute poop. I had no idea; I *heard* that "any party can succeed." But I didn't believe it, and I was glad to have found out early.

In LoG "any party can succeed" is true. Yet depending on party build you can face some very bad situations. For example your mentioned 4-ice-mages would do ok to great for most parts of the game but when facing the game's cold immune monsters they will be literally eaten. Due to this diversity is still the best way to build a party.

[Soorg]

I suppose last Merethif post in spoil tag is answering OP questions.

From a more general point of view, I do agree with OP that at character creation there isn't enough information. No game will tell you at character creation to not take fire magic because final boss is immune to fire magic. But LoG has a fairly good information about races but it shows only the first 3 steps of each skill branch and it's too vague, and it doesn't provide any general information about attributes.

I don't play LoG since some time because I'm in OSX (and failed make it run through wine or similar stuff) and have forget the details but as an example (probably wrong for the game) the game should have provided some general information as:
- Strength influence carrying capacity and attack power (damages) of all weapons.
- Dexterity influence dodge capacity, weapons accuracy and fire and ice resistance.
- Vitality provides more Health and influence poison resistance.
- Willpower influence Mana amount, Shock resistance and damages of spells

The second element missing at character creation is when you look at skills branch you see only the first 3 steps, despite as soon as you are in game you can see all the branch but spells are kept secret. That's a design error of the game to not allow see the full branches.

For the spells secrets it's a design choice and it's fine, perhaps the first two spells in each magic branch could be mentioned.

So I do agree with OP that the game shpuld have provided more basic information at character creation. But I disagree that all RPG need provide full exact formula for everything and no RPG provide information like "take car about fire magic that the final boss is immune to fire magic". In fact no game provides balance information like ice is more useful and so on.

EDIT: It's also common knowledge that balanced party with 4 specialized characters with different specialization is the safer bet for the coming unknown adventure, but it's almost never as powerful than a more specialized party but also more specialized party are quite more risked so it's either be ready to play multiple time the game, either check a guide and exploit the game.

[Ixnatifual]

I understand the desire to know the rules and mechanics at least of the party creation from the get-go. I also agree Grimrock does a terrible job at this. For example I pumped my archer rogue's Dexterity sky-high and ignored Strength, since Dexterity is typically the primary stat for ranged characters in RPGs. Grimrock didn't let me know that accuracy is a non-factor for ranged attacks.

So I ended up having a somewhat gimped party, which was kind of annoying. The game was easy enough that it didn't truly matter, and even my gimped party could complete the game with no problems. And don't get me wrong - it was a really enjoyable play experience in spite of me npt knowing this. Since I didn't really know what I was getting into, I made sure to have a varied party, and that turned out OK since even though one character was very gimped, the others were strong enough to make up for it.

I've played plenty RPGs where you're not told exactly how stats and such work, so I'm probably more used to it than OP.

[jerryrowe]

This thread is defunct. I put up a new thread that contains the answers that I expect people like myself would want to know.

If I could lock this thread I would.

[Merethif]

This thread is defunct. I put up a new thread that contains the answers that I expect people like myself would want to know.

If I could lock this thread I would.

I've spent almost two hours to reply to this thread only to be informed the OP got bored and made another thread.
That's how you are rewarded for trying to be kind and helpful.