Questions from a Min-Maxer (skill spoiler)

[Hissssa]

*Edit if you're like me and want to know what the skills do now.... help everyone out and post a skill's listed upgrades if you see it in a Grimrock video*

So I can't help it, thats what I am...

based on this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR2PiJWwiGY


You can skip to 10:30 and peek into what the skills do. I really like that they tell you up front what the skill will do at its peak. I basically refuse to pick a skill in a game unless I know exactly what it does. How does +20 rock throwing REALLY affect me? Maybe it's good maybe it's complete crap.

Wow the athletics skill looks nice....food reduction needs by 25% and carrying capacity improved by 15 kg (levels 10 and 20 respectively)

That being said looks like it will be extremely wasteful to pick multiple weapon skills as you can only attack with one weapon at a time and you only get the bonuses from the skill when you are using that weapon. Unless of course you get the bonus for just having it in the offhand?

At 10:32 you can see the axes skill and holding an axe at level 50 gives you +4 strength +25 health and +20 attack power. I'm not sure what all those bonuses mean in the scale of things... but one option would be to "dual wield" for the bonuses.

So if I go axes and unarmed combat (10:36), if I get both to level 50 would I get the axe bonus and the unarmed combat bonus (+10 dex +7 strength +40 health +20 evasion)? This would assume of course that I have an axe in one hand and nothing in the other.

Based on that idea I think I'd have to go with 2 weapon skills for each guy with no overlaps... (axe/mace guy and maybe a sword/unarmed guy).

[Hissssa]

Just a heads up Dodge has these stats at level 50:

+20 evasion (+50 more evasion at level 50), +30 resist fire/shock, +60 health, stealth (double evasion bonus of cloak), Impvoved stealth (doubles evasion bonus of clothes) ,light armor proficiency (no light armor penalty)


it's real hard to catch it while he's moving around! This is as much for me too so I don't have to catch it at the exact moment as it is for you too

[Hissssa]

I have one last question for now...

Does difficulty level decrease dropped food? Because that would make me less inclined to play hard....

Or maybe I should ask does difficulty scale food in any way (less effect, less drops, need to eat more)?

[Arctor]

I have one last question for now...

Does difficulty level decrease dropped food? Because that would make me less inclined to play hard....

Or maybe I should ask does difficulty scale food in any way (less effect, less drops, need to eat more)?

Back in my Dungeon Master days - especially on subsequent play throughs - I usually had one character devoted to being a pack mule - carrying supplies, because there were moments where starvation was a real threat (especially when the party had been beaten up quite badly and was on the run). That being said, the min/max idea applies here too. Minimize unimportant traits and maximize desired ones to create a true support role for one of your characters. Maybe he/she/it can pitch in with some damage or spell-casting, but they'll be the most important during those times when you're not in combat (and solving puzzles). I'm trying to decide whether or not to do this on my first run.

[Hissssa]

Well I was thinking back to dungeon master as well when my bother played the first time he ran out of food ( he spent a lot of time organizing things in the character menus.... little did he know that time actually went by much faster this way).

I was thinking the worst case scenario where you're holding your own on hard, you are getting close to the end and you run out of food. Game Over... please try again. I've already bought the game but that would be a deal breaker for playing on Hard mode if it specifically made food more of an issue.

I know my brother was also carrying around chests in DM and that's actually a really bad idea because they are heavy. I think back to green yellow and red encumbrance bars and how they affected your food consumption. Carrying around more weight made you eat food faster too so messed up twice on the same problem and that's probably why it became a problem in the first place. Finally the problem was magnified by poor party selection (rogue fighter mage priest). Only 1 character could really do serious lifting and all the others were probably carrying more than they should have so it didn't work out so well in the end.

I have the same tendency to want to pick up everything given the choice so I'll probably need to have at least 2-3 characters with endurance. Besides the fact that I'd rather have encumbrance over a third weapon skill (because let's face it I'm tempted to try and master one first anyway). But I know better because the second you do that you'll just find the flaming sword of awesomeness and you have everything into axes....

Ok I guess I lied I am full of questions....

Does the difficulty affect experience in any way? (experience bonus for harder difficulty perhaps.. or more experience because the monsters had more health).

[petri]

Difficulty level does not affect food drops, food consumption rate or amount of exp gained. Only combat difficulty is scaled.

[Hissssa]

Thank you for the reply! I know that a number of games tweak the game in almost unimaginable ways to make things harder without enhancing game play at all.

That's really the only question I expected you would answer but it can't hurt to ask with the others right? Actually it's not that big a deal I can just save up a few points and test out the dual wield theory as they give a stat bonus rather quickly.

But while I'm here again I'd like to ask another question. Do the traits scale at all? It seems that some are completely overshadowed by other options. I noticed the aura trait gives +15 energy which would be a tremendous boon for any caster. Another option is +2 vitality; and while that is something you would probably take for a fighter those two really don't seem like balanced choices. So I could take +25 fire resistance or +2 vitality? It seems like that unless the traits scaled in some way some would always be picked over others unless you were going for a thematic choice or flavor choice.

[Hissssa]

I don't think I'll get another dev response so I'll just be asking myself or anyone who is interested in reading some questions. I wonder if they will be putting an infinite food room like you can find in Dungeon Master.

I started playing Dungon Master again and here's what I've been up to:



For a basis of comparison he starts with 80 health, 61 energy and 5 mana.

While an infinite food room is good in that it gives the casual player the chance to beat the game it lets someone like me completely exploit the system. Now as for that screen shot let me say the 200+ strength isn't a hack it's just an exploit I found a long time ago. You can drink varying degrees of strength potions and it will stack; basically more potions just gives you extra time AND extra strength. I had some encumbrance issues so I went a little crazy (max is 255 btw). The last worm I ran into actually ran away after Hissssa hit him once for @267 damage with an axe. I think I'll let those strength potions run out.

I got the whole gang back together, except I did not pick Darou as I really enjoyed having the axe... so I went with Stam.... who is sadly my weakest character (couldn't level up his magic until recently when I got the wand). Gothmog and Wuuf are both Journeyman fighters I believe after leveling up on those pesky screamers. I think even Stam is an apprentice priest now (bear in mind he starts with zero mana and now has 44 without the wand). I think I will stop leveling up primaries as I want to save something for later to work towards. I will however make the occasional pass by while I am in the area to level up some ninja skills (but I hate picking that crap up and it doesn't do much damage). Why so many boulders? I need them for a trap room.

Now thankfully you won't be able to do this in Grimrock as you have a limited number of skill choices. You can't spontaneously develop a skill later (well possibly one I think as there is 1 skill slot free when you start) but you can't get 3-4 levels in rogue/priest/wizard when you started with about 3 levels in fighter.

[Darklord]

I don't think I'll get another dev response so I'll just be asking myself or anyone who is interested in reading some questions. I wonder if they will be putting an infinite food room like you can find in Dungeon Master.

Yes the guys have certainly hinted at such. They said that "Most enemies will not respawn" meaning some do.

Daniel.

[Darklord]

so I went with Stam.... who is sadly my weakest character (couldn't level up his magic until recently when I got the wand).

Next time you use Stam, all you have to do is use the Warcry ability when you have no weapon equipped, this generates Priest levels at range or Fighter if adjacent, allowing you to get a priest level and mana on level 1/2 if you so choose. Once you have at least 2 mana you can make potions.

My Stam throws fireballs as good as the rest of the party!

Daniel.