Hey guys - Party advice

[DannyAIC]

Hi guys, new to this forum, but played grimrock 1 for a long time and had a blast. Recently bought Grimrock 2. I’ve been excited to play but been going through the restart bug for a bit haha

I ‘ve finally settled (I think) on a group that makes me happy, and I thought I’d ask a couple of questions and see if you guys see any glaring problems that might really affect me later on down the line. Will be playing on hard btw.

Insectoid Knight
5 Str, 5 Vit
Traits: Quick, Chitin Armor
4 Armor
5 Heavy Weapons
3 Dodge
2 Accuracy
Rest critical

Mino Barb

4 Str, 4 Vit, 2 Dex

Trait: Headhunter, Rage
4 Armor
5 Heavy wepaons
2 Accuracy
Rest Critical

Lizard Rogue

5 Str, 5 Vit
Traits: Aggressive, Endure elements (Maybe something better here?)

Alchemy 5
Throwing 5
Accuracy 2
Rest Crit

Human Wizard

5 Will, 5 Vit
Trait: Skilled, Strong Mind

Fire 5
Air 3
Water 5
Concentration 2

Anything else you guys can think of? I also considered taking a battlemage instead of a knight and turning him into a more utility/frostbolt caster while making the wizard an alchemist instead, who focused on alchemy and fire/air to get meteor swarm.

Nice to meet you all

[mvdeckard]

Can't find much wrong with that -- looks pretty good.

[Cronicler]

Personally, I generally go with what I call 3+1 approach;
3 characters with high dps and 1 that can add some,
3 characters that have armour (3 heavy, 1 light) and 1 squishy,
3 high resist characters with 1 potion addict,

For dps output, I generally use 2 melee str characters and a caster with a dex front liner for small but reliable output thanks to inherent high acc.
On the armour front, I generally kit my dex and heavy weapon specialist with heavy armour and my back line str wears light armour. My squishy (caster) is given whatever gives max. energy.


For race choices, I think you should have your lizardman on the front line. Coupling the endure elements & fast metabolism combo with a dex knight* gives you a very durable tank.
Insectoid (quick) heavy weapon specialist with 5/5 heavy weapons, 4/5 armour, 5/5 crit with whatever left to accuracy is a surprising damage source.
Mino barb with dual wield 5/5 light weapons (str), 5/5 crit, 5/5 accuracy is a shredder.
An evoker based on alchemist (5/5 Fire, 5/5 Air, 5/5 Concentration)

*Yes, it says knight on the tin but with 5/5 light weapons, 5/5 alchemy!, 5/5 armour and whatever left to accuracy.
This guys role is to be a meatshield and doing the support functions (bombs and potions)

[thufir]

Depending on the difficulty level of your game you may regret not having an alchemist. If you are playing on normal or even hard with no additional modifiers you should probably be fine, but if you are trying it with one or both of the ironman or single-use-crystal options it would be best to have one. You will do a lot of savescumming without them (and savescumming is not really an option if are playing with both).

[DannyAIC]

Cool thanks. I’ve read up about the alchemist and the only thing it seems to offer to me is extra ingredients, which is nice no doubt, but I tend to be stingy with my healing potions preferring to savescum as you say instead of just freely using potions. However, do you need a rogue in the party to use lockpicks? If not there’s no reason for the rogue for me since he’ll be throwing and not dual wielding. I’m still not too far in, just at the first boss, so maybe I’d restart with an Lizard alchemist and make him the throwing guy instead of the rogue.

[thufir]

Cool thanks. I’ve read up about the alchemist and the only thing it seems to offer to me is extra ingredients, which is nice no doubt, but I tend to be stingy with my healing potions preferring to savescum as you say instead of just freely using potions. However, do you need a rogue in the party to use lockpicks? If not there’s no reason for the rogue for me since he’ll be throwing and not dual wielding. I’m still not too far in, just at the first boss, so maybe I’d restart with an Lizard alchemist and make him the throwing guy instead of the rogue.

You don't need a rogue to use lockpicks. The extra ingredients are super handy if you are not savescumming, but if you are it matters a lot less. I was in single-digit bloodcaps throughout most of my game in hard/ironman/singleusecrystal mode (had to make sure each character had a good stock of healing potions at all times; getting trapped in a corner by things will bleed your party out quickly).

[Merethif]

Also note that ingredients are not only for healing/buffing potions but also for permanent stat increase potions. During my first playthrough I had a single Alchemist and he was able to brew over 20 stat potions during the whole game.

[DannyAIC]

ok so I've revised my party a bit, gonna start over later on tonight.

Mino Barb

4 Str, 4 Vit, 2 Dex
Aggressive, Headhunter

4 Armor
5 Heavy weapons
3 Accuracy
Rest critical

Insect Knight

5 Str, 5 Vit
Quick, Chitin Armor

4 Armor
5 Heavy Weapons
3 dodge
2 Accuracy
Rest Critical

Insect alchemist

5 Vit, 5 Wil
Strong mind, Aura

5 Alchemy
5 water
1 Air
Rest Concentration

Human Wizard

5 Vit, 5 Wil
Skilled, Strong mind

5 Fire
3 Air
5 Water
Rest Concentration

[minmay]

Also note that ingredients are not only for healing/buffing potions but also for permanent stat increase potions. During my first playthrough I had a single Alchemist and he was able to brew over 20 stat potions during the whole game.

Game mechanic spoiler:

SpoilerShow

You get the ingredient for gain stat potions every 4500 steps (assuming you have it in your inventory at the time), which is about 37:30 of nothing but walking. So grinding it would be absurdly slow. My first playthrough (unspoiled) went everywhere in the game and ended up with 43515 steps, so you can probably expect to get somewhere around 10 gain stat potions from this over the course of the whole game. For comparison, I believe a total of 22 of said ingredient appear naturally.

[Merethif]

10 is still something worth considering.