Best party

[tantalan]

Guys, can you post here, who reached lets say level 9, your party? Race, class and for each class which abilities you specialized in? I would like to now which party to choose in case i start the game again. I am in level 5 now and i have problems to survive and continue

[telra]

playing @ normal
Monk (unarmed, light armor, athletic) fighter -human
Swordsman (Swords, heavy armor) fighter - human
Ice/Air mage - insect
archer rogue (EVERYTHING into ranged weapons) - human (messed up , got high dext, low str)

[Mychaelh]

Not reached Level 9 till now, but anyway:

Playing @ IronMan-mode
(Hard/Old School (+ Disabled Damage Text/ Hidden Item Properties) and no map-drawing by hand).

Minotaur Fighter (6 pt in Vitality, 4 in Strengh - ...Headhunter, Skilled - 4 pts in Athletics to Max out Vitality as early as possible to get max HP)
Human Fighter (dito - ... Healthy, Skilled ...5 pts in Athletics, 2 in Armour)
Human Thief (6 pts in Dex, 4 in Vitality -... Agile, Skilled - all pts in Assassination to get backstabbing and reach attacks as fast as possible)
Human Mage (6 in Willpower (max Energy), 4 in Vitality - ...Aura, Skilled - 2 pts in Fire Magic for start casting, 5 in Staff Defence)

To make it more 'best' choose Lizard for Thief and Insectoid for Mage.

Important: Allways Skill trait to get extra points for skills.
Fighters should get as much Vitality from start as possible to build HP.
Thiefs get Dex and are trained for backstabbing and reaching.
Mages get Willpower and 2 pts in Fire Magic to cast Fire spell early

Focus on long-range combat for Thiefs right from start is useless. (you would have to put points in strengh)

But the MOST IMPORTANT IS to understand COMBAT TACTICS and to LEARN 'CIRCLING': -> Hit, Slide-Turn(Move), Hit, Repeat...

If you can 'circle' right, good Party stats and equipment are not THAT important, it just makes combat easier and faster!

All combat in this type of games is about tactics:

- Don't give the monsters the chance to ambush you. Only explore new areas, if you have cleared your back.
- Know your escape route.
- Don't fight multiple monsters, always try to lure one away -> '4 against 1' not 'fair play' is the name of the game. And the 4 is your party.
- Recognize good battlefields:
* long corridors that allow to blindly go backwards for constant distance attacks
* Chambers for melee fights ('circling' is the standard manoeuvre, the whole combat system is designed around - it's NOT a 'gamy cheat'.
* In the most ideal outcome the monsters never manage to hit you, you hit them and slide away.
- Assure you have freedom of movement (no pits, teleporters, etc.)

- Magic is NOT for melee (only magic weapons):
- Magic is an arcane discipline, demanding years of study in a library, not a gym. It depends on the proper performance of thaumaturgical gestures at the right moment (the 'clicking' of the rune-glyphs).

[ShadowTiger]

I personally have trouble fighting creatures that damage your whole party. While it is possible to run around in an open space and drink potions to keep your low HP members alive, consider giving them "healthy" at creation for +15 hp. Also, especially for mages or ranged rogues, consider giving them vitality instead of dexterity with leftover points.

[Hissssa]

I just want to add here that cold magic is extremely valuable once you get the ability to freeze enemies at level 13. You have just enough time to fire everyone's weapons once and maybe one party member's attack an additional time if it is really quick. Take one step back and when the monster shifts hit again with another melee attack (shift and repeat until the monster is dead).

I still believe dexterity and strength are the way to go for your front line characters. Both help you land attacks more often and dexterity will make it harder for you to get hit. Vitality will just help you soak up damage and in the long run you'll be taking more than someone who was more evasive. If you hit harder and more often the fight will be shorter too and that will also help to mitigate incoming damage. You can either build your character to be more likely to survive big hits or you can make your character better at avoiding damage AND dealing more damage in return.

I made two insect mages each specializaing in a differnet element (ice & fire). I dumped all their skill points into the respective element until I got them high enough to cast that element's main damage spell and then worked on spellcraft. For stats I gave them all wisdom and all leftover points went to vitality. I gave both mages the extra wisdom and extra energy talents. In this case health is better because if they get attacked they are basically going to get hit anyway. Giving them more health makes them more likely to survive. Soon my party will have +25 resistance to both ice and fire and the spell to give another +35 if I expect to fight something really nasty.

You're shooting yourself in the foot for not taking a minotaur as there are at least 5 skulls to increase attack power by three each for the head hunter trait. Give up 5 inventory spaces for a power that slowly builds up to 15 attack power? Yes please. For my minotaur I gave him all strength and the rest went into dexterity to negate that accuracy penalty. His talents were head hunter and an additional +2 strength because I figured why not? In retrospect I wish I had given him +2 dex instead with the second talent because fighters can't really increase dexterity except by unarmed skill or athletics (and quite frankly spending 4 skill points to bump dexterity is a waste). On the other hand I am starting to think that an unarmed combat minotaur could be completely awesome.

My second fighter was originally going to be fighting with fists but I scrapped that in favor of a sword user. If I recall I gave this lizardman 16 dex and 16 strength and then gave him the aggressive and agile traits. More evasion looks tempting until you realize at 18 dexterity your'e only 3 less evasion and you are much better at hitting the target.

I suggest that you try to get athletics pretty early as it will help you save quite a bit of food (and give you passive bonuses while you wait to decide which weapon to specialize with). Having 2 insect mages and 2 fighters with endurance will significantly reduce your food needs.

I gave my mages the throwing weapons because they need one hand for casting. The damage is small but it can add up to one big hit (with no retaliation) if you have enough throwing weapons. I have my mages both cast the same relative spell and their mana pools stay about the same (slight differences in spellcraft). An alternative would be to burn up one or the other's mana pool and give him the bow while he is recharging and have the other play caster.

Overall my lizardman hits far more than my minotaur and avoids taking less damage too. However my minotaur does have the potential to land devastating big hits.

[schallmau3r]

2 Taur Fighters 2 Insect Mages (one Fire/air, Ice/earth the other). With this setup its not as bad as it was with a rogue. 2 mages are badas DPS.

[Halk]

For me it's

2 lizardmen tanks
1 minotaur thief
1 insect mage

Cold magic seems best because of freezes. My lizardmen tanks are vitality and dex in stats, and they still do reasonable DPS because they're accurate. The minotaur thief does very well, however I'm wondering if it was best to put stats into dex rather than strength as str doesn't do very much, and the mino thief will end up with a high attack score anyway.

[mazuffer]

I finished the game a couple of hours ago.

My party was:
Minotaur Fighter: 18-12-17-7, Agile & Head Hunter, Armors & Axes
Lizardman Fighter: 12-20-12-9, Skilled & Agile, Swords & Athletics & Armors
Human Rogue: 18-12-12-10, Aggressive & Athletic, Throwing Weapons
Insectoid Mage: 8-12-12-19, Poison Resistant & Skilled, Fire Magic & Ice Magic & Spellcraft

The party worked really well, except the minotaur was pretty bad before he got his axe skill up and found a few skulls. Aura would maybe have been better than Poison Resistant on the mage, he seemed to run out of energy constantly, even at the end when he had 233 energy .

[Terrorball2000]

Back row:
Having two mages that split the elements between them seems optimal. Not sure how anyone could debate that really. Honorable mention for best archer/thrower to the minotaur as dex is a dead stat for range.

Front row:
The standard one minotaur because of the skulls. I suggest a minimum dex of 12 and also pick the +2 dex trait. Sword skill will add a couple more dex too. Missing blows.

On the fence for the last slot. Experimenting with a evasion rogue atm.

[Halk]

I finished the game a couple of hours ago.

My party was:
Minotaur Fighter: 18-12-17-7, Agile & Head Hunter, Armors & Axes
Lizardman Fighter: 12-20-12-9, Skilled & Agile, Swords & Athletics & Armors
Human Rogue: 18-12-12-10, Aggressive & Athletic, Throwing Weapons
Insectoid Mage: 8-12-12-19, Poison Resistant & Skilled, Fire Magic & Ice Magic & Spellcraft

The party worked really well, except the minotaur was pretty bad before he got his axe skill up and found a few skulls. Aura would maybe have been better than Poison Resistant on the mage, he seemed to run out of energy constantly, even at the end when he had 233 energy .

What level were your guys by the end?