Grimrock

I can see how such a party would be successful, but around level 5 or 6 it's awful.

Unarmed guy barely does any damage, and usually 0 - 1 against those armored spearmen/bowmen. The other tank does awful damage too, and frankly they don't seem to be evading much better than typical tanks. Plus, they seem to be taking more damage. Also, this party setup is truly awful against spiders. My usual tactic is the "square dance", but since the FRR do such pitiful damage, the battles take much longer and so the spiders hit more often and almost always poison my guys. When I switch the FRR to weapons like longsword and cudgel, they do far more damage which seems to defeat the purpose of daggers and unarmed.

The BRR guys do amazing damage, but projectiles aren't exactly plentiful so they wind up using spears which are great.

I don't disbelieve they get far better in higher levels, but frankly I don't have the patience.

Fargol wrote:I can see how such a party would be successful, but around level 5 or 6 it's awful.

Unarmed guy barely does any damage, and usually 0 - 1 against those armored spearmen/bowmen

maybe you spent to many points into dogde, just take 24, for the dagger rouge, he reach 100 evasion with lurker set, and 17 dogde for the unarmed one for use off cheiftain set with him, also the 6+ attack power gloves will help him alot but can't remember what lvl their found at

Although putting some points into unarmed skill is tempting, I would recommend to stick to dodge. Unarmed FRR without high evasion would not survive many situations and getting 20 evasion at 30 skill level is not enough nor fast enough for me.

Unarmed Combat gives huge bonuses to Dexterity (up to +10 by 42 ranks), meaning that not only does it give you a ton of Evasion, it boosts your Fire/Shock resistance through the roof as well. You also get a lot of hit points from Unarmed Combat at pretty regular intervals.

Compare the first 30 points in each:

Dodge gives the following totals: Evasion +10, Health +30, Resist Fire +5, Resist Shock +5, Resist Poison +20, Light Armor Proficiency, double evasion bonus from cloaks and clothes.
Unarmed Combat gives the following totals: Evasion +20, Health +30, Dexterity +3 (which means another +6 Evasion, +3 Accuracy, and about +12 Fire/Shock resistance).

If you put another 12 points into each, it develops as follows:

Dodge gets another +10 Evasion, +15 Health and +25 Fire/Shock resistance.
Unarmed Combat gets +7 Strength and +7 Dex, which translates into +14 Evasion and about +30 Fire/Shock resistance.

At 50 ranks, Dodge has picked up +15 Health and +50 Evasion while Unarmed Combat has only gained +10 Health and a special attack. This is the point where Dodge pulls ahead of Unarmed Combat in keeping your Rogue alive, but I would still argue that the offense of an Unarmed Combat master does more to keep your whole party alive than the extra Evasion from master Dodge.

The point I'm making here is that Unarmed Combat is not appreciably worse than Dodge at increasing your survivability, and the increase in offense more than offsets this. You get large health bonuses either way (although Dodge gives you more) and enough Evasion bonuses to dodge pretty much everything (Unarmed Combat gives more evasion until you've got most of the Lurker set). Unarmed Combat gives much larger bonuses to Fire/Shock resistance. Even if the Unarmed Combat fighter can only tank 80% as well through the mid-late game (and I'd say they probably last longer than that), by including a third damage dealing character you've increased your party's offense by half. Dead enemies deal no damage, and a straight Unarmed Combat build is very highly survivable while still contributing to your offense.

Empyrean, I admit you are right in that case. Investing points in unarmed for unarmed FRR is better. Would any refer to reasonableness of equiping BRRs with heavy armor?

For your back row rogues, you should take aggressive over athletic. Aggressive nets your +4 attack power while athletic nets you +1 attack power and +6 kg carried. You only want athletic if you really want that extra +6kg.

Strength as a stat is really about carry weight, the +0.5 attack power per point is mostly negligible.

Guys, I maybe missing the point, but what BRR guys are going to do damage with? The first few levels there are no missile weapons and just a few (1-2) thrown daggers. Where the damage comes from???

I do not want to spoil but you will get first missile weapon really fast if you watch out for secrets. Until that time you can equip your missile-oriented BRR with a spear, that reaches enemies. Just spend all your skill points you get on the missile, even if you cannot use it now. I can assure you that after a few levels BRRs get really nice DPS while FRRs are almost unhittable. I already had maxed BRRs skills at the beginning of level 10 without any monster grinding. You will feel the biggest difference when BRRs are able to double throw / shoot.

kisiel365 wrote:I do not want to spoil but you will get first missile weapon really fast if you watch out for secrets.

SpoilerShow

It is a bow and it's at beginning of 3rd level.

Until that time you can equip your missile-oriented BRR with a spear, that reaches enemies. Just spend all your skill points you get on the missile, even if you cannot use it now. I can assure you that after a few levels BRRs get really nice DPS while FRRs are almost unhittable. I already had maxed BRRs skills at the beginning of level 10 without any monster grinding. You will feel the biggest difference when BRRs are able to double throw / shoot.

You can get one even faster, though it's not as good.

I don't really agree with these builds. For example, taking a trait that gives you +1-2 in a stat that can be modified much better through gear and skills seems like a waste. In that regard, I always pick Skilled everyone in my party, because those skill tree bonuses will quickly out weigh that trait modifier.

With that in mind, I think people grossly misunderstand the power dexterity has over combat, even ranged. On top of melee accuracy and evasion, it also governs how quickly a character will be able to ready himself mid-fight. Yes, this is also affected by weapon type, but dexterity still helps reduce the wait time.

Also, there is no reason why a minotaur can't go missiles. His strength transfers just the same, and he makes a hell of an archer. Again, dexterity will help with firing speeds.

One last thing. Give the front row shields. They can still go unarmed and get the evasion bonus. Give the torch to the thrown guy in back.

@King Tulla: Just finished the game using your "ideal build". Excellent! Thanks for posting.