Grimrock

Ok starting over again.

For the front row I'm sticking with a Knight, but I'm changing him from a Lizardman to an Insectoid. I think the +10 Protection (not 100% sure on that one) and 10% cooldown reduction racial traits will be nice, along with the 50% injury resist. The stats are good too, just need to pump 5 pts into DEX to start to make up for the penalty.

The second front row char will be a Rogue as before, but a Lizardman for the 50% resist all (with endure elements) and maybe Fast Metabolism. Better survivability for the front row compared to a Ratling.

The back row Wizard I'm changing from an Insectoid to a Human to get the 20% experience bonus (get spells for the party sooner) and maybe skilled to get Invis one level faster.

The last char I was debating between a Ratling Rogue (Missile) or a Ratling Alchemist (Missile). I think I have to go with Alchemist since the herb growing trait is extremely powerful. Hate to give up the extra crit though, but I need an alchemist in the party.

Jaelus wrote: I think I have to go with Alchemist since the herb growing trait is extremely powerful. Hate to give up the extra crit though, but I need an alchemist in the party.

I got my Alchemist to start with Alchemistry 1 and Accuracy 1 and then grabbed Accuracy 2 and bee lined to Alchemistry 5. It has worked out really well. They can do fairly ok damage from the back row and the better pots and x3 bombs really help out along with the growing herbs.

Finished the game yesterday and restarting now with a new party, trying to get all secrets this time.


My first party was:

Human Knight: Healty / Endurance, with 1 point in Armor and 1 in Heavy Weapon.
Human Rogue: Agile / Evasive, 1 point in Dodge and 1 in Light Weapon (ponting to Dual Wielding)
Ratling Alchemist: Agile / Mutation, 1 point in Alchemy and 1 in Firearms.
Human Wizard: Strong Mind / Aura, 1 point in Water Magic and 1 in Earth Magic.

This didn't turn out well, i got mauled by basically everything till I reached heavy armor and 5 point in heavy weapons on the knight and dual wield on the rouge (I wanted protection and evasion at first which crippled my damage output), then I basically powered thrugh everything ("normal" charged attacks of my knight hits for 130-350 on the final boss).

So If you plan to try this build remember that you'll be fairly weak in the beginning, but kind of strong late game (castle nex was almost a joke).


New ("beastmen" only) party:

Lizardman Barbarian: Endure Elements / Muscolar, with 1 point in Heavy Weapon and 1 in Accuracy.
Ratling Fighter: Mutation / Muscolar, 1 point in Light Weapon and 1 in Armor.
Minotaur Rogue: Head Hunter / Endurance, 1 point in Throwing and 1 in Accuracy.
Insectoid Battlemage: Strong Mind / Quick, 1 point in Fire Magic and 1 in Concentration.

Just forged the fire esence and this party works great for now, I'll post again when I reach the end game for more details on the build.

just wanted to share my oppinions. I finished the game on hard with following party - Human Knight, Minotaur barbarian, Human Wizard and Ratling alchemyst.

Human Knight - my original idea was maxing up protection, so I didn mind weaker damage. In real - protection really does not help. I am not sure if that was because of hard difficulty, but every monster hurts knight the same way as minotaur. At the end of game, I end with 136 protection, which was AT THE END really helpfull against weaker enemies like mummies for example. I maxed armor and than light weapons, which was again bad choice. Average damage from tank (50 - 100) was nothing I expected. probably better is go for heavy weapons. As for evasion bonus from shield, it is kind of non-sense, because you need protection, not evasion...

Barbarian - best choice, best tank. Crit damage in the end for 800 killed final boss with almost one blow. Nothing else to say here. maxed armour, heavy weapons, concetration / crit damage

Ratling alchemyst - altough all above average stats, I was quite dissapointed. Not because ratling / alchemyst, but because I decided go for Fireamrs. So weak. Next time worthy to try with missile / Throwing weapons

Wizard human - good choice, I think that if somebody pick wizard, it is clear what is expected from this class and it is working quite well. Nice damaging spells, low hp. Thanks to human race I was able to max out many skills (which on the other side is quite useless, because if you are using one or two spels, you need max out just this magic skill and concetration, nothing else really required...

At the moment I am currently waiting for some bugfixes to be addressed in the patches, because I want to make a very specific party that is balanced and doesnt take advantage of some races being better than others with very specific classes.

So currently my plan is to start with a party with just Humans as a Race.

Composition in terms of Order is as follows:

Front: Human Knight, Human Barbarian
Back: Human Mage, Human Alchemist

Both my Human Knight will start with 15 Strength 10 Dex 15 Vitality 10 Willpower and my Barbarian 16 10 15 10(Due to the +1 Strength per level)

As traits for my Knight I am thinking in having Healthy Trait+Evasive, Vitality is currently not granting any extra health per level, but once it gets fixed it should stack up nicely, plus the evasion is going to make the character a bit better versus physical attacks and in theory it should be better than having +2 strength or +5 Protection on the start.

This would create a well rounded party that doesnt have any strengths or weaknesses or isnt fully taking advantage of the fact that each race can be better at a specific role, so I am not min maxing, its purely for a decent enough challenge without making it much harder on myself.
My Barbarian will start off with Muscular and Healthy, Strength just due to the damage and weight capacity bonuses.

My Human Mage will start off with 10 10 15 17 and in traits he will get +2 willpower and perhaps healthy or skilled so I can get an extra type of magic if needed.

My Human Alchemist will start off with 10 15 15 10 and in traits Agile and perhaps Evasive or Healthy.
The plan is to have an Alchemist using either missile weapons, or I could spec him into a secondary mage by pumping points into willpower instead and the +2 willpower from the trait.

steelsoldier wrote: Vitality is currently not granting any extra health per level, but once it gets fixed it should stack up nicely,

It never will the tool tip was and error Vat only effects Base and HP regen not HP per level.

Saice wrote:It never will the tool tip was and error Vat only effects Base and HP regen not HP per level.

Oh, alright, that aint too bad then, any idea what the hp regen value is and how it changes?

Started the game off on Normal with Mino Barb, Lizard Barb, Ratling Alchemist and Insectoid Battle Mage. Decided to start over on hard except replacing the battle mage with another alchemist. My endgame setup I imagine:

Minotaur Barb: Aggressive, Headhunter, All points into STR and VIT, Heavy weapons max, 4 in armor, dump rest of points into accuracy and crit, meteor armor set

Lizardman Barb: Aggressive, Resist Elements, All points into STR and VIT, Heavy weapons max, 4 in armor, dump rest of points in accuracy and crit, crystal armor set

Ratling Alchemist: Mutation, Agile, All points into DEX and VIT, Light weapons max, Alchemy maxed, 2 in accuracy, rest in crit, rogue armor set

Insectoid Alchemist: Chitin armor, Strong Mind, All points into VIT and WILL, 3 in concentration, 5 in fire magic, 3 in air magic, undecided what to put on final skills, archmage armor set

In terms of front line, I don't think anything beats a barb. You'll gain 13-15 more strength, and have 60ish more health than the other warrior classes by end game. In the backline, I wanted a Dex Light weapon class with reach, someone that could cast spells and I knew I wanted at least one alchemist to dupe herbs.

I figured that there really is no real advantage of a wizard, you're squishy as hell, and any energy problems is easily solved with energy pots, so I made a mage alchemist.

However, I felt like I was stretched for points if I were to invest 5 points in alchemy for the mage alchemist so I needed someone else to put 5 points into alchemy.
I decided against a Rogue and made another alchemist as it has more health, the obvious advantage of duping more herbs, and going to use a single light weapon because in my previous play through, it was too difficult to cycle through 4 weapons and the mage's cooldowns effectively. Besides that, dual wielding was actually not giving me any dps increase due to the hits on a monster's armor getting affected twice.

I made an all human party optimized for fast leveling.

All characters have the same perks: 10% more XP perk. More carrying capacity -20% food consumption perk.

This is to ensure than the perks stay viable throughout the game, when most other perks would slowly lose their meaning because the amount of points they grant would depreciate as the overall amount of points grows. The idea is that due to 20% faster leveling (human 10% + perk 10%) I should be able to outpace the content and be ahead of the curve by around mid-game.

Barbarian, all points in Str and Vit. Heavy Weapons, Athletics, Armor, Accuracy.
Barbarian, all points in Str and Vit. Heavy Weapons, Athletics, Armor, Accuracy.
Rogue, all points in Dex and Vit. Missile, Throwing.
Wizard, all points in Wil and Vit. Fire (primarily), Concentration, Air.

I'm done with the Forgotten River and everyone is level 6 now.

I will say I've notice a lack of good light dex weapons that are not kinves of some sort. When I do my 2nd play through I might drop my dex knight for something else due to the lack of better light dex weapons. Re do him as Str.