I made 6 "temporary" characters that I thought I could get to level 21 really fast with sub-par equipment.

bishop
bard
engeneer
fighter x 3

The reason for this is I wanted 3 staffs of doom, and you have to be level 21 + for them to spawn randomly.

The "real" party I wanted to play is this:

samarai x 2
lord
ranger x 3

I wanted to max intellegence and vitality first for all of them. It would be a pretty slow start. However I thought if I gathered all the super top-notch equipment with a temp party, It would be faster then if I started the real party from scratch.

The items I wanted were:

3 x staff of doom
3 x frontline phaser
6 x fey ring ( this will an all elf party )
5 x amulet of healing + 1 nebdar
6 x cloak of many colors
6 x snakeskin boots ( the ones with snake strike )
6 x infinity helm
6 x robes of rejuvenation
6 x gown of divinemail
1 x mantis gloves and 6 x mail gauntlets ( or whatever )

I plan to put the 2 samurai and 1 lord in the front and give them the SOD and the 3 rangers in the back with frontline phasers.

I dont like bows cause I hate constantly reloading / buying ammo, but I want some ranged damage. I dont like any melee weapon that isnt extended range cause I hate moving all the time. SOD is the best extended range weapon, frontline phasers are OK ranged weapons with 5% critical ( 11% with rangers maxed skill ) and they dont need ammo.

Well fast forward 2 days and I now have every item on my want list ( and yes all gotten legitly. Most took many reloads to get ):

1 staff of doom at mountain wilderness
+ 1 from killing / reloading the 2 rapax corpses ( yes this took a while )
+ 1 at rapax away camp ( reloaded the 2 chests, pretty fast cause I was a templar ).

1 frontline phaser from bayjin chest ( reloaded before going into bayjin )
+ 1 from janette ( reload when she died )
+ 1 from killing / reloading 7 bucanneer ghosts

6 fey rings from killing / reloading lots of wind faerie packs at mountain wilderness ( actually didnt take that long )

5 gowns of divinemail from killing / reloading rapax preistesses ( took a while also )
+ 1 from killing / reloading al-sedexus

The rest of the crap is bought from vendors

I also got hella lucky since I found a ring of regeneration in davy jones locker [img]smile.gif[/img]

So now that I am armed to the teeth I guess its time to scrap the temp party and make the real one [img]smile.gif[/img]

All in all I say it worked pretty well except 2 spellcasters would have been better.

Oh, yes and pickpocketing is soooooo damn worthless. By the time I got it to 86 with 2 filchers bands I have way better items then can be pickpocketed anyway. It really would have been nice to get that one polearm off of antone before I had 3 staffs of doom.

[ 05-06-2005, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: TinyMage ]

Why do you need such powerful stuff?

Not much game left to play with your second party, though, eh.

Actually yes, because I am going to try to get to level 50.

Why not start your first party as what your second will be, and not waste the 21 levels you already got????

I think I explained that if you bothered to read my post.

yes, you did, and i did read it, (again even, just to make the quotes in here) but it doesn't make any sense. One, "getting to level 21 really fast" is wasted when you're gonna dump them and start all over at L1, unless you really like running around chasing respawns.
Two, "with all the top-notch equipment...faster than if...started from scratch." not really; you still have to kill a bunch of mobs--and to do that, you need the weapons/combat skills to hit them, even with nice weapons. Though it may be much less challenge, you still have to earn the XP to go up the levels to raise your attributes.
And the new characters certainly didn't get their stuff "legitly".

Ok, how did my new characters not get their stuff legitly??

And about the experience? I can get to around level 15 pretty easy by doing quests. Actually I just did quest 3 ( I think ) for the trang and got from level 1 to level 8. And all the other high experience quests are still unfinished.

It doesnt take as long as you think to get to level 21. In AP its actually pretty quick. But getting from level 1 to 21 with poor equipment with my type of party is hella hard, believe me, I've done it before. You do no damage and you always run out of spellpoints too fast.

I must have missed something. While I don't understand why TinyMage is doing what he is doing, what the Hell - its his game, he can play it any way he wants to.

But, Scatter, is he really "dumping" the first party? I assumed he was gonna keep the same characters and change classes - or is he really talking about replacing each one with lvl 1 characters? If its that latter, I agree - it seems like taking a giant step backwards. No matter how quickly he can take the "new" party to lvl 21, he could have spent that time (and XP) getting to higher levels.

So, fill me in, TinyMage - did you replace the entire party, one by one, with lvl 1 characters, or change classes to make your "real" party?

Now spitball that is clever, I never considered for a second that he might replace them all with level 1 characters handing over the equipment as he goes.
I had automatically assumed they were going to be changed classes.
I'd love to know the answer to your question, might have to go grab a save file from my 20+ level AP party and replace them one by one.

He's saying he ultimately wants the second party, but that they would be weak at low levels if they have poor equipment. So he made a temporary party to start with that would be much easier to play with at low levels. He also has certain equipment he wants that temporary party to pick up for his real party, so he lets them get to level 21 where those items can be random drops. Once the temporary party has the right equipment he replaces them with the real party. Now the real party will not be weak at lower levels (I also think he is replacing the temps with level 1 chars).

I don't think he'd have to go through too much of the game with the temporary party, not sure how he plays it but Wiz 8 spawns tons of monsters non-stop, if he could get strong enough to start surviving AP monsters he could just go there for exp/drops galore.

The problem to me is that the second party will level up pretty fast and not develop their skills enough, although they will definitely have some great equipment. I don't know if it is easier to deal with a weak party at low levels or go through the temporary party process, but it's definitely something I hadn't heard of before.

[ 05-10-2005, 08:37 AM: Message edited by: Gimli ]

Yeah, bladedog, that was my assumption, too. But, Scatter's response got me to thinking about replacing them one by one. In the end, I was simply confused. Gimli, though, has found a flaw in his plan, although, the high-quality weapons might make up for it to some extent and it won't apply to the magic users, just the weapon and thieving skills.

The other problem is that you'll meet some pretty decent monsters in some of the more advanced regions who will cut through your party's low HP and poor resistances very easily.

Like Gimli said, the skills will be very low as well. The way the Wiz8 level-up XP requirements work you'd find yourself not gaining levels as quickly as you might expect. Also, is it better to have a super-weapon that only gets one swing and one attack per round and only hits half the time or is it better to have a slightly worse weapon that hits more often (with a higher Strength and Powerstrike skill)?

I'd go for the latter. Still, it's an interesting experiment. I'd probably rather use an editor to do it. Saves time and I don't see too much difference between continually reloading combats/chests and editing the required stuff in.

xfactor

There seem to be a lot of considerations here. I've never done a character replacement, so feel free to correct any incorrect assumptions.

First I assume you would have to go back to either the monastry or perhaps the early arnika road to get lower level monsters to fight. (Could a level 1 party survive in Arnika even with super weapons etc?)

But, since your first party will have dealt with all the fixed encounters you will be limited to random ones which, I would guess, would mean far less experience.

Plus any encounters you do have will be easily dealt with by the weaponry, meaning little or no natural training.

Its a good experiment, and I'm definitely going to have a go for a couple of hours tonight, because on the face of it, it sounds a tiny bit unfulfilling.

He wrote:

So if he does the replacement (for all characters) there, they'll be level 8. Good enough to teleport back to arnika, and survive there with some help.

This doesn't apply to TinyMage's party, but some of the Bard instruments have level requirements for their use - so a lvl 1 Bard wouldn't be able to use the high-powered stuff. I figure this applies to other classes and weapons as well.

no, no level requirements for most things; only Bards and Gads and a few items requiring Artifacts Skill minimums. No weapons in the original game have any skill requirements (other than Artifacts skill for any spells they might have), and only casters have limits on which spells they can learn by level.
But if your combat skills are low, and your opponents outlevel you at all, you'll hit/penetrate much less often.

OK so I tried it. Took my 6-member 24+ level party back to the Monastry (accepting Wearboars comment) and replaced everyone. I replaced with replica's of the original party (I know that's not what is wanted here but I didn't have the time to think about new combinations).

Observations:
1) I screwed up the requirements for The Defiler and so my LIZ FIG couldn't use it straight off, but I soon sorted that. Also had the new sword from the umpani quest which has Sword 60 as a requirement, so that will stay in the backpack for a while longer.
2) I arrived at the beach with all buffs running, so when I had finished replacing they were all still there. This was very handy as you'll see in point 3.
3) All the monsters were at the level I had been when I entered the lower monastry!!!!!! That was dumb and I should have thought about it. I guess you need to replace all characters near a "transit point" between two areas so you can immediately move to a new area, presumably reseting the level modifiers etc in the process. Man did I need those buffs.
4) But, an encounter with 3 flesh-eating slimes was still over quite quickly, 2-3 rounds each. Lost the Mage to a ranged attack which got past the missile shield, but raised her again just in time. 48000+ exp each from one encounter is not to be sniffed at!!!!!
5) I didn't move too far. The buffs have all gone now, along with X-Ray, so I have no idea what I'm going to run into next. But so long as the hits don't land they may well survive.
6) All the quests that were complete before are still complete, so I'm not sure the idea of replacing in the T'Rang nest or wherever will help. As an example I still have all 3 items, so effectively could go straight to AP and complete the game!!!
7) Skills are not going up with use, because they are simply not being used. If the FIG's hit they are doing 40-60 damage each time. By contrast the spell casters are using daft low-level spells which are having no effect (except heal wounds).

From the breif time I have spent doing this I would have to say that whilst its entertaining to see what happens, I don't think its something I'd do as a long-term game plan. The only way to make it worthwhile for the second party, would be to do no quests at all, just fight random mobs and collect everything you might want, so that the second party could play the game through, but I'm not convinced I could be bothered to play the first party through properly knowing they were going to be dumped.

Good experiment though.

Bladedog: Seems the general hypotheses of the post were confirmed by experimentation.

Scatter: Your comment that there are not level requirements for Bard instruments is not correct. Every one of the instruments has a requirement for the Bard to be of a certain level. They also have certain music skill requirements. Actually, that's how I decide (in large part) which instruments my Bard carries - he uses those with the highest level requirements. Just like higher level spells, these are more powerful and require more skill (and XP) to use effectively.

You didn't read that sentence correcrtly, Spit.
"only bards and gads..." means they DO.
The "no level requirements" was to your "i figure other classes..."

[ 05-12-2005, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Scatter ]

Sorry, Scatter, I saw the "only a few items" and thought you were implying that only a FEW instruments and gadgets had level reqs.

TinyMage: where are you?