Now, just for the record (and I don't want to start a flamewar over this so let's keep it at "sharring experiences" rather than "sharring emotions"), I must say that I agree with Davros on the rough idea of where your character should be when you reach the Mantraps.
The very first game I played (back in mid-october and before I started my solo saga), my party was composed of 2F, 1R, 1P, 2W. I approached party development in a very linear fashion: go up a level, learn the next spell on the list. The end result was that I got my **** whiped just past Ishad N'Ha. Both my Wizards were at about lvl 4 in each realm. My solution: learn from my mistakes and start over.
On my second game, I did a test to see which approach I should take: the one I had just done or max out in one realm and move to the next. So, I set out with a 2 person party (2 wizards). One followed the previous route when the other one concentrated on Fire. Without cheating, I had the firestrom spell just after I killed the Spirit of Rumphy (back then I didn't know that he respawned
).
Now, it's at this point that it hit me: concentrate on one thing.
It wasn't until last month that I retried the game with a six member party (again, no cheats whatsoever). By the time I entered the Naga room, both my wizards had meteorstorm and were working up to lvl 5 sun.
On this, I pass the torch!
[This message has been edited by Ryanamur (edited 06-23-2001).]