Mythology, Artifacts, ...

[Cantilever]

So far you guys have answerewed my questions pretty well, so here is another. I'm having trouble figuring what to spend points on certain characters early in the game. Using points on mythology and artifacts, I dont know what those stats do and when to add to them. I have a party now that consists of 2 lizard fighters, 1 Hobbit Samurai, 1 Fairy Mage, 1 Gnome Priest, and 1 Elvin Alch, if some of these are bad dont kill me, I'm fairly new to these types of games. So far I have been adding points to vitality to get that stone skin and I just got to a 100 now then the others on dex and str. I'm also adding points to sword, double weapon, and close combat, is that right? My Hobbit Samurai I have been adding to dex str and mix of vit and speed, then on sword double wep and close range, so far I'm not happy with the samurai. My gnome prist is all screwed up heh. I think that combo is bad or I am clueless how to use, but thats where the real question is how to add points to those spell casters and what class to make them. My alchemist has only made one potion camping and none since 1st time, I find myself adding points to a type of element that that spell caster doesnt have good spells to pick from. Well I think I asked too many qustions but if you are bored and want to share some experience tell me what you think.

[TinyMage]

Mythology lets you see the hit points / name / resistances / effects of monsters. Its nice if you rely a lot on offensive magic. If your going to put points into it only do it for one person.

Artifacts lets you identify items and have a greater chance of using items with spell charges. If your going to put points in artifacts only do it for one person and pick the guy with the highest intellegence.

Generally for fighters add points to the fighting skill that will help the weapons they will use. Sticking to one weapon type or set of weapons for the whole game is best.

For magic users add points to magic skills.

I usually put points into things like artifacts or mythology when a character has nowhere better to put them.

[Sinteuil]

If your alchemist doesn't have a good choice of spells, then you need to put points into alchemy. For a basic explanation of how the spell system works and when you'll learn new spells, see here:

http://www.flamestryke.com/wizardry8...castingw8.html

There's even a spreadsheet available to help you keep track of spells, and how many skill points are needed to learn new spells at Wolfie's site:

http://www.foerster.cc/wolfie/Wiz8SA.html

You should find these helpful!

[bladedog]

Cantilever,

First up, great party selection I think.

Liz FIG - You can't go wrong
Hob SAM - I never used a samurai before until my latest game and I asked for the best race. "Hobbit" was the bold reply and despite my initial concerns I'd have to agree.
Fae MAG - Is there any other choice
Gno PRI - Either this or Dwarf is great
Elf ALC - Was my choice for my first Alchemist too, mainly 'cos they can wear better armour.

So onto your question, I would pump 3 points into the relevant main skill each time (Wizardry, Divinity or Alchemy). I also tend to spread the other points around the realms where needed to boost them too. For spell casters I rarely put any points anywhere else, except that one of them tends to be the main identifier so you will have to sacrifice something to put points in Artifacts (I suggest the Alchemist as they have less spells in less realms overall).
Also, power training isn't everyones "cup of tea" (it certainly isn't mine) but if thats the case you need to be casting at every opportunity. Have the spell casters cast something every round in combat, even if its something trivial (although dont waste time healing or curing those that don't need it 'cos I don't think it gets you any casting benefit). If you do that your skill will increase fairly quickly.

As for the Fighters and Samurai, push STR, DEX & SPD and push points into their main weapon skills to get over 50 and get the second attack. If you get the fighters up to 100 STR and over 50 weapon skills they will become super-tanks carving up the enemy. You want the samurai attacking as often as possible so push DEX & SPD and make sure they have two weapons. Bloodlust is a great SAM weapon as they don't have beserk naturally.

Best of all, take everyones advice (including mine) with a pinch of salt, mix and match, and have fun!

[Scatter]

Your Alchemist will not create more than one potion every 24 game hours. You can mix as often as you like, as long as you have the ingredients to merge.

[ 07-05-2005, 10:22 AM: Message edited by: Scatter ]

[xfactor]

Having done a bit of research about the Artifacts skill required to identify certain items I have come to the conclusion that it's probably not worth adding points to the skill. I'd prefer to use the Identify spell since it also reveals extra details like whether or not an item is cursed.

Mythology, on the other hand, is a very useful skill. Knowing a target's resistances can be very useful, particularly if you use a lot of offensive magic, like Tiny Mage says. Having said that, I tend to find that it usually goes up quite nicely on its own without adding points to it. If you have a character with nothing else to put the points into you could do much worse than put them into Mythology.

xfactor

[Random Passerby]

For spellcaster skills: if you're not power-training to max out your skills early on, put as many points as possible into your main "spellbook" skill(s) (Wizardry, Divinity, etc.). Bishops should be putting all their skill points at level-up into these skills; other mages should be putting at least 2 and usually 3 points in, and splitting the rest into their elemental realms. You can pretty much skip Artifacts and Mythology; Identify Item is a lot more effective than Artifacts, and Mythology will really take off on its own once you get to exploring (the various friendly "town"/"base" areas are full of wandering NPCs for your characters to identify for Mythology practice, and every bunch of monsters you run into is a potential Mythology gain, too).

A good rule of thumb when trying to decide where to put skill points for casters is to look at the next spell level and put points where you'll need them later. Also, put your highest priority on lower realms (at least among those you actually intend to use); your spell points last longer if you're drawing off several spell realms with moderate skill levels instead of one maxed-out realm. My preferences:

Mages: Put skill points into air for the first two levels, as it has several handy spells early on; after pumping wizardry and air, split points between water and fire. At level 3, earth and divine magic open up for mages: dump as many points as possible in these for the next few levels, so you can have a decent magic missiles and later whipping rocks. You'll want to continue dropping some points in earth and divine for a while, but after level 5 you'll also want to shift some points into water magic. Regardless of whether you prefer to use status magic to cripple enemies for your fighters to kill, or use damage magic to blow them up in large groups, water magic will probably be the most important realm for a mage. Fire is also high priority for damage-dealing, and air is good early on and on lower difficulty levels (status effects, including instant death spells, are vastly more effective for you at low difficulty); earth is great early on but is a dead end for mages in the long run, and divine magic has some great back-up spells. You can pretty much ignore mental magic until very late in the game; you get the x-ray spell at level 8 and you should cast that continuously, which should keep your mental magic skill from falling too far behind.

Alchemists: Pump earth early, pump it often. Put a couple points in water magic to start with so you can practice with acid splash, but you can afford to skip on it after that; if you like acid bomb (I don't) you may want a few more points in it, but you don't really need to worry about it any until you get tsunami, very late in the game. You'll want some points in air as well, and after the first few levels you should definitely start putting some points in fire if you want your alchemist to have decent damage-dealing capability. Divine magic is not all that important--you'll want to be able to cast summon elemental at a decent level, but casting heal now and then should be enough to keep it at a reasonable level.

Priest: Priests are going to pretty much suck at dealing magic damage regardless of how you develop them, so don't worry about pursuing damage spells too much. Divine and water magic should be high priorities. Earth can be handy for the ocassional web spell, but after you put a few points in to start with, casting armorplate should be enough practice. Mental is important later once you get sane mind; pick up spellbooks for divine trap and identify item early, and have your priest cast these whenever necessary. Air is also useful for cure poison, and more importantly purify air; once you get to level 10 or so, start diverting some points there.

Psionic: Mental magic is a gimme. Put plenty of skill points in it, but don't be afraid to spread points to other realms too; no matter how many points you put in mental magic, your psionic will burn through all their mental spells very quickly, so you will need some backup. Fire magic is supremely important to psionics for dealing damage, and if you don't have a bard it will be vital for the haste spell as well; unfortunately you can't learn any fire magic until level 5, but from that point onward you should be putting in as many points as possible. You can pretty much skip water and earth magic after a few initial points; paralyze and cure lesser condition can be useful sometimes, but they're low level and get maxed out fairly quickly without needing a lot of skill points. Armormelt is handy too, but not worth spending skill points on; casting the ocassional chameleon spell should suffice for earth practice. Divine magic is relatively low priority early on (heal is always nice, but potions are pretty plentiful), but later on does have the all-important soul shield, and late in the game might to magic is excellent for conserving spell points.

On other matters: Samurai (and pretty much all of the "hybrid" characters) will always start out somewhat slower than a pure fighter or rogue; it takes them a little longer to develop their special abilities, as they have more skills to work on. Your samurai will never manage to compete with your fighters without his critical strike skill, and even then there's not much point to picking up a samurai unless you develop some of their magic as well. As you can see that's a lot of skills to worry about, but they will still eventually catch up. One advantage I should point out: samurai can dual-wield swords, but fighters can't use any swords in their off-hand; they have to use a different weapon type (dagger, wand, or mace), which means fighters need an additional weapon skill that samurai don't.

[ 07-05-2005, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: Random Passerby ]

[Klutz]

Originally posted by Cantilever: My Hobbit Samurai I have been adding to dex str and mix of vit and speed, then on sword double wep and close range, so far I'm not happy with the samurai

My two cents:
Adding to 4 attributes at once is definitely a recipe for disaster. You can do 3 in some cases depending on the character. For a Hobbit Samurai (and most front-line combatants) I'd focus on just STR and DEX until they max, and only then go for other attributes. Your skill allotment looks fine, though personally I'd add to Wizardry instead of Dual Wield because I like being able to keep learning new spells and don't spend tons of time practicing spellcasting.

For spellcasters in general, you always want to add to their magic school (Wizardry for mages, Divinity for Priests, etc) before adding to the elemental skills (Fire, Water, Divine, etc). That lets you unlock higher level spells faster. You can check the manual to see what spells each character has coming up if you're concerned about wasting elemental spell points, and I believe someone already posted a link to a spreadsheet utility that helps greatly with that sort of planning with spellcasters.

Originally posted by Cantilever: My gnome prist is all screwed up heh. I think that combo is bad or I am clueless how to use, but thats where the real question is how to add points to those spell casters and what class to make them.

The main disadvantage of a Gnome Priest is low Speed, which means that their spells will often be going off late in the round if your attribute development plan doesn't compensate for that. Initiative (which SPD and SEN contribute to) is actually very important for spellcasters: damage/crippling spells are much better if they go off before their targets get to act, and defensive/healing spells are similarly better if they go off before the enemy gets to act. Also despite being the central attribute for Priests, Piety is not as crucial to spellcasting as Intelligence and the initiative attributes (SPD, SEN). Overall, though, Gnomes are above-average as Priests, so you should be able to do fine as long as you focus on your key attributes. I'd probably start with INT and SPD, then switch to PIE and SEN as they max.

I think your party is quite solid: 3 specialist spellcasters and 3 frontliners.

Have fun & good luck!

[Scatter]

Non-Samurai can't use swords as secondary only because there are no swords in this game which you can equip there. This is so unrealistic (as well as un-game-istic) that i did myself the favor of making a few of them either-handed using the Cosmic Forge item editor. But only my Rogues use them; my Fighters/Lords use maces.