Most Effortless Party Yet

[Fwang Thunk]

After running countless parties, I've found my most effortless party yet. They slice through enemies like butter and they are virtually indestructable. This party is great for the player who has already satisfied his curiosity about gadgets and instruments. There are no bards or gadgeteers and only 1 hybrid (2 if you count Vi). The benefit here is minimal spell practicing, minimal tinkering, minimal dying, fastest time through the game. If you're short on time, try these guys! Suggestions to improve the party welcome.

Front line: Liz Ftr/dual/sword and mace; Hobbit Rogue dual bloodlust and thieves dagger; R2D2 the half-monk android (optional)

Flanks: one liz ftr on each side berserking a polearm - you can find nice ones early in tryton

Center: Vi with her trusty polearm - train her to cast melee buffs and portal - she trains fairly quickly.

Back row: Mook Ranger and Elf (or Faerie) Bishop. Take Madras (gadgeteer) long enough to improve his eng skill and make triple xbows - never let him use his omnigun, only gadgets. Once you've got the xbows, dump him.

The Ranger makes the money by selling potions. You can move the ranger to the middle if you want to use the Giant Sword later. The ranger casts elemenal shield at the start of most battles. Train him to cast portal. And, of course, rangers also mean effortless searching. This is the only character you need to waste time with training. His lower int is trouble at first, but with the fountain in trynton and that certain helm, this problem is solved early on.

Your bishop focuses on Wiz and Div books. All the spells you really need are in these two books. Your bishop buffs and disables, for the most part. You won't have to train too much to get good if you cast all the buffs before and after camping. Later, put a portal at the fountain in Trynton that restores your mana. Make sure you have xray, enchant blade, missile shield, magic shield, armorplate, and light.

I thought about a party with a solid front line of fighters and a thief (flanks and center full, with nobody in the front rank), but I figured that would leave my bishop open to extended weapons, so I went with the flanking polearm fighters instead.

Let me know if there is an even more effortless party out there.

[Mage_77]

Ive found this combination to work extremely well & is one of my more favorite group combinations.

Felpurr Samurai
Fairie Ninja
Bard
Gadgeteer
2x Elf Bishop

Recruitable NPC's - "I only ever recruit RFS-81 as the other npc's wont stick longer enough to be really effective"
RFS-81

Lots of magic to weaken mobs at the start - midway of the game & end game lots of buffs & defensive magic. Meanwhile through the whole game Samurai, Ninja & RFS-81 dealing out huge amounts of damage & Crit. Strikes with Bard & Gadgeteer dealing out nice Ranged damage along with use of all thier various instruments & gadgeteer's to weaken mobs, strengthen group or just plain out paralzye everything with songs & instant deaths with Nagatair gadget.

[Rhea]

quote:

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Originally posted by Mage_77:
Ive found this combination to work extremely well & is one of my more favorite group combinations.

Felpurr Samurai
Fairie Ninja
Bard
Gadgeteer
2x Elf Bishop

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Interesting. I have a similar party, except with a Ranger instead of the Gadgeteer. But I'm thinking of running the Gadgeteer next time. I'm also thinking of replacing the Samuari with a Fighter or Lord, because she's not my strongest fighter. Love the Ninja, though.

[Mage_77]

Samurai is definently not the strongest fighter but i found a pure fighter to be kinda boring since stats/skills cap out pretty quickly.

Sometimes i use a rogue instead of the samurai.

I dont worry so much about a ranger nowdays since the only benefit of having one along is the auto-search ability in most cases of my groups and since i know to search for items that i want i dont bother searching out for stuff i dont need/want.

[Fwang Thunk]

Mage 77, I ran a very similar party, except I had a Fighter instead of the Sam. It was fun experimenting with all the gadgets and intruments. But in the end I wasn't satisfied with the death-dealing of the bard or the gadget man - particularly not the bard. Gadget man was somewhat useful towards the end, but his skills were superfluous since my Bishop really rocked.

GOAL OF THE EFFORTLESS PARTY

The "Effortless" party idea was this: to present the RAPAX with a wall of death that would grind them into ramburger before they could bleat out their last feeble prayers to whatever foul she-demon spawned them.

And so far, it's working. The main thing my bishop does is keep their feeble lizard minds on task by warding off magic. My ranger makes money and searches - and he grills! Rynjin, Rapax, you name it! Delicious!

The party is powerful and fairly effortless compared to my other parties. The other parties involved lots of tweaking magic users and hybrids into peak performance for dozens of levels.

Again, these guys are great if you have limited time to play and want to overcome every obstacle and slaughter any creature as quickly as possible. They're not so great if you want to take your time and check out all the funky options the game has to offer.

[Mage_77]

quote:

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It was fun experimenting with all the gadgets and intruments. But in the end I wasn't satisfied with the death-dealing of the bard or the gadget man - particularly not the bard. Gadget man was somewhat useful towards the end, but his skills were superfluous since my Bishop really rocked

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One thing to mention about these 2 classes. On "most" occasions thier gadet effects are actually more powerful than a cast spell. This is easpecially noticed at the early end of the game. (Lightning rod for example when cast by a gadgeteer in the upper monastery is at the power level of 6 & 7 on most occasions. A Mage/Bishop wont be at power 6/7 with Energy spell (effect lightning rod has) until they reach Level 6/7 & the appropriate skill in fire.
Also a gadgeteer using peacemaker/mystic arrows or lightning bolts at later end of game can deal out a terrific amount of damage with thier omnigun. Also note that if you were to cast the spell Ashpinxiation (sp?) with a mage/bishop & compare it to a gadgeteer using the Nagatair on say rapax mobs, the gadgeteer has a way better chance in most attempts of affecting more rapax mobs with the spell than the mage/bishop will.


As for bards they are so much offensive as thier are defensive & trust me on this when i say a bards defensive can make a battle go much faster & smoother & can assit your party to grind up mobs faster than you might have realized.

Try using the Arresting Aria - Freeze All effect for example that works fairly often. Rousing Drums is extremely useful for incresed speed giving you turns earlier in the fight.

Bard is the same as a Gadgeteer in power strength & chance of actually affecting mobs compared to a caster also in that its usually higher in power than what your casters will have it at by the time you find certain instruments/gadgets & the fact they will more likely work compared to the spell cast versions.

[Nightowl2]

My favorite party: 3 fighters, Ninja, and two bishops. One fighter and ninja up front; other two with polearms on the flanks (interesting how familiar this is sounding ). Later, add RFS-81, so have three in the front.

Nightowl2

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: Nightowl2 ]