Best Race for Bishop

[Duneswalker]

What race is better for a bishop, elf faerie or other? Since I'm favoring only one pure caster in a six member party the faerie's mana regeneration is tempting, but I'm a pack rat and worry about the reduced carry capicity. How crucial are these factors?

Thanks for the help, last question and I'm off on my adventure, can't wait, this game looks awesome!

[Oruboris]

Fairies reduced carrying capacity doesn't matter much in a 6 person game. If you are only running one fairy, you eventually get a little [pun intended] armor for them, but they are fairly restircted in terms of armor and weapons.

Both races will require you to spend a few points on vitality.

IMO, the fairies faster magic regen and +2 ac more than make up for any disadvantages...

BUT just finished with a 4 person, all hobbit, 2bishop party, and they rocked: important thing with bishops is to assign the spell books and points carefully. I had each bishop specialize in 2 schools: one was wiz/psion, the other priest/alch. In attributes, throw all you can into the main categories for their magic developement: senses for psi, dex for alch, int for wiz, pie for divine. In skills, don't put any points in any physical skills: they will develope a bit as time goes on, but no point in making your bishop a half a$$ed spell caster so he can also be a half a$$ed fighter: he's got too many categories that must be developed in his magic, there are no points to spare.

I generally put 3 skill points in each of the 2 main schools, and divide the last 3 between the other schools. If I were running a bishop as the only magic user, would do priest/mage primarily, alch/psion slower. The various realms [water, air, etc.] are much easier to train than the schools, so I rarely put points there.

Be sure to mix lots of potions for fun and profit, and very nice alch. boosts as well. You'll need a lot of ready cash to buy those books.

Save at least 3 early spell picks for the level 7 breakthrough. You'll be glad you did. You can buy pretty much any early spell anyway, but level 6 and 7 books almost impossible. Any book you find that you can't use yet, store in a safe place like Antone's bedroom or the trangaporter room.

Though I'd planned to take some time off from gaming, just started a 4 fairy party tonight: Ninja, Ranger, 2 bishops...

Oru

[otter]

There's also been some discussion about Felpurr Bishops, if you use that character to cast Haste to save on Attribute points, the Felpurr speed advantage is good there. But i usually use a Bard for Haste.

[el_kalkylus]

Gnome is good for vitality.

I rarely save spell picks for my bishops, and I'll be fine later in the game anyway since there are so many spell books once you get to them.

Faerie is fastest, but can't wear certain equipment, but has great resistance.

Elf can wear the equipment and max intelligence and piety one level faster, but it is slower.

Felpurr can wear equipment and is only 2 levels behind the faerie to max speed.

[Gimli]

Well I will throw in my 2 cents about bishops and speed. Without a bard, psionic, monk or other bishop, your bishop is going to be the only party member you have who can cast haste. Basically if you cast that spell it maxes out all party members' speed stat, which means you can skimp on improving speed at level ups and work on other stats. But for whoever the "haster" caster is, that one should build up speed to get off the haste spell early. So since that would be your bishop, it comes down to faerie vs. felpurr. You get mana regeneration with the faerie and a slightly lower AC, plus nice resistances - but I don't like faeries because they are extremely limited in terms of what armor pieces, shields, weapons, etc they can use. So I would go with a Felpurr. But take what makes the most sense for you in terms of role playing enjoyment, you said you didn't want to power game and that's cool, but if a faerie or felpurr sounds good from a role playing point of view, I think it comes down to those as being the best fit with your group.

[Rhea]

Originally posted by Duneswalker: What race is better for a bishop, elf faerie or other? Since I'm favoring only one pure caster in a six member party the faerie's mana regeneration is tempting, but I'm a pack rat and worry about the reduced carry capicity. How crucial are these factors? Thanks for the help, last question and I'm off on my adventure, can't wait, this game looks awesome!

Faeries, faeries, faeries, and did I mention faeries?

They're hardier than they sound, and make powerful spellcasters. You'll especially appreciate the mana regeneration early on as you'll have to spend less time resting your party and thus less time getting ambushed. (Because they regen mana so quickly you can usually interrupt the resting well before the rest period is up.)

The only real trick to the faerie's carrying ability is that you have to watch not to put too much heavy stuff into their *personal* inventory (shared inventory is ok). But since I watch ALL of my characters to make sure they don't stray into the blue, it's no biggie.

I've played all of the doable classes: gnome, elf, faerie, felpurr, human and hobbit. I liked the felpurr best other than the faerie. I think the felpurr speed makes for an interesting spellcaster, too.

But honestly, just like a faerie makes a great ninja, they also make a great spellcaster of any kind.

[Greystone]

Originally posted by Oruboris: Any book you find that you can't use yet, store in a safe place like Antone's bedroom or the trangaporter room.

Are all areas generally safe to drop excess equipment (if you must to avoid weight penalties), or will it disappear unless put into "safe" areas (like mentioned above)? If you need safe areas, how do you know if an area is safe or not? Thanks!

--Greystone

[otter]

I've never had anything disappear when i dropped it, even coming back 'game' weeks later.

[Oruboris]

Me either. Even stuff left on the streets of arnika never seems to go away.

My favorite spots, though, are ones no 'enemy' can get to, that I know I'll be visiting frequently. Am in and out of the trangaporter all the time, once I have portal, so its my centeral storage area.

Left some choice goodies like frontier phazer, zaporizer and diamond eyes there without loosing anything.

Oru

[Rhea]

I use Antone's bedroom early in the game, and choose another site in the late game. But I only use one site and I set a teleporter to it, mostly cause if I drop stuff elsewhere I tend to forget where the heck I put it. But nothing ever seems to disappear - even that thief's extra pair of pants you left lying in the Arnika Road months ago....like one of my girls would ever have touched that smelly old thing anyway! [img]tongue.gif[/img]