So another, "what's the best party?", question

[Malach Cha Movis]

Hi everyone,

It's been awhile since I lurked or posted here. I've been playing DiabloI with a friend for a few months now. We do this becuase Diablo has multiplayer capabilities. I offer everyone here my humblest apologies. I will perform any
act of contrition that this forum deems appropriate.

Even though I participated in an evil act, the results have been particularly encouraging. My friend, who thought fantasy gaming a rediculous waste of time, has now found that the genre is interesting. He wanted to see what all my fuss with Wiz 8 was about. After a brief intro to the game, he seems hooked.

He collects old games and his retirement plan, (three years in the future) is to play these games in chronlogical order. Some of these games have already been played or will be played before he reaches the age when he can do nothing but play computer games. One of the games that he has collected is Wizardry Gold for the Mac. When he left here last nite, Fri, Jan 2nd, he planned to install the game immediately.

My question, should you choose to answer it, is; what is a good starting party for a newbee to the Dark Savant, the Wizardry series, and CFRPG in general?

I don't feel sufficiently qualified to make such suggestions, as I never finished any Wizardry except Wiz 1.

An answer to one other question would also be very helpful. I would like to find one or more cooperative multiplayer CRPGs or Strategy games. Some of the FPS games have this feature, but I am really not interested, nor do I have the reflexes for that type of game.

Thanks for your time.

Happy New Year to all!

Malach Cha Movis

P.S. This has already been posted on another site. It was meant for Ironworks originally, but when I went to post, I lost my connection. Now, that it has been reestablished, and since I planned to post this msg here anyway, here it is.

[Ziggurat]

I find in general most early games start with fighter, rogue, and priest. In later Wiz games, Bishop is available and more versatile than Priest. A Bard is generally handy. Other characters for a good party depend on your style of playing.

[Nightowl2]

For any party-style CRPG, the usual setup for first-time playing is a couple of tanks, a thief-type, a healer-type, and a mage-type. If there's room for more, another tank or another mage is usually a good choice.

Once you are familiar with the game and the critters, you can experiment more with other classes if they're available.

Keep in mind you don't have to do the whole game with the party mentioned above. After you know your way around, you can start over with some of the more exotic classes.

What matters especially in Wizardry is proper development of your happy little band. Tight development and specialization works best here. The messages posted in the Wiz forum can help a lot with that.

Nightowl2

[Scatter]

Another approach is to have a hybrid as a third tank, and another hybrid as a third "back-row" char. In Wiz-7 (and Gold) your formation is limited to 3 in front and 3 in back, so if you get a polearm in the back, or a staff, you don't have to worry about lugging ammo around. (worse problem in 7 than in 8)
It's pretty easy, in W-7, to go 6 levels and cycle around a couple classes to get at least a little magic for everyone, and it's also definately worth it to have a rogue or bard. Rogue can count as a tank in W-7, but not as well as in 8.

[Nukenin]

As to your latter question, one game you might want to check out is Neverwinter Nights--quite suited to cooperative play (esp. with just two friends playing). If you and your friend were able to handle Diablo, NWN shouldn't be much of a stretch. It's finally available for Macintosh as well, I believe, although I think the editor for creating your own adventures/modules is still Windows-only.

Diablo II with its expansion is also good for cooperative multiplay if you enjoyed the original Diablo--more actiony that NWN but with some interesting classes and character development (in terms of developing your character's abilities, not any sort of plot thing).

One of these days we'll hopefully see a Wizardry (-type) game with support for cooperative play--there is a right way to do it--someone just needs to find it. [img]smile.gif[/img]

As to your former question, most any CRPG will work well given a party consisting of two fighter types, a thief type, a healer, and a mage (as mentioned above). That generally leaves one slot free for experimentation without crippling the party (since for some reason most of these party-based CRPGs revolve around a six-character party). I don't recommend a newcomer to CRPGs start Wiz8 with a bishop (in lieu of a specialized pure caster) because they take some work and planning to build up efficiently.

If a newcomer to CRPGs was beginning with Wiz8, my recommendation would be two fighters (substituting a monk, samurai, or valkyrie optionally for one of the fighters), a rogue, a ranger, a mage (or psionicist or alchemist), and a priest.

Of course, this is from someone who is even now planning to restart Wiz8 for the umpteenth time because he has yet to settle on a "comfortable party"... [img]smile.gif[/img]

fighter-rogue-priest-mage is great advice for a new player.

be sure to develop the fighter and rogue for strong melee capabilities (ie- strength/dex/speed/vitality and weapon skills. l&t for the rogue).

and for the priest and mage, focus on getting up all those awesome buffs. for the mage: missile shield, shadow hound, xray, enchant blade. for the priest: armourplate, magic screen. and work on the colleges with the good supplemental spells (soul shield, rest all, heal all, element shield).

then add two more characters. i'd recommend a monk, who is the easiest hybrid to develop spell casting for (have them do all the identifying and concentrate on mental and fire spells).

and, for a new player, i'd recommend a ranger. the auto-search capabilities mean never missing out on goodies, and their ranged attack make them flexible enough for the back row, behind the three tanks (monk, rogue, fighter). another nice thing is the ranger can mix heavy heals (for cash) and/or pickmeups relatively quickly, which can supplment the party's survivability early.

and with these 6, you cover each spell book as well, providing a decent exposure to some of the possibilities in wiz 8.

there's lots of ways to take these classes further (melee attack for the priest, throwing for the mage, etc.), and surely other ways to go with party composition. but if you start simple, and focus each on what the characters you choose do best, you'll be off to a big head start.

then later you (or your friend ) can have a play around with other classes, ways of development, etc. then you'll truly be hooked, like the rest of us (evil laugh [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] )

[Malach Cha Movis]

Hey y'all,

Thanks for all your great and helpful responses. I'll introduce my friend to this site so he can read them himself.

I finally settled on a signature.

"Excellence is not a skill, it is a habit." - Aristotle -

[Ragash]

I've played tons of constellations, and I find my most recent one, Lord-Valk-Bard-Bishop to be the most ownage-inclined so far Then again, I may finally have learned the game enough to play it properly.

I think though, in retrospect, that I should've made a fighter instead of a Lord. There's just too much divinity in the party I love the Valkyrie though, even if I still travel with Vi. Or maybe a samurai...

with my style, i find it difficult to have any two characters overlapping in spellbooks. especially with a bishop, unless i consciously have the them avoid casting in the books covered by the hybrids/pures along for the ride.

for example, i've run a fighter-lord-valk-bishop-bard party, and found the lord and valk never amounted to casting much. i just stopped casting the buffs with the lord/valk, because the bishop could cast the same spells at higher levels. this quickly added up into the lord/valk falling behind due to the lack of learning experiences.

i know, i should discipline myself about casting buffs with everyone who can, and making sure the one who is better does it last so that the higher level buffs are the ones remaining, but i seriously cant be bothered.

[babar]

What I usually do is start with my first player (a Samurai ... I always play Sam Ran Lord Valk Bard Bish), and have him/her cast all his buffs at highest level possible, then do the same with the Lord, Ranger, Valk and the Bishop. I understand that you can't increase points if the spell is already active at the maximum duration ... but by staggering the realms, usually enough time passes. Then of course I take a drink from the fountain or exchange my mana stones and go on my way.