Gnomish mental resistance, how much?

[KraGorn]

The manual merely says "depends on VIT", can anyone tell me just what this relationship means in practice?

Rather than let this thread fall to the back pages, I am going to attempt to give you some help and hope that someone with some definite info will come along to help...

As your vitality attribute is raised, the Gnome will get a percentage of resistance to Mental Spells. I would imagine with a high enough vitality, the Gnome would become immune, which could come in very handy since some of the monsters in this game cast some very mean Mental spells!

P.S. A Gnome will probably be immune by the time you encounter any opponent with worthy Mental spell skills.

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Moni ]

[KraGorn]

quote:

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Originally posted by Moni:
Rather than let this thread fall to the back pages, I am going to attempt to give you some help and hope that someone with some definite info will come along to help...

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Appreciated [img]smile.gif[/img]

Indeed, it's the mental immunity I'm interested in. One reason I am thinking of using a Psionic among others is their immunity to Turncoat etc., but a Psi isn't my first choice for other things. So, if a Gnome can become resistant enough to be effectively immune then a Gnome mage->bishop seems to have some nice potential for getting a healer who can support the group in the face of such magic attacks.

Cool!
That character sounds like it is definitely going to have some potential! Let us know how it works out!

[yoinkdersplat]

As far as I've been able to tell, they get 1 point in mental resistance per 5 points in vitality. At their starting vitality of 50, they have 10 mental resistance. If you put 5 points into vitality they have 11 mental resistance (and so on, from what I could tell). Unless this somehow increases, it seems that the max they could have from this "ability" would be 25 with 125 VIT...
The Elf on the other hand has 20 mental resistance no matter...

If you could somehow hold out, you could eventually change your bishop to a psionicist [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: yoinkdersplat ]

[KraGorn]

Ah thanks for that info, I did create a gnome to see the initial value he got for his resist but didn't even try to play to see how it increased; I was considering using an editor to bump his VIT to 100 to see but you jumped in before I had time.

That's a big pity, it means that I fail to see ANY use for a gnome as without a decent special skill they're badly crippled for most other classes due to their crappy SPD. It's all well and good the manual saying they make good Alchy's but if they're so slow that they can't get their spell off till the end of the round, by which time they could well have been nailed by a nasty area effect like insanity, their spell power is pretty moot.

[John Doe]

I'm certain that gnomes should make great bishops!

With no other race do you get powerstrike AND iron will that fast as with gnomes. The latter should compensate the lower resistance compared to faeries.

They have VERY high vitality, which not only compensates lower resistances but also neglects the need of guardian angel which my faerie bishops needed until I put about 15 points into vitality.

You only need high speed, if you want "first strike". I maxed speed for all my party members quite early in the game and all you get is some ac bonus and initiative. My party doesn't need haste anymore as it has no effect on them and they allways attack first. Which brings me to my point: If you have haste, all you get from high speed is that you go first in the first round. And since gnomes have high vitality they don't suffer too much from losing some hit points. Also, initiative relies heavily on your weapons skills. Even though my faerie bishops had the highest snake speed skill, my hybrids with lousy spellcasting skills were casting earlier, which really pissed me off!
BTW speed doesn't give you more attacks and swings, you only will receive them at lower levels. And even this could be overcome by haste after the first round.

[KraGorn]

quote:

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Originally posted by John Doe:
You only need high speed, if you want "first strike".

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Thanks for the thoughts, although I started an elf mage->bishop at 2 party they're not my last, I'm already planning their replacement [img]smile.gif[/img]

You hit the nail on the head with the comment I quoted. In my current party the mage has a SPD of 45 which is the lowest in my party. This means she always goes last, so there's no chance for her to get in any buff spells or enemy disablements before the rest of the party has their first turn; usually the enemy also manages to get in their first attacks, if not all of them then at least some.

I suppose I've answered the question I was posing myself: the only way to get a spellcaster going before the rest of them is to use a faerie and pump SPD instead of INT or PIE, which in turn of course would cripple her badly as a caster.

In which case ... the gnome's lower value for SPD is irrelevent in comparing them to other spellcaster races.

I'm not sure about your argument about powerstrike. This is because you'll be pumping INT and PIE, so powercast will come first along with ironwill (I think ironwill comes with maxxed PIE), and in any case putting points into even one of them, powercast, starts to stretch resources if you're still trying to max out a spell school.

[ 01-12-2002: Message edited by: KraGorn ]

[John Doe]

Powerstrike was a misspelling, I meant powercast of course (I think you understood me nvertheless, though).

As I said, I have two faerie bishops in my party which are now at level 22 and have all relevant level 7 spells from all schools. I pumped INT and SPD first, which is why they got powercast and snake speed pretty soon. I never maxed out PIE and didn't regret it as they have about 380 spell points in every realm which is at least sufficient for me. I spread the points evenly bewtween STR, PIE and VIT so they can carry some stuff, have some more spell points and won't need guardian angle anymore.

Around level 15 they started to go allways before the enemy but allways after the rest of the party. The first was nice, the latter was annoying. I nevertheless had the feeling that the points into speed are somewhat wasted as haste lost its use and the only benefit seems to be "first strike".
So it boils down to taste - I'd say - wether to go for speed or not. But if you do, faeries are definetly the best choice. In any case go for INT or your offensive spells won't work anymore later in the game!!!

[John Doe]

I forgot: Snake speed doesn't go up itself for spellcasters like it does for fighter types unless you fight with your spellcasters which would be a contradiction. This means that you need to put lots of skill points into this skill if you want to see it going up.
You can spend the points though, as when you get snake speed, your magical shools (wizardry, alchemie...) should be around 75.

Powercast on the other hand goes up for itself quite nicely and I never put a lot of points into it.

[ 01-12-2002: Message edited by: John Doe ]