Mantraps

[RostamTheGrey]

Am I the only person that had no problem killing the mantraps? (Besides the initial OMG WTH that thing is killing me!) 1 meteorstorm killed a set of 2. After my initial encounter with them, I ran into Erathsmedor and he started flaming me. I took off!!! I knew he was important so I didn't want to kill him, it took me some time to realize that most of the time his flame unnaffected me...

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by RostamTheGrey: Am I the only person that had no problem killing the mantraps? ...

Rostam - could be! I've always considered the Mantraps sort of a rite of passage and a wake up call on what sort of spells my characters should be learning.
Erathsmedor is still a wonderous sight to see!

Wyv

[tabbikaat]

Rostam -

Players NOT doing the reset adventures/guild hopping/gold cheat & training/ super elite heroes thing- WILL have GREAT difficulty with the Mantraps. Under normal circumstances, by the time you get to that area - all you have is a wimpy party about level 6 with maybe 1-3 elite characters. Meteorstorm is a level 7 Stone spell......NEWBIE apprentice Wizard/Warlocks haven't learned that spell yet...all they know is "Flamedrop" or "Zap". I believe the game was designed/BALANCED that way....

The first time I ran into the verocious vegetables....there were SIX of them - I'm not lying! My warlock bravely chanted "Flamedrop" several times, then promptly ran out of mana.....two of my party were already dead by this time.....everyone ran/limped as fast as possible back to the imagined safety of Ishad N'ha! Much later, after resurrection, healing at the temple (okay, and a LOT of brew at the tavern!) we again left the city uhmm, "fortified" with courage and a new battle plan. Imagine our ultimate suprise and horror, when we discovered one of the terrible triffids had followed us and was camped outside the city gates!!!

[RostamTheGrey]

That's just it though, until recently I didn't cheat at all. I usually play a game until just before I'm ready to beat it. Then I go and see what I missed, If I can still get it, and what cheats there are and try some. Maybe my characters where higher in level than they should have been!? I have a tendency to search every corner of the world and rat-pack everything (which usually makes my characters gain levels up the wahoo and makes some monsters a lot easier to defeat) The hardest monster I encountered I think was when I went to the toadem and had to fight the 6 slime beasts. Once I got meteorstorm the game got really easy. Take for instance the serpent priestess (can't remember her name) After getting her attention I ran back out into the hallway and meteorstormed one time. It killed her and every priest except for 2 which I then easily dispatched. I think without meteorstorm that would have been hard! The hydra was too easy! I walked backwards (occassionally getting stuck in corners) and meteorstormed him continuosly. Eventually he got stuck in some trees and I just stood back whoopin up on him > Oh well..

[Davros]

Ummm Hi Tabbikaat,

Sorry to say I disagree on your statements on spells that you should have by the time you reach the Mantraps. Guild hopping and the gold cheat mayhelp you gain spells faster, but it is still easy to have the major stone and sun spells by the time you finish the Serpent Temple and venture West from Ishad. On both o my play throughs, I was up to Burning Haze and Meteorstorm by then. The only need is to have two wizards (or better still, warlocks), one focussed on maxing stone and one focussed on maxing sun. That way you only need to be level 7 Wiz / Warlock to pick the spell. If you have 3 wizard / warlocks, then you can also have the teleportation spells by then .

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[Raige]

After I first got my butt kicked by the mantraps, I developed sort of a strategy for them. Whenever I would encounter a group of them I would lure one away from the rest after I healed my group and then I bum rushed them. Now I just run in swinging when i see a group of them and hope they dont kill all of my people.




P.S. have you also noticed
throughout the game that
if you have two or three
monsters lined behind eachother
that they kill themselves
trying to attack you?

[tabbikaat]

Davros -

Disagree all ya like! But SOME if not a large percentage of the people (judging by the multiple long board discussions regarding death by Mantraps) playing this game are new to the Wizardry series and/or role-playing and TYPICALLY compose a starting party of 3 fighters, 1 thief, 1 priest and 1 wizard. I am NOT new to the Wizardry series OR role-playing games and that was my starting party line-up, too. I did not KNOW (until I found this board) about concentrating on maxing out (asap) stone AND sun spells.....I chose to spread my early spell points around....getting ALL the spells for each level as I went! I didn't even have that WONderful teleport spell until I reached Brimloch Roon. My party was wearing out the soles of their leather or suede boots hiking the Eastern backtrails and swamplands of the Gael Serran. While the rest you sharp-witted, clever players were creating portals, calling home, and teleporting to and fro.......ah, well..........
Thank the stars for this very helpful and friendly Board and for Rick's maps and hints....I take them with me everywhere.....))

[Ryanamur]

Now, just for the record (and I don't want to start a flamewar over this so let's keep it at "sharring experiences" rather than "sharring emotions"), I must say that I agree with Davros on the rough idea of where your character should be when you reach the Mantraps.

The very first game I played (back in mid-october and before I started my solo saga), my party was composed of 2F, 1R, 1P, 2W. I approached party development in a very linear fashion: go up a level, learn the next spell on the list. The end result was that I got my **** whiped just past Ishad N'Ha. Both my Wizards were at about lvl 4 in each realm. My solution: learn from my mistakes and start over.

On my second game, I did a test to see which approach I should take: the one I had just done or max out in one realm and move to the next. So, I set out with a 2 person party (2 wizards). One followed the previous route when the other one concentrated on Fire. Without cheating, I had the firestrom spell just after I killed the Spirit of Rumphy (back then I didn't know that he respawned ).

Now, it's at this point that it hit me: concentrate on one thing.

It wasn't until last month that I retried the game with a six member party (again, no cheats whatsoever). By the time I entered the Naga room, both my wizards had meteorstorm and were working up to lvl 5 sun.

On this, I pass the torch!

[This message has been edited by Ryanamur (edited 06-23-2001).]

[Davros]

Tabikaat, no flame intended, and I apologise if you interpreted it as one. Was meant as a simple case of saying I disagreed. See you around .

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[RostamTheGrey]

My parties always consist of 2 fighters, 1 rogue, 1 priest, and 2 mages in just about every game I've ever played (Baldur's Gate, IceWind Dale, Wizards and Warriors, Might and Magic....The list goes on) I've always found the best solution to be to have everyone concentrate on different areas and never teach 2 characters the same thing(unless you don't have a choice or it's the smart thing to do [ex: Meteorstorm, Rebirth, Greater Heal]) Not saying this is the best choice in parties but I never have any problems with it.