Faeire Bishop and Elf Bishop, the best route...

[Dedzy]

Nice work Argonnes,
Personally, all my Bishops start out as Bishops, just to keep it simple. Earlier access to all the spells. Never tried a stealth level, but I'm thinking about it. Although Faeries have 5 or 10 more points in the places that count when compared to elves, no one so far has mentioned the biggest reasons for why you should pick an elf:

(Spoiler alert here)
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1) Robe of Rejuvenation. Faeries can't wear 'em, and they are twice as good as that SP advantage faeries start with. And don't forget the HP regen and stamina regen.
2) Infinity helm. Faeries can't wear those either. "But wait!", you say, "Bishops can't wear Infinity helms!". That's true.... but Rangers can. And turning your Bishop into a Ranger on your last couple levels may be worth it to wear this wonderous item. You will never need to rest again.

[ 05-03-2004, 12:47 AM: Message edited by: Dedzy ]

[Wereboar]

There's another big plus if you start a bishop as a mage, and thats the 7 or 8 bonus points to several realm skills. A pure bishop has to cast his starting skills in red, a mage casts them in green.

I did use a fairie and an elf bishop in a few parties, but IMO its not a good thing. A fairie is great as your only offensive spellcaster, due to the mana regeneration in the early game. If you add an elf, this advantage is lost, since you'll usually rest until both are regenerated. And if you add another fairie, well, there's only one amulet of nebdar, and few other fairie stuff.

Another point against fairie bishops is the unability to use better armor nad a shield. This is no problem for a fairie mage or psionic, since these claeese are very restricted anyway.

[Klutz]

First of all, very good work.

I do have a quibble though... and it's one I've seen commonly in character development plans. Your stated goal for your Bishop is to get 100 in Int, Spd, and Pie as quickly as possible. Excellent plan, unlocking the 3 most useful expert skills for a party Bishop. So good, in fact, that I'm going to add an extra provision to the plan:


Don't spend a single attribute point in any attribute other than Int, Spd, and Pie until all 3 are at 100.


Let's take a look at what it means to adhere to that rule. I'll take the straight Elven Bishop first, as it's the simplest case. (And yes, I'm going to count Int as maxed at 95 for reasons most of you are familiar with.)

Elf starting attributes: 35 Str, 50 Int, 50 Pie, 35 Vit, 50 Dex, 45 Spd, 40 Sen
Bishop required starting attributes: 55 Int, 55 Pie, 55 Dex, 55 Sen

Elf Bishop, before assigning bonus points (30 available): 35 Str, 55 Int, 55 Pie, 35 Vit, 55 Dex, 45 Spd, 55 Sen

Elf Bishop start, after assigning 30 bonus points: 35 Str, 65 Int (+10), 65 Pie (+10), 35 Vit, 55 Dex, 55 Spd (+10), 55 Sen

That's the same point assignment you used, which puts the points exclusively in the 3 attributes you care most about. In fact, from here on out, we only care about Int, Pie, and Spd, so let's recap focusing on them:

Level 1 Elf Bishop: 65 Int, 65 Pie, 55 Spd
Goal: 95 Int (+30), 100 Pie (+35), 100 Spd (+45)

Already we can tell that we need 30+35+45 = 110 points to achieve our goal. If we keep our attributes focused on just these three attributes, it will take us 19 levels to get those 110 points (114 actually). That maxes them at 20th level. Now we just need to figure out how to do that in such a way that, for any level, we're putting no more than 3 points in each attribute. Here's one such solution for the Elf Bishop:

Levels 2-4: +3 Int, +3 Pie (Level 4 Elf Bishop: 74 Int, 74 Pie, 55 Spd)
Levels 5-11: +3 Int, +3 Spd (Level 11 Elf Bishop: 95 Int, 74 Pie, 76 Spd)

Note that at this point, Int is "maxed", and Pie and Spd are just about even.

Level 12-19: +3 Pie, +3 Spd (Level 19 Elf Bishop: 95 Int, 98 Pie, 100 Spd)
Level 20: +2 Pie, +4 other (Level 20 Elf Bishop: 95 Int, 100 Pie, 100 Spd)

So, instead of maxing Int/Spd/Pie for the Elf Bishop at 11/16/23, we max them at 11/19/20. The advantage of this plan is that you will have much more game-time with your character having access to all 3 expert skills, and that you don't waste a single point in a non-critical attribute until 20th level. The disadvantage is that you wait longer to get your second expert skill... in fact it comes in just before or at the same time as the third one. That third one, though, comes in a LOT sooner. 3 levels may not seem like much, but let's try another example:


Faerie Bishop

Faerie starting attributes: 25 Str, 55 Int, 35 Pie, 30 Vit, 50 Dex, 60 Spd, 45 Sen
Bishop required starting attributes: 55 Int, 55 Pie, 55 Dex, 55 Sen

Faerie Bishop, before assigning bonus points (25 available): 25 Str, 55 Int, 55 Pie, 30 Vit, 55 Dex, 60 Spd, 55 Sen

Faerie Bishop start, 25 bonus points, final attributes: 25 Str, 64 Int (+9), 64 Pie (+9), 30 Vit, 55 Dex, 67 Spd (+7), 55 Sen

In this case, my initial assignment is a tad different, focusing entirely on Int, Pie, and Spd.

Level 1 Faerie Bishop: 64 Int, 64 Pie, 67 Spd
Goal: 95 Int (+31), 100 Pie (+36), 100 Spd (+33)

Already we can tell that we need 31+36+33 = 100 points to achieve our goal. If we keep our attributes focused on just these three attributes, it will take us 17 levels to get those 100 points (102 actually). That maxes them at 18th level. Here's one such solution for the Faerie Bishop:

Levels 2-6: +3 Int, +3 Pie (Level 6 Bishop: 79 Int, 79 Pie, 67 Spd)
Levels 7-11: +3 Int, +3 Spd (Level 11 Bishop: 94 Int, 79 Pie, 82 Spd)
Level 12: +1 Int, +3 Pie, +2 Spd (Level 12 Bishop: 95 Int, 82 Pie, 84 Spd)

Note that this time we needed a "tweak" level to achieve the state where Int is "maxed" and Pie and Spd are just about even. This is actually more common than the Elf Bishop case.

Level 13-17: +3 Pie, +3 Spd (Level 17 Bishop: 95 Int, 97 Pie, 99 Spd)
Level 18: +3 Pie, +1 Spd, +2 other (Level 18 Bishop: 95 Int, 100 Pie, 100 Spd)

So, instead of maxing Int/Spd/Pie for the Faerie Bishop at 12/12/24, we max them at 12/18/18. By focusing 100% on our expert skill attributes, we get the Powercast, Snakespeed, Iron Will complete package a whole SIX levels earlier than the original plan.


I hope I've convinced some of you that it's worth taking a more careful look at attribute allocation than the default "max #1 and #2, then #2 and #3, then #3 and #4 ..." plan.

[Argonnes]

Actually, I see your point there Klutz...doing a little rehashing on using the Faerie Mage start, you could do the following:

lv 2 - 9: +3 Int, +3 Pie (92 Int, 76 Pie, 73 Spd)
lv 10: +3 Int, +3 Spd (95 Int, 76 Pie, 76 Spd)
lv 11+: +3 Pie, +3 Spd

Pie and Spd hit 100 at lv 18.

Still would end up a little better for a Faerie to start Mage and switching into Bishop at lv 2. Starting Mage would get you the Int maxed at lv 10 vs. at lv 12.

[Klutz]

Even better:

Faerie Mage (50 bonus points unassigned): 25 Str, 60 Int, 35 Pie, 30 Vit, 55 Dex, 60 Spd, 45 Sen

Assigning initial bonus points to get Int as high as possible and get as close as possible to Bishop min requirements, we can get:

Faerie Mage, Level 1: 25 Str, 77 Int (+17), 52 Pie (+17, 3 short of Bishop min), 30 Vit, 55 Dex (+0, already at Bishop min), 66 Spd (+6), 55 Sen (+10 to Bishop min)

Level 1: 77 Int, 66 Spd, 52 Pie
Level 2: +3 Int, +3 Pie: 80 Int, 66 Spd, 55 Pie (Switch to Bishop)
Level 3-6: +3 Int, +3 Pie: 92 Int, 66 Spd, 67 Pie
Level 7: +3 Int, +3 Spd: 95 Int, 69 Spd, 67 Pie (Int maxed at level 7!)
Level 8-17: +3 Spd, +3 Pie: 95 Int, 99 Spd, 97 Pie
Level 18: +1 Spd, +3 Pie, +2 other: 95 Int, 100 Spd, 100 Pie (Pie and Spd maxed at level 18)

7/18/18 is definitely better than 12/18/18, at the cost of spending one level as a Mage instead of a Bishop. Similarly, the Elf Bishop can go from 11/19/20 to 8/19/20 by spending one level as a Mage. Note that you can never do better than sticking to a single class the whole game for purposes of maxing all your attributes that you are interested in, because extra classes can only add requirements, never take them away. However, I think this is the best example of what you were looking for initially: using the freedom you get from a simpler base class to get a jump on your primary attributes.

The simple reason that the Priest, Alchemist, and Psionic are all suboptimal to start with (for an Int/Spd/Pie Faerie or Elf Bishop) is that every one forces points to be added to something other than Int, Pie, or Spd beyond what a Bishop normally requires. Priest forces Vit to 55, making it the most wasteful: 20 points "lost" for an Elf and 25 points "lost" for a Faerie. Alchemist forces an extra 5 points to be "lost" to Dex and Psionic forces an extra 5 points to be "lost" to Sen. Mage is the only caster class whose extra requirements over Bishop are strictly helpful for the Faerie or Elf: in this case, +5 to Int.