new character building approach...feedback desired

[Fantaghiro]

Mortification,
Much as I loved reading about creating a group of sooper-dooper-heroes, I wondered when you'd realise the game doesn't really need them. I'm glad I spent a bit of time and money initally building up my party, because I really don't like them dying (remember the days when, if your Elf died, he/she was D-E-A-D?), but now they're scared of nothing. Not so much a battle, as slaughter. Heck, they hardly even bother to heal, now. I can't imagine replaying with a Valkyrie or Zenmaster - all those initial skeletons would be so much bone-dust in seconds.

Anyway, what I really, really adored was your characters' names! Which one (besides Mortification) survived the cut?

[mortification]

Well, I had to keep good old morty, of course. The other survivor is disingenuous.

I really wanted to keep anxiety, since it's just loads of fun to hear about "anxiety chops for 3 damage" and "oops, anxiety sets of the trap" but I only needed one fighter.

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[mammawlin]

LOL Mortification! I see why your adventurers names are so "attractive"! Coolness!
Mammawlin

[mortification]

Update on the progress of the "super-party":

Does anyone realize how hard it is to solo an Oomphaz Wizard? Even on the normal difficulty settings I got killed a LOT for the first three levels. Once you build up enough mana and a fast recharge rate it's not so hard. At level one you practically have to snipe one trollie at a time or face certain death. Forget about the rogues or anything hard. Heck, even Worgur packs of 3-4 can take you down.

Also a note that Rumpy earns you 6900 XP on normal difficulty when soloing.

I've now got the super-fighter and super-wizard ready to roll. The wizard knows every spell in the game (that I know of) coming out of the gate. He also has LVL 8 Sorcery and all 18's for stats. Starting as a Warlock (of course). Uses a witch staff and a main gauche. Not too great in combat (2 hits to kill most of the early stuff) but he can pump out the spells like no tomorrow. He can ususally get off about 15 Burn spells before the enemy closes (when outdoors).

The fighter has over 100 HP starting and is starting out as a Ranger. He has LVL 5 lockpick and most of the Vine and Spirit spells, with some Moon and Fiend mixed in. He's kind of a Priest/Thief/Fighter mixture. With his long sword +1 and main gauche he deals enough damage to kill most of the baddies in the first area with one shot.

The rogue party by the horse never saw us coming; all they had time to do was say "Drop your weap....unhhhhh". Rogue leader took a few hits but my party emerged undamaged.

Mon de Sculz and Juba Thobers were able to close to melee range, but again neither of them did any damage. Juba seemed caught in "stunlock" most of the time. Not sure if this is simply an animation effect but he kept falling backwards from hits and never seemed to attack at all.

Rumpy was toasted at range by the Warlock, no problem there. Skeleton bunches and the crypt lords fell easily to the dispel undead and elemental storm spells. Had to be careful not to hit myself with the latter, though.

I found out that spiders can't climb ladders. Too bad for them. Flamedrop made short work of the poisonous nasty. I wonder if any monsters can climb?

I also practiced sniping with my bow from on top of the city walls. Ranger-boy isn't too bad but it is really hard to aim when the monsters are small and move fast. Also he still misses too much.

Next time: finishing the crypt, and on to the rest of the game. Stay tuned.

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