multi class ideas for my party - opinions needed

[Gimli]

Hi all - well here are the ideas going through my head now for multi classing (or not) for my party members later in the game; right now they are at about level 11. What do you think?

Vi - already made her a priest at her first level up; might multi her again if she maxes out as a priest, maybe to a fighter to wear better armor. I just wanted a support char with her, and she's got pretty good priest stats. Not sure I want to lose the turn undead ability though.

Felpurr Samurai - leaving him pure, don't want to lose his skills (crit, sword bonus, lightning strike) and he'll take a long time to make a really good mage (he is more combat oriented now but at least is buliding fire up).

Human Monk - also leaving him pure, want to keep the martial arts bonus and criticals; plus try to max him out as a psionic (have developed him this way quite a bit already with practice).

Halfling Gadgeteer - thinking when she has made all the gadgets she can and all the improvements to the omnigun I will turn her into a ranger, just to get ranged criticals. Probably very late in the game.
Seems like a natural transition as she'll have the ranged combat skill very high and eagle eye by then as well.

Valkyrie - will make her into a fighter eventually for the beserk combat option and to level up faster. Thinking whenever she hits a high enough level to finally learn set/return to portal as I want as many of those as I can get Shouldn't need her to get level 6/7 priest spells with the way I play Vi, and she and the Samurai are the heavy hitters in the group. She's scary now in combat without going beserk, once she does look out!

Ranger - keeping her pure, wouln't want to lose the ranged criticals, and will keep improving as an alchemist.

Bishop - ok with this one I am the most torn. He's doing 3 books, all but psionics which is my monk's speciality. He's best in alchemy and about even in wizardry/divinity. I will be tempted later in the game to change him either to a mage or alchemist. Mage, for the bonus to resistances; alchemist to be able to cast alchemist spells while silenced. Question though, are all chars able to cast alchemist only spells when silenced? Game manual says only alchemists, ninjas and rangers can. And how often do alchemists crank out potions while the party camps? Do you control which ones they make? Have never played a pure alchemist to know. Also both mages and alchemists get skill bonuses in their respective schools and level up faster which is making me want to eventually multi the bishop. So once he has the spells I want from the 3 schools he's doing as a bishop, seems to be no reason to keep him as a bishop - other than being able to learn all those spells (and i guess turn undead) bishops have no other bonuses (well artifacts but it's pretty useless).

Finally I think I am going to stick to these 7 for the most part and leave the last slot as a "rotating rpc" to get a taste of the rest of them, I am not going to develop another fully, these will be the 7 I try and finish up with.

Thanks in advance for any sagely advice you can provide! =)

[Nightowl2]

A gadgeteer who changes class can't use the omnigun; it's a class-specific item. Switch to ranger, and you'll have to give him a bow if you want ranged crits.

Anyone with alchemy can cast alchemy spell while silenced.

Special skills such as critical strike, lockpicking, etc. stay with the character, but can't be improved. Lightning strike, however, is class-specific for the Samurai and would be lost on a class change.

Alchemists don't make potions every camping, and you can't choose what potion will be made. That's random. I used to have an alchemist in my early parties (gotta love that quicksand), but these days I have two bishops in the back instead.

Nightowl2

[Jem]

As far as bishops go, I'd keep him as that instead of switching. In addition to the turn undead, he also has the remove curse function so you don't have to keep wasting SP casting that spell when using cursed weapons/items.

I'd advise you to push him harder in Wiz/Alc and not worry so much about Div since you've got a priest. Make sure you save those spell picks for the Lvl 7 spells since everything else (just about) can be gotten with books. As for the bonus to resistances the Mage gets, I don't think that begins to compensate for the loss of the RC and TU mentioned above especially since those resistances have already been built up considerably with items and other bonuses by then. At the point when you'd want to change the bishop anyway, the difference in how long it takes to level up is really moot -- if you change to mage/alc you might be able to squeeze in one or at most two extra levels by endgame and I don't consider that worth the effort.

Also -- get your Ranger's alc up so you can get as many set/return to portal spells as possible. The more the better.

[Gimli]

Hey - thanks for the replies. Well the Priest will have turn undead, do I need it twice? And how often really will I need to remove curse? I think I've done it once the whole game so far (tried a cloak called a "Death Shroud"). 5% resistances to everything can't hurt, and the 25% bonus to the Wizardry skill is pretty cool. It'll be while before I have to decide so I'll see how I feel by then [img]smile.gif[/img]

My Ranger's alchemy is coming along pretty well, it is very hard to raise Air though - her Earth, Fire and Divine are all good (actually everyone in this party can do good Heals and I pump all their Divine magic skills with it). Any Air development advice?

Thanks for the info re: the omingun, thought it would just be a modern weapon a Ranger could use - will be keeping the Gadgy pure now for sure.

My other way of dealing with the RPCs is to have them do almost nothing that would "steal" chances to practice skills from my characters - I have had Myles with me just to build his pickpocket (and his speed/dex/reflexion/stealth); he guards the Gadgy in combat and never attacks himself. Vi just guards my Bishop or she casts priest type support spells, she also never attacks. I find it's letting my chars really build up their skills pretty high relative to their level as a) they do everything and b) they level more slowly with the two RPCs which I think is actually a good thing in this game.

[Jem]

For your ranger's alchemy I highly recommend the Noxious Fumes spell (and later the Toxic Cloud spell). The first does damage AND has the change to nauseate or ko your opponents while the second has lingering damage. Also, once your ranger gets the Set Portal spell, use it as much as you can - have that be the one that moves around with you and cast it as often as possible. That should allow you to raise the air points decently.

Going back to the Bishop idea:
As for needing to turn undead more than once in a fight -- against a lot of the higher-level undead that extra damage/paralysis potential can come in VERY handy. Also -- a lot of the nicer damage weapons are cursed so it does help to be able to uncurse them between combats to get your ranged weapons back without having to use up SP to do it. I use two bishops and would never go back to single-class casters. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Nix]

Two bishops absolutely rock! Going through my second game, at lvl 12 for my bishops lvl 13 for the rest, and I must say two bishops make the game very easy.

[Gimli]

Well I went for the Gadgeteer over a second pure caster type with this group, their gadgets give them more potent effects than 7 "circle" level spells, so in the late stages what they can do should exceed any magic user, albeit with less spell effects to choose from (but show me a bishop who is packing an omnigun). And since the rest of the characters I have are hybrid fighters they will by the deep stages of the game have their magic well developed. My party was hard to play in the stages where they just left the monastery, but since Arnika they have been whupping some tail, and I think they will be really great in the later stages.

Since I think the ranger is a must have, and I wanted a Gadgeteer, I thought 2 pure casters would leave me short in the melee area, so I went with one Bishop, Valk, Samurai and Monk. My Monk I am being very intensive in developing, his psionics are really strong - he's got to be my favorite character, can do it all.

Also I only use ranged weapons with the ranger and valk; the Samurai wields bloodlust and casts spells from a distance; the Monk has hands/feet and a hayai bo, anything further away he casts spells at. So I think the way I play them I would only get limited use of the remove curse skill, unless I find really good cursed pole arms (ranger and valk both use them in my group). Also wouldn't using that skill take up an action on the Bishop's part? Is it worth it? I might have to use those practice dummies I've heard about later on then I guess to train the Monk and Samurai in remedial distance combat So I am still not convinced, lol But I'll know better by next week, am getting 5 days off to become thoroughly engrossed starting this Friday, by the end I should be where I'll finally have to choose. And I do think a few more levels matters as I can have him learn a few more spells if I switch to say a Mage.

[Jem]

It depends on the type of party you like. I prefer magic-heavy parties to those with pure wade-in-and-clean-em-up power so my first time through I went with 2 bishops (faerie, elf) each learning 2 spellbooks, a hobbit bard, a human gadgeteer, a dwarven valk and a dracon ranger.

My bishops cast both offensive and defensive magic as well as turning undead and removing curses as needed and in long battles they turn into decent ranged/melee back-ups for the others. My bard and gadgeteer use their first two turns minimum with their special items (unless a bishop casts RestAll) and then turn into my support fighters since they are good both with ranged and melee weapons. My valk is my front-line kill-the-enemy focus, though I've also built up her ranged abilities as well as making her a back-up for healing/portalling/etc and my ranger can either use his magic or breath weapon to help soften up some groups of baddies and then wades in with his ranged weapons to get some instakills. He's not bad with melee either and wields bloodlust excellently. This also gives me 4 portal spells by mid-game, which comes in quite handy.

All of my parties have been variations on this theme (partly because I like these classes and find them pretty effective and partly because I dislike some of the other classes for reasons too numerous to get into). While they can't make sushi out of Nessie in one round or less, they took her out handily in 3 round without suffering any casualties and they were only about Lvl 13-15 at the time.

There's no 'right' party, nor are there 'wrong' parties, though some definitely have harder times than others until they get built up. It's all just personal preference.

[GenXCub]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jem:
There's no 'right' party, nor are there 'wrong' parties, though some definitely have harder times than others until they get built up. It's all just personal preference.

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Well, 6 Lizardman Apprentice Bishops could be a bit close to being a Wrong Party