difficulty levels

[Legolas73]

Hi everyone out there,
can anybody tell me the effects of changing the difficulty level? Will Monster HP go up? Their resistances maybe? Most importantly for my solo who is desperately fighting for LARGE amounts of XP, will the monsters be worth more XP on Expert than on Normal? Thanks for your help, Legolas73

[SpitBall]

From my experience increasing the difficulty level (from normal to expert, at least) did not change the experience points for a given monster. It made them harder to hit, penetrate, and kill. It also made them less susceptable to spells (I guess that means their resistences increased). You may gain more XP indirectly, because it seemed to increase the size of the monster groups and, perhaps, to increase the frequency at which they appeared. I've heard rumors that increasing difficulty levels can also spawn monsters of a relatively higher level and these will be worth more XP.

Over all, I don't think that increasing the difficulty level is a way to gain more XP, because you have to fight harder to kill the same monsters. If you need XP - turn on X-Ray and go to the Swamp, or hang out on the roads between Arnika, Trynton, and Mt. Gigas. You can spot the monsters and hunt them down. If you are tough enough - go to Mountain Wilderness, or Acension Peak - lots of experience points to be had up there.

[Scatter]

The main thing that happens, like you said, SB, is it's harder for you to hit, etc, and easier for the mobs. This increases skill improvement noticably. Sometimes i will switch between Med and Expert, depending on my expectations of a given zone--expert when i'm in a spot where i can train up a little, and Med if i go where i'm more likely to be outclassed.

[Wereboar]

In my experience, skill increases happen much less often in expert difficulty. I once accidently started a game in normal difficulty. I realized it when most of my stats were at 75-100 at level 10. In expert mode, i might be near 50 at this point.

[SpitBall]

Training and Experience points are different issues. Truthfully, I don't watch the skill points gained that closely for each encounter. I usually check them before each adventure and see which skills are lacking, then focus on using those. When the monsters are not that tough, i.e. I don't stand much chance of getting killed, I try and mix it up with the spells and weapons, so that my party can train these skills.

Lately, what I have been doing with weak monsters is "role reversal" - letting the well-developed spell-casters play Fighter and the brawny ones, toss off low-level spells (if they have any). If things really so south - they have back-up.

You make a good point, Scatter, in that simply by extending the encounter to more rounds one can gain more skill points, even though the experience points may be the same.

[Krull]

What I do, and I suspect most of people on this Board also do, is, if you are facing an encounter and there's not much chance of being seriously hurt or killed, swap out your good weapons for the weaker ones, longswords etc. You cause less damage so the fights are longer.

Not so effective with professions with critical strike though!

[LewyRay]

It seems very cruel, but I will even keep monsters alive and well by casting heal and stamina at them. My fighter is trying to learn sword, so he chips away with the tarnished sword (a great training weapon). He had made it up to 100 in Axe, but the swords in the games kick butt over even the best Axe. It is scary what he can do with excaliber.

[SpitBall]

Hmm, I guess I'm weird - because I like to approach the training issue as if the characters were actual people. I can imagine a tough, seasoned fighter standing by and letting the Fairie Psionic beat on the weaker beasties while shouting encouragment and advice (yes, I realize those voices are only in my head!)- or the same fighter, who wields an axe like nobody's business, picking up a staff just to see what he can do with it, or a Samurai that usually fights for their daily bread, asking the Mage to hold off on the high-level Nuclear Blast so they can get in a little practice with the FireBall on the pesky Tiger Mosquitos.

On the other hand - sometimes it does a soul good to see the Psionic take out an entire party of poison seekers with a single word.

How anyone can be "cruel" to a virtual being is well beyond me - and even the voices in my head. Considering that the average party must lie, cheat, steal, and kill to "win" the game, it seems rather pointless to bring any kind of moral judgements to bear on anything in Wiz 8, anyway.

[bladedog]

Guys,

Voices in the head................

Cruelty to monsters...............

Anyone else this we are taking this game WAY to seriously !!!!!!! LOL