When should i change class?

[dungeonlich]

Got this basic party, Two fighters, one barbarian, one thief and one wizard and priest.

Is there anything good at their guilds for thei current classes (average 4th level guild members) or should i change class straight away???

Any suggestions?

[Wyvern]

Welcome to the board, dungeonlich!!!

Rule of thumb is to keep your magic users in their current class until they have learned the high level magic spells (that you want - you don't need ALL of the spells) before changing their class. There isn't much problem on changing fighters to something else whenever you may like.

There should be some information in the BEST TIPS thread that may also help you with your decision.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Wyv

p.s. I visited Norway many eons ago - beautiful country!!

[Detah]

I started out with 2 wizes. I thought it best to max out those 2 schools, sun and stone, before moving on. I thought this was optimal.

So in order to get access to both schools as fast as possible during the first part of the game, I specialized 1 wiz in each school. So eventually I maxed out my Stone school with the Stone specialist and set a course for maxing out the sun school too. Shortly thereafter, I found myself in IshadNha (with access to Shurugeon Castle). So I changed to Samurai (which I never intended on using for that character's career path anyway) and maxed out his sun spells in 5 quick level ups. This seems to be the optimal course to max out the sun and stone schools for the Wiz.

In the future, I plan to ignore all sun spells during my Wiz levelups then switch over to Samurai and max out the sun spells. All the while, buying the precious sun spellbooks from the shops while a Wiz. In this way, you can gain the ever useful Incinerate spell and the most devastating Meteorstorm spell (my personal favorite spell in the game) while still a Wiz and rather quickly too. Of those 2 storm spells, I think the Meteorstorm is superior. I have found that the Meteorstorm spell is effective versus every monster in the game, whereas there are several beasties which are immune to the effects of Firestorm.

Since there are like 11 Sun spellbooks in the shops, sun is the easiest to max out anyway.

Detah

[ 03-11-2002: Message edited by: Detah ]

[dungeonlich]

Thanks lads for the tips! I think im gonna do just that, change the fighters into other classes (warr to pal and warr to sam) and stick whith the spellcasters untill they are a bitt more nuff in their spells.

By the way its Freeeeeeeezing Cold up here in Trondheim (norway) , and yes we've got an amazing nature around here (if u dont freeze off your butt first that is )

[Bungleau]

I prefer to switch characters to a new class somewhere around level 13, when they've mastered at least one spell school. The exception is warrior: a warrior should shoot for Barbarian ASAP, and then follow the other rule.

Note that if you use spell books to gain a spell, you don't gain the mana boost that you do when you raise levels. If you play it smart, you can actually get just about every spell naturally by changing class appropriately. Three classes times 13 levels equals 39 spells available for the selecting!

[Detah]

That is a good idea for the mana. I wasnt aware that the spellbooks conferred no mana. However, I am about half way thru the BR map and I have never had to use a mana potion yet. My mana regen rate seems to compensate for everything. I had one character holding every single potion, greater potion, and all the mana regen potions. Just recently I sold all those to the shop, realizing I would never use them. If this is the case that you never reach a tapped out mana situation, then perhaps the code needs a little fine-tuning to make all those potions worthwhile. I know what you are thinking; I use magic conservatively. Thats not true. I send a storm spell down on all range critters, and use incinerate and dust to dust on just about everything else. And I always keep up bless, shield, haste, nimble and merlins shield on every char. And still I never get into mana trouble.

Detah

[Bungleau]

I now only carry mana max potions; anything less isn't worth it.

And I do run into mana problems on occasion, usually with lower-level parties. Perhaps it's the speed I tend to run around the Gael Serran...

I usually have characters with around 300-400 spell points per school by the end game. That lets me cast a finite number of storm spells per school; once those are cast, it's time to regenerate mana.

I also play with hard difficulty and high spawning. Perhaps I'm getting more than my fair share.