Lack of damage issues w/ new party

[bling bling]

Started a new party to run through the game. Most folks are up around lvl 8-9. Party consists of fairy ninja, lizard fighter, mook bard, human priest -> lord, elf wizard. I find that many of the characters will hit but not do damage. Even the Lizardman fighter will connect with Bloodlust and not do damage. The human lord frequently does no damage with the bow, and she has a 70+ strength.

I'm baffled. Any suggestions. Also, my Mook Bard has fumbled with the piercing bagpipes a few too many times to be coincidence and his music is already fairly high.

BB

[Rhea]

Originally posted by bling bling: Started a new party to run through the game. Most folks are up around lvl 8-9. Party consists of fairy ninja, lizard fighter, mook bard, human priest -> lord, elf wizard. I find that many of the characters will hit but not do damage. Even the Lizardman fighter will connect with Bloodlust and not do damage. The human lord frequently does no damage with the bow, and she has a 70+ strength. I'm baffled. Any suggestions. Also, my Mook Bard has fumbled with the piercing bagpipes a few too many times to be coincidence and his music is already fairly high. BB

A lot depends on your stats and how you've allocated skills, so it's hard to know. Sounds like the critical skills for each PC may not be high enough. The best thing to do is concentrate on two or three skills and let the rest go by the wayside.

For instance, I usually put everything for the Fighter into STR and VIT until that's maxed out, then concentrate on SPD and DEX. I skills, I ignore pretty much everything but Sword, Shield and Close Combat, then develop others.

For my Bard, I ignore everything in the skills area but music, pickpocket and locks until they get decently high, then concentrate on developing other things, including artifacts. In stats, I go for INT and VIT, then Dex. If your stats and/or skills are too low that could be causing the problems.

Another alternative - is your party really loaded down? Once your load gets out of the white on the display and into the blue or worse the characters' performance is degraded.

Could you maybe post the stats/skills for your party? It would help.

[otter]

Heh! The only thing Int helps for a Bard is learning (which means you get Skill Increases faster) but if you have Bard requirement Int and a little patience, you can have your Bard practise with Viola d'Amore until you like the Music skill score. I usually use Bards to Hasten the party, so thier Attribute development is Spd first, (if you're not doing that, pump Vit) and Dex, not Int, because Dex contributes just as much to your learning rate, AND to your fighting, PP and L&T abilities. Plus Reflextion is my favorite Bonus Skill. Then (Vit or Spd) and Str.

[Wereboar]

Started a new party to run through the game. Most folks are up around lvl 8-9. Party consists of fairy ninja, lizard fighter, mook bard, human priest -> lord, elf wizard. I find that many of the characters will hit but not do damage. Even the Lizardman fighter will connect with Bloodlust and not do damage. The human lord frequently does no damage with the bow, and she has a 70+ strength.

Don't expect mage and priest to hit often at this stage. You surely developped their casting stats and skills, not teir fighting ones.

Ninja is difficult to develop. Especially fairy ninja, since she had that few bonus points to start with. Don't expect her to be effective in melee before you get the cane. Maybe stick to throwing if you can. But with her low skills and senses, she wouldn't be good at it for a long time.

Your fighter uses bloodlust, and thus berserks all the time. You get double damage if you hit and penetrate, but in my experience its far less likely to hit and do damage in this mode (say about 50% or up). You'll probably still do some more total damage with berserk than without, and surely much more than with any other weapon at this stage, but thats why you miss.

And for your lord - what do you expect from a low level character?
In my experience, the level much affects your fighting skill - your class level, not your character level. Your priest levels are lost for this purpose.
In addition, it depends on how you developed him. And they are hard to handle properly - i failed with my only one, too (it was by far the least effective of my party). If you pump up piety, you're lacking fighting abilities. If you now use sword, you didn't train it at all during your priest carrier. If you concentrated on strength, dexterity and senses, he should get better soon.

[Gimli]

Are you playing in expert mode? Also do you have enchanted blade up at all times, that really helps. You could try using armormelt and bless, also superman.