Casing the Joint?

[Wild Rose]

Is there any argument for checking out areas before you need to plotwise? Since X-ray really only works on parts of the map you have been over - or near is it a good move to try to do the areas while you have lower levels and the "random" monsters are "easier"?

[Scatter]

Depends on where you are. You can see red dots even in unknown areas on the Automap with X-ray, you just can't tell how to get to them. Some areas are exploitable much younger than their highest set mobs. I have gone all the way to Bela at L10 in a number of games, and to the nice stash in that zone. And lately i've been trying for Light Sword as young as possible (record: L13 Solo Lord). It all depends on training certain things extremely, and using complicated strategy or tricks in the combat system. And Stealth.

[Wild Rose]

Thanks Scatter. What sort of training do you generally do? I'm about 12-13 and at Martin's Bluff, soon heading for Mt. Gigus. I playing a Dragon Fig, Vul Ranger, Bard, Mag, and Bishop. Still seems awkward somehow, and was better earlier.

Preciate the help

i just ran my dwarven purecaster party to bela last night at level 10. they burned through the mana, but i was surprised at how easy it was (it's the lowest i've ever entered that area). sure enough, the monsters were level 10-13, rather than the 15-17 i see with parties later in the game.

wild rose - each area seems to have a minimum and maximum level for encounters. if you enter an area just at the minimum, the auto-leveler will give you easier encounters than if you enter later. but if you enter too soon, you could very likely find yourself over your head.

the best thing you can do is experiment. if you enter somewhere and it's too tough, run away or go back to a previous save and try somewhere else.

eventually you will find that you will get to levels well above the maximum for some areas and any encounters you get will be pathetically easy. whilst some people find this annoying, i feel personally gratified at taking out my vengeance on those enemies that gave me so much trouble in the past.

[Scatter]

@ Wild Rose; the things i find important to train: Stealth, Magic Screen/Soul Shield (easiest way to get a higher value here is a Bard trained up to max in Music using D'Amore)/and Element Shield (this one is good for any Alchemy or Wizardry caster--train either School and Earth up with Knock-Knock). I also like to spend some time with cheap weapons around L8 in the Monastery--most spawns are Metalic Slimes, which are my fave combat practise targets: they are highly damage-resistant, so it can take plenty of swings, which is how you get skill increases. Plus they don't close, so you can get range and casting practise, too. Any time i run into something that can't hurt me much, i cast a lot of magic at power level one--you get lots of Realm and School increases for your mana that way. Plus, if you really like one particular target, you can heal it to be able to whack it some more, if it's in Thrown range. In fact, you can cast any spell that gives you a ? for a cursor on anything within Thrown. You just don't get any skill increases for trying to remove conditions that don't exist: poison the thing before you cast Cure Poison, etc.