exile 1 speedrun party and mission

[curi]

i'm looking at speedrunning exile 1. i've been experimenting, optimizing the early areas and party build, and will finish a run through the grah-hoth quest soon (yesterday i did a run from game start to just outside his fortress, gonna finish that playthrough today).

 

my current best party concept looks like this below. str values are all after the +2 from the 6 crystals. i've also found the +1 dex after u get giants boat which is not included. hp numbers are the amount of skill points to spend on it. all spells i care about above level 3 are noted on the character who will use them:

 

(remember stat bonuses are at 6, 9, 12, 16, 19)

 

(magelore you get +1 to everyone early. so buy 2 points and you get 8, enough for major blessing, protection and graymold recipe. don't know anything else requiring i get more yet, don't need the other spells that take more)

 

1) fighter. he does most of the killing and will greatly outlevel the party. gets 19 str, 6dex, 1traps, 7edged, 20luck

 

2) mage/fighter. 7mage, 9str, 4int, 3dex, 5hp, 7bash, [need around that much hit chance for dual wielding i think], rest mana. [slow group, ravage enemy, major blessing, protection]

 

3) priest/fighter. 5priest, 12str, 3dex, 2hp, 7edged, 2defense, 1luck, rest mana [curse all, bless party]

 

4) priest/fighter/alchemist 5priest 6str, 4int, 2magelore 10hp and get up to 20-25 mana. [cure all poison, bless party]. either gets alchemy or dex/edged.

 

5) priest 7priest, 6str, 6int, rest mana [bless party, revive, revive all]

 

6) mage 7mage 6str, 6int, rest mana [flamestrike, major poison, major blessing, protection]

 

i'm pretty unsure what to do with character 4. he can do alchemy but i think you only need that for killing hawthorne mission. having a third priest is definitely helpful at the start but later on it just casts the occassional bless party and sits around. a 4th melee fighter isn't very useful since i do a lot of stuff only using 1 buffed character and skipping everyone else's turn anyway, and i don't really want to kill stuff with this extra character and get xp on him or worry about getting him weapons.

 

actually while writing this i had a better idea. he can either be priest/alchemist if i need alchemy, or else mage/priest. a 7/1 mage/priest would let him spend mana on healing early when necessary, and on major blessing and protection later. so 6str 4int 7mage 1priest 2magelore. rest mana. might be useful i guess. 3 mages seems like overkill though but prob beats a 4th melee fighter, and i'd rather be casting some extra major blessing than bless party, and he does not use healing after the early game anyway. a different idea is just to get him 20 luck (so finished at level 9) and use him as a pure decoy. honestly that seems kinda smart. i could just run up to formello and buy some early mana potions to make up for losing a priest.

 

anyway i would like to hear suggestions about party.

 

also which is the fastest path to win the game, do people think? i haven't relearned the late game very well yet. i read a bit to remind myself but i don't have a good sense of how long the assassination or escape missions are. also one problem with them is i need to go into the neph for anyway to get major blessing and while i'm there it's gotta be worth it to get the mayor's necklace to get the reward (and while visiting, rob her with protection. then i go rob motrax with protection to avoid the fight).

[Randomizer]

Alchemy is useful if you use lots of spell energy to make energy potions to keep going in a dungeon. Since Exile dungeons repopulate and this is a speed run where you don't want to keep refighting the same battles it might be useful.

[curi]

exile 1 does not let you craft mana potions but you can buy weak energy potions (15 mana points) for 80 gold and i think i can spare thousands. (you can also buy medium mana, 30 points, for 200 gold, if space becomes a problem. but my back 3 characters have only been getting helm/shield/armor, no weapons/jewlery, so i have a lot of space).

 

if i can skip enough stuff, then hopefully i can get it so the xp from respawning enemies is all useful. i don't wait in dungeons (except bat cave to cross the lava) but a lot of stuff respawns anyway. i use a lot of minor bless and minor haste early so i don't run out of mana. + having 5 casters.