Best party? Who to take where?

[dave s]

I always get paralyzed playing games with choices. I know that certain party members have dialogue. If I take the wrong ones, I'll miss out on the best dialogue.

 

I'm playing a tinker mage. I've been taking the blademaster and sorcerer. I'm not very far. I also hate placing skill points for fear I'll regret it. I know Jeff's games aren't always well balanced and a wrong path on the skill tree can leave you having trouble later.

[Lilith]

From a gameplay perspective, Khalida the blademaster becomes an incredibly good support character by the midgame, because once you get 6 points into the top-right skill of her skill tree she can buff the entire party (including summoned allies and turrets) with Battle Frenzy, allowing them to attack twice every round: you should beeline for that skill on her.

 

With a Tinkermage as your main character (who should probably focus skill points on getting to Freezing Turrets and Temporal Pylons ASAP, and then work on the passive skills in the middle column) and Khalida backing them up, you're almost guaranteed to have a team of powerhouses no matter what, so your third character can basically be whoever's personality you like best. A lot of people like Alcander's dialogue: two tinkermages in your party might seem like overkill, and in a sense it is, but being able to have four turrets active at once will certainly make most of the game easy for you.

 

If you don't want to use a second tinkermage, all three of the remaining party member options are also viable, and I wouldn't say any one is particularly more interesting than the others overall. If you decide to use Yannick, focus primarily on the left column so that you have a range of strong offensive AoE skills (which are the main reason to use him, after all). If you decide to use Yoshiria, focus on the middle column, spread your points across the other two as desired and forget about her top-tier skills; neither of those skills is very good, even though Shadowwalker is a good class in general. If you decide to use Dedrik, an offensive build focusing on the left column and a healing/summoning build focusing on the right column are both theoretically viable, but the right-column build is a lot easier to do right.

 

Experience is shared equally even among characters not in your active party, so you can always rotate characters in and out as it seems appropriate: Yannick is interested in history, for example, so if you're going to a place of historical importance he'll likely have some extra comments, while Dedrik will have more to say in outdoorsy areas.

[Randomizer]

For the Tinkermage, there is a Tool Belt hidden in a secret area at the northwest end of Rockridge Keep's lowest level that lets you make the lowest version of each turret and/or pylon that you can get by level 8 or later. So build up Turret Craft in the center column to make the strongest turrets and then decide if you want to be a melee fighter, range fighter, or get the other versions of the turrets by concentrating on the right column.

 

Also when you start enhancing a tinkermage's armor, use evasion runestones to avoid getting hit.

[Jerakeen]

And remember that you'll have access to a retrainer, so if you mess up your skill points it's fixable.

[Edgwyn]

Also, remember that you can always change the difficulty level. While you may pick a wrong path on the skill tree, that is not as critical on the first two difficulty levels as the second two. I am and advocate for enjoying the game the way that you make your characters, not necessarily building the identical min-max party as everyone else.

[dave s]

Does using/not using people determine anything on their personal quest?

[Randomizer]

No, the only problem with not using some Hands is forgetting to update their equipment while you are in Avadon.

[dave s]

Thanks. I guess I only hate to miss dialogue then. Maybe I'll run the full party mod. Does that end up showing all dialogue and cross talk?

[Earth]

Thanks. I guess I only hate to miss dialogue then. Maybe I'll run the full party mod. Does that end up showing all dialogue and cross talk?

 

yes and it can cause problems too.

[dave s]

yes and it can cause problems too.

 

How does it cause problems? I've been using it, but I'm only in the corruption the first time. The thread for the mod doesn't mention any problems, but then it doesn't mention much of anything.

[Lilith]

How does it cause problems? I've been using it, but I'm only in the corruption the first time. The thread for the mod doesn't mention any problems, but then it doesn't mention much of anything.

 

I'm not sure if this is the case in practice, but there may be situations where the contents of a dialogue window overflow the space available because the game is only expecting to have to include comments from a maximum of two characters.

[Willy]

For the Tinkermage, there is a Tool Belt hidden in a secret area at the northwest end of Rockridge Keep's lowest level that lets you make the lowest version of each turret and/or pylon that you can get by level 8 or later. So build up Turret Craft in the center column to make the strongest turrets and then decide if you want to be a melee fighter, range fighter, or get the other versions of the turrets by concentrating on the right column.

 

Also when you start enhancing a tinkermage's armor, use evasion runestones to avoid getting hit.

 

Where exactly is this room? I can't find it.

[Randomizer]

The hidden switch is in the northwest corner, use the "u" command to see it, then just kill a few mines and turrets to get to the next hidden switch.

[Slarzahl]

Khalida is, for my money, the most interesting as a character. Dedrik is the most annoying. Alcander's great precisely because he gets annoyed at all the other annoying characters.