Party Builds - What Players Have Tried

[Randomizer]

This topic is for party and/or character builds that players have used and the difficulty levels that were used.

 

For torment, an all spell caster party of two sword mages and two priests works well because you can use overlapping area effect spells to quickly kill monsters. The draw back is at the end for one fight there is a monster that is completely immune to all spell damage except physical damage (divine retribution) and the party has a low to hit chance so the fight drags out.

 

The lead character needs lots of endurance for health and parry since in outdoor encounters this character may get hit with heavy damage before the party can react.

 

A party with two fighters, a mage, and a priest with all having one level of priest spells to cast minor heal and curing seems to work the best since you can do all four damage types: physical, fire, cold, and energy.

[Masquerade]

I used the same party that I've always used.

 

I have two melee fighters; one sword warrior, startng with a shield and sword and then grabbing demonslayer, and another warrior wielding pole weapons. The pole warrior takes the endurance traits is typically the "soak" while the sword warrior is my damage dealer with the traits of backstab, sure hands and mighty hits.

 

I then have a hedge mage. He has access to the first 5 priest spells but apart from that is a pretty generic pure mage with every point available sunk into intelligence. In the original games I would usually give my mage the natural mage trait and a few points in strength so that I could slap a suit of chainmail on him, but in this game armouring isn't really necissary until towards the end game, if at all, so I only used the first level of sword mage and spent the excess on blessing and elemental focus.

 

My priest is a standard priest, just with a couple of levels in archery attached due to her constantly running out of mana.

 

This build works fine on normal difficulty, but I don't think it would hold up on torment.

I also had a few levels of tool use and cave lore scattered throughout the characters when I discovered that "unlock" wasn't a spell anymore and that some of the secret doors required cave lore.

[Randomizer]

Hidden switches need tool use. Only one secret door needs cave lore and you can avoid it.

[Vent]

Hard difficulty, Barbarian, Rebel (which is an error as I'll probably switch to Bows), Mage and Priest. Lol perhaps I have not much imagination!

 

I usually try mix more but it's certainly not easier. That said it's just first steps, level 3 or 4 I'm not sure. And I'm tempted to switch my Rebel to Bow. I feel the remake could have balance a bit throw weapons and bows, not sure how but the current balance is broken.

 

Isn't Cave Lore allows find herbs or stuff like mushrooms? Also it could be an in game help error but I think the game mentions cave lore useful for hidden spots to dig (haven't found any yet, but some herbs and mushrooms). I'm looking to not ignore that skill for the remake. Also Arcane Lore already stop me once (too low) so I'll also won't ignore it.

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: Masquerade

...
I also had a few levels of tool use...scattered throughout the characters

Tool is now the Tool sum of the party? Woo that change a lot of thing.

[Rowen]

The following three parties are all builds that I used in the beta and each completed at least one of the three winning conditions. Each play through was on Normal difficulty because I'm just fine being normal and beating the game. Each party was made up of four characters.

 

Click to reveal.. (Single Atribute Party)

This party was build around the idea that I only spent points on the same atribute every time they leveled for each character. This is the following party.

 

Tank:

Equipment - Heavy armor and a shield. Broadsword.

Build - Every level up strength. Up Melee Weapons, Hardiness 10, Parry 10, Riposte 10.

Traits - Parry Mastery 2, Riposte mastery 2, Negotiator, Sure Hand, All heath traits.

 

Damage Dealer

Equipment - Heavy armor and a shield. High damage sword or flaming sword.

Build - Every level up strength. Up Melee Weapons, Blademaster 10, Quick Action 10, Lethal Blow 5.

Traits - Backstab 3, Sure Hand, Negotiator, All health traits, Improved Strength.

 

Priest

Equipment - +Blessing % and +Healing %. No weapon.

Build - Every level put a point into intelligence. Up Priest Spells, Spellcraft, First Aid, Arcane Lore, Luck.

Traits - Blessing Focus 5, Nimble Fingers 2, Sage Lore, All energy traits, Elemental Focus 3

 

Mage

Equipment - Lava Fired Spear, Sages bow + Spellcraft, +Magical Damage, + Magical Efficiency

Build - Every level put a point into intelligence. Up Mage Spells, Spellcraft, Arcane Lore, Luck.

Traits - Elemental Focus 5, Nimble Fingers 2, Sage Lore, All energy traits, Summoning Focus 3

 

Click to reveal.. (Tank and Archers)

This build was rather simple, one tank and all damage coming from three archers. No magic in the party at all. This means that healing potions and wands are invaluable for dealing some damage (tank starts by using a dd wand and then swinging the sword). Sniper and Lethal Blow are huge for getting your archers damage up to an acceptable level.

 

Tank:

Equipment - Heavy armor and a shield. Broadsword.

Build - Every other level up strength or Enduance. Up Melee Weapons, Hardiness 10, Parry 10, Riposte 10.

Traits - Parry Mastery 2, Riposte mastery 2, Challenger 3, Sure Hand, All heath traits.

 

Archer 1 -3:

Equipment - Heavy armor and a shield. Regular sword. Long Bow or special named bosw.

Build - Every level up dextorety. Bows, Sharpshooter 10, Sniper 10, Lethal Blow 10.

Traits - Sure Aim 3, Deadeye, Quick Learning, Great Wisdom, Improved Dextarity

 

This party was the hardest and for good reason, no magic. Save before you use any piercing crystal and make as many healing potions as you can. With this party my main strategy was to retreat from every fight and try to get the enemy into a bottle neck with my tank. The hardest fight with this party was the last room in the Spiral Tunnel just north east of Metris. That fight needed my archers to be in the room and that ment the ghosts would be summoned next to my very squishy archers. Out of the three parties, this is one I would not sugest to anyone who wants an easy play.

 

Click to reveal.. (Duel Wielding Party of Gods)

I built this party after I discovered that characters could duel wield. With this party I beat every end game condition. My two fighters and priest ended at level 35, and with wisdom crystals got my mage to 40. One really big weakness of this party is that if one of the damage dealers gets charmed, then they can kill a party member with one hit. For fights were charming happens, move your priest to the front of the party so it goes first and can unshackle mind if needed.

I also like the way my priest and mage turned out from my first party so I just repeated them in this one.

 

Damage Dealer 1:

Equipment - Heavy armor. Broadsword in main hand and lighter sword in off hand.

Build - Every other level put a point in strength. The levels that you don't up strength, up endurance and then dexterity. Up melee weapons, then blademaster to 10, quick action to 10, and then duel wielding to 10.

 

Traits - Backstab 3, All the health traits, Sure Hand, Ambidextrous, Duel Blade Mastery

 

Damage Dealer 2

Equipment - Heavy armor. Flaming Sword and Venomous Sword

Build - Every other level put a point in strength. The levels that you don't up strength, up endurance and then dexterity. Up melee weapons, then blademaster to 10, quick action to 10, and then duel wielding to 10.

Traits - Backstab 3, All the health traits, Sure Hand, Ambidextrous, Duel Blade Mastery

 

Priest

Equipment - +Blessing % and +Healing %. No weapon.

Build - Every level put a point into intelligence. Up Priest Spells, Spellcraft, First Aid, Arcane Lore, Luck.

Traits - Blessing Focus 5, Nimble Fingers 2, Sage Lore, All energy traits, Elemental Focus 3

 

Mage

Equipment - Lava Fired Spear, Sages bow + Spellcraft, +Magical Damage, + Magical Efficiency

Build - Every level put a point into intelligence. Up Mage Spells, Spellcraft, Arcane Lore, Luck.

Traits - Elemental Focus 5, Nimble Fingers 2, Sage Lore, All energy traits, Summoning Focus 3

[Jerakeen]

Is it feasible then for a fighter to completely ignore missiles? Doesn't that make getting Battle Disciplines an excruciatingly slow process?

[nikki.]

I've played a little bit, but only to get a feel for the game; I'm planning on restarting again now that I have plenty of free time, but, and I haven't seen this discussed anywhere else yet, is taking the pre-built characters still a bad choice, or do they have points in things I'm going to want/need in the early game?

[Slawbug]

The pre-built characters are SIGNIFICANTLY less atrocious than they have been in the past.

 

Some of them have wasted points (the one guy has points in melee weapons and pole weapons), some of them simply have points in places you might not put them at 1st level.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves

Is it feasible then for a fighter to completely ignore missiles? Doesn't that make getting Battle Disciplines an excruciatingly slow process?

Not really since it doesn't cost any more to increase the same combat skill one more level than to get a different skill. If you have money later on in the game you can buy other combat skills to increase your battle disciplines.

[Vent]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Not really since it doesn't cost any more to increase the same combat skill one more level than to get a different skill. If you have money later on in the game you can buy other combat skills to increase your battle disciplines.

But there are some links unlike before, for example Gymnastics requires either THROW either BOW at same or higher level. Looks to me like a good reason to not totally ignore long range in a build.

[Slawbug]

It's not feasible to have good melee attacks AND good missile attacks. Not because of the skills, but because of the stats -- if you split points between STR and DEX, not only will you have somewhat weaker attacks, but they'll miss way more frequently.

 

If you really want gymnastics, then go for it! Just don't expect to have a competent archer.

[Vent]

Yes I see the point, but is really all attributes need be put in DEX or STR plus some in END to hit and be competent? I mean at Normal and Hard difficulty.

 

For now it's not my feeling with a Hard play, level 8. It looked to me more important to have one very resistant character, and a second more versatile, plus mage and priest more specialized but with some protections anyway.

 

If really the two fighters can't hit, for now it's been only with 2 or max 3 monsters one was a Demon. And then no worry the mage and/or Priest do the job. I put one priest level to the fighters so they can do some weaker additional support in that sort of case, for now extremely rare.

 

There's many reason to build a versatile character, because there's many cases among the tougher cases where have only one character in top front is the easier.

 

But I haven't found a thread that detail the range of tactics so I could have a limited point of view and see only few tactical possibilities among many more.

[Superba]

My party is the same as previous Avernum games: sword warrior, pole weapons warrior forms the first line, then archer with nimble fingers and Priest spells, mage with Lore, some Priest spells and good archer. I haven't changed party order yet (level 15).

I really find particularly useful to have a Mage that is also a good archer: she is of little use when she is down of spell energy, but with the bow she can shoot that precious arrow which kills an injured foe. Also I like the Archer that opens doors and cure the others, being in second line this last action is easier to perform. By the way I can't say I appreciate the warriors that much, they are a bit boring to play because of the limited actions versatility.

 

I customize my party from the beginning, when you understand what you want from each one of them and then shape your NPC it works better than taking the presets for granted.