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A:EftP - Writing a faq on party creation, Thoughts are welcome


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Well seeing that avernum eftp has captivated me and has a pretty high replay value, i decided to write a faq on party creation for gamefaqs.

 

While creating a solo character is fun, you lose all of the features of having a 4 player party, which makes the game what it is.

 

I went through the game with a party mentioned in an earlier thread so that will be what i can use though i would moreso hope that alot of you can give some bits of hints and ideas for creating a truly unique party.

 

Here's what i have so far.

 

Chosen One

 

What the heck is that? A chosen one party is any party where there are more mages and priests and usually just a single fighter or ranged character. Now why would you do this? Well aside from it being a lot of fun as your fighter has all the buffs/healing and support he could need, you get to focus on which mages or priests do what. I usually go with this setup as i used it for my 1st game through

 

Fighter version

 

1-fighter 2-mage/elemental master 3-generalist priest 4-healer

 

With that party, you have a good mage that can shoot spells at the enemy, a regular priest that can act as a healer or spellslinger, a priest that can heal, and of course the chosen one fighter that gets buffed up to destroy the enemy.

 

This is a really cool way of playing and thus i would recommend it to anyone that wants to take a break from the usual fighter fighter priest mage setup.

 

Ranged Marauders

 

This can be done two ways and is equally potent. The first way is through 3 archers and 1 priest with a few mage spells thrown in for haste. With this setup, you have 4 ranged attackers with one of them casting haste and other buffs that make people that melee you very risky. This is a fun way of playing and i might just use it someday.

 

Ranged Marauders #2

 

The other way of doing that with almost very similar effect is 1 archer 2 mages and 1 priest. Now why would you want that? Well aside from the fact that having 1 physical damage character is good, you can blow things up like no other. Your 2 mages will weaken the enemy while your archer with finish them off while your priest cast useful buffs and healing when needed. Its really alot like the chosen one setup just with more mages than priests. I think that more mages are better for those type of parties as ranged doesnt need as many buffs as much as they can use more missile type attacks.

 

Destroyers

 

You can guess this one easily. While the previous builds were about 1 or many ranged and few melee, this build is about all upclose and personal in your face havok. Naturally it should go like this

 

1 polearm fighter, 1 dual wield fighter and 1 more fighter of your choice along with a priest that has access to haste. With this setup you can bull right through most situations as your physical damage is king. The priest will likely be casting buffs but will likely not be healing as much as the previous builds. With a high enough quick action on your fighters, you should go through most regular gangs. I would recommend one fighter that sticks to another and abuses back stab as that can be potent while the other fighter does his thing. This is a fun build and something possibly worth trying.

 

I feel that this should be posted to gamefaqs as i owe it to jeff for making such a cool game! smile

 

I would hope that alot of you guys can come up with new and awesome ways to make a cool party. I barely touched the surface. Just post your ideas here, everything is needed for this party creation faq.

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The best Party is the tweaked one, this is my honest premise.

 

I played about five times the game till the end, with different parties.

My favourite is this: 2 Berserkers with mage spells (both dual wielding), Archer/Priest, Hedge Wizard/Archer.

 

I grumble only about Pole weapons, they are less effective than dual wielding, even when some Halberds are really good (Moulten Halberd, Steel Halberd i.e.).

So, I would like to see poles to match dual wielding results, it just doesn't happen. One Halberd can't beat two Swords in terms of damage. When you wear a Broadsword (i.e. Venomous blade) magically enhanced with side effects (Acid) and another blade enhanced with Fire. With luckiest shots you hit 4 times. This gap I really don't think has reasons to be, hope in next versions of the game to be filled.

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Yeah dw is really powerful. I asked jeff a week ago about whether he would make nephils and slith almost guaranteed to be better/on par with dualwielding. He said that he was going to definitely make polearms more tailored towards slith. I dont know what else he could do for nephils and bows. I would say perks are where he could do it.

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Originally Posted By: Death Knight
Yeah dw is really powerful. I asked jeff a week ago about whether he would make nephils and slith almost guaranteed to be better/on par with dualwielding. He said that he was going to definitely make polearms more tailored towards slith. I dont know what else he could do for nephils and bows. I would say perks are where he could do it.
I'd say the best way to improve and differentiate the skills would be to have Battle Disciplines specific to each combat type along with the general disciplines.
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That would be a smart way to do things.

 

ESPECIALLY, now that battle disciplines don't work on spells, they are kind of a ridiculous feature for spellcasters: they give nothing until you get to 15, and then you get to cast 3 spells in a row in the first round of every fight, for free, which is arguably one of the strongest abilities in the game.

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Originally Posted By: Superba
The best Party is the tweaked one, this is my honest premise.

I played about five times the game till the end, with different parties.
My favourite is this: 2 Berserkers with mage spells (both dual wielding), Archer/Priest, Hedge Wizard/Archer.

I grumble only about Pole weapons, they are less effective than dual wielding, even when some Halberds are really good (Moulten Halberd, Steel Halberd i.e.).
So, I would like to see poles to match dual wielding results, it just doesn't happen. One Halberd can't beat two Swords in terms of damage. When you wear a Broadsword (i.e. Venomous blade) magically enhanced with side effects (Acid) and another blade enhanced with Fire. With luckiest shots you hit 4 times. This gap I really don't think has reasons to be, hope in next versions of the game to be filled.




Thats one batch of powerful fiends smile

But in all seriousness i would like to think that something like that will satisfy most. I could think of other ideas for people that want to make the most powerful team of people. Seeing that alot (or some) of you play on torment, what are a few good parties that i can list that are basic and easy to understand and work?

Needless to say, this is not where i am gifted which is why i ask. I always liked turnbased games like this (which im terrible at) more than action/rpg games, which im great at.

One of the things that im not sure is even useful at all is backstab. Sure it gives a damage boost, but how much is 15% going to matter compared to avadon where you get a lot more of a boost. Things like that i need to know as many things change on torment.
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One way to usefully differentiate polearms from dual-wielding without introducing new mechanics might be to amp up their cleave chance by a lot. If halberds had, say, a 50% chance to cleave, I'd seriously consider using them even if they were still weaker than dual-wielding against single targets.

 

Originally Posted By: Death Knight

One of the things that im not sure is even useful at all is backstab. Sure it gives a damage boost, but how much is 15% going to matter compared to avadon where you get a lot more of a boost. Things like that i need to know as many things change on torment.

 

Backstab is a decent way to boost your damage if you've got two melee fighters, but it's not essential, and improving hit chance is a higher priority early on. I'd say for traits on dual-wielding melee fighters, Improved Strength should be your top priority, followed by Sure Hand, followed by Ambidextrous and Dual Blade Mastery, followed by maybe Good Health, then Parry Mastery, then Mighty Blows and Backstab, maybe with some Nimble Fingers and Sage Lore thrown in there somewhere -- and maxing out all of those will just about use up your allotment of traits.

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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
Sure Hand is a waste, you can max out accuracy even on Torment just by putting points in Strength.


You can, but it takes a few levels to get there, and by that time one wasted trait isn't such a big deal. Even putting almost everything into Strength, it takes until about level 25 or higher to reliably hit big bosses like Adze-Haakai.
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Except that Improved Strength does everything Sure Hand does, AND MORE. You can buy 5 levels of that before Sure Hand would even be something to consider. At that point, I really don't think accuracy is a problem. A trait that reads "increase damage output against these 1 or 2 specific bosses by what amounts to less than 5%" is really not good.

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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
Except that Improved Strength does everything Sure Hand does, AND MORE. You can buy 5 levels of that before Sure Hand would even be something to consider. At that point, I really don't think accuracy is a problem. A trait that reads "increase damage output against these 1 or 2 specific bosses by what amounts to less than 5%" is really not good.


Remember that there are level limits on how fast you can invest in Improved Strength: much as you might want to, you can't pump your first five traits into it.
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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
Okay, so getting that 5% boost a few levels earlier is worth giving up a free die of damage? Nonsense.


By level 30 you're going to be running out of traits you can constructively invest in even if you do waste one or two. The game is hardest near the start, when accuracy is a serious problem and that 5% boost makes a real difference.
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Quote:
Remember that there are level limits on how fast you can invest in Improved Strength: much as you might want to, you can't pump your first five traits into it.


This argument presupposes that there's no other worthwhile target for trait investment. I'd rather have extra health/endurance and wait a level or two to take the obviously superior trait (i.e. improved strength).
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Additionally, there are other traits that are significantly more powerful to take near the start of the game: besides a few levels of Improved Strength, there's Negotiation (pays out **INSANELY** more than any other trait given the number of extra trainer points it allows you to buy that you wouldn't be able to afford otherwise, and should be acquired as early as possible), and several of the others you mentioned are available early too.

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The whole party. It's not 40% off, it's 40% extra money from selling, and it is actually slightly less due to rounding down Nonetheless... I did the math out in a gargantuan analysis I left unfinished in December and should probably post, and the dividends for each Negotiator trait are immense.

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With negotiator as a highmark, i can see why throwing users would really want to take that trait to the max. This faq might be easier to write than my faq on boa. I still think that ranged users are more powerful than almost all classes (except dw). Polarms just dont cut it when it comes to bows. Sniper +Haste is very powerful and exceptionally more strategic than standing face to face i think

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I would avoid having a pole-weapon guy next time I play, even though I managed to finish all the game-winning quests. If I had two melee players, both would dual-wield, especially since there are so many cool swords in the game. The pole-wielder was not much of a contributor most of the game.

 

I give priest abilities to my fighters, especially for healing ability but they also could bless the party etc. In the last couple battles, all they were for me were meat-shields who healed themselves while my mage and priest blasted everyone.

I could see having a dual-wield, one mage, and two priests, since the priests can of course heal but also have powerful striking power; divine retribution was awesome in the big battles at the end. I think it had better effect than what the mage could carry out.

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Yeah thats pretty much my favored setup. More mages and priests, the better. Use the dwielder or ranged user as backup for magic immunes. I mean how can you beat the versatility of that. I plan on going through one time with all priests + a fighter or ranged and another with 2 mages, 1 priest and fighter or ranged.

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I played what felt to me like a very traditional party: a melee fighter (dual wielding), an archer, a Mage spellcaster, and a Priest spellcaster. I think this is what the design of the skill tree pushes you toward, and I don't like to "fight the game" on the first play through.

 

I had a blast on Normal, it was fun and not too hard. On another play through, things I'd like to try are:

 

(1) A melee fighter with just enough Mage skill (level 9) to learn Blink, like a Shadowwalker in Avadon. So many encounters are designed on the assumption that you can't get past the enemy front lines; it would be fun to challenge that.

 

(2) A Priest spellcaster with enough Endurance and Strength to be a tank, like a Cleric in AD&D. It seems max Intelligence may not be essential for Priest spells so this could be a place to experiment.

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Not really -- in objective terms, the 4th tier skills don't actually increase the PC's damage output any more than investing all those points into a basic weapon skill would. So while you might not be able to play with as many neat-looking icons, they won't actually be "gimped" any more than a "multi-classed" archer or wizard.

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I totally see the value of specialization, but in my opinion, by level 25 or so, my melee fighter had 9 skill points to spare that could have been used to try something different. At least on Normal difficulty.

 

A bigger loss I think would be that with low Intelligence, many of the other low level Mage would lose their value quickly. The alternative, trying to level up Strength and Intelligence together, would go badly I'm sure.

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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
Not really -- in objective terms, the 4th tier skills don't actually increase the PC's damage output any more than investing all those points into a basic weapon skill would. So while you might not be able to play with as many neat-looking icons, they won't actually be "gimped" any more than a "multi-classed" archer or wizard.


*Sigh*

This is where I defend my assertion, and then you destroy my argument with math. Okay, I'm game for another round.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
7. Dual Wielding skill appears to add +2% to-hit and +2% to damage per point. Training it above 10 will definitely give you more than +20% to-hit, and I believe it increases damage as well. Thus, the skill not only counteracts the penalty, but allows you to become more accurate and more damaging than a single-wielder is capable of!


The to-hit bonus from DW may or may not be relevant by the end of the game; I don't recall my fighter having much difficulty hitting by then, but he was maxed out on DW and I was playing on Normal.

Either way, you say that increasing base melee skill, for +1% to hit and damage, is just as good as increasing DW for 2%. How? Assuming you are raising BM and QA anyway, of course. I suppose if you skipped both DW and QA, that would free up 20 points for Melee, which would equal the benefit from DW. Which I guess makes your assertion technically correct on that point, but damage output is not the only criterion most people use to judge the value of a skill - QA has other benefits, and their contribution to damage output would be hard to quantify.

Okay, tell me how wrong I am. grin
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One question that I think is relevant to this argument: how do percentage bonuses compare to additional levels of damage at various points in the game? I'm pretty sure extra damage levels are more important early on (when both weapons and skills provide fewer of them), but how does 1 level of damage compare to 3% damage bonus in the endgame? If there's been discussion of this elsewhere on the forums, I haven't seen it, and it's pretty clearly applicable to debates over melee/pole weapons vs. blademaster/dual wielding, and bows/thrown vs. sharpshooter.

 

Also, I think the melee weapons vs. blademaster/dual wield discussion is to some extent a false dichotomy. There's a definite cap on the number of points one can put into even an 'unlimited' skill like melee weapons (i.e. one point per level, 3 at the beginning), which leaves one with around 25-35 skill points that presumably aren't all going into cave lore/tool use.

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Percentage damage bonus isn't as significant as it is in Avadon. From traits you can get a maximum 15% (3% taken 5 times) for a fighter when the penetrating physical damage on boss monsters is 60 to 80 points so you are only getting another 9 to 12 points of damage per attack.

 

At least putting all the points to melee weapons increases the battle disciplines you can use.

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Fnord Cola raises a very good point.

 

Some quick & dirty tests with an edited level one party clearly indicate that both DW and LB are surprisingly (to me) terrible compared to raising Melee, but I really should check with a higher-level party. I will after I get some sleep.

 

If anyone is interested (damage figures include blocked):

 

First set (Lethal Blow)

 

STR: 5

Weapon: 1 crude dagger

Enemies: scrawny nephilim

# attacks per test: 14

 

Code:
Melee     BM     QA     LB     Avg Dmg     % increase   10        10      10     0        48.4            n/a10        10      10     10       57.5          +18.8  20        10      10     0        71.8          +48.330        10       0     0        101           +108.6

 

About 42% of the hits in the second round were critical, but only half of those were higher than the average damage in the third round. And the weakest strike in the third round (59) was still better than the average LB strike.

 

Second Set (Dual Wielding)

 

STR: 5

Weapons: 2 crude daggers

Enemy: Lagran

# attacks per test: 10

 

Code:
Melee     BM     QA     DW     Avg Dmg     % increase   10        10      10     0        79.7            n/a10        10      10     10       96.8          +21.4  20        10      10     0        120.8         +51.5

 

I didn't bother trying it with 30 Melee; at this point the trend is obvious. And the weakest strike in the third round (118) is better than the best strike in the second (105). To-hit was a non-issue in these tests, though it wouldn't be in a real game, of course.

 

The disappointing conclusion is that you get considerably more benefit from 10 points in a weapon skill than from 10 points in either DW or LB. Obviously taking another 10 points from QA magnifies the effect, but I can't say what the overall impact of that would be in terms of game play.

 

In short, Slarty doesn't have to prove me wrong - I've done it myself. Though I would like to see how this turns out with a higher-level party, and taking into account damage blocked.

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@Randomizer: that doesn't really answer my question, which was more about comparing the benefits of percentage bonuses against bonuses of flat levels of damage at various points in the game. Also, battle discipline availability ceases to be an issue once you hit 20 weapon skill points, which is far fewer than a player can put into the skill in question. I think everyone involved in the debate can agree that putting 20 points into melee weapons relatively early is the best course for a melee fighter. Slarty and Jerakeen's debate concerned whether, once you have all the points you need for battle disciplines, it's better to invest another 5-15 points in that skill, or instead put those points into higher tier combat skills like dual wielding, blademaster, etc.

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Originally Posted By: Jerakeen
Either way, you say that increasing base melee skill, for +1% to hit and damage, is just as good as increasing DW for 2%. How? Assuming you are raising BM and QA anyway, of course. I suppose if you skipped both DW and QA, that would free up 20 points for Melee, which would equal the benefit from DW. Which I guess makes your assertion technically correct on that point, but damage output is not the only criterion most people use to judge the value of a skill - QA has other benefits, and their contribution to damage output would be hard to quantify.

Okay, tell me how wrong I am. grin


The base melee skill isn't actually +1% to damage. It plugs into a different part of the damage formula, just like Strength does. The exact point at which a point of Dual Wielding gives a better damage boost than a point of melee skill will depend on what weapon you're using, but it'll be at a combined total of somewhat less than 50 Strength and Melee Weapons, probably around 30 with late-game weapons.

It's actually pretty easy to quantify the fatigue reduction benefit from Quick Action: assuming you're mostly using Adrenaline Rush, every 5% fatigue reduction amounts to an extra 1.25% average damage over time under ideal conditions -- but only in fights that last long enough for the fatigue reduction to matter. Being hasted does complicate things a bit, and not in Quick Action's favour.
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I noticed a frequent higher damage with the second melee attack than the first one. Second strike very often kill the foe, even when your first did not low its life level under the halfth. This seems to happen with every party level and with pole, single or dual wielding.

Note: I volunteer to contribute with experience to the debat, as I'm unfortunately not much into statistics, so please forgive me wink

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Originally Posted By: Jerakeen
This is where I defend my assertion, and then you destroy my argument with math.

Originally Posted By: Jerakeen
In short, Slarty doesn't have to prove me wrong - I've done it myself.

<3 <3 <3

Lilith makes two important points that bear highlighting. One is about how much QA sucks. The other is that the bonus from weapon skills is not percentile, it adds an extra die of damage. In the case of DW, this is one die for each sword. At low levels, this is the equivalent of a fairly high percentage boosts, say 5%, it will spend a while around 2%. At very high levels, with high strength and strong weapons, it can drop below 2%, but even at this point it gives you better damage output than the upper-tier skills since you don't waste points on QA.
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I do think Quick Action is a bit more useful than Slarty does, but mostly for the ability to act first. Outdoor encounters can be some of the hardest in the game since you don't get to pre-buff for them, and having warriors act first lets them charge forward and spread out so that area attacks don't hit the whole party, and either Bladeshield so they don't get killed in the first round or make a beeline for the most dangerous enemy (generally whichever one has area attacks) and often kill them in the first round with Adrenaline Rush-powered attacks. Having characters who can move before the enemy is convenient for luring out enemies in dungeons one by one and picking them off without taking damage, too.

 

Now, are all of those benefits worth the skill points? Maybe not, especially when you've got Blademaster, Hardiness and Parry to pump. But they're worth something, at least.

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And I suppose that the actual quick action benefit of QA is not enough to make it worthwhile.

 

I hope Jeff changes this for A:CS. It would be nice to have some top-tier skills that are more than just nifty-sounding wastes of skill points.

 

Edit: @Fnord: You have to do something with the second skill point, after you've maxed out parry and hardiness.

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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Quick Action is useful for fatigue reduction to allow using your battle disciplines sooner.


I already did an analysis on how much extra average damage that fatigue reduction buys you. It's worse than Dual Wielding. Significantly worse.

I suppose it could be useful if you were making a purely defensive fighter and wanted to be under a Bladeshield effect absolutely all the time. But really, you'd probably be better off pumping Parry and Hardiness first in that case.
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@Othar: Well, I wouldn't take it too early since I do want to get to Adrenaline Rush, but Blademaster is actually terrific at early levels, especially for dual-wielders. The reason: all damage % increases and penalties are lumped together. This means that for a SW, 1 Blademaster increases damage from 100% to 103%, that's a 3/100 or 3% increase. For a DW, 1 Blademaster increases damage from 80% to 83%, that's a 3/80 or 3.75% increase. The difference decreases as your bonuses begin to stack up, but it lowers the threshhold for Blademaster beating a point in Melee Weapons a bit. By the time your attack dice get up to around 30-40 or more, Blademaster is probably always the better deal, and it isn't hard to get to 30.

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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Quick Action is useful for fatigue reduction to allow using your battle disciplines sooner.


I already did an analysis on how much extra average damage that fatigue reduction buys you. It's worse than Dual Wielding. Significantly worse.

I suppose it could be useful if you were making a purely defensive fighter and wanted to be under a Bladeshield effect absolutely all the time. But really, you'd probably be better off pumping Parry and Hardiness first in that case.

If you are playing on torment then you have to do it this way just to counteract the resistance penalty. Even then you always have 2 to 4 rounds with no bladesheild.
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Originally Posted By: Randomizer

If you are playing on torment then you have to do it this way just to counteract the resistance penalty. Even then you always have 2 to 4 rounds with no bladesheild.


I played through the whole game on Torment and rarely found Bladeshield useful. There are better ways of mitigating damage, like killing the things that can hurt you worst in round 1 with Adrenaline Rush.
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Wow, this discussion has gone far into technical details. I can't really contribute to that, but I wanted to come back to this thread to give a positive remark on behalf of a pole fighter in a normal party of 4 on normal – the other members being a sword-fighter (berserker), a priest and a mage.

I regarded my pole fighter as rebel and therefore as an alrounder with a lot of skills but no outstanding traits. She was to be the one with the most tool use skills, therefore I desided, that she'd also have a combination of melee and ranged weapons. As I remembered pole weapons as being able to achieve quite good results (HP-wise) in the other Avernums, I decided for her to have the pole weapon as main weapon, as well as a few more skill points in thrown missile weapons, so she could back out of the fight if necessary, and still be useful. Also I was quite generous in giving scrolls to my fighters, so whenever they were hindered in using their melee weapons or would have to back out somewhere, they still had means to help the spellcasters. As my pole fighter also was the one who did the opening of locks and disarming of traps, I gave her a lot of DEX. Having learned in the forums early on, that DEX somehow was interwoven with STR in this game, I also regarded STR as important to lvl up. I also payed attention to give her a lot of GYM.

My pole fighter was in fact the warrior with the most AP and she could move quite fast and far and did have a lot more rounds to hit than my sword fighter ever achieved – , thanks to Battle Frency, which I used almost continuously at the end of the game. So the lesser HP and skills of Pole Weapons, which are true for the end of the game, didn't come in so badly, because she could deal out a lot of hits no regard where and when. That also made her handy for wielding wands with cures and blessings in case my priest was hindered. She could always heal and hit.

 

What I'd recommend for a working built for a pole fighter therefore might be a dexterous pole-fighter/tool-user with a lot of Gymnastics and Action Points. Combined with Molten Halbert for a long time in the game, because its ability to deal out damage to a foe standing near the target is really useful. I almost didn't want to part with it, when my party finally acquired Smite. At the end of the game with level 34 for all of my party she had the following built: STR 19(+1), DEX 23(+4), INT 12, END 20(+2); Health 300; Resistances Armor 70%, Magic 48%, Fire 54%, Cold 61%, Poison 55%, Acid 72%, Mental 43%, Curse 10%; Combat-Skills: Pole 15(+1), Melee 0(+1), Blademaster 9, Hardiness 5, Quick Action 6, Parry 4, Riposte 4, Thrown Missiles 4, Gymnastics 6, Sharpshooter 1, Lethal Blow 4(+1); Magic/Misc Skills: Tool Use 10(+2)(+Rest of Party:3), Battle Disciplines all including Battle Frency; Traits: Improved DEX 2, Improved END 2, Sure Hand 1, Mighty Blows 2, Sure Aim 2, Quick Learning 1, Nimble Fingers 2, Backstab 3, (Drath's Knowledge – don't know if that helps…)

Equipment she wore at the end of the game: Spectral Boots, Steel Helmet, Radiant Gauntlets, Crystalline Plate, Temperate Necklace, Smite, Warriors Cloak, Mauler's Ring, Girdle of Avoidance, First Expedition Greaves; Equipment I kept in her Backpack because it had proved useful earlier on: Molten Halbert, Spear of the Fen, Workskin Cloak, Girdle of Life, Quicksilver Sandals, Starlight Greaves, Putrified Gauntlets.

I'm not at all a very committed player, and I have to admit, that the pole fighter was a bit weak in the middle of the game, especially because she kept missing her targets. For a while I relied too much on armor that gave a lot of penalties concerning chances to hit. I'm sure, it's possible to do better. The decision however to rely on agility and AP in combination with Strength was definitely of help for the pole fighter and made her a very valuable member of the party.

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Im going through my second playthrough with a similar build. Im using all spellcasters plus a fighter that specializes in melee/shields. Believe it or not, dexterity has its uses in melee and poleweapons. It not only contributes to evasion but it adds chance to hit/damage to blade sweep (one of the better attacks). I hope you dont mind me using your name in the faq. The faq will be more about character types so a dex fighter should be in there.

 

Ive decided this wont be about torment difficulty as i feel that even tricky difficulty is less restricting and i dont have the patience to wade through it.

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Sure, would be nice to contribute to your faq, Death Knight. Thanks.

 

(also @Jerakeen) I'd be thankful for a faq that takes into account that there might be players about, who prefer a more (role)playful approach to the perfectionistic beating of stats only. I don't condemn the stats-approach. It reminds me of the trading cards of childhood days, which competed on highest performance of machines or animals, but I still think, that there is much more to SW RPGs than just statistics. And its just as legitimate to play with a higher focus on exploring worlds, meeting weird people and situations, trying to create handicaps which are dedicated to a more role play like way, and to try to get the game to present slightly differing story-lines, although the main outcome will always be very similar. I also think that different strategic preferences might well influence the success of different character builds. Otherwise there would always only be one single character build that is successful. At least on Torment… That's not the case it seems.

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If you want to play whatever characters you think will be interesting without regard to what's more effective, that's fine, but why do you need a FAQ to tell you how to do that? I'm genuinely confused and curious: what information that isn't already provided in Strategy Central could help you get more fun out of playing the way you want to play?

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