Streamline starting party

[Admiral Snackbar]

Hello, I am just messing around with the demo and was wondering if it's possible to "trim" the starting default party into having better skill distribution, or would I just have to create my own from scratch? I searched a little and didn't find anything conclusive. Thanks for any help.

[Dantius]

Depends. What are you looking for? The starting builds are nice and solid, but the amount of optimization that you get from custom characters is great, albeit requiring more effort. I go for the custom route, but it's really a factor of experience. A general rule is that if you've finished playthroughs on multiple Avernum games, you know enough to build a custom party. If this is your first time, then just get the premade party- Jeff doesn't set you up to fail.

 

Unless I misunderstood your question, and you were asking what kind of party you needed. In that case, I would recommend my Macbeth party: one fighter, swords or poles as per preference, and three witches, mages with (respectively) skills at mage spells,TU, and archery; mage spells and priest spells (he will be getting Knowledge brews later in the game); and a third, straight up mage, with some NL and AL.

[Randomizer]

The default party characters are a hold over from Avernum 1 and while you start with more skill points than a custom character, lots of these points are wasted into skills that you don't need at the start. Also in for instance Avernum 4 this is the only game where tool use has to be with a mage spell character to gain a benefit when using the unlock spell.

 

You won't get a consensus on what is the best party of custom characters, but there is plenty of advice on what to avoid and holding off on some skills until you have reached a trainer where you can turn money into skills and save some skill points. Every game has different locations for skill trainers.

[Alorael at Large]

Even if you're not optimizing for trainers, which isn't actually necessary unless you need to optimize very badly, you can play with all kinds of parties. The default isn't especially good, but it also isn't terrible. It's not unreasonable to start with that and then add skill points to taste as you level.

 

—Alorael, who thinks that most players will get a feel for good builds reasonably quickly. By the second time you start, you're likely to be comfortable with an entirely custom party.