A6 - Party creation dilemma!

[Aethera]

Hai thar! I got bored of playing using parties consisting of two warriors, mage and priest... Any ideas on how to create something both effective and different from the "default" setup?

I'm not so creative when it coms to that...

 

Thankz in advance!

Aethera

[Velzan]

Give Your Party Some Creativity, Make Unique Characters that work well together.

[La paix]

Well, there's plenty of topics around that have to do with party creation, but here's a tiny handful of ideas:

 

(note that I haven't tried any in A6 yet)

 

•Two characters, one warrior with Priest spells, one archer with Mage spells

•Four characters, all spellcasters

•Two characters, one all-out warrior, one Mage/Priest

 

I can't recall many right now. Keep in mind that fighters make bad Mages, but good Priests.

[Randomizer]

Two fighters, two spellcasters with both mage and priest spells.

 

Sigleton for gluttons for punishment. Who needs friends since they just grab experience and need money for training.

[Alorael at Large]

Four fighters, at least two of whom get some spellcasting tacked on judiciously.

 

—Alorael, who is just sad that there is no Pacifist trait to make a truly impossible singleton.

[Nasarius]

At creation, I tend to assign all my characters exactly two main responsibilities from the list of: fighter, archer, mage, priest, lockpicker. Pair off those roles however you like, and you should end up with a reasonably effective party.

 

Two Mage/Priests at the back is a favorite of mine. Specialize each one only slightly, and unless you're casting high-level spells, you don't have to worry about which is which. Very handy if one gets disabled.

[Demseinwetter]

Three fighters, two dual wielders, one spear fighter, one archer-priest. One of which should be magically talented and able to cast Dispel Barrier and Haste.

Or try training against the grain - Making Elite Warriors Mages and Priests, so they can profit from the Combat Bonuses of their trait and you invest Skill Points into something else altogether.

Or use Archers and the Cloak of Bolts.

Or, has anyone tried this, have four Priests with slighty different abilities and Control Foes at will? That sounds actually quite tempting...

[Øther]

I'm using

One dualwielding fighter

One mainly priest and then a few points in melee

and

One mainly mage who has invested a few points in bows.

(All are nephils)

This party is actuallly working very well for me.

[Serene Tempest]

This is actually one of my criticisms of Avernum, that you have a much narrower subset of viable builds than other games (especially compared to Geneforge, which had a number of very different but very viable builds).

 

From what I've gathered, the all-spellcasters build works well enough. I tried one for a bit in A5 and didn't run into big problems early on, but I didn't take it very far into the game either.

 

I've managed to create a (so far) viable jack-of-all-trades character in my current party (Slith Elite Warrior/Natural Mage) with the major focus of training in priest spells (the idea is that the racial and trait bonuses will largely take care of fighting and magic capabilities). So far, she's a decent (if not spectacular) priest and a competent mage, and can still handle the occasional enemy that slips past the fighters or get a solid jab in with them when it makes sense without getting decimated the next turn. The two traits allow her to wear decently heavy armor despite low strength without being encumbered or having her mage spells disrupted, and the Slith hp bonus also helps her be more durable without as much investment in Endurance.

[Mea Tulpa]

Define "viable." In both Avernum and Geneforge, the default difficulty level is easy enough that just about any build is viable. If you really mean "optimal," than neither series really presents a lot of choices. I would actually argue Avernum presents more choices since the best Geneforge builds, outside of the G2 Parry build, inevitably involve creations and Mental Magic and nothing else. In Avernum, different combinations of melee, magic, and tanking are all possible.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Cryohydrolysis

—Alorael, who is just sad that there is no Pacifist trait to make a truly impossible singleton.

You want impossible? Try E2 with all pacifists.

[Alorael at Large]

Hm. I suspect that a singleton Pacifist has a harder time than a Pacifist party, but in E2 you're pretty much stuck with summoning, and summons steal your experience.

 

—Alorael, who has tried E2 with a hippy party. The attempt ended poorly and quickly.

[The Mystic]

An all-pacifist party of any size would have an extremely rough go of it, at best. They might have it easier in A2, were the option available.

Originally Posted By: guys look i have only lowercase

—Alorael, who has tried E2 with a hippy party. The attempt ended poorly and quickly.

I guess you can't win everyone over by passing out ember flowers, now can you?