A6 - Bison, Singleton Torment on first playthrough

[Trabber]

This thread is mostly for the amusement of your reading, and for me to try how far I will get. I allow myself to do anything that is in the game without using the editor. This will include all possible gamebraking glitches and stuff like that, the idea is to survive right? This is not to prove my superiority (I bet alot of people would do things way more easier and better, and might even have done). So if you come here to flame some cheap method of surviving, turn away.

 

Ok, I've actually played every game on this website as long as I can get in the demo version, and decided to try my first full run like you should, torment difficulty singleton.

 

No use of editor or any cheats, no knowledge about the game before, ok who am I cheating... I actually took a few notes from here and got a pretty decent buildup and I know where the trainers are. Or the name of the place really... hope there is a map, my memory of the layout isn't that great

 

Now meet Bison

(direct link if image doesn't work)

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/17/bison1.jpg

 

And now to explain my build:

 

Slith EW DT, easy choices. Thought about NM but parry really is too good. DT is a must and I like sliths

 

1 point in priest skills... well I believe potions won't last without healing sometimes. Besides heal + first aid will be my #1 anti-boredom trick. Will reduce town visits alot.

 

5 in defence, well it's untrainable, and get's me through the start. I still want to train in parry later on, which needs defence, while defence being pretty useless by then, so I put all I ever need to make my starting life as and adventurer easier.

 

My main goal is to not increase any skill until fully trained in them, which leaves me moslty hardiness and quick action to waste my early skill points in. Hardiness will max at lvl 7 to start with. So that leaves me with quick action pretty soon.

 

Also, at my first level up, I'll go for 1 first aid, to give me 1 spell energy every time I kill something. This means that I get 1 heal every 2 enemies I kill if I do them 1 vs 1. This will be my main strategy really, using crooked 1 tile corridors to prevail.

 

Not sure yet, but I will defineatly get 6 endurance pretty fast, and might invest in luck if I feel like it.

 

 

I'm not going to play this through in one session, so this will take a long time, but I'll try to keep a good length in my posts to give some possible hints I think would help people, and just to give everyone something to read when bored. Expect the first update pretty soon!

[Mea Tulpa]

Don't waste points in Defense, use the buy-unbuy exploit when you want to get Parry. Note that you can (and should) train in Parry before buying points manually.

 

Other than that (and Dexterity -- ditto!), your choices look pretty smart. Maybe I should pick my own Torment singleton Slith DT EW back up?

 

...nahh, that would require having free time again.

[Trabber]

I first decided to skip using that, but after some calculations (oh they were hard ) I came to the result that even if I train in parry with a trainer, I have lost 26 skill points in dexterity and defence, which I might regret later on. Thanks for changing my mind

 

Here's the new, improved Bison

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5742/bison.jpg

 

Will train parry with trainer to 3, and to 8 with skill points with the exploit after that, so will reach 17 by the time I hit 56

 

Made some other changes, but will stay pretty much the same as I planned to do in post #1. Hardiness is now 7 tho

 

And on to the story:

 

 

Chapter 1 - a hero is born

 

Walking down the rooms, looting everything. I finally get to see the first NPC, Sergeant Nichol. well he tells me to kill some rats, giving no help at all, good I looted his place. Afterwards I sneakily check his desk and oh the joy when I find some bandages.

 

Well off I go to the south. I reach what I think is a dead end, and sence something coming. I eye the room for any good corners to cut down the enemy numbers, he did say rats after all not a rat. When I think I've found it i start walking to see the last bits of shadow, and instantly get ambushed. I run around the most south rat, into the hole in the wall, and smack him with both my swords for a good portion of his health. I kill him before he he hits me, just before being attacked by the next rats.

 

With a few dead rats on the floor, this green rat charges me. I still feel confident, when he reaches me. I decide to focus on the boss rat, and I start seeing how cruel the torment world is anyways, after a good portion of my energy drained, I finally defeat him, only to be attacked by another of his minions.

 

 

With the last rat dead, I still have all my potions and the bandages left, with just 26 health and no energy to heal myself. After saving my game for the first time I report to Nichol and after he heals me I get sent upstairs. There a whole bunch of things happen, and after killing this drug addict, I return to Nichol once again.

 

 

That's all for now.

 

[Mea Tulpa]

Yeah, that's another option. What I meant was actually saving up skill points -later- in the game to use the buy-unbuy exploit. Your way you miss out on training in Parry, but you get to start out with tons of Parry which is very helpful.

 

Dex and Defense help you dodge, but on Torment hit rates quickly get high enough that you'll almost never dodge even with high Dex and Defense.

[Trabber]

Ye, I actually did that but cba to rewrite the story with exact numbers, he just killed the rats too without using items. The link in my previous post is what he is now... I'm just a bit tired so this got messy, but I guess it's fine now

[Pharm Phresh]

I think people may be underselling the usefulness of dodge in Torment. I have a similar singleton going right now, a Nephil who had a similar build to the first one you posted. I've just got out of the demo area, and it is tough, but I've found that with a pretty minimal investment of points dodge becomes pretty reliable. I have parry too, which is the one I intend to keep increasing, but I dodge a lot more. Also my character has only 60 hp so I desperately need to avoid damage.

 

Maybe this will change the further on I go.

[Student of Trinity]

That's the consensus — that dodge can work okay in the early game, but it becomes completely impossible to make dodge work on Torment, not too long after the demo area.

[Mea Tulpa]

Yeah. Enemy hit rate increases steadily with enemy level, as well as with any skill bonuses they get, and the rate at which it increases is dramtically faster than the rate at which you can pump your dodge skills, which both start costing more to increase, AND start giving the 5% bonus only every other point after 10, every third point after 20, etc. It just isn't doable.

[Jerakeen]

Originally Posted By: Trabber

...might invest in luck if I feel like it.

Do it. Luck is better than Hardiness, and pretty cheap to start with.

[Mea Tulpa]

Luck and Hardiness are both quite useful. Luck is especially nice early when dodging is sometimes possible and when hitting may be difficult on Torment (both of those circumstances change quickly).

[Zummi]

If you're really up to it, you can manage to cap Parry without putting points in it. Depending on your item choices and tenacity, you can get 17 Parry @ 56.

 

Don't trust dodging. It will betray you and laugh at you.

 

The end-combat trick is useful when you need to heal but cant spend a turn doing it.