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Pure vs mixed stats


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I like to use pure stats, meaning my mage has only mage spells, and my priest only has priest spells.

My question is how much should my basic stats go, like for my warrior, should i get 10 on STR, DEX, and END, or should i get 17 on them.

About magic, should my priest have some mage spells, and my warriors some priest spells?, or how big should my the dex of my warrior be?, is it any good to get 20 dex?

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Melee warriors don't really need Dexterity at all if they're not going to be using bows. Put at least 75% of their stat points in Strength and the rest in Endurance. Mages and priests can run a similar stat spread but with Intelligence instead of Strength, and archers should do the same but with Dexterity.

 

A priest doesn't need mage spells: in fact, they can be a liability, since you'll have to take off bulky armour to cast them. A few levels of priest spells on a mage or warrior for emergency healing and curing can be good, though -- enough Priest Spells to cast Unshackle Mind is probably enough, but you can go for Mass Curing if you're feeling ambitious. It's especially convenient for warriors, since it also unlocks Arcane Lore for the added mental resistance.

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Each character should basically keep raising its core offensive stat to the max. INT for casters, DEX for missile specialists, STR for fighters. You can put a couple of points into END if you keep getting killed, but with every fourth level-up you're going to get a free point in it anyway.

 

As for going multi-classed, that's purely a matter of preference. It's considered sub-optimal, but it certainly can be done. Keep in mind that you will pretty much have a total of 63 skill points for each character, unless you grind for levels.

Edited by Jerakeen
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Each character should basically keep raising its core offensive stat to the max. INT for casters, DEX for missile specialists, STR for fighters. You can put a couple of points into END if you keep getting killed, but with every fourth level-up you're going to get a free point in it anyway.

 

As for going multi-classed, that's purely a matter of preference. It's considered sub-optimal, but it certainly can be done. Keep in mind that you will pretty much have a total of 63 skill points for each character, unless you grind for levels.

So there is no point in raising dex for a warrior thats not using bows?

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So there is no point in raising dex for a warrior thats not using bows?

Dexterity gives you dodging chance and bonus to hit and damage for Missile weapons, so even if you are not using bows you will have a a boost to dodging some attack types but with the low amount of dexterity a melee warrior will be able to have(since he needs a lot of strength and some endurance) that effect will be negligible and yeah basically pointless.

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If you are using a pure archer, you can afford to spend far more on Dexterity compared to Endurance than a melee fighter would, simply because Dexterity doubles as a defensive skill--it makes you harder to hit. You aren't getting hit as often, so you only need enough Endurance to avoid getting one hit KOed when you ARE hit. This is important since you will have a lower damage output than fighters in the first place, so extra Dexterity means extra damage.

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If you are using a pure archer, you can afford to spend far more on Dexterity compared to Endurance than a melee fighter would, simply because Dexterity doubles as a defensive skill--it makes you harder to hit. You aren't getting hit as often, so you only need enough Endurance to avoid getting one hit KOed when you ARE hit. This is important since you will have a lower damage output than fighters in the first place, so extra Dexterity means extra damage.

 

Dexterity doesn't work against cold or acid attacks, though, so if you skimp on Endurance you'll be very vulnerable to those.

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Each character should basically keep raising its core offensive stat to the max. INT for casters, DEX for missile specialists, STR for fighters. You can put a couple of points into END if you keep getting killed, but with every fourth level-up you're going to get a free point in it anyway.

 

As for going multi-classed, that's purely a matter of preference. It's considered sub-optimal, but it certainly can be done. Keep in mind that you will pretty much have a total of 63 skill points for each character, unless you grind for levels.

 

This isn't always the case. I am currently running a fighter that specializes in endurance once every 3 lvls and he is still stronger than my all out strength fighter of previous walkthrough. The reason comes down to if you are putting points into lethal blow. If you spend points on everything in melee tree except lethal blow, you will no doubt be weaker than the fighter that has more strength.

 

However, if an endurance based fighter was to spend points and max out lethal blow, he will be stronger than the regular strength fighter that doesn't. The reason why is that regardless of how much damage you deal, lethal blow makes each of your attacks that hits with it, enormously powerful regardless of how much strength you have. And because you have more health, you can last longer to gain more critical hits.

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if mage should have priest skills and vice versa depends what priest or mage does, if he/she is mostly healer and buffer then no need for mage skills and if mage is damagedealer then no need for priest skills, my opinion is that its good to have 2 fighting casters and 2 healers since if priest gets charmed/terrorized/etc then no healing until whatever is affecting priest is over and by then it might be too late.

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This isn't always the case. I am currently running a fighter that specializes in endurance once every 3 lvls and he is still stronger than my all out strength fighter of previous walkthrough. The reason comes down to if you are putting points into lethal blow. If you spend points on everything in melee tree except lethal blow, you will no doubt be weaker than the fighter that has more strength.

 

However, if an endurance based fighter was to spend points and max out lethal blow, he will be stronger than the regular strength fighter that doesn't. The reason why is that regardless of how much damage you deal, lethal blow makes each of your attacks that hits with it, enormously powerful regardless of how much strength you have. And because you have more health, you can last longer to gain more critical hits.

 

Right, but there's nothing to stop you from maxing out both Strength and Lethal Blow. My point was that it is not necessary to use more than a couple of skill points on Endurance. You can, of course. It's been demonstrated that you can beat the game with any number of builds, which is a good thing.

 

Looking at my party from my last Torment run, I see that my casters took *2 points each in END, and my warrior and archer used *3 skill points and a couple of traits each towards it.

 

 

*Edit: I'm actually not sure that's right—they're level 34 and I suspect that one of those ranks was from a level-up.

Edited by Jerakeen
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I found that my previous fighter who was an all out strength fiend, wasn't that much more powerful than the other fighter in my party, he just occasionally did some wicked high damage hits and usually out damaged the other guy. It still wasn't worth it though as he didn't have a high health stat.

 

I think that if you were to only place 3 points into endurance for a single fighter, thats the extreme but you can make up for it with endurance traits. You should at least place a 2-3 points into endurance and make up for it with high hardiness/resistance other stuff that makes him immune/nearly immune to damage.

 

I guess it comes down to how you want to role-play your character.

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I have always liked adding at least a bit of mage to my priests and vice versa, and this Avernum is no exception. For mages it's an obvious win: more healing is a huge advantage when you need it. For priests you give up armor or spend traits to raise your armor penalty cap, but I think it's still worthwhile to give your priests a few more buff and damage options. Their other stats have great synergy and it's more efficient to make a priest into a blaster mage than try to get your priest halfway competent on the front lines.

 

—Alorael, who thinks you can get by with many sub-optimal builds. In fact, if you're not playing on torment you can get by with severely sub-optimal builds. More strength is probably more optimal than more endurance, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's more fun to play, and maximizing fun is much better than maximizing power. Utilitarianism!

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On torment difficulty I actually prefer to do a bit higher investment in endurance, because of the hidden 30% resistance penalty - it means your resistance is effectively capped at 60% rather than 90% on torment. Having more endurance (and thus more hit points) helps here, since the penalty means you will be taking damage (except maybe for high-dodge rate characters like archers - but they will still take cold damage as noted above). I typically go for about 25% endurance-75% primary attack stat for non-tanks, and 33% endurance-66% primary attack stat for tanks.

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There's no telling yet if it will be successful, but if my no-spell runthrough on hard mode ends up being possible, you can probably beat the game with just about anything.

 

prev. games have been beaten with 4 fighters and 4 casters so pretty much with everything possible (doubt with archers party since it takes quite a while until gets good bows).

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  • 4 weeks later...

If you don't want to go crazy and make a mindless brute with pure strength but you don't want to make a weak character then why not do something in between. Its much more realistic to go with a character that is realistic than someone that is just not. Its the same reason I cant read anymore drizzt books. The character and fight scenes don't fit common sense and the character is completely ridiculous. Most of the fighters me and everyone on these forums made in Avernum are faster, tougher and more deadly than little elfy.

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