Together RPG - Might & Magic III - 6/1-8/1

[Ack]

In bashing down a wall, I ended up in a scuffle with a couple of Moose Rats and...PARTY WIPE!

That's what you get for not putting EX in your team.

It was between you and noise, chief, and I much prefer making fun of noise. Plus, nobody really got the crusty old guy look down the way I wanted it.

[Exhuminator]

crusty old guy look battle worn wizened sage

[MrPopo]

I suppose I should include vital information on how party deaths work.

When someone loses all their health their health bar will turn blue and their portrait's eyes will close. Their status screen will show their health is some negative number and their status is unconscious. To get them out of this state you just need to raise their health above zero. You can do this with healing spells, the temple, or simply resting.

When someone has dropped too far into the negative their portrait will be replaced with a tombstone. This is actually dead. There are two ways to bring a character out of this state. One is high level magic that might fail. The other is to visit the temple. The temple revive isn't too bad at the early levels; it's some function of your character level that grows in a polynomial, so until you start to get into the 10's the price is affordable.

If you fail to revive someone using the aforementioned high level magic or fall victim to a few vicious traps your portrait is instead replaced with a skull. This is the eradicated state, which can only be cured with even more high level magic with a lot of side effects or a temple visit. At this point you should just visit the temple, as you should have progressed high enough to be able to afford it and it's the safest option.

[Ack]

Yeah, I have figured out the color combination under the character portrait, so whenever I have someone slip into the blue, my cleric and ranger immediately turn to healing. With my sorceress, I usually have her attack with magic against approaching enemies and then swap her to defense once in melee range. That may change later, but for now it's helped improve her survivability a tad.

Question time: do dead characters still receive experience? I think I noticed one of my team did after getting wiped out.

[MrPopo]

Yes they do; I've currently got one NPC hireling that I'm using as a storage mule for all my key items and I end up rezzing her if I'm already visiting the temple for other services and then leveling her if that town visit also includes a visit to the trainer, and she's gone up several levels from when I first got her. They might not get fight experience but they definitely get quest experience and that will be the majority of your exp rewards.

[Ack]

Sweet deal. The more I learn about this game, the more I want to play it. I also figure it's probably front heavy with the difficulty because it's just so much information at once, but once I have a few levels under my belt, I'll be able to handle things a bit better.

[MrPopo]

That's basically what I've encountered. I've reached a point where I am now able to do one area, which then gives me enough new gear/quest experience to rank me up to do the next area. I did get cocky last night, though, and didn't heal up after a difficult encounter (that you have to trigger) and then got trashed in a second one of those encounters.

[MrPopo]

Another pro-tip: donate to the temple at early levels. After between 1 and 10 donations (depending on the day of the week) you will get four buff spells with level equal to the number of times you donated. These buffs increase your AC by 1, increase your damage per hit by 1, decrease your damage per hit by 1, and increase your elemental resistance by 1 for every level of the buff. So if you had to donate 5 times to get the buff then your AC is +5, damage +5, damage reduced by 5 (elemental resistance doesn't matter much early game). This ends up being the equivalent of a few levels in the early game. You do have to get it cast separately on each character, though, and it only lasts until sunrise (so don't get it at night).

[MrPopo]

Over the past couple days I've been flexing my newfound muscle. I've gone ahead and cleared nearly the entire overworld; the piece that is missing is the Isle of Fire because it does significant damage per step and you can't mountaineer over the volcanos, so it's a bit mazelike and ultimately a major chore to map out. I did knock out two of the monster lairs, so I know I'll come back at some point and finish the job.

Everyone now has an Obsidian weapon of some kind, and most have Obsidian body armor and a few pieces of Obsidian or gem accessories. More importantly, I've rediscovered how awesome Heroism is. If I want it on my full party I'll need to use both my Paladin and my Cleric hireling, and the latter isn't as high level so the bonus won't be as good. So I can do my four lowest aim members with the Paladin and the two high aim characters with the Cleric. But it's totally worth it, because of how the formulas end up working out. Heroism gives a flat +1% chance to hit per caster level. It appears that the to hit formula is calculated by doing some operation with my level and my aim vs. the enemy AC to generate a to hit number, but then Heroism applies after that. I've been fighting several high level enemies that spawn after I get some high level treasure on the world map, and I've seen that if I get a temporary level boost I suddenly can him them far more reliably, and similarly if I use Heroism I can hit them reliably. My high aim characters are in the 90s while my low aim characters are in the 40s; I saw that the low aims with Heroism were hitting when the high aims with no Heroism were missing.

I've discovered more clues as to the main quest. I need to collect a bunch of key items (I already have most of them) and then penetrate a dungeon on the Isle of Fire. So I have a couple more dungeons to go to get the final key items I need. One of those dungeons also has something special in it; the clues were vague as to what exactly that was.

At this rate I think I can wrap things up either tomorrow or Thursday (Wednesday is Magic night).

[Ack]

Wow, you blazed through this. I'm just getting started.

Last night I also played a bit. I cleared out most of the town of Fountain Head save for a single room filled with tons of monsters. With the experience I gained, nearly everyone leveled up save for the slow-leveling Sorceress(Key) and Ranger(Noise...figures). I also picked up another bow for my Barbarian and then pushed out of the town again into the Hidden Valley to begin slaughtering the hordes of goblins I encountered there. I burned out their wagon, went back for more levels, and then returned to seek out the Orc Warriors' wagon. With those two enemy spawners taken care of, I explored the Hidden Valley area as much as I could(with limits due to lack of certain skills) before finally heading back into Fountain Head to level and heal up accordingly.

Once I was prepped, I then pushed into the dungeon beneath the town and cleared it out. First of all, traps suck. Second of all, traps really suck. I persevered, but it took a few times of heading in, exploring an area, and then returning to heal and level as necessary. I snagged some stat upgrades and a few new skills among my characters and then made my way to the end, where I encountered my first boss.

My first boss fight went something like this: Ack attacks, Popo attacks, Fastbilly attacks, Noise attacks(because he used all of his healing to prep my party for the fight), Bone heals frantically, and Key unleashes magical doom. I'm not sure I was really ready for this fight, because it ended with only Ack, Popo, and Fastbilly still conscious, and Fastbilly was in the red. But I did it, and then I made my way back and reaped the benefits of my rewards.

Now I'm beginning to explore the area around Castle Whiteshield, which I cannot enter due to lacking the Crusader skill. I'll make a note to come back once I have it. It's also time to seek out those other movement skills so I can explore the waters, dense forests, and mountains of this land.

So, question time for Popo:

1) Where can I get Pathfinder, Swimming, and Mountaineer?

2) Are there enemies in the ocean?