[NobleNick]

Originally posted by lost prophet: The thing i find most annoying is when i have no way at all to open a lock so i just have to deal with the fact that im missing out on all that awsome loot because im waiting for my fighters to dual. oh and disease traps *shudders*

~ Slight DE spoilers buried in the below ~

Your Bard should have the Knock spell available, which will get you into all those locked chests (and you *DO* want to get into them: there are lots of excellent items to be had in DE). As far as disease (and don't forget poison) traps... well, seeing as how you have no Cleric... you're screwed.

Seriously, if I were in your particular case, I would "hire" a multiclass Cleric/Thief (I'm pretty sure this is a legal combo) and spend some time camping in that first large open area near the entrance to DE3, to level her up to Cleric(6)/Thief(6). This takes 27.5K for the Cleric side, which is 55K XP for the character, which is 330K for a party of 6, which is 235 Cold Wights (on normal difficulty), which (since you average about 4.5 Wights per encounter) is almost exactly 50 encounters, which should take you about 70 minutes. This is not lost time, since over 83% of the gained XP is going into your DC characters. (Although it makes the party less efficient, I'd bring all 5 DC characters for the camping and leave the Bard home, since she doesn't need the extra XP.)

I just did a less ambitious leveling like this on DE3, 2 nights ago with a straight Thief, and it worked very well. With 5 Fighters armed with enchanted weapons (in which they've been stacking PP), you should be able to give 6 Wights a dirt nap in about 4 rounds, while only taking an average of 10 points total damage to the party per encounter. Mother Eugenia is just seconds away, at the end of DE2, if you need a break; but you should get in a full DE3 rest often enough to keep health up to a very comfortable level (well above 70%). Don't forget to save game every 7 fights or so.

Pump "Find Traps" and "Disarm/Unlock" (forgot that last skill name), exclusively, on the Thief side; and load up on cure disease and Slow/Cure Poison on the Cleric side. Your hireling will make DE5 much more bearable; and can be called in for future tough spots.

--------------------
What's a party,
without a song?
Bards ROCK!
Party On!!


[ 10-11-2005, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: NobleNick ]