Might vs. Magic

[Holywhippet]

Is it just the way I have my party set up or is there a distinct bias towards might being more useful for causing damage than magic? My party consists of a bishop, a gadgeteer, a ninja, a samurai, a fighter and a ranger. My gadgeteer gets the occasional really high damage hit using something like the microwave gun. He also gets some fairly good damage on average using the jackhammer or port-o-potty. My bishop gets some fairly good damage on occasion when she targets the elemental weakness of an enemy. All up though, they pale in comparison to my fighter, ninja and samurai. The first two in particular can unleash huge damage on an enemy in a couple of hits.

Unless I'm facing a fairly weak enemy I just stick to using magic for defense and enhancing now. When facing magic using enemies it seems to be somewhat of a waste of time using offensive spells as between their defensive spells and spells like eye for an eye it's often a waste of time.

[Loudhy]

Hi Holywhippet,

that's right. I discovered the same effect. My usual party was Lord, Fighter, Bard, Gadgeteer, Alchemist and Bishop.
Later in the game you need more protective than offensive magic and you need more muscles to kill enemies. Therefore, in addition, I trained my all my party members well with ranged combat, so my magicians could also do much damage with wristrocket or doubleshot sling and medusa stones. Different to you my Gadgy mostly fights with his omnigun , because the Omnigun later shoots highlevel arrows and quarrels twice. The microwave gun needs much more stamina so I don't use it often .
But there are combats, where it can be useful to use offensive magic . Even with high magic-resistance, spells like noxious fumes for me sometimes worked in a way. In my games I had combats, where a nauseated geomancer, who skipped one turn ,really made the difference.

Greetings
[img]graemlins/monster5.gif[/img]

[dplax]

I found that although my tanks have much more kills during the mid game in the later game the casters, especially the mage start catching up (especially thanks to the water spells in the rapax areas and the IMO much underestimated kill all air spell), and by the end of the game I found that in my parties casters and fighters had nearly the same amount of kills in the end game, and about the same damage output also.

[Deejax]

I think it depends a bit on your play style. I like the fact that spells you cast on your characters/party alway work. If you cast noxious fumes there is no way of knowing whether all, some, or no enemies are nauseated. That makes for difficult planning. And I like to plan things.

Give me a roleplaying game over a shooter anyday.

[ 12-01-2003, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: Deejax ]

[Nightowl2]

There is definitely a bias towards the physical in this game. No matter what, all foes are susceptible to physical damage. The same is not true of magic; some monsters have amazingly high resistance, and even mediocre resistance is often good enough to reduce or negate damage.

Offensive magic is basically an adjunct more than a means of removing enemies. As Deejax noted, it's not always certain how well, or even if, your magic will work.

Nightowl2

[Slag]

At the high end though, instant mass death magic can be pretty useful. When you have 3 guys spouting off quicksand/ Negat-air/ death wish, you can take out a HUGE portion of the opposing force in the first round, making a lot less work for the melees. Also, very important, saving ammo. The sheer weight of the ammunition you have to carry around made me rethink a few parties, and think of lots of new ways to conserve it.

personally, i'm more of a melee'r than a magic'er, but i've played all-magic parties (four pures plus bard) and found them to be quite effective.

to be effective at magic late in the game, you simply MUST have powercast at a high level. otherwise, the magic resistances cripple you.

similarly, if you dont build up strength, your meleers will knock themselves unconscious before they take down the likes of juggernauts and hogars during the early/mid game.

the game is superbly balanced, in this respect, relative to other games.

[Ziggurat]

It's mainly play style, IMO. Some complain that the magic doesn't far enough. But you have to use it constantly to make it powerful. Can't just level up and add points to make it work well. There have been some here who have used all magic parties (IW Worrell or Wereboar, perhaps?) and got very good at it. I'm using it more now but still melee in general (except current game). The later Mage spells are not as good as the Alchemists for offense, but are useful earlier. Of course, later you see more fire resistance in the critters. As a solo Faerie Ninja with yucky weapons in the latest game, I have been counting more on magic, stealth, and running. I use melee when I have to, but not if I'm boxed in by many opponents..

Edit: fixed a few things

[ 12-01-2003, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Ziggurat ]

[Holywhippet]

I suppose that having a bishop as my main spellcaster slowed my progress a bit on the magic user front. For most magic users you need to concentrate on either intelligence or piety. A bishop needs them both and you need to spend some points on speed and vitality to make sure they get decent initiative and survive a few hits.

The only other hindrance I've found to being a bard is too many spells. Even without casting offensive spells I have bless, superman, body of stone, razor cloak, haste etc. which I may wish to cast during combat.

The only thing worse than the ammunition problem is the departing character problem. They leave almost all of their equipment with you which generally overloads you.

[Wild Rose]

At lvl 18-20 when a fight starts my bard is usually doing something like Horn of Jerico for Armourmelt, the Bis throws Eye-for-eye as the Mage does Element Shield, the Valk does the Soulshield while the Ranger chucks a Noxious Fumes to make a couple of opponets sick (love this one, good hits and lasting results), and depending on the range the Fighter may do Dragon Breath. The second round generally includes a few things like Toxic Cloud, Draining Cloud, Acid Bomb, Firestorm (depending on resistances) as the Valk is doing Superman on the Fighter and herself and maybe the Bard.

While the Fighter might get the most Kills, the fact that most of the opponents who get within range are sometimes down to half their origional hit points makes life much easier [img]smile.gif[/img] .