Just a few extra questions :0

[darnapkin]

First off thanks to everyone on my other post for the great ideas and friendly advice.

I have never beat wizardy 8, but have played about 6 parties enough to find out I would rather play with just 4 characters. I don't do iron man, but I do play on hard. I know an okay amount about the game, but I do have a few questions, and here they are.

My next party will be all pure casters which at some point I will turn them all into hybrids if I choice to do this.

What is a good lvl to switch them to hybrids?

Being weak casters should I do one lvl of rogue and train stealth?

Besides puting points into INT, what other 2 stats should I max out first to try and stay alive longer < I know I will have to have the base stats to switch to a hybrid> ?

I've read on here to save some spell "pickings" and just buy alot of books so that later down the road you can get all the very powerful spells with your saved up points. < did I understand that right? >


I've never played a full caster party and would like any tips if anyone has them, i foresee trouble down the road, just trying to prepare alot

Thanks for taking the time to read this

[Random Passerby]

Hmm. As far as party size goes, you may want to reconsider; for mostly melee-oriented characters, 6 characters is indeed too much, but when it comes to magic more is most always better. Still, 4 is quite doable and is probably the better choice if you're doing the hybrid thing instead of staying as straight casters.

As for switching to hybrid... it depends. If you want to switch without taking a very significant hit to your casting ability, you have to wait until you're well into the 20s (although priests can generally get by with switching sooner). On the other hand, in a party of 4 you may be relying more on melee power than a 6-caster party would, so you may want to switch early (level 9 if you want to get most of the buffs covered, level 12 if you want portals) and focus on being powercasting hybrids for most of the game.

Not sure about stealth training. Again, my experience is with 6+ caster groups, which generally do fine without it. But taking a 4-man group means more time spent in melee, fewer party members to take damage, and more spare experience levels to go around. So... I'd probably say yes.

I'm partial to INT/SEN/SPD for casters (in order to boost initiative as much as possible), but again a 4-caster-to-hybrid group means more melee time than a 6-caster group. 4-man groups are not my area of expertise, but I would probably say just go for intelligence and speed, and then just build them as you would any other hybrid. You may find it worthwhile to make a designated tank, though. In larger caster parties I usually drag around a dracon priest with a VIT/PIE/STR build to get the most use out of their breath attack, but this is probably not such a good idea if it's going to be your only priest caster. If you're doing one of each of the four specialist spellcasters I would recommend a mixed vitality/speed approach for a priest tank, but if you're throwing in a bishop too you could do an all-out tank priest and an all-out speed bishop. Priest, bishop (staff, switch to monk), mage, alchemist would be a good lineup for this; you could also do bishop (maces, switch to lord), bishop (staff, switch to monk), mage, alchemist if you wanted all-out casting power, but then you would really be vulnerable.

Saving spell picks is mostly something for bishops. For other spellcasters you do want to save some picks but it's more of a short-term thing; you want to save up between levels, soavoid spending spell picks except when you reach a new spell level and you can fill up your spellbook by level 18. But if bishops want to get all the level 6 and 7 spells (or even most of them) at a reasonable level, you have to save as many lower-level spell picks as possible so you can use all of them on level 6 and 7.

[Scatter]

Int is overrated for a lot of characters. A Bishop, Alchemy-caster, or Wizardry-caster can benifit muchly from Powercast, whereas Divinity and Psionics don't seem to have the same increase in effectiveness. Speed is only important for one character, and that'll be the one who can cast Haste (whether a spell, instrument, or ankh) Nobody else really needs more than around 70.

Stealth becomes more and more important as your party gets smaller.

A lot dependes on your capacity for repetition training. Stealth is easy--once your AC is around 10 the Seekers won't hit you very often if you stay at the edge of Thrown range; then you can even sleep and they'll hit 100 overnight unless something odd happens. For magic training, though, you have to repeat activities many times to drive your skills up.

To allay the drop in your magical ability when you switch, it's good to have your Realm skills as high as you can stand to get them.

My favorite party of four were all hybrids, but they all had slightly different developments. The Ninja entered the game as an Alchemist, but fully qualified to switch on the first level-up, and did so. This way, i got a lot more Dex to start with, and the magic development was almost "normal" for a hybrid.

The Samurai was Mage for only 5 levels, acquiring Missile Shield and Fireball, and Knock-Knock to practise Earth, before switching. This way she could resume increasing magic skills by L11, when the levels are still relatively cheap.

The Lord stayed Lord the whole time, with the exception of L5 as a Rogue for Stealth;

the Monk didn't even have a Rogue level (duh).

I have experimented a lot with various class-changes, and that was the most effective setup for four hybrids.

Other nice ones have been in solos or duos, where the XP come twice as fast, and you can play around with multiple switches.

[darnapkin]

hummm,, you have some good points,, what if I just had all 4 hybrids and played them mostly as casters?

[Scatter]

That can work pretty well. A mix works, too; i had the Sam and Ninja develop Powercast in that group, casting more than fighting. The Lord got Powerstrike; the Monk, Snakespeed, and they fought more than casting.