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#251057 24/06/04 04:26 AM
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Disclaimer: I looked back through about 15 pages of posts and did a forum search on the subject and I realize there is no right/best way to develop the two characters.

I'm looking for thoughts on skillpoint placement and skill/weapon choices. I've played through Act1 and can't decide which way to go development-wise. The DK is an obvious choice for a melee type so a mage or archer seems a good choice for the hero. I love to hack though and two fighters sounds fun also. Feeling undecisive so help a brother out with some opinions.


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2 warriors is easiest, thats why loads of people pick them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
I also picked 2 warriors to play with on my 1st run, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" /> is more fun to be honest <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

//Inel.


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As you say, lots of possibilities.

I started out with the DK as a warrior and my guy as a mage. This didn't work too well, for the usual reasons - starting mages are weak, they run out of attacking juice quickly and are fairly easy to kill.

I couldn't face re-doing the rather boring act1, so I just adapted him as I went along. He quickly became a good all-rounder who still had some Zap capability.

I’ve found being able to change the skills for a bit of gold to be a fun feature which allows for some experimenting, and even fairly major switching, at any stage of the game. ( Please keep Larian. ). <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

For a while I ran with two ranged guys – both with good crossbows – and we were wiping out most enemies before they got much of a chance to hit us with much damage. Both characters were pretty equal so I was also able to swap the lead regularly and give the wounded one the chance to stay back a bit and heal while the other took the hits. However, arrow finding and selection started to become a major obsession, and the battles lacked a bit of variety. So I switched back to having my guy swinging a sword up front and the DK doing major damage from behind with his excellent crossbow and (now) huge arsenal of different arrows.

The main guy still has mage capability with a single offensive spell at L5. It works a treat to be able to combine the slashing with a few quick zaps of something.

Some of the mages and shadow guys can really run a melee fighter round a dungeon once you lock onto them so it’s particularly satisfying to let them run for a while, knowing that in a few seconds… ZAP…. I’ll fry them from a distance with a spell. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />

I'm enjoying having the flexibility of mage, warrior and ranged attacks all in one party. Both guys can switch roles a bit if needed. It not only allows us to face different enemies in different ways but it stops the fights getting monotonous and too much the same each time. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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I like two characters that can melee but there are spots after act 1 where magic can come in handy.

You might consider keeping strength down (with sharpened weapons as currently configured agility is a more important attribute in any case) and raising agility, constitution and some intelligence. And learning the shaman hammer spell in act 2.

That one spell sufficies for a battlemage (though lightning storm isn't a BAD thing to have) so you can put most of your points in melee skills. A low strength weapon with very high sharpen will do almost as much damage as a high strength two handed weapon with low sharpen. Maybe more damage. And it is way faster. Speed kills <smile>.


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Thanks. This is exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. I hate the idea of having to play a game twice just to check out skill trees I didn't have points to invest in. I think the ability to unlearn skills is an idea whose time has come. Diablo is the only game I've ever played multiple times with different characters. Most games if I get the urge to play again I find myself drawn to the same character type I used the first time.
I love to have it all, prefering a solid ranged character who doesn't suck at melee and has a few handy spells. Greedy I guess.

That's good info on the sharpen aspect as well. I allways lean toward smaller faster swords in my games. Love one handers and a sheild.

Getting a sudden urge to play BD now. Keep 'em coming and thanks again.
-Fuzzy


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Let's see... I haven't finished the game yet, but I'm at level 30 in the early stages of Act IV, and I've managed not to get killed in a long while, so I guess I'm doing something right. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> My characters are both fighters. My DK has a big two-handed sword, and skills for that, and goes around slashing things; my hero is an archer, and an excellent one, with skills for that, and goes around shooting things with splitting arrows almost exclusively. (Due to a nice little bug, I think, which I don't mind exploiting, they sometimes take on the characteristics of the arrow in my second slot: poison. Handy, that, shooting poisoned arrows in seven directions at once.)

My hero's stats are all much higher than my DKs, which has got to be because of all the equipment a hero can wear that a DK can't. I don't mind. If the DK's going to be so dang stubborn about his stuff, then let him be his own problem. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

My skillpoints for my two characters are almost entirely sunk into their respective weapon abilities, in one way or another. My hero has bow skills, then convert arrow (splitting arrow), then arrow proficiency (splitting arrow). She also has three or four points of detect traps, because someone always should I think -- you never know when that one will come in useful. My DK's points are mostly in two-handed slashing (and for the moment, while he's building up strength to use a killer sword I've got in the inventory, he's actually using a one-handed sword, and the lack of skills really shows), and then I've also got him a couple levels of identify and a few levels of identify creature. A lot of people prefer to go without those but I'm happier knowing to leave loot or bring it up front, before I head off to a merchant.

I get the feeling my answer was longer than is strictly necessary... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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I made my hero a warrior, since you have more control over what items he can equip;thus, making him a far better tank than the DK. The DK makes a good wizard/archer. Initially, I made both of them warriors, and then switched the DK to an archer halfway through act I. I didn't want all those arrows in the citadel to go to waste. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> Besides, it's fun to shoot human enemies with poison arrows, and watch them throw up instead of attacking you. If you make someone a wizard, the spells that are available early in the game are kinda lame. You might even be tempted to abandon the wizard idea. However, if you stick with a wizard, there's some very nice spells to learn later.

It's your game, so have fun with it, and to each their own.


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I started out with my hero as a melee fighter and the DK as a mage. Because the mage starts out so wussy, I gave him a bow and arrows and had him stand in back until he had enough points that I could put into mage spells that would start making him a little more useful. I also gave him a few points in trap detection and removal. But, I'm about halfway through chapter 2 and I've found very few situations where a mage is necessary. It is fun to see the spells, though. That hammer spell is awesome and lightning works pretty well for multiple enemies. My hero has only 1 point in 2 handed slashing and 2 handed crushing, but multiple points in accuracy on both so that I connect almost all the time I swing. One point in the sharpen skill does wonders also. So, I guess what I've ended up with is a super tank and mage/survivor/arrow shooter and that's been working very well for me so far.

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I don't have fun playing anything over a second time probably because I am more interested in the story and quests. I also start or migrate to melee fighting exclusively and so far BD is very simple (I hate strategy) to play with melee fighters. I am starting Act IV now and haven't bought _anything_ from the vendors--I use the best equipment I can find and pay no specific attention to what gems or crystals I'm using and sell off all the excess. I spend all my gold on buy all the training for so many skills I won't ever use in the game. I've used the summoning dolls only for short specific tasks and on occasion as a mule and have never needed more then just the skeleton. We run melee single with shield and the DK is two handed exclusively. I made some skill changs early on in Act II and it was nice to sell off the skills no longer needed so all the points could go to exactly what we needed. We only carry health potions--that is all we have ever needed--the rest of the rainbow just gets sold. We take very little damage with any single baddie so far. If there are three or four ganging up on us then and really only then we might use several potions (or die). You have to use stealth in one area (so far) but that is the one skill all characters are given. Maybe from a melee fighter point of view only or maybe not but the whole game would have been far more interesting and less boring and more challenging if the BattleFields didn't exist and going through each dungeon design once was quite enough for me. In fact, from Act III on I am ignoring BattleField Quests and Dungeons completely. The characters going into Act IV are level 27 with a Reputation of 91. The game right now is a love/hate situation where Larian has to come out with more patches to fix and polish off so many little things. Most disturbing have been the Quest Log problems and certain dialog added or changed where it is so obvious they could not get the same voice as the original--pitiful. It all looks typical of a company that bit off more then it could chew and kicked the game out the door as soon as they could--not that that is an uncommon problem with developers--in fact it is VERY common.

So that's about all I have to say about Character Development <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ROFL.gif" alt="" />


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Reasons to have an archer?

Obviously it's very handy to have one character who mostly keeps back and avoids taking damage, with a tank up front soaking up the blows. But I'd also assumed that archers were pretty versatile at attacking enemies with different weaknesses simply by changing arrows.

Most enemies have strong resistances to certain attacks, but are weak against others. For instance the Fire Elemental has 100 resistance to Fire and something like -90 (-87??) to Water.

I thought that this could make a fairly major difference, just by swapping arrows to suit the enemy.

However, although this makes for a nice Role Play element it doesn't seem to make all that much difference in practise (I'm hastily editing my post here after actually testing what I wrote before and finding it didn't really add up!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> )

I guess that the resistance only applies to the extra fire/poison/water damage (or whatever) that the arrow inflicts over and above the basic attack damage of the (cross)bow. In most cases, in standard form that's a pretty small figure compared to the base damage.

I just did ten or so test runs with just one character fighting a Fire Elemental with either fire or water arrows, and over a few tries it made almost no difference to how many hits it took to kill it. Disappointing really, and it makes me wonder why they choose such precise numbers (like -87) if it makes so little difference. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/question.gif" alt="" />

Last edited by Kris; 25/06/04 01:20 AM.
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well met! Kris.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

good points. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />


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Hi there mighty orc. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

Which points.. the ones I got right, or the ones that I stuffed up and had to quickly edit? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

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I also chose to play 2 warriors. In most games I go for the smaller faster swords with some shield skills, but this time I went for big 2-handed weapons. My hero using slashing weapons, and my DK using crushing. I have dumped all my skill points into enhancing those weapons with a few also going to armor defense. I must say with lot's of points in "critical" and "deathblow" it seems that one character or the other is delivering a critical hit or deathblow during each fight. That means most normal fights end in one blow. I am also putting exp. points into "speed" which makes you hit faster. If you are playing Warrior, don't waste any exp. points on int. You don't need to be smart to hack and slash.


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I also chose to play 2 warriors. In most games I go for the smaller faster swords with some shield skills, but this time I went for big 2-handed weapons. My hero using slashing weapons, and my DK using crushing. I have dumped all my skill points into enhancing those weapons with a few also going to armor defense. I must say with lot's of points in "critical" and "deathblow" it seems that one character or the other is delivering a critical hit or deathblow during each fight. That means most normal fights end in one blow. I am also putting exp. points into "speed" which makes you hit faster. If you are playing Warrior, don't waste any exp. points on int. You don't need to be smart to hack and slash.


I'm definatley wanting to go the pure fighter route with one of my guys(DK), but my hero, Starforce, is going to be where I experiment. Archery will be the main path. Some good points have been made on the subject and I love sniper types. After that I'm just gonna try different types of magic and auxillary skills to round him out and get the most out of situations.

Critical and Deathblow didn't look like they gave that decent a percentage boost per point invested. It's nice to hear they're worthwhile.



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