Started Tactician mode yesterday with my brother. I went for a knight-type of character, without any points in leadership, with the Lonewolf-talent.
He went for a wizard with no wands and his spells were flare, boulderbash (?) and Oath of Desecration.
We've both played the original game and thought that Tactician would suit our needs perfectly and so far, the difficulty level is exactly what it seems like. The first fight against the 5 skeletons was a close one, but we managed to do that simply by playing like someone who has touched a game before this one.
This game, this difficulty mode, requires you to think quite a bit, it doesn't allow you to just "Yea, I'll just go there and whack him", but it doesn't require min/maxing at all. And blacksmithing/crafting isn't as needed as people make it to be. You can play the game just fine without putting any points in those. There are plenty of items that give blacksmithing and/or crafting, you need to utilize those. Only thing that I've crafted so far are a few potions and special arrows, but those things only need 1 or 2 points.
Tactician mode is hard, it's unforgiving and it requires you to constantly watch out for the environment. There are oil barrels, ooze barrels, water puddles, etc..., along the way that you have to utilize to win the fight. The game may be hard, but it does not require you to do anything that you don't want to. You can complete the game by using two rogues, it's just going to be harder. But like I said; you can manage if you've ever played anything like this game before. Everyone knows that a good balanced party will be a lot better.
But, still, it's up to you how to play the game. There are multiple ways to get that much wanted CC. Grenades, scrolls, arrows, skills, so no character is gimped to the point of no return. P
Exactly this - my wife and me played the not enhanced edition and we think the difficulty of tactician mode is right where it needs to be. You won't need to min/max your stats but you will have to pick your fights carefully and prepare before starting it. Knowing your enemies weaknesses, spells and elemental type makes battles a lot easier. Don't forget to use anything you can see to your advantage. For example hiding your mage behind a barrel to block a ranged shot or using water to fight off exploding and burning enemies. (for example those suicide units won't explode while they are wet) And don't forget you can use items and scrolls in battles, not just weapons and spells.
Some basics should still be clear though! If your group doesn't have anyone who can soak some damage you will have a really hard time fighting high HP monsters who can get into closecombat range before you kill them. In our Enhanced Edition tactical run my wife played a ranger type character with many special arrows and a handful of scoundral skills to get out of danger quickly. I played a fire/earth mage to buff the party and creating combos for the special ranger arrows. We used the warrior NPC and the scoundrel NPC in our party. We didn't min max our stats, but you obviously need to consider that you are playing on a really hard difficulty. You can't just put 10 intelligence into your warrior just for fun. But there is enough room to get things like talking to animals, some bartering or other not combat related additions. In some fights we had to try out half a dozen strategies before one of them finally worked. But that's what a hard mode is good for. A real challenge. Minmaxing might have made the midgame easier but if you pay attention you will find out many ways to defeat opponents without actually fighting them and you will grow strong enough eventually to take on the really tough guys without perfectly skilling your characters. I doubt you can reach a point where you can get stuck if you have a savegame before such battles at hand. Maybe your party can't fight this group yet but what if you go back to the first town and grab a scroll of x/y/z ? What if you change your weapons elemental stats by crafting? What if you change your NPC followers because they might be the weakest link in your party? You have a lot of options and almost every quest has a different way of doing it. (In the Enhanced Edition there are even more quest options. We encountered one quest which was in the original which already had 2 different outcomes and ways to win it and now it has one additional path you can follow instead - if you have a specific item with you and talked to some specific people who will do the quest for you if you give them that item)
One last thing: The skeletons at the start might be really hard for you with specific character combinations. Especially because skeletons have some natural strengths/weaknesses and some starting character weapons deal 50% of damage against them. This will change later on when there are many different types of enemies. Just don't forget that every unit has a weakness (piercing damage, an element, etc.) and some strength. (immune to element x, gets healed from y, receives half damage from z) Due to that the first battle can be really hard if your characters both only have weapons and spells which deal low damage against skeletons. They are in no way impossible to win though, don't forget you can find some stuff on the beach. You can use some of it to your advantage if you place it before the fight starts.
