I'm back with an update on my research 😄. On this post I will talk about 4 topics surrounding my Perfect Party theory:
1- The relation to the Cranley Huwbert books
2- The relation to weapon-dependent skills
3- Damage "balance"? (not really, don't take this one too seriously)
4- Roles that I give to each party member (only talking about roles inside a battle)
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1- The connection between my vision of the archetypal party composition and the Cranley Huwbert books
In my last post I said I was expecting to find 2 books with the title "Of Rangers" and "Of Wizards" in them, since I had already found Of Rogues and Of Warriors. They would be consolidating my theory that the 4 archetypal classes in this game are Warrior, Ranger, Wizard and Rogue. To my surprise, I actually found one called "Of Rangers". But now I don't think there's one called "Of Wizards". So here's some explanation...
The references that I was getting from Huwbert's books to back my theory, are actually a list of all the Skills from the Combat Abilities. There's one book for each of the 10 Skills. The Skills are Warfare, Huntsman, Scoundrel, etc. you know what I'm talking about.
So there will be no "Of Wizards" book because there's no single Skill for wizard-type characters, instead there are many magic Skills, and a book for each one of them.
This new design also corroborates my theory of Warrior, Ranger, Mage, and Rogue. Or in the old terms, 1 Strength based, 2 Finesse based and 1 Intelligence based. The fourth mysterious character being the Rogue. Personally, I never wanted the 4th character to be the Rogue, I just feel like that is what the game "wants".
So, there are 10 Skills in total. Three of them go to the non-magical classes, and seven! go to the Mage.
Warfare to the Warrior
Huntsman to the Ranger
Scoundrel to the Rogue
7 magical Skills to the Mage
It might seem unfair to give 7 to the Mage, but the thing is that everybody is at least a little bit of a wizard in Rivellon, Harry Potter would be shocked. All the magic Skills can be shared with non-magical characters. It's just not their focus. The Mage will be "specialising" on the 7 magic Skills then.
So 3 exclusive Skills for the Warrior, Ranger and Scoundrel, but no exclusive Skill for the Mage.
So...
There are 10 Skills in total and a Huwbert book for each Skill. Three of them are referring to 3 combat roles. The "of Warriors" book to the Warfare Skill. The "of Rangers" book to the Huntsman Skill. And the "of Rogues" book to the Scoundrel Skill. There can't be a "of Wizards" book because Wizards get multiple Skills. The other 7 Skill schools being "magical", anyone can have a little of these 7, but mages will probably have a bigger focus on them.
The 7 magic Skills being:
4 Elemental: Pyrokinesis, Hydrosophism, Aerotheurgy and Geomancy
3 "extra": Necromancy, Summoning, Polymorphism (or Metamorphosis)
Here's a list of all the Cranley Huwbert's books that are related to Skills.
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 12: Aerotheurgy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 13: Geomancy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 14: Hydrosophy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 15: Pyrokinesis
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 16: Necromancy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 17: Metamorphosis [this one is equivalent to the Polymorph Skill]
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 18: Roguery (Of Rogues)
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 19: Ranging (Of Rangers)
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 20: Summoning
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 21: Warfare (Of Warriors)
All that being said, let me leave a personal opinion here. If I was creating a fantasy world, only Wizard/Mages would have access to magic spells/powers. Other classes could have magical items/equipment, but not any kind of magical abilities.
This thing of anyone having magic spells is confusing to me. But I can see why I they went with it, it's for the sake of freedom. It's so the player can have the freedom/versatility to create his own very specific, unique build. So, I get it.
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2- Weapon-dependent skills
There are some skills that require a specific type of weapon, and will not work if the character is not wielding that weapon. If you look at the design of this weapon-skill dependency system, you will see again, the Warrior-Ranger-Mage-Rogue pattern repeated.
I've found 4 types of skills in the weapon-skill dependency system:
1- Warfare skills- Require a Melee Weapon or a Shield. The Warrior/Tank role.
2- Huntsman skills- Require a Ranged Weapon. The Ranger role.
3- Scoundrel skills- Require a Dagger. The Rogue role.
4- The 7 Magic Skills- Don't require any weapon. The Mage role.
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3- Damage "balance"
I've seen some people define their most balanced party by observing the damage that the party causes to the enemies, like in:
2 physical damage dealers, 2 magical damage dealers. Theoretically, that would be the best combination of raw power (high damage) and versatility (choosing to hit Physical Armour or Magic Armour depending on which one is lower.).
But the party that I have been formulating, ends up balancing the Armour of the party members themselves, not the damage that they cause. For example:
In my party of 1 Strength based character, 2 Finesse based characters, and 1 Intelligence based character... the Strength character gets high Physical Armour, but low Magic Armour. The Intelligence character does the exact opposite, getting high Magic Armour and low Physical Armour. And the 2 Finesse characters sit right in the middle, both getting equal amounts of Physical and Magic Armours. So the party balances it's own defences, between physical and magical.
This party composition is also balanced in it's range of attack/defence, having 2 melee and 2 ranged characters. And of the 2 Finesse characters, one is melee and the other is ranged, so they are not fighting for the same role but rather complementing each other.
A reminder here, that the goal of this party is not to be the strongest party possible and defeat enemies as fast as possible. My goal is to identify what I call the archetypal party, or the party that fits better all the standard mechanics given to us by the game. It is not necessarily the most powerful party, but still tries to be as powerful as possible after meeting the previous requirements of "being the archetypal one". Pretty abstract, but I feel like I'm getting there. 😄
For the damage this party causes, I made a scheme which is not very accurate, but still interesting to observe. It shows that there's still some balance in the damage that this party causes, even though it is not optimised for balance in damage. Balancing the damage output was never my priority, but it sorta happened.
for Physical Damage:
Primary: Ranger
Secondary: Rogue and Warrior. The Rogue sometimes does a lot of damage, but never as much as the Ranger. The Warrior has the potential to be a main, but I like to have at least 1 character focusing on defence/tanking. As my warrior focus on defence he ends up not dealing as much damage as he could.
Tertiary: Mage. Definitely not the mage's priority, he can still do some physical damage through Necromancy spells. Infect and Raise Bone Widow being my favourite. Incarnates and Totems are also an option.
for Magic Damage:
Primary: Mage
Secondary: Ranger. Sometimes an elemental arrow does more damage than a magic spell, especially with the good critical hits that come from Rangers. The number of arrows have never been a problem to me, I always have plenty of all arrows, by finding them in loot and crafting them. Except for blessed/cursed arrows, those are more rare.
Tertiary: my Rogue and Warrior always carry all kinds of grenades. Grenades do not deal a good amount of damage, but at least they have the versatility there, of having one for all elements. You never know what weakness your enemies will have.
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4- Roles that I give to each party member:
Warrior: Survivability, Defence. The Tank, after all someone has to take that first blow. Always have a shield, high Vitality and high Physical Armour. Also does a bit of healing and support. High Strength Attribute to carry STUFF, and to help with the physical damage. Always have all kinds of grenades.
Ranger: Highest damage in the party, and from a safe place. The sniper type. Low Constitution though, so kind of a glass cannon.
The one that gets all those sweet kills.
Mage: Versatility. Highest Memory Attribute in the party, so the highest number of Skills in battle. High elemental damage, always able to exploit any enemy weakness. Support and healing skills. Summons. Also low Constitution, so I leave a shield in his Inventory for when the enemy rogue decides to say hi.
Rogue: Mobility and "Situationism". The fastest character in the party, the Rogue uses his high movement and teleportation skills to attack, and to avoid being attacked. The Rogue is very situational, what should he do? It always depends, it's never a fixed role like the other characters. It's always about improvising. Maybe I just don't know how to play it? For me it's the hardest character to play. He causes good damage but not the highest, he causes negative statuses, and he runs, he runs away when he needs to, or else he dies.
Of course, always goes for the Backstab.
One thing that I like to do with Rogues is to use Ruptured Tendons and Chicken Claw in the same turn. Then the opponent kills itself just by walking around in chicken form.
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When I use the words "mage" and "wizard" I mean the same thing.
By Wizard I don't mean the standard Wizard class that the game offers, with Pyrokinesis and Geomancy. I just mean any character that uses mainly magic.
By Rogue, I mean Shadowblade, Rogue, or anything similar.
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So in conclusion, I still have 2 theories for what is this ideal party composition in this game.
1- The first theory is about the party composition that I have talked about on this entire post:
1 Strength based character (Warrior), 2 Finesse based characters (Ranger and Rogue), and 1 Intelligence based character (Mage).
2- The second theory is that the 4th character is not predefined like the other 3 are. On this theory the player can go crazy with his main character, not worrying about balance, because the other 3 characters already secured the balance of the game mechanics. The 3 predefined characters being:
1 Strength based character, 1 Finesse based character, and 1 Intelligence based character.
Last edited by Wilker; 06/06/20 11:50 AM.
