After making a half-playtrough with Version 1.06 and a playtrough with Version 1.13/14, I want to share some of my experience and analysis about my party combination.
I played mostly on “Hard” (Enchanter-Mode”), but with more HP on Level-Up (at least 75%) and activated gold cost for levelling up.
Having to pay gold for levelling up means, that I was always out of money and most of the time under-levelled (but with a lot of of unused XP). This makes the game more difficult of course, but I would still recommend it. It gives the game an additional layer of strategic depth – and makes it (potentially) more fun. At least, if you don’t mind to save and load often. And that I did – a lot!
(Of course the game-modul has to be designed with the “gold cost for levelling up” in mind. In “Hearkenworld” you just can’t use this option).
In medias res:
1. The Strength-based Melee-Warrior:
With a lot of enemies using “Bullrush”, “Trip” and “Grapple” I highly recommend having at least one expert, who can counter such attacks. (And of course, using such attacks on more fragile enemies is great fun too).
In my first “half-playtrough” I had a Samurai Fire-Drake for this position. I gave him a personalized Reach-Weapon with “swift”, elemental- and holy-damage (or something similar) - and until level 8 or 9 he did quite good.
But then … his weaknesses became more and more obvious.
His AC wasn’t high, his damage-output was (a lot) less than I hoped for and he was feats-starved! It just takes to long to give him all the “essential” feats a strength-based warrior should have!
Later in the game you find a “skewer-vorpal-barbed” axe, which gives immense damage to most enemies (at least 150 per hit, if I remember correctly) and with such a weapon the Samurai is still a viable option, I think.
But before I got this weapon I started my second playthrough.
Remembering the problems with the Samurai, I thought on making a classical tank-warrior:
A tower-shield-wearing Fire-Drake Fighter with lot of feats.
And no – that wasn’t a good choice either.
Giving up the initiative and instead taking it more slowly and passive isn’t a good idea in this game.
So I changed the focus, gave him “Superior-Two-Weapon-Fighting”, a Reach-Weapon in the one hand and the “skewer-vorpal”-axe in the other hand – and my Fighter became a slaughter-god!
His many feats give a lot of options, which are a lot of fun to play with.
And there is “Wade-In”. “Wade-In” makes a huge difference – especially if you use more than one weapon. The Fighter-Class is strong and fun to play. I got to love it.
About the Fire-Drake:
I mostly took this background in order to easily burn “web” and “grease” spells. And in the beginning this is really helpful. But soon the enemy is only using the improved versions of these spells and you can’t burn them down anymore.
I did give all the breath-weapon feats to my fighter, but I can’t recommend it. After Level 9, when you can get “Wade In”, it is just better to move in and kill the enemy with a full-round attack instead of injuring “some” enemies with your breath weapon and then using a standard-attack.
2. The Dexterity-based Damage-Dealer:
If we talk about Dexterity based melee-Warrior, we talk about mantis, don’t we. I mean, if you don’t intend to use the mantis as basis, then you should just make a Strength-based close-combat warrior!
(Could you use the mantis as a Strength-based basis? Probably yes. I think, it would have some non-trivial disadvantages but still much potential. If you have experience with such a build, I would like to read about it!).
The mantis can’t wear armour (but robes, and there are very potent robes in the game) and can only use light weapons without attack mali. So a “Weapon Finesse” Dexterity-based Warrior-class is the natural choice.
A Dexterity-based Damage-Dealer is not a “must have”, but very appealing. It can have an insane number of attacks per round (20+) and high or very high AC. The potential damage-output is unparalleled. Wizards with their nasty “Mirror Image” aren’t safe anymore.
With the promised feat “Greater Weapon Finesse” they will become even deadlier! Isn’t this overpowered and unbalanced?
Yes and Yes – until your greatest damage-dealer is ganged up by a group of minions with Reach-Weapons and they trip him (strength-based!). Once he is prone, all his high dodge-AC bonus isn’t worth a shit and he becomes a helpless fish on the slaughtering block.
So – this great weakness of every Dexterity-based warrior is actually a great strength gameplaywise. And I appreciate it.
For my playtrough I used a Gladiator mantis. The Gladiator can get a high AC bonus if he doesn’t wear any armour – so this class goes well with the mantis race.
Resources were always scarce for my party – and my mantis Gladiator needed more than the other classes – four hands want to be fed with weapons! But until Level 11/12 he was my highest damage dealer by far!
But then “Wade In” kicked in for my Fighter. Without “Wade In” a lot of your potential damage output is wasted, because you just can’t bring it “on the man”.
In the late game you can buy an (very expensive) item (“Belt of the Lion”), which imitates the Psychic Warrior Spell “Psionic Pounce” allowing a Full-round attack after a straight charge. This helps a lot, but it is still not as good as “Wade In”.
With “Combat Training” the Gladiator gets a few essential feats on his first level – so this class isn’t as feats-starved as the Samurai. While the “Blinding Strike” ability is a nice to have feature, it isn’t that important. Warrior-type enemies can normally killed with one Full-round attack anyway and caster doesn’t even care if they are blinded.
But it is o.k – it is still a very strong build (if you invest the money!), it’s only… a bit boring to play…
You just pounce on the enemy and attack and attack, sometimes you blind someone, sometimes you even grapple a caster, but there is not much variety. If this wasn’t a game for a group of heroes, it could get really boring. But so it is – let us say- “easy to use”.
3. The “Whatever you like” melee-position:
As the name suggest, you are free to experiment with this position. It doesn’t have to be a pure warrior-class, but I recommend a build, which can “stand its man” in close combat.
I chose a dexterity-based mantis Monk. ‘Cause I like monks … and I had quite a high expectation for my build.
But the beginning was quite hard.
It is not, that the monk class is so bad in its lower level (it is bad, but not so bad), rather my monk had to bear the full scarcity of resources in my party.
The monk-class doesn’t need as much resources as other classes, so my monk got – nothing!
All acquired light weapons got sucked up by my mantis gladiator!
Even for the early parts of the High Sewer (inclusive the second Pizarra-Fight) I didn’t have weapons for her.
Yes, a Monk can dish out quite a lot of damage with her bare hands and her “Ki Strike” feature – as long as she can hit her target without weapon enchantments. But there is a very big difference between an armed and unarmed mantis monk, because:
a. (and don’t tell this Pierre) all special monk abilities are also active with weapons (even if the description speaks only about “unarmed” attacks) and
b. “Haste”, “Improved Two Weapon Fighting” and “Greater Two Weapon Fighting” give their extra attacks to armed hands only, and finally
c. only weapons can have cool weapon-enchantments like “Swift”, etc.
Some may regret that an unarmed monk is so outclassed, but I don’t think it is a big deal. In a prison-break scenario, the monk is still the king (or queen), and strong and expensive weapon-enchantments can’t be compensated reasonably anyway.
After I got her equipped, my monk finally began to shine.
Especially in her role as “Mage Killer” or better said “Caster Disabler”.
With her many movement points she can sprint behind the enemy lines, close in on the caster group and stun (or with “Wade In”) outright kill them.
She is annoying and hard to kill with magic. She is still not free of the vulnerabilities of dexterity-based warriors, but at least minions need some luck to beat her high touch AC.
There are some battles in which the A.I. has some monks at her disposal, and they tend to be really annoying. A mantis monk is even worse.
So just sit back and enjoy the chaos which she will create, with a heart full of evil laughter.
PS: With the addition of “Wade In” as selectable feat, the “Tiger Leap” abilities of the monk-class has become obsolete. Instead I would prefer - more bonus-feats?
4. The Paladin
Minor Spoiler:
[Begin]
One of the companions you can acquire is a Paladin – and she is not totally useless. I mean, her very high charisma attribute lowers the shop prizes – and as you know, I’m always out of money!
But in combat, yes, there she is (almost) totally useless. After her two or three Smite Attacks, she just never hits. It’s almost comically.
And the reason she is so useless is not only because of her lower class-level and low strength attribute – but because her Paladin-class itself is helplessly behind all other warrior-classes.
[End]
But the weakness of the Paladin-class is its “One-handed Weapon and Shield” combat style.
As I mentioned above, I tried to make my Fighter a classical tank – with the same “One-handed Weapon and Shield”- until I discarded this choice as useless. Why is this combat style so outclassed?
a. In the modul “Augury of Chaos” combat resources (like spells or healing resources) are scarce and there are no easy encounters. The enemy has almost always more troops and more firepower. So how to win?
The most effective solution is in many cases: Blast them into oblivion with all you have before they ever get their chance to attack! (and in some cases, this is the only solution). But then you are powered out and you need to rest. If however resting is not possible, then you should think about a more efficient solution. And there is a simple truth: Killing with spells is expensive! But there are many low level spells which can effectively hinder, delay, stun, disable, silent the enemy, even in late game.
So during most encounters, the job for the caster is just to hamper the enemy from attacking you and the job of the warrior-classes is: to kill the hampered enemy fast.
And as we have seen, melee classes can be very effective in killing!
But the very idea behind the “One-handed Weapon and Shield” combat style is contrary to this considerations. The shield-warrior wants to hamper the enemy so that the spellcaster can kill the enemy!
Of course, there are cases in which the shield-warrior approach is legitimate or even necessary.
My suggestions to make the “One-handed Weapon and Shield” combat style more viable:
- Treat shields like (potential) bludgeon weapons (but without access to weapon-enchantments), with all the potential extra attacks a weapon in the shield-hand could have, so that shield-bearers can have a bit more killing potential.
- Give shields a bonus for and against “Overrun” and “Bullrush”, and a bonus against “Charge”, “Grapple” (and perhaps “Trip”).
And because I make already suggestions:
- Give the Samurai something like the “Flurry Attacks” of monks for one additional attack per round on higher levels.
Edit: After thinking about it: Instead of a specific Samurai feature, how about a general feat - something similar to “Rapid Shot”, if you only use one melee weapon?
So this is enough for now. I would like to hear your opinions.