Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[Reader]

So the actual damage of all melee attacks depends on might and damage of spells depends on spell tier and char's level?
Xeen's manual tells me that luck is for evading traps and spells. I assumed that it is the same in MM3. For some reason MM3's manual is all about Corak's journey.

 

[Barbalos]

I believe Luck is also a significant factor for opening locks, along with the Robbers (or Ninjas) Thieving skill.

*also, if your Thief attempts to open a trapped lock and fails luck will help with evading the trap.

 

[Reader]

Yes,, i understand that luck is important for opening chests.
I'm just trying to be more efficient in battles. Right now my robber is more like a living lockpick in the party and destined to equip subpar(cause of class) melee weapons.
I'm not complaining though, if that's how robber desighned to be in this game - i'm fine with it. Just wanted to clear things up for myself.

 

[Lacrymas]

Get a ninja, they have better melee capabilities and can also open locks and disarm traps.

 

[octavius]

For some reason MM3's manual is all about Corak's journey.

The guy who wrote the manual for MM3 though it was for an Ultima game.

 

[Reader]

Get a ninja, they have better melee capabilities and can also open locks and disarm traps.

I kinda have gotten attached to ma bois already. But i'll definitely use this advice in xeen.

 

[Lacrymas]

Delete the robber and use the same portrait, lol.

 

[Barbalos]

I liked having a Robber personally. The Ninja's thieving skill levels slower so you're more likely to run into chests that you'll have to double back to pick (or just leave) if you have one instead of a Robber. But it's doable of course.

 

[Lacrymas]

I think that if you meta a bit, the ninja can take care of everything and you wouldn't have to return or leave loot behind. Don't quote me on that though.

 

[Dux]

I've been fascinated by the Mac version of M&M for quite some time now.

Mouse support. More graphical fidelity. Would have made my playthrough of M&M less of a hassle, honestly. I even tried to get Basilisk II working at one point just to try this version. It didn't really work, unfortunately. It's a shame there's not like a conversion so that you can play it on Windows, because M&M looks really good here, in my opinion.

 

[Average Manatee]

Thievery stats are 15 for ninja and 30 for robber, increasing 2 per level. Elves and dwarves both get +10 thievery to start with, if you have either of those races (dwarves being ideal for more HP), Ninjas are excellent.

As far as melee ability goes, the class of weapon quickly becomes fairly irrelevant. At the start having a 1d6 weapon rather than a 2d8 is meaningful, but by the midgame you find materials that will give +10 damage, with the highest tier being Obsidian giving 50 damage. 51-56 vs. 52-64 is fairly irrelevant. An Obsidian paperclip would be an awesome melee weapon. What actually matters with the classes is the # of attacks progression. Robbers get 1 attack every 6 levels (along with half casters), ninjas and knights get 1 attack every 5 levels, barbarians get 1 attack every 4 levels. That said Ninjas do also start with some of the better weapons available.

 

[fantadomat]

Ninjas are for weebs,always play with real classes.

 

[newtmonkey]

Might & Magic III
I had been playing M&M1 til now, but my progress sort of stalled there as I had trouble finding level appropriate areas to explore. I'll go back that game later on (I really want to finish that as well as M&M2), but for now I figured I'd skip to M&M3 since you can't import your party anyway.

I had trouble sleeping Fri night due to the heat, so decided it was a perfect opportunity to go to my office, blast the AC, and create a party in M&M3. Before I realized it, it was 4:50am and I was hooked. Saturday morning I got up at 9a, did some work til noon, and then played another 5 hours.

So I'm addicted.

Right now my party is around level 12 or so, I've got all of the starting island explored as well as the screen around Swamp Town, and several dungeons wiped out. There's still TONS of content, the game seems absolutely massive, and none of it is filler so far. You could complain about the trash mobs, but combat is so fast and painless, you hardly notice. Destroying the generators wipes them out and gives you far better reward, so you are probably meant to seek those out ASAP. I like that you can "clear" dungeons since enemies don't respawn.

All of this annoyed me in M&MX, since you were stuck with the characters you generated at the start and character builds were far more important (i.e. actually a thing); meaning that, a poorly developed party would leave you stuck mid-end game with potentially no way to actually complete the game.

Besides, the fun of the combat system here is visiting stat boosting wells and tackling areas that would otherwise be way above your ability.

If my addiction keeps up, I could see myself finishing this in a couple weeks (depending on work load). I dunno if I would go straight onto Xeen, but it's nice to know there's still another massive experience like this waiting for me down the line (and then there's Swords if I want even more).

 

[Barbalos]

What kind of sound you using for MM3 newtmonkey ? IIRC MM3 is one of the few that's easier to set up with MT32 music and digital SFX not using the MT32.

 

[newtmonkey]

Hey Barbalos

I have it running with MT32 music and digital SFX.

 

[newtmonkey]

Might & Magic III
Still plugging away at this. I put another few hours in last night, my party is around level 14-15 and I've started water walking around to see what else is out there, as I was exploring the Cyclops cave but getting wrecked Cyclops; I can defeat them without a problem with my Paladin and Barbarian, but everyone else pretty much dies instantly haha. I am really trying to avoid "abusing" the temporary stat boost wells etc., though I dunno why, since they are there to be abused.

I started up M&M WOX just to see how it compared, and I was impressed. I know it's running the same engine, but it looks and (more importantly sounds) even better. I actually went out and got an SC-55mkII specifically for this game, as my SC-88 refused to play the sound effects right no matter what I did.

I have been reading this forum thread before I go to bed each night, and the discussion has been great. I enjoyed following prestigious posters as they played through the early games (or even the entire series) for the first time.

It made me really want to go back to Might & Magic 1, and I am considering just starting over with the premade party (with slight changes to names and genders using that awesome M&M1 trainer some bro contributed mid-thread) since the party I had been playing has godawful stats so my Paladin and Knight are basically useless in combat other than soaking up damage.

Anyway, Wednesday is the day of the week that I allow myself to finish work early, go easy on studying, crack open a beer (or bottle of hard liquor), and just spend time playing games... so I'm looking forward to some more adventure tonight!

 

[Dorateen]

Gold Box for AD&D, Wizardry for the mechanics.

But Might & Magic really captures that sense of world exploration that few series can match, and it's hard to let go once you jump in.

 

[Barbalos]

Might & Magic III

I started up M&M WOX just to see how it compared, and I was impressed. I know it's running the same engine, but it looks and (more importantly sounds) even better. I actually went out and got an SC-55mkII specifically for this game, as my SC-88 refused to play the sound effects right no matter what I did.

There's some ways MM3 is better than WOX imo, like certain enemy designs. Check out some of these pictures from WOX:

Spoiler

Compared to the first enemy (possibly) you fight in MM3:

Spoiler

I guess there was some various artists involved and that's why some WOX enemies are not great.
Also the little blurbs written by Corak you can read for each area in MM3 are nice.

 

[Invictus]

I actually prefer Isles of Terra over Xeen; the pacing for Terra is almost perfect it never overstays it welcome while World of Xeen can be easily exploited to make it a cakewalk, plus I also prefer the monster design and overall look of Terra

 

[index.php]

I've been fascinated by the Mac version of M&M for quite some time now.

Spoiler

Mouse support. More graphical fidelity. Would have made my playthrough of M&M less of a hassle, honestly. I even tried to get Basilisk II working at one point just to try this version. It didn't really work, unfortunately. It's a shame there's not like a conversion so that you can play it on Windows, because M&M looks really good here, in my opinion.

Get the M&M1&2 Mini vMac package from here: https://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/might-and-magic-book-i/

 

[Incendax]

I would rate Darkside > Terra > World >>> Clouds.
Poor Clouds. You really are the most dull part of the adventure. At least the first 80%.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

It's pretty amazing how they honed the same, great style of gameplay in MM1 and 2 and added in VGA graphics, music and mouse support with MM3. I guess the combats got a lot shallower but I didn't miss fighting 66 devil kings and stuff like that in the earlier games.

 

[newtmonkey]

Might & Magic 1
Slowly catching up to my previous party, this time with much better stats. The early game was much easier, but I'm now noticing how brutal the level scaling is.

I actually starting exploring C2 immediately after I finished exploring Sorpigal, so my characters were a mix of level 1 and level 2, since I didn't grind at all. I had no problems at all with C2, and even was able to walk over to Erliquin and back without issue.

After that, I returned back to Sorpigal, cleared the dungeon there, did some more exploring, and did the first courier quest from Sorpigal to Erliquin. This left me with everyone at level 3 or 4.

Now I'm lucky if I can even walk to Erliquin in one piece lol. It seems every other random encounter (even on "roads") has some mix of clerics, sprites, minor devils, or swarms—and unlike when I was around level 2, the game never lets me run from encounters now. So, any encounter with any of those enemies is basically a party wipe.

I think level 3-5 is pretty rough in this game because the random encounters scale up to enemies with devastating special abilities (clerics: paralyze, swarms+minor devils: AOE attacks, sprites: curse), while you are still basically forced to rely on physical damage since you won't have access to AOE spells until your sorcerer reaches level 6. Sleep is a massive help around party level 1-3, but most of the scaled up enemies are partially or completely resistant to sleep, so that sucks.

I'm trying to avoid just walking around popping fixed encounters to grind levels, so I guess I'm gonna check out the wilderness area south of Erliquin and see if it's not more level-appropriate. I might have to go back to my early game strategy of exploring, fighting/winning one battle, then rushing back to a town to save... at least until I get fireball and things get a lot easier.

[Edit] "I might have to go back to my early game strategy of exploring, fighting/winning one battle, then rushing back to a town to save..."
^ This is working well. The area south of Erliquin is not bad, and I was able to explore a bit and get some nice equipment in chests. Meanwhile, I've started marking fixed encounters so I can tell at a glance if I defeated them or need to come back later on.

 

[newtmonkey]

Might & Magic 1

Put a few hours into this today, getting really addicted. I had it open all day in the background so I could play while waiting for data for process in between jobs

I finally got to level 5 for my sorcerer, so now I have AOE spells, which opens up a ton of the gameworld. Previously impossible fixed encounter squares are now very manageable indeed.

A lucky drop of a flying carpet also meant that I could head to Dusk to continue the quest chain and load up on magic equipment. We are kicking some ass now for real (it will soon end).

I have to say, of all the games I have played from this era, M&M1 is the one where stats are really important early on. The difference between my current party (the pregen party) and the previous one I retired (which I rolled myself with mediocre stats) is night and day. My Paladin and Knight hit more often than not and do great damage, and buffing them with bless and that one SORC spell that buffs might makes them even more powerful. However, the absolute most important thing is to have a sorcerer with a high speed stat so that he gets to go first every round; this makes a MASSIVE difference in your ability to survive tough early battles.

One question:

How does the hermit work in M&M1? When I agree to trade wares, it replaces every single item in the backpack of every single character with garbage. How do you get around that since you'll be carrying around quest items, keys, etc. throughout the game?

I just created an extra character sitting at the inn to hold all my items, and went and took care of this. Is that pretty much the solution?

 

[Strange Fellow]

I just created an extra character sitting at the inn to hold all my items, and went and took care of this. Is that pretty much the solution?

Yep.

A lucky drop of a flying carpet also meant that I could head to Dusk to continue the quest chain and load up on magic equipment. We are kicking some ass now for real (it will soon end).

Don't you have the Fly spell?