Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[aweigh]

thanks a lot for the advice courtier!

i'm happy to report that i've been playing pretty much non-stop since my last post and i've cleared both the Ice Caverns and the Histara (Wind) Caverns. yep, i even beat the 3 dragons inside the ice caves. the only thing i haven't done in those two dungeons is beat the floor masters, obviously... their time will come. oh yes...

right now i'm knee-deep in the mid-levels of the Church and man... that place is nasty. i completely get what you mean about mage-nuking not being reliable forever. i decided to take proactive measures to ensure party-usefulness and did some class-changing. i did a LOT of class changing.

- changed the fighter into a cleric (i hadn't realized they can equip all the same martial gear).
- switched the bishop (his spell levels were at 5) to an alchemist so he can start learning alchemy spells, and once he eventually gets level 9's switch back to bishop. he is currently rocking level 3 of alchemy (plus his previous 5 levels of mage/cleric thanks to bishop-ness)
- the samurai is "innocent" so far, and already has level 9 mage spells.
- i switched that ninja kid into a pure mage and grinded his ass until he got 1 casting of diomante, then switched him to pure Thief (traps are so deadly i need the biggest chance of success at disarming them. there is nothing as soul-crushing as a magic drain that takes away your last casting of diomante...). he is no longer dead weight, with full suite of mage spells and using a shortbow.
- since my alchemist had level 9's already, i switched him to bishop, and he's currently rocking level 2's of mage/cleric spells..

i realize now that you need both spells AND martial might or you're not doing it right. i fucking LOVE the class changing in this game. i'm addicted. the sheer versatility of mixing up bishop/mages with alchemists and vice-versa is AWESOME; and i've never felt cooler than when i switched the ninja to pure mage, snagged diomante, and switched to pure thief. this is absolutely the best class changing system i've played with

i did all of my grinding for these class changes in floor b6 of the Wind Caves, the one that has encounters with a Hydra, Tempests, and other wind-type assholes. They're dangerous as FUUUUCK (if they surprise you, it's p. much a party wipe), but each fight yields 8-12k EXP. With very careful use of diomante to escape once i was out of nukes and enchanting my gear to resist Mage/spells i could take those enemies in that floor down as long as they didn't surprise me.

as per your suggestion i'm gonna make sure to grind the fuck outta them demons in the church once i master the place. the dungeons are getting better and better man, with the ice caves being the first "fun" dungeon i experienced, and then the absolute nightmare that was the Wind Caves; however mastering the wind caves made me feel like a god

the Church sure is spooky doe :grimdark:

edit: oh, my sixth party member that i forgot to list is a brawler that i reallly really REALLY want to turn into a lord but he fucking NEVER reaches the necessary stats. oh well. oh, and i can't use any Valks cos ain't got no fems.

 

[aweigh]

OMG THE LESSER DEMONS ARE GLORIOUSSSSSSSSSSS

!!1

EXP HITTING ASS AND LEG ITS HEAVAN

 

[agris]

so i just arrived at Igdra Underground Church and it was 2spooky4me so...

I just finished 6 straight hours of grinding in the B3 monster-hole of Tsun-Kun cavern (the fight that gives 4-5k xp and is really easy/repeatable). my party is now super over-leveled or rather, they're at the level they SHOULD BE GODDAMNIT, heh.

level 17 samurai, level 24 fighter, level 13 ninja (the demon-kid), level 14 bishop, level 25 mage and level 22 alchemist

at first i thought the lack of a dedicated cleric would really hurt me but you know what, the name of the game is MAGE NUKES AHOY. samurai spamming maglass/agrisse along with the bishop and the mage doing the same (or better) pretty much ends any fight in 1 turn, and the alchemist's breath spell is ridiculously good as well. in fact, it's actually the goddamn ninja that seems to be dead weight; thinking of changing him to a samurai (more mage nuking wee), and eventually want to change the fighter to lord.

thinking of coding a keyboard macro so i can leave the computer farming the monster-hole in tsun-kun cavern b3 while i'm out of the house. :gameplay:

That's the most damming thing you could have written about this game.

Fuck, that's miserable.

 

[aweigh]

don't worry agris, the game proved me wrong:

enemies are no longer susceptible to mindless nuking due to them raising them multiple barriers, death-wards and frequent use of instant-death-type abilities which require the player's OWN strategic use of "death-wards".

so lay your fears to rest my friend, and feel free to dive into Elminage. it is only the first 3 starter dungeons which require no strategic management in battle. the game is very long (i did not realize quite how long); and it doesn't show its cards from the start.

the dungeons get incrementally better and better, i.e. harder and more thoughtful. keep that in mind as well. i recommend this game.

there is a lot of grinding but it's there for the power-gamer (myself) to take advantage of; the game provides all of the tools (read: classes, skills, spells) to advance through the story dungeons and their progressively smarter and better-abled enemies with careful resource management and use of your available tools (petrifying, nuking, alignment-disabling, as well as a bunch of other non-standard ways to handle a mob).

it just so happens i'm a a grinder, and thoroughly enjoy power-leveling in this way. for myself and many others like me this way of playing is exactly the same as when old people grind away at slot machines in a zombie-like state inside casinos during daylight hours; same psychological effects

 

[Courtier]

The game doesn't require grinding, but it's so difficult in general that grinding can be an easy way out. Not to mention that regardless of level you will get destroyed on a regular basis, even if the guy was 50 levels higher he'd still get beheaded in ninja ambushes, petrified, swallowed by fissures, drained, and breath-blasted to death by abominations that get 8 actions per turn. There are even monster attacks specifically made to fuck up powerful characters by doing percentage based damage, or simply reducing you to 1hp.

Fig. 1 - For those with Wizardry 1 PTSD

Fig. 2

''Notto disu shitto agen''

A problem with this port of Gothic is that one of the key features of the Elminage games, donating money to the temple for exp, was inexplicably left out. This would almost completely eliminate any need for grinding. It's still possible to donate once per class change though, but good luck finding that out on your own. The good part about the PSP versions is that gameplay is so smooth and quick, that you could feasibly spend hours just fighting random encounters and have it still be enjoyable by pure virtue of the fuckhuge amount of items to collect, large variety of monsters (every single one of which you can contract/turn into player characters), and every monster having themed items to steal (stealing was sadly fucked in the PC port).

 

[aweigh]

yeah once i started utilizing the class change system (love it!) and saw the donation was a one time thing i wised up to it and my recent builds have benefitted GREATLY from pre-meditated donation :D

more blobbers should implement money-for-xp (p2w lewl) as it drastically cuts down on mindless grinding (for those that like power-gaming, like myself). you still have to "grind" the money anyways so it's not a broken mechanic.

EDIT: this also shines a very particular spotlight on shamans whose special class ability allows them to randomly change the amount of money earned from a random battle. you can have a shaman on bench duty and bring him out for money grinding so you can then class change someone else and pay their levels and avoid THAT grind.

EDIT EDIT: did i mention i am really enjoying this game? why hasn't this gotten more attention on the codex? for shame. this is a very good and deep game.

 

[Courtier]

Many so-called grognards in here are actually huge casuals that judge a book by its cover and with regards to blobbers, want to keep licking the everlasting gobstopper that is Wiz 8 for the rest of time. This game was also posted on the weeb jRPG forum which sees less than a tenth of the traffic of GenRPG, despite it being as close to the original Wizardry as you could possibly get.

If you google Elminage, the first hits tell you ''do not buy this game'' in bold letters. Reviewers shat all over the PSP localization of Elminage Original (granted, it did have a shit translation) though it was arguably even better than Gothic. The Gothic PC port actually got a ton of bad user reviews just for being difficult. This is some next level shit. We're likely never going to see any more of this series.

But there is still hope. Games like Stranger of Sword City (pic related - coming in three months for PS Vita, I am hype as fuck) are actually making it to the west, and series like Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei becoming more popular only help more games of this type to make it to the states and EU. Contrary to the west, which dropped blobbers like a brick after Dungeon Master and only recently has started trying to lift said brick off the ocean floor, the Japs never stopped making them.

 

[Dorateen]

^ Not sure about the luminous butterflies, but it's got an angry dwarf on the cover.

Hope this makes a transition over to the PC and English-speaking West.

 

[aweigh]

jeeeeeeeeeeeeesus fucking christ i finally cleared the Church dungeon.

this is my first real experience dealing with spinners, teleporters and pitch-black zones of darkness (can't see enemies/anything)

once i got the hang of the teleporters and such the first three floors were no problem; where i got REALLY stuck was in the fourth floor where there's a part where you'll always walk in a "loop" over and over unless you TURN AROUND and start walking backwards once you step on the first teleporter.

those motherfuckers.

love it.

 

[aweigh]

i want to re-organize my party to set them up for end-game as i'm finding myself evenly-matched in my current dungeon (the red and white mansion Hall, right after the Church); this won't do at all and i want to be ABOVE-matched :D

questions:

- Is keeping a pure Cleric worth doing, or should I do what I did with my mage and class-change the cleric once he receives level 7 spells? (i changed my original mage into my current alchemist)

- right now i have two samurai and the cleric in the front row. one of the samurai is "innocent" and is my highest level character, at level 27, and he's by FAR the highest physical damage dealer. however my other samurai was previously my original alchemist and his STR/VIT stats are super low as well as his hit points (in comparison to the other samurai, although of course there is like a 10 level difference between the two so that matters as well). My question is: i want to change him into a Lord but his stats are pitiful so is there any freaking way to raise them aside from leveling? rare items i could farm perhaps? something?

- my backrow is a thief who was previously the original bishop, but i eventually want to turn him into a ninja. can ninjas behead from the backrow? my front-row is already full with the two samurai and the cleric (who is surprisingly very competent warrior). can ninjas detect secrets like hidden doors as good as my current thief can? i know that their trap-disarming isn't as good though, but i'm now at a comfortable place money-wise where i can afford to buy Magical Herbs in abundance to replenish spells and therefore resurrect characters so my original terror of traps has dimished a lot. (except Teleport Trap... TELEPORTED INTO WALL! PARTY HAS DIED! lewl)

- i've begun to notice that there can be nice synergy between EX Skills and character classes, such as giving a thief Song of Healing or Chi Wave so they have something to do besides Thievery; or giving a Mage/Bishop/etc Magic Essence specifically to bypass enemy magic resistance and inflict them with Petrify or the like (which is how i'm currently able to defeat boss encounters. i love the fact status ailments are fight-changing in this game). I've begun to do mental experiments about what EX Skills to pick when i class change my party now into their "final" classes and would love to read some good tips concerning combinations.

any help codex? thanks in advance :D

EDIT: the one idea i've had regarding ex skills and syngergy that i think might work is turning the current thief into a Hunter (he has the stats already) and giving him the EX Skill that inflicts Fear on the enemy therefore triggering their Pursuit auto-attack at the end of the turn. What do you guys think?

 

[CryptRat]

I won't help you, I have roammed every dungeon until the "ending" (I haven't touched the post-ending content yet), but obviously you've already explored the system more than I did.
The only class change I've ever done is changing my thief to a ninja. He sucks at disarming traps but he is only under lvl 35 at the end (my entire party is around 40) and I don't know how much better thieves are.
About skills, I picked a Drake shaman so that he had always something to do ; about my EX-skills, on the other hand, my choices are probably very poor (except the alchemy bag of course).

resurrect characters

Don't abuse it, your characters get older each time you resurrect them.

 

[aweigh]

yeah, i was browsing the steam discussion board on the game and the Drake/Dragonnewt race is like, grade A+ because of their breath attack. apparently its damage caps out near the mid-game or whatever but it's apparently the best race to choose for classes that "need something to do" when they don't want to waste spells. i wish i had made my thief a dragonnewt.

thanks for letting me know first-hand about ninjas sucking at trap disarming tho; i mean it's one thing to read "not as good as thieves at disarming" from the Wikia, but it's much better to know from someone who's also playing the game EXACTLY how much they suck at disarming traps. this is exactly the type of info i wanted in regards to that specific question, so thanks.

(btw, my thief is currently level 13 and he pretty much has an 85% success rate when disarming traps, and as i said, i'm currently right at the dungeon you get right after the Church; so yeah, i imagine the ninja sucks at it mightily then)

about the ninja tho, can he behead from backrow? i can't find a straight answer about this.

EDIT: also, could you give your opinion on the Shaman class? how do their "seals" work exactly? are they front-row or back-row material? for example i mistakenly thought clerics were back-row material originally and later learned while playing tat they are actually front-row units; hence the shaman question.

 

[Courtier]

A pure cleric can be strong with Elnam, and 9 casts of healing spells always come in handy. At this point you just need levels to be able to survive the increasingly powerful monsters. My advice would be to stick with what you've got right now for as long as possible, at the most swapping out characters every once in a while.

There are a number of items that raise stats on use, such as ankhs. None of them give any hints as to what they do, so you're going to want to experiment with items that have an activation on equip. For now it seems you've just about fallen into one of the traps of the neat class-change system, which is to class change too much and thereby weaken your characters. Uhlm Zakir Hall has notably strong enemies that you need characters like your innocent samurai to beat before they nuke you, especially in the lower levels. I also had the same problem, and eventually ended up changing my alchemist (the old guy) BACK to an alchemist after going through summoner, mage, and cleric. Blacksmithing is just too good in this game, and much more important than in Elminage Original.

Alchemists get AP bonuses when crafting at higher levels, which translates into much better gear. This is important for resistances. Your lord will never gain levels fast enough for his class ability to compete with just using gear with specific resists - if you blacksmith resists onto gear with existing stats, such as the Cat's Eye Ring with 25% paralysis/petrify/silence resist, it adds onto them. Find some good ore and you can protect your key partymembers from the more dangerous ailments.

For EX skills I'm running:
-Brace (survive once with 1HP) and Stronghold (prevent formation change) on my frontline Fighter and Lord
-Find Treasure on my Thief and Mysterious Bag on my Herbalist (this translates into a ton of treasure - the surplus is sent to your storage)
-Divination on the Alchemist (see AP value on ore you find, warns you if an item is cursed)
-And Magic Essence on my mage (bypass resists, nobrainer)

Later in the game many enemies will have Swallow Return, the Samurai parry/counterattack move. Swallow Killer to negate it can come in handy. Skills like Song of Protection can be very good for non-fighters. If you get a Summoner and want to use Spirit Pact for monster-characters, just create a new one, since they can still use it on other characters' summons. There's a lot of other useful ones too, just get something that fits your party.

EDIT: Yeah, ninjas can behead from the backrow. Shamans basically act as a failsafe against enemy mages, reflecting and negating spells completely. Seals are just weapons that work well against undead, at higher levels a Shaman can equip one in every slot. In Original I kept my Shaman in the backrow with a bow for the entirety of the game, saving her for when dangerous wizards showed up.

 

[aweigh]

thanks for the info. you're absolutely right about having fallen into the class-changing trap haha

the system is just too fun! i had a suspicion that i should probably stick with my current classes for now, as the monsters in the Hall are proving pretty tough to beat if i don't alpha-strike them. this is precisely why i decided to ask here on this thread first before giving in to my urge to "min-max" my classes. :D

that fucking clock enemy that initiates a 3 turn countdown that wipes your party was a mindfuck when i first encountered him! he's usually paired with mage-types that cast very strong single-target spells on me, so i started doing exactly what you describe about smithing resistances. i didn't know that resistances don't stack so i wasted a lot of ores smithing shit like turn recovery 10 percent that wouldn't stack on top of the pre-existing innate turn recovery of the character, as an example. similar things happened while smithing resistances on gear but i wised up and now i'm currently doing stuff like smithing ice defense on a flame charm (to counter-act the ice defense malus the flame charm gives) and vice-versa.

i also have some electric caps i got in one of the dungeons that have elec defense so i smithed more elec defense on them, and then equipped everyone with 1 flame charm (smithed with ice defense) and 1 ice charm (Smithed with flame defense), and this has proven p. good so far i just need better ore so i can raise the defenses higher. also i need to start smithing holy/dark defense on the rest of the gear as well as i'm now facing mobs that can 1-shot with spells from those schools.

question: at first i was smithing mage/cleric/alchemy resistance buffs on the charms/gear of my characters but after giving the matter a lot of thought i decided that it was actually better to have straight defense instead of ambiguous resistance so i smithed "fire/ice/etc defesnse" on the gear/charms instead. is this good, bad or whatever?

my backrow is the thief, and the alchemist and the bishop; all have previous class-changes but currently each one is level 10-15 in their current class. i have the alchemist and the bishop with Magician Bows which i noticed have built-in spell resistances (not defense) so right now i'm just waiting until i find some really good ore to smith higher resistances (not defenses) on the bows.

i have the weak samurai with tackle skill, the innocent samurai with swallow killer (i picked it on a whim, didn't know what it does had to look it up later when he never did shit), thief with mysterious bag, cleric with hand of kindness, alchemist with divination and bishop with magic essence.

EDIT: the buffs on gear not stacking really fucked me up at first lol made me waste a ton of ore

 

[Courtier]

Cloaks have high spell resistance, smith that on those. These ambiguous resistances protect against all spells from their respective schools, including status ailment and instant death ones, but not skills.
Elements on the other hand reduce all elemental damage, which includes the highly dangerous breaths which only psi-breath can completely protect against. Ideally you want both. Good choices for element smithing are the charms you mentioned and equipment like the Ice Mail, which already has a high fire defense.

Good places to find ore are the Dezaporlia Tunnel and Afum Zar Light Cave.

 

[aweigh]

very good to know about the differences between spell resistance and spell defense.

will do on the cloaks. seems like a good combo on the front-row would be:

- one "cloak" with smithed resistance of some type
- one charm with smithed defense

i love the smithing system too. man, this game is fun.

it has better mechanics and enchanting than PoE lol

 

[Whisper]

if you want good advice: you are not limited in amount of "class changing" so it is good idea to "class-change" while still at lower levels (you are at lower level) so that your fighter gets healing spells (3 in each lvl, it maxes to 3 in lvl), your mage gets alchemist spells, your cleric gets both alchemist and mage spells etc.

When you get your spells return to main class (or dont) and keep playing without class-change.

 

[aweigh]

^_^

i gave in to the temptation to min-max juuuust a lil' bit (cos the class system is SO FUCKING GOOD!) i switched my bishop (he was previously the original party alchemist, so he has 3 spell schools, although being a Bishop his mage and cleric schools are only at level 5, while his alchemy is at level 7); anyway, i said fuck this he is levelling waaay too slow and i already have a Cleric with level 7's, AND i already have 2 samurai to handle Mage spells, so i switched the bishop to a Summoner.

ATM i'm farming ore inside the Ice Caves using diomante to warp to each ore node (each use of the warp spell resets the ore node).

i know i could google my following question but i'm going to post here in this thread simply because i'm enjoying the discussion on the game and i want to keep this thread bumped to hopefully inspire more codexers to play it; that said, here is the question:

how do summoners work????????????????? i picked the ex skill related to summoner class when i class-changed, not spirit pact the other one that's exclusive to summoners therion something.

i tried throwing some poke-balls at a few floor masters from previous dungeons but i haven't been able to capture anything yet. and once i do what do i do with the summons?

 

[Courtier]

You spam summon spells until one works, it's up to chance. When you've contracted the monster, you can summon it in dungeons and it will act as a 7th partymember until it dies or you leave the place. Every ''spell level'' counts as a single summon slot. Monsters have innate summon resistance (affects your chance), which can be lowered with brawler combos. Higher slots also have better contracting chances. Therion spends all SP to fuse two of your monsters, but the party cannot move for 3 turns while it fights for you. Try getting monsters that cast spells, use skills, or take multiple turns. Remember that if you turn a summon into an adventurer with Spirit Pact, they keep their portrait/art and some spells/resistances. Bonus points if they're cute.

Example of a cutie patootie monster-turned-adventurer:

Spoiler

Just look at how happy he is

 

[aweigh]

:D dude i just finished doing some traditional japanese "whaling" in the water dungeon rosalie haha

i went inside the tavern and got jumped by some fools who mistook me for someone who doesn't grind was pretty lulzy.

this game keeps getting better and better man; JUST when i was starting to get slightly bored of the "routine" while clearing every tile in the Ulzik Hall mansion dungeon i meet an NPC that gives me the location of a bonus dungeon, the water one i just mentioned. i was feeling fatigued since and the dungeon itself wasn't impressing me at all... just samey-samey water-doors and an uninteresting floor design (lots of crosses) and some very obvious hidden doors (wee look at me, thinking i'm hot shit for finding hidden doors) when i suddenly step on SURPRISE!!!! tile and "something grabs me from the depths" and forces me into a fight underwater.

dude... i was not carrying the airseed.

'nuff said.

i just fucking laughed and the event completely reinvigorated my fervor! anyway, i go back to the town and enter the tavern again and this time a One Piece reject asks me to tag along with him to go hunt a monster. ooobviooously i go; and oooobviously i fully expected him to betray me inside this new underground green-light-cavern (which looks fucking beautiful). it's a grand jap tradition!

question: perhaps this motif of the random NPC who joins for a side-quest and then betrays has its historical roots in western RPG's as well? japanese RPG's have featured this since time began, and i remember the first time this trope happened was while playing Phantasy Star IV for the Genesis. i lost my innocence that day

fuck, this even happens in the Arcana wiz-clone for the SNES; (spoiler) the protagonist's childhood sweetheart gets possessed and betrays you after you beat the 1st dungeon's boss (DRAMA!).

so anyway yeah, this game is fun. i haven't even played anything else these past few days, although i finally got Labyrinth of Touhou working btw. once i reach my absolute limit with Elminage i'm diving into LoT. I got from steam Paper Sorceror as well, since now i'm a grown-up and fully plan on kicking its ass.

/blog

===

you and everyone else who mentioned summoning being OP were so right. i poke-balled the floor master from hastrana, the sexy lil' kitten girl. i basically did exactly what you described: i spammed the Yami-Yugi chant while spamming the alchemy spell that lowers spell resistance and spamming with the other characters the mage spell Stoma to petrify her. managed to petrify her on the 2nd round. that spell has won me every single boss fight so far, although i know that of course eventually enemies will feature immunity to afflictions. still awesome to be able to handle fights strategically tho with my full suite of resources.

this game is a breath of fresh air like nothing else after having previously been spending around 200-250 hours on PoE. jsawyer is 100% wrong about how afflictions and immunities and resistances should be implemented in an RPG. PoE's way is DUMB.

Sensuki was fucking right.

 

[aweigh]

 

[Dorateen]

Your party is more interesting than the Pillars companions.

 

[aweigh]

Whisper

Courtier

Dorateen

i can't figure out which is better for weapon accuracy: a positive modifier or a negative one...? two-handed weapons tend to have 1-2 positive modifier on ACC, and usually an attack rate of 1 or 2; bows have even higher ACC positive numbers but they miss MUCH more. i've done testing and i swear my fighter dude type hits at least twice as often when using a spear or a 2h sword than when using a bow.

then we have the whips and the blunt-weapons (flails/maces/clubs/hammers) which have big damage ranges and sometimes a very high # of attacks BUT almost always have a NEGATIVE ACC modifier; my fighter type dude once again hits just as much with a -2 ACC whip as he does with a +2 ACC flamberge. give him a bow or a hammer however and the hit rate decreases.

what specifically dictates melee accuracy? the STR attribute only? obviously the class as well. does the front-row/back-row affect ACC? it may be my imagination but my thief misses all the time with a shortbow from the back-row, but i recently moved him to the front-row (don't ask) and he SEEMS to be hitting more. i can't quite tell for sure though.

----

also defense AC i THINK affects not only the chance to evade the enemy attack but it ALSO reduces the damage received. again, i don't have proof other than my fried brain that's been playing too long and isn't thinking straight BUT i'm almost certain i've noticed that my very low AC fighter (he has -8 currently) receives less damage from the same attacks. however i haven't done scientific method testing shit cos there's too many variables like gear and the enchantments and etc.

tl;dr: 1) does AC affect evade % as well as reduce dmg? 2) what determines melee accuracy?

bonues question: 3) when you attack you hit multiple times: what determines how many times you hit in 1 swing? level/class only? is it directly related to # of attacks listed on weapon? hammer says 6 attacks but fighter dude hits 2 times, as an example.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

 

[Dorateen]

Positive Accuracy (ACC) is better. In fact I would go as far to say at later stages of the game, if you find a weapon with a negative modifier, there is a good chance it is cursed. Make sure you have your alchemist check your loot, whether if you have one in the party or swapping out when you get back to town.

A lower Armor Class (AC) will result in a lower percentage of damage taken by the character. That is because with the way the enemies attack multiple times, they are hitting a low AC less frequently. When you get your ninja to ridiculous levels such as a -99 AC, you might want to deflect some physical attacks to that character because the ninja will take much less damage.

As far as I can tell, the chance of hitting is based on your level and class, as compared to the monster's AC. There are going to be high level enemies that even your top fighters will have difficulty bypassing a low AC. That's why there are spells that increase the enemy's Armor Class. Use them.

 

[aweigh]

thanks a lot for the info man

and you bet your ass i've been using "Raise Enemy AC by 7" on difficult enemies.

my routine is as follows:

1. every char who can do so will cast lower magic resistance on 1st round, while the people who have the cleric spell breath barrier use it if applicable (breath-spewing enemies are pretty easy to guess; i.e. dragons, etc). if i don't think the boss/enemy uses breath i have that party member use the drain-barrier spell instead. basically in the 1st round i have 2 people who have alchemy cast lower magic resistance, 1 guy who has cleric shit drop a barrier, and the other guys casting Stoma/Misama for petrify/sleep, which i've found to be the two least-commonly resisted afflictions by mobs.

2. round 2 is basically a repeat until one of the disables lands, with the cleric dude doing something else if the barrier wasn't broken; he has mage spells as well so i have him cast "Raise Enemy AC by 7" in that 2nd/3rd round.

3. once the disable has landed i have everyone who has alchemy cast Orath to buff my melee, and everyeone who has it cast "Raise Enemy AC by 7", with a "lower enemy speed" alchemy spell thrown in for good measure from the third guy i have learning alchemy ATM.

4. after that it's p. much over for the boss as i just keep spamming Orath, Raise Enemy AC by 7, spamming Petrify/Sleep/Charm (charm is my third go-to disable after petrify/sleep); and then i just whale on him until game fellates me.

don't worry tho, believe me i KNOW enemies are gonna start showing up with immunity to all the afflictions, and i'm looking forward to the challenge