Grimoire gameplay and hints thread

[Gunnar]

Necromancer - forces you to single class, which means low hit points.

Not if you end up on one after multiclassing.

but all of his cool necromancer only spells are very high level, you would never see them.

This is supposed to be the appeal of Necromancers - they start out as basket cases you have to protect like fragile china, but once they achieve higher levels they begin to use spells the other classes can only dream about, like killing all the monsters in one round with a Deathwish, etc.

If I was comparing them to other classes, I'd put them in the 'Just for fun' category. It would be cool if there was some way they could get higher hit points. Like if they get a kill they have a chance of gaining a hit point.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Necromancer - forces you to single class, which means low hit points.

Not if you end up on one after multiclassing.

but all of his cool necromancer only spells are very high level, you would never see them.

This is supposed to be the appeal of Necromancers - they start out as basket cases you have to protect like fragile china, but once they achieve higher levels they begin to use spells the other classes can only dream about, like killing all the monsters in one round with a Deathwish, etc.

If I was comparing them to other classes, I'd put them in the 'Just for fun' category. It would be cool if there was some way they could get higher hit points. Like if they get a kill they have a chance of gaining a hit point.

That might be an idea.

No but really. They are necromancers, after all.

Have to think about that one a little.

Might be cool if they somehow absorb the life force of those they kill and get stronger. "Life Drain" sucks hitpoints from others but doesn't increase their max. Might try to subtly modify some of these spells.

Upon successfully casting the "Life Drain" there might be a special instance for the Necromancer where if it is successful, he gains a single max point to his HP based on a saving throw using his spell casting skill.

Would only require a few extra lines in the spell script and some testing, pretty simple.

 

[Gunnar]

Necromancer - forces you to single class, which means low hit points.

Not if you end up on one after multiclassing.

but all of his cool necromancer only spells are very high level, you would never see them.

This is supposed to be the appeal of Necromancers - they start out as basket cases you have to protect like fragile china, but once they achieve higher levels they begin to use spells the other classes can only dream about, like killing all the monsters in one round with a Deathwish, etc.

If I was comparing them to other classes, I'd put them in the 'Just for fun' category. It would be cool if there was some way they could get higher hit points. Like if they get a kill they have a chance of gaining a hit point.

That might be an idea.

No but really. They are necromancers, after all.

Have to think about that one a little.

Might be cool if they somehow absorb the life force of those they kill and get stronger. "Life Drain" sucks hitpoints from others but doesn't increase their max. Might try to subtly modify some of these spells.

Upon successfully casting the "Life Drain" there might be a special instance for the Necromancer where if it is successful, he gains a single max point to his HP based on a saving throw using his spell casting skill.

Would only require a few extra lines in the spell script and some testing, pretty simple.

If you restrict it to the Life Drain spell, I would still be waiting to the very end of the game (level 13) to gain the bonus and it would force me to cast Life Drain constantly, which would suck because at that point I want to be throwing around the new death spells I just learned. My recommendation would be to have it proc on Finger of Death, so it gives me something cool to do with my Necromancer starting at level 8. That's still pretty far into character development, and I'm going to be spamming Finger of Death at that point anyway. It should also work with Death Cloud, Death Gaze, Life Drain and Death Wish. Maybe give life drain a greater chance of it working, or something like that.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Necromancer - forces you to single class, which means low hit points.

Not if you end up on one after multiclassing.

but all of his cool necromancer only spells are very high level, you would never see them.

This is supposed to be the appeal of Necromancers - they start out as basket cases you have to protect like fragile china, but once they achieve higher levels they begin to use spells the other classes can only dream about, like killing all the monsters in one round with a Deathwish, etc.

If I was comparing them to other classes, I'd put them in the 'Just for fun' category. It would be cool if there was some way they could get higher hit points. Like if they get a kill they have a chance of gaining a hit point.

That might be an idea.

No but really. They are necromancers, after all.

Have to think about that one a little.

Might be cool if they somehow absorb the life force of those they kill and get stronger. "Life Drain" sucks hitpoints from others but doesn't increase their max. Might try to subtly modify some of these spells.

Upon successfully casting the "Life Drain" there might be a special instance for the Necromancer where if it is successful, he gains a single max point to his HP based on a saving throw using his spell casting skill.

Would only require a few extra lines in the spell script and some testing, pretty simple.

If you restrict it to the Life Drain spell, I would still be waiting to the very end of the game (level 13) to gain the bonus and it would force me to cast Life Drain constantly, which would suck because at that point I want to be throwing around the new death spells I just learned. My recommendation would be to have it proc on Finger of Death, so it gives me something cool to do with my Necromancer starting at level 8. That's still pretty far into character development, and I'm going to be spamming Finger of Death at that point anyway. It should also work with Death Cloud, Death Gaze, Life Drain and Death Wish. Maybe give life drain a greater chance of it working, or something like that.

All of those spells plus even much lower levels like "Wither" (with higher saving throw) only applied to the Necromancer would introduce a new mechanic into the game that could be very cool and not much work to implement.

 

[Gunnar]

Soul eating Necromancers slowly becoming the most powerful entities in the game. You can see the incline happening in real time, folks.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Soul eating Necromancers slowly becoming the most powerful entities in the game. You can see the incline happening in real time, folks.

I had honestly never thought of such a thing until you suggested it. It seems appropriate that pasty skinned, pale chicken necked goth nerds wearing dark kaftans in Grimoire would be able to "suck" out your life force to increase their own. Very Codexian.

 

[Gunnar]

There are other classes that need a little bit of love as well, IMO. Since you're granting wishes, here's a few more ideas:

Metalsmith - There should be an incentive to play a single classed Metalsmith. Maybe they get inherently higher Forge AC bonus, maybe something cool like Armor Rot on a hit that scales with level.
Ranger - Ranger should get an inherent accuracy bonus to make him a worthwhile ending class and superior choice for an archery build
Berserker - Berserker should gain bonus XP on a berserking kill to help him level faster to compensate for his multiclass limitations
Pirate - He should start combat hidden sometimes. Have it based on stealth, starts happening at 75. This would mechanically be the equivalent to adding lethal blow to the assassins open hand fighting. It would create a good reason to want to end up on a pirate.

 

[Efe]

are those pirates a ninjas? why not give him a bonus on water instead?

 

[Gunnar]

Since many people are buying Grimoire for the first time today and will be building parties, I'll share some character ideas I had:

Open Hand Expert Assassin (ROW1)
Drake MET-BER-RAN-THI-ASS
Martial Skills: shield, Backstabbing
Physical Skills: Hand to Hand, Lethal Blow, Stealth, Iron Hands, Ninjitsu*
Mental Skills: invocation/incantation
* learned from trainer
Drake for Metalsmith affinity. Open hands for highest damage. He will max lethal blow and shield, then stealth and backstabbing, then iron hands when he becomes an assassin. Ninjitsu can be purchased.

Sword Templar (ROW2)
Wolfin RAN-THI-BAR-CLE-TEM
Martial Skills: Sword, Shield
Physical Skills: Lethal Blow
Mental Skills: Litany, Scribe/arcanum
Ranger start to get lethal blow. Wolfin for Ranger affinity. He will max sword, shield and lethal blow before focusing on litany as he becomes cleric and templar.

Hammer Alchemical Mage (ROW2)
Wolfin RAN-THI-BAR-SAG-THAU
Martial Skills: Hammer, Shield
Physical Skills: Lethal Blow
Mental Skills: Alchemistry, Scribe/Arcanum, nature lore*
* optional, but dovetails with alchemistry
Ranger start to get lethal blow. Wolfin for Ranger affinity. He will max mace, shield and lethal blow, and max Alchemistry before final class change to Thaumaturge.

They can all class change at low levels to rapidly reach their end classes, no grinding required.

You must save attribute gains on levelups and distribute them only when you need to for class change, and then when you reach the final class.

 

[Lady_Error]

It would be better to have your own Jester, but I'm saying it's not worth the time it takes to build one. Sounds like Chuckles may not be worth it either?

Well, you do need at least 6-8 class changes to get to a Jester, which also gives all kinds of other advantages. So I don't know what "worth the time" means. And yeah, Chuckles is great, except for the relatively low HP - he has around 200.

but all of his cool necromancer only spells are very high level, you would never see them.

Multiclassing first gives you HP (and Mana), so the Necro won't be squishy anymore to begin with. And if don't overdo the multiclassing, there is more than enough XP and other ways to increase Levels. In fact, buying Levels makes the most sense for the Necro to get his high level spells.

Start as Ranger, get lethal blow or accuracy, class change to warrior, enjoy better HP and attribute gains.

Yep. Though personally I think that a lot of class changes are even better.

 

[Gunnar]

At the end of the day, more class changes are always better, and you could technically change through every class with every character. So I guess it's all about where you draw the line in terms of how much you want to develop them and how long you want to wait for them to mature, and how much grinding you want to do.

 

[Lady_Error]

Hammer Alchemical Mage (ROW2)
Wolfin RAN-THI-BAR-SAG-THAU
Martial Skills: Hammer, Shield
Physical Skills: Lethal Blow
Mental Skills: Alchemistry, Scribe/Arcanum, nature lore*
* optional, but dovetails with alchemistry
Ranger start to get lethal blow. Wolfin for Ranger affinity. He will max mace, shield and lethal blow, and max Alchemistry before final class change to Thaumaturge.

Why Hammer though? As far as I know, there are no hammers with the lethal attribute.

At the end of the day, more class changes are always better, and you could technically change through every class with every character.

The maximum you can get is 14 out of 15 classes with a Barrower (only skips Metalsmith, since you cannot multiclass into one). Other races would have a much harder time doing the same.

 

[Gunnar]

Hammer Alchemical Mage (ROW2)
Wolfin RAN-THI-BAR-SAG-THAU
Martial Skills: Hammer, Shield
Physical Skills: Lethal Blow
Mental Skills: Alchemistry, Scribe/Arcanum, nature lore*
* optional, but dovetails with alchemistry
Ranger start to get lethal blow. Wolfin for Ranger affinity. He will max mace, shield and lethal blow, and max Alchemistry before final class change to Thaumaturge.

Why Hammer though? As far as I know, there are no hammers with the lethal attribute.

I found two lethal hammers, the bopwanker and crackatoa. I picked mace&hammer for the Thaumaturge build because he is the only caster class that gets access to it.

Bopwanker is 5D6, Range-2 if you want to add it to the wiki. Found in Titan Mines.

 

[Lady_Error]

Yeah, you're right about the Crackatoa. Where did you get that Bopwanker? Never heard of it.

 

[glass blackbird]

The manual gives both -20% and -25% for strength penalty on female characters. Which is correct?

 

[Gunnar]

The manual gives both -20% and -25% for strength penalty on female characters. Which is correct?

I believe it is -20%. It's not hard to check, you can whip up a couple characters and see. I'm trying to imagine cases where it's better to pick a woman, but FEL is so useless. I suppose you could save a few attribute points on classes that need FEL and won't be using STR. Pirate uses STR, so that leaves us with Bard, Jester and Cleric. Jester has to do so many class changes any attribute savings would be trivial, but you could make a case for it. Cleric seems the best suited class, since lots of races dont have the required 45 FEL to make a cleric. However, the only race that gets Cleric affinity also has 45 FEL to start which would make the female bonus useless. You could have a female Bard from one of the races that doesn't get enough FEL to start as Bard, but you could likely get enough with the starting roll anyway.

 

[Lady_Error]

I started a new playthrough at the Sanctuary and am now at Level 4-5. One advantage is that after more than a year I forgot a lot of the stuff from the first half of the game.

The Naga and Rhattu bites combined with the Assassin Iron Hands and Ninjutsu are pretty awesome. In fact, the Naga is the fastest one and kills most of the easier enemies with his bites before anyone else gets the chance. And he poisons them on top of that, if they survive.

The downside of my two Assassins is that they have the lowest amount of HP, so I had to place them in the last row. Two Drake Metalsmiths with their high AC and HP do the frontline duty - and four Barrower Thaumaturges are in-between...

 

[Gunnar]

The downside of my two Assassins is that they have the lowest amount of HP, so I had to place them in the last row.

I thought open hand was close range skill? It works well from the 4th row?

 

[SevenSidedDice]

What are the downsides to stealing from NPCs? I stole The Tome of the Spider from Gorlo and gave it to him to inspect. He attacked, so I killed him and then savescummed. Now Sir Coffergus wants the Amulet of Astrixus and I'm wondering, is there a downside to stealing it from him? I also stole a critical item (Knight's book, something like that) from him. I gave him both of those to inspect and he did not attack.

I also stole a LOT of spellbooks from Gorlo, and Blue Spellbooks, faerie water and a lot of other stuff from Argosyre. Is this ever going to bite me? I have also, on occasion, sold them their own stolen merchandise for $$$.

I'm using the Crowl Supply Shop as my personal extended inventory. Will the barrower steal my stuff? Will the shop be inaccessible at any point?

 

[Gunnar]

What are the downsides to stealing from NPCs? I stole The Tome of the Spider from Gorlo and gave it to him to inspect. He attacked, so I killed him and then savescummed. Now Sir Coffergus wants the Amulet of Astrixus and I'm wondering, is there a downside to stealing it from him? I also stole a critical item (Knight's book, something like that) from him. I gave him both of those to inspect and he did not attack.

I also stole a LOT of spellbooks from Gorlo, and Blue Spellbooks, faerie water and a lot of other stuff from Argosyre. Is this ever going to bite me? I have also, on occasion, sold them their own stolen merchandise for $$$.

I'm using the Crowl Supply Shop as my personal extended inventory. Will the barrower steal my stuff? Will the shop be inaccessible at any point?

Some NPCs can go hostile against you if you use Robbery on them and fail. You can then use Diplomacy skill to negotiate with angry NPCs and make them less angry. If they don't immediately catch you and get angry, there are no other consequences to stealing.

 

[SevenSidedDice]

Some NPCs can go hostile against you if you use Robbery on them and fail. You can then use Diplomacy skill to negotiate with angry NPCs and make them less angry. If they don't immediately catch you and get angry, there are no other consequences to stealing.

Thanks for the answer!

Is it possible to duplicate items in-game by first stealing it and then being offered it later?

 

[Gunnar]

Some NPCs can go hostile against you if you use Robbery on them and fail. You can then use Diplomacy skill to negotiate with angry NPCs and make them less angry. If they don't immediately catch you and get angry, there are no other consequences to stealing.

Thanks for the answer!

Is it possible to duplicate items in-game by first stealing it and then being offered it later?

Yeah, Robbery is famously broken, you can steal stuff, come back and steal it all again, sell it all back to the same NPC and make infinite gp, etc. I haven't heard of any significant items you can get by abusing stealing though. I suspect if there are any, it would be rare alchemical components you can use for crafting. A few NPCs will have unique items that you can only steal once, like a key, which is the best use for Robbery I have seen.

 

[SevenSidedDice]

Cool, thanks.

Does Detect Secret really reveal EVERYTHING hidden in the environment or can I get lucky if I look in unremarkable places?

Will using a weapon with a corresponding low skill train it to be higher independent of manual point distribution? My berserker is at 100 for Axe and Scimitar but shit in everything else and I can't find any good weapons yet, so I'm thinking about increasing his sword skill so he can wield better weapons. The strongest weapon I have right now is a 3D6 axe. I have a shitty broadsword, will equipping it for a hundred fights give me quick skill progression?

Where do I find Little Rosie? I'm currently handing Sir Coffergus his amulet. Post-eyrie.

Do characters die of old age?

Is killing Ore Worms the easiest way to get XP (for me) right now? Is there a way to save my weapons from their Acid Splash save a quick bard?

What does the console do? ("~", I think.)

 

[Gunnar]

If there's something there, Detect Secret will notify you, but it's not always obvious what you are supposed to do. Killing things with other things improves your skill with that thing. Little Rosy is found in Crowl. Age is a sadly unimplemented mechanic. Ore worms remain great for experience well into the game, put them to sleep avoid the acid. Never tried the console before.

 

[Lady_Error]

The downside of my two Assassins is that they have the lowest amount of HP, so I had to place them in the last row.

I thought open hand was close range skill? It works well from the 4th row?

Yeah. The rows business only applies to enemy rows.