I can't help about your specific Stride skill point, I have no idea.
It's possible that I never got Stride, and I kind of remember quests giving more and more points so buying some cheap one is not a huge deal, although' I'm saying that while I remember stocking points so maybe I barely bought anything else than Max Me Out, if I even ever did, I don't remember if you can get some of those by other means, and I've got only 51 skill points left at the end, if that's what the skill point part of the sheet means. I can't remember exactly how it works but I think that Max me out is worth it, I wonder if it's linked with spells, because I did not remember using spells at all during the game, so I don't know why I've got 255 in spells.
I can't remember if the Yes in the sheet includes what you get from items, but anyway here's that part of my sheet at the very end of the game :
Well, I found out that you learn all the skills late in game, Spell Casting 255 from a book, and in the end you even learn Max Me Out.
You must have missed some content if you didn't have all the Lord Skills. And did you use Max Me Out?
This is how my character looked at the end, before killing Doom:
So it turns out I didn't need to hoard them skill points, but could have used them while the game was still challenging.
In the end things got too easy. The combination of Create Steel Wall and the Stride Skill meant not a single enemy could hurt me unless they got initiative. But the two bosses who did get initiative couldn't do enough damage to be a threat.
All in all a very enjoyable game, especially considering it's so obscure.
Lots of content; it took me about two weeks to complete, which is a bit above average even for a professional game.
The story was surprisingly rich, but in a kitchen sink kind of way, although the writing was quite good for an amateur (far better than most story driven HoMM maps, for example). There's the protagonist with A Mysterious Past who is The Chosen One. There are The Ancients, demon invasions, astral realms and time travel.
Explorationwise it was rather weak; no fog of war on the Overland. I liked that you could cast a spell to find out the monster levels of an area, like in the Phantasie games.
Items were quite good. It's a bit lame that most of the good stuff are from shops, and you can "shop spam" to get the best items from each shop. OTOH monsters leave more random items than I first thought, and you can find some really powerful items if lucky. I got the Cosmic Knight Armor from one of the mid level bosses, for example.
Combat is very good for a single character game, with lots of options.
It's a bit like an old game like Demon's Winter, only with much more options. It provides a decent challenge for most of the games, especially in those periods when you don't have a melee weapon strong enough to hurt your enemies.
On the downside things get a bit unbalanced when you can buy the rechargable Book of Creatures and Book of Steel Walls. The former summons allies from among the strongest generic monsters in the game, while the latter means you can be completely safe, since none of your enemies have high enough Stride or Architect skill to penetrate it. There's also no special boss abilities which makes the end game anticlimactic combatwise.
There's a decent array of spells, but for some reason there's no non-damage area effect spells.
All in all a very solid game (with a few balance problems) which more people should try, especially if they like tactical combat and character development. Not very suitable for the C&C-fags, and too much and too hard combat for the storyfags.
