Starting the M&M series with Isles of Terra (tips please)

[Atlet]

I recently bought the GOG version of the Might and Magic series, and now I want to start it with the third episode. I will play isles of terra, world of xeen, mandate of heaven and for blood and honor. So, should I know any tips before starting this glorious series? Tks.

 

[octavius]

There's no shame in using the pregens.
The pregens of MM3 appear as NPCs in MM7.

Consider using the Ludwig patch to fix a few bugs. Avoid his MM3 mod that increases spawns, though.

Score is based partly in game time spend. Time passes every time you enter a shop, temple or training ground.
HP and mana is replenished when training, so there's rarely any need to rest.

Double hitting the S key will give you two missiles attacks a round. Bug or undocumented design feature?

Be very careful around radiation as it ages characters exposed to it. Too much aging can seriously screw up the game.

 

[Sinatar]

You could consider using the Where are We? mod which adds an improved map, but also has all the item stats and spell information right there which makes it smoother to play. The mod also works with Might & Magics 1 - 5, not just 3.

 

[kmonster]

You don't need any mods to play the game. Backing up your saves now and then won't hurt but I didn't need it. There's no need to keep the in-game time or playing time low, this is no speedrun.

 

[octavius]

There's no need to keep the in-game time or playing time low, this is no speedrun.

Who said anything about a speedrun? It's about getting a good score (how much time the party uses, not how much time the player uses).

 

[Dorateen]

Use the Jump spell to bypass traps in dungeons.

 

[fantadomat]

There's no shame in using the pregens.
The pregens of MM3 appear as NPCs in MM7.

Consider using the Ludwig patch to fix a few bugs. Avoid his MM3 mod that increases spawns, though.

Score is based partly in game time spend. Time passes every time you enter a shop, temple or training ground.
HP and mana is replenished when training, so there's rarely any need to rest.

Double hitting the S key will give you two missiles attacks a round. Bug or undocumented design feature?

Be very careful around radiation as it ages characters exposed to it. Too much aging can seriously screw up the game.

If I play with the pregens I lose too much? Is it the other classes/races cooler? If I want to create a new party, what lines I should have in mind?

I finished all the older games with the pregens without any problems,just look some walktrough/map to see where is the radiation and have fun exploring the rest.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Why would anyone play a role-playing game with pregens? It doesn'¡t make any sense to me.

 

[Dorateen]

I thought pregens existed for the purpose of taking their gear and giving it to your created party.

 

[fantadomat]

Why would anyone play a role-playing game with pregens? It doesn'¡t make any sense to me.

Why would anyone reroll 6 times the rerolling of the BG? It doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Why would anyone play a role-playing game with pregens? It doesn'¡t make any sense to me.

Why would anyone reroll 6 times the rerolling of the BG? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Perhaps because you don't like role-playing games, which are all about conquering the world with your own made characters.

 

[Parsifarka]

Play Swords of Xeen too, truly a gift for anyone enjonying M&MIII-V.

 

[fantadomat]

Why would anyone play a role-playing game with pregens? It doesn'¡t make any sense to me.

Why would anyone reroll 6 times the rerolling of the BG? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Perhaps because you don't like role-playing games, which are all about conquering the world with your own made characters.

Depends on the game,the early MM games have the same shitty rolling dice mechanic as BG. And those games are more about exploring than roleplaying.

 

[DavidBVal]

Just make sure you have one druid or ranger. Walk on water and a few other things are important in the midgame.

Hard Counters are important in this game. If you find an area where you get assaulted by conditions (poison, insanity, etc) don't try to pull through via brute force; very likely there is a fountain or npc nearby that provides an appropiate heal or buff for it.

Instead of the town dungeon, which seems the most natural area to explore first, consider going outdoors and destroying one or several of the monster "spawners". The reward is huge, you'll gain easy levels and good items. And check the fountains around for easy buffs that really make a difference. IoT can range from easy to brutal depending on how much you explore and if you take advantage of the available temporary buffs hidden across the map.

Regarding unnatural aging: it can be reverted by a quest, I don't see it as a big deal.

 

[DavidBVal]

Do you hire the druid and the archer in the beggining of the game? The exp will be split, right? So, the slower progression will affect badly the gameplay?

I never play MM3 with hirelings so I can't say. But I suppose it splits, yes.

 

[Sceptic]

Do you hire the druid and the archer in the beggining of the game? The exp will be split, right? So, the slower progression will affect badly the gameplay?

In almost every playthrough I've made (and there were many over the past 26 years) I used the pregens and hired the druid and archer. It makes for a very solid party, if not necessarily an ideal one. Like others have said you do want a ranger or druid one way or the other, but I like having the combination of Cleric/Sorcerer/Druid for all 3 schools of magic, and the Paladin/Archer as backup casters for the two more useful schools.

 

[Dzupakazul]

I ended up going through the entirety of MM3 with the pregen party (it allowed me to just "pick up and play" the game when I was a beginner blobberer, and I actually really enjoyed MM3's accessibility in that regard; besides, the pregen party has freaking Crag Hack) and I didn't end up with hirelings for the longest time because . However, the need for travelling with hirelings doesn't really surface until you get way into the adventure, and I also accidentally stumbled upon a slightly unorthodox route:
- cleared starting area as usual
- somehow missed Baywatch entirely and went on a random ship which took me sightseeing and dropped me off in the swamp town
- reloaded a couple times until I managed to burst down the crazy shit that was there
- fought through the considerably easier ghouls and ninjas, vastly improved my gear (to around Gold tier all around), got a new blessing and WHERE TOOOO'D? back to starting city
- kept on adventuring and getting lost here and there
- some random dungeon or pyramid or whatever gave me the portal password to the Blazing Steppes town or whatever it was named

For a long time, I travelled through the sea by just spamming Etherealize with Kastore until I got somewhere. You can also teleport to another island if you stand on the edge of a continent and try teleporting blindly to certain spots. When I finally ended up taking Lone Wolf with me for ease of travel, they ended up dying all the time with their massive underlevel, but it was okay because corpses do not ask for gold every day. I would rip poor Lone Wolf's soul from the realm of the dead a few times, often necesstiating to restore his ERADICATED corpse, so that they could cast Water Walk, and then they'd get offed by some random Magic Candle that just happened to dwell on the sea.

But yeah, if you note all the passwords and so forth, I'd say that you can do the whole game without Druid or Ranger, but it might be a bit roundabout in certain places. I ended up not solving a few quests because when I got around to them I was already farming those killer two-headed birds from the desert and later the Hydras - the game can throw you on a very interesting rollercoaster no matter what you do.

 

[octavius]

Why would anyone play a role-playing game with pregens? It doesn'¡t make any sense to me.

Why? They are just a number of stats anyway. And they don't have any skills or abilties you can customize.
And it's not like player characters in the M&M and most older CRPGs have any personality.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Why? They are just a number of stats anyway. And they don't have any skills or abilties you can customize.
And it's not like player characters in the M&M and most older CRPGs have any personality.

I recall once reading a blurb in the manual for some Etrian Odyssey game encouraging you to think up little personalities and stories of your characters based on how they are doing to immerse yourself more. I know that even if I play a game with established characters, I can still go "Fucking piece of shit Minsc always gets stuck in the doorways", or feel bad for Maximus always being the guy carrying corpses back to town (I died a lot outside of Fountainhead and at that time I got carried away to that Swamp Town, but the pivotal moment was when I was out climbing and walked into a horde of ogres or something to that effect, and Maximus ONCE AGAIN was the only survivor). It's not even some conscious LARPing that you collectivize and make notes of, it's just the kinda shit you mutter to the screen as you play.

I think there's some thing in many of us that compels us to make the characters feel "ours" even if we mostly think of them as a vehicle, a blob of stats; like, have you ever felt weirdly alien if you tried to play a game from someone's save, or even a save from a long time ago that you decided to get back to? A friend of mine modeled his MM1 party after his friends ("I" was the team Cleric), and it's not uncommon for kids playing Final Fantasy to do this kinda stuff as well. I dunno if I'd keep the MM3 characters as-is if it weren't for the recognizable portraits that I remembered from HoMM1/2 (and, well, having had prior knowledge of the fact that MM3 pregen party is the "default" party that shows up in MM7, and that keeping the pregens for their excellent stats is really good advice); my current WoX party that's on hiatus is entirely custom, on the other hand, and it has, by a small, silly tradition I tend to follow in most games of this sort, a female mage named Lina.

It's the same principle as spending a few good moments on creating your perfect MMO avatar, albeit diluted to a couple of portraits, statblocks and names.

 

[octavius]

For me it's a big difference between traditional party based CRPGs on the one hand, and single character or main character+companions (Fallout, BG) on the other hand.
In the latter I can identify with the characters and role play the main character, but in the former the characters are just stats to me. And to me there's really no practical difference between the party members and the hirelings, except for the upkeep.

 

[fantadomat]

I am with octavius here,i love playing character not some kind of chimera with 6 heads and 12 hands. When i play a game with party creation i go for practicality. Only exception i had is DarkLands,Hans the ravager and Gruber the slime will stay with me for a long time.

 

[Filthy Sauce]

Do you even need.... 'tips' for MM 3-5? The games are easy... And I mean really EASY.