Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[Rudra]

Hello all!

I've recently become interested in this franchise, due to some...personal circumstances requiring that I look at games I normally wouldn't for my entertainment needs. I've never really played a blobber before, and I've decided to go with the 6-7-8 Merge Mod because best I can tell it's a good way to get eased into the kind of gameplay in this series.

This isnt the kind of game I usually play - my favorite RPG of all time is Dragon Age Origins, for example, but something's changed in me and I find myself gravitating to older games I never had the chance to try

Any beginner tips/tricks? any advice? Any other party based RPGS with large/interesting worlds to explore?

 

[Dorateen]

Any other party based RPGS with large/interesting worlds to explore?

Wizadry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant

For something lighter, and easier to get into, also check out the two Legends of Amberland games that are also Might & Magic inspired.

 

[cthscr]

Any beginner tips/tricks? any advice?

Beginner party: Knight + Cleric + Sorcerer + 2. (If start in Jadame - replace Sorcerer with Necromancer.)

 

[Storyfag]

Any beginner tips/tricks? any advice?

Get the Bow skill and a ranged weapon for every party member, it really helps.
Fight most fights in turn-based mode. Makes them easier.
Get Water Magic mastery on a sorcerer/necromancer as soon as possible. Makes travel a lot easier. To unlock a city as a valid Town Portal target, you need to drink from the main fountain.
Another great quality of life improvement is the Dark Magic spell Shrapmetal. Highest damage per cast (tho such low-level spells as Sparks and Poison Spray actually have higher damage per mana output).
Don't be afraid to explore various regions! The towns you can reach by ship and/or coach are mostly safe.
Fix the saturation of MM7 in the Merge config files to enhance your enjoyment of that part. I posted the solution in this thread, run a search of my posts.
The reputation system is broken in the MMMerge mod, so when you're in MM6, DO NOT return the Candelabra to the Baa cultist in the New Sorpigal inn. Unless you want to fight all the town guards. You might also want to look up the console command to alter reputation.
Drakmoor is love, Drakmoor is un(life). Drakmoor yearns for you.

 

[Average Manatee]

Never played the merge, but:

- Pay attention mainly to whether you can expert/master/grandmaster a skill. Sometimes their bonuses make or break the entire skill (e.g. missing out on adding your skill to damage). Others are irrelevant (e.g. for armor/shield skills the most important breakpoint is eliminating recovery penalty on your attacks since DPS is king).
- Stats are weird as fuck. It's like D&D in that only specific benchmarks (for D&D even numbers) add a +1, but for M&M the amount needed goes up massively over time. You can see the numbers here: https://grayface.github.io/mm/mechanics/. What this means is that your stats matter a lot in the early game but literally not at all by the mid and late game. A 25 might character vs a 5 might character has a +10 to damage, but by the midgame when you've hit a few shrines, drank some black potions, used some barrels, a 125 might character has only a +1 advantage over a 105 might character, and they'll be doing like 50 damage per attack so its only a 2% increase while at level 1 you're dealing like 10 damage per attack so its a 100% increase. You do need specific levels of stats to unlock certain things but generally temp stat boosts let you qualify.
- Don't be stingy on spending skill points. Like me keeping bow for everyone at 1 despite killing 90% of enemies for the first 5 hours with bows. I still do it anyway but don't be me.
- The things you want to rush are generally water and air magic because they both provide fantastic quality of life spells along with Sparks being the workhorse shotgun damage spell for your elemental casters. You want to rush to unlock light or dark magic but they are powerful enough at what they do that you don't need to stockpile points and wait for them, just a few ranks is enough for them to be overpowered (of course you do eventually want to make them your strongest skills).
- Almost all spells that inflict a status ailment on an enemy either don't work or work so rarely they are useless.
- Skills not to care about: Identify item (Get a scholar hireling to identify everything, don't worry about it early because shops are nice in M&M and pay you full price for unid-ed items), Identify monster (lmao wtf), Learning (the bonus XP is only from kills which is a fraction of total XP meaning it takes forever to pay off, though this might be different in merge if you're doing all 3 games I dunno). You can also kind of ignore Earth magic as the least useful school, though the Telekinesis spell can replace the Disarm skill.
- Assuming you're playing with Greyface patch I recommend trying shooter mode (turn on in the .ini). It's kind of an overhaul to how the game plays. Check the readme for how it works.

 

[Storyfag]

Learning (the bonus XP is only from kills which is a fraction of total XP meaning it takes forever to pay off, though this might be different in merge if you're doing all 3 games I dunno)

I think Merge fixed this and it now applies to quest XP too.

- Assuming you're playing with Greyface patch I recommend trying shooter mode (turn on in the .ini). It's kind of an overhaul to how the game plays. Check the readme for how it works.

Merge includes Greyface, and mouse look is enabled by default

Speaking of which! Rudra, in some cases (MM7 Golem quest, most notably) you will need to access your followers panel. In order to be able to do that, you need to switch off the mouse look (caps lock does that) and click the little head icon in the right(?) of the UI.

 

[Average Manatee]

Merge includes Greyface, and mouse look is enabled by default

Shooter mode is a separate option from just mouselook.

Set ShooterMode=1 to enable FPS-like mode. Press attack button to toggle the fight mode, then press left mouse button to attack and right button to use quick spell. Regular quick spell button also works. No auto-targeting is done. A sword icon indicates this mode, which also shows health of target (or last hit) monster.

The main thing (aside from being more fun hosing down mobs with blasters) is no auto aim so you can decide where your spells go in real time and use AoE spells like fireball better by targetting the ground as opposed to aiming at something and missing because they are constantly strafing.

EDIT: I will say it can make very small enemies a bit annoying to fight as you need pixel perfect aim. You can still fight normally though, just be aware that you need to switch to that if you're swinging for several minutes at rats and not getting anywhere.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Any beginner tips/tricks?

Start in New Sorpigal. There is a Fly scroll in the wall of the bank. Travel to Castle Ironfist using the stables. Travel to Darkmoor. A little north there is Castle Darkmoor. Use the fly scroll to fly up to the entrance. This is the beginner dungeon.
P.S. very important: use only a Level1 party to enter.
You will never forget the experience. And never forgive me.

 

[Rudra]

Start in New Sorpigal. There is a Fly scroll in the wall of the bank. Travel to Castle Ironfist using the stables. Travel to Darkmoor. A little north there is Castle Darkmoor. Use the fly scroll to fly up to the entrance. This is the beginner dungeon.
P.S. very important: use only a Level1 party to enter.
You will never forget the experience. And never forgive me.

hmm seems trustworthy enough :p

Thanks all who replied and gave me suggestions

Don't completely get forum etiquette, havent really used one before. Am I supposed to quote everyone individually?

 

[Average Manatee]

Any beginner tips/tricks?

Start in New Sorpigal. There is a Fly scroll in the wall of the bank. Travel to Castle Ironfist using the stables. Travel to Darkmoor. A little north there is Castle Darkmoor. Use the fly scroll to fly up to the entrance. This is the beginner dungeon.
P.S. very important: use only a Level1 party to enter.
You will never forget the experience. And never forgive me.

Spoiler

This is actually funnier when he goes back to Darkmoor 30 levels later and it still rapes him

 

[Rudra]

I know the standard RPG gameplay ideas of "go everywhere you can and talk to everyone" but is there something M&M specific I should be watching out for?

I'm not expecting my hand held as I figure out the game, but there's a difference between "a challenge you have to think to overcome within the game constraints" and "this will fuck you over 50 hours in and you had no way to know"

 

[Storyfag]

Don't completely get forum etiquette, havent really used one before. Am I supposed to quote everyone individually?

Not at all. Do as you please.

 

[cthscr]

Never played the merge, but:

- Skills not to care about: Identify item (Get a scholar hireling to identify everything

Hehe. 23.07.2023:

Forgot to mention change of scholar NPC follower: ability to identify any kind of items have been taken away, instead he's able to identify apparel only (boots, gloves, rings, amulets, wands, belts, capes, spell scrolls and spell books). Being able to identify anything just by having 5% gold penalty made Identify skill completely useless. Besides that, NPC clearly states, he's been studying to identify any magical item, thus i think change is fair.

you will need to access your followers panel. In order to be able to do that, you need to switch off the mouse look (caps lock does that) and click the little head icon in the right(?) of the UI.

Why don't you just press 0? (Or whatever button you've assigned in Menu-Controls-Extra Settings-Keybinds)

Learning (the bonus XP is only from kills which is a fraction of total XP meaning it takes forever to pay off, though this might be different in merge if you're doing all 3 games I dunno)

I think Merge fixed this and it now applies to quest XP too.

In Revamp only.

 

[Storyfag]

Why don't you just press 0? (Or whatever button you've assigned in Menu-Controls-Extra Settings-Keybinds)

I don't have the option to keybind this So I couldn't even look up the default key.

 

[octavius]

Hello all!

I've recently become interested in this franchise, due to some...personal circumstances requiring that I look at games I normally wouldn't for my entertainment needs. I've never really played a blobber before, and I've decided to go with the 6-7-8 Merge Mod because best I can tell it's a good way to get eased into the kind of gameplay in this series.

6-8 are not really proper blobbers, since your blob doesn't move on a grid.
MM3 or 4 is a better introduction to a real blobber, or Dungeon Master if you want to try a real time blobber.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I know the standard RPG gameplay ideas of "go everywhere you can and talk to everyone" but is there something M&M specific I should be watching out for?

I'm not expecting my hand held as I figure out the game, but there's a difference between "a challenge you have to think to overcome within the game constraints" and "this will fuck you over 50 hours in and you had no way to know"

Some of this has already been mentioned but still, here's a short list

• Save often, particularly in dungeons. If you fall, for example, the way back might be long or you could die, some traps are nasty...
• Don't put too many points in non combat skills, later, you'll find items adding some points to these skills or even enchant them yourself. (what matters the most is the mastery level)
• Don't put too many points in basic elemental mage/cleric skills as light and dark magic is vastly superior for buffs and everything else.
• Save before drinking barrels and use them on the appropriate character.
• Depending on the game, there's some wells improving permanently some attributes, it might be interesting to start with some really low attributes (non essential attributes to the minimum, particularly on fighter types)
• Take some notes about the quests in order to optimize your travels, same for experts, masters and grandmasters.

 

[Average Manatee]

• Don't put too many points in basic elemental mage/cleric skills as light and dark magic is vastly superior for buffs and everything else.

Need Air Magic for fly, along with Sparks (best general use damage spell before infinite mana), Invisibility, and Jump (can't fly in dungeons) being useful.

Need Water for Enchant, Town Portal, and Lloyd's, and Poison Spray is fairly comparable to Sparks. Lloyd's is how you get infinite mana by teleporting to a healing place every time you run low and is kind of essential for expensive dark spell spam.

Fire magic is decent for fireball (most efficient AoE before infinite mana dark spam IIRC), and at grandmaster Fire Aura is *the* best way to get infinite cash bar none since it always provides a very expensive enchant and works on all weapons not just high quality ones. Enchant item is really slow to generate money by comparison. It's also just generally a great overall damage buff, your melee is unlikely to find great weapon enchants for a long time and its a huge buff to normally low damage bows.

Earth... well like I said its good for telekinesis to trigger traps and avoid needing disarm. Not really great since by the time you can afford Earth Master you can probably also just tank traps with your HP and laugh though, and Disarm doesn't need huge skill ranks early on esp if you find a +disarm item.

Body's Regeneration is absolutely OP, being high value all game, practically free, and just gets so much better with each rank. I'm not sure how it works, is it a % of max HP each tick?

I will agree that you probably shouldn't spend anything over grandmastery on non-light/dark spells if you have someone who can do light/dark though.

 

[Kayato]

and MM6 is gone too! it was the title that attracted me to start the marathon. I really liked it (played vanilla without mods), the world, the music, the new mechanics and the quests were beautiful, I won't dwell too much on the positive aspects because I think everyone knows them!
In each new chapter of MM I always saw progress, what I didn't like I found fixed in the next chapter. But as of MM4 there is still no broken equipment indicator! I always have to check each character's inventory.
The spells were a bit of a disappointment, the utility and buff spells work well, the offensive ones not so much. I used to have "clear room" spells but maybe I did something wrong. I liked the idea of the potions even if the healing and mana ones are useful just at the beginning and don't keep your inventory full. However, the buff potions are very useful... especially our "favorite castles"!
Speaking of dungeons: WOW. Being the first 3D title I thought they would go easy but I didn't expect the first dungeons to be so big and then....

Spoiler

let's talk about Varn's tomb, a pyramid within a pyramid! The castles of Darkmoor and Alamar are hated and loved only for the layout (not counting the enemies), the dungeon of the spirit of fire (which I don't remember the name) all vertical and enigmatic, wow I really didn't expect such things.

I'm sorry that the last areas of the game are a bit "empty" or rather filled only with powerful enemies. Leaving aside when you obtain the "ancient weapons", I always found the fights a bit "slow" despite being level 90, with the stats above 300 and at least 15 points in the main weapons I always advanced slowly in the fights compared to the previous chapters which towards the endgame having overleveled everything became faster.
Time for 7! I already looked at the manual I see many similarities, I noticed more classes, 2 class promotion paths (I think), grand master levels and races.
Advice? Does PACS always work well? Can I mix good and bad PCs together?

 

[catfood]

and MM6 is gone too! it was the title that attracted me to start the marathon. I really liked it (played vanilla without mods), the world, the music, the new mechanics and the quests were beautiful, I won't dwell too much on the positive aspects because I think everyone knows them!
In each new chapter of MM I always saw progress, what I didn't like I found fixed in the next chapter. But as of MM4 there is still no broken equipment indicator! I always have to check each character's inventory.
The spells were a bit of a disappointment, the utility and buff spells work well, the offensive ones not so much. I used to have "clear room" spells but maybe I did something wrong. I liked the idea of the potions even if the healing and mana ones are useful just at the beginning and don't keep your inventory full. However, the buff potions are very useful... especially our "favorite castles"!
Speaking of dungeons: WOW. Being the first 3D title I thought they would go easy but I didn't expect the first dungeons to be so big and then....

Spoiler

let's talk about Varn's tomb, a pyramid within a pyramid! The castles of Darkmoor and Alamar are hated and loved only for the layout (not counting the enemies), the dungeon of the spirit of fire (which I don't remember the name) all vertical and enigmatic, wow I really didn't expect such things.

I'm sorry that the last areas of the game are a bit "empty" or rather filled only with powerful enemies. Leaving aside when you obtain the "ancient weapons", I always found the fights a bit "slow" despite being level 90, with the stats above 300 and at least 15 points in the main weapons I always advanced slowly in the fights compared to the previous chapters which towards the endgame having overleveled everything became faster.
Time for 7! I already looked at the manual I see many similarities, I noticed more classes, 2 class promotion paths (I think), grand master levels and races.
Advice? Does PACS always work well? Can I mix good and bad PCs together?

I find that offensive spells truly start to shine when you use two or more sorcs/druids. When you can fire off multiple damage spells in a single round that's when the damage really starts to add up. Did you get dark magic and shrapmetal? It's pretty much one of the most broken spells in any RPG ever.

Potions get even more useful in MM7 with alchemy. I never really used them in 6 except for the early levels. The downside to the alchemy system in 7 is that if you decide to use it you will end up with a very cluttered inventory.

The dungeons in this game are amazing, especially Varn and Darkmoore like you mentioned. The dungeons later in the series are not as impressive anymore, but they do compensate a bit with their themes.

Did you actually clear all those areas of dragons and titans? Nigga, like , just fly past them. You don't even need that many levels to begin with.

PACS is the default party in 6 iirc. It's not the most powerful combo IMO, but it works. In 7 it's also a decent choice, especially since the game is a bit easier than the first one, except for the beginning. My advice is to either make a racially homogenous party though because otherwise the beginning is going to be very slow.

 

[Kayato]

and MM6 is gone too! it was the title that attracted me to start the marathon. I really liked it (played vanilla without mods), the world, the music, the new mechanics and the quests were beautiful, I won't dwell too much on the positive aspects because I think everyone knows them!
In each new chapter of MM I always saw progress, what I didn't like I found fixed in the next chapter. But as of MM4 there is still no broken equipment indicator! I always have to check each character's inventory.
The spells were a bit of a disappointment, the utility and buff spells work well, the offensive ones not so much. I used to have "clear room" spells but maybe I did something wrong. I liked the idea of the potions even if the healing and mana ones are useful just at the beginning and don't keep your inventory full. However, the buff potions are very useful... especially our "favorite castles"!
Speaking of dungeons: WOW. Being the first 3D title I thought they would go easy but I didn't expect the first dungeons to be so big and then....

Spoiler

let's talk about Varn's tomb, a pyramid within a pyramid! The castles of Darkmoor and Alamar are hated and loved only for the layout (not counting the enemies), the dungeon of the spirit of fire (which I don't remember the name) all vertical and enigmatic, wow I really didn't expect such things.

I'm sorry that the last areas of the game are a bit "empty" or rather filled only with powerful enemies. Leaving aside when you obtain the "ancient weapons", I always found the fights a bit "slow" despite being level 90, with the stats above 300 and at least 15 points in the main weapons I always advanced slowly in the fights compared to the previous chapters which towards the endgame having overleveled everything became faster.
Time for 7! I already looked at the manual I see many similarities, I noticed more classes, 2 class promotion paths (I think), grand master levels and races.
Advice? Does PACS always work well? Can I mix good and bad PCs together?

I find that offensive spells truly start to shine when you use two or more sorcs/druids. When you can fire off multiple damage spells in a single round that's when the damage really starts to add up. Did you get dark magic and shrapmetal? It's pretty much one of the most broken spells in any RPG ever.

Potions get even more useful in MM7 with alchemy. I never really used them in 6 except for the early levels. The downside to the alchemy system in 7 is that if you decide to use it you will end up with a very cluttered inventory.

The dungeons in this game are amazing, especially Varn and Darkmoore like you mentioned. The dungeons later in the series are not as impressive anymore, but they do compensate a bit with their themes.

Did you actually clear all those areas of dragons and titans? Nigga, like , just fly past them. You don't even need that many levels to begin with.

PACS is the default party in 6 iirc. It's not the most powerful combo IMO, but it works. In 7 it's also a decent choice, especially since the game is a bit easier than the first one, except for the beginning. My advice is to either make a racially homogenous party though because otherwise the beginning is going to be very slow.

I got all spells at master level. The offensive ones at low levels work especially when you're forced to use them against slimes and gargoyles. But then I found the "outdoor" ones useful even though in the last few flights I flew just where I needed to. The "shotgun" spell didn't seem efficient to me. Dragon Breath worked well but I could only cast it 3-4 times. Prismatic light never worked, even finger of death. Ice Bolt (I think) too unpredictable, I hardly hit more than one enemy, even Rock Blast (I think) every now and then I had the lucky rebound and it really did damage. I used Spark often spamming it with 2 casters when I had enemies below. Poison "something" (the second of the dark school) worked well against the Eyes but was also sometimes missing in turn-based combat, it just passed by.

Speaking of cluttered inventory, in my ignorance I always carried with me all the quest items that did not disappear at the end of the quest, including messages. They could have improved this aspect, then the only quest I didn't complete was the candelabra one, I found it straight away but I said to myself "I'll get it later, it's so close to the exit" and then I didn't have it anymore found in the chest, even with the reset of the dungeon still nothing and Mr. "lost and found" continues to always give me the knight's shield (I had left 5 outside his tent!)

 

[Average Manatee]

Sparks: 2+1 damage per air magic, 7 sparks at master, so effectively 14+7 damage per air magic.
Shrapmetal: 6 + 3.5 damage per dark x7, so 42+24.5 per dark.
Fireball: 3.5 AoE damage per fire
Dragon Breath: 13 AoE damage per dark

If you really focus a single ability you can get up to 30ish skill by the late game. That means sparks would be 224 damage for 4 mana, Shrapmetal is 777 for 50 mana, fireball is 105 AoE damage for 8 mana, and Dragon Breath is 390 AoE damage for 100 mana. The "trick" is to just set a Lloyd's beacon next to a temple and have them heal your mana in seconds whenever you're low. So just focusing 100% on dark gets you both Dragon Break and Shrapmetal to handle basically everything.

Spells vs. physical balance is kind of weird because everyone is stuck in the same spot, and bow damage doesn't scale well to late game. So non-casters are stuck plinking away with like 20 damage attacks. And just in general all spells except Shrapmetal, sometimes Sparks (if they aren't air resistance), and melee is the only thing that does enough damage for some late game enemies. Meanwhile IN melee everyone gets most of their damage from the light buffs which means that attack speed is all that is important, which leaves the best melee characters as... an unarmored character with a dagger. i.e. what a sorcerer is.

It's a shame that Apocalypse basically only exists to let you easily tank your reputation by killing towns, it takes like 4 or 5 castings just to clear out mid level areas.

Time for 7! I already looked at the manual I see many similarities, I noticed more classes, 2 class promotion paths (I think), grand master levels and races.
Advice? Does PACS always work well? Can I mix good and bad PCs together?

Main thing to notice is that different classes have different caps on what they can train to. Armsmaster skill makes dedicated melee characters significantly better, but only Knight can Grandmaster it which doubles its effects. Additionally light/dark is """balanced""" by restricting it to later in the game and on mutually exclusive paths (both are still imbalanced). As you can tell from MM6, going down the light magic path will be better for a melee party and dark magic better for a caster party.

Class-wise the only thing I'd say is that hybrids generally kind of suck in MM7/8. Where in MM6 clerics and sorcerers only had light/dark magic over hybrids (which was still an absurdly big advantage given they are the best magics), in MM7/8 hybrids also are capped at much lower ranks in the elemental and spirit/mind/body stats. Archer is a bit unique in that while its a hybrid it also uniquely gets Bow GM which does actually make them great at range, though there's still the problem of the rest of the team feeling kind of like deadweight if you play that way. Paladin on the other hand gets nothing. Knight is the premier melee class but monks and thief are respectable. Druids are also a "bad" hybrid.

Races are mostly cosmetic, only affecting starting stats in MM7. I guess you could argue Dwarves as the best race since Might and Endurance are probably the best stats to have high early on. In MM8 races are also classes which is...weird. Also all of the non-human race/classes are hybrids which makes them kind of bad for the same reason hybrids are bad in MM7.

There's no "bad" and "good" PCs to start with, depending on your choices you'll either be promoting yourself up the light or dark path and all of your characters will be on the same "path". Otherwise you'd be able to have light and dark magic in the same party that we can't have that it'd be too imbalancing.

 

[Kayato]

I trust the math, I probably used Shrapmetal against the wrong enemies or was unlucky and it always did little damage. I saw that sometimes Implosion against the same type of enemy, in the same fight would do 2HP or 96HP!
I definitely wasted some points, because in the first run I usually always explore everything and I also brought Diplomacy to Master (the same useless), I also noticed that Perception is more useful than Disarm Trap, both at Master level and in the last dungeons all the chests they always shot.
I usually popped into town just to sell things, I could have done it every time I ran out of mana, but the way I'm used to playing I always try to interrupt a dungeon as little as possible and only go out when all the PCs are at home. short on HP and mana.
As far as combat mechanics go, don't all Master armor negate penalties? I gave everyone Bow to Master at 10+ I abused the dodge a lot with Fly outdoors! As much as I could I always tried to throw myself at the enemies, I noticed that in melee I did serious damage.

MM7
Ok thanks so the light/dark path is not individual but for the whole party, perfect. Is the moment of choice clear? Just to make a save and then return to finish the game with the other choice.
I try to look closely at the skills to choose the classes, I've always had a backup caster especially to remove statuses.

Oh I forgot, but anyone know the backstory on the digitized faces of MM6? Are they those from NWC, relatives, friends, passers-by on the street? One of the things I loved the most!

 

[Storyfag]

I trust the math, I probably used Shrapmetal against the wrong enemies or was unlucky and it always did little damage.

They key to proper use of Shrapmetal is to use it up close and personal.

Ok thanks so the light/dark path is not individual but for the whole party, perfect. Is the moment of choice clear?

It is.

 

[Average Manatee]

I saw that sometimes Implosion against the same type of enemy, in the same fight would do 2HP or 96HP!

https://grayface.github.io/mm/mechanics/

Scroll down to resistances. Basically resistance isn't a simple damage reduction but a chance to half damage, which can be halved again and again by greater resistance. This is arguably another advantage of shotgun spells, they have multiple hits that are going to more reliably do average damage.

It's also worth noting that Scrapmetal is physical damage which is in most cases the least resisted element. There are enemies immune to physical and lots with physical resistance but there's way more immune to specific elements or elemental resistant.

I usually popped into town just to sell things, I could have done it every time I ran out of mana, but the way I'm used to playing I always try to interrupt a dungeon as little as possible and only go out when all the PCs are at home. short on HP and mana.

Yeah it's kind of a weird habit to get into abusing Lloyd's fully, and I can understand not wanting to do it since it feels cheap.

Spoiler

In MM7/8 it takes like 80% of the game to get it unless you abuse meta knowledge. Which sucks balls on replays

As far as combat mechanics go, don't all Master armor negate penalties? I gave everyone Bow to Master at 10+ I abused the dodge a lot with Fly outdoors! As much as I could I always tried to throw myself at the enemies, I noticed that in melee I did serious damage.

Armor skills reducing recovery penalty is bugged and doesn't actually work in MM6. Although its possible the Greyface patch fixed it. EDIT: Yeah and it fixes a lot of other recovery things not working too apparently. So armor is fine I guess.

At the same time AC from armor is kind of close to useless anyway. Spells are still an autohit and even very high AC still gets hit constantly. It's better in MM7/8 where armor has some more unique properties like +skills.

Ok thanks so the light/dark path is not individual but for the whole party, perfect. Is the moment of choice clear? Just to make a save and then return to finish the game with the other choice.

Very incredibly clear.

 

[Kayato]

I trust the math, I probably used Shrapmetal against the wrong enemies or was unlucky and it always did little damage.

They key to proper use of Shrapmetal is to use it up close and personal.

Ok thanks so the light/dark path is not individual but for the whole party, perfect. Is the moment of choice clear?

It is.

Ok so I was right to call it "shotgun spell", when they are close I prefer melee