After re-evaluating my recent party, I underwent another transformation in terms of the ideal optimized starting party. Now, truthfully, I did take a few short cuts but I think the end result is pretty satisfying. Ironically, what I ended up coming up with was effectively the same suggested starting party from the FAQ on GameSpot. There were a few minor adjustments but at least where I ended up felt reasonable.
The Base Party
- Male Rawulf Priest
- Male Mook Mage
- Female Dwarf Priest
- Male Felpurr Alchemist
- Female Elf Mage
- Male Faerie Mage
The races match a bit closer to the suggested starting party. I didn’t want to use the exact same genders though because I had an alternative plan for the end game. The two most notable differences between my party and the FAQ optimized party is that I use a Male Felpurr Alchemist and a Male Faerie Mage rather than a Felpurr Mage and Faerie Bard. I went with the Felpurr Alchemist because of how it aligns closely to a Ninja which is what I wanted this character to change to at level 1. In the case of the Faerie Bard, I figured with all the editing to propel my team back to where I was faster, I’d just skip out on the Bard -> Mage profession change and just put a single point of Ninjutsu and no points into Music. The gear would be added in after the initial save.
From there, I performed five profession changes to the real starting party:
- Male Rawulf Priest -> Lord
- Male Mook Mage -> Samurai
- Male Felpurr Alchemist -> Ninja
- Female Dwarf Priest -> Valkyrie
- Female Elf Mage -> Bard
- Male Faerie Mage
In an “ethical” game, I would have changed the Faerie from a Bard to a Mage but I simply did not want to go through the nonsensical hell of creating another character. In generating this party, I had to come up with four additional characters (and delete some old ones where there’s a bizarre limit). A few things that I had to determine was how to handle the Valkyrie situation. I envisioned having an end game Valkyrie but wanted to limit the number of female characters to 2. In an “ethical” game, I would certainly care about the gender a lot more due to the carrying capacity issue with strength. So to achieve this idea, I removed my other Female Elf Alchemist and turned that slot into an Male Felpurr Alchemist.
Originally, I conceived of doing two Faeries where one would be the Ninja and the other would be the Mage. The problem with two Faeries though is the extremely limited gear. Having a Felpurr would afford me the ability to eventually switch into a Lord and/or Samurai without dealing with gear issues. Then the Faerie could be a dedicated Bishop/Ninja as I progressed in higher levels and I wouldn’t have to deal with worrying about gear.
Since I no longer an employing a Male Dwarf Fighter to turn into a Lord at level 9 (because of starting spell regeneration issues), I could easily start the Dwarf as a Female Priest which would allow me to swap into a Valkyrie. One thing I noticed is how easy it is to roll a Dwarf Valkyrie. I think it only takes 9 bonus roll points. Also, by having a Valkyrie with a head start in Theology from her former Priest class, I would already have low level healing and Bless until level 3. Not to mention, I put her in the 4th slot as she is armed with a pole weapon that allows her to attack from the back row. Lastly, that #4 position allows a little bit of freedom in heavier fights where I need some priest spell casting like Dispel Undead and don’t want to sacrifice some melee attacks. In short, she gets very close to where my Bishop was minus having as many offensive spells.
The Mook Mage was another major change from my typical party. I ended up taking the advice of the FAQ for using a Mook Mage just to get that bonus spell regeneration for the long run. But I immediately swap him into a Samurai which works quite well until the early end game (which is where I’m at). As of now, my poor Mook Samurai just got critically hit by a Chunin because the best Samurai armor just isn’t enough to protect him. But at the same time, I rushed through most of the game this time around and didn’t spend time grinding in the Mines with the Fountain. More on that later.
The Male Rawulf Priest swapping into a Lord is fairly good. Effectively, he’s taken the place of my Dwarf Fighter previously and my main melee damage dealer and main tank. The only unfortunate aspect to this character is that he has almost no ability to develop his Oratory skills. So the bulk of his spells learned have been more utility and curative. This can get nasty when I face large groups of undead since I don’t have my traditional Priest/Bishop or double Bishop setup. The biggest concern is when spells fizzle out but I mostly am focused on certain party members leveling up those spell casting skills while grinding.
The Elf Bard is intended to eventually become my end game Valkyrie. At some point, I do plan to make her a Ranger as well as I have the basic gear for that. Like my Lord, my Bard hasn’t spent that much effort developing her Oratory skills and has mostly been buffing the party or spitting out Fireballs via the Horn of the Prometheus. I think once her Music skill gets to 100, I’ll begin focusing more on Oratory and Ninjutsu in preparation for becoming a Monk, which shouldn’t be as bad considering her Ninjutsu is in the 20s right now.
Because of the early profession change, I haven’t had a need to change again. I am still in the 11-12 level range, which isn’t great. In the case of a normal Fighter and Priest, I would consider swapping their class at level 9. The only character I might change soon though is my Mage as his Thaumaturgy now is level 100. Normally, I would hesitate changing in a situation like mine because of how much power I would be missing in dropping back down to level 1. Since my Faerie would be power leveled fairly quickly, that set back won’t be that terrible. And since I would be swapping him to a Bishop, I wouldn’t lose much outside of one weapon and would continue to build up his high level Mage spells even faster.
The End Game Optimized Party
- Male Mook Lord
- Male Felpurr Samurai
- Male Faerie Ninja
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Female Elf Valkyrie
- Female Dwarf Bard
In coming up with that base optimized party, I decided to look into the future of what I wanted the end game party to look like. I came up with the above group. This group does not show the other changes in between because I still have not concretely been able to determine the precise levels of when I wanted to make those changes as well as certain things before landing on this final form. That said, there’s a few comments I wanted to make here.
First, I wanted a Lord in the end game group because I wanted a heavily armored tank. While the Valkyrie could also serve that purpose, the Lord class is outfitted nicely. Stylistically, the Felpurr has been my go-to for Samurai. He might not be as great for the spell regeneration when it comes to Magic but he can do everything else equally well. The Faerie Ninja will probably have the best AC overall. Because I’m already developing his Ninjutsu, it should be much easier to transition from Bishop (which is my next class for this character) to Ninja without being forced to auto spend skill points into Ninjutsu.
The Monk also will have tremendous AC in the end game. However, Monks in the end game are a little dry just because they manage to accumulate spells quite quickly and many overlap with Priest spells. With the Female Elf, I spent a long time debating on Rangers and Valkyries. The ultimate conclusion was that I will probably swap to a Ranger before turning her into a Valkyrie to make use of the Elven Bow and to quickly acquire Alchemist spells but Rangers by themselves are dull and this will be done just for fun. Finally, with the Female Dwarf Bard, I could have made her into a Ranger without the Elven Bow and simply have her dual wield, but Bards have better armor than Rangers! Also, their instruments are too useful to be ignored.
One thing you’ll notice is no spell casters for the end game. At least, no pure spell casters. There’s simply no room for any. I think the game really should have allowed for 8 characters rather than 6 to allow more party flavor. Ultimately, the decision mostly comes down to gear and the fact that I won’t play Wizardry 7. I think it would be too painful to do another swap to prepare for Wizardry 7. So this pretty much will be my final party.