Okay, I've played mostly with a pretty balanced party, but just for fun I decided to start a new group and try a long range party, heavy on magic use. I have a Mage, Priest, Psionic, and Alchemist, backed up by a Ranger (Bow criticals) and a Ninja (Throw criticals), both of whom are pretty much playing on their long range skills. I never move forward in battle unless I'm simply out of spell points.

My question is this... I've heard that later in the game many many monsters are high resistant to magic. But if my mages are themself high powered by then, does this override some of the resistances?

Or is this group destined to bit the dust before endgame?

I'm also tempted to run a game with all close combat, little or no magic backup. (Am I a glutton for punishment, or what?)

I'm just wondering if anyone has ever played through to the end with either of these "specialized" groups.

Any thoughts, feedback, is welcome. I'd hate to get halfway through the game with either of these groups only to find there are fatal flaws in Specializing.

judee

• RE: About Magic,Joey Nipps, 09:54 AM, Dec-19-01
• RE: About Magic,Russ Karlberg (Guest), 11:40 AM, Dec-19-01

I think heavy melee IS the way to go - especially for end game. I just don't see how magic users could possibly have enough fire power to kill some of the creatures one is up against. My group is 5 Fighters (3 with swords and shields, 2 with Polearms) and 1 Priest. I tried it without the Priest - found there was too much magic in the game at higher levels to survive - the Priest is all the magic I have. I also have Vi and the Robot Monk when they will stay with me <g> - so that is 7 melee and 1 Priest. I have virtually NO problem with any groups.

I tried a group of Pure Casters - they started having severe problems around level 13 or so - I stopped them for the melee group.

Yeah, I'm afraid that a balanced group is the way to go, but it sure is fun to see how you do with different types of groups. My group had 3 melee and 3 casters, and I found that to be perfect. My front line could absorb some damage and protect my casters, and I always had helper magic available such as superman, magic screen, soul shield, element shield, enchanted blade, and armorplate.

It is true that the higher level monsters can be highly magic resistant. Usually they will be less resistant in something which you can exploit. You'll need to use some serious strategic thinking - combinations of spells are a good idea. You've got to protect your casters from melee damage, so use lots of sleep/freeze/blind/paralyze type magic. You'd at least need a front line of hybrids with decent armor class to handle the monsters that charge up to you.

I think my second party may be all close combat. I really found my melee characters to be extremely useful later in the game. Instant kills are SO NICE and there are some really powerful weapons to be found.