Greetings: Newbie Questions about DM and CSB RTC

[LostProphet]

Hello all.

I'm pleased to discover this community. DM & CSB were my favorite games on the Amiga, way back when... I look forward to replaying these old classics.


I have forgotten much of what I learned about these game and would like to ask the following:

1. In DM, what 4 characters have the 'best' starting stats when reincarnated? I've come up with: Gothmog, Hissa (lizard), Alex and Sonja.

Also, since RTC allows the use of CSB chars in DM, I have the same question in regards to CSB. Back when I played CSB, I remember using the two secret chars, but don't remember the other 3 I tended to use.

My characters tend to become archmasters in all 4 classes, so I'm wanting to maximise statistic with this in mind.

2. Same as above, but in reference to CSB chars played in CSB.

3. With RTC version of DM & CSB, what is the difference between the modules "Return to Chaos" and "DM Original" that comes with the standard installation archive? I could find no documentation discussing this.

I am mainly referring to information not mentioned in the "Manual" blurb about it. So, I'm not looking for replies along the lines of "RTFM".

I know it has a limited spellcasting system with the spellbook and the process of learning runes via scrolls. But other than this, I have not found any metion of differences.

4. Can I import a Single Character DM game (Any party containing 1 to 3 characters) into CSB and then load one or more CSB characters into the party to play CSB with mixed DM and CSB characters?

In otherwords, when playing CSB, can I mix 'n match ported (poweful) DM & CSB chars when building a party?

Thanks for your help (and patience).

Lost Prophet

[beowuuf]

Greetings!

1/2. Sorry, don't know about stats, though really there is a random element to their generation so it might be a close call

3. Basically you got it...the spellbook is the difference. Sicne it changes the gameplay quite a bit, some peopel prefer the old system

4. Start any game with any charatcers from other saved games - just watch out, the dungeon adjusts to powerful parties....

Hope that helps a little...

[LostProphet]

Thanks Beowolf.

I got 1,3 and 4 answered by reading the forums... as for 2, I'd still like some opinions.

Also, thanks to your past posts, I've decided to give Wuuf a try. Seems like a nice char that will become quite powerful at later levels. Since I"m playing RTC, I'll probably change the char portraites.

Seems like these are the DM1 chars of choice for people:

Gothmog
Hissak
Chani
Twiggy
Wuff
Daroo

Seems like the beast races are getting preferred treatment.

Sounds like the best bet is to pick the char with preferred stats, load them up in the RTC editor and then choose the favorite pic to glue onto the stats.

[Lunever]

1.) There were several threads about the issue which characters/party are best or even how many characters are best. Since that was quite a while ago I'll repeat in short what I think about that one:
There are no best characters. All in all the characters (all of them) are quite balanced. Some are better allrounders, some are better specialists, and you can play and solve DM/CSB with every composition of them.

There is however probably a best party for a certain style of play. I myself for example prefer starting with a classical 2 front fighters + 2 rear firepower characters which I develop to good allrounders during the course of play. So after some experimentation my first choice is Hissssa, Halk, Wuuf and Tiggy, all reincarnated.

2.) I never used CSB characters out of Nostalgia because back in old Amiga days I was so glad that I could play my beloved party again that I never played CSB with new characters.

3.) As far as I know the spellbook is the only difference, although I personally think George should make more differences between those two modi.

4.) That's one of the greatest features of CSB: You can play every dungeon with every combination of characters, no matter whether they come from different parties, dungeons, savegames, no matter whether they are newbies or veterans. You can even play the same dungeon over and over again with the same characters (which is far more fun than boring training sessions at the rat room).
But the RTC engine will evaluate the strength of your characters against the overall dungeon difficulty and adjust difficulty to your party. That way even a normally easy dungeon can become quite a challenge for a normally powerful party. Monsters will be not only tougher but also much faster (which makes far more interesting battles IMHO, I like that feature very much), but also stamina and food&water drain are much quicker than normal (a feature I don't like, I hope George will make this optional one day; at least he has promised to reduce this a bit in V0.25 but he didn't give any news about that next release for quite some time now). Believe me, playing at Archmaster difficulty is really hard but also very much fun.

So have fun with RTC, I've been enjoying it very much so far!

[PicturesInTheDark]

A lot depends on your style of play - if you prefer strong mages you might for example want to pick Chani for her incredible wisdom attribute, if you're for the brute force, Stamm or Darouu might be your preference. The same hoes for all the CSB characters although I tend towards Lunever's opinion favouring to play CSB with a party that bested DM already - more fun that way.

Regards, PitD

[andyboy_uk]

Personally, when I played RTC all the way through a couple of months back, I chose daroou, stamm, tiggy and zed.

The classics I know, but they worked well