Advice on party selection

[Slick]

I'm just wondering if I'm actually making things harder on myself or if it's a matter of style, but I found that I have the easiest time working with the following party:
Halk, Stamm, Sonja, and either Hisssa, Leyla, or Daroou.

The reason is that I'm always overloading my party, so having the strongest members lets me carry more stuff and still have the best armor. If I try two fighters and to magic users, all my characters are in the yellow by the time I encounter the magenta worms in level 4. However, if I take the four fighters, I can build fighter and ninja levels early on by taking on all the monsters in hand to hand combat and swapping party members when my health gets low. Once I get the Teowand I can start building up Halk and Stamm's priest/wizard levels and by the time I get to Chaos I'm at least a um master wizard.

Am I crazy, a sadist, or is this actually the best party?

[phlux]

i feel the only 'best party' is the one you choose, for your play style
i think your party is silly! but it works for you, and it wouldnt work for me, so if you like them, use them!

personaly ive always liked stamm, he has a nice axe and he looks like a toughie, i let him eat all the drumsticks and he gets to be the leader of my party

next its Hisssa as i like to have 2 good fighters in the front of the party, protecting the two mages in the back

next i like gothmog and wuuf, that flask rules early in the game, and gothmog looks hella cool and has a nice cape

but in general, all the champions are 'good', but at the sametime they have faults, any party could work well, or equally opposite, it depends on you

this party works well for me, as i have learned to love them and inturn they return that love

[beowuuf]

I don't think there is anything wrong with that party. As phlux says, its a matter of style. You've added the strengths of maxed out carrying capacity, maximum strength for attacks, along with rotation of fighters.

Minimal magic can be a pain, but then again I've played with only Stamm and only Halk, so that was zero magic until level 4, and not to much gains for the next few levels after that.

Stamm and Wuuf do indeed rock...Stamm's a tough customer, and Wuuf is one of the best magic users, even without the potion.
I like Boris too, less magic than Tiggy, but stamina and apprentise wizard skills, good wisodm, great combo.

All magic guys instead is kinda fun too. The opposite of everthing you like in a party, but you can storm through lower levels with impressive pyrotechnics : )

[Zelmo]

Slick, I am totally with you. I prefer those same characters for the same reasons. I remember trying a more "rounded" party early on, which included Tiggy and Wuuf, but the smaller members not only got overloaded quickly, they also died off too easily. Since then I have always a party with lots of health and strength, and worked on their magic as soon as I found a flask and could make mana potions. It has worked very well for me, and like the above replies state, it's all about what works for you.

[Sundeep Nandra]

I've always found that I've played with Halk, Daroou, Wuuf and Boris. During this time I have actually noticed that Wuuf appears to gain wizard levels a little bit quicker than Boris...and usually gets to = level master first....despite making absolutely sure they try to cast the same number of times (and once they both hit a level high enough together, they never fail to cast the spells I ask them to..so how Wuuf gains the level that bit quicker I don't know....or why)

[beowuuf]

Yep, wuuf seems to have something about him (high luck, or another hidden moidifier we don't know about) that means that he is very good at gaining levels. Boris easily ouranks him in wisdom too, so the scales are balanced against him for wizard levels, but like you i've found that getting wuuf and boris to level up in each other's disciplines then level up together, he always gets the better deal and comes out ontop faster

[Sundeep Nandra]

Wuuf always seems to lose stamina when sleeping more than others. I know that, as mana is recovered when sleeping, stamina goes down (don't know exactly what explanation there is for this) and that once mana is full, stamina goes steadily up without dropping, but Wuuf's can go down below half-way from all the way at the top - which doesn't help when he actually has lower stamina than nearly everyone in any case.

[Christopher]

Wuuf isn't the only character that looses stamina during sleep. It seems that if I pick a party with at least one magic user, the magic user will eventually loose stamina durring sleep. In a party with several magic users, the two most dominant end up with the loss of stamina when they sleep. Any character that looses stamina can loose it more than half way. I downloaded the CBS clone for DM in the files share, and the character you receive seems to do this also. Whenever I play I almost always have Hissssa in my group. My prized group used to consist of Hissssa, Stamm, Gothmog, and Nabi but now it changes every time I start a new game. Reincarnating is also good for boosting up random attributes in DM, so if you reincarnate four fighters, chances are the attributes that increase most will be Strength and Dexterity.

[Seoub]

From my point of view, the best party is:
Iaido
Stamm
Hissssa
Gothmog
because they've got lot of anti-fire, that is really important at the end ofthe game !!! (and gothmog has the cloak of night, very useful !)

[Slartucker]

About the Wuuf vs. Boris paradox.. Boris starts as an Apprentice wizard, Wuuf starts with no wizard skill whatsoever. If you reincarnate them both, Boris will have a vastly better wisdom and I suspect he will gain levels faster. If you resurrect them both, Wuuf might go up faster for several reasons. 1) the lower levels require less work to go up than the higher ones, 2) in DM 2, and I don't know if this applies to DM 1, a high-level wizard who casts a spell successfully will get a lot less experience for it than a low-level wizard who casts it successfully... for any spell. of course that tends to balance out because high-level wizards can cast more powerful spells more of the time; but if you have them both cast exactly the same thing, that could do it.

..just a thought anyway.

oh, and I agree about party selection, it's very nice to have a high max load :) especially with magic-users. I've noticed the sleep-stamina-loss happens a little more if they're also overloaded.

[sucinum]

i prefer spellcasters, for i train always a bit.
1. at then first screamer, which 1 warcry for about 20 mins (really)
2. at the end of the worm dungeon in the screamer reg room.
i dont carry too much food and stuff around, and if some1 cant hold his armor (impossible, even boris has 50 str at the mom when i find the black plate), i boost his str with MANY ku-pots. if i dont do a time run, all my chars have about 500 life and are masters in all disciplines (but ninja, thats TOO boring)...

favourite chars:
wutse
wuuf
chany
boris

[Martin Pervorse]

I've found it really doesn't matter what group you take with you so long as you make lots of Ku Potions for chars that have a starting str of less than 50. Otherwise towards the end of the game your lead fighter can barely carry all the darc armor, the inquisitor, 1 flask and 1 full water skin without going into the yellow. A major pisser. esspecially if you don' t have the boots of speed on (why you'd ever wear anything on your feet besides the boots of speed is beyond me but anyways). I preffer to take fairly lowly charactors for this game. Someone like Tiggy, or Alex, or Hawk. Whoever it is doesn't really matter so long as their just an average char, then take them into the dungeon alone and level them to somewhere between UM and ON masters in all catagories. Then come back and take an apprentice and level them to the same, and so on and so forth till you've got four really good chars. As always though that's probably just me trying to entertain myself with an approx. 15 year old game! heheh...

[reed]

well, from my point of view, as magic means a hell of a lot in the game, i like choosing a team with the starting mana values as close to each other as possible.

when i last finished the game, my party consisted of:
gothmog
mophus
wu tse
chani
all reincarnated. in the end they all were expert fighters, adept ninjas, artisan priests and first level master wizards. (i didn't wander around the hall of champions a lot so they were more or less a lucky choice and happened to have suitable stats :-)

sure it takes a bit more training (and switching roles between combats etc) but i think it's useful to have equal champions in your team.

some time ago i also tried to start playing with tiggy, boris, wuuf and gando, if i remember correctly. i just couldn't be bothered, especially since the amount of mana isn't that important, you can always train the characters.

[sucinum]

vitality and even more wisdom are the most important stats for me, cause i use to rest very often but i dont want to waste a lot of time with that :)

[beowuuf]

Don't forget the magic number '40'
That's when your mana doubles it's receovery value, and you go up in jumps of 2. SO starting high mana magic users kinda guarantee you gaining levels faster
Combine that with high wisdom, and you get the ability for some fast spell practice

[Gambit37]

What's that about 40??? Does it apply to all stats?

[Sundeep Nandra]

Oh...k..seems people don't know. If your mana is 40, it goes up in increments of 3 during sleep, at 80 it goes up in increments of 5, 120 it goes up in increments of 7, 160 it goes up in increments of 9, 200 it goes up in increments of 11 and so on. I don't know how this applies to health and stamina but it does for mana...hence some characters suddenly regaining mana quickly than others after levels.

[beowuuf]

Dunno, never looked at heath/stamina gain, for some reason! Possibly : )

Without sleep, just walking around, you gain 2 mana at 40, and add another point per 20 mana after that I believe (damn that missing '0' in my last post). Obviously wisdom still determines how fast you gain these points. I didn't realise, when sleeping, you go up faster with 3 rather than 2 mana!
Lol, we need more discussions like this : )

[Sundeep Nandra]

lol yep. I checked it when I found someone (Boris) suddenly started gaining mana much quicker than Wuuf after a level..then worked back, tested it as I progressed through the game, and have noticed it ever since.

[Lunever]

I prefer the classical fantasy-party: Two Characters in Front with a good Health and a high strength and maybe Dex to take the brunt of the enemy assault and to deal out much physical damage and two characters with lots of Mana and maybe some wisdom to cast lots of spells.
Levels aren´t that important, because, if you really use the abilities of your characters fully, they will be all at about the same level as the other characters in each class in the end. Thats why I prefer specialist characters who become allrounders during the game and not vice versa.
Carrying capacitiy is good if you want 2 heavy armored knights in the front of the party, but you don´t need to carry around every item you find. Most items you carry around in your bagpack you almost never use, so you can store them as well in some accessible and easy-to-remember part of the dungeon such as the long staircase. So my choice is:
1) Daroou
2) Hissssa
3) Wuuf
4)Tiggy

[Zyx]

Exactly my usual team!
I like also the 4 small: Boris, Wuul, Gando, Tiggy.

[Paul Evans]

Have managed to complete DM with the following party sonja, leif, wu tse and zed. So it is possible to do it with any character, they were =master wizards, << master fighters and priests and expert ninjas. Mind you I spent the whole time in the dungeon moaning about how crap Zed was. If I was going to do it again I would have sonja, stamn, wuuf and maybe leyla is she anygood?

[beowuuf]

Completed the dungeon with Zed only....i love the guy, he's such an all rounder

[Craig]

I like Tiggy, Boris, Hisssa, and Linflas. I think Linflas is a pimp, I didn't see anyone else using him here. In terms of Load, I don't mind carrying around a lot of stuff. It seems to work out as long as you stick and move, like using the keyboard and mouse at the same time. Ahh, the numlock

[Seoub]

Hey ?! Nobody has talking about a 3 heros selection !!!
It's fun to play with only 3 members: less food and and water are needed, you don't have topeak every time your arrows (so boring...)

A good 3 party is :
Hissssa
Halk
Boris

[KAT]

Seems a little boring Seoub when nearly everyone has done it with only one hero :-)

[Christopher]

It's not boring with three, it's more difficult than with one, because it makes dodging spells more difficult. Playing with one seems to be the easiest way to play, at least for me. Or you could try what I do sometimes. Get one hero to play, then when they reach Lord Chaos, instead of beating Chaos go back and get another hero to be the first hero's apprentice, having the apprentice do all the work. The idea is to leave the good items at the end of the game so the apprentice doesn't have it too easy. Plus the apprentice has to keep the master alive. Or, go through the game with the first hero only taking every forth item they come across and killing every other monster they come across. Then when you reach the end, go back for another hero. There will certainly be enough monsters left to level up from, and you can do this until you have four heros which makes the game last a lot longer. If an apprentice dies, then leave them dead, and get another. At least that's how I have played it.

[chris_alpha_gamma_gamma]

I think the best party depends on your style.
Mine is to have 2 fighters and 2 spellcasters. I never get overloaded with such a party.
Several reasons:
1) There aren't that much so many useful objects. A couple of weapons, flasks, 2 waterskins and a little food. I am not carrying 15 vi potions with me, but I understand people do.
2) The fighter don't need heavy armors as my playing is more based or moving fastly and not being hurt.
3) The spellcaster have gained a few ninja and fighter levels in the early game (screamers), and by the same, strength points.
4) Spellcasters can attenuate the problem by making ku (4-5-1) potions

Note: Fighters usually provide valuable help in terms of magic by casting spells like light or potions (vi and anti-ven), letting the spellcasters concentrate on fireballs. The fighters must be trained in magic since the level one by using the attack 'war cry' in front of sceamers

[beowuuf]

I've done the apprentice thing, with zed at first, leading a reincarnated journeyman party back down (leyla, mophus, gothmog)

The no armour thing soudns like an interestign idea, must admit i find situations whre you get cornered, so toe to toe with good armour always handy...golems especially, it gets tiring generating magic shields, and you ar till a little vulnerable!

[Christopher]

You want a tough situation, use Dmute to set all your stats to 20 or less(except for mana set to 0) in the beginning of the game. You'll want to avoid all fire and your attacks will last a long time, not to mention you wont want to carry a lot of items. Although there are some that may think using Dmute in any way is cheating.