Grimrock

Okay, I've read a bunch of posts and almost have my party set.
I only plan on completing the base game once.
I have a few questions based on the party below:

- Human Fighter: 11S,16D,14V,12W, Skilled and Agile, start with 5 Sword and 2 Armor.
- Human Rogue: 10S, 17D, 12V, 12W, Skilled and Fist Fighter, start with 5 Unarmed and 2 Dodge
- Mino Rogue: 21S, 7D, 18V, 7W, Skilled and Head Hunter, start with 4 Missile
- Human Mage: 10S, 10D, 14V, 19W, Skilled and Strong Mind, start with... 2-7 Spellcraft and 0-5 of some aura...see questions below.

TL:DR version: What aura(s) would you choose for Mage? Your choices are:
- 10 Spellcraft + Air
- 10 Spellcraft + Fire + 3 points in Ice for Ice Shards against fire immunes
- 10 Spellcraft + Ice, but keep in mind I probably won't go backstab
- Or try to convince me of something else, but those three are pretty much what I've whittled it down to.

Long version:
General questions
-- I know there are posts that try to calculate how far you can get into a second tree, and there are skill books to be applied, but what's the "general" number of skill points available per game for Human Skilled characters? Basically, if I assume I'm going to max either Sword or Unarmed (one for each of my front-light chars-- right?) then how much does that leave me for Armor and Dodge? How far can I expect to get into it? Could I get backstab (8 Assassination) on my unarmed rogue? Can I max an aura and still get 10 in Spellcraft? Mainly, I don't want to overspend in my secondary and not be able to max my primary...though I guess skill books can help fix any problems...?

-- I'm thinking the Human Fighter will probably be fairly agile too. No more than Light Armor proficiency. As such, I might end up splitting the Lurker set or possibly giving it to the Fighter instead of the Rogue. The thinking is that it would be better to have two pretty-darn-hard-to-hit frontliners instead of one vulnerable guy and one impossible to hit guy. Thoughts?

Aura question-- I'm having a tough time deciding what aura(s) I want to go. Wisdom seems to be to get 10 Spellcraft. I don't like DOTs, so I probably won't go Poison (and it seems to be the least preferred aura by most). I probably won't backstab, so that's a vote against Ice (or at least, not a vote for it). Is there a compelling reason to take Ice if you're not going to Backstab? I seem to recall reading that nothing's immune to Air, which appeals to me, so that's a vote for Air. I also like Invisibility (though I don't know if it turns out to be useful in this game...maybe it lasts 5 seconds?) On the other hand, Air gives the worst attribute (DEX) vs WIL for Ice and STR for Fire (which doesn't help in combat but I do tend to packrat if left unchecked). Fire appeals to me for role-play reasons, plus the fire shield spell. I suspect I would throw 3pts into Ice in that case so I can cast against fire immunes, unless that's a horrible idea?

Second Trait for my front-line folks-- As I said above, I currently have Agile and Fist Fighter. I guess I'm thinking that my Sword fighter will still be fairly agile and will have no more than light armor. The other main option here is Aggressive. For the unarmed rogue, Fist Fighter was "obvious" but maybe Agile or Evasive would be better? Or something else? I'm pretty happy with my Traits for the back row folks...at least I don't think any are horrible.

If you've made it this far, congratulations! Your reward is additional very minor questions:
- Any tweaks to initial stats?
---- Sword fighter gets his +1 STR from his 5 Sword and +2 DEX from Agile. So basically it's allocated as 0/4/4/2.
---- Unarmed rogue is 0/6/2/2.
---- Mino is max STR, rest VIT.
---- Mage is max WIL, rest VIT
- For Unarmed rogue, maybe I should go +7 Unarmed, so at Level 2 I'd get Jab. In theory I shouldn't need that 5 Evasion before level 3, right?
- How to progress Mage in the first few levels. Beeline straight to 10 Spellcraft and just throw pebbles for a few levels? Although I guess it doesn't do any good to have fast cast if you have no spells to cast! Doesn't look like it's possible to get the WIL+1 until level 2 either. So it could be 2 or 3 in aura, then 4 or 5 in spellcraft. At level 2, I can get to the WIL+1 bonus. Hmm, that's another vote against Air aura since I can't pull that off since Shock costs 4.

Thanks in advance!

trentjaspar wrote:I know there are posts that try to calculate how far you can get into a second tree, and there are skill books to be applied, but what's the "general" number of skill points available per game for Human Skilled characters?

Any character gets 4 skill points on level-up and without training characters you're lvl 13 at the end. That's 12 level-ups for each char so 48 skill points plus what skill points you start with plus 5 skill points per book you add to a char.

trentjaspar wrote:Basically, if I assume I'm going to max Sword and Unarmed on my front-light chars (right?)

It takes 100 skill points to max Sword and Unarmed. It's unlikely you get that much when you are not going to invest a massiv amount of time to train your chars.

trentjaspar wrote:though I guess skill books can help fix any problems...?

No because there are not many.

trentjaspar wrote:Aura question

You're refering to the element of magic a mage uses, not an aura.

Magic requires Energy. Energy is granted by Wisdom. The more Wisdom a mage has the more Energy he can use to cast spells. You should also know that Poison needs the least Energy, follow by Ice, then Fire with Air requiring the most Energy.

trentjaspar wrote:Any tweaks to initial stats?

Some tips to re-think your setup.

Any weapon skill adds 1 attack power per allocated skill point.
Any melee weapon skill adds 1 accuracy per allocated skill point.

Ranged weapons and magic don't need accuracy. They will only miss when your aim is bad.

STR and DEX are not really needed on startup to get attack power and accuracy. You'll get that from your weapon skills.

STR needs to be considered if you want a good carrying capacity.
DEX needs to be considered if you want a good evasion base.

Any fighter and back-row rogue goes max VIT for health, rest STR to carry stuff.
Front-row rogues go max VIT for health, DEX for an evasion base and optional STR to carry stuff.
Mages go max WIS for energy, rest VIT.

Oh btw: only fighters can learn to use heavy armor without penalties.

Dr.Disaster wrote:

trentjaspar wrote:I know there are posts that try to calculate how far you can get into a second tree, and there are skill books to be applied, but what's the "general" number of skill points available per game for Human Skilled characters?

Any character gets 4 skill points on level-up and without training characters you're lvl 13 at the end. That's 12 level-ups for each char so 48 skill points plus what skill points you start with plus 5 skill points per book you add to a char.

Thank you. That's clearly stated. So for my Skilled Humans, I'll have 55 skill points + 5/book, and for my Skilled Minotaur, 52 skill points + 5/book.

Dr.Disaster wrote:

trentjaspar wrote:Basically, if I assume I'm going to max Sword and Unarmed on my front-light chars (right?)

It takes 100 skill points to max Sword and Unarmed. It's unlikely you get that much when you are not going to invest a massiv amount of time to train your chars.

My bad-- that sentence was poorly stated. Changed to, "if I assume I'm going to max either Sword or Unarmed (one for each of my front-light chars-- right?) then ..."

Dr.Disaster wrote:

trentjaspar wrote:though I guess skill books can help fix any problems...?

No because there are not many.

Yeah, I didn't mean getting to 100 skill points, just fixing minor problems like I slightly overspent on my secondary-- so use a skill book on the primary.

Dr.Disaster wrote:

trentjaspar wrote:Aura question

You're refering to the element of magic a mage uses, not an aura.

Yes, that was the wrong term. That was the term used in a pencil and paper FRPG I got used to.

Dr.Disaster wrote:You should also know that Poison needs the least Energy, follow by Ice, then Fire with Air requiring the most Energy.

Hmm, good tip...and a vote against Air. "Misses" become more serious.

Dr.Disaster wrote:Some tips to re-think your setup.
STR and DEX are not really needed on startup to get attack power and accuracy. You'll get that from your weapon skills.
STR needs to be considered if you want a good carrying capacity.
DEX needs to be considered if you want a good evasion base.
Any fighter and back-row rogue goes max VIT for health, rest STR to carry stuff.
Front-row rogues go max VIT for health, DEX for an evasion base and optional STR to carry stuff.

Hmm, interesting. I guess most of the rogue builds I saw were really trying to max evasion (e.g., DEX). And like I said my fighter was still going to be pretty "evasive." So I maxed DEX on my unarmed rogue and split the rest VIT/WIL. Same with sword fighter, except took 2 DEX and put into VIT, but gave him Agile. Mino range rogue has lots of racial HP, so I maxed STR for dmg and carrying (since nobody else got STR), rest to VIT.

I guess another way to have asked the question is-- how much Willpower/Energy will an unarmed rogue and agile sword fighter need to power his special attacks? Should I put any points into Willpower?

Thanks for the response!

trentjaspar wrote:

Dr.Disaster wrote:

trentjaspar wrote:though I guess skill books can help fix any problems...?

No because there are not many.

Yeah, I didn't mean getting to 100 skill points, just fixing minor problems like I slightly overspent on my secondary-- so use a skill book on the primary.

I see. Then i can tell that those problems should be real minor because you'll find less skill books then you got characters.

trentjaspar wrote:I guess another way to have asked the question is-- how much Willpower/Energy will an unarmed rogue and agile sword fighter need to power his special attacks? Should I put any points into Willpower?

No, that's not needed. Special attacks are chance based. When a character has enough energy to perform a special attack he does, otherwise he uses his regular attack. Usually characters run out of energy when they either fight a tough monster with very low damage or too many monsters in a row.