Might & Magic X - The Mercenary

Interesting, while I always have a mage and a cleric, I prefer a fighter/thief (locks/traps) hybrid, unless there is a solid need for an actual pure thief. That gives me a free slot for a healing hybrid!!

I find the thief is usually the black sheep class, while most classes almost require to be pure to be effective (mage, cleric, warrior (tank)), the thief usually doesn't. In the last stages of the game, if you hybrid a warrior so it has less health but can, say, cure light wounds, might go down from a big boss attack, so you want full health there. Clerics and mages may lose access to the highest level spells, so being able to swing a sword to do 8 damage is nothing compared to not having access to a Meteor Strike spell that does 100 damage to a group, or a hybrid healer not having access to resurrection? unthinkable. But such is not the case for thieves, they're usually portrayed as a bag of skills that they get at level 1 and just increase in chance of success throughout levels, so any class can emulate, and at game's end, having 99% chance of opening a door or 75% chance is not really an issue.
 
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I read in the official forums that the other classes were already leaked from the game files: human Crusader, elf Bladedancer, the dwarf Runepriest, and the orc Hunter.

@Wolfing that is strongly dependent on the game system used.
Personally I see it exactly contrary. To me the Thief is the most important class.
Why? Let's assume that the progession is like: When you are in level 5 your skills are at level 5. Now if you'd neglect the pure thief class you might only have a lockpicking skill at level 3.
Now, the chances are high that you encounter a chest, with a lock which requires a lockpicking skill of 4 or 5.
If just your chances are low, thats one thing. But if you have a fix requirement, you basically need to leave the chest behind and come back at a later time...and this will stack up during the next levels.
And as I hate leaving things unfinished, I'll do my best to focus on such skills.

Anyways - such skills don't exist in M&M. Just a couple of low level spells of detecting secrets and traps are the exception.
 
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@Wolfing that is strongly dependent on the game system used.
Personally I see it exactly contrary. To me the Thief is the most important class.
Why? Let's assume that the progession is like: When you are in level 5 your skills are at level 5. Now if you'd neglect the pure thief class you might only have a lockpicking skill at level 3.
Now, the chances are high that you encounter a chest, with a lock which requires a lockpicking skill of 4 or 5.
If just your chances are low, thats one thing. But if you have a fix requirement, you basically need to leave the chest behind and come back at a later time…and this will stack up during the next levels.
And as I hate leaving things unfinished, I'll do my best to focus on such skills.

This is usually remedied by the fact that in newer games, high level locks are rarely plot critical and the loot you find in chests is not much better than
what you can find on the ground (or corpses). The latter is something I'd really like to see fixed.
 
Don't forget that many systems also have an open lock spell of some sort!! :)
 
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Maybe. But the thing is - if you can't open them you will never know ;)

But if you can open them and all you get is a longsword and two minor healing potions it's a real atmosphere killer. If I ever designed a game and there was a lockpick skill it would be an expensive skill to get/ raise and the rewards would be great, compared to what you can find elsewhere. I'd gladly say screw realism in this case.
 
Realism is fine in that case ^^. You wouldn't use an expensive chest with a complicated lock just to storange an rusty sword. Instead you'd store your most expensive stuff in there, wouldn't you? :)
 
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I guess you would also carry a lot of that on your person... but yeah, expensive trinkets like rings or things like potions could be locked up alright :)
 
I guess you would also carry a lot of that on your person… but yeah, expensive trinkets like rings or things like potions could be locked up alright :)

and only "openable" by a high level thief, so you know you're missing good stuff by using a fighter that can pick locks instead of a fully fledged thief, just like you know you're missing on something (to make up for the hybrid gains) when a pure warrior at level 10 has 200 hit points and a hybrid warrior has 150.
 
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