Might & Magic X party creation and tips.

So I'm thinking about starting a game of M&M X, and I was wondering if there was anything I should avoid as far as creating a party is concerned. I'm going to be playing on Warrior difficulty.

I thought I read somewhere that you need a certain spell in order to find all the hidden areas. Is that true? If that's the case, is Perception a dump stat? I've also read that ranged combat is underpowered.

I'm looking at probably having 2 tanks (or 1 tank and a rogue type), a caster, and a healer/buffer.

Regrettably the classes are not terribly balanced and it can be very difficult to complete the game without certain buffs and debuffs - or at least without frustration

My advice would be to go for 3 magic members who between them can grandmaster all 6 schools. Have a look at the table to get the races and origins you need for that. That way you can always buff yourself against any magic attack and reverse any status effect.

Celestial armor and heal are pretty important spells early on. The runepriest spells are the highest damage.

Then get 1 might member - eg dual wield bladedancer dagger grandmaster for the few enemies that have high magic resistance.

There is indeed a spell that spots hidden areas and the skill is pretty essential as there are hundreds of them but you can do without it by fining the dog 'retainer' (essentially a tag along 5th and 6th party member) and then retracing your steps (though this is a waste of a retainer slot and time imho).

Ranged was really underpowered then they patched it to be slightly underpowered, certainly useful in the early game when you can cheese the grid to keep enemies at bow range, but then waste of time as spells get ridiculously powerful.

Have fun! Awesome game.

Thanks for the tips. I'm not necessarily looking for the best party from a min-max standpoint. I prefer to roleplay over powergaming, and I like to have variety in my party. I'd prefer not to have 3 casters since it's only a 4 character party.

The general opinion seems to be that the school of fire spells have the best damage output while the school of water has the best defensive buffs. Do you agree with that?

Imho you can only hope to have fun on warrior mode with all 6 magic bases covered, unfortunately. The game is brutal at that level. You go into various 'elemental' areas and if you can't buff resistance to that element or attack in the opposing element your experience might be a frustrating wipe-out fest. In fact even on normal there is weird spike after city 2 where you get slaughtered for about 2 levels for no apparent reason. One of the game''s main faults when I played (maybe patched out now).

I actually started on 'normal' which was billed in the manual or dev updates as 'just pick a party that sounds fun' and I was not able to progress past the semi-final boss on the first area no matter how many times I reloaded or what equipment I bought. I re-rolled and went in with celestial armor + heal and it was a breeze. So I guess if you want to just have a party that sounds fun then I strongly recommend normal.

Fire is indeed ridiculously overpowered - the first time I played I thought I must be using some unintentional weird combo of items on the character that had stacked to give me +1000% damage or something, but no, lol. I think without heal the game is impossible, though I think on normal you only need either celestial armor or water barrier, both just make god mode.

I played in on highest difficulty setting, and I had a dwarf scout, and he was actually doing pretty good! Once you get a really good crossbow ranged is acctually not too bad, besides he get healing spells and stuffs later on.

That said, the game will be much easier if you have at least 2 characters that can cast resurrect, in fact if you have that game is not so hard at all.

If you've got access to master earth magic with 1 toon, you're golden. Without that, you're gonna struggle more than necessary. Beyond that, I'd largely agree with everyone else above.

You can cover the magic schools with hybrids, which allows you to avoid the 3 caster party (pointy sticks for the win, dammit!). Actually, I only used the generic protection from magic kinda buff rather than worrying about all 6 of the specific buffs, and that worked pretty well. A few battles called for the better protection of specific buffs, but overall I wouldn't consider it mandatory.

This is a thread from way back w/ some tips: http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23158

Unless things have changed since then, Regeneration and Celestial Armor are very useful to have (Novice Earth and Light magic respectively).

Drithius said:

This is a thread from way back w/ some tips: http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23158

Unless things have changed since then, Regeneration and Celestial Armor are very useful to have (Novice Earth and Light magic respectively).

Click to expand...

Pretty sure regen is expert earth and the better version (rejuv?) is master level earth.

DTE, what difficulty level did you play on?

JDR13 said:

I'd prefer not to have 3 casters since it's only a 4 character party.

Click to expand...

It's sort of an M&M tradition. The most fun party in M&M6 (for me) was 2 sorcerers and 2 druids. The point of having access to all magic schools is kind of a biggy.

Ther series should be called MAGIC and (a little bit of) might.

Thrasher said:

DTE, what difficulty level did you play on?

Click to expand...

Since I was working on my RPGWatch review and was more interested in the experience than the challenge, I ran on normal difficulty, whatever that's called. Really, though, I usually play my RPGs on normal even without outside considerations. My fun comes from character development so there's not a ton of benefit to me with higher difficulties.

Turjan said:

It's sort of an M&M tradition. The most fun party in M&M6 (for me) was 2 sorcerers and 2 druids. The point of having access to all magic schools is kind of a biggy.

Click to expand...

Bah, bunch of hocus pocus pansies! Grab ye a pointy stick and have at it!

I always thought M&M was designed around the classic melee/rogue/healer/caster party build, to be honest. Of course, MM6 allowed toons to become "all everything" if you wanted, so a caster party wouldn't be all that unique by the end of the game. Sure you didn't mean MM7, when classes actually mattered?

Yeah, that's my preference as well. If I replay (if ever), I may bump up the difficulty. Now, shooters, that's a different story. I play on hard since normal is usually too easy. They are simpler, after all.

Thrasher said:

Yeah, that's my preference as well. If I replay (if ever), I may bump up the difficulty. Now, shooters, that's a different story. I play on hard since normal is usually too easy. They are simpler, after all.

Click to expand...

I even play shooters on normal because I'm dreadfully bad at the whole dodge and strafe thing. I'll make decent use of terrain when possible, but the basic approach is sumo--go toe-to-toe and beat on each other until someone falls.

I think Bioshock Infinite will be after DA:I. We'll see if my reflexes are still any good.

dteowner said:

Bah, bunch of hocus pocus pansies! Grab ye a pointy stick and have at it!

I always thought M&M was designed around the classic melee/rogue/healer/caster party build, to be honest. Of course, MM6 allowed toons to become "all everything" if you wanted, so a caster party wouldn't be all that unique by the end of the game. Sure you didn't mean MM7, when classes actually mattered?

Click to expand...

Heh, that's fine too. I played my first MM6 game with the standard party, which worked well enough, although I noticed that the bearers of "pointy sticks" got a bit sidelined in the end. That's where the 2 sorcerers/2 druids run came in for my second playthrough. The party is a bit squishy at the very beginning, but later on, it waltzes over everything.

Thrasher said:

I think Bioshock Infinite will be after DA:I. We'll see if my reflexes are still any good.

Click to expand...

We're a bit off topic here, but I'll make it quick. How long before you get started on Bioshock, roughly? I owe DArt a run thru that game and I might be able to wrap up my Frayed Knights run before too long. Perhaps a little comparative run would be enjoyable? Not competitive, just comparative...

I think you have a little more gaming time than I do, but I play the Bioshocks on easy because those games are completely about immersion and story for me so I have no problem making the combat a non-issue. That might balance out our advancement somewhat.

That would be fun!

I have to tell you though, playing DA:I seems to be taking me a long time. Wouldn't want to hold you up.

Drithius said:

This is a thread from way back w/ some tips: http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23158

Click to expand...

Thanks. Definitely a lot of useful information there.

Right now I'm looking at a party consisting of a Crusader, a Freemage, and a Druid, with the 4th character being either a Mercenary or a Defender.

Can anyone answer my question about Perception? If it's not used to find secrets like in the past games, does it have any use for someone who doesn't plan on using ranged weapons much?