Might and Magic 7

No endless spawns in 7, if you clear an area it'll stay cleared for months. Now it does repopulate all at once, when a respawn does happen, but that was a limitation of the times. As far as there being more creatures than in a WoX area, I wouldn't say that was true either. The dungeons were small but crammed in WoX. Since I love both games, I guess the combat didn't bother me. I wish someone talented would make something similar to the M&M series. I haven't seen anything come close. The best was Yendorian Tales, but it is much more like 3-5 than the later games.

Come on not more creatures in 6-8. There are at least 10x more creatures than in mm 3-5. Dont`t get me wrong I love all m&m games but still can understand those not liking hordes of creatures and endless combat sessions in later parts. Combat in mm 6-7 can easily get tedious for newcomers to the series so I always recommend World of Xeen if you don`t care about graphics although I find graphics in World of Xeen prettier than those ugly sprites in later games.

Originally Posted by Dark Savant
Combat in mm 6-7 can easily get tedious for newcomers

It can easily get tedious for anyone .
Though personally I´ve found 7 to be a lot more bearable in this regard and it´s the main reason why I consider it to be a much better game than 6, even though 7 has its own share of deficiencies compared to 6 (less diverse overland map, no really memorable dungeon, boring/underdeveloped endgame).

Originally Posted by Dark Savant
I find graphics in World of Xeen prettier than those ugly sprites in later games.

Same here.

WoX is my favourite of the bunch since in my book it comes with the best balance of gameplay elements, especially the Darkside part.

Originally Posted by Dark Savant
Dont`t get me wrong I love all m&m games but still can understand those not liking hordes of creatures and endless combat sessions in later parts.

I'm usually a fan of games that throws more enemies your way rather than tougher enemies. It feels like something is happening, unlike how it is when you have just a few enemies that you hack away for a long time.
But when using hordes of enemies, you need to keep their toughness down. They need to die swiftly so that you don't end up with overly drawn out combat encounters. I would probably have liked M&M 6 & 7 a lot more if the enemies were less durable. If we take the troglodyte cavern as an example, the basic troglodytes were fine, but the queens were too durable.

And I also found WoX to be an attractive looking game. The sprites were well drawn and had a nice style to them. Colorful but not garish. Actually, quite a lot of these early-mid 90's tile-based CRPGs still look pretty nice. Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, Ishar and so on.

I didn`t find enemies in M&M 6 particularly tough.

Still remember playing Darkside of Xeen in 1993, wandering around forest with my low level characters and suddenly there is an Armadillo in front of my party. One stroke and all my crew was instantly dead.

Originally Posted by Dark Savant
I didn`t find enemies in M&M 6 particularly tough.

Just so that we are on the same page, I meant as in "durable" not "difficult"

ok bastards, I caved (I survived 3 M&M threads the past year): I bought M&M7 again (first game I bought on gog, also got myself the whispered world).

After careful consideration I got myself the following:
- dwarven monk (hp reservoir/fast dmg + disarm trap, perception)
- goblin paladin (mace/chain for heavy dmg)
- human sorcerer (the usual)
- cleric (probably human )

I'm planning to go the dark route, feel free to suggest the mandatory skills (been a long time). I'm planning to see it through until the end this time!

Perception, you won't get far if you can't see the secret doors.
ID item - save money and use good stuff when you get it.
Have cleric emphasize body and spirit, for regen and buffs.
Dump skills include ID monster, alchemy, body building, and any armor or weapon other than your best one.

Originally Posted by mndrew
Perception, you won't get far if you can't see the secret doors.
ID item - save money and use good stuff when you get it.
Have cleric emphasize body and spirit, for regen and buffs.
Dump skills include ID monster, alchemy, body building, and any armor or weapon other than your best one.

- my monk has perception, but didn't really put any points in it. I can guess the location using wizard's eye :-)
- naturally
- got it covered by the sorcerer
- the monk (now initiate) and paladin are both fervently body builders. As a sidenote, I'm a bit disappointed by the attack damage of my monk atm (~10), vs almost 20 for the paladin. Does anyone know where I can learn staff for the monk ?

I made the mistake of putting some skills points in leather for the cleric and paladin, while they can actually achieve a higher level with chain and plate, respectively. Next up: the red dwarven mines

Originally Posted by ilm
- my monk has perception, but didn't really put any points in it. I can guess the location using wizard's eye :-)

Don't you still actually have to detect secret doors to be able to open them? Iirc, that's how it worked in M&M 6.

Wiz eye won't tell you about sliding floor panel's or hidden switches; you need perception. Staff trainer is right there in Harmondale, mid-level is, I believe, in Pierpont, and GM is right next to the wizard school.

In de dwarven barrows I just clicked the walls in front of treasures. Hidden switches and floors are of course another matter. The problem is the monk only can reach expert perception, will see if the others can do better.

Darn game. People talked about all the cool things you can do later on on another forum, and I decided to give it yet another chance. Did the Knight->Chavalier quest, and actually enjoyed it. The enemies in the mansion were pretty dangerous (some could 2-3hit kill two of my characters), but it was possible to get through it through proper use of movement and spells. And they were also fragile enough for it to not be any long drawn out fights.
I wonder if I was a bit underleveled though. My party was 10/10/9/9.

Originally Posted by Fnord
Darn game. People talked about all the cool things you can do later on on another forum, and I decided to give it yet another chance. Did the Knight->Chavalier quest, and actually enjoyed it. The enemies in the mansion were pretty dangerous (some could 2-3hit kill two of my characters), but it was possible to get through it through proper use of movement and spells. And they were also fragile enough for it to not be any long drawn out fights.
I wonder if I was a bit underleveled though. My party was 10/10/9/9.

I think I did it at maybe 12-13 or so, the "turn undead" spell made it a lot easier. Just cast it, wait a few turns till they fled far enough. Then pick one and kill it before it reaches you, etc. I had the most trouble with the wights.

I'm level 20-21 now, a couple more and I might try the paladin promotion quest (the only first promotion quest remaining).

oh my, I'm addicted. I neglected some of my duties to play last weekend :s. I'm almost level 40 now and done the second promotion quests for my characters (ninja, villain, lich and priest of dark).

Initially, I had some serious problems with the school of magic: first the (gold) golems, then the wizards that created hundreds of elementals… after that, the angels and clerics in celeste were a piece of cake.

Anyone know if any skill is worth upgrading beyond 10 (GM) ? I also like to have a little more meat on my lich (both literal and as a figure of speech), she gets knocked out a bit too easily sometimes.

It depends on the skill, I think.
Some offensive spells give you a boost in damage depending on the amount of skill points put in the school. I thought it was the same for armors. So even though grandmaster Plate has no movement penalties or whatever adding points would still increase your defense rating by whatever it gets increased.

Many skills are worth leveling past 10. There are more that benefit than those that don't. Most miscellaneous skills are not necessary to raise, but Armsmaster and Body Building would be an exception. I think I had 30 armsmaster on my Knight in one game and he would hit with spear and longsword as fast as my thief with daggers. He could often attack 3 times in a single turn, doing devastating damage.

If you get enough Speed on your Archmage/Lich they can fire multiple spells in a round too. A lich that fires 3 shrapmetals/round ends up being unstoppable. Of course, this assumes that you have meditation at a high level so that you never run out of mana.

MM7 is a game that becomes extremely easy if you have high level characters. I've learned to stop leveling around level 30 for most of the game. I'll level up real high at the very end sometimes, but if you want a high end-game score there is a tradeoff between leveling and time. Training takes 1 wk/level so it eventually eats up more score than you gain from being a higher level, IIRC.

Yes, grand master armsmaster can and should be boosted pretty much indefinitely. It's extremely powerful. Also, light/dark magic is a good option to boost for wizard/cleric.

For non-knight-cleric-wizard just get everything to 10 and then pick either an armor skill or weapon skill to boost. They generally have decent benefits above 10.

Thanks, investing in armsmaster seems like a sound idea for my fighters, didn't improve speed for my casters though. All the speed barrels went into my ninja, which has >170 speed now The casters have meditation maxed out, and have plenty of spell points.

I'm indeed getting quite powerful now, the titan stronghold wasn't as tough as I thought it would be. Same as thunderfist mountain, which I just begun to explore.

@Fnord so where are you at ? :-)

Do not read the spoiler if you don't want to know what happens later in the game !!!