| I started the game with a single character, a cleric, added levels as rogue and fighter later. I found, though, that there were a lot of battles that took a lot of restores to get through - some because I was not yet good enough, some because there are just too many of those suckers for a lone character to hack himself through before going down. I felt this kind of lost the intent, as one gets killed, you really can't hit the restore button. But, as this is fantasy, it is perfectly acceptable to have somebody resurrect you after you screwed up.
To make a long story short, I finished all but a couple big battles in the Main Halls then acquired Jarial. With him I was able to complete all the Dwarven Dungeons and the last thing I did was acquire Emmeric. I added Faeril when the opportunity arose and used these until meeting Athlan in the Castle.
Half the reason for picking up those fighters was because you had so many really neat weapons and just HAD to use them <g>. I dropped Emmeric and Athan after killing off Pelandaar and am now just trying to finish a couple of odds and end I missed.
Final Party:
Joan d'Arche Cleric16/Rogue4/Fighter4
23str/17dex/22con/14int/19wis/14cha 331HP
Jarial Sorcerer16/Rogue3/Ranger4
14/15/18/10/17/16 175HP
Faeril Fighter11/Cleric12/Sorcerer1 (a mistake when I leveled her up)
22/15/18/10/17/16 241HP
Emmeric Fighter16/Barbarian5
21/15/17/16/8/10 242HP
Athan Fighter16/Rogue2
22/17/20/12/9/9 251HP
With this party, the final assault on the castle was quite straight forward although I did have to resurrect Faeril at one point. I used Jarial and Athan as fire support and the other three for assault. Lots of magic here and if one plays it cagey, many encounters are over without swinging a sword. When it does come to sword play, Emmeric (as equipped) could take down as many as four cultists in a turn; Faeril 2. They were even harder on Dragonkin and gargoyles.  |