I die waaay too much this game!

[krunchyfrogg]

I just got out of the first dungeon, after dying two or three times in there (I get the feeling I'm not supposed to fight those skeletal warriors), and I get jumped right outside by some punks hanging with a hooker, and they kill me!

Am I doing something wrong here?

[VonDondu]

Forget what the manual says about the Mortuary. It's not really a dangerous place, and you don't have to fight your way out. The Dustmen are caretakers of the dead, and killing one of them would be like killing a mortician in real life. If they see you walking around, they can only assume you must be an intruder. All you have to do is avoid them and you can leave the Mortuary peacefully. As weird as it might seem after playing other games, the zombies in Torment are not bloodthirsty monsters; they're just corpses who are programmed like robots by the Dustmen. They aren't dangerous at all unless you attack them. You have to kill the first zombie you meet to get a key, but after that, you don't need to kill anybody at all.

Instead of killing the giant Skeletal Warriors (which is practically impossible at your level), the best way to handle them is to find a book that one of the zombies is carrying and use the instructions in the book to disarm the Skeleton Warriors. You'll get 800 experience points apiece for that. You'd get far less experience than that for killing them.

This game is less about combat than it is about finding clues and recovering memories from the Nameless One's past lives. If you make all of the zombies and Dustmen hostile, you won't be able to talk to any of them, and you'll miss a lot of important clues and also a lot of experience. I once added up all of the experience you get for killing everything in the Mortuary, and it was only about 800 experience points or something like that. But if you TALK to all of the zombies and examine items and talk to a couple of the special characters in there, you'll go up in level a couple of times. So just remember that you get more experience for TALKING to people than you get for killing them. That's not what you would expect, is it?

Thugs in the Hive are easy to avoid. They won't chase you unless you walk too close to them. If you do get into a fight, don't underestimate Morte. He has very high damage resistance, so he can kill a lot of lesser monsters before they can kill him. And don't forget that you can enable "running" in the game. I used it all the time.

I've given other people a lot of hints about how to play if you want to check out my other messages with the search function. But my general advice is, don't try to play this game like you would play Baldur's Gate.

Good luck!

[fable]

You can always return to kill the skeletal warriors, later. Just avoid them at the start of the game. Head on out, and go south into the next quadrant. Immediately head south, then swing east when you reach the bottom of the street. Enter the tavern on the left. You can pick up somebody of great usefulness to your party, there.

At that point, you should have three members in your party. It's possible to take on a group of three thugs if you do it carefully. Be sure to rest in the small, empty building south of the mortuary, on the same side of the street.

[krunchyfrogg]

Thanks for the advice everybody! I plan on restarting, and playing an intelligent, if physically weak character through this game.

Also, thanks for not spoiling me. This is my first time through the game.

I just read the manual, and I think I'll bump my Wisdom up to 18, since it means I'll advance through the levels much faster!

[VonDondu]

In my opinion, the best starting stats are:

STR 10
DEX 13
CON 10
INT 13
WIS 18
CHA 13

...or as close to that as you can get. (I can't remember exactly how many points can be distributed when you start the game.) You can buy a tattoo to raise your Charisma by two points, and 16 is all you really need, so I would only add one more point to Charisma when you level up. (Every time you level up, you get one extra stat point.) You can raise your Wisdom just by talking to certain people, so I don't know if you ever need to add another point to it at level-up to have Wisdom 24 at the end of the game; but Wisdom is definitely the most important stat. I don't think Constitution is ever all that important, since the Nameless One regenerates so fast and he can't be permanently killed. Dexterity helps if you play a Thief, and Strength helps if you play a Fighter, but you can concentrate on building up your other party members and let them do your fighting and thieving if you prefer.

In case you don't know, your actions will determine your alignment. If you act in a lawful manner (keeping your word, telling the truth, etc.), you will end up with a Lawful character. If you act silly (like teasing the zombies) or break promises, you'll end up with a Chaotic character. You should be able to figure it out.