22-02-2010, 03:04 PM
|
#233
|
|
|
Found this forum in a google search for Darklands info. What a great game! I can still remember when the ads for this came out back when I was in grade school, then playing the game in high school . .seems like every five years or so I get an itch for it again.
I do my party setup a little different from what most other people seem to -- anyone have any thoughts?
1) I find it's very useful, especially for mines, to have my first party member be an artificer with high perception. If you start Town Trades family ****Journeyman Craftsman **** Master Craftsman, you can start with fairly high artifice skill (~40), high perception, and good strength and endurance; if you add 5 years of Travelling Merchant, he'll start out with chainmail armor and still be under 30.
2) I like to combine my religious character with my charisma speaker. The two front line fighters need Str and End; religion doesn't need an attribute, so it combines well with the charisma person, who's going to have lower str/end than your front line fighters.
A few additional points:
1) You can move items between party members in the equipment screen by selecting the item then typing the destination member's party #. You can also move a whole stack of items (like 40 zinken or whatever) by shift-clicking and dragging to the party member's icon.
2) Nurnburg does have the best overall armor and weapon quality, at 37, but it doesn't have a full selection -- for example, it only sells plate limb armor, not vital armor. The best plate vital armor I could find was from Nancy, at 36, but it's way off on the left side of the map and may not be worth the journey; Dresden sells 34 quality full suits and is more centrally located. Teschen has great quality short bows and crossbows but no compound or long bows; Leer has quality arbalests. The best melee weapons overall are from Paderborn, at 38 quality, but the tinker's shop in Dresden sells polearms and great hammers at 39 quality. The best source overall for weapons is saving merchant caravans, which can give 43+ quality handguns, bows, and great hammers. I've seen rumours of 37 quality throwing knives but I've been unable to find them. It is worth it to invest in quality weapons because they aren't damaged by acid or fire, but armor, eh.
3) It's worth it to reroll your starting alchemist a few times until you get one that starts with Essence of Grace. Whoever talks to the alchemist when you ask to trade formulae gets the new formula, so make sure your alchemist does the talking in that shop.
4) Anyone in your party, regardless of other stats, can pick up religion, virtue, and saints and do reasonably well with 'em; it pays to spread saints out since DF takes so long to regenerate. Just have everyone train religion up a bit (fairly cheap and easy to do). Edward the Confessor can boost everyone in the party's virtue up to 20 but you'll need one virtuous person to pray to him first.
5) For party composition, I like having a bunch of 30 year olds, for the sweet spot between stats and skills -- an apprentice craftsman/master craftsman/recruit with 39/39 str/end and perception and high artifice for my combat/dungeon leader, a 43/43 str fighter who can wear full plate, a courtier/captain/knight for charisma and combat and some religion/virtue, and a student/alchemist/master alchemist with 40 int and the rest, again, to str/end. That'll get you a party where everyone can get away with wearing at least plate vital armor, if not plate limb armor (plate limbs are heavier than plate vitals).
6) I found a copy of the Darklands clue book online, and it's worth reading. Turns out penetration is key for weapons (this means great hammers are a great weapon), shields just give a defensive skill bonus (good when low skill, somewhat redundant and useless weight when high skill).
7) Superb horses are so worth it.
8) When fighting the wilderness alchemist, duck behind trees so he can't get a line of sight to throw potions at you.
9) Don't mix high risk potions in the inn of towns where you've ground up reputation just so you could use the university.
10) in the mine where you retrieve the relic, don't spend two hours carefully searching past each wall for secret doors when you can't find the relic. It'll just appear in your inventory after killing one or another of the baddies, without telling you it's done so.
11) use boar tusks or clothing to "stop' the bottom of your "i don't want to sell this stuff" inventory and keep your sale stuff below that.Setup
Last edited by arete; 26-02-2010 at 05:49 AM.
Reason: per user's request
|
|
|
|