Once you're done with the game (I don't care if you complete or drop it), tell me your final thoughts about it and drop some tips, I'm still rather early but if you end up liking it in the end maybe I'll pick it back up.
But seriously the encounter rate HURGHEHUGHUGHGU.
Give it another go.
The more I played it the more I liked it, as I got better loot and spells, and thus more options in battle.
The game was easier then I had thought. I never had to reload so in practice I played the game Iron Man, although I must admit I used the maps and item info
The Unofficial Aethra Pages. I only had four deaths in the whole game - first time I met a Troll Warrior, second time my main character was killed by Dark Elf spell casters, and the last two deaths were against a large group of demons, including several Master Demons. After the fight against the demons the party retreated, trained a level or two, did an optional quest, and returned with a vengeance. I even did the final battles without any casualties or having to reload.
It's too easy to get very high Defence, meaning few enemies can hurt you physically, so only spell casters and demons are a threat.
I never cast any mass damage spells, only used a few wands and a scroll of Mass Domination, mostly relaying on Aynstyne's Accelerated Action I and II, and occasionally Way of the Dragon for my main and buffing spells with my Cleric.
I also didn't use the Deadly Strike ability much, since my Thief had so much higher Bow skill than Handheld Arms skill. Apart from Water Spirits Mahmud (or Machine Gun as I liked to call him) killed any non-boss enemy (including Master Demons) in one burst of arrows.
If I should play the game again I think I would make my main character a Human Paladin and one of the secondaries a Dwarf.
The Paladins and Dwarfs for hire all suffered from low Agility which translated to low Movement, which again means they were always on the fringes of the fighting instead of in the midst of it.
A Paladin is the obviuos role playing choice, but they are also the only one who can use the Sword of Right, which can insta kill any evil (including Elementals and Water Spirits for some reason) enemy in one hit. The downside is that unlike Thieves, Bards and Rogues who insta kill with their Deadly Strike ability, for some reason the Paladin doesn't get more attacks if he killls with his first swing.
A Dwarf is nice to have due to many Dwarf restricted items, most notably the Dwarf Grey Sword.
An Elf is also nice to have, due to the third race restricted Grey Sword. I found the Elf Bard for hire in the first town very useful. His Silver Tongue spell also means you can get much more gear for your starting money.
Unless you want to role play I wouldn't bother with the two characters that offer to join you on specific quests, since they will leave afterwards. And with a full party you will have to dismiss one character to make room for them. Dismissed characters are supposed to return to their guild with their current stats and items intact, but this didn't always work. The game bugged out a few times, and one character disappeared while another was replaced by the starting version of the character.
I'd also hire a Cleric and a Mage instead of creating them, since you can hire character two levels higher than your main. Higher levels means they can cast higher level spells, which is very useful in the beginning.
Overall I think this was an excellent game, and I'd probably be able to squeeze it into my Top 15 CRPGs list.
I really like the Rolemaster system, and character creation and advancement was very good.
The graphics and artwork is surprisingly good for a one geek production, and it looks very nice and crisp even when scaled to 3X.
There's a large selection of items, with magic versions going up to +2. But unlike the Gold Box games, there's lots of special and unique items, many of them class or race restriced.
There is no loot from enemies, but the loot you find in chests seem to be mostly random, so it makes for some replayability, and also for some tough decisions on which characters to keep.
Items like Rings stack, so you can give characters several Speed Rings. Movement rate seems to determine initiative, so you can largely configure in which order your guys act, and it makes for some interesting choices: have the Mage move first and have him cast AAA, or increase the movement of the slow fighter types to make sure they can hit something (and preferably reach a spell caster) in the first round?
Combat was rather boring in the beginning with little choices. There are no penalties from disengaging from melee, no option to "guard" and use your attack on the first enemy that moves into reach and with no grid the game does not really have any concept of "formation" and shielding vulnerable party members. So tactics is a matter of synergy between spell casters and fighters, with the AAA spell being especially effective on your best killer, and the special abilities and items of individual characters.
So my tactic was mostly for my Ashikari to get into the densest area of the combat field and "sweep", "Machine Gun" to first snipe enemy spell casters and then the biggest monsters, my mage to cast AAA1 or 2 and then cower in a corner and for my Paladin to Invoke her Sword of Right and then hit the most dangerous foe within reach.
Mostly with the "boss fights" and some of the demon encounters did I have to use more force.
I never used Transformation or Conjuring spells, so I'm not sure how effective those spells would have been.
To conclude I thought this was a very worthy game, and unless you're a storyfag who don't like combat and dungeon crawling, you owe to yourself to try this game.
