Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[Courtier]

Made as an offering to Dorateen

 

[aweigh]

Courtier

i'm going to post the video first, then explain the how/why's of how each ex-skill works and why it does, etc:

behold, the creme de la creme of the best of the best of the available in-game Ex-Skills. I finished all my testing and the verdict is in: "Shout" probably works off the LVL multiplier to determine the conflict resolution, and guess what? there is no in-game defense specifically against being "Frightened". The MVP ex-skill to pick right after utilitarian ones suhc as Brace (indispensible on at least 1 or 2 chars), and of course Divination (i can actually do just fine without Mysterious Bag, but I simply have grown too accostumed to knowing what items are really what); in 3rd place I rank the skill Stronghold which is prevents enemies from messing up your row Formation (as long as the character who has Stronghold is alive, if he/she dies the enemy can use Draw again); and in 4th place I would place a toss-up between the old staples of Tackle and Counter-attack (counter-attack raises your party's overall damage output, similar to a War Ritual but 10x better, on increasing increments of 0.25x multiplier with every new Turn that commences if the enemy ambushed you; it is the ultimate enemy ambush remedy when either Vigilance failed or you simply don't have a Ninja).

ahem, so after those 4 (brace/divination/stronghold/tackle/counter-attack) i have found the three best of the rest and dude, they are not only "utilitarian", these 3 ex-skills completely change how encounters are dealt with:

1. Shout. Put this skill on your bishop or alchemist, or basically any char who would usually use a magic spell but instead can now conserve MP and Shout instead and spam Fright on the entire enemy group. This triggers the Hunter's Pursuit.

2. Chi-Wave. This... is... AAAWWESOME. The Chi-Wave skill deals an exactly proportional amount of Non-Elemental damage to the enemy; proportional to a series of formulas which take into account the skill user's Level, their Attribute Stats (STR is very important) and also the equipped weaponry of the character. A character with a double-handed weapon with a high dmg roll will deal hundreds and hundreds of points of damage with a chi-wave, and will deal probably 100 points or so less (give or take) if you change the weaponry to sword and board or something like that. The point is the stronger the character is at dealing melee DMG, the better his/her chi-wave. My level 100 Hunter's Chi Wave, equipped at this moment w/ Polyete's bow, race DragonNewt; he deals 600-700 points of dmg with every chi-wave.

why would a char who can already DPS in melee need a chi-wave? simple, because first off chi-wave completely bypasses the enemy's Swallow Return, and it also bypasses enemy Armor Class among other things. For example my Hunter can chi-wave ibag tower's Nago enemy, the God-type Boar, for about 700+ dmg, whereas my Lord using a 2-handed Aas Shaft hammer will best-case-scenario hit Nago for around 200-300 dmg.

lastly, the chi-wave can be used to target L-range enemy groups, so giving chi-wave to your S-range using melee chars (lords come to mind) effectively gives that Lord character an insanely powerful L-range attack that in specific cases will usually deal more DMG than the char's regular attack (depending on the enemy you're trying to hit; if it's a soft enemy like a Fighter/Thief type obviously the lord's standard melee atk will deal more dmg than the chi-wave, but the chi-wave will deal the same consistent amount of dmg to any enemy type).

3. LEVEL DRAIN. the chances of landing it are the same as w/ Shout, depends on the character using it and that character's Level. All I know is that my level 85 ninja always lands Level Drain for a whopping 3 levels drained on ibag tower enemies from floors 1-5, such as the Skillvig bastard. Why is this good? When you level drain the enemy like that you immediately cut down by approximately HALF all of their Spell and Ailment Resistances and the enemy's total max hit points and total Armor Class and that enemy's melee dmg output ALL OF THAT SHIT is immediately cut down by about 30-40 percent.

after 1 level drain you can go crazy Summon-capturing enemies and/or just wailing on them without fear of their Swallow Return. Why? because remember, swallow return's percentage to trigger (for the enemy) is a % based off their Enemy LVL, and since you drained their Enemy LVL the percentages for their "abilities" are drastrically cut down. Starting to get the picture? it is really, really useful.

(i.e. remember all those annoying times Succubbus-type devil enemies would spam Fear nonstop during rounds? wellp, it works JUST AS WELL if not even better when the player is the one spamming Shout as an Ex-Skill; it consistently fucks up any enemy and any enemy type and of course, the thing that makes it next level is that it triggers your party Hunter's Pursuit Sweep when the turn ends).

 

[aweigh]

having been pouring many all-nighters the last 4-5 days playing Original just for the pleasure of stealing everything in sight w/ my Thief it has become obvious that the problem in Gothic is actually two-fold:

1. The "normal" weaponry is more or less still available for stealing and it is equipped on most enemies in Gothic that carry such things and who also carried them in Original; for example:

- Hellriders still carry their Hell Whips, Samaels still carry their Death Scythe and they even carry the Bone Spike as well; Monk Cricketer the Floor Master carries the equivalent of the Mantis Blade that the Doom Mantis enemies carry in Original; you can steal the Demon Saber and the Evil Excalibur from different tiers of Devil-type Lord enemies; you can also steal the Ogre Sword and the Hell Sword from their respective enemies; and the list continues.

- So the actual problem isn't that they forgot to give enemies "normal" weapons for the player in Gothic to steal but in fact what they completely forgot to do was to make all of the enemy "Monster Claws" and the like able to be equipped by the players!

- Instead of rounding out every enemy that doesn't wield normal weaponry with all of the insane variety of claws, beaks, maws, wheels, flasks, fangs, and just random-ass weapons for the player to steal and (probably) equip on their Brawlers or Samurai/Ninja; what Starfish did for Gothic was simply give enemies weapons like "Charge" and "Strike", which aren't actually classified as weapons by the game but function identically to Ex-Skills.

- These abilities/weapons for the Gothic monsters scale with the monster's LVL so in that way Starfish avoided having to create the almost 75+ unique monster "weapons" that can be found in Original.

- The same also happened w/ "monster armor"; Starfish simply did not even include any monster-specific armor for the player to steal. They simply lowered enemy Armor Class across the board in order to give them their defenses.

2. This means that the incredible variety of unique "monster" weapons and armor found in Original simply do not exist in Gothic. However one could fill up the enemy inventories in Gothic with existing weaponry and allow the player the opportunity to steal everything they can instead of depending always on drops.

example: Imagine fighting Devil-type Lord enemies wielding the High King's Sword; not only allowing the player to steal it but also giving these enemies access to more powerful weapons!

And there is no reason why one couldn't fill up monster inventories with hard-to-get weapons like the Hittode Shuriken; or items like the Skylark Bow, the Palindrome sword, the Killer spear, the Neck Chopper, etc, etc.

The enemies in Ibag's Tower almost all feature great weapons for stealing that are sometimes a pain in the ass to get via drops. It's obvious they really paid attention to detail and went the extra mile with the enemies in the 3 post-game dungeons, as all 3 post-game dungeons feature enemies that carry excellent weaponry for the player to steal.

One easy example of the type of weaponry that simply does not exist in Gothic would be the water-cavern's giant crabs which attack you with their claws and have a 5% chance to behead. If i'm not mistaken those are the very first enemies (besides the FOE in the 1st dungeon) that will Behead you if given the chance; in Original those crabs' weapons would be unique and the player would be able to steal them and equip them, but in Gothic those crabs don't actually use any real weapons and instead utilize an attack-ability that the game does not classify as a weapon (even though in the Bestiary it will display the enemy as having "Strike"/"Charge"/etc, however those cannot be unquipped/stole by Thiefs).

EDIT: One final example of how the majority of the "normal" weaponry that can be stolen from enemies in Original is present in Gothic as well: the Antique Sword. Right now I just finished the Nivenah Temple in Original and have my Devilish-Samurai using 2x Antique Swords each smithed with +10 DMG points. The very same Antique Swords can also be stolen in Gothic and in fact I do believe stealing them is probably the only way to get them as I have never received them as drops in Gothic; I only used them in Gothic for the first time during this recent Ibag's Tower-oriented playthrough as it was my first Gothic playthrough w/ a Thief in the party.

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To be fair though I do believe that all of this was intentional for Gothic's design. For starters there are more than 200+ additional and completely new (orreworked) "normal" weapons in Gothic; in fact the number is probably much higher but I don't want to over-estimate.

An easy example can be found in the Axes and the Clubs: in Original there are exactly 5 Axes and around 6 or 7 Clubs. Weapons like the Crimson Blade can both be stole from enemies in Gothic and it also appears as a common drop later on, whereas in Original that particular sword can only be obtained via a Summoner-quest. Another extremely easy example are the Katana. In Original there are around 10-12 Katana in total, counting both Main/Sub/2-Handed ones; in Gothic there are in excess of 25+ Katana in total (probably even more).

And, btw, the 3DS Remix does not add 100+ unique enemy weapons like the ones found in Original: what they did in the 3DS Remix was simply what I described above which is to fill up the existing Gothic enemy inventories with existing Gothic weaponry.

CORRECTION: Starfish actually did add a boat-load of "monster-type" claws, maws, beaks, etc, into the 3DS Remix version of Gothic! I stand corrected on that part.

The vast majority of those weapons are the same ones (value modifiers reworked, of course) from Elminage: Original. Starfish replaced every "monster-type" enemy's Weapon-Ability, such as the Volcanic Turtle's "Strike" in the PC/PSP version with "Beak +1" for example, and unlike the PSP/PC version weapon-abilities that cannot be removed from the enemy these actually are "game weapons", just like in Elminage: Original.

This also explains why random encounters are so much easier in the 3DS Remix version as well since monster-type enemies no longer utilize weapon-abilities which scale with their Enemy LVLs.

 

[aweigh]

Finally, before I forget, they improved the melee attack calculations in Gothic and I don't think this has ever been mentioned before:

- In Original the maximum number of attacks for anyweapon is 10 hits, both for Main/Sub and for 2-Handed weaponry. This means that 2-Handed weapons are completely outclassed by Original's post-game.

- In Gothic 2-Handed weaponry can reach up to 15 hits! Special and unique weapons (found only in Ibag's Tower) like the Holy Saber and the Mirage Land and the Golden Axen can reach 20 hits.

This means that unlike the previous 3 Elminage games where 2-Handed weapons are only contextually/sporadically advantageous, in Gothic there is always a legitimate reason for all styles: sword + board, dual-wielding or 2-handed.

 

[aweigh]

Shackleton Courtier Dorateen Dorarnae Celerity Deuce Traveler GhopTheConqueror Mustawd Roqua

Here are some examples from the PC version of Gothic's Bestiary showing plain as day what enemies are carrying, and what is therefore accessible for stealing; you can also notice I included pictures of the enemies that utilize the "Weapon-Abilities" like "Strike" and "Charge", instead of an actual in-game weapop/item:

 

[aweigh]

also can someone tell me where the flying fuck you ever battle these normal humans? I've put like 500+ hours into Gothic and I've never fought a Skilled Blacksmith carrying a Hekatan Hammer and Flame Shoes...

 

[Celerity]

For some reason it puts non combat NPCs in there. Heh.

Anyways Paper Sorcerer is nice for a little while but makes me very salty because it seems like I picked the wrong classes so every fight past level 1 is a battle of attrition I usually lose and revival items are limited. Deepest Dark is done, so I'll probably finish this when I desalt.

The funny thing about it is the final boss of Deepest Dark was 2.5 hours. No joke. Yet Paper Sorcerer fights feel slower, mostly because you hit for defense damage only most of the time until defense is gone and you can't see enemy health bars so there's a sense of tangible progress.

 

[aweigh]

Yeah, Paper Sorcerer fights are excruciatingly slow paced. Not only are you forced to watch the animations... but the actual mechanics contribute to long battles of give-and-take due to managing your defense and your skill points.

 

[Celerity]

It's more that I run out of stuff, typically healing. And the heals seem weak in the first place (on the highest difficulty of course).

You should stream DEepest Dark, I can release as soon as I find a victim... errr, first adopter. Everything is done.

 

[aweigh]

Dorarnae Courtier GhopTheConqueror Shackleton

trying out elminage 3... this series is easy to play in jap-runes because every item has a giant picture when you press the button so you always know exactly what everything is

that fucking FOE came at me so suddenly i almost jumped out of my seat in real life.

trying out for the very first time a party w/ a brawler. i made everyone devilish just to avoid hassles of equipping cursed moon-runes <3

 

[aweigh]

Dorateen Courtier Celerity



...so yeah, if one were to go enemy per enemy, i.e. manually adding (or substracting, whatever) numbers in their corresponding columns for each enemy that you want to modify in the game one could absolutely make a completely new, New Game Plus.

for starters adding iloot, loot, loot loot and more loot to the inventories of most enemies and i mean practical stuff like adding in whips, bows, even smithing Ores into the inventories of enemies just like in Original.

aside from that i have now discovered that you can simply switch enemy reference numbers like i did in the video i just copy pasted Skillving's column onto the knight of tthe Realm's column (the training hall training officer) and voila.

so that means re-arranging completely, if one wanted to, all of the enemies in the game too. i'm sure i'll do it someday when i'm really bored, if only for a personal play through.

right now i'm considering starting a new playthrough of Gothic with my own personal difficulty mod, i.e. i multiplied by 2 the -AC of all enemies in the game. heh.

 

[aweigh]

of course, obviously this means one can set up their own "boss labyrinth" inside the cave of the ancients, just like int he 3ds remix version. i'm actually doing that right now, as i didn't get a chance to summon-contract Gaia earlier.

 

[aweigh]

Dorateen Celerity Dorarnae Courtier Siveon Mustawd Deuce Traveler GhopTheConqueror Shackleton BlackGoat Viata agris railway Emmanuel2 Mortmal

FOLLOWING CHANGES OR ADDITIONS TO "ELMINAGE: GOTHIC":

1. Added the races: Devilish, Magic Puppet, Ogre and Goblin (had to do a switch by replacing existing races with these ones for now; everything works fine however).
2. Redistributed the majority of the Ex-Skills as Class Specific Abilities, like so:

- BRACE (survive a mortal blow) is now a Fighter and Brawler specific ability that both classes feature from the start.
- DRUNKEN FIST (when poisoned DMG increases) is now a Brawler specific ability that the class features from the start.
- LAST STAND (DMG increases when companions fall) is now a Fighter, Lord, Samurai, Brawler and Hunter specific High Mastery ability that is learnt at the appropriate level for those classes.
- DUAL WIELD (equip two Main-handed weapons) is now also a Fighter ability in exactly the same fashion as it is a Samurai ability.

- COUNTER-ATTACK (when ambushed party DMG output increases) is now a Thief, Hunter and Servant specific High Mastery ability that is learnt at the appropriate levels for those classes.
- SWIFT STRIKE (launch a standard melee attack before enemy actions) is now also a Servant ability, but not in the same fashion as the Hunter; the Servant lacks the following ability PURSUIT, which remains unique to the Hunter.
- CHI-WAVE (powerful blast that utilizes character's melee DMG as a multiplier) is now a Brawler specific High Mastery ability that is learnt at the appropriate level.

- CURSE (inflict Fear on 1 enemy) is now a Bishop specific ability that the class features from the start.
- SHOUT (inflict Fear on enemy group) is now a Bishop High Mastery ability learnt at the appropriate level.
- DIVINATION (tell what items do what) is now a Bishop, Alchemist, Bard, and Summoner specific ability that these classes feature from the start.
- IDENTIFICATION is now a Bishop, Servant and Bard specific ability that these classes feature from the start.
- Only the SHAMAN can use the DISPEL ability.

- SACRIFICE (turn yourself to Ashes in return for the revival of dead party members) is now a Cleric specific High Mastery ability learnt at the appropriate level for the class.
- HUNTERS begin learning Alchemy spells as a High Mastery ability at the appropriate level for the class. They do not receive Alchemy Power UP+.
- SHAMANS now have access to the same Valkyrie/Lord table of the Cleric spell school from the start.
- SERVANTS begin learning Mage spells as a High Mastery ability at the appropriate level for the class. They do not receive Mage Power Up+.

- VIGILANCE (random chance to prevent an ambush) is now a Thief, Hunter and Bard specific High Mastery ability learnt at the appropriate level for these classes; however the Ninja class has access to VIGILANCE from the start as in the default game which means they will always have a better multiplier for the ability.
- SURPRISE ATTACK (random chance to begin battle hidden) is now a Thief, Hunter and Bard specific High Mastery ability learnt at the appropriate level for these classes; however the Ninja class has access to VIGILANCE from the start as in the default game which means they will always have a better multiplier for the ability.
- EQUIPMENT RELEASE and STEAL are no longer High Mastery abilities for the Thief and are instead basic abilities the Thief features from the start.


- MAGIC ESSENCE (nullifies Mage spell resistance on enemies) is now a Mage specific High Mastery ability learnt at the appropriate level for the class.
- HAND OF KINDNESS (bolsters healing spells) is now a Cleric specific High Mastery ability learnt at the appropriate level for the class.
- The Summoner now gains Phys Power Up (not plus) upon reaching the level of High Mastery in order to allow the class to do something else besides summoning every turn.
- The Ex-Skills that are not listed such as War Ritual, Imitate, Tackle, etc; all of the ones not mentioned remain as standard universal skills selected upon char-generation.

While the aggregation of these very useful skills, and in some cases the flat-out addition of new stuff to a class (such as Fighters dual-wielding now) I took the liberty of tweaking the enemy combat difficulty:

- All enemies received a 35% increase in their random Hit Point dice roll.
- All enemies received a flat extra -2 AC. Period.

- (This part is far from finished) I'm slowly adding a lot of the weapons/armor/accessories from the 750+ list of Elminage: Gothic items as items available from the very beginning of the game for purchasing at the Shoppe. However...

- *ALL* Shoppe prices were increased by a 5x multiplier, and *ALL* enemy gold dropped was cut down by 50%. Example: The Flamberege's new cost is 110,000 GP (22,000 x 5).

- This means that now the player will have access to an incredibly broader and much more diverse selection of weapons both "standard" and also unique ones that normally would never even be able to be sold at the Shoppe such as:

Some random pictures:

EDIT: Correct, I am in the process of adding the required number that corresponds to the Brawler class on each and every single one of the Enemy Weapons that you see there being offered for sale at the Shoppe. It is a bit time-consuming.

 

[aweigh]

 

[Castozor]

So I started playing this game about 3 days ago and progress has been slow but fun so far. I didn't read most of this thread after buying the game because I want to be playing this mostly spoiler free. For that reason I hope you will be patient/understanding when I ask about basic stuff that has been answered 15 times already because I don't feel like digging for the info inbetween all possible spoilers and I don't want to badger Courtier in the Shoutbox everytime.
I hope you guys are willing to help me out as I dive into this crucible of a game.

 

[Dorateen]

I hope you guys are willing to help me out as I dive into this crucible of a game.

Spoiler

 

[Castozor]

So I'm thinking of making my first 2 class changes (about level 8-9 now). Thinking of rolling my Lord into a Cleric for a few levels and rolling mythief into a hunter once she gets the stats because so far the thief has been invaluable for the secret spotting/chest unlocking but in combat I might as well have 5 chars instead of 6. Is any of this a good idea? The rest of my party, left to right, Fighter/Lord/Brawler, Mage/Alchemist/Thief.

 

[Courtier]

When you classchange, you have one single chance to convert money into exp (1GP=1XP)

Hunter can retain 9 alchemy spellcasts as opposed to the regular 3 but doesn't learn any on their own, gets great bows. Thief is not good in combat and there are almost no good weapons to steal, so you might as well change but expect to have trouble with traps (you'll want to start using spells to unlock chests later if you don't have a thief).

Lord learns spells extremely slowly and would benefit from starting as cleric, but getting the stats to change back to lord could prove really tough. Remember, stats are set to minimums after change. You'd probably need ankhs and protectorate (L9 alch spell - increases stat or changes alignment if stats maxed).

Basically I think it's too early and you have access to too few leveling areas to be classchanging, for example you don't have the means yet to say change the thief to alch, donate a ton of money/kill some demons to quickly get 9 spell levels and then change to hunter. You're a long way from high mastery skills (LV30+) so what matters now is spells, going from LV1-14 takes ~800-1000K exp, while after that a single level takes ~250-400K.

I'd suggest keep your lord, change the mage or alch to cleric when you get LV9 spells (making do until then), change said cleric to something else (for example a bishop) and have your thief go through alch before hunter when you have a good opportunity (lot of money, figured out the beauty of lesser demons, have the spells to do without a thief for a while).

You could forego a thief-class entirely and teach everyone the high portal spell. Or have the backrow learn a full complement of spells and then turn them all into ranged fighters (hunter/shaman/valkyrie). Valkyrie in particular is really really good in this game. A servant with some spells learned beforehand might also be a good choice if you want instant healing. Loads of possibilities, but hang in there for now

 

[eric__s]

aweigh, you think it will be possible to start adding content instead of just shifting values around eventually?

 

[aweigh]

eric__s

This is exactly what I am pipe-dreaming of being able to do. Am currently, in my limited spare time, trying to teach myself how to edit the dungeon textures because I am quite certain it is 100% possible to "re-arrange" every single dungeon texture. I assume you follow where I'm going with this right? Obviously by those words I don't mean a "re-skin". I mean changing the layouts.

Hey, you know about this game making shit! Can I firedrop link you the Elminage Gothic dungeon files?

EDIT: Another idea i'm knocking around is downloading the 3DS Remix of Gothic which features re-arranged floor layouts for every dungeon (some changes small, some changes vast), and seeing what/how/etc that shit into PC Gothic. Obviously this is a legit pipe-dream because, for starters, I haven't even found any viable rom hacking tools for 3DS games other than Tinke which proved a bust for the Gothic Remix 3DS rom.

As mentioned, i am 100% it is achievable (re-arranging the PC Gothic dungeons)

 

[aweigh]

Courtier

how do i trigger the elminage: Original post-game dungeon? just finished it

EDIT: argh it's super tedious... (the king just told me)

 

[Dorarnae]

it's not that bad. you have 3 altar you can pray at in city, one in the main city, the other in the last city and one in capello shop(need to do his quest, otherwise the npc isn't there...)

after that it's somewhere in sheba ruin,the orc fortress and the dungeon with tarot on the wall. just walk around a bit with teleport, if you can't find them, you can pay at the temple to change the place of the altar/rings

 

[aweigh]

is the final dungeon worth it?

 

[aweigh]

Courtier

WHAT THE FUCKCKC


STAR GAZERS

WHY

NNG!

I'M GOING TO FUCKING ENCHANT 20000000000000000 MILLION PERCENT BEHEADING RESISTANCE JUST FUCKIN WAIT AND SEETHEN THE GAME WILL REALIZE WHAT'S WHAT

fuckin PINPOINT shields for errybody 101 dalmations vs behead POP POP!

 

[aweigh]

Courtier
Great Deceiver
Dorateen
Dorarnae

i'm really in my full-on ibag's towrer steam roll groove. well, yes, stargazers are like an almost guaranteed 50/50 situation of whether wipe or not but i encountered two "Angel"-type enemies and after like 15 straight rounds of 1 guy casting magic resistance down on them, and then another guy casting Speed Down on them, and then a final guy with alchemy casting speed UP on my party: yessss, i have finally gotten my very first OP summon. i finally understand why courtier and others speak so fondly of catching them all; i am using a Bishop who originally was a Summoner so he not only does not have blood oath but he gets 3 casts (which, in context, is more than enough), and he never catches anything good but this is the first time i actually got lucky and contracted a legit OP enemy the aforementioned twin angels.

and this will make me look retarded but believe it or not i had never thought about using the Bifeo spell (alchemy spell that taunts enemies into only attacking party member that the caster selects); and, wait for it... WAIT FOR IT... MAKING THEM TARGET THE SUMMON.

O.M.G.

mind. it is blown.

it truly is a fucking testament to how unequivocally grandly designed and planned out the entire experience of taking on the 20 floors of the Tower. I mean, upwards of 300-400 hours already clocked and i had never even had the slightest hint of the thought of the idea of using an existing spell that says it makes enemies target whoever you choose and making them attack a Summoned creature. this emergent interplay between myself as a player and a fond discovery of a new way, for myself obviously, to use the exact same old ass game systems/rules i've been playing with for months in a legitimately new way/approach: i can't think of RPGs that keep on giving as Elminage Gothic does.

it was the challenge of Ibag's tower that jumpstarted that little neuron into using Bifeo for that purpose. So, while it does not reflect all that great on my own smarts as a player, it reflects amazingly well on the game itself... in my opinion.

i've also started judiciously planning out uses of the alchemy invisbility spell, Bulfei (or something like that), as it grants any character that has the spell cast on them 1 'Surprise Attack' (i.e. the same type of sneak attack done when other classes are 'hidden'). those surprise attacks carry a considerable dmg output bonus if they hit (no Accuracy bonus that i know, and i tested); and i had never before thought of simply making the samurai who's going to use his flame heresy bow to kill Polyete invisible so as to make sure that not only does she not target/kill him beforehand but that the attack does approximately 20% more damage (but that is only an estimate purely based on the numbers i have seen and compared while playing; wiki doesn't have the data on the surprise attacks).

oh, and random finding: i have been testing the effects of the alchemy spell which raises party "speed", which i've always found a weird spell description as the attribute itself is clearly AGILITY, but from my unscientific testing using a souped-up training officer as a practice dummy an extreme of low AGILITY attribute points results in APPROXIMATELY (i.e. this means it was just me counting aloud) around 40, probably a cold 50% more melee attack misses or low-dmg blows; and when you cast Sockhei on the low-AGI char they will 100% guaranteed immediately begin landing every other attack on the enemy.

so... i guess/think either AGILITY attribute has some undocumented relationship with the two different formulas the game utilizes simultaenously for melee attack resolution.

long story short now instead of always stacking ORATH i stack Sockhei first, and then later throw in 1 orath if needed. also, obviously the inverse holds true: casting Losckei on the enemy and lowering their "speed" results in a lot less dmg on your party. of course it depends what enemy it is i mean stargazer doesn't give a fuck either way.

this game is a fucking masterpiece.