*cough erm* been a while

This is the forum for helping you out if you're stuck or if you want to discuss the nitty gritty details of the dungeons within Mount Grimrock. Warning: forum contains spoilers!
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Archie Stanton
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:35 pm

*cough erm* been a while

Post by Archie Stanton »

Hello all,

well i was sort of on the ground floor when this was released many many moons ago, but what with kids and other stuff i didn't get around to finishing this rather splendid game - think i got to lvl 9 and bailed as my characters were poorly built

so now i am back, and started a vanilla new party and got so far as the start of them godawful slimes without using any skill points

any good pointers as to what i should be pumping my points in to so as i have a good shot to getting to the bottom of this infernal mountain

had a looksee on the forums, but so much conflicting advice, i don't know which way to turn (quickly to avoid spiders)

cheers for any help :)
minmay
Posts: 2768
Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:24 am

Re: *cough erm* been a while

Post by minmay »

Fighter:
SpoilerShow
Train exclusively swords. Swords are by far the best weapons, followed by unarmed combat, distantly followed by axes and maces which are both really bad. After swords (or unarmed if you really want) reaches 50, what you do with the rest of your points doesn't really matter, the rest of the skills do almost nothing.
Rogue:
SpoilerShow
If you want to use melee, pick one of daggers or unarmed (they're very close in power so just pick the one you prefer). If you chose daggers, add in enough assassination skill to get your preferred amount of backstabbing. Alternatively, you can train assassination exclusively until 50, which lets you one-shot backstab most monsters as long as you're wielding a dagger, but that will leave you with pretty bad melee damage before 50. If you pick unarmed, be aware that improved backstab and master assassin only work with daggers - you'll just get the regular 2x backstabbing bonus no matter how high your assassination skill is.

If you want to use ranged, train either missile weapons exclusively or throwing exclusively, they're pretty close to each other in power.
Don't waste points in dodge unless your weapon skill is already at 50.
Note: the skills that say they "increase attack speed" by 25% or 50% actually reduce cooldown by 25% or 50%, so they actually increase your rate of attack by 33% and 100%, respectively! Together with volley/double throw, this makes high skill ranged weapons ridiculously good.
Mage:
SpoilerShow
Don't waste points in staff defense. When you find the Orb of Radiance, use it, as it has a hidden property: it reduces spellcasting cooldown by 40%. You will be putting way more skill points into elements than into spellcraft. Breakdown of elements:
Fire: Slightly higher damage than air, but it offers nothing other than damage and fire shield. Fireball also takes marginally longer to cast than other bolts since you have to click 3 runes instead of 2. There is one monster with fire immunity.
Air: Has invisibility, which is downright brokenly overpowered, and the damage is almost as good as fire, and there are no monsters with lightning immunity, and lightning bolt is faster than the other bolts to boot. There is an item you can get very late in the game that makes fire's damage significantly better than air's, but before that point, air is just plain better.
Ice: Ice shards is the only penetrating spell in the game, but it's rare for that to matter. Frostbolt does very little damage, but it can freeze (i.e. paralyse) opponents, and the freezing lasts for long enough to easily kill the monster before it unfreezes. There are two monsters with cold immunity.
Earth: Poison cloud is not really a practical spell, but poison bolt requires significantly less skill investment than other bolts. However, there are four monsters with poison immunity, more than any other element. Also, greater poison bolt is bugged: it leaves behind a poison cloud and this poison cloud doesn't award xp if it deals a killing blow to a monster. So be careful about that. Most players prefer to ignore earth entirely.

Although it isn't displayed anywhere, every level of an elemental skill directly increases the damage of that skill's spells. This means that even once you have the spells you want, training your elemental skill(s) more is likely to still be better than training spellcraft. I would generally train spellcraft to 10, since you want to meet item requirements and combat caster is a good deal. Improved combat caster may be worth it as well, but it is extremely unlikely that you want to train spellcraft further than that.
Ranger:
SpoilerShow
Same as fighter but you can add some spellcraft if you want to cast light. Or play as a pure fire mage but that's unbearable imo.
By the way, the willpower and vitality bonuses for health and energy apply on level up and are not retroactive.
Grimrock 1 dungeon
Grimrock 2 resources
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Komag
Posts: 3654
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 4:55 pm
Location: Boston, USA

Re: *cough erm* been a while

Post by Komag »

Wow, that's a great summary, I enjoyed reading it, makes me wanna play again :)
Finished Dungeons - complete mods to play
Archie Stanton
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:35 pm

Re: *cough erm* been a while

Post by Archie Stanton »

TYVM for that

so just ignore athletics and armour?

and as i have the big lummox of minotaur - swap skill in swords for maces? or switch to swords?
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Dr.Disaster
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Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2012 11:48 am

Re: *cough erm* been a while

Post by Dr.Disaster »

About Athletics and Armor: it all depends on how good you are with item management and handling controls aka evading hits yourself.

Beside a mixed bunch of points the main reasons to pick Athletics skill are
- Endurance trait to reduce the need for food -> becomes pointless once the party reaches/finds the pantry areas
- Porter trait to haul more stuff -> no problem for already strong characters i.e. a minotaur or with good item management
- huge Health boost when maxed -> very unlikey any regular player ever get's there

Beside the extra Health coming along with it the main reasons to pick Armor skill are
- being able to wear Armor without Evasion penalty -> evading hits by good control handling removes the need for Armor/Protection
- an Evasion shield-boost -> up's your chance of not being hit
- big Protection boost when maxed -> very unlikey any regular player ever get's there


Regarding weapon choice: maces are slower than swords as minmay stated. Also most maces have an Accuracy penalty so you'll hit less - compared to all other weapon classes during build-up of your weapon skill - and with an already slow weapon that's not a good call.
Archie Stanton
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:35 pm

Re: *cough erm* been a while

Post by Archie Stanton »

again TYVM

during these sortees i always loathe not to equip the best of class weapon i have available

so likkle minotaur would always have the second best sword, if maces are so pants

any major downside to axes?

i am guessing an unarmed minotaur ain't such a great idea :D
minmay
Posts: 2768
Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:24 am

Re: *cough erm* been a while

Post by minmay »

the downside to axes and maces is that they do way, way, way less DPS than swords or unarmed. you could argue that maces are very very slightly less awful than axes, or that axes are very very slightly less awful than maces, but ultimately they're both awful and worse than every other damage-dealing option in the game. because skill bonus (and strength and head hunter bonuses, though those are smaller) to weapon damage is additive and not multiplicative, and enemies don't have very high protection, the big determiner of DPS is speed, not base attack power, and axes and maces are horribly slow compared to swords and unarmed and daggers. bad swords and daggers are better than the best axes and maces, and so is unarmed combat.

an unarmed minotaur is an overwhelmingly better idea than an axes or maces minotaur. it is better in every way. way way more damage (about twice as much, if not even more) and you even get some extra defense for free.
Last edited by minmay on Sun Feb 05, 2017 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Grimrock 1 dungeon
Grimrock 2 resources
I no longer answer scripting questions in private messages. Please ask in a forum topic or this Discord server.
Archie Stanton
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:35 pm

Re: *cough erm* been a while

Post by Archie Stanton »

thank you for your quick reply

an unarmed minotaur it is then

the big lummox can be a pack horse too then :lol:
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