By Mike Pfanenstiel.
I have sent some form of this out several different times, it is my thoughts on lairbashing and how to get the most out of your characters, for whatever that is worth. This was intended for new players, but some of you may get some insight out of it.
The key to making great lairbashers is making the most from your freebies. Freebies are status morphs, familiar morphs, and gains in PC and militant skills. Familiar morphs are at production, but status morphs are at production and combat. A rule of thumb used to be, for every three rounds of combat you had a chance to gain +1PC and +1 militant skill each – so if you had two militant skills, each of them would gain one. If you fought a 15 round combat, you could gain +5 PC and +5 to each militant skill. If you do an encounter order first then a conquer order, you could go up 10 levels in each if the target is tough.
If I pick appropriately tough targets, then I will max out the freebies. In other words if I defeat the monster the first round, then I should be going after something tougher.
What to do, I first research one of the status spells such as netherworld, enchanted or werewolf. I also cross teach the Summon Familiar spell. The next thing is to cross train skills.
What position type to start with? Most people think that I start with a hero setup. I tried it once, but did not like it. I always pick either an adventure party or a mercenary position. The mercenary gives you population and troops to move around with. I quickly gain a lot of goodies that the hero position cannot move, but the mercenary gives me transport capabilities and I can sell common items to the population segment to reduce weight. The adventure party gives you extra characters. If you play a hero position, you get two characters with 6 actions, an adventure party gives you 6 characters with 13 actions. I often have my “B” characters pass my “D” main due to freebies, the hero position may be an advantage for the 1st five turns, but it quickly falls behind by the 5th turn.
Spells, the best lair bashing spells are #181 (Attack Dispersement) and #58 (Blur Illusion), on a 1-10 scale with 10 being the best— these are a 10. Both spells reduce the overall modifiers slightly differently but a general 30% reduction in both AF and DF. Down near the scale of 2 or 3 is spell #83 (Empathic Self Cure). This spells removes the wounds from the caster from the character to the monster, but the transfer is reduced by the monster’s MAR, so after the first 5 turns, I rarely cast it. There are easier ways to remove the wounds and it does not do anything to tougher monsters. The most you can reduce a monster is 85% percent, so two characters (hero set up can reduce it by 60%) while a larger group (at least three) can max it out. [Editor’s Note: These spells do not stack, so please be advised that the above advice may be slightly incorrect.]
What militant skills to choose? I am sure there are lots of thoughts, but two things to remember are that DAM is the value you inflict and INV is how tough you are. So I think you should pick a weaponmaster skill to increase your DAM value, and Ranger skill is the second choice.
Actually, most of the better gamers agree that Ranger is a must since it gives increases in both MAR and SAR (almost all monsters have this). It also gives added movement, allows you to gather flora for healing potions and gives a scouting view that allows you to see targets. The weaponmaster skill I use is Bowmaster, if you get surprise sighting, you get +50% overall modifier, a surprise missile round and a missile round.
So this is what my party design looks like:
I intend for every one of them to be a Ranger – Bowmaster.
I make my main a Summoner, not really to summon creatures (they quickly are too weak, then they become damage absorbers, then they are pretty much useless). I intend to take locations so I max out arcane & give some STR/DEX points. I like both to be in the 12 – 15 range and the rest of my points in PC. I know that I can get PC quickly, being a Summoner allows me to research spell #122 (Character Netherworld Possession). The spells I choose are #441 (Summon Man Warriors), #111 (Summon Familiar), #128 (Summon Winterblast) or #129 (Summon Earthforce), and #91 (Gather Food).
The two “A” characters are spell casters that I want to summon soldiers. Both get max out Seer. One gets ranger skill (the other gets Bowmaster) and the rest in PC. These guys are to get Seer’s Crystals and summon soldiers who can attack and or carry loot.
For the three “B” characters I usually max out Enchanter/Warlock/Seer, plus PC, STR/DEX, and some tactics. Usually I train FeyKnights on the summoned soldiers, so the Warlock may learn Knight and Assassin or start with Assassin. The Enchanter is to RunePower items, the Seer can dream to get adventures, and the Warlock can train troops.
On the first turn I research #122 (Character Netherworld Possession) and teach #111 (Summon Familiar).
The second turn, I get a status on as many characters as I can, summon familiars, and then teach Ranger skill around.
The third turn is spent finishing the things started in the second turn & start attacking.
After production, start cross-training the second militant skill.
I try to gain 1000 AF a turn or to be at 40,000 AF after a year. It is hard at the start, but 40,000 AF after a year is fairly easy.
This article is reproduced with kind permission from “Aayko’s The Legends Corner”.