[LP] Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

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Pretty.

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Introductions! The text scrolls a bit, giving you a bit of backstory to your situation. You were humble village dwellers in the far northwestern reaches of the land, when SUDDENLY!

SHOOTING STARS FALLING FROM HEAVEN.
DRAGONS ALL UP IN HERE.
DEMONS MOVING IN, WELCOME TO THE CLUB.

I'm not saying the demons are aliens, but....

In any case, shit went down. You, however, a small group of four, were saved by Wizardly Intervention.

This brings us up to now. Character creation!

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This is the basic generic automatic selection of heroes. Paladin, archer, cleric, and sorceror. I'll get to the details in a moment for those other three, but we'll start with the paladin.

Of the six options for character class, they're a fusion of the Knight and the Cleric. Big meaty folk with some heals. They'll never hit quite as well as the Knight, or heal half as well as the cleric, but that's the price you pay for versatility. You'll note it auto-selected some base stats? I'll be fiddling with those, don't worry. For the meanwhile, you just need to know that paladins are strong, but also charming.

Most of the available free skills for a paladin are intuitive... what isn't is perception, which gives you a chance to avoid traps going off in your face, Diplomacy, which mitigates hits to your prestige when you just have to have someone talk to you who wouldn't otherwise, and Disarm, which despite what you're thinking has nothing to do with weapons and involves disarming traps.

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Then you have the Knight. Big meaty guys. Hit many things good. Options for many weapons and chain mail. Sadly, nobody has the option to start up with plate.

The important note there is 'Body'. You might thing Body magic, because that's one of the magical disciplines, but that's not what they mean at all. Knights can't ever learn magic, you see. It's a character limitation. They mean Body Building. You too can compete in Sweet Water's annual Mr. Universe competition! And have all the HP.

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Next we have the cleric. In standard fantasy genre, you're limited in what weapons you can use, but in counterbalance you can later pick up some fantastic end-game magic, much like the sorceror. Charming and lucky by default, the available weaponry and magic is listed to the side, and in addition to diplomacy, you can also identify things on your own, fix them and you have the option for the Meditation skill right off the bat, which gives you free MP.

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Next comes the archer. Being kind of a mashup of Knight and Sorceror, there's nothing really bad to say about them. Good for damage output, though they're best in the early game. Later on, a sorceror of equal level will have just scads of mana to throw about, and will usually outperform an archer by a lot.

You always start with a bow skill, though! This makes you by far the most important member of the team in the early game, even if you can't get into bigger magic disciplines later on.

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Then there's the Druid. Kind of a mashup between, interestingly, the cleric and the sorceror. As a druid, you're going to probably have more mp than any non-druid ever will, and so whether it's healing or hurting, you're the Big Guy in early game magic. Later on, since you can't get at the final magical disciplines, you might feel bad, but don't be sad druid kid! With every other magical discipline still available to you, and more magic than you know what to do with, you'll still be turning around to plink fireballs at the dragons long after everyone else is run out and you're all desperately running away!

The only skill here we haven't covered is Learning, which completes the trifecta of 'extra points' skill by granting bonus.... wait for iiiit... xp gain. The druid is the only class that can start with that one.

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And last but not least is the sorceror. With admittedly dinky melee combat skills, the sorceror features big brains for arcane might, and quick feet for when they need to clear the blast radius, or the enemy is resistant to spells.

And now it's time for the audience to pitch in.

I need four characters. There may be votes on what exactly to do, but if so they will be between the four players... unless I totally change my mind on everything. not out of the question!

For now, four people. Pick a class and two skills from the selection available to that class. As well, if you want, pick one stat that you like, and I'll favor that one a bit in throwing free points around.

Portraits will be, unfortunately, randomly selected from what's available in the game at my discretion.

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

Latrio the Sorceror.

Wind and Water.

And let's see how Intelligent he is

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

[X] Druid
[X] Learning
[X] Water

EDIT: Oh, wait. Is this a quest or an RP?

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

Sorcerer - Tim
Meditation
Air
Int

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

Yeees? Kinda-sorta? I'm mostly playing around with options, but consider it something like a council LP maybe? Assuming I don't just decide to scrap that angle and just play with suggestions. There's the obvious fact, of course, that your characters can't split the party...

Anyway, heavy Mage distribution. Going to need one more anything.

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

[X] Knight
[X] Body
[X] Chain

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

[X] Druid
[X] Learning
[X] Water

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

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And so, the story begins! Unfortunately, Drake Azathoth was slightly late to the party, or this would have become a showing of the merits and drawbacks of an all-heavy-caster team. For now though, Torgamous is in play to soak some damage if anything happens to get close enough to melee. And look good doing it! I took the liberty of scrambling the faces up a little, though I went ahead and kept an equal ratio of males to ladies, and that last one was just a really good sorceror face, so I kept it.

You'll notice a lot of red and green splashed up there. During creation, you can alter your stats as you see fit with a pool of fifty spare points to go around... within limits. The highest value you can put into a stat at creation is 25. The lowest is a lot more variable, being 'two less than what you started with'. With that said, most of the stats are actually pretty important and so you want to not lower them if at all possible.

As a Knight, though, Intellect and Personality will never be relevant to Torgamous! It's very much the big, dumb thug class. You obviously want to prioritize might and endurance in order to hit harder and take more hits, but you can yoink points from the MP stats and never see any penalties at all. I also bump accuracy and speed a little, so that there's not so much missing all the time if things get close.

Meanwhile, if the casters have to hit things, then you're doing something very wrong. That's your safe stat to pull a couple extra points from. Clerics draw mp from Personality, being charming tithe-hunters, and Sorcerors from their prodigious intellect. Druids, being a mixup, pull MP totals from both. Everything else is less relevant, though you don't want to neglect certain scores and get one-shotted all the time either.

Luck effects everything, but only in a small way. You don't want to completely tank it if you're already starting on the lower end, but just pulling a point here and there works out fine. And here we go!

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The game drops you off right here, in front of the gates of New Sorpigal, the town furthest to the south and east, with little direction.

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..... And little in the way of equipment. But what's this, you say. Not one, but two sets of armor? Extravagance! Indeed, you start with a basic weapon of any sort you're skilled with, and the cheapest set of rusty mail or rodent-chewed leather that Falagar could find. If you have an armor skill. If you'll look up a touch, you'll see that none of our mages have anything of the sort! Which means that if things close in, we're going to have trouble. Such trouble. Unfortunately, you can only wear one set of armor at a time, so the chain mail, having a higher armor score, is what goes on. There's nothing else special here beyond switching out yon heavy stick with an actual sword....

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Or is there?

Ye Olde Plot letter starts the game in the inventory of the character furthest to the left. That aside, Falagar isn't totally cold hearted, and lets you leave his abode with a little trinket, usually a bit of cheap tin stamped into the right shape, with a shiny bit of river stone stuck in it.

Sometimes he goofs up, and this otherwise useless trinket has some sort of actually helpful enchantment on it.

This is usually not the case, and is not so for anyone else. Torgamous got lucky... the rest of the trinkets are dreck and shop fodder. Later on, we'll be able to cast theoretically-powerful enchantments on our own gear... but it's going to be a while before we can do so reliably. In fact, it's going to be a while before we can do so at all, and low tier junk like what we've got now just can't handle all of the arcane might that we can stuff in them later on.

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Selias' inventory, however, shows that we don't need to break out the torches and pitchforks on old Falagar quite yet. I mean, three years of training, and the best he can do is get you to level one and clear out some of the rubbish from the dumpster diving expeditions for you come on. But while he equips you terribly, if you have magical skills, he'll also give you spellbooks for them!

They're still terrible, mind you. And pointless. More to teach you how to use spellbooks than anything, since you already start with the first spell of your magic available. Use the spellbook on yourself, however, and it maaaagically disappears and you learn how to utilize the wisdom within the tome directly. Why it works that way, I don't know.

I assume Falagar is having a giggle and taught you that you have to eat the books in order to learn the magic.

Well, that said, if it works...

Selias comes out of this with Magic Arrow and Cold Beam, as well as the dubiously useful Awaken and slightly more useful Stun. There's good spells in Water and Earth disciplines both later on, mind.

The sorcerors get the Fire and Air spells of Fire Arrow and Static Charge, to go along with Torchlight and Wizard Eye. Latrio, having also picked up Water magic, also gets both Awaken and Cold Beam. Versatility!

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One final thing to note, if you have any sort of magic? By which I mean 'are not a Knight'? You also get a dusty old vial and some musty herbs of one sort or another. Mix these together to create Potions! They might be red, which make healing pots, blue which are for mana, or yellow, which gives you a potion of 'Energy' and temporarily increases your statistics.

Contrary to other games, the healing and mana potions are most useful right now. They only ever heal a set amount, I believe it's ten health or mana, so a single potion gets less and less useful to you as you level up and your max points and mana cost for the good spells gets bigger.

Don't lose hope, though, budding alchemists. If you looked at the primary color scheme and thought 'waaaait' to yourself, you're in luck! You can indeed also combine potions to create different, usually better potions. Or, alternately, a very large fireball centered on yourself. We may or may not get back to playing with volatile liquids later.

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For now we just have you eat your delicious magic words, equip what you can, and pass off the rest to the individual with a non-cripple Might score. Just to have it all in one place, mind you... your might doesn't have anything to do with your carrying capacity. I could load Latrio up with sacks of platemail and shields no trouble.

There's one more thing to do before moving around the town, though.

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You recall how I mentioned the Wizard Eye spell earlier? It is, among some other fun spells, why you usually want at least one person with air magic. Even at weakling levels, cast this and cast it often. With its use, the little map in the top right becomes an invaluable tool, as both neutral and enemy NPC's appear on a mystic radar.

In any case, that's most of the introduction settled.

A quick glance around town shows that many of the businesses have adopted the quaint and old-timey practice of hanging out a picture sign so that unlettered pedestrians know what's going on within. Including...

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The tavern and inn....

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The stables and general good store...

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And of course, the blacksmith and armorsmith.

Of note is a simple thing that would likely annoy people to no end. The shops? They are not at all diverse. The blacksmith deals in weapons. Only weapons. He'll buy weapons, sell weapons, identify and repair them, all at usurious rates.

He will not even look at a shield.

Fortunately, the two shops are usually right next to each other.

In any case, we haven't moved very far or done much, but now is a good time to take a break.

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Just sit at the central fountain of the village, listen to the waters burble, lean back to give our teammates the old wandering eye, and quietly ponder just how things came to this, and what to do next.

Personally, I blame Falagar.

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

So this town has a place that sells booze, a place that sells horses, a place that sells barrels, and a place that sells anvils. Not a lot of useful stuff around here, is there?

 

Re: Let's Play: Might and Magic 6, the Mandate of Heaven

I remember the speed runs of this game. Good times. Good times.

 

Screenshotting and hosting images and composing a post take a lot more effort than I previously thought.

So, actual updates are probably gonna be fewer and farther between than I'd like. But there's nothing stopping me from throwing a little extra information in, in between things.

Let me expound on the spells currently available. Between you all, you have the four Elemental disciplines of magic well and locked down, and Selias can branch out into Self magical disciplines, Mind, Body, and Spirit pretty soon, start making with the heals. But for now, you've got the barest of the bare basics.

Fire magic has you with Torch Light and Fire arrow. Torch light does exactly what it says on the tin, and with more and better Fire Magic skill, the ambient light lasts longer and shines brighter. You will probably forget this spell exists after the first ten minutes of the game. Fire arrow, however.... Most spells scale with your skill level. This one doesn't. Through the entire game, this spell rolls one d8 to determine its fire-element damage. If it hits. That's right, while most spells are "Guaranteed Hits", assuming that the geography doesn't get in the way anyway, Fire arrow isn't guaranteed. It takes your magic skill as a bonus to hit..... but that's all The best thing that can be said about it is that if you are a Master-level fire mage, you can cast this thing all day for free. Like a magic, fire based, incredibly shitty bow. Remember when I said 'd8 damage'? The bar-none shittiest bow on the market does 4d2 on a successful hit, dealing 4-8 instead of 1-8. By the time you can fling fire arrows around for free, it's a matter of aesthetics rather than actually planning to damage anything with them, because even if you are absolutely out of the magic juice you still probably have better options. You can't forget fire arrow. I just wish that was in a good way. There's much, much better fire-based spells out there.

The Air discipline has you starting off with significantly better deals. Wizard Eye I've already expounded on before, but I haven't mentioned static charge. It's much like fire arrow, being the bare-minimum lightning based attack spell. It's kind of meh, and rather than 1-8 it deals only 2-6 damage. The saving point, however, is that static charge is actually still a "Guaranteed to hit (provided the enemy isn't too far away and nothing gets in the way)" spell. There's better things to spend your mana on, and even once you power air magic up enough that it's free, you'll have other options.

Water gives you awaken. What can I say about awaken? It wakes sleeping people up, presumably by sounding like a rooster crowing, if the spell symbol is at all accurate. The problem is that it's just not good. At one point in water magic, at starter level, it will wake up whoever you target.... as long as they started sleeping less than three minutes ago. There are times this is useful, enchanted sleep, but most of the times when you want to wake up RIGHT NOW are when you got ambushed sleeping somewhere. Even if you're lucky enough that whoever was on watch has this spell, you probably won't think to use it, and if you do then odds are good it won't work. At expert, you get a little leeway in that they can have been asleep for ten minutes per skill point, but it only really gets usable at Master, where the game just shrugs and says 'alright, one day per point then'. Cold beam is static charge, only ice-cube-down-the-back instead of licked-a-battery flavor.

Then there's earth magic.

Earth magic gives you two starting spells. Magic Arrow, which is Fire Arrow but for physical damage, as in there is now literally no reason you couldn't just be firing a normal bow instead, and Stun. Stun is... stun. It makes the enemy maybe hesitate a little before they resume trying to stab you, and the knockback from it means they have to take another step to get back close enough to do so.

Now, speaking fairly, there's some fantastic spells in all of these later on. Town portal and gouts of corrosive acid, fireballs with big splash damage, spells to turn things to stone and turn an ordinary rock off the ground into a frag grenade, the ability to fly....

... it's just that the first two spells are terribly shitty.

Thanks Falagar, mighty wizard. You saved our lives, sure, but you couldn't have spared maybe a lightning bolt book? Thanks much. Enjoy staying in your house and never doing anything relevant again through the entire course of the game!

 

[X]Sell yon trash at the weapon Smith. Then Visit the Tavern for the Daily Business. Compulsively cast MAgic Eye.

 

[X] Sell your trash. Collect Horseshoes and Herbs asap.

 

[X] Equip staff, eat books, sell club, and check what's in the general good store.

 

I always wanted to eat the wizard for not giving us better spellbooks. See if we can learn the spells that way.

 

Re: [LP] Might and Magic 6, Walking around New Sorpigal

Before anything else, there's one thing. That letter.... Didn't it say there was someone at the inn?

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Named....

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Hum.

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HUHM.

..... "Hey, I have this letter that specifically mentions you by name..."

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And that right there gets you a cool thousand gold.

This is actually easily missed. You see, you're supposed to take this letter to Wilbert Humphrey, the regent for the crown in a nearby castle.... one of the other people mentioned by name. When you show it to him, he takes it away from you, what with it being hard evidence of a conspiracy against the crown and royal family and all that. Strange that Potbello doesn't. Just flash the seal, and he gives you money. You'd think he'd be quicker to get rid of evidence... it isn't as though anything comes of it though. The local medieval law enforcement structure is notoriously lax.

Apparently he wasn't given a firm description of his contact, either. Or that... you know, it would be one person, and not a group of four adventurers.

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Meanwhile, he has a quest for us! He wants us to go to the TEMPLE OF BAA nearby and retrieve a lower-case artifact that was left behind as the cultists fled from a poorly explained or defined curse that he doesn't seem to want to get into.

Latrio doesn't seem quite thrilled with the prospect, for some reason.

With a cool thousand gold in the bag, though, it's time for a lap around the village proper. Get a feel for the place.

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We start at the stables.

"Need a ride?", the callow young coach-hand calls, pausing in mucking out the stalls for a moment and revealing a snaggle-toothed grin at the prospect of your money in his pockets. "As it happens, we've a coach set to be leaving today. For but twenty five crowns, I can have a word with the driver, and arrange for four more seats in the back of a carts. Twill be a pleasant, smooth ride two days west, to the castle Ironfist. Your meals included in the passage fee, of course."

"HORSES PRETTY. WANT." Torgamous bellows.

"... I, well, I'm not sure you quite grasp how this works." The stablemaster stumbles verbally, mildly flabbergasted. "I can't sell you a horse. You couldn't ride one even if I did! The programmers didn't allow for it."

The mages of your party, large-brained as they are, don't follow this explanation any better than the less intellectual Knight. They do, however, nod sagely in the attempt to appear wise.

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Sulking slightly at the denial of the impulse purchase, torgamous stalks outside, quietly pulls a pair of beautiful silver horseshoes off of a horse's very hooves, and in a fit of pique perhaps driven by jealousy of the mages' ability to grow in mystic knowledge by devouring books large and heavy enough to substitute for bricks or paving material, eats them.

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As a reward for this dumbfounding obstinance and disregard for property, as well as the ability to chew through a horseshoe, the gods smile down on Torgamous and grant a few skill points. Two for every shoe.

This prompts riotous complaints from the mages as they scavenge about for further shoes, but the horses have spooked and are now long gone.

For the time being, I just raise Sword and Body Building by a point, gaining a +1 attack bonus with swords, and four more HP. At 46 compared to the spindly Wizard HP bars that max at 24 just now, Torgamous is the beefiest of level 1 meat shields.

Tim the robot-ninja-wizard is uncertain if he is pleased with this further outswelling of Pure Muscle.

>>TO BE CONTINUED. Please wait warmly as I compose lots of screenshots.

 

Re: [LP] Might and Magic 6, New Sorpigal

Eventually, the hunt for further horseshoes dies down, and we continue our tour of the charming little town of New Sorpigal.

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Starting at the general goods store next door.

"Have a look around." the portly shopkeeper offers. General stores such as these stock a wide variety of sundries, and as such will buy a wider variety of goods from you in turn.

The problem with this is that the shopkeepers themselves have a lot more experience in bargaining, from having a much wider breadth of clientele picking over their goods, and as such they will haggle you down to the last bent copper. Look at what he's offering for a ring valued at 500 gold. Just look at it. Of course, nobody is going to just up and give you the actual asking price for it, but what this guy offers is positively criminal.

In short, if you need to sell something, it's almost always better to hunt out the store that specializes their wares around it, and you'll get a better deal. If you're in a hurry, though, and can afford to miss out on a few extra coins, then the general store is hardly a bad option.

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More importantly, they are the most reliable places to purchase potion bottles. He'll ask double the list price, of course, but a few coins are worth it.... potion bottles are the most frustrating item around. It's almost guaranteed that you will experience both sides of the Potion Bottle coin... not having bottles and needing them to make potions, and having a lot of bottles cluttering up your inventory and nothing to do with them.

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We clear out the man's entire stock, showing another benefit of the general store: very rapid restocking times. You usually don't ever want or need to buy out a shop's entire inventory, but at bare minimum, the developers were kind enough to make the store that you are most likely to both want and be able to empty the shelves out also be the one that fills back up fastest. Come back tomorrow, and there will be more goods for sale.

It appears that the store stocks are generated when you first enter the store, from a little testing, so you could easily just save outside the door and then re-load until the algorithms generate something you have to have. We will not be doing this... the things on offer in New Sorpigal aren't really top of the line in any case, and even in the later towns, with really good things on their shelves.... you'll often find things of similar value and use, or better, just lying around. It's all up to random chance, of course.

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New Sorpigal's blacksmith is aptly named The Knife Shoppe. There are two levels of purchase in the smithies and alchemical mystic supply stores, unlike the one in general stores or magical spell guilds. Standard purchase, and Special items.

Usually, the Special list shows better equipment. Not always, however. In New Sorpigal, for example, I don't know if it's guaranteed but it's at the least much more likely that the blacksmith's specialty list is going to be knives. Slightly finer and better than the dinnerware our sorcerers are currently pretending to believe are actual weapons, but nothing spectacular. The standard listing isn't even worth posting, a few extremely basic weapons for weapon skills that for the most part we don't actually have. Humdrum.

We sell our heavy sticks here and actually make list price, but only because the clubs are so intrinsically devoid of value that the shopkeepers can't actually offer any less money than they are actually worth. Hooray?

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[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/iejuujilb/2014_02_22_17_07_11_Greenshot.png[/img]

With some of the clutter cleared out, we check the armor-smith, are underwhelmed and forget to take screenshots of the slightly-better armor available for more than we can afford, step off main street and a little out of the way and find the Seeing Eye, a cozy little alchemy and miscellany shop of curios.

If you remember, the general goods store offered 62 gold pieces for this. Same ring, same (zero) merchant haggling skill, more than twice the price. We'll take it. This is why it pays to pick where to offload your loot wisely.

With that, we've finally cleared out our inventory. But there's more to the town than just the shops.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/otnh4yeov/2014_02_22_17_07_40_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/4njz62j1b/2014_02_22_17_07_50_Greenshot.png[/img]

Hopping across the street and barging into this man's home with no respect for privacy, we discover that this mystic is willing to pay, and pay well, if we happen to come across any Cobra Eggs. He says they are valuable as pets, but you never see so much as one pet snake... I suspect that he just has exotic tastes, and needs the eggs for his Cobra Omelets.

Don't be fooled, though... this is not a quest. Hejaz Mawsil is one of a number of people scattered across the world who will just pay you for specific collected items. Rather than giving him one egg and receiving a lump sum of gold and XP, he will keep on buying eggs, just as long as you keep finding and bringing them in. There's no rush or urgency, though.

This aside, he also sells membership to the Buccaneers Lair. The game phrases this as a yes or no, you can pay or go your way, but in the end you always, always want to buy membership in everything. Magic guilds will only sell to members who've paid their dues, and other places offer a wide range of skills that you can instantly learn for a quick and easy payment and Jesus Falagar, it took you three years to teach Torgamous to use a sword, you couldn't just stump up some cash and have him learn just as well in an hour?

I begin to suspect Falagar is less a 'Mighty Wizard' and more 'A penniless vagabond squatting in an empty house, that happened to have a town portal scroll'.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/sftahll27/2014_02_22_17_08_12_Greenshot.png[/img]

As I said, you want to join everywhere that will take your money and add you to a list of members.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/grz8n1vxb/2014_02_22_17_08_42_Greenshot.png[/img]

On a different note, it quickly becomes clear that New Sorpigal is the Designated Starting Town. You'll notice, as things go on, that the further south and east you are the safer you are, while the further north and west you get the faster your odds of being crushed like a pitiful insect climb.

More importantly, new Sorpigal is flooded with trainers such as this one. Assuming that you meet the requirements, and can stump up the Training Fee, they can instantly (dammit Falagar) bump you up a notch in your skill. There are three ranks to a skill... normal, where you start, Expert, and Master. The gist of it to remember is that more points in a skill makes it better, and leveling up a skill makes it even better. In later games it gets more complex, but here if you can learn a skill at all, then you can eventually master it.

New Sorpigal has Expert trainers for Staff, [Redacted], every kind of available-from-the-start magic, Identification, BodyBuilding, Meditation, Perception, and Learning.

Some of these trainers are easier to find, or get to, than others.

>>TO BE CONTINUED

 

Re: [LP] Might and Magic 6, I think the game is trying to suggest something.

We go a little further north, glancing through everyone's houses along the way, until we meet this lady.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/eootfdw4f/2014_02_22_17_09_12_Greenshot.png[/img]

Conveniently, people with a quest to give you will usually have it clearly marked in their interactions screen as 'Quest'.

And this sad, sad lady has a problem. Her daughter has gone missing, and she suspect she's wandered off into the TEMPLE OF BAA near town... where have we heard that location before? She wants you to rescue her.

Being strapping and valiant heroes and such, we go ahead and agree to put that on our to-do list and probably maybe go look for her daughter sooner or later if we remember to get around to it.

"Also, for some reason, despite being a humble potter I offer membership to-" "YES. TAKE MONEY."

Leaving that house behind, we cross the street again to check out one of our new memberships...

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/v0yv54afz/2014_02_22_17_09_53_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/pe2i7n7xb/2014_02_22_17_09_59_Greenshot.png[/img]

And run square into this guy, which gives me an excuse to talk about hirelings.

Now, I have a checkered history with hirelings. When I was a wee chibi playing this for the first time, I wanted nothing to do with them. They were pointless... didn't pick up swords or cast magic at the enemy, and so they were just a waste of MAH GOLDS.

I was a stupid babby.

They might not pick up arms and fight alongside you, but hirelings play an important role, constantly at your side and lending aid in the form of various bonuses for only a tiny hiring fee and a bare sliver of the gold you pick up along the way. Slightly more if you get into the big guns, like Master Healers, who will once a day fix everything that is wrong with you, or various wizards who will occasionally lift a finger to cast a utility spell. At the moment, I'm on the look-out for a scholar, who gives an XP boost and identifies everything for you, no need for the skill, and a Banker, who costs a fair fraction of gold... but only in the short term, as they increase gold found when you find it by significantly more than they take as their fee.

Meanwhile, a Burglar looks sort of good, right? Traps are bad, after all. Less exploding in your face can only be a good thing, and while your reputation falls apart a little from consorting with such unsavory sorts, just look! Why, he's offering to come along for free! What a swell guy, that Rafael.

The problem is, Rafael, and all burglars, are filthy liars. They say that they're just in it for the practice, but when you aren't looking they quietly pocket a share of the loot for themselves. Is it worth taking one along anyway? That varies. An eight-point disarm bonus is a lot, particularly at the start of the game.

For the time being, though, we let Rafael pass us by and look inside. There will be other opportunities to recruit disreputable sorts, if there's a need.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/l67pyw6hr/2014_02_22_17_10_19_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/72buqhza7/2014_02_22_17_10_24_Greenshot.png[/img]

This is Blades End.

And it's quickly apparent why we want membership here, and similar places. Leveling up gains you skill points to be used as you wish in improving skills you already have. If you want to learn a new skill? You have to find a place like this and pay for the first level.

It's actually not all that bad. Gold, when it comes down to it, is a resource that you can generally acquire a lot more easily than leveling up to earn more skill points, and gold is all that the first point in a skill costs... after that, costs steadily increase. Bumping it from 1 to two costs two skill points... similarly, you need three skill points to put it at rank three, and so on. Increasing a skill from eight points to nine costs a whopping nine skill points... and it gets more expensive from there.

In any case, however, blades end is an arms and armor skill shop. They don't have Plate, mind you, but here Torgamous can learn to swing a spear or axe just as well as a sword, or even pick up the Staff skill, and bonk people with sticks just like the less beeftacular mages. This sounds counterintuitive, but there's actually some reasons you might want to try it out.... staves are a very defensive weapon, and though you won't do as much damage in melee, it's easy to keep the bitey and stabby things away from your soft bits with one. A shield, however, is also good.

The mages of the party, by contrast, have significantly less to gain from such an establishment, though the sorcerors can also pick up the staff skill.

It's a good place to spend money, but not yet.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/p6jgovmcf/2014_02_22_17_11_05_Greenshot.png[/img]

We've got quests to pick up and looking around to do, still.

This fellow is greatly concerned by a plague of giant spiders that has been terrorizing the townsfolk. He wants for us to go, slay the Spider Queen, deliver to him her sticky heart ripped straight from her chitinous carapace, and after this he's pretty sure the rest of the spiders will just scatter and/or run into the ocean and drown.

"Alright, look." Selias interrupts. "I am a druid, and I can guarantee with one hundred percent certainty that that is not how spiders work. I think you're thinking of bees. Leaving that aside, where is this Spider Queen?"

"I don't know." replies the barrister, scratching his chin. "There's only so many places she could be, though... this region only has the three dungeons. I suspect that if you were to search out the Spider Queen, she would be found in the Temple of Baa."

>>TO BE CONTINUED

 

We're still not done. A lot more important houses to look through. For example, up on the hill above town are three buildings... the temple, in the center, and the guilds of the Self and the Elements to the west and east, respectively. All three are important.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/gfcfum31b/2014_02_22_17_11_58_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/8nvpw1yvz/2014_02_22_17_12_03_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/h7f3tt78f/2014_02_22_17_12_07_Greenshot.png[/img]

We start with the initiate guild of the Elements. Here, as a member, we can buy elemental spells and learn elemental magic.

We don't actually need to do the second one, though... between three casters, we have the four elemental spheres fairly well locked down. For now we just peruse the books.

Unfortunately, being an Initiate guild, there's nothing really spectacular here. Most of what's available are the first and second spells of the sphere, in case you buy the magical discipline instead of starting with it to get the freebie spells. A few books stand out, elemental protection and a couple of modest crowd-management spells, but nothing that we can't live without.

And so we step out, to move along to-

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/44jhajh0f/2014_02_22_17_12_32_Greenshot.png[/img]

Hold on. It appears Torgamous has, much like a nesting raven, spotted something shiny off in the distance.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/smbkyfjkv/2014_02_22_17_12_48_Greenshot.png[/img]

Try as they might, however, the sword in the stone will not budge. Until I realize that I've got the wrong character pulling at it.

"Pull wrong. Grip bad. Watch. Soft, but firm. Gentle, but rigid. Feel metal. Know shaft. Rub gentle, then pull."

Effortlessly, Torgamous pulls the sword out like it was a butterknife dropped in a jelly pot.

"KNEEL BEFORE KING OF ENGLAND!" Torgamous cackles, before storing the free two-handed sword in their pack.

>>TO BE CONTINUED

 

I'm going to be insufferable after this.

 

You going to be abusing Black Potions in this LP, Chibi?

I think I can scrounge up a list of the recipes, if you want...

 

It takes a bit of time to explain to Torgamous that England is not a place, there's nothing special about what just happened as throughout the lands swords will just occasionally sprout from good, solid boulders, much like a tree branch sprouting a flower. The blacksmiths make a point out of having people collect them all as fast as possible, but pulling them loose is just a function of your might score and doesn't actually mean anything vis a vis royal lineage.

That settled, and Torgamous descending into a quiet sulk, we move along to the temple, where you can pray to the gods, donate money generously to the church to raise your karma and reputation, and pay the priests on hand to heal you of whatever ailments you are suffering... with some limitations.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/jftab5ecf/2014_02_22_17_13_32_Greenshot.png[/img]

But why, what is this over yonder?

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/8u9ez580v/2014_02_22_17_13_55_Greenshot.png[/img]

Why, it's a pack of mindless and slavering goblins!

As a series, Might and Magic is not particularly big on hand-holding. There are no helpful tutorials, no 'Press this button to drink healing potions' notifications, you just design your party and then you're dropped down and expected to hit the ground running.

This is the closest the game comes to a combat tutorial, and even then it's more of a demonstration of the often comically bad AI of the enemies. Many things can fly, of course, and so this won't always be the case, but the baddies are programmed to close in on you directly, with a little bit of circling as they approach to try to attack you from behind. That is the sum total of their pathfinding. as such, the easiest and safest route to defeating your foes is often a simple three step process.

1. Get somewhere they can't reach you.
2. Deploy arrows and spells.
3. Laugh and laugh and laugh.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/cf9vw41y7/2014_02_22_17_14_52_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/iu8wss8nz/2014_02_22_17_15_22_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/4p33qyzmn/2014_02_22_17_15_52_Greenshot.png[/img]

Like so. Since these are just normal goblins, lucky to even have a sword to go with their loincloths, they can't even return fire.

For the moment I'm ignoring Earth and Fire arrows and just using Static Charge and Cold Beam over and over because their slightly lower possible damage per hit is compensated for by not missing every damn shot for fucks sake.

Torgamous, having neither magic nor a bow or the skill to use one, just sort of sits there and sort of whiffs a sword through the air whenever their turn comes up. Wishing. Hoping. In futility.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/o87p0bye7/2014_02_22_17_17_08_Greenshot.png[/img]

"There was a stairway down the back right behind these goblins, why didn't even one..." "Don't question it. Just loot the bodies."

When it comes time for looting, you usually want the person with the biggest luck score to pick everything up. One of the many things that luck effects is how much money you get off a corpse... there's only so much money you can get from goblins, though.

While we're up there, though, we spy a box. I forgot to screenshot it, but in this game you love and hate boxes. They're usually filled with nice stuff, but sometimes they are also filled with explosions, or instant death.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/simcvhb/2014_02_22_17_18_06_Greenshot.png[/img]

This time, however, the box is not trapped!

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/atum4arq7/2014_02_22_17_18_11_Greenshot.png[/img]

Unfortunately......

None of our characters have the identification skill. Which, in part, is why I'd like to find a scholar, if one exists in this podunk town. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Now, not knowing what something is doesn't stop you from using it.... even if you can't remember that you saw a sword or shield just like it in the shop five minutes ago, you still know how swords and shields work. They just glow a sort of green on your paperdoll portrait, and you have no idea whether or not your new toy casts a fireball centered on yourself every time you hit something with it before testing it out. Usually not, though! Especially at initial levels like this. Right now, it's a safe bet that all of this is ordinary equipment, but later on you'll want to check and be sure you haven't accidentally found a cursed relic that makes you stronger but also injects acid into your hand.

>>TO BE CONTINUED

 

I know where the lists are, but let's hold off on that for now.

 

We duck a bit back up the hill, to the initiate guild of the Self.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/9hcx2euan/2014_02_22_17_19_10_Greenshot.png[/img]

Here is where you pay to instantly (dammit Falagar) learn how to use Spirit, Mind, and Body magic, and purchase basic spells for the disciplines.

Learning magical disciplines are fairly expensive, of course. Conveniently, however, while our three mages can all learn Elemental magic, only Selias, the Druid, can learn magics of the Self. As such, while there will probably be fearsome disputes over delicious elemental tomes and hats that make you smarter, it's unlikely that spells from the Self or personality-buffing gear will be heavily contested.

Counterbalancing this? With no clerics or paladins, Selias is going to be our only really reliable source of healing magic for quite some time.

This in mind, we glance through the selection of spells.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/wk3g1kvrz/2014_02_22_17_19_47_Greenshot.png[/img]

Most of it is basic tomes, with only one interesting one. Mind Blast, being a cheap spell that actually scales somewhat with your skill, would be a decent replacement go-to spell for Selias at this stage of the game. However! In order to learn it, Selias has to first learn to use Mind Magic, and then pay the cost of the book itself. All told, that's a steep investment of 1200 gold.... almost everything we have at this early stage of the game, and at this stage of the game it's not that much better than the stuff we already have.

A sound investment, but not one we need to be in a hurry to make, either.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/4y0ogwcf3/2014_02_22_17_20_07_Greenshot.png[/img]

Instead we go to inspect the last guild of the.... oh dear!

It appears we've fallen prey to one of the small frustrations of the game. Time constraints. Sometimes relevant for quests, but mostly to determine the open hours of a shop, when a place in this game states it hours of operation they really mean it. What time is it now?

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/gbrt5ucbj/2014_02_22_17_20_18_Greenshot.png[/img]

A little after noon... there's some good skills available here, but we're going to have to wait until after six to get a look at them. And why yes, that is indeed a detailed in-game calendar, down to the minute and phases of the moon.

And since Selias is a druid, it's all going to be important. Shit.

>>TO BE CONTINUED

 

Before we continue, is anyone thirsty?

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/b1muejs2n/2014_02_22_17_20_41_Greenshot.png[/img]

There are a number of wells, water fountains, troughs, and other sources of drinkable liquid throughout the land. Just up and chugging whenever you find it isn't always a safe prospect, however.... sanitation laws are somewhat lax throughout the land of Enroth. It's not uncommon for drinking the local water to have strange effects, including poison and messy disease.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/bsfkkbufz/2014_02_22_17_20_46_Greenshot.png[/img]

It's not all bad.... though? Huh. It appears my timing on this screenshot was off, and I missed the momentary notification. You'll have to take me at my word...

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/g2u8fwzj3/2014_02_22_17_21_32_Greenshot.png[/img]

.... And this screenshot, that drinking from this well permanently increases your luck score. This is why it doesn't hurt to lower your collective luck a few points to redistribute them elsewhere, because you can get them back with one sip here. And more!

There's a cap on how high this well will increase one person's luck score, though, and a further limit on how many total times drinking from it has any effect before it becomes normal water. So it's unlikely that you'll be able to increase your luck as far as it will let you, unless you start with a full party of characters that already have higher luck.

The well runs dry of its luck after Tim takes one sip. Sucks to be last in line, but it looks like Latrio goes without.... that's not all bad, though. Attacks are slightly weighted to hit the person furthest to the left, too, if everything else is equal, so the person furthest to the right usually doesn't need to take as many hits. It sort of evens out.

I have screenshots, but by now I'm sick of posting pictures, so I'll skip a little closer to the end and just tell you that there are three big fountains in town aside from this well: one restores HP, the other restores MP, and the last gives a temporary might buff. There's also a well which I will probably never touch, that gives you free money if you have no money on you, and can easily be gamed.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/k0hi5bmcf/2014_02_22_17_22_17_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/m6bsztpsv/2014_02_22_17_22_22_Greenshot.png[/img]

Specifically, using this building, just a few steps away from the well itself. There's also a trick if you have a banker, that I can't remember if it was in this game or a different one, which can cheatie-glitch you up a whole bunch of extra money. Removing money from the bank pings as 'finding' it, you see, and so if you repeatedly deposit and withdraw your wealth... well, for most hirelings, you lose money fast. If you have the banker, you gain funds quickly.

We won't be doing that deliberately.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/y9h4ne0v3/2014_02_22_17_22_42_Greenshot.png[/img]

Instead let's look at the town hall. While it's still open. The mayor and his secretary work the taxing and strenuous hours of 10-2, so you have a very small window of time every day if you want to see them.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/smkrpwycf/2014_02_22_17_22_49_Greenshot.png[/img]

Just look at the smug, pencil-pushing bureaucrats, raking in the tax money. Fortunately, they're willing to spread it around through quests.

[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/mzoesfvtr/2014_02_22_17_22_57_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/z2tqg06vz/2014_02_22_17_23_13_Greenshot.png[/img]
[img width=600 height=450]http://s25.postimg.org/q97fcn9b3/2014_02_22_17_23_20_Greenshot.png[/img]

Quests which, for once, don't seem to involve the nearby TEMPLE OF BAA.

So, from here, we have a few options beyond general equipment and maintenance matters.

We can go to the temple of baa and try to handle the multiple quests that involves.
We can Assault Goblinwatch keep nearby, seeking the Combination and looting all the way.
We can Explore the region more thoroughly, wandering about the wider scope of the map as far as we can.
Or we can say nuts to all that and catch a cart to Ironfist Castle.

 

[X] If I can't have a kingdom, the goblins can't have a keep.

 

Oh right.

Brain a little fried from over fifty images, going to have to minimize that some in the future, but feel free to also, like, argue about who needs money spent on them to get what spell/skill/equipment/etc.

And I'll probably try to have the volunteers decide point distributions when I finally get to a Level Up point, but in case I forget or can't get in touch for whatever reason, go ahead and suggest what you're generally focused on?

 

[X]Attach the Keep!
And where can you download this? For free hopefully.

 

I should probably pick up a healing spell, before we go. Do we have a list of what spells are for sale?

I found a site that has a list of spells on it, but I haven't played this game, so I don't know if the people who sell them have all spells, or just a few of them.

 

Murder the goblins.