Re: Legends questions/advice

From: drhj@astro.cf.ac.uk (Dean Johnson)

Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1993 12:29:52 +0000

In article 1mj2i3INNpsg@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU, bjohnson@athena.mit.edu (Brett W Johnson) writes:
>
> As a total novice to the LEGENDS system, can anyone give me some
> advice on what to do/not do?  I plan to join the new NIC game.
>
> I am specifically interested in
>
> - What setup options do people usually take/recommend

GENERAL RULE: Setup a postion that you think you'll have FUN playing!

I recommend a Hero position.  The philosophy behind this is that you get a damn good
Main Character to start with (i.e. most points to spend on, more character actions).
If you are in a game where you have bonus points to spend on the main character, you
get more points to spend on the main character and can buy a really decent status,
or prestige, or more character actions, or even a Mark (very hard to obtain during the
game, normally).

Conversely, I know people that have done very well in the Overlord position.  I'd
recommend that you take Human population in this position.  They breed so fast that
you soon have the crucial 100 laborers needed to build guilds that then let you teach
skills that you do not possess already to your characters.  You also have the advantage
of having soldiers under your command from the word go and can conquer other locations
with them.  However conquering a place screws its productivity for a while.  Influencing the town owner over to your position does not and you get all the soldiers
that are in the town.

Note:  The No. of characters you have can be a severe limitation on what you can do.
       With the Overlord postion you have an initial advantage of having more       	 characters but a Hero that has maxed out on influence and gains a few prestige can
soon catach up on this.  Also, the Overlord position will probably not have the points
to max out the Influence stat and will find it a harder job initially to get more characters.
>
> - What are 'typical' main characters

Depends what sort of main character you want.  See below.

>
> - Character design advice (especially for main characters)

As I say, I normally aim for a Hero character.  I like using magic so I tend to spend
the points maxing out on a magic skill and influence.  That will chew up most of the
points for a Hero.  leave the other two skills blank and fill them in later.  Things
can be very racial in Legends, magic recovery doubly so.  Elves and High Elves if you
have them in the scenario and wicked at this.  The High Elves are are very good at
researching higer level spells.  They do of course have crap stats and minusing on
influencing.  To be a combat GOD have a Drakken main character but they also have
minuses on Magic recovery and influencing.

For the secondary cahracter I like to normally have a Priest of whatever religion I'm
interested in as this can be quite useful.  Give him stealth.  He can teach it to the
main character and then you can wander around with it on and be safe from being seen
except for spy reports.  give him SPY.  Should I really attack that Lair or town?
Well spy on it first and save yourself from a messy end.  An alternative to priest
is BARD.  This skill lets you find out about the Legends of the game.  This is in a
sense the larger game.  Also, when the skill gets large enough, you'll be able to
bless/curse (see spells) characters without using up any magic power.  THIS IS REALLY
USEFUL.

>
> - What should one do on the first few turns

Get a 100% bless on as fast as possible.

Practise your skills/attributes up.  If you can take a town combat/infl, do it.  This
will then give you something that will generate money that will let you research other
spells and train soldiers.  Take a Lair if you can.  Should also give you some money
and sometimes have wierd and wonderful items in.  Taking towns and lairs both adds to
your prestige.  +1 to the base and the population of the town will increase your effective prestige.  Prestige is very important in influencing over other characters.

Using skills etc gives them a chance of going up on their own, especially if they are low.  I started with a spy at skill 1.  Spied on two villages, succeeded twice which was a bit lucky and the skill went up by +2.  This continued for several turns.  It slows down at about 10 or 12.

>
> - Monster lists
>

Well this is a whole topic in itself.  General rule, Ruins seem to have a large no. of
monsters and Lairs only seem to have one (anyone else found it different?).  Lairs
are thus a better bet but still be careful.  Somethings are nasty enough on their own.

> - General dos and don'ts

DO start with BLESS as one of your spells.  If you cast it with 20 pts above your
main character's magic resistance it will boost your PC, TACTICS and INFLUENCE by 100%.
This greatly improves your chances of influencing characters over and if the village
owner does not want to know, it greatly improves your chances of taking the village
as your CF and AF will have almost doubled as well.

DO Make sure you are im possession of a good Duel and Battle spell right from the start.

>
> - Common mistakes

Trying to Conquer a ruin or Lair with a CONQUER LOCATION military order.  You need to
SPY on the place, see what PARTY the monsters are in and then use ATTACK PARTY order.
This is another good reason for having the SPY skill.  Otherwise you have to go in and
then VIEW it.  This is not always a good idea.

>
> - Stats don't appear to be all that useful, +5% AF seems pretty trivial
>      I know they also determine carrying capacity, weapons usable, healing,
>      do they have other affects also?

Well, the important thing here is that you can never increase your STATS during the game unless you are lucky to come across some magic items that do it, or create some
via acient arcana research (could very long time though).  A few points spent well
here can pay dividends.  (Some Statuses increase stats as well).

CON :-determines how fast you heal, resistance to being turned to stone and poisons.
      If you die and are not resurrected before the next production turn, your CON
      is halved upon resurrection.  This is a GOOD spend if you expect to be fighting
      a lot.

DEX :-Dead useful for your thief, assassin, spy type characters.  Also useful for magic
      users.  Spells go off in Dex order, this can be important in duels.  Also, there
      are DEX limits on some weapons.  If you wnat a good human bowmaster, he really
      should use an Elven Longbow.  You'll have to put his DEX up to do it though.
      Troll Hammers are another good example.
>
> email or posts are fine.
>
> Thanx - Brett
> --
> Brett W. Johnson     (617) 273-2289
> ---
> These opinions are mine and mine alone...

References

Legends questions/advice
bjohnson@athena.mit.edu (Brett W Johnson)
Thu, 25 Feb 1993 18:18:43 +0000

Referenced By

Legends questions/advice
bjohnson@athena.mit.edu (Brett W Johnson)
Thu, 25 Feb 1993 18:18:43 +0000