Re: Legends questions/advice

From: griffith@xcf.Berkeley.EDU (Jim "The Big Dweeb" Griffith)

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1993 08:20:13 +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.
>
>- What setup options do people usually take/recommend

The primary positions people take are either heroic or mercenary.  Heroic
positions are nice because you get a really strong character in one or two
areas.  Your character can out-do any other non-heroic player character in
whatever areas you choose to maximize.  Mercenary positions are strong because
they combine a pretty strong primary with a decent starting army.  If you are
playing by yourself, I'd recommend a mercenary position.  If you are playing
with a friend, I'd recommend that one take an overlord position and one take
a heroic position.

I do not recommend either adventurer or overlord positions.  The adventurer is
basically the mercenary position minus the soldiers plus an A and B character,
and I don't consider that trade-off to be worthwhile.  The overlord position
is basically the mercenary position plus more soldiers and an A and B character
with a weaker primary.  This isn't that bad a trade-off, but I consider it
necessary to have a decent strength influencer or arcanist, and the C character
that comes with an overlord position isn't good enough for me.  Your opinion
may vary.

>- What are 'typical' main characters

There are four basic main character types - an influencer, an arcanist, a
covert, and a fighter.  Coverts (assassins or thieves) are a completely
different ball of wax, which people select if they have a particular
interest in such a position, so I'm not going to include it in this
discussion. If you're playing by yourself, take an influencer or arcanist.
If you're playing a heroic position, you get enough points to be strong in
two facets.  An influencer has a difficult growth curve without allies.  If
you're playing by yourself, I'd recommend taking max arcane skill with the
balance put into combat.

Other important aspects - tactics and admin/eng.  If you ever hope to lead
soldiers, you want high tactics.  If you ever hope to manage a decent
population, you want a decent admin/eng.

If you are running a heroic position, you want to choose two of the four
types above and maximize points.  Good combinations are arcane/fighter,
influencer/arcane, or covert/fighter.  I personally like knight/seer/assassins.
Knight is for training troops, seer is the best arcane, and assassin is for
defensive purposes and to allow training of fey knights.  I would recommend
taking an arcanist/fighter (put all of your points into PC and an arcane skill,
and then spend all of your actions practicing influence).  Give your secondary
support skills, such as priest, ranger druid (for gathering resources),
bard (for gathering resources or blessing characters), and fighting skills.
I typically choose ranger, a weapon skill, and priest or an arcane, so my
secondary is decent at combat from day one.  A secondary priest is nice when
you choose a religion which has a holy symbol which gives priest levels.  If
your holy symbol gives you +3 levels, then you can start with priest 6 and
jump to level 15 in no time at all.

For a merc, you may want to put all of your primary's points into an arcane
skill and the rest into tactics, while giving one of your secondaries maximum
admin value.  Make one secondary an admin, one a fighter type, and one a
support (priest/ranger is good).

>- Character design advice (especially for main characters)

The most useful arcane skill seems to be seers, because of seers' crystals.
Seers have no in-discipline offensive spells, but seer spells are useful for
gathering information, which most players never bother to do.  Wizards are
nice because some of the cooler spells (teleport, move location, shells of
protection).

>- What should one do on the first few turns

If you're a merc or overlord, create a bunch of forces each with a single
soldier and send them out to scout your area.  Have them attack any
locations that look weak enough for you to conquer.  If you're a merc, then
all of your characters should practice PC until they're good enough to be in
a combat slot.  That way, your characters gain PC and tactics without spending
actions.  The exception is a secondary priest, who should practice priest until
level 10, at which point he can make holy symbols, which will probably give him
PC and maybe levels (which might move him to 15th, which allows casting of
Bestow Divine Blessings, which will probably also give you PC, at which point
he can enter a combat slot *and* cast decent priest spells).

>- Monster lists

Yeah, right.

>- General dos and don'ts

A good way to take out tough lair monsters is with lots of soldiers.  You can
use a very few soldiers to eliminate the strength of both magical attacks and
special attacks, and it's easier to get a lot of AF from training more soldiers
than from improving characters.

While villages, towns, castles, and cities give you lots of population and
equipment with which to build armies, you get cool character items from lairs
and ruins, and it's worthwhile to occasionally deviate from your conquest and
take out a nearby lair monster for goodies.

>- Common mistakes

Don't send mounted soldiers against walls.  Don't rely on mount special attack
to kill lair monsters, because the soldiers dismount before entering the lair.
Don't use the conquer and enslave order unless you have to deprive an enemy
of population you can't defend.

Until you get the feel for monster strengths, don't attack anything but small
villages without scouting them first.  And small villages will probably give
you the unskilled to train up scouts.

>- 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?

Stats are useful in subtle ways.  If you like Elves, you may want to buy up
stats to ensure that you can actually wield some of the neat weapons you find.
Certain supernatural statuses will give you stat bonuses, and after three
or four morphs, you can get +100% from status stat increases.  But you're
right in that it's not useful to buy up stats.  Buy skills, PC, TAC, or INF,
and that's it.

Jim

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Griffith  /--OO--\     | Two great powers are on our side: the power of
 ...!ucbvax!scam!griffith  | Love and the power of Arithmetic.  These two are
BEWARE BATS WITHOUT NOSES! | stronger than anything else in the world.

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