Phantasie: Under new management

One of the harsh realities of managing a team is that sometimes, you've got to let people go who aren't pulling their weight. I had done so early on, on account that said personnel were dead.

But three dungeons in, and maybe 25% into the game, it didn't feel like my team was firing on all cylinders. And Robert the Priest seemed to be the weak link, both in terms of statistics and actual performance.

So I rolled, rolled, and re-rolled new human priests, immediately discarding most of them without even giving them the dignity of a name. Until I rolled a winner.

I transferred all of Robert's gear to Claude and had him leave the party.

But then I tried something. I took Claude to the magic pool by Pineville. He "changed." What did this do, exactly? After returning to town and checking his character sheet, his dexterity had boosted from 18 points to 22.

This gave me an idea. I checked my party to see if anyone could stand some improvement. Surprisingly, my reliable standby Kruncha came up short!

Great strength, pretty good constitution, okay dexterity. We can do better. I'd invested a lot of money into leveling him up, but you can't buy good stats.

I rolled six fresh fighters, making sure each one had at least somewhat comparable stats, and took them to the fountain. Each of them gained 2 or 3 points in one stat, and I decided this one was the best off:

 

Compared to Kruncha, he'd have one less point of strength, and severe mental retardation which barely mattered to a fighter, but the rest was solid upgrade; 17 dexterity and 18 constitution are fantastic fighter stats. Luck, whatever it did, stayed the same, and charisma got a solid bump too.

I transferred Kruncha's gear to him and renamed him Lenny. Sue me.

Finally, I generated a mixture of rangers, thieves, and monks, took them to the fountain, and in the end decided that my old monk Greg was replaceable.

Greg's awesome dexterity will be missed, but his replacement will learn to eat halberds.

I returned to the Dwarven Dungeon to train the underleveled half of my party, and found it had reset itself. The map unexplored, the treasures untaken. I'm not sure exactly what triggered this, and have to assume it is related to the party change, but I was fine with that. More chances to get gold and missing runes.

 

I easily cut a swath through the dungeon on my first go, even being a bit overcautious in withdrawing early to protect my weak level 1 members. I knew the layout, and had three overlevelled characters.

Also, in Phantasie, the experience points needn't be distributed evenly, which is perfect for this kind of situation. Money, not experience, very quickly became the limiting factor for training.

In the second dungeon, the earth guardian showed himself this time and granted the party the earth rune.

After breezing through the first two dungeons, and suffering through the third's jagged layout (but breezing through its combats), my party now looks like this:

• Mystic-rated party score of 16 - "experienced adventurers"
• Air rune, earth rune, and fire rune
• Lenny - Level 9 dwarf fighter
• Needs 48,000xp to level
• 161 HP, 5 MP
  
• 12/6/12 combat stats
• Knows Monster Evaluation, but had a very difficult time learning it.
• Lambert - Level 8 dwarf ranger
• Needs 8,000xp to level
• 116 HP, 14 MP
• 11/5/12 combat stats
• Knows Quadruple Healing, plus some useless spells
• Claude - Level 8 human priest
• Needs 20,000xp to level
• 81 HP, 12 MP
• 12/5/11 combat stats
• Useful spells include Quadruple Healing, Sleep, and Awaken.
• Untested spells include Double Protection, Triple Confusion, and Teleportation.
• Rasputin - Level 7 halfling monk
• Needs 22,000xp to level
• 89 HP, 9 MP
  
• 11/5/10 combat stats
• Useful spells include Triple Fireflash and Double Ninja
• Dennis - Level 7 sprite thief
• Needs $5,000 to level
• 45 HP, 6 MP
• 10/5/9 combat stats
• Generally excellent thieving skills, with a so far 100% success rate at lockpicking and trap disarmament
  
• Knows sleep (useful) and charm (useless)
  
• Minmax - Level 9 elf wizard
• Needs 51,000xp to level
• 65 HP, 15 MP
• 8/1/2 combat stats
• Useful spells include Quadruple Fireflash, Triple Quickness, Double Ninja, Awaken, and Transportation.
• Untested spells include Double Strength, Double Mindblast, and Fear.
  

Phantasie: The Caves of the Lizard Men

Suck it, Nikademus!

 

On the way to the next dungeon, I killed my first Black Knight! Minmax's fireflashes did the majority of the damage - melee barely scratches his armor - but I did it. Ingame lore is that nine of them serve Nikademus, and none have ever been defeated in battle. Well, first time for everything, but I would wager that the game doesn't keep track of how many you've beaten.

The kill earned me $2,706, bringing my bankroll just high enough to train Lambert once.

I saved and entered the Caves of the Lizard Men.

Fine.

Soon after entering, my party stumbled onto a pool of stagnant water, which caused everyone to faint and wake up in a small, blood-stained cavern near the middle of the map. I had to fight my way out, blindly through the unexplored twisty little passageways, back to the entrance, where I escaped somewhat depleted but alive, and with not insignificant earnings. A maul and shield+3 went to Kruncha, who also trained to level 5 on the golden dividends.

I went back and partially explored the region south of the pool - a "twisty maze of rock and rubble." I withdrew before completion, but the experience and gold leveled Lambert, who learned Triple Healing. I also picked up a +2 mace which went to Minmax, being light enough.

With a third trip, I finished exploring the rock and rubble maze, where the exit triggered a cave-in, revealing a dead-end with a dead fighter possessing a scroll, and a secret passage that led out through the lizard men's barracks.

The treasure leveled Kruncha, who pointlessly learned quickness. But the scroll shed some interesting light on the mysterious pools.

I went back in and challenged the mysterious entity that had bid me to turn back before.

Fire elemental! It hits hard, and most physical attacks do little in return. But it went down easily - to Minmax's Quadruple Fireflash spell, oddly enough.

Past the fire elemental, an old man granted me the fire rune.

 

I kept exploring. Deep into the cave, a dilemma presented itself:

I see that Chris Nolan played this game.

I don't see why you couldn't rescue both - there's six of us and two of them. But you have to pick. I picked the distinguished man, recalling the High Priest's quest. He thanked us, uttered "Straticon uble and 48" and died.

Further up north, another warrior's corpse could be seen through a crack, but no obvious way of reaching it presented. I searched the quadrant for false walls, bumping into dozens of real ones until I found one, and another jagged passageway, through a crevice lined with damaging mold, to the body where I found a scroll and a 'good weapon'. The scroll turned out to be one I'd seen before.

Dungeon 3, finished

I went south to explore the next dungeon. Or rather, I would have, if a random encounter with devils didn't one-shot Minmax with a single hugely damaging spell.

Might need to do some grinding.