Shield Penalties Ranking in Leather Shield Penalty  Normal 10 Expert 5 Master 0

a)    Assuming that your game is clear of the Armor Penalty Corruption, don't wear Plate during physical exchanges until you've trained up to Master status.  Wear your Expert Chain until then.

Regardless of corruption, do wear Armor when opening traps.  Also, every character attacking solely with magic should be wearing their strongest body armor since there is no Armor Penalty for Spell-casting, but that's really off our topic.

b)    Except for very fast Dagger users, Weapons of Swiftness seldom perform better than the Weapons of additional Damage they'd replace.  Weapons of Darkness with their additional Vampiric qualities are better, but whether your character needs to regain the hit points or do the extra Damage is your call.  (If you haven't already noticed, extra Damage does not show up on the stat screen.)

c)    Consult the Breakpoint Table as well as your character's stats when allocating items with stat-boosting Enchantments.  Do the same before casting a stat-boosting Spell, drinking a stat-boosting Potion, or committing a Beacon slot to a temporary stat-boosting well or fountain.  As your characters develop, any given stat boost becomes less advantageous.  That's why you find more potent boosts as you progress though the game.

d)    If you're playing in Real-Time, take advantage of items of Recovery and the Haste Spell or Potion.  Whereas increasing Speed decreases Attack & Shoot Times in Breakpoint fashion, of Recovery and Haste do that directly.  This is especially useful later in the game when it becomes progressively harder to reach higher and higher Breakpoints.

The Haste Spell and Potion are not additive.  Your character will get only the benefits of the one applied most recently.  The Haste Spell's 5 spell point cost is a real bargain, especially at Master Ranking.  It cannot be cast on a Weak character, so try to renew it before it lapses.

Even if you're playing in Turn-Based mode, Haste can be very useful when using Bows.  Faster is always better.

e)    Spears, as a class, used two-handed with Master status, are the most damaging single Weapons until the time that skill gets up to around level 15.  At that time two-handed Sword begins to deliver more Damage, assuming 1) the most potent Weapons with equivalent enchantments are used, 2) a Speed stat of 40, 3) no Armor Penalty, and 4) no significant effect from the difference in Attack Bonus carried by the Weapons.  Two-handed Axe becomes better than Spear at around level 25, but it never overtakes two-handed Sword.  These threshold levels drop as the Speed stat increases and rise as it decreases.  Of course, only using Spear gives you that skill point Armor Class bonus.

f)    If you're in a physical encounter where you need to trade the amount of Damage delivered (Offense) for added protection (Defense), Shields can be very effective.  The two best Shields take up only 6 and 9 squares of inventory space, but with Master status you can quickly add at least 54 points to your Armor Class.  The Damage you're dishing out might drop due to a Shield Penalty.  You might have to use less potent single-handed Weapons.  You'll have to decide when it's the right thing to do, but it's safe to say that your Master Dagger/Master Leather characters should always use shields.

Recommendations concerning the use of Weapon combinations require the consideration of your character's Chance to to Hit and Potential Damage in addition to his/her Attack Time.  You'll find my current thoughts in the Recommendations section under the Offense heading.



© John C.  Macaulay (Bones) Updated May 2, 1999