sword fighter

[hakbart]

hi!
i´m now about 18 hours in the game - and it has been awesome so far - i´m having a lot of fun-even if the first 10 hours where not easy at all. I choose to be an sword fighter (light armor) - until now i almost used no bows or throwing weapons nor magic.
first ten hours it was rather difficult even combined with shield skill,but now i can easily kill wolfs,rats,slimes and most bandits.tried to fight some trolls and beetles - but they are still way to hard for me.
i read in the forum that an pure sword fighter is quite difficult to play-and somehow i agree- i think i´m going to learn some kind of ranged combat soon.
i also picked up the foraging skill - which i like a lot because i can sell the stuff i find to the merchants.I also tried some alchemy - but i confess that its a bit frustrating,until now i never did any potion and i hear that an very high alchemy level is needed to do the potions so didn´t spent any more skill points on that until now- probably going to buy them with gold later on when i´m rich...
got an question regarding combat-
i´m using the attack modes intuitively but i still don´t understand well how they work- specially the defensive mode.any tips on how to use this properly?

[xolotl]

i read in the forum that an pure sword fighter is quite difficult to play-and somehow i agree- i think i´m going to learn some kind of ranged combat soon. :)

One thing which can kill any kind of character is overdiversification of skills - if you haven't been really focusing on pumping a lot of points into your Swords skill, you're gonna be having some problems. I personally would keep at it until my Swords skill was at least in the mid-20s, before I spent too much time on other skills. As a fighter without ranged attacks, having a high Shields stat can help too, as once you get to 10 points in Shields, it'll start deflecting projectiles and the like. As you've found, foraging is useful, but I also found 1 point of Repair to be very useful for a fighter, too. It wouldn't hurt to have a little more than 1, but you don't really need much. If you find the Tinker's Gloves anywhere, those would be useful; just be sure to equip them before you camp. That way, when camping, your character will automatically repair equipment, which can make a huge difference in finances, so you're not spending all your money on equipment upkeep.

i´m using the attack modes intuitively but i still don´t understand well how they work- specially the defensive mode.any tips on how to use this properly?

A lot of it depends on what your ToHit looks like in relation to the enemies that you're fighting. If you have a Feat ready, you should always switch to Power mode, because the Feats will always connect, so the extra 30% damage is quite nice. If your ToHit on a creature is too low, you'd probably want to switch back down to Normal or Finesse inbetween Feats. (My fighter char would tend to drop down to Finesse when fighting at night, too, to offset the darkness penalty some.) The Parry mode can be useful if you think there's not much point attacking without a Feat - if you're just running around inbetween Feats, not attacking, Parry can help in case a creature gets lucky enough to get within attack range.

[hakbart]

hey thanks a lot xolotl !! this really helps- i´m now more confident in pushing my sword/shield skills and i´m going to wait until lvl 20 before i start to push other skills.
and yes- the repair skill is very useful - and in addition i got that tinker-gloves as well.
i´m just looking at my stats and i see i neglected speed - i guess i should put some more points there.

i see that the combat system is much more complex than it seems in the beginning.... this is really awesome! i really love how much realism and detail BW put into this "simple looking" little game.thanks again for the help- i´ll try to keep your advice in mind!

what i need now is an awesome sword.got to find an awesome sword somehow...and an shiny shield could come in handy as well...

[Fungus Zits]

Keep at the swords...its challenging at first but gets very satisfying later on. I took my first char through purely with swords and got it to an unnecessary high of 37 (+ swords enhanced got it to 43) and felt quite safe walking around. The best sword I came across added + 4 Swords and also came across an amulet that added 2 to swords. Could have got it a lot higher but it was my first run through and wasted points earlier on.

[SpottedShroom]

The keys to a good melee fighter are twofold: high weapon skill (hit more often, do more damage, kill enemies sooner, so take less damage) and good armor (get hit less often, so take less damage). Pumping your Endurance is also a good idea - at the highest level you regain one hit point every turn.

My melee fighter was a bludgeoning specialist, but I saw much better swords than hammers, so maybe you've got the right idea.

[xolotl]

My melee fighter was a bludgeoning specialist, but I saw much better swords than hammers, so maybe you've got the right idea.

On the other hand, Bludgeoning weapons are also much better for smashing open doors and chests and things. :)

[hakbart]

yeah-thats true! i found it out the hard way when i broke one sword on the "dragonfly" nest in the beginning...

[Painted Lady]

It only took me until my third play-through to remember the power of a keg of dynamite as a substitute for bashing

[hakbart]

It only took me until my third play-through to remember the power of a keg of dynamite as a substitute for bashing

hehe, good to know that i´m not alone! - thanks to you all for the helpful replies !!

[hakbart]

ok- i´m still sword fighting my way through the game and i can say that after the heads-up i got from all of you - i´m much more concentrated on the essential:
a good sword /skill
good armor/shield/skill
strength and endurance.(speed...?)
going to work my way up and report back soon !

[aka.kevin]

The keys to a good melee fighter are twofold: high weapon skill (hit more often, do more damage, kill enemies sooner, so take less damage) and good armor (get hit less often, so take less damage). Pumping your Endurance is also a good idea - at the highest level you regain one hit point every turn.

My melee fighter was a bludgeoning specialist, but I saw much better swords than hammers, so maybe you've got the right idea.

Yeah I agree, I also experience that it's better to use sword than hammers.
And now I'm using a fantasy sword for my favorite character.