starting party

[funkmonster7]

I've been hoping to have a party with all swordsmen or something for my starting party. Obviously that is impossible, at most I'd just have 1. So the next thing I can think of is fire all my mercs except the lone swordsman, and then do trading between Stromkapp and Cortia until I have a party of 4 swordsmen, and just keep grinding trades and fight the occasional battle until I can upgrade all their skills, buy them gear, etc. This approach would save me a lot of wages. And it might allow me to buy enough ponies to trade more efficiently before I hire a full army.

But is this a good idea? The starting 4 characters have the advantage of preset traits, although I also found their willpower to be at 10, which is sometimes low when other characters have 12 (the difference of 1 level). And all my dps characters have Strong and Bloodthirsty (if crit build), or Thick-Skinned (if tank/non-crit build). I rarely come across a random merc with this kind of combo. (I usually put Drunkard on all my characters and remove them at a later time, so my starting characters practically have 2 good traits and no weaknesses, not even Lazy.)

My question really is do starting characters have any advantage that I've not listed here, over random mercs that might make it more worthwhile to keep them?

[xahadume]

How do you get rid of drunkard? I've heard you can withhold alcohol until it goes away but I haven't had luck with that.

To answer your question those starting traits are pretty strong and hard to find on random mercs at the inn. I took lazy but regret it now that they made it worse. Getting job skills leveled up with the lazy trait has been a pita.

Four swordsman are interesting but you need at least one axeman to chop wood. Good swords also seem to be one of the hardest weapon to find in this game.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by xahadume:

How do you get rid of drunkard? I've heard you can withhold alcohol until it goes away but I haven't had luck with that.

To answer your question those starting traits are pretty strong and hard to find on random mercs at the inn. I took lazy but regret it now that they made it worse. Getting job skills leveled up with the lazy trait has been a pita.

Four swordsman are interesting but you need at least one axeman to chop wood. Good swords also seem to be one of the hardest weapon to find in this game.

I play on Normal/Normal difficulty. What I do is get my happiness to 15, but only give my party 4 alcohol every 2-3 rests. And I give them either 4 or none. That way, none of them will get that title from drinking too much alcohol (I think if a merc gets that title, he is forever a Drunkard, not sure tbh).

After that, I keep 4 alcohol as well as 10 honey in my inventory and start to do some trading, until 10 rests are up. With every rest, I use honey to give myself +1 happiness if I have -1 or less happiness per rest. If I get any camping dialogue from my characters (shows up as "?" when I rest), I try to choose all the options that give me happiness. If you get none of these options then you might just have to drink 4 alcohol if you hit the 8th rest and your happiness just dropped below -5.

If you're at the 9th rest and your happiness is -5, one of your mercs will threaten to leave. That's when you drink 3 alcohol on your next rest. What happens when you do that is 3 of your mercs will get the alcohol but one of them won't, so after that 10th rest, the merc that didn't get the alcohol (it is chosen at random) will be cured.

Then you repeat the process. The second time around you should be able to cure all your mercs.

Re: Lazy; yeah that's why I don't get Lazy anymore. It's pretty difficult to grind that, other than Miner and probably Alchemist (I just buy vials and make medicine, sell for profit). But Tinkerer... dayum.

Re: axeman; I recruit Torus. He has the Carnivorous trait, but my mercs eat meat virtually every rest so it doesn't matter. However sometimes he has nothing but Carnivorous which sucks, so I might just recruit him and if he has nothing good, I will boot him when I find a better axeman in the tavern. But generally axemen aren't important in my party builds because I found them to be not party players... Swords and Maces make better frontline tanks than Warriors. And Spearmen make better support just by spear walling.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by xahadume:

How do you get rid of drunkard? I've heard you can withhold alcohol until it goes away but I haven't had luck with that.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880058436

It is do-able. This was the 10th rest or something. I dunno I kinda lost count haha... But this is my 3rd success, and also my 2nd time fully curing the whole party at once. (My first attempt at curing Drunkard was just 2 mercs, the other 2 mercs had Lazy, but that was before the Lazy nerf.)

[zjuancru]

All this riddle could be avoided IF upon begining a game we had the option to SEPARATELY choose lore precedents AND AFTER the whole team composition.
The present existing options feel just as a too tight corset.
I think that option could greatly widen and enlarge the variety of playing styles both for new and old gamers.

Todo este enredo se podría evitar CASO DE QUE al empezar una partida tuviésemos la opción de escoger POR SEPARADO los antecedentes de la banda Y DESPUÉS la composición del grupo por entero.
Las actuales opciones existentes se sienten como un demasiado apretado corsé.
Creo que esa opción podría ensanchar y ampliar mucho la variedad de estilos de juego tanto para los nuevos como para los viejos jugadores.

[veevoir]

Do you play on free or region-locked? In free mode Stupid >>>Drunkard. 5% slower combat XP actually helps in the game, it is a boon :D
Slows down levelling curve a bit so team won't outlevel your equipment that fast, helps with team composition - new members will have easier time to catch up ;)

[funkmonster7]

I do feel that the existing 5 starts (more like 4 starts) are too limited. Apprentice friends and Deserters have the same party composition. But I don't think it matters all that much in the end...

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by veevoir:

Do you play on free or region-locked? In free mode Stupid >>>Drunkard. 5% slower combat XP actually helps in the game, it is a boon :D
Slows down levelling curve a bit so team won't outlevel your equipment that fast, helps with team composition - new members will have easier time to catch up ;)

Free.

I don't mind if I overlevel my equipment, I'll just trade until I find good gear to buy from merchants. Admittedly, I never played past level 7.