Starting Party Guide

[BloodyPork]

The purpose of this guide is for first time player who wonder how should they spec their main character to complement the recruitable companions and how to build a well-rounded party. In this game you have 6 preset party and 3 mercenary recruits that you can customize from scratch. I recommend doing the "motley hird" quest line asap when you got it so you can get better camping results.

Nefja
Main attribute - Finesse
Combat role - Spear
Camp role - Start with 2 points of scout (this means you need to put a few point between her or main char to max it if you don't want to put scouting points into your merc.
Recommended skills - spears, relentless, thick skin, hardened, fortune favored, fencer, sexist, shield/low profile, leadership

Ketil
Main attribute - Perception
Combat role - Bow
Camp role - Hunting. You can put 1 more point into hunting if needed later.
Recommended skills - bow, leadership (important for bow user to resist demoralize), night vision, keen eye, night owl, fortune favored, low profile, shield, evade, hardened, thick skin

Asleifr
Main attribute - Strength
Combat role - Tank (Sword + Shield)
Camp role - Guard. You have a choice for making him or Gunnar your main guard, or put both of them in the same shift, while 1 mercenary solo the other shift with maxed guard)
Recommended skills - shield, sword, hardened, thick skin, dodge, keen eye, fencer, opportunist, nimble, strider

Gunnar
Main attribute - Strength
Combat role - Dual Wield or 2 hander, but he start with more points for dual wielding axe build so..
Camp role - Guard. See above.
Recommended skills - dual wield, thick skin, hardened, axe, dodge, evade, nimble, strider, shield/low profile, galder

Reskva
Main attribute - Sense
Combat role - Healer and support
Camp role - Witchcraft, Preserve. Either Eydis or merc can help with preserve. Max witchcraft in one merc to help her convert herbs.
Recommended skills - max healing asap, then witchcraft, shield, strider, nimble, knife/sling

Eydis
Main attribute - Endurance
Combat role - Tank (Axe + Shield)
Camp role - Cooking (max it if you don't use her), Preserve (max it if you don't use her), and take heavy sleeper trait.
Recommended skills - I would bench her and take only utility skill to help for camping. If you want to use her see Asleifr build except replace sword with axe.

Merc no 1
You have an option to make him into a combat specialist and replace one of your character that you don't like. One good build is pure dual wielder (because dual wielding needs alot of skill points to max and Gunnar wasted his on many useless skills).

Merc no 2
Camp roles, or combat role if you want to bench one of your other preset.

Merc no 3
Max all 3 of crafting skills, the rest into heavy sleeper and camp role that you are still lacking. For repair, you can either let a merc do it, or gunnar/eydis/asleifr if you bench them.

MC build
Never put anything into non-combat(camping) skills.

[Bijat]

Intersting ideas, will take alot of your ideas with me =)

[Atomic]

Great initiative! I've moved this into a new subforum for strategy talk. Thanks for the post!

[TormDK]

I strongly disagree with this;

"MC build
Never put anything into non-combat skill."

There's plenty of options for Diplomacy and Leadership from what I've seen with my current playthrough (about 20 hours in). So recommending that people not spend point on it, is silly - and it would totally depend on the type of character you are trying to play in the game. You do not have to slaughter everything that moves in order to progress.

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by TormDK:

I strongly disagree with this;

"MC build
Never put anything into non-combat skill."

There's plenty of options for Diplomacy and Leadership from what I've seen with my current playthrough (about 20 hours in). So recommending that people not spend point on it, is silly - and it would totally depend on the type of character you are trying to play in the game. You do not have to slaughter everything that moves in order to progress.

Apologies. By non-combat role I meant camping. I was referring to the "utility" skill tree, or camping skills.

Diplomacy and Leadership is under support tree which is mostly combat related (like healing, which is very important). In fact leadership give mental resist in combat so it is definitely a combat skill, and very important for archers. Diplomacy, I was wondering if it takes the highest skill from your party member or just main character? Same goes with repair skill bonus when scrapping equipments.

Originally posted by Atomic:

Great initiative! I've moved this into a new subforum for strategy talk. Thanks for the post! :meadhorn:

Thanks! Really enjoying the game so far, but I wanted to wait for the main character morale dropping bug before continuing the game. Hopefully that gets fixed in the next update.

[TormDK]

Originally posted by BloodyPork:

Originally posted by TormDK:

I strongly disagree with this;

"MC build
Never put anything into non-combat skill."

There's plenty of options for Diplomacy and Leadership from what I've seen with my current playthrough (about 20 hours in). So recommending that people not spend point on it, is silly - and it would totally depend on the type of character you are trying to play in the game. You do not have to slaughter everything that moves in order to progress.

Apologies. By non-combat role I meant camping. I was referring to the "utility" skill tree, or camping skills.

Diplomacy and Leadership is under support tree which is mostly combat related (like healing, which is very important). In fact leadership give mental resist in combat so it is definitely a combat skill, and very important for archers. Diplomacy, I was wondering if it takes the highest skill from your party member or just main character? Same goes with repair skill bonus when scrapping equipments.

Originally posted by Atomic:

Great initiative! I've moved this into a new subforum for strategy talk. Thanks for the post! :meadhorn:

Thanks! Really enjoying the game so far, but I wanted to wait for the main character morale dropping bug before continuing the game. Hopefully that gets fixed in the next update.

Diplomacy is a MC skill only.

Scapping equipment I haven't really bothered with on the MC, so I don't know if it should be higher or lower. I do try and remember to mark the follower I maxed out repair on, but I haven't really had any issues with getting enough scrap to craft alot of Tier 5 stuff.

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by TormDK:

Originally posted by BloodyPork:

Apologies. By non-combat role I meant camping. I was referring to the "utility" skill tree, or camping skills.

Diplomacy and Leadership is under support tree which is mostly combat related (like healing, which is very important). In fact leadership give mental resist in combat so it is definitely a combat skill, and very important for archers. Diplomacy, I was wondering if it takes the highest skill from your party member or just main character? Same goes with repair skill bonus when scrapping equipments.



Thanks! Really enjoying the game so far, but I wanted to wait for the main character morale dropping bug before continuing the game. Hopefully that gets fixed in the next update.

Diplomacy is a MC skill only.

Scapping equipment I haven't really bothered with on the MC, so I don't know if it should be higher or lower. I do try and remember to mark the follower I maxed out repair on, but I haven't really had any issues with getting enough scrap to craft alot of Tier 5 stuff.

I see.
Still I don't think it is worth it to waste point on diplomacy skill when you can get by without it anyway.. unless there is a ton of use from it. They are not exactly cheap and you have to sacrifice a lot of points from combat skill which is critical in higher difficulty. Although on normal difficulty you can probably not assign any skill poin towards combat for your main char and still beat the game.

[Erikkolai]

Originally posted by BloodyPork:

Still I don't think it is worth it to waste point on diplomacy skill when you can get by without it anyway.. unless there is a ton of use from it. They are not exactly cheap and you have to sacrifice a lot of points from combat skill which is critical in higher difficulty. Although on normal difficulty you can probably not assign any skill poin towards combat for your main char and still beat the game.

I think it boils down to whether you're a powergamer who wants to play a hyper-efficient min/maxed killing machine, or a roleplayer who wants to immerse himself and explore all of the lore and storylines.

[Double A]

What use is your MC in camp if they don't have any skills? Can rank 0 people contribute in any way?

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by Double A:

What use is your MC in camp if they don't have any skills? Can rank 0 people contribute in any way?

Barely.
You don't need him though, you should have enough camping skill from the companions you don't use in battle. You have 10 hirdmen, and you can only use 6 in combat which include your main character. So these 4 unused people should be your camp slave (should be more than enouch to max camping with the help of the starting utility skills of the preset companions). This is also why you should rush to Ribe and finish "Motley HIrd" quest asap whenever you get the chance to do so instead of going east to raid the tomb and stuff.

[Lampros]

Excellent thread - thanks!

[jonnin]

just a thought, but a serious max/min can reject all but nefja and ketil of the the NPCs and build their own party. Any of the others that you plan to not use, you can reject outright or get rid of before you roll up your first 10 set.

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by jonnin:

just a thought, but a serious max/min can reject all but nefja and ketil of the the NPCs and build their own party. Any of the others that you plan to not use, you can reject outright or get rid of before you roll up your first 10 set.

Please do not necro this thread. The original post is outdated and based on a much earlier version of the game. Check out the timestamp, it is never updated to reflect the current game version (who knows how many balance changes since then).