Bard’s Tale 3: Latest Party with Three Geomancers

With Diablo 4 being two months away and in trying to save my money while not going completely insane from boredom, I decided to boot up the old Bard’s Tale 3. Last time I checked though, I seem to recall being able to play it on a Mac. This time, it won’t run and says it’s exclusively on the PC because of an update that I can’t revert via Gog. That pretty much sucked as I wanted to play on my work Mac to make mapping easier. Regardless, I simply just use one of my 27″ monitors with my gaming laptop and the setup is only slightly inconveniencing. Nonetheless, I wanted to return a concept boiling in my mind since my last playthrough which was to have a party with three Geomancers. So this blog will talk about the experience.

For the initial party, I started with the following:

• Elf Paladin
• Half-Orc Hunter
• Human Monk
• Half-Elf Bard
• Elf Rogue
• Elf Magician
• Gnome Conjurer

I did have a bunch of spare gear that I moved over and attempted to grind out some levels early on. However, the starter dungeon XP only is good until roughly level 11-12 whereupon it becomes a tedious pain. In turn, I power leveled both spell casters, bought them Nuke and gave the Trebuchet song to my Bard to speed up the effort. Yes, it’s “cheating” but it’s still not as bad as using the INWO conjurer trick. Regardless, once you get through the starter dungeon and arrive in Arboria, the leveling process becomes a lot easier. There was still gear to grind as well as quickly leveling up my new Chronomancer. Also, considering that I’ve beaten this game a long time ago, I didn’t feel like prolonging my suffering too much.

This time around, the only shady parts are the wizard encounters in Gelida due to the ease of how those wizards can kill a fledgling party with low levels, hp and stats. But beyond that aspect, the rest of the leveling process remained smooth. The main difference in the swap this time around was keeping enough gear for two Geomancers. The paladin was already in a good spot while the monk might’ve been missing a piece of gear or two. But nothing terribly offensive. And I decided not to swap all of my fighters over initially, which turned out to be a painful mistake. But the issue there was relying too much on my Hunter for instant kills.

If you’re going to do a triple character class swap, make sure you not only have all the gear, but do it all at once to benefit from the 600k XP bonus at the end of Kinestia. The issue I learned was doing a late class swap simply only delayed the inevitable which was having the third geomancer play catch up to the rest of the party. Hunters only matter in Malefia as you can get away with good spell damage, Rock/Dest/Fade spells and the Stoneblade until the entering Malefia. So having that XP penalty hurts a lot.

Currently, two of my Geomancers are level 34 while my newer one is around 20. Hitting monsters in Malefia is pretty rough most of the time for them because of how low level they are. I would say that around level 45+ is where you’ll see more consistent hits. The Rock spell is far more reliable at this stage especially when facing opponents like Rock Men. The only real threat for this group is the Vortex due to its phasing ability. Gremlins are the most annoying because of how they constantly breathe and are practically immune to magic. I think eventually, your party can resist Gremlins but you do need to get to a much higher level or employ a Breath Ring. With Geomancers, I prefer having a lower AC in general and typically use a Shield Ring. But I think once you hit above level 50, the issue gradually gets reduced.

Now, one thing I do have is a spare Staff of Gods that my former hunter has in his possession. I use a Stoneblade for now just because he doesn’t have enough spell points nor is a high enough level where the extra Nuke would make a difference. Also, I’m currently seeking one more Familiar Fgn which helps with spell regeneration. Once I get to a reasonable level with him, I might reposition him (or another Geomancer) into the 5th slot to help lob more Nukes at enemies. Or I might put my Bard in that slot, although that would mean losing another critical hit melee character.

So is having three Geomancers worth it? Right now, I can’t tell. I think being sub level 50 is rough because of lacking the hit capability with their Stoneblades. Rock is a very nice spell because of the range and reliability. However, I can’t really make use of Nuke because of the high cost without sacrificing the Stoneblade melee hit. And while I can cast some limited healing through DIVA, it remains an emergency spell because of the high SP cost. So I think gradually swapping one to being a more full time spell caster is better.

The real issue is losing a 2nd Archmage opportunity. You really only need a single Geomancer (where need can be a strong word). The main strengths of the Geomancer in my experience are disabling all traps on a level, the permanent Phase Door and their ranged Rock spell. The thing you get back is more armor and limited melee. But to really take advantage of that, you’d need to invest in a lot of levels, which means grinding for a while. The 2nd Archmage helps out in Malefia with Melee Men, Preclusion and/or other lower cost utility and healing spells. They can trade off with the main archmage and/or Chronomancer in tossing out NUKEs so you can get more overall utility.

Of course, this is still early in this group’s lifecycle. I think I need a few more runs in Malefia to see how things improve. But it does make me wish the game could be modded just to add a single extra character slot. I know for certain that if the game had an extra slot, I would have taken a 2nd Magician early on. I don’t think having an 8th slot would’ve have made the game any less imbalanced (it already became ridiculous). I probably would have kept the Hunter at least since having a third Geomancer feels incredibly redundant. It was interesting to give this combination a try but truthfully at this point, the extra Geomancer doesn’t feel like it’s adding anything else.

Comments

comments