Bard’s Tale 3: Party Combination Comparisons

After doing some heavy grinding in Malefia, I managed to level up my latest party to a satisfying degree. In having gone through numerous combination of party types, I wanted to put my thoughts down both in terms of the starting game and moving towards the end game with regards to various combinations.

Starting Party Compositions

This composition is more melee heavy and probably is good for a beginning player:

• Paladin
• Warrior
• Hunter
• Bard
• Rogue
• Magician
• Conjurer

At lower levels, Monks don’t do as much damage while Warriors have better armor. A party like this can go into the end game then switch the Warrior into a Geomancer, armed with a Stoneblade for some heavy damage. The Hunter will be the best single target damage dealer. However, this party will be light towards the end and might find foes the Rock Men quite difficult to deal with. However, having a Warrior rather than a Monk does mean you won’t need a mule and the gear progression will be continuous.

• Paladin
• Monk
• Hunter
• Bard
• Rogue
• Magician
• Conjurer

Similar to the previous party, this group probably will convert the Paladin and possibly the Monk into a Geomancer. Lower level fights will be hard for the Monk because the damage output isn’t nearly as good as the Paladin and Hunter until roughly level 6 when they begin to gain a second attack. But even with hand-to-hand combat, the damage is low and you might consider having the Monk use a weapon like a Shield Staff for a while or at least until your party finishes the starting dungeon. The main benefit in this party is lower gear requirements while the Monk serves as a mule.

• Paladin
• Hunter
• Bard
• Rogue
• Magician
• Magician
• Conjurer

Much more magic heavy than the other two parties. One of the Magicians will be used for a Chronomancer. But this combination is more AoE group heavy in having two Magicians early on. You probably only need the Paladin to be converted into a Geomancer while the Hunter serves as the primary melee guy (or ranged if you have a bow). The main downside is that you will only have three guaranteed melee attacks per round and the Rogue at lower levels will have a harder time hiding in shadows and be vulnerable to attacks. This is not a recommended starting party and that if you want to go magic heavy, I suggest swapping out a Monk or Warrior around level 6 for the extra Magician so that the group can survive early on. Also, the Hunter at this stage won’t be doing many critical hits so your overall damage will be a lot lower, which will make the starter dungeon more challenging initially until you start getting more group oriented offensive spells.

• Paladin
• Monk (or Warrior)
• Bard
• Rogue
• Magician
• Magician
• Conjurer

If you insist on starting with three magic users, then you probably want to skip on the Hunter and power level one later. But you’ll need a better melee which is why I suggest either the Monk or Warrior. The main reason to use a Monk is less gear requirements over time, especially once you complete the starting dungeon. The Warrior would be friendlier until level 6 just because you have access to better equipment in the building in Skara Brae that gives some initial gear.

End Game Party Compositions

• Geomancer
• Monk
• Hunter
• Bard
• Rogue
• Archmage
• Chronomancer

Not a great end game party but can do decently up until Malefia. The main issue here is that the Monk won’t do enough single target damage and is vulnerable even with having a lower AC. The only real benefit of taking along a Monk into Malefia is having a mule since the gear drops are excellent.

• Geomancer
• Paladin
• Hunter
• Bard
• Rogue
• Archmage
• Chronomancer

If you went with a Warrior or Monk and converter that person into a Geomancer, you can still have a reasonably strong party by the time you reach Malefia. You will need two Stoneblades though for your Paladin to be effective. But you will have more single target critical hits/stone attacks with this combination. However, magic is slightly weak and your party is vulnerable to situations which calls for heavy Nuke spells.

• Geomancer
• Hunter
• Bard
• Rogue
• Archmage
• Archmage
• Chronomancer

Best all around magic heavy group. You can cast four nukes with the Geomancer being the weakest. Your main weakness here is encountering magic resistant foes or groups that heavy large numbers of hit points. In that situation, you have to use at least four nukes and maybe a Trebuchet from your Bard. Melee-wise, you’re much more vulnerable because of your Hunter and Bard not having the best AC. You will only be able to do three critical hits for melee in a single round until your Rogue can hide in shadows successfully. So against certain opponents like Rock Men, this setup can get a little sketchy where only your Hunter will have a chance of hitting the Rock Men. However, two Archmages is quite convenient because of how you can pull ranged enemies (except magic resistant foes like Gremlins) in most of the time.

• Geomancer
• Geomancer
• Hunter
• Bard
• Rogue
• Archmage
• Chronomancer

More offensive magic here with a lot less utility. Also, less power for a while since your two Geomancers won’t be effective until they get their levels and spell points up. You still can eventually cast four Nukes and do more ranged critical hits with ROCK and Far Death spells. Also, you will get four critical hits in melee up to five which can make a huge difference especially in facing deadly foes like Black Slayers and Rock Men. And you have more armor with the two Geomancers up front. The main downside is less room for finding items.

• Geomancer
• Geomancer
• Geomancer
• Bard
• Rogue
• Archmage
• Chronomancer

Very heavily spell offensive party with excellent armor, ranged and melee critical hits up to five critical hits in melee per round with seven critical hits overall in a single round. The main issues are competing interest in gear (especially in using the special end game gear), very limited bag space and being severely handicapped in Malefia for a while. You could swap the Rogue and one Geomancer’s slot, giving the Geomancer a Staff of Gods to reduce the cost of spells but it does defeat the purpose. The only reason to use that tactic is if you changed one of your fighters late game to a Geomancer and started power leveling him in Malefia while lacking gear. Once you get the right gear and enough levels (around 40-50), this party really comes online and can handle any situation. Now, you won’t have as much healing but you can give your characters Purple Hearts or your Geomancers Divine Intervention as back up.

Word on Gear

With my recent party (where I took the last combo), a few things came to mind. At the end, I had almost all the end game gear that I needed and I only had two spare slots left open in my entire group for finding pieces. I left that for my Rogue since I hate gear swapping and dealing with Identification. I made sure my spell casters had their bags filled with spell rechargers rather than leaving open slots. Beyond that, there were a few really special items that I felt were immensely useful by this point:

• Breath Ring – Almost each of my party members has one. Gremlins are by far the most annoying monster in Malefia and you either have to use song #4 each round to try and out heal the damage or just take it in the face. It’s worse if you don’t have Minstrel’s Shield up too. You don’t even need to equip this item but just keep it in your bag.
• Bardsword – Apparently, you just need to keep this in your bag for your Bard to have unlimited tunes. It is annoying having an item lying around taking up space but you can ditch your wineskin or canteen except for a few key areas in the game.
• Nospin Ring – Like the Breath Ring, you don’t need to wear this to use its effects. But you should keep one around to deal with the annoying spinners.
• Stoneblade – Pretty much the best weapon for a Warrior, Paladin and Geomancer for the end game. Early on, it’s useful for Hunters while their critical hit is less than 99% (or within a certain range). But save at least 3-4 for the end game.
• Familiar Fgn – A strange item that when equipped regenerates spell points. You don’t need to use it but merely keep it equipped. I give one to every spell caster. This really helps for passive spell regeneration. Pretty much gives you plenty of free Trap Zaps.
• Staff of Gods – Best item found in Malefia for your spell casters. Reduces spell cost to 1/4th. Combining this item with the Familiar Fgn means that you’ll have plenty of spell points.
• Angel’s Ring vs Shield Ring – Shield Ring is better imo unless you know you’re going to die (e.g. the Wizard Tower battles in Gelida). I’d keep both and only equip the Angel’s Ring for very special circumstances. Otherwise, if you die, you’ll just be out of a solid defense ring.
• Wand of Fury – Odd wand that gives you a little AC. All spell casters should use this unless you have the Wand of Power equipped.
• Gods’ Blade – Looks great on paper because of the high damage and AC bonus. But it can’t beat a Stoneblade just because you will never do enough single target damage against certain foes.
• Heartseeker vs Misericorde – I read that Heartseeker provides immunity vs Breath and other type of effects but my Rogue never gets hit. So I prefer Misericorde just for the better AC bonus. However, the main upside to Heartseeker is more critical hit.
• Speedboots – I think these are good early on but at a certain point, you probably are better off playing song #2 or fighting.
• Horn of Gods – Effectively a one group Nuke item for your Bard. I like the concept but there’s just not enough inventory space for the end game. Maybe a good twink item at best.
• Sorceror’s Hood vs Wizhelm – I prefer Wizhelm for reliability. Auto-res would be nice if the item didn’t disappear.

Lasting Thoughts

Having played this game to death for a while, I wanted to jot a few more things down that I didn’t cover in my original review. I think it’s sad that the game never really received any modding but I’m guessing the problem is that the code is all binary/hex so the amount of mod’ing would be extremely limited. Regardless, here’s some various ideas that came to mind on this play through.

• Not having a place to sell equipment. I know Bard’s Tale 2 had a weird bug/hack that allowed you to insert another disk to be able to trick the computer in buying anything when you went to Garth’s Shop. However, that shouldn’t have influenced the game not having some sort of shop to pawn off old equipment. Someone said that the “stables” in Skara Brae (the intro building with the gear???) was supposed to allow you to store excess gear but I couldn’t figure that out in the Apple 2 version. Either way, I wish there was a spot to sell gear.
• No Roscoe’s Emporium – While they introduced Harmonic Gems, etc. to regenerate spell points, you still had to find these. Also, some areas had much lower drop rates. Considering how limited bag space one would receive (even though they did expand it from the original 10 slots of the first two games), you still have competing interest when it comes to gear choices. So Harmonic Gems generally aren’t considered first class citizens and it does force you to become more resource conscious. At least having a Roscoe’s would have made the town areas outside of Skara Brae a little more useful to return to.
• Code Wheel – Horribly annoying. I know there’s online ways to “crack” the wheel but it’s a pain in the ass that I wish someone patched this thing and just allowed you to skip over it anytime you needed to travel between dimensions. At this point, it’s more of an inconvenience than anything else.
• Only four towns. Once the Old Man dies, the only places to go are Tenebrosia, Arboria and Lucencia. If you’re grinding XP in Malefia, you have to deal with disk swaps and two Code Wheel look ups, which make the game feel slow as molasses. I really wish they had introduced more towns in each area to avoid going back and forth as much. Especially in areas like Gelidia, Kinestia and Malefia where you probably want to do some grinding.
• Only one save party spot. I’m not talking about the Save Game option but a place where you can easily swap out your party members. This really sucks when you’re deep in a dungeon area too.
• Only seven spots. I hate the excuse I was given where the developer told me he/she had no room for additional slots. But I really wish there were at least two additional slots open for a party: a summoning slot and another PC slot. I feel like all those figurines, NPCs and summoning spells are completely useless in this game. Why was Hawkblade even introduced here? He serves no purpose except as cannon fodder so that you can pick up the Strifespear from his dead corpse. Also, the number of foes you face in this game can be ridiculous so having two additional slots wouldn’t have killed game balance. This becomes more poignant when you lack the magic fire power in lobbing off enough AoE spells until you obtained Nuke. But this situation made even less sense since you were given two new classes. Of all the things I would want to see mod’ded, this is the biggest feature request from me.

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