Whoa birthdays. Eni's was yesterday but I was out all day. And today's is Selina's and Lumi's. I'm sending birthday wishes all over the place.
Still feel rather sad I'm not sending gifts because I like being generous, but right now being generous may not be a good idea. Still no financial aid yet and Jon is just starting a new job at the end of this month.
On the other hand I DID spend *some* money as I had some left over... namely, to get Dark Spire. FINALLY. XD And Jon bought some music CDs which I will talk about later.
Dark Spire is just... totally awesome so far. Mmmmm challenging dungeon crawlers. The premise is very simple (go to the top of the tower, kill the bad sorcerer, get back the treasure--it's very Nethack-ish actually), and the gameplay seems deceptively simple as well. But this game totally does NOT handhold you through much at all. Even the tutorial had this attitude of "just DO IT already, stop asking questions!" which amused me to no end.
Character creation starts with the classic races (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) and classes (warrior, thief, mage, priest). But I believe you can unlock at least two more races (high elf and dark elf) and there's several advanced classes that are made from combinations of the base ones.
I made a group of four which, this time, I swear I'll stick to instead of making too many characters as I have with the Etrian Odysseys (guilty as charged, heh!)
Alexsei - Human Warrior/Priest, going for Paladin.
Ryshassa - Elven Mage/Priest, going for Druid. (Had to pray a bunch to get an elf to Lawful.)
Atmadja - Elven Warrior, haven't decided on an advanced class yet but possibly Samurai! Or Ranger (heh!)
Iluun - Elven Thief, will probably go for Ninja, but for now I'm training pure Thief cause box traps are nasty.
Reason for all the elves being that Ryshy and Atma and Iluun have always been of the same race, and they were originaly Elothean. So elf is the closest approximation. If I hadn't been set on these particular characters, I might've been able to stick a halfling or two in (since the other I might have made was Oira!)
This game, I am pretty damn certain is going to be blisteringly hard, and slow to advance through. Just how I like it. :D I only have one character at level 3 right now and I don't even think I can make it alive through the second level of the Tower without being level 3-4.
That's particularly tough with my multiclassers because they only get hitpoints when the average level goes up. x.x Poor Alexsei is a Warrior/Priest level 2 with only 7 hp! And Ryshy has 4! FOUR. Thank goodness there are no criticals that would make her hit herself with her staff or something. Atma has 20 HP though. Haha. She's tough.
I'm finding that it's great to have multiple spellcasters, even if it's just secondary. I think Ryshy is going to be very, very crucial to party survival because I gave her both the mage and priest spell lists. Mage spells are pretty damned awesome against the huge groups of enemies you eventually encounter (I have her using a sleep spell and an increase AC spell against enemies. Oh speaking of that, AC goes negative the better it is! It's so old D&D.) She also has healing magic, which Alexsei also supplements, though Ryshy is definitely better at it.
Thieves are exceedingly useful for getting treasure and going through locked doors. Just like in your typical dungeon adventure, not having one would be stupid. They can also hide and backstab, though the way you do this is not explicitly pointed out (it's actually Defend->Hide, then at the next turn you attack while in hiding). Poor Iluun is behind in level because I had to drop 500 xp each on the Disarming and Lockpicking abilities before I could put EP into his class level.
Now, because of multiclass I also have two Warriors. Alexsei and Atma are my front-liners. But Atmadja is the only dedicated Warrior. As a result, she has multiple modes of attack that other classes don't get (Lunge and Rage, I believe). Mostly I just use Precision Attacks, though. Alexsei gets Power Attack because I gave him a flail, and does pretty crushing damage when he hits, but Atma and Iluun hit more often.
Another thing we discovered by trial and error is that certain equipment screws up your spellcasting. I had Alexsei using a dagger and he couldn't use priest spells. Should have remembered about original D&D clerics. :P Priests wearing helms disrupts their casting too, and I think mages can't cast spells wearing anything heavier than a robe.
Anyway, at the moment I have I think 900 or so xp to earn, just on the first level, before I can even consider moving to the 2nd. Back to the grind? ^^; Actually, it's fun, at least for me, and it gives me something to do while lying down because I've exhausted myself sick lately. My head and my eyes hurt and I'm too weak to do much besides be sedentary. *sigh* I know. Jon nags me to take better care of myself. I SHOULD take better care of myself. But it's hard because stress comes more naturally to me than relaxation.
I wish I could say going out yesterday was fun, but it actually started bad because I had some sort of anxiety attack. It led to hours of a bad mood, and finally being so worn out and tired I couldn't enjoy much at all, beyond buying my game and the CDs: an album by Pelican, another by a band Jon and I hadn't heard of before but were attracted to by the *amazing* cover art (Baroness), and the one album I've been looking forward to... A Woman A Man Walked By, the second collaboration between PJ Harvey and John Parish.
I haven't heard it yet, because for some reason my computer is not finding the MP3s over the network (why oh why?) But when I do I will certainly write about it, as PJ Harvey is one of my all time favorite musicians. I was boggling that I have 9 of her albums... I think I'm only missing one of them, in fact!
*goes for her rest and Dark Spire playing now!*
