New character help

[Briareos]

I assume that you should just pick one college and stay with it. With that said what is the best starting setup for each college?

[Draigh]

There is no real best startup per college. Each skill can always be learned (although you might need to have a bit of luck for some of them).

The choice of courses is based purely upon which skills you would prefer to be tutored in. There are advantages in following courses and studying those skills instead of learning them on your own, but they are far from game breaking.

Most of the time it involves increases in relationship with fellow students, the professor that teaches it, and some abilities that add extra minor bonusses to those skills.

 

For example, Aranaz has History as one of it's courses.

The different study levels grant you a relationship improvement with several students and with professor Errus Viada.

It also grants you two spells, one pheme, two actions and one passive ability.

(to see the specifics, look here.)

 

So I would advice you to picture a character concept in your mind and just choose whatever fits that concept best. For example, if your character has an affinity with nature, pick Morvidus college. Then go for Zoology and Botany courses, perhaps Athletics or a bit of History to go along with it?

 

Have fun playing, and play several different characters with different skill sets.

[Adrian]

I would agree with Draigh, as unhelpful as it sounds. There really isn't a best collage as such, nor the best setup for any of the collages. (Aranaz rules!)

 

I think there are player preferences as well as character preferences but personally most of my characters have 1-2 magic classes, either revision and enchant being the core (Actually most fond of revision despite enchant having some amazing spells).

Incantation is often used in various events, so it certainly isn't a bad choice either. That said... it is pretty much open to anything.

[Mikka]

It may be worth noting, though, that you may wish the governing attributes of the classes you need to take (by collage) to the classes you want to take. For instance, two classes are governed by Finesse: Calligraphy and Incantation. Most of my Godina students thus study Calligraphy, and many of my Aranaz students thus study Incantation- because I'm already going to be raising that attribute anyway, so I might as well hit a two-fer. However, it really is one of those 'up to you' deals.

 

I can give you a few notes, though, although this is all 'opinion' stuff: the best start is a character you like taking courses you find cool with a background you find interesting, as the guys have noted.

 

Aranaz: consider adding Incantation to your Calligraphy and History. Besides that, take whatever. You're Aranaz, you're in the best collage (again, opinion stuff ;P), have a party. Oh, it may be worth noting: it's the only collage that doesn't require you to take a magic skill. I sometimes do experiments of trying to play a no-magic character attending a magic school. It usually ends in me giving up, as Adventuring can be near impossible without spell-casting, but it can be an amusing way to waste a seventh or so play-through.

 

Avila: There are quite a few actions in game that raise both Arithmetic and Geometry (including your Arithmetic Prof's back office), thus, it may be worth grabbing Arithmetic to go with the Geometry. There's no other course that requires Luck but Astrology, meaning that it sadly often gets skipped by others- so go all out and enjoy the Astrology stuff. Take the comet! Be a child of heroes! Also: one of Avila collages adventure is separated by gender, meaning it's worth playing Avila twice, both with a guy and a gal.

 

Durand: The first 'really' noteworthy collage, with three attributes required: Botany is Insight, Dialect is Intelligence, and Negation is Fitness. To make things easier when starting out, it's nice to have to focus on as few attributes as possible (you can raise attributes, but you often don't get a chance to really concentrate on it till midgame). I would thus skip Astrology, as well as the charm and finesse skills.

 

Godina: An interesting collage due to one thing: it's the only collage that doesn't have an intelligence required-course. Instead, it's fitness for athletics, insight for music, and finesse for incantation (another three-fer). This is the only collage where you can get away with using INT as a dump stat (...though many skills require int, so it is usually a good idea to have some), which means it's fun to ignore all those smarty subjects. Instead, try adding Negation, Calligraphy, Botany and Enchant. Well, three of those, anyway.

 

Hedi: Glamour and Rhetoric are Charm-based, while Grammar needs intelligence. As you're already taking two of the three talking skills, I like to add on Dialect, too (Intelligence), but that's a taste thing. No real notes here.

 

Morvidus: The most notable collage, as both Revision and Zoology require the same skill: Intelligence. No other collage does this. If you want to, go crazy by adding four of Arithmetic, Dialect, Geometry, Grammar and History. All your classes will depend on one attribute, meaning you can hyper-focus. On the other side, Morvidus is also a good collage to add Astrology to, as they can certainly spare the attribute points: the same goes for adding in glamour and rhetoric, or incantation and calligraphy, or fitness and negation, or the three insight skills... you get the picture. Morvidus is also probably the best collage for a power-gaming run, if you care for such things, as both Revision and Zoology are useful skills with nice Study Mastery bonuses.

 

Vernin: Arithmetic and Enchant, requiring Intelligence and Insight. As I mentioned for the Avila collage, Arithmetic and Geometry make happy friends, and they make really happy friends for Vernin. Leveling up Geometry often ends up getting you some points over in Engineering, which often leads to points in Forge(ing?), and Forge is one of those non-course skills that someone who does Enchanting is going to want to have. Here's another weird one: it doesn't go with the collages main attributes, but you may want to look at Calligraphy (governed, again, by Finesse). The Orthography subskill has some neat things if you want to do crafting (which is, er, a bit complicated in this game, but it can be fun).

 

 

Otherwise?

 

There are a few big things to note: first, students in your own collage generally try to make friends with you before they look to make friends elsewhere, so if you have a student you want to clique up with (particularly one who has high charm and is prone to making their own cliques if they aren't snatched up quick), it may be worthwhile to start in the same collage as they are.

 

Second, Incantation, Negation, and Revision have by far the most skill checks in the game (of courses you can take- befriend may beat them). Following them are likely Athletics and Glamour. Geometry and Grammar have the least, I believe: History and Arithmetic aren't exactly all that often called for in skill-checks, either, and you don't see much for Enchant as well.

 

Third, familiars. While I'd feel free to take one if you want one, you probably don't want to focus on it (by taking a lot of familiar backgrounds, for instance) unless you are both taking Zoology AND have a pretty good charm so you can raise 'Familiar Kinship' under social skills fast. Also, if you hit exotic and get the rabbit while not doing that zoology/familiar kinship deal, reload. Bunny has two adventures staring him, rather then the standard one adventure from the familiars point of view and one adventure where you and your familiar go party together, so unless you plan on raising your familiars stats a lot, bunny isn't all that useful.

 

Fourth, dump strength. Seriously. Don't be afraid to start with 1 strength. No courses require it, and you can get a sword that gives you plus one strength pretty early in game from an early adventure. Once you've goofed around a bit, it can be worth experimenting with a strength-y bully character (perhaps in Vernin), but don't worry about it for your first few play-throughs.