Deathlord: Building a Party

Before I get going with the adventure proper, I need to decide on a party. Party creation in Deathlord is incredibly important, because there are so many ways to go wrong. This is going to be a long post, because there's a lot to cover.

A party in Deathlord can have up to 6 characters. Using less than this number is madness. You can make a large roster of characters, then disperse parties and reform them at any time (helpful if your main party gets killed) but I'm going to stick to one main party.

Deathlord has no shortage of character classes--16 in total. 7 fighting classes, 4 thief classes, 4 caster classes, and 1 trash peasant class. There are also 3 fighter/caster hybrids and 1 thief/caster hybrid. Deathlord is heavily influenced by AD&D 1E, and most of the classes have direct 1E analogs, like an Illusionist class.

A note going forward: hybrids in this game are worthless as casters. There are 7 levels of spells, gained at levels 1,3,6,10,14,19, and 24 for purist casters. Multiply each of those numbers by 4 for hybrids (so level 4 spells at level 40, level 96 for level 7!) and you see why they are bad at casting. Endgame levels in this game are going to be in the 40s at absolute most but more likely in the 20s or 30s. Hybrids will never be able to cast anything worthwhile without an ungodly amount of grinding.

The default party--my first win was with a party of nearly identical composition. It was not easy.

Here are the classes:

SENSHI: (Warrior)
A generic, but solid front-line fighter type.

KISHI: (Knight)
A decent figher. Lowish HP for a front-liner, and as a Shisai hybrid they'll never be good casters. However the Kishi-only Holy Blade is a really good weapon.

RYOSHI: (Ranger)
A solid fighter/Shizen hybrid. The spells, while gained too slowly to be of much use, are nice to have. OK to use if you're not going to have a Shizen proper, but the critical Shizen spells start at level 4 so you may not ever be able to use them. Has some armor restrictions but they're not bad.

YABANJIN: (Barbarian)
Higher HP than any class, though their armor restrictions hurt. Probably not worth it.

KICHIGAI (Berserker)
High HP, and while they have some armor restrictions, they aren't too bad. The Kichigai-only Berzerk Sword only does moderate damage but strikes four times in a round. If all hit you can do a ton of damage. Name literally means "deviant" or "crazy person" in Japanese.

SAMURAI: (Self-explanatory)
A no-brainer class for a front-liner. Good HP and great equipment. The Samurai-only Katana is easy to find, hits very hard, and strikes twice per round.

RONIN: (Evil Knight)
Ronin are like Kishi but better. They have some pretty great exclusive equipment. The Unholy Blade is really powerful, and the Skull Shield is the best shield in the game. Definitely worth considering as a front-liner. As with all hybrids, not useful as a caster.

YAKUZA: (Thief)
Your stereotypical thief-archetype. Thieving in Deathlord mostly consists of picking locks, but also disarming traps and robbing merchants, though stealing in Deathlord is borderline pointless. Yakuza are the best class at these sorts of thieving tasks, but only middling in battle.

ANSATSUSHA: (Assassin)
Basically a Yakuza with better combat rolls and slightly weaker thief skills, The manual states that Ansatsusha can use heavy weapons, and if this were actually true they'd be a no-brainer for a thief character. In actuality their available equipment is identical to the Yakuza.  Not a terrible choice if you're going to have a thief, but you might as well go Yakuza for the best thieving skills.

NINJA: (Self-explanatory)
Ninjas have potential to be very powerful. A ninja does damage scaled to his or her level when fighting barehanded, and drops an AC point every few levels. The Ninja-only Nunchaku is surprisingly powerful too. At upper levels is theoretically a killing machine, but getting to that point is a challenge. Not really useful as a thief character because thieving skills are weak. They're much better on paper than in practice.

SHUKENJA: (Monk)
Basically a Ninja with lower HP, better thieving skills, a few Shisai spells, and worse combat skills. Like Ninjas, not really worth it. My first win in Deathlord had a Shukenja in the party and he was by far the weakest link until the very end of the game. He hit pretty hard bare-handed by that point though.

SHISAI: (Priest)
An essential character. Too many useful spells to note. Decent in the front lines too.

SHIZEN: (Druid)
Not as essential as a Shisai, but super useful. Survival without Level 4 Shizen spells is hard. Also a passable front-line fighter. Literally means "Nature" in Japanese.

MAHOTSUKAI: (Mage)
Critical. The Dungeon Teleport spell is too essential to pass up. It's basically a "bypass this stupid crap/get me the hell out of here" button which is needed in some of these dungeons. Enemy nuking spells are gravy.

GENKAI: (Illusionist)
Not as essential as other casters but still really useful. Can cast Waterwalking which is great, and is better than any other class for getting out of fights. Will be your MVP at the lowest levels with the HIBANA spell. I don't know where "Genkai" came from. Though the character 幻 pronounced "gen" means "illusion" so that's part of it I think.

KOSAKU: (Peasant)
I think they were going for "Peasant" with this but mistakenly took the word for "Sharecrop" instead. Utterly pointless unless you want even more pain than this game already gives you.

Get used to seeing this screen a lot--rolling good characters in Deathlord takes a lot of time!

Here's a TL/DR version of the classes. Melee and Missile are the maximum theoretical damage per round (not counting Strength bonuses, etc) the class can do if it's equipping its "best" (subjective) weapon. AC is also the max unadjusted AC the class can have with its best equipment. Special Gear indicates whether or not there are any items only characters of that class can use.

"Weapons" and "Armor" indicate the class of weapon and armor the class can use. The manual is dead wrong in a lot of places on this note--"# of weapons" actually refers to the maximum weapon class that the character class can use (0 I'm calling "Basic" and 3 as "Heavy") and the armor listings are just flat-out wrong; it works the exact same method as weapons, including shields, which the manual seems to suggest there extra restrictions.

Class	HP	Melee	Missile	AC	Weapons	Armor	Thievery	Magic	Special Gear
Senshi	10	17	18	-12	Heavy	Heavy	---	---	N
Kishi	8	18	18	-12	Heavy	Heavy	---	Slow Shisai	Y
Ryoshi	9	17	18	-8	Heavy	Medium	---	Slow Shizen	N
Yabanjin	12	17	18	-2	Heavy	Light	---	---	N
Kichigai	11	36	18	-6	Heavy	Medium	---	---	Y
Samurai	9	30	18	-11	Heavy	Heavy	---	---	Y
Ronin	8	19	18	-13	Heavy	Heavy	---	Slow Shisai	Y
Yakuza	6	13	11	-1	Light	Light	Good	---	N
Ansatsusha	6	13	11	-1	Light	Light	Average	---	N
Ninja	7	20*	11	2**	Light	None	Poor	---	Y
Shukenja	5	13*	11	4**	Light	None	Average	Slow Shisai	N
Shisai	8	12	6	-8	Priest	Medium	---	Shisai	Y
Shizen	8	12	6	-7	Priest	Medium	---	Shizen	Y
Mahotsukai	4	14	---	2	Basic	None	---	Mahotsukai	Y
Genkai	4	9	---	6	Basic	None	---	Genkai	N
Kosaku	6	13	11	-1	Light	Light	---	---	N

* Ninja and Shukenja maximum barehand damage scales with their level so theoretically these numbers can go much higher.
** Ninja and Shukenja similarly drop a point of AC every few (four I think?) levels.

There's a good variety of races in Deathlord, but like most RPGs of the period, race generally doesn't mean a whole lot. There's rarely much of a reason to use anything but humans--in almost all cases the minor stat bonuses the other races get doesn't anywhere near counteract the disadvantages. The races are:


HUMAN:
Humans are overall the best race because not only can they be anything, every other race has either a hit in its max STR or its max DEX that humans don't. 3-18 max stats across the board. (except size, which is 8-18)

TOSHI:
Not sure where this name came from (toshi means "year" and the manual says they're long-lived maybe?)--they're Deathlord's "elves." With poor max STR/CON they're bad fighters, but they're good mages as they have max 19 POW and INT. There's a Toshi-specific Light weapon that's really good, but you'll need to be in front row for that which is a bad idea with their physical stats.

NINTOSHI:
Deathlord "half-elves." "Nin" means human and "toshi" means--well, whatever the hell they were going for. Totally worthless--like humans except with max STR/CON of 15. Their minimum stats for the other scores are 5 or 6 instead of 3 but who cares?

KOBITO:
Stick "dwarf" into a Japanese-English dictionary, call it a day, and you get this race. Max 19 STR/CON so they make good fighters, with a slight hit to DEX. Worth considering for a fighting class. There's a nice Kobito-only weapon but it's not one you'd want to stick with long-term.

GNOME:
They didn't even try to Japan-ify this one. Not quite as useless as a Nintoshi (their STR/CON/DEX are all OK) but lower max stats than a Human otherwise so not really worth using. OK as a thief I guess.

OBAKE:
They were going for "goblin" on this one I think. Obake really means a generic monster though. Mediocre STR/CON but max 20 DEX makes for good thieves, if you ignore the fact that thieves in Deathlord will have to scrap it out in the front lines, where the STR/CON hit is a huge liability.

TROLL:
21 max STR and 20 max CON make Trolls great fighters, but only 13 max DEX pulls them down a little in the AC department. Has some hefty class restrictions too. Big SIZ makes it so they can smash down doors easily too. Probably the only race seriously worth considering besides Human or Toshi.

OGRE:
19 max STR and CON, but inferior stats to Kobito across the board. Only worth using if you desperately want a Samurai with 19 STR/CON since Kobito can't be Samurai. 19 max size so good at smashing down doors I guess? Though Trolls are better at that (max SIZ 21)


[Edit: After discovering that the "stat boosting pools" can bump stats up to 18 regardless of racial maximums, I have to revise the above; though it will take a long time and probably a lot of save scumming, some races are more viable than I initially thought. A front-line Kobito Shisai/Shizen with pool-boosted INT and 19 STR/CON, or an Obake thief character with pool-boosted STR/CON and DEX of 20 would be great, for example.]


Also, let's have a look at those stats for an explanation.

STRENGTH:
Affects damage done in combat and ability to bash down doors. Might give you a bonus to hit as well, the game definitely accesses the strength variable when you attack, whether you connect or not.

CONSTITUTION:
Affects bonus HP. I think that's all it does. That's really important in Deathlord though.

SIZE: 
Affects the ability to knock down doors. That's definitely all it does. (The manual says that small size helps when you Hide, but I know the game doesn't read that stat value when you try so I think it's a misprint)

INTELLIGENCE: 
Affects spellcasting and MP regeneration. Might affect damage done and chance to succeed/fail for all-or-nothing spells, it's tough to say.

DEXTERITY: 
Affects chance to dodge (but not to hit) enemies, chance of lockpicking/disarming traps, and chance to succeed when hiding.

CHARISMA:
Affects negotiations when you're trying to bribe monsters to leave you alone.

POWER:
Maximum MP.


So, with all that covered, here's the party I'm picking.

My team of heroes, ready to die like animals

Shuten, Troll Kichigai (Named after Shuten-Doji, a legendary Oni)
Yoshinaka, Human Samurai (Named after Minamoto Yoshinaka, a famous Heian-era warrior)
Shigeko, Human Shisai (Named after the consort of Heian emperor Go-Shirakawa)
Gio, Human Shizen (Named after a Shirabyoshi dancer from Tale of the Heike)
Tomoe, Toshi Mahotsukai (Named after the consort/wife of the aforementioned Yoshinaka)
Frank, Toshi Genkai (Named on a whim)

Party composition is a tough choice in Deathlord because there are four caster types, all of whom have really critical spells, but only three back-row slots. The choice is to either sacrifice a spellcasting class (hybrids will not fill in adequately) or stick a caster in the front row. Having played both ways, I find that the latter is infinitely better in the long run. The Shisai and Shizen will have to take turns fighting in the front ranks.

That means for the remainder I need either two fighters or one fighter and one thief. I opted to dump the thief because they can't punch hard enough, with the exception of a super-high level ninja/shukenja, which will be too squishy for too long. I'm going for Kichigai and Samurai because they both hit hard with the right equipment. My Troll Kichigai will serve as my "thief" by smashing down doors.

There are other strategies for making a party, but I'm thinking more along the lines of long-term survivability, This is more of an offensive than a defensive party; something like a Senshi or Ronin instead of the Kichigai would be more defense-oriented.

In the next post, I'll actually start the game proper.