What a great game.
Well no, maybe I shouldn't say that. After all, the ace attorney games barely qualify as being video games. There is no gameplay to really speak off really. Now I'm not complaining, I love it, but yeah, video games? Not so sure. Definitely more like interactive novels. Although Apollo Justice is being designed from the ground up for the DS, so I expect a lot more gameplay out of it, kinda like that great stuff there was in the last case of the first Ace Attorney game for the DS.
But really, lack of gameplay aside, AA3 is a great experience. It closes the Phoenix Wright trilogy with a bang and with great emotion, leaving me satisfied with all the hours I spent on the series so far. I still think the first game is better though, but that's kind of an unfair comparison since they added a whole new case in it that was DS only, while the other two games were straight ports. Without that last case, AA1 would be second behind AA3 for sure. One thing that is important about the series is that you just can't start with the second game or the third game. Someone who would try out the third game without having played the first and second would miss out on SO much stuff that it just doesn't make sense to do so. For anyone out there wanting to start playing this series, you have two choices: Start with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, or start with Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice. Although Phoenix is a big part of Justice (at least it seems so), I expect most of the storylines to revolve around the new cast of characters. Thus newcomers to the series won't feel left out.
I suggest you start out with the very first game though. I mean, they're all great, would be kind of a waste to miss out on all of that right? It would be kind like watching Dragon Ball Z without having seen Dragon Ball first. It can surely be done, but it's much more fun to start with the first series. On top of that Dragon Ball is much better than Dragon Ball Z IMO (at least the anime is).
Did I ever mention that I really liked the last episode of Dragon Ball GT? I really liked the sendoff they did for Goku, with the shots of him as a kid and all that. It was kind of neat! After nearly 300 episodes of almost crap I really needed that.
Ok back to AA. Now I'm ready to move on to Apollo Justice. Everything that could be told about Phoenix and his friends has been told during the first three games and now a new story begins in february. I can't wait. For now though, I'm here to say that Trials and tribulations was GREAT and a very fitting end to the Phoenix saga. I'd give it a....hmmm....9/10.
So far, this is how I rated the series:
AA1: 9.7/10
AA2: 8/10
AA3: 9/10
Not too shabby!
So what am I gonna play next? Well before starting Trials I was playing Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Honestly, I'm not too much into it. It's a good game, make no mistake about that, but it hasn't grabbed me. I'm honestly starting to believe that Strategy RPG's are not for me. Yeah, I was MADLY IN LOVE (ROFL, can I even say that about a video game?) with Final Fantasy Tactics about 10 years ago, but since then I haven't played ONE SRPG that I found up to my liking. Either FFT is that much better than everything else, or maybe afterwards I just suddenly stopped liking the genre without noticing.
We'll know soon enough, once I get my hands on the FFT re-release on the PSP. We'll know then and there if FFT was really something special or if I'm just crazy.
While I'm talking about the PSP, that new PSP they released about 5 months back is still slightly tempting me. I just like to always game on the best possible system. The problem with it is that there's like NO FREAKING IMPROVEMENTS? Ok well, the loading times got better...on select games. From what I understand, new games will greatly benefit from the 64mb of ram, but older games won't really because they weren't coded with the ram in mind. Some people tell me that it doesn't make sense because on a computer adding ram ALWAYS improved the system.
The PSP ain't a PC people. It's a game console, and games for consoles are always tightly coded with a specific set of hardware in mind. Console games probably have their memory management hardcoded in them, meaning that doubling the ram for those games won't do squat.
Some people are saying that the screen looks better than the old PSP, but hey, why am I not reading anything about that? Sony never mentioned replacing the screens. On top of that, can the colors actually be BETTER on that thing? Plus, the biggest problem with the screen wasn't the coloring, it was the freaking refresh rate. Just moving in an RPG game makes you dizzy since everything becomes bluuuuuuurryyyyyyyy. God damn that's annoying, and I KNOW they haven't fixed that in the new PSP. Yeah they added a freaking TV out, but really what's the point? I have a hard time seeing myself playing my PSP on my pc monitor. I like to cuddle on my sofa with my dog when playing a portable game.
Plus, I haven't really yet played a PSP game with the notable exception of Lumines. If at a certain point I realize that the refresh rate (or the loading) is making PSP games near unplayable, maybe I'd be more interesting in playing it on my monitor.
..ok so to come back to my "what am I gonna play next" post, since I'm not too hot about Fire Emblem, I don't feel like going back to it. So I have three choices I'd say:
1. Twilight Princess. Yeah, pretty good choice I'd say.
2. Mega Man X Collection. Light stuff, good choice too.
3. God of War. Really good choice...but it's a PS2 game.
I decided a couple of months ago that I was going to finish everyone of my GC game. I have three games left at the moment: Fire Emblem, Twilight Princess and MMX Collection. So playing God of War is sort of weird since it's a PS2 game, but at the same time it ain't weird because my friend lent it to me.
The more I think about it, the more I think I don't have a choice. I can't finish my GC games, and then go back to Ultima without having played God of War. It's disrespectful to your friends to just keep their games for 6 months without playing them. Usually, when someone graciously lends you one of their games, you should play the game right away and give it back to him as soon as possible. So I think I'm going to dive into God of War, finish that quickly (I know it's a rather short game, maybe a week of good gaming at the most), and give it back to him. Afterwards I'll see what I want to do with my three remaining GC games.
Okay I'm tired of writing!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Video card debacle
So my video card fan doesn't work anymore. A couple weeks ago it started making weird noises, after a week they stopped. I thought, naively, that it had fixed itself.
yeah, right, it fixed itself by dying.
Looking back, the funny thing about this is that the card always overheated a bit. I always got a couple of funny looking colored pixels in my videos from time to time, never understanding where they came from. But in the last couple of days I started to get SO much that I had to start investigating. So from the get go, my card was slightly overheating.
The card in question is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb. It was, supposedly, a brand new card ATI sent me when I rma'd to them my previous 9800. Well, it was having problems from the minute I received it it seems. It lasted me about a year before the fan died.
It still works fine though. Using ATI TOOLS I dropped down the core clock and memory clock about 78 mhz each, and now I don't get any pixels at all and everything seems pretty smooth. The heatsink must work pretty well on that thing. But now I'm stuck with an underpowered video card with no working fan.
What is a guy to do? Well, the logical answer is: upgrade. Problem is, my system is pushing 4 and a half years old at this point, and it doesn't have a PCI express port. That means no modern video card for me. Anyway, even if I did have one of those, the rest of my components are pretty ancient: AMD Athlon XP 2800+. 1gb of PC2700 ram (running at 333mhz in dual channel on an Nvidia nforce2 motherboard). So a top of the line wouldn't do much for the system anyway since it would be bottlenecked by it.
Usually, in the past, I would have said "NICE! A busted component! This means it is time to upgrade!". But this time it's different. I like my system. In fact I love it. It's the best system I've ever owned (it's my fourth system total and the second one I built). It's really stable still after all those years and does everything I want out of it. Plus, I've pretty much stopped being a modern PC gamer, all of my modern gaming is done on consoles. All of the games I play on the PC are older games that my PC can run easily.
So to me, there's no reason to upgrade. My PC still does everything I want it to do. If I upgraded, I'd end up with a 64 bit processor, and from what I understand, those processors work best when used with a 64 bit operating system. Well I have a legal copy of Windows XP Home edition 32 bit, but no 64 bit OS. Also, I know that most programs out there aren't really compatible with 64 bit OS's, and since most of my interest in programs and games these days belong to the ancient, I just can't see how upgrading to a 64 bit OS would help me.
No matter how I see it, upgrading doesn't fit my current PC needs. Windows XP still works great, I still need to run a 32 bit OS, and I don't really need more power. More power is always nice I grant you that, but I don't need it.
So that leaves me with the dirty option of looking at AGP video cards.
Now the first thing you notice when looking at those, is that you get fucked up the ass. Most AGP cards are gimped versions of their PCI-E counterparts. You see a card and you're like "HOLY MOLY THAT'S AN AWESOME CARD!" and the next thing you know, it runs with slower ram, a slower core and it has less bandwidth.
And get this: It's usually more expensive than the PCI-E version. So you're paying more for less. Yippie.
But if you're like me and upgrading isn't really an option, then you don't have much of a choice.
Now, I have two criterias for video cards: First, it has to somewhat outperform my 9800 Pro. I mean, it sucks to pay money for a new video card when it's not really better than what you used to have. That's like wasting your money. If you're going to spend money, at least get something better than what you used to have.
Second, it needs to run with a 350 watts PSU. I have a 350 watts Enermax PSU, and at this point...it's probably something like five years old. That's an eternity for any PC component, and for the PSU it's probably even worse. That means that it's just not as efficient as it used to be. That could cause problems. So in a way, the more powerful the new card will be, the more risks I take of it not working well with my PSU.
Those two criterias are the two main ones, but there's a couple of others who factor into my decision:
Third, the warranty needs to be good. I could keep this system for another two, or maybe even three years, easily. I'm still very satisfied with my PC today, so what's the chance of me suddenly wanting to upgrade in a year? Not likely. I think this PC still has a solid two years left in it. Like I said, all it needs to do at this point is run old games. So really, there's no point in buying a video card with a one year warranty and having to go through this again in 14 months. If I'm buying a video card, I want it to be last all the way to my next complete upgrade. That means the warranty can't be less than two years long. Also, it means I can't really look to the used video cards market for a quick solution. Older but powerful cards, such as the X850 or x800, are great but they're legacy cards by now. If I buy one used I'm on my own and won't get warranty service if it breaks, which is not what I'm looking for.
That also applies for more modern cards, I saw a brand new BFG 6800 GT on ebay at a good price, but you can't register that card on the company's website anymore. If you can't register it, you can't receive service for it. Most companies, like EVGA, require a copy of the original receipt
to grant you warranty service. If you bought your card on ebay you won't have that to show them. I bought my ATi 9800 Pro on ebay in july 2003, but I registered it right away when I received it. Some companies might not require you to have a receipt, but most require a proof of purchase before giving you warranty service.
What this means is that it's not a good idea to buy your card used if you care about keeping it for years. Although someone could tell me "Well you could buy two cards at 70$ each in a span of three years, or one card for 140$. In the end it's the same". And they'd be right. I have to keep that in mind.
What else? Well, there's also the fact that I prefer modern cards to older cards. I'm having some problems with my DVI display and my Radeon 9800 Pro, and I'm blaming it on the literally ANCIENT and almost first version of the DVI plug on the 9800. The card has a hard time changing resolutions, sometimes the resolution looks really messed up and I have to switch it a couple of times to fix it.
So okay, enough of that, let's see the options:
1. Geforce 7300 GT
This is the first one that caught my eye. Ncix has a real good deal on one, 74.99$ plus you get a postal rebate of 25$. I usually don't really factor rebates in my decisions since it takes you three months to receive them. By the time you receive your 25$ you don't care about it anymore. As far as I'm concerned, that card would cost me 97$ final with shipping and taxes.
The problem is that it's a weak ass card. I'm not even sure that it's better than my 9800 Pro, in fact it could be worse. Tom's hardware says that it's like, one little itty bitty notch better than the 9800 pro, which means that I'd be paying 97$ for a card that will perform the same. I don't like that. That's a lot of money to spend to keep the status quo. So it's cheap, from every aspect.
2. Geforce 7600 GS
Ok that one is more interesting. It's more powerful than the 7300 GT (not by a lot, but it would be noticeable. We're talking 10 to 20 fps more on average), so it would be noticeably better than my 9800 pro. Not that it matters much, since I don't think I play any games in which I would notice a performance boost. But at least I would be paying for something better. Maybe NWN would be smoother?...I doubt it, it's smooth enough as it is. Oh well.
The problem with is, really, is that it's sandwiched between the cheaper and not that much weaker 7300 GT, and the 7600 GT. The 7600 GT AGP is basically an overclocked version of the 7600 GS, but from my estimates, it would cost me only 20$ more. For 20$ I'll take the stronger card for sure. I usually see the 7600 GS for around 100$, with taxes and shipping it's up to 130$. There's also a 20$ from evga if you buy one before the end of January. So I guess that would make it 110$...110$ in three months that is.
3. Geforce 7600 GT AGP
This card pisses me off. The PCI-E version of this card is truly a great card, but the AGP version is basically a slightly overclocked 7600 GS. So obviously, it will perform a little better than the 7600 GS, but it's hard to judge how much since there isn't any benchmarks for old AGP cards like that. Future shop currently has a deal on one of those for 129.99, with taxes it would cost me 150$. So that means that it would cost 20$ more than the 7600 GS. For 20$ i'd take the 7600 GT in a heartbeat. Then again, if you buy the card on ncix you get a 20$ rebate on the 7600 GS, so I don't know. I'm not sure the performance gain from the higher core clock deserves a 40$ raise...but it is a more modern card. From what I learned, the 7600 GS is the older of the three cards I talked about so far.
4. Geforce 7800 GS
Well, honestly, this card is too expensive. On top of that, it's probably too powerful for my system anyway, making my PSU sweat and being bottlenecked all over. But hey, it's a nice card.
So how about some radeons? From what I saw there's only really one choice:
5. Radeon X1650 Pro
Now this is kind of the card the complicates things. Normally, the x1650 blows out the first three cards in this list. But there's a LOT of variations of this card on the market. In fact, I think all of them out there nowadays are quite weak, about on par with the specs for the 7600 GS. The price though is usually pretty good, priced slightly lower than the 7600 GS. But most Radeons have only a one year warranty, although Sapphire seems to offer two years. Also, some cards seem to require a powerful PSU, such as the Diamond X1650 Pro, which requires a 420W PSU. Before you tell me that it's bull and that it doesn't truly require that kind of power, bear in mind that on NCIX.com there are TWO threads about guys having problems running this card with a 350W PSU, and guess what? They're both enermax PSU's. And mine to boot is 5 years old.
Yeah, kinda stressful. The reference design of the card from ATI required only a 350W PSU though, so the higher requirements of the diamond card are probably due to a new heatsink.
But still, the problem with the X1650 is that it's either too demanding on the power, or the warranty is not long enough, or maybe you just don't have a freaking clue what you're getting. A local store has a Sapphire X1650 Pro for like 87$ before taxes, which looks like a sweet deal, but there's no indication of what exactly their card has under the hood. And since it's a small shop, they probably don't carry the cards in store, so they'd have to order them. Generally quite annoying.
But then again, even the weak version of the x1650 Pro can probably compete, or beat, an 7600 GS. The best version, which I highly doubt is the one my local store sells, probably beats the 7600 GT, or at least can compete with it. And the card is cheaper than both the 7600 GS and the 7600 GT. It only has a two year warranty, but that could be enough. If my video card breaks again in two years, then It'd probably be time to upgrade anyway.
So I don't know about the x1650. I would have liked to switch from ATI to Nvidia. I've been with ATI for a while now, I'm due for a change. But I'm not sure if the economics of it are making sense at this point. Then again, keep in mind that's it's not a sure thing that an X1650 pro with the same specs as the 7600 GS would beat it. If you check out on VGA charts, what seems to truly make the difference for the original x1650 pro was its DDR3 memory. If you compare the 7600GS to an X1600 pro, which uses DDR2 memory, the ATI gets clobbered, even though it has a higher clock rate than the 7600 GS. The GS even beats the X1600 XT, which uses DDR3 memory. So a weak ATI X1650 Pro in NO WAY is assured of beating even an 7600 GS, so surely not the 7600 GT.
EDIT: I just rechecked the vga charts on Tom's hardware, and I was surprised. I don't know where I got the idea that the X1650 pro was killing the 7600 GS, because really the race is quite tight. The pro beats the 7600 GS in pretty much every test, but never really by more than 5 fps and it's usually closer than. That means that a weak version of the X1650 pro would probably lose to the 7600 GS in pretty much every test. Really really interesting. That totally devalues the X1650 since I'm pretty sure that the one being sold right now is the weak version. The 7600 GT probably beats even the full X1650 pro though, which I need to keep in mind.
Okay so that's enough writing for now. I'll finish it later.
yeah, right, it fixed itself by dying.
Looking back, the funny thing about this is that the card always overheated a bit. I always got a couple of funny looking colored pixels in my videos from time to time, never understanding where they came from. But in the last couple of days I started to get SO much that I had to start investigating. So from the get go, my card was slightly overheating.
The card in question is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb. It was, supposedly, a brand new card ATI sent me when I rma'd to them my previous 9800. Well, it was having problems from the minute I received it it seems. It lasted me about a year before the fan died.
It still works fine though. Using ATI TOOLS I dropped down the core clock and memory clock about 78 mhz each, and now I don't get any pixels at all and everything seems pretty smooth. The heatsink must work pretty well on that thing. But now I'm stuck with an underpowered video card with no working fan.
What is a guy to do? Well, the logical answer is: upgrade. Problem is, my system is pushing 4 and a half years old at this point, and it doesn't have a PCI express port. That means no modern video card for me. Anyway, even if I did have one of those, the rest of my components are pretty ancient: AMD Athlon XP 2800+. 1gb of PC2700 ram (running at 333mhz in dual channel on an Nvidia nforce2 motherboard). So a top of the line wouldn't do much for the system anyway since it would be bottlenecked by it.
Usually, in the past, I would have said "NICE! A busted component! This means it is time to upgrade!". But this time it's different. I like my system. In fact I love it. It's the best system I've ever owned (it's my fourth system total and the second one I built). It's really stable still after all those years and does everything I want out of it. Plus, I've pretty much stopped being a modern PC gamer, all of my modern gaming is done on consoles. All of the games I play on the PC are older games that my PC can run easily.
So to me, there's no reason to upgrade. My PC still does everything I want it to do. If I upgraded, I'd end up with a 64 bit processor, and from what I understand, those processors work best when used with a 64 bit operating system. Well I have a legal copy of Windows XP Home edition 32 bit, but no 64 bit OS. Also, I know that most programs out there aren't really compatible with 64 bit OS's, and since most of my interest in programs and games these days belong to the ancient, I just can't see how upgrading to a 64 bit OS would help me.
No matter how I see it, upgrading doesn't fit my current PC needs. Windows XP still works great, I still need to run a 32 bit OS, and I don't really need more power. More power is always nice I grant you that, but I don't need it.
So that leaves me with the dirty option of looking at AGP video cards.
Now the first thing you notice when looking at those, is that you get fucked up the ass. Most AGP cards are gimped versions of their PCI-E counterparts. You see a card and you're like "HOLY MOLY THAT'S AN AWESOME CARD!" and the next thing you know, it runs with slower ram, a slower core and it has less bandwidth.
And get this: It's usually more expensive than the PCI-E version. So you're paying more for less. Yippie.
But if you're like me and upgrading isn't really an option, then you don't have much of a choice.
Now, I have two criterias for video cards: First, it has to somewhat outperform my 9800 Pro. I mean, it sucks to pay money for a new video card when it's not really better than what you used to have. That's like wasting your money. If you're going to spend money, at least get something better than what you used to have.
Second, it needs to run with a 350 watts PSU. I have a 350 watts Enermax PSU, and at this point...it's probably something like five years old. That's an eternity for any PC component, and for the PSU it's probably even worse. That means that it's just not as efficient as it used to be. That could cause problems. So in a way, the more powerful the new card will be, the more risks I take of it not working well with my PSU.
Those two criterias are the two main ones, but there's a couple of others who factor into my decision:
Third, the warranty needs to be good. I could keep this system for another two, or maybe even three years, easily. I'm still very satisfied with my PC today, so what's the chance of me suddenly wanting to upgrade in a year? Not likely. I think this PC still has a solid two years left in it. Like I said, all it needs to do at this point is run old games. So really, there's no point in buying a video card with a one year warranty and having to go through this again in 14 months. If I'm buying a video card, I want it to be last all the way to my next complete upgrade. That means the warranty can't be less than two years long. Also, it means I can't really look to the used video cards market for a quick solution. Older but powerful cards, such as the X850 or x800, are great but they're legacy cards by now. If I buy one used I'm on my own and won't get warranty service if it breaks, which is not what I'm looking for.
That also applies for more modern cards, I saw a brand new BFG 6800 GT on ebay at a good price, but you can't register that card on the company's website anymore. If you can't register it, you can't receive service for it. Most companies, like EVGA, require a copy of the original receipt
to grant you warranty service. If you bought your card on ebay you won't have that to show them. I bought my ATi 9800 Pro on ebay in july 2003, but I registered it right away when I received it. Some companies might not require you to have a receipt, but most require a proof of purchase before giving you warranty service.
What this means is that it's not a good idea to buy your card used if you care about keeping it for years. Although someone could tell me "Well you could buy two cards at 70$ each in a span of three years, or one card for 140$. In the end it's the same". And they'd be right. I have to keep that in mind.
What else? Well, there's also the fact that I prefer modern cards to older cards. I'm having some problems with my DVI display and my Radeon 9800 Pro, and I'm blaming it on the literally ANCIENT and almost first version of the DVI plug on the 9800. The card has a hard time changing resolutions, sometimes the resolution looks really messed up and I have to switch it a couple of times to fix it.
So okay, enough of that, let's see the options:
1. Geforce 7300 GT
This is the first one that caught my eye. Ncix has a real good deal on one, 74.99$ plus you get a postal rebate of 25$. I usually don't really factor rebates in my decisions since it takes you three months to receive them. By the time you receive your 25$ you don't care about it anymore. As far as I'm concerned, that card would cost me 97$ final with shipping and taxes.
The problem is that it's a weak ass card. I'm not even sure that it's better than my 9800 Pro, in fact it could be worse. Tom's hardware says that it's like, one little itty bitty notch better than the 9800 pro, which means that I'd be paying 97$ for a card that will perform the same. I don't like that. That's a lot of money to spend to keep the status quo. So it's cheap, from every aspect.
2. Geforce 7600 GS
Ok that one is more interesting. It's more powerful than the 7300 GT (not by a lot, but it would be noticeable. We're talking 10 to 20 fps more on average), so it would be noticeably better than my 9800 pro. Not that it matters much, since I don't think I play any games in which I would notice a performance boost. But at least I would be paying for something better. Maybe NWN would be smoother?...I doubt it, it's smooth enough as it is. Oh well.
The problem with is, really, is that it's sandwiched between the cheaper and not that much weaker 7300 GT, and the 7600 GT. The 7600 GT AGP is basically an overclocked version of the 7600 GS, but from my estimates, it would cost me only 20$ more. For 20$ I'll take the stronger card for sure. I usually see the 7600 GS for around 100$, with taxes and shipping it's up to 130$. There's also a 20$ from evga if you buy one before the end of January. So I guess that would make it 110$...110$ in three months that is.
3. Geforce 7600 GT AGP
This card pisses me off. The PCI-E version of this card is truly a great card, but the AGP version is basically a slightly overclocked 7600 GS. So obviously, it will perform a little better than the 7600 GS, but it's hard to judge how much since there isn't any benchmarks for old AGP cards like that. Future shop currently has a deal on one of those for 129.99, with taxes it would cost me 150$. So that means that it would cost 20$ more than the 7600 GS. For 20$ i'd take the 7600 GT in a heartbeat. Then again, if you buy the card on ncix you get a 20$ rebate on the 7600 GS, so I don't know. I'm not sure the performance gain from the higher core clock deserves a 40$ raise...but it is a more modern card. From what I learned, the 7600 GS is the older of the three cards I talked about so far.
4. Geforce 7800 GS
Well, honestly, this card is too expensive. On top of that, it's probably too powerful for my system anyway, making my PSU sweat and being bottlenecked all over. But hey, it's a nice card.
So how about some radeons? From what I saw there's only really one choice:
5. Radeon X1650 Pro
Now this is kind of the card the complicates things. Normally, the x1650 blows out the first three cards in this list. But there's a LOT of variations of this card on the market. In fact, I think all of them out there nowadays are quite weak, about on par with the specs for the 7600 GS. The price though is usually pretty good, priced slightly lower than the 7600 GS. But most Radeons have only a one year warranty, although Sapphire seems to offer two years. Also, some cards seem to require a powerful PSU, such as the Diamond X1650 Pro, which requires a 420W PSU. Before you tell me that it's bull and that it doesn't truly require that kind of power, bear in mind that on NCIX.com there are TWO threads about guys having problems running this card with a 350W PSU, and guess what? They're both enermax PSU's. And mine to boot is 5 years old.
Yeah, kinda stressful. The reference design of the card from ATI required only a 350W PSU though, so the higher requirements of the diamond card are probably due to a new heatsink.
But still, the problem with the X1650 is that it's either too demanding on the power, or the warranty is not long enough, or maybe you just don't have a freaking clue what you're getting. A local store has a Sapphire X1650 Pro for like 87$ before taxes, which looks like a sweet deal, but there's no indication of what exactly their card has under the hood. And since it's a small shop, they probably don't carry the cards in store, so they'd have to order them. Generally quite annoying.
But then again, even the weak version of the x1650 Pro can probably compete, or beat, an 7600 GS. The best version, which I highly doubt is the one my local store sells, probably beats the 7600 GT, or at least can compete with it. And the card is cheaper than both the 7600 GS and the 7600 GT. It only has a two year warranty, but that could be enough. If my video card breaks again in two years, then It'd probably be time to upgrade anyway.
So I don't know about the x1650. I would have liked to switch from ATI to Nvidia. I've been with ATI for a while now, I'm due for a change. But I'm not sure if the economics of it are making sense at this point. Then again, keep in mind that's it's not a sure thing that an X1650 pro with the same specs as the 7600 GS would beat it. If you check out on VGA charts, what seems to truly make the difference for the original x1650 pro was its DDR3 memory. If you compare the 7600GS to an X1600 pro, which uses DDR2 memory, the ATI gets clobbered, even though it has a higher clock rate than the 7600 GS. The GS even beats the X1600 XT, which uses DDR3 memory. So a weak ATI X1650 Pro in NO WAY is assured of beating even an 7600 GS, so surely not the 7600 GT.
EDIT: I just rechecked the vga charts on Tom's hardware, and I was surprised. I don't know where I got the idea that the X1650 pro was killing the 7600 GS, because really the race is quite tight. The pro beats the 7600 GS in pretty much every test, but never really by more than 5 fps and it's usually closer than. That means that a weak version of the X1650 pro would probably lose to the 7600 GS in pretty much every test. Really really interesting. That totally devalues the X1650 since I'm pretty sure that the one being sold right now is the weak version. The 7600 GT probably beats even the full X1650 pro though, which I need to keep in mind.
Okay so that's enough writing for now. I'll finish it later.
Monday, December 17, 2007
My DnD party...oh the headaches!
One day I expect that I will tackle the whole suite of DnD games available on the PC, or at least a good portion of the games, such as Eye of the Beholder 1-3, Icewind Dale 1-2, Baldur's Gate 2 (already did 1) and..that's pretty much it.
After going through Ultima III I realized that I really like the concept of creating a party of characters based on my real life friends. It adds an authenticity to the game that is truly special. I'd go as far as to say that I prefer to play my friends rather than with npc's, who have more personality.
So since playing U3, I've been wondering. What would a full party look like? What classes are my friends most suited for? I've been thinking SO much about it you guys can't believe. So I've decided to write about it, and get it off clean. Let's start.
First off, we have to see who is up for contention to become a virtual character! First off there's me, obviously, as Grahf. Then there's my dog Shogun, another obvious choice. Afterwards it gets a bit more muddy but I expect Pedro, Osman and Helen to be in there. That's five characters. Some games, such as eye of the beholder, only allow you to create a party of four (with the possibility of adding two npc characters to the party during the game), while in other games, such as Icewind Dale, you can create up to six. In Baldur's Gate it's a bit different, since normally in BG you create only one character and fill out the other five slots with npc's during the game. However I want to play with my friends, so what I'd do is start off a multiplayer game, create my own characters and then import them in the single player mode. So in theory I could create all six characters in Baldur's Gate.
The problem is that some of the npc's bring quests with them. So it's interesting to at least have a slot open for NPC's, so that you can do their quests. The best way to do it would probably be to go the Eye of the Beholder way, as in create four characters and leave two spots open for NPC's, since having only one spot open would mean that I would have to constantly shuffle the NPC's in and out which sounds a bit annoying...but could be worth it to have my full gang in, since we total five.
For Icewind Dale I would possibly need a sixth character, although I don't HAVE to. We can play with five and the experience will come faster that way, especially if we have a couple of multiclassed characters. But the most important thing is to have a complete party. To have a complete party, we need four things:
a tanker
an healer
a thief type
and a mage
The typical DnD party is a fighter, a cleric, a thief and a mage. Personally I like to have at least three warriors in my parties since I like physical play, and I don't like magic much. I think magic is a hassle to be honest, I'd rather not use it most of the time except when forced to. My usual type of gameplay is to rush every enemy and hack them to pieces, and if somehow that doesn't work then I'd step back and start assessing the situation.
Now what we need to figure out is what each person on the team would be the best at. Let's start with me.
GRAHF
I always play fighters. My main character has never been other than a fighter so I'm used to it. My dad liked fighters and he sort of passed that down to me.
Grahf's pros: very high strength, high constitution, high intelligence, very high wisdom, above average charisma.
Grahf's cons: low-average dexterity
I think this shows that I have a high opinion of myself :) I'm good at a lot of stuff. My two highest stats would be Strength and wisdom, with constitution and intelligence trailing not too far behind. My friends usually see me as the 'sage' type in our group, and I fit the description of the hermit living in his cave the best out of all of us. I definitely would be the best at being the voice of reason, with Helen possibly being a close second, but she'd be a lot more annoying in that role, no one wants her to be the voice of reason that would be crazy!
So what can Grahf be with those strengths? Well he can be a lot of things. He can be a warrior, helped with high strength and constitution. He could be a cleric, backed also with high strength and constitution but with a good dose of wisdom. He could be a mage...but Grahf's never been a mage and that would be a waste of his strength. A perfect mage would normally require a good dose of dexterity to compensate for the lack of armor, which Grahf doesn't have. And although Grahf will have high intelligence, he'll still have a point or two less than Osman will, and as I said earlier I don't like mages much so I'm not going to have three. One is enough.
He has perfect stats for dual classing, but I don't like the concept. It's also not a realistic concept in terms of adventuring, and also in term of the games. He could multiclass though, but then that brings the other problem of slow leveling.
If I take a look at the base classes, from a pure standpoint you can eliminate Wizard and thief right away. Playing a pure wizard would be a waste of my talents while I don't have the dex for a thief. Obviously the fighting classes would work, but I can't see myself as a paladin because of the personality issues, and I don't have the charisma for it either. I can't see myself as a ranger because...that would be just weird. Barbarian is a bit weird too, I mean, a barbarian with high wisdom and intelligence? Barbarian would fit Shogun a lot better.
So that would leave fighter, but fighter a bit simple. I'm wasting all that wisdom if I'm playing a fighter.
So how about the cleric? That one is interesting. My high strength would benefit the cleric in close combat, my high constitution would give me HP bonuses at level up, and my high wisdom would greatly help in spellcasting (since the cleric depends on wisdom for spells and not intelligence like the mage). I see myself more as a cleric than I do as a mage, since clerics are basically spellcasting...bunkers. I say bunkers, because clerics from a fighting point of view are not as good as the pure fighting classes. That bugs me a bit, because That would make me a secondary melee character, which Grahf has never been. I still would be good, especially with 18 STR, but I wouldn't be tops.
Forget the druid, and a bard? The thing is that I see a bard as a jack of all trades, and I think Grahf's stats are generally too high to qualify. Why would someone with high STR and high CON play a bard? With low dex to boot. Bard requires 15 charisma which I'm not sure I have, probably more of a 13 or maybe a 14 in that regard.
I mean it could be interesting, that would be a really really powerful bard, that it still doesn't make much sense. Since I have low dex I can't really be an archer, and with the armor restrictions a bard has I wouldn't have much of an armor class either. That, couple with the relatively low hit points of the bard class, means that I would get slaughtered in close combat. Just doesn't make sense.
How about a multiclassed Fighter/Cleric? Now that's sort of interesting. In the end, the cleric seems to be the best class for Grahf, but it would depend on the party. If there's already three warriors in the party, then Grahf should be a pure cleric. If there lacks a warrior, then he could multiclass. It also depends on the game.
So Grahf should be a Cleric, a Fighter, or both.
A thing that could be interesting with Grahf would be to dual him. By that I mean, start out as a fighter to get some extra weapon proficiency and then dual him to a cleric. That could be much more interesting that just starting him out as a cleric right away. Some food for thought.
SHOGUN
Okay, now it's my dog's turn. This will be easier than with Grahf.
Shogun's pros: maxed out strength, maxed out constitution, above average dex, high charisma
Shogun's cons: average or slightly above average intelligence (like a 13 maybe), low wisdom (I'm thinking a 9 or an 8).
People who know Shogun are probably thinking "What the hell?" right about now. Now my dog weighs 22 pounds so it might sound weird to have him maxed out in strength and stuff. But my logic behind this is simple: The average weight of a chipin (chihuahua/min pinscher cross) is 13 pounds. 13!!!!! My dog weighs 22 and he's not fat! He may have a pound of fat on him. At 20 pounds, Shogun would be lean and thin.
So what happens here is this: compared to his species, Shogun is IMMENSE. He's 69% bigger than the average. In human stats, if the average human is 175cm tall (about 5 feet 9), Shogun would be 9 feet 9 inches tall!!!
If the average human weight is 160 pounds, then he'd weigh 270. So the conclusion is this: he's huge. If chipins are usually hobbits, then Shogun is a dwarf. That's sort of where I'm getting to.
Now with those stats he should be a warrior character. He doesn't have the intelligence to really cast spells and his wisdom sucks. I see him as someone who would see an enemy in the distance and start charging like a madman, without ever realizing that there is a boulder rolling towards him on his right side. He's charismatic though, because he's a good looking guy! On top of that, when he's not pissed off he actually likes people.
But yeah, Shogun? A warrior, more precisely a Barbarian.
PEDRO
Pedro is a bit complex because of a lack of clear strengths. Let's check it out.
Pros: Above average across the board, except maybe wisdom.
Cons: High charisma.
So yeah, except for charisma, no real strengths. Pedro shouldn't play a specialized class such as a fighter or a mage, he should be a class that by default touches to more than one field. Or he could be multiclassed, or dual class. His relatively normal wisdom precludes him from playing a cleric or even a paladin, a class which he could have been a good fit for considering his charisma.
So what else is there? Well there's the ranger, which would fit him except for the wisdom. The rangers spells are wisdom based, so that wouldn't really be a good match for him.
Then there's the bard. Now that one is reeeeaaally interesting since by design, the bard is a jack of all trades. And guess what Pedro's stats are? Pretty much jack of all trady. He even has the high charisma the bard needs, he has enough dex to be a good range attacker, he has enough intelligence to do pretty good with the mage spells the bard gets. It honestly feels like the bard is a perfect match for Pedro's stats.
So, Pedro = Bard? :|
EDIT: Okay so the whole Helen thing made this a bit more complicated. Helen can't play a warrior, she just doesn't have the body strength for it. She could play a good bard though, better than Pedro in fact.
So could Pedro be something else? Well let's revisit the paladin:
The paladin by default is sort of a farce. Is 'virtue' first personality is often annoying since he is always complaining and telling others how they should act. I see Helen much more like that than Pedro. But I can see him as a ranger, definitely. He has the STR, the DEX and the CON to be both a melee fighter and a ranged attacker, so that's good. Ranger is what I originally thought Pedro to be, and I guess that's what he'll probably be.
So Pedro = Ranger
OSMAN
Osman shouldn't too tough either.
Osman's pros: High dexterity, very high intelligence, above average constitution (maybe)
Osman's cons: average strength, low to average wisdom (that dude wears his emotions on his sleeve!), average charisma
Looking at those stats, it's pretty clear what Osman can do and what he can't do. He's either a thief type character, but being a thief would be a waste of that intelligence. Or he could be a mage, where that dexterity could improve his armor class. He could also be a multiclassed thief/mage, but that would be if the situation asked for it.
So, Osman : A mage, a thief, or both.
Helen
Helen's pros: above average to high dexterity, high intelligence, high wisdom, very high charisma
Helen's cons: low strength
....Ok now that is confusing. Honestly the first thing that came to mind when I saw all of that is that she'd be a better bard than Pedro. She certainly wouldn't be able to get up close and duke it out like Pedro could do, but she could be a pure archer type bard. At first I thought about maybe making her a paladin, but that strength and constitution would make her an awful paladin, unless....unless I made her a weird paladin that was like an archer rather than being a melee character. Of all the party members, she has the personality that fits the paladin the best. There's also stuff in the game that improves your stats, so if I could get her a girdle of giant strength that could help. I really see her as a paladin, and usually some of the best weapons in the games are for paladins so we would need at least one of them.
In the end this is a weird scenario. She'd make a better bard, since she'd probably have one point of int more than he, she has more wisdom which helps here lore skill and she has good dex which would allow her to be a good ranged attacker. But if Helen is a bard, than what would Pedro be? I can't see him as a paladin, and as a ranger? I don't know, he doesn't have high wisdom, which would make his spellcasting as a ranger a bit moot. Now someone would tell me that who really plays rangers for their spells anyway, and they'd be right. Anyway wisdom doesn't give bonus spells to paladins or rangers, only clerics.
So Helen could be a bard, probably the class that best suits her. Or she could be a thief if need be, but Osman would be a better thief, or at least a thief that is as good as she is while also having better strength. She could also be a mage, but that Osman can do better. Also Helen has really high charisma, the highest of the bunch, she has high wisdom and high intelligence, making her a great bard by default. So bard it should be.
Helen = Bard
So this is what a five character party would look like:
Shogun in the lead as a barbarian.
Pedro backing him up as a ranger
Grahf in third, as a cleric
Helen in fourth, as a bard
and Osman covering the rear, as a Thief/Mage
Osman needs to be multiclassed because we need a thief to disarm traps. The thief is the easiest class to multiclass because it gains levels really quickly. Grahf could be a multiclassed fighter/cleric here, but he wouldn't need to be. The best way to do it would be like I said earlier, dual class him from fighter to cleric to get some of those sweet proficiency points. From the look of that party, I don't think we need a sixth character. I would have liked to have a paladin in the party, but except for Helen I don't see anyone who could have the personality required. And since the great paladin weapons are usually swords, that wouldn't help us out because Helen would be too weak to engage in melee combat anyway.
So yeah, that sounds good. In a game such as eye of the beholder, i'd remove Helen, so I'd have Shogun and Pedro in the front as fighters, Grahf in the rear as a cleric and Osman as a thief/mage probably.
Yep! Good stuff!
After going through Ultima III I realized that I really like the concept of creating a party of characters based on my real life friends. It adds an authenticity to the game that is truly special. I'd go as far as to say that I prefer to play my friends rather than with npc's, who have more personality.
So since playing U3, I've been wondering. What would a full party look like? What classes are my friends most suited for? I've been thinking SO much about it you guys can't believe. So I've decided to write about it, and get it off clean. Let's start.
First off, we have to see who is up for contention to become a virtual character! First off there's me, obviously, as Grahf. Then there's my dog Shogun, another obvious choice. Afterwards it gets a bit more muddy but I expect Pedro, Osman and Helen to be in there. That's five characters. Some games, such as eye of the beholder, only allow you to create a party of four (with the possibility of adding two npc characters to the party during the game), while in other games, such as Icewind Dale, you can create up to six. In Baldur's Gate it's a bit different, since normally in BG you create only one character and fill out the other five slots with npc's during the game. However I want to play with my friends, so what I'd do is start off a multiplayer game, create my own characters and then import them in the single player mode. So in theory I could create all six characters in Baldur's Gate.
The problem is that some of the npc's bring quests with them. So it's interesting to at least have a slot open for NPC's, so that you can do their quests. The best way to do it would probably be to go the Eye of the Beholder way, as in create four characters and leave two spots open for NPC's, since having only one spot open would mean that I would have to constantly shuffle the NPC's in and out which sounds a bit annoying...but could be worth it to have my full gang in, since we total five.
For Icewind Dale I would possibly need a sixth character, although I don't HAVE to. We can play with five and the experience will come faster that way, especially if we have a couple of multiclassed characters. But the most important thing is to have a complete party. To have a complete party, we need four things:
a tanker
an healer
a thief type
and a mage
The typical DnD party is a fighter, a cleric, a thief and a mage. Personally I like to have at least three warriors in my parties since I like physical play, and I don't like magic much. I think magic is a hassle to be honest, I'd rather not use it most of the time except when forced to. My usual type of gameplay is to rush every enemy and hack them to pieces, and if somehow that doesn't work then I'd step back and start assessing the situation.
Now what we need to figure out is what each person on the team would be the best at. Let's start with me.
GRAHF
I always play fighters. My main character has never been other than a fighter so I'm used to it. My dad liked fighters and he sort of passed that down to me.
Grahf's pros: very high strength, high constitution, high intelligence, very high wisdom, above average charisma.
Grahf's cons: low-average dexterity
I think this shows that I have a high opinion of myself :) I'm good at a lot of stuff. My two highest stats would be Strength and wisdom, with constitution and intelligence trailing not too far behind. My friends usually see me as the 'sage' type in our group, and I fit the description of the hermit living in his cave the best out of all of us. I definitely would be the best at being the voice of reason, with Helen possibly being a close second, but she'd be a lot more annoying in that role, no one wants her to be the voice of reason that would be crazy!
So what can Grahf be with those strengths? Well he can be a lot of things. He can be a warrior, helped with high strength and constitution. He could be a cleric, backed also with high strength and constitution but with a good dose of wisdom. He could be a mage...but Grahf's never been a mage and that would be a waste of his strength. A perfect mage would normally require a good dose of dexterity to compensate for the lack of armor, which Grahf doesn't have. And although Grahf will have high intelligence, he'll still have a point or two less than Osman will, and as I said earlier I don't like mages much so I'm not going to have three. One is enough.
He has perfect stats for dual classing, but I don't like the concept. It's also not a realistic concept in terms of adventuring, and also in term of the games. He could multiclass though, but then that brings the other problem of slow leveling.
If I take a look at the base classes, from a pure standpoint you can eliminate Wizard and thief right away. Playing a pure wizard would be a waste of my talents while I don't have the dex for a thief. Obviously the fighting classes would work, but I can't see myself as a paladin because of the personality issues, and I don't have the charisma for it either. I can't see myself as a ranger because...that would be just weird. Barbarian is a bit weird too, I mean, a barbarian with high wisdom and intelligence? Barbarian would fit Shogun a lot better.
So that would leave fighter, but fighter a bit simple. I'm wasting all that wisdom if I'm playing a fighter.
So how about the cleric? That one is interesting. My high strength would benefit the cleric in close combat, my high constitution would give me HP bonuses at level up, and my high wisdom would greatly help in spellcasting (since the cleric depends on wisdom for spells and not intelligence like the mage). I see myself more as a cleric than I do as a mage, since clerics are basically spellcasting...bunkers. I say bunkers, because clerics from a fighting point of view are not as good as the pure fighting classes. That bugs me a bit, because That would make me a secondary melee character, which Grahf has never been. I still would be good, especially with 18 STR, but I wouldn't be tops.
Forget the druid, and a bard? The thing is that I see a bard as a jack of all trades, and I think Grahf's stats are generally too high to qualify. Why would someone with high STR and high CON play a bard? With low dex to boot. Bard requires 15 charisma which I'm not sure I have, probably more of a 13 or maybe a 14 in that regard.
I mean it could be interesting, that would be a really really powerful bard, that it still doesn't make much sense. Since I have low dex I can't really be an archer, and with the armor restrictions a bard has I wouldn't have much of an armor class either. That, couple with the relatively low hit points of the bard class, means that I would get slaughtered in close combat. Just doesn't make sense.
How about a multiclassed Fighter/Cleric? Now that's sort of interesting. In the end, the cleric seems to be the best class for Grahf, but it would depend on the party. If there's already three warriors in the party, then Grahf should be a pure cleric. If there lacks a warrior, then he could multiclass. It also depends on the game.
So Grahf should be a Cleric, a Fighter, or both.
A thing that could be interesting with Grahf would be to dual him. By that I mean, start out as a fighter to get some extra weapon proficiency and then dual him to a cleric. That could be much more interesting that just starting him out as a cleric right away. Some food for thought.
SHOGUN
Okay, now it's my dog's turn. This will be easier than with Grahf.
Shogun's pros: maxed out strength, maxed out constitution, above average dex, high charisma
Shogun's cons: average or slightly above average intelligence (like a 13 maybe), low wisdom (I'm thinking a 9 or an 8).
People who know Shogun are probably thinking "What the hell?" right about now. Now my dog weighs 22 pounds so it might sound weird to have him maxed out in strength and stuff. But my logic behind this is simple: The average weight of a chipin (chihuahua/min pinscher cross) is 13 pounds. 13!!!!! My dog weighs 22 and he's not fat! He may have a pound of fat on him. At 20 pounds, Shogun would be lean and thin.
So what happens here is this: compared to his species, Shogun is IMMENSE. He's 69% bigger than the average. In human stats, if the average human is 175cm tall (about 5 feet 9), Shogun would be 9 feet 9 inches tall!!!
If the average human weight is 160 pounds, then he'd weigh 270. So the conclusion is this: he's huge. If chipins are usually hobbits, then Shogun is a dwarf. That's sort of where I'm getting to.
Now with those stats he should be a warrior character. He doesn't have the intelligence to really cast spells and his wisdom sucks. I see him as someone who would see an enemy in the distance and start charging like a madman, without ever realizing that there is a boulder rolling towards him on his right side. He's charismatic though, because he's a good looking guy! On top of that, when he's not pissed off he actually likes people.
But yeah, Shogun? A warrior, more precisely a Barbarian.
PEDRO
Pedro is a bit complex because of a lack of clear strengths. Let's check it out.
Pros: Above average across the board, except maybe wisdom.
Cons: High charisma.
So yeah, except for charisma, no real strengths. Pedro shouldn't play a specialized class such as a fighter or a mage, he should be a class that by default touches to more than one field. Or he could be multiclassed, or dual class. His relatively normal wisdom precludes him from playing a cleric or even a paladin, a class which he could have been a good fit for considering his charisma.
So what else is there? Well there's the ranger, which would fit him except for the wisdom. The rangers spells are wisdom based, so that wouldn't really be a good match for him.
Then there's the bard. Now that one is reeeeaaally interesting since by design, the bard is a jack of all trades. And guess what Pedro's stats are? Pretty much jack of all trady. He even has the high charisma the bard needs, he has enough dex to be a good range attacker, he has enough intelligence to do pretty good with the mage spells the bard gets. It honestly feels like the bard is a perfect match for Pedro's stats.
So, Pedro = Bard? :|
EDIT: Okay so the whole Helen thing made this a bit more complicated. Helen can't play a warrior, she just doesn't have the body strength for it. She could play a good bard though, better than Pedro in fact.
So could Pedro be something else? Well let's revisit the paladin:
The paladin by default is sort of a farce. Is 'virtue' first personality is often annoying since he is always complaining and telling others how they should act. I see Helen much more like that than Pedro. But I can see him as a ranger, definitely. He has the STR, the DEX and the CON to be both a melee fighter and a ranged attacker, so that's good. Ranger is what I originally thought Pedro to be, and I guess that's what he'll probably be.
So Pedro = Ranger
OSMAN
Osman shouldn't too tough either.
Osman's pros: High dexterity, very high intelligence, above average constitution (maybe)
Osman's cons: average strength, low to average wisdom (that dude wears his emotions on his sleeve!), average charisma
Looking at those stats, it's pretty clear what Osman can do and what he can't do. He's either a thief type character, but being a thief would be a waste of that intelligence. Or he could be a mage, where that dexterity could improve his armor class. He could also be a multiclassed thief/mage, but that would be if the situation asked for it.
So, Osman : A mage, a thief, or both.
Helen
Helen's pros: above average to high dexterity, high intelligence, high wisdom, very high charisma
Helen's cons: low strength
....Ok now that is confusing. Honestly the first thing that came to mind when I saw all of that is that she'd be a better bard than Pedro. She certainly wouldn't be able to get up close and duke it out like Pedro could do, but she could be a pure archer type bard. At first I thought about maybe making her a paladin, but that strength and constitution would make her an awful paladin, unless....unless I made her a weird paladin that was like an archer rather than being a melee character. Of all the party members, she has the personality that fits the paladin the best. There's also stuff in the game that improves your stats, so if I could get her a girdle of giant strength that could help. I really see her as a paladin, and usually some of the best weapons in the games are for paladins so we would need at least one of them.
In the end this is a weird scenario. She'd make a better bard, since she'd probably have one point of int more than he, she has more wisdom which helps here lore skill and she has good dex which would allow her to be a good ranged attacker. But if Helen is a bard, than what would Pedro be? I can't see him as a paladin, and as a ranger? I don't know, he doesn't have high wisdom, which would make his spellcasting as a ranger a bit moot. Now someone would tell me that who really plays rangers for their spells anyway, and they'd be right. Anyway wisdom doesn't give bonus spells to paladins or rangers, only clerics.
So Helen could be a bard, probably the class that best suits her. Or she could be a thief if need be, but Osman would be a better thief, or at least a thief that is as good as she is while also having better strength. She could also be a mage, but that Osman can do better. Also Helen has really high charisma, the highest of the bunch, she has high wisdom and high intelligence, making her a great bard by default. So bard it should be.
Helen = Bard
So this is what a five character party would look like:
Shogun in the lead as a barbarian.
Pedro backing him up as a ranger
Grahf in third, as a cleric
Helen in fourth, as a bard
and Osman covering the rear, as a Thief/Mage
Osman needs to be multiclassed because we need a thief to disarm traps. The thief is the easiest class to multiclass because it gains levels really quickly. Grahf could be a multiclassed fighter/cleric here, but he wouldn't need to be. The best way to do it would be like I said earlier, dual class him from fighter to cleric to get some of those sweet proficiency points. From the look of that party, I don't think we need a sixth character. I would have liked to have a paladin in the party, but except for Helen I don't see anyone who could have the personality required. And since the great paladin weapons are usually swords, that wouldn't help us out because Helen would be too weak to engage in melee combat anyway.
So yeah, that sounds good. In a game such as eye of the beholder, i'd remove Helen, so I'd have Shogun and Pedro in the front as fighters, Grahf in the rear as a cleric and Osman as a thief/mage probably.
Yep! Good stuff!
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