It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
avatar
macAilpin: If you use Telekinesis from another room, you can often avoid damage if you don't have a good lock picker. Physics isn't always perfect but it often works
avatar
dabugler: What's "physics" ? Is that a skill? Haven't heard that one before.
Not a skill.
How items move in the game. You use Rock blast and the Rock goes into the floor. Not quite correct Physics. If you can see the chest from another room you can hit it with telekinesis and it explodes causing little harm. Most of the time. But some times the blast get to your party.
avatar
macAilpin: If you use Telekinesis from another room, you can often avoid damage if you don't have a good lock picker. Physics isn't always perfect but it often works
avatar
dabugler: What's "physics" ? Is that a skill? Haven't heard that one before.
You can ignore the physics comment it is not relevant.

Telekinesis will work but you need to be able to see the chest from a significant distance in order to escape any damage due to traps. It is the top of the Mind magic spell tree so it is expensive to buy and mana intensive to cast. The issue is all it takes is a skill of 7 to become a Disarm Trap master in M&M6 so why bother. A lets face it Mind magic is mostly useless with the exception of cure fear, paralysis and insanity the latter of which you don't need until later in the game. Only one character learns Mind magic and only to Expert level.

In M&M7 it is a more worthwhile investment but hardly cheap. In my last party through (Sorceror, Sorceror, Druid, Cleric) my "lock picker" was the Cleric who loaded up on Disarm magic items and I had an NPC that boosted the skill early on lots of chests went boom which is why the Perception skill was useful. The problem is Telekinesis is a Grand Master level Earth spell that only the Druid can attain. Works really well once you have it though.
avatar
Bookwyrm627: Raising Perception on more than one character is a waste of precious skill points in my opinion, especially if your Knight is the one disarming. Just raise Disarm Trap some more and heal the damage when you fail. Save the skill points to put into whatever skill the character is investing for the long term.
avatar
brozo: I have not done a recent replay of M&M6 but in my last replay of M&M7 I can attest to the fact that getting all of the party characters to Expert perception definitely reduces the number of reloads due to trapped chests and party deaths. And 9 skill points is not exactly an extravagant use of skill resources.
There are some dangerous areas for traps in MM7 for sure (looking at you, Markham's manor!), and I've done my share of reloads from explosions. Speaking for myself, I just prefer to keep that 9 points for each of three characters because that's almost halfway to another increase when a skill is at level 20.

I'm a fan of one character mastering Perception since it does make some things in the world glow more noticeably, but when it comes to traps I'd prefer one person invest the extra points to enable everyone to dodge traps rather than several people invest a similar number of points to have a small chance to dodge if the disarm fails.
avatar
brozo: In M&M7 it is a more worthwhile investment but hardly cheap. In my last party through (Sorceror, Sorceror, Druid, Cleric) my "lock picker" was the Cleric who loaded up on Disarm magic items and I had an NPC that boosted the skill early on lots of chests went boom which is why the Perception skill was useful. The problem is Telekinesis is a Grand Master level Earth spell that only the Druid can attain. Works really well once you have it though.
There's a lot wrong here.

Factually incorrect information: A MM7 druid can't learn Grand Master Earth. They can't GM any magic; their appeal is that they can Master both Self and Elemental magics, providing a good backup to both a Cleric and a Sorcerer in one character slot. Also, GM Alchemy to make all your own Pure Stat potions, and those potions are quite a bit better than the MM6 versions.

Edit to add: Telekinesis is a Master Earth spell. The Druid can learn Telekinesis, but they can't learn Mass Distortion, which is the GM Earth spell in MM7. In MM6, Telekinesis is the "top" Mind spell, but you only need the magic skill to learn every single spell; you don't need to invest any points in Mind magic at all to be able to cast Telekinesis.

Informational: Most stat bonuses coming from items don't stack; you only get the highest bonus. I think a few relics and artifacts are an exception to this rule, but if you put on a ring of Disarm Trap +5 and another ring of Disarm Trap +8, then your net bonus is Disarm Trap +8. Hirelings will stack with an item bonus, and as I said a couple of relics/artifacts stack, but that's it.

Next, you chose Sorcerer, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric in MM7. None of them can even learn the Disarm Trap skill. This party can't disarm traps using the skill at all, and it doesn't matter how many skill bonuses you even try to apply because there's nothing to apply those bonuses to. They are also all on the lower end of the hp scale.

Knowing your party composition, I really don't know what you were expecting. Yeah, traps are going to be your party's bane unless and until you can use Telekinesis to open chests from a distance. Perception (which all of them can only take to Expert level) is indeed going to do more for you in this party than Disarm Trap will.

In MM7 you need a Thief, or at least an Evil Monk to reliably deal with traps. If you're desperate, then a Good Monk, an Archer, or even a Ranger would be able to take a really good Disarm Trap item and handle many traps by reaching Expert.

OP's party is in MM6, where anyone can Master the skill if they can learn the skill at all. Their Knight can get a 21 disarm value with Master, compared to your zero disarm value with being unable to learn the skill. I definitely still don't recommend bothering with Perception with more than one character in OP's party. Incidentally, the Knight should also be handling Perception for them, in my opinion.

For your MM7 party, Perception is indeed the way to go, except I probably wouldn't bother. Early on, skill points are too precious to spend on a chance to avoid trap damage. Later, you have other means of dealing with trap damage, so it still isn't worth the points. The investiture to get a reliable damage dodge is simply far too high because they are stuck with only the Expert level multiplier. You took a party of low hp casters. Despair over your lack of trap disarming while you gleefully nuke monsters with silly amounts of spell damage.
Post edited September 29, 2023 by Bookwyrm627
avatar
Bookwyrm627: There's a lot wrong here.

Factually incorrect information: A MM7 druid can't learn Grand Master Earth. They can't GM any magic; their appeal is that they can Master both Self and Elemental magics, providing a good backup to both a Cleric and a Sorcerer in one character slot. Also, GM Alchemy to make all your own Pure Stat potions, and those potions are quite a bit better than the MM6 versions.

Informational: Most stat bonuses coming from items don't stack; you only get the highest bonus. I think a few relics and artifacts are an exception to this rule, but if you put on a ring of Disarm Trap +5 and another ring of Disarm Trap +8, then your net bonus is Disarm Trap +8. Hirelings will stack with an item bonus, and as I said a couple of relics/artifacts stack, but that's it.

Next, you chose Sorcerer, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric in MM7. None of them can even learn the Disarm Trap skill. This party can't disarm traps using the skill at all, and it doesn't matter how many skill bonuses you even try to apply because there's nothing to apply those bonuses to. They are also all on the lower end of the hp scale.
Apologies on the Druid and GM comments above. My bad I just quickly opened a save game and checked who had what spells and right clicked on the Telekinesis spell and only saw an entry for GM the rest were N/As. Am aware that Druids cannot GM elemental magic. Brain fart.

Thanks for comments on stacking skill bonuses with magic items was not aware of that. Did confirm that NPCs will stack the item bonus by looking at the Alchemy skill with Druid.

I am not so sure that bonuses do not apply to characters without a skill. There is no way to check because you obviously cannot right click a non-existent skill to see what the bonus is. It has been months since I played M&M7 but I did manage to open chests without traps being set off with the aid of Locksmith and Disarm Trap items. I kind of think the game would be unplayable otherwise.

And yes Sorceror, Sorceror, Druid, Cleric is all about death from above. One sorceror specialized in Air while the other took Water while the Druid was the jack of all trades. I tried playing a game with the only elemental caster being the Archer but I just could not hack playing without an expert Wizard Eye.
avatar
brozo: I am not so sure that bonuses do not apply to characters without a skill. There is no way to check because you obviously cannot right click a non-existent skill to see what the bonus is. It has been months since I played M&M7 but I did manage to open chests without traps being set off with the aid of Locksmith and Disarm Trap items. I kind of think the game would be unplayable otherwise.
Hm. Obviously, anyone can open a chest, trapped or not (unless it is specially locked because quest or something). Perhaps the game uses a default value of zero if a character doesn't have the Disarm Trap skill. If so, then a disarm trap item and hireling could get you high enough to disarm weaker traps.

I've never actually tried that out, since I've always had a class that can at least learn the skill. I'll have to put that on the mental list of "things to try just to see what happens".

avatar
brozo: And yes Sorceror, Sorceror, Druid, Cleric is all about death from above. One sorceror specialized in Air while the other took Water while the Druid was the jack of all trades. I tried playing a game with the only elemental caster being the Archer but I just could not hack playing without an expert Wizard Eye.
I fully agree about Expert Air for Wizard Eye. Happily, in MM7 and MM8 at least, a Cartographer hireling can provide constant Expert Wizard Eye until a character reaches Expert Air magic. An Archer can learn Expert Elemental magics after their first promotion and Master after their second, but their promotion quest isn't as easy as the Ranger.