Hello,

When creating my initial characters, I don't think I knew how important VIT > 16 is and I ended up not puting lots into Vitality except for my Bishop, and now at level 8, some characters really have low HP. like 20HP for the alchemist and Mage and of all my characters, the Bishops has the most HP, yes - even more than the front line meat shields...

So, I am thinking of starting over and this time making sure I have decent VIT for everyone. Especially at first, it seems to be pretty important. Once at higher level, I assume things will even out with class changes etc...

Toughts?

HP gains per level are random, but they even out in the long run. So if you got too good HP rolls at first, they will be evened out by bad rolls (+1 HP) on next level ups (save scumming won't help here).

Vitality bonus is calculated retroactively. If you VIT is lowered, you will start seeing "+1 HP" more often than usual, until it will even out. If your VIT is increased you will get big HP boost on next level up.

At higher levels, it is easy to have your stats most of the time, especially once you get the Protectorate spell. Your racial maximums end up becoming extremely important, with Dragonewts having a lot of HP and Faeries having less. Note, however, that Agility is also important because it affects turn order.

There are a couple other things I have noticed at high levels:
1. Faster levelers often have more HP if their race has decent vitality. My Gnome Cleric has HP on par with my Dragonewt Valkrie and Lord, sometimes even more, at the same level. (Clerics are actually surprisingly good on the front line.)
2. Bishops get more HP per level than you'd expect, and certainly more than Alchemists or Mages. My Faerie Bishop's HP might be low compared to other members of my party, but it is still not as bad as you might expect. (I only recommend Faeries for Bishops and Brawlers, however.)
3. It is never too late to create a new character. At low levels, exponental XP requirements mean that your new character will come close to the levels of other characters, and at higher levels, you should have access to Lesser/Greater/Chaos demons which call for help. (Hint: Kill all but one enemy, put that last enemy to sleep (it won't wake up due to 0% Status Recovery), have everyone who doesn't need the XP run, than have the character kill the last enemy. This gives all the XP to the character(s) who have not run away.)

Edit: Removed duplicate block of text.

VIT >= 16 aka VIT > 15 to be exact.

And it doesn't matter with what stats you start with except that it makes the early game easier (but the real challenge comes later).

Both stat growth and HP growth will automatically even out.

Race has a stronger effect on HP. The class seems to have a very low effect on HP or stats (my werewolf mage has significantly higher HP than my fairy cleric, because fairy cleric has 15 VIT as max stat).

HP growth works line this:
Your class/race determines the dice, say 1d8 per level for human fighters.
If VIT is 16 or higher, you will get a +1 modifier to each roll (modifier might increase on even higher VIT).
You always start with 8 HP.
If you level up, you roll as many dice as your new level is and apply the modifier BEFORE the stats are updated.

Example:
Level 1 - 8 HP, 15 VIT
Level 2 - Roll 2d8, result 6, because result is lower than current MaxHP your HP increase by 1: 9 HP, 15 VIT
Level 3 - Roll 3d8, result 14, result is higher than your current MaxHP, HP increases to 14 (by 5): 14 HP, 15 VIT
Level 4 - Roll 4d8, result 12 and VIT increases: 15 HP, 16 VIT
Level 5 - Roll 5d8+5 (vit bonus), result 26: 26 HP, 16 VIT
Level 6 - Roll 6d8+6 (vit bonus), result 31 and VIT decreases: 31 HP, 15 VIT
Level 7 - Roll 7d8, result 22: 32 HP, 15 VIT
Class change to mage: Dice changes to 1d4
Level 1 - 32 HP, 12 VIT
Level 2 - Roll 2d4, result 5, VIT increases: 33 HP, 13 VIT
Level 3 - Roll 3d4, result 11 and VIT increases: 34 HP, 14 VIT
Level 4 - Roll 4d4, result 15 and VIT increases: 35 HP, 15 VIT
Level 5 - Roll 5d4, result 14 and VIT increases: 36 HP, 16 VIT
Level 6 - Roll 6d4+6 (vit bonus), result 23: 37 HP, 16 VIT
etc.

Stat growth is a lot more simple. Each race has a certain set of starting stats. These stats increased by 10 are your maximum possible stat. Other than not being able to exceed the maximum stat, the chance to get an increase or decrease seem to always be the same. As the chance to get an increase is higher than a decrease, you will eventually end up close to your max stats.

Edit: Expanded with class changing sample and I think I mixed up class/race, because race determines max stats and class the dice used.

Edit2: Added missing VIT decrease on class change.

Actually, the chance of a stat increasing or decreasing seems to be affected by race and age. A young Fairy rarely loses stats, while a young Devilish will lose stats constantly (to the point where intentionally triggering a Treasure Chest trap might not be a bad idea).

Also, after class change, your vitality is not going to be anywhere near 15 unless you've hacked your character's race to Ogre. (Such a hack seems to be well-behaved aside from the lack of portraits; Ogres even have sensible equipment limitations (being able to equip the Tower Lance but not the Spiral Lance just like Dwarves and Dragonewts, for example).

True I forgot about age and that the VIT resets to base stat.

But young age has a positive effect on VIT. And old age has a positive effect on INT and PIE but a negative effect on VIT. If you exceed a certain threshold your VIT will decrease by 100% on each level up. If your VIT reaches 0, the character dies of old age.

Actually, my understanding is that having your VIT drop below 3 was the trigger for old age death. That is, in fact, how Wizardry 1-5 handled it. (Of course, at least 2 of the early Wizardries (2 and 5) have methods of restoring such a character.)

I should point out that, while VIT is important, so is AGI, and there is no race that is good at both. (Part of the reason I like my Fairy Bishop so much is that Bishops actually get more HP/level than you would expect, and that makes a difference when your VIT is capped at 15.)

Also, you missed one other rule about HP gains. If an HP gain would put you above 9999 HP, you instead get exactly 9999 HP. (I don't know if this will lower your HP if you hacked in a higher value.) Of course, even a Dragonewt Fighter won't reach this point until close to level 1,000, and dorarnae beat the 3DS version's exclusive superboss around "only" level 440.

I'm surprised that Bishops gain so good HP in Elminage. I didn't take one myself but I read that they suffer really low HP, strange! Looking back, I should probably have taken a Bishop rather than a Mage, since Bishop also gets 9 casts of Diomente and all the other Mage skills (except Robuti and Hallobuti) get useless in endgame. =p
The ability to identify items in dungeons would have allow me to drop a lot of garbage rather than venturing back tot town every hour.

But keep in mind, that Bishops level very slooooow. mage will get 9/9/9/9/9/9/9 spells long before Bishop will even unlock 7th Lv. Spells.

What about Misama, Ramisama, Stoma, and Rastoma? Those spells are quite useful in the post game, especially if the caster has Magic Essence. There's one enemy in particular with 80% magic resistance, 300% elemental resistance, Swallow Return (avoids and counters physical attacks), but no status resistance. Stoma and Rastoma are really useful against that enemy. It is because of spells like this (and Psi Drain) that I like my Fairy Bishop.

It is very easy to overlook status ailments in RPGs because they are useless in so many of them. However, they are actually useful in this one. (I have also found instant death to sometimes be useful as well, though not against the particular enemy I'm thinking of.)

By the way, Mages max MP at level 21, while Bishops won't until level 36. In the post-game, your Bishop's level should be much higher than 36 anyway.

The problem with status ailments in Elminage is that they are too unreliable. In Elminage more often than not, the enemies can kill you in a single turn, so you need a strategy to reliably stop them before they get to act. Status changes are super effective when successful, but when it fails on all, you end up having all enemies attacking you which pretty much means restart.

Actually, this isn't always true. Single target status spells actually are very reliable, and multi target spells are still useful. Also, on certain enemies, if I spam instant death spells, it is very likely that none will survive to the end of the round.

There are enemies which aren't particularly dangerous normally, but have nasty counterattacks. By putting the enemy to sleep before attacking it, you prevent it from counterattacking. This makes a huge difference against that one enemy I mentioned that Magic Essence is particularly useful against.

Also, if you have Song of Healing and have permanently disabled the last enemy, you can just use the fight to heal your party to full for free. (You may want to equip your Hunter, if you have one, with an unmodified Aura Punch, and unequip any "effective against creature type" equipment that would make you kill the enemy before you want to.)

Another thing is that status ailments can be useful when stealing from or contracting enemies, or if you want a weak character to get all the experience from an encounter.

Have you actually reached the final postgame dungeon? You'll see how difficult the game gets and how you need a variety of strategies.

They are situationally very effective. E.g., if you will manage to petrify Vovalketer, you can kill him without much efforts (as long as you can outdamage his regen) at quite low levels. Though I'd advice to save such monsters for later, when you get Lv.26 Theif, so you could steal some of their stuff :)

Anything below 100% chance is not reliable. I think single target have around 75% maybe 80% success chance.

Also I don't like stealing in games so I don't do it.

I do regeneration via equipment regen. But bleh, no need for it in late game because you have so much healing spells (I still have most of my cleric spell slots left when my inventory is full). Nope, the game got so difficult that it wasn't fun playing anymore for me so I quit.

Enemies in bonus dungeons are frenzied beyond belief. You will need to use all tricks to defeat them.
Just give it a real chance. I know most people are quitting when they reach Hastrana or Underground Church with Lv.10-ish characters. Of course it will be difficult. Explore all maps fully, complete side quests and it will become much easier (or... much more approachable).