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Managing a team

I think I might as well take some initiative and put up a decent walkthrough around here.

Your team is very important. Although it is possible to have a team composed of only one class (best done with cleric and warrior if you're interested), it's much better to use a more well balanced team. That means that you not only need to have a class that can hit hard, you also need to have a class that can keep your hard-hitters alive. Attack types also need to be taken into consideration. Most fights will involve both the front and back rows, and you need to be able to have people that can hit enemies in the back.

My personal favorite team is a warrior, cleric, mage, and ranger. The ranger and mage provide ranged support, while the warrior and cleric are on the front for close combat. While warriors and mages can hit very hard, the cleric and ranger heal spells are very useful for keeping them alive and for removing debuffs. I am not very experienced with rogues, and even less so with barbarians and conjurors, so I won't discuss them.

Rangers: Rangers are a pretty interesting bunch. They're most effective in the back because of their medium armor, although they can be outfitted with melee weapons. I prefer regular bows over crossbows most of the time, because crossbows wreak havoc with your quickness. Rangers are one of the quicker classes, so use them to heavily weaken key enemies. The loadout I like to use is Ranged Attack, Pierce, Nature's Balm, Healing Lore, Envenomed Arrow, and Focus, with passive points on Vitality. The ranger's other skills aren't too bad (Stun in particular is a very viable alternative for Envenomed Arrow) compared to the skills other classes get to choose from. When battle, I usually like to start with Pierce to wound two enemies at the same time, then move into a support role. Poison damage on Rangers is a very powerful choice. Use your Orbs of Toxicity on your bows whenever you can.

Mages: The mage is your standard magic conjuror. Because many units like Voidstalkers, Aetherguards, and Wraiths are resistant to physical damage, a mage can do wonders against them with their magic attacks. Although mages can wield swords, putting them on the front line is a very poor choice because of their light armor. Instead, mages are better off as quick, ranged attack units, with staffs. The skills I use for the Mage are: Magic Attack, Freeze, Fireball, Electrical Storm, Flickering Flames, and Invisibility. The mage's other abilities are either close range (perhaps viable in the late game but an easy way to get yourself slaughtered in the beginning) or not particularly useful (especially Cosmic Prison). I'm not a particular fan of either of the passive abilities, but usually I side with Spell Mastery. When in combat, mages should be in the back. I like to use the Ranger-Mage combo in combat, where my ranger and my mage kill a unit before they even begin to attack. A Pierce and a Fireball will work wonders against enemies. Mages are also very good with poison damage.

Clerics: The cleric is an INDISPENSABLE part of any team, not just this one. His healing abilities will save your ass plenty of times. Clerics are one of the weaker classes, a lot of the time because their stat points are being diverted not only to strength but also intellect. Still, they are useful to mop up weakened enemies when your team is all healthy. The skills I recommend are Melee Attack, Heal, Smite, Heal All, Revive, and Fervor. I very strongly recommend spending your surplus points on Benediction; it will save you many a time. As for his other skills, purify is probably the most useful, although a properly powered Benediction renders it superfluous. Your first priority as a Cleric is to heal your teammates, then to attack. Letting your Cleric die is disastrous, but should it happen, that's why I recommend having a healing Ranger with you.

Warrior: Warriors are the best unit for just dishing out pure, unadulterated damage. Warriors can use a very wide variety of weapons. I strongly prefer Axes, but if you get a Hydra's Tooth in The Book of Dread and complement it with a good shield, it works just as well. Warriors, however, are quite slow, so most often you will use them to administer the killing blow to weakened enemies. Skillwise, Warriors are a pretty adequate bunch. I use Melee Attack, Power Attack, Bloodlust, Resolve, Cleave, and Inspire. Execute is an awesome attack against bosses, but generally it's not worth wasting the power on for mere peons. Warriors have some of the best passive skills, Leadership and Armor Proficiency. Either one works; I use Leadership to give me that final finishing move if I'm short. Warriors should definitely be in your front ranks, cause they can take a lot of damage. Damage reflection is especially useful in a warrior; doing more than 100% damage back to your opponent when they attack you is an awesome advantage that shouldn't be avoided.

Dungeon exploration

When you start, you will be very weak. As a result, you should stay away from boss battles and other large battles until you develop the skills and gain the armor to give yourself an edge. I don't recommend boss battles until at least level 5, when you fill up all your skills and have a decent set of armor.

As a rule, I always first upgrade, then do a cursory exploration of the dungeon. Grab all the treasure you can find and explore every room. Then, battle. Fight the weakest ones first, then fight in rooms where it looks like they lead to a significant portion of the dungeon. Use Scroll of Deception in the early game to bypass rooms like this with many enemies.

Most dungeons will have two Altars of Restoration, while a few will have one. If you're playing the Book of Dread campaign, you may occasionally find rooms with a blue circle; these give you special orbs and potions that effect permanent changes. I don't like to use Altars of Restoration until just before a boss battle.

Do note that dungeons are randomly generated. However, sometimes there is a pattern in which enemies appear, especially in the Den of Corruption campaign.

Keep your treasure, because they'll get you some serious cash when you go to the store. You should always have your inventory bursting with items when you use that portal scroll.

When should you use potions? That's a pretty good question. In the early game, you will have a greater dependence on potions because your health and power regenerations have not been developed. As you find more and more potions and as you get Runed or Soothing armor, though, you will be less dependent on them. Follow an as-needed basis. If it really isn't that much damage, just let your health regeneration cover it. I really don't use health potions that much, but I do use Power Potions with some more regularity. Revival potions aren't of much use after the beginning. Elixirs are topically useful; you really should only use them before a boss battle if at all.

Items

A big part of Monsters Den (sometimes disproportionate, I fear) is items. You will constantly come into dilemmas of what stats you should encourage. Fear not! I'll attempt to prioritize these and give a glossary to the different items you'll find.

Prefixes:

Unerring: Adds accuracy. Since all weapons by accuracy have 95% default, accuracy isn't as important as in many other RPGs.
Blinding: Reduces accuracy of a enemy. Blinding weapons reduce accuracy by at most 25-30 percent. It helps, but their attacks will still hit you most of the time. Not as useful.
Soothing: Adds health regeneration. Health regeneration is one of the most important stats. You should have at least 2-3 Soothing or health regenerating items on you.
Vampiric: Drains health (heals a percentage of the damage you deal). The most I've seen is 7%. Vampiric items are very useful in The Fall of Tellunos especially, where you have no chance to heal yourself outside of battle. In the Den campaigns, Soothing and Runed items are more useful.
Runed: Adds power regeneration. You need power regeneration to heal and perform your best attacks. By default, you recover 10, although that will most certainly not be enough as you go on. I recommend 1-2 pieces of runed items.
Protective: Adds armor rating. This mostly deals with rings. Protective rings are best used for mages, who often have low armor ratings and need every bit of damage resistance they can get. Pretty important.
Purifying: Adds poison resistance. Usually about 30% less damage from poison. Reflection and regeneration are much more useful than this.
Staggering: Adds percentage to stun. Most add about 10-15% chance to stun. Stunning is a very useful tool, so get this when you can, but don't get it by itself.
Venomous: Adds poison damage. Poison damage is one of the best ways to finish off your opponent or at least soften them up. Although many monsters have some degree of poison resistance, I think that it is still a valuable thing to have.

Suffixes:

Deftness: Increases Dexterity. Good for Rangers and Rogues.
Might: Increases Strength. Good for Barbarians and Warriors, as well as Clerics to a limited extent.
Insight: Increases Intellect. Good for Mages and Conjurors, also good for Clerics and Rangers to boost their healing capabilities.
Resilience: Boosts Endurance. Good for all classes.
Tenacity: Increases resistance to stun damage. Better than purifying items, but not incredibly important. Itâs nice to have some around, but not necessary.
Reflection: Gives you damage reflection. Basically, when an enemy does you damage, it will inflict a percentage of that damage on them as well. Reflection is very useful for your frontline, because they will be attacked most often. I highly recommend reflective items; they work wonders in softening up your enemy.
Lethality: These weapons will give you a chance to kill your enemy instantly. Sadly, bosses always have instant kill immunity, but if you get lucky, they get pretty useful. They usually give you a 10-15% boost.

Items may also have other words describing their material, including Damascene, Plainforged, Trollhide, Thick, Suncloth, Aetherweave, Leather, Studded, Battered, Iron, Steel, Magesteel, Threadbare, Linen, Silk, etc. They seem to affect the armor rating, but such knowledge really is trivial.

So what should you take into consideration when choosing what to equip and what to sell? Hereâs my list:

1. Health Regeneration
2. Reflection
3. Power Regeneration
4. Dexterity/Strength/Intellect/Endurance modifiers, depending on the class I want to outfit.
5. Quickness for Rangers and Mages
6. Armor rating
7. Poison damage
8. Lethality/Vampiric/Stun
9. Poison/stun resistance

Orbs are also important tools in your inventory. You should use them on the purple âUniqueâ items, or any item that you will probably keep for a long time. Orbs include:

Toxicity: Adds poison damage. Only for weapons. Best for mages and rangers.
Recuperation: Adds health regeneration.
Brawn: Increases strength. Use on warriors and clerics.
Protective: Increases armor rating. Best for a good ring or cloak. I like to use them on mages, who are more susceptible to damage, but thatâs your call.
Acumen: Increases intellect. Good for mages and clerics.
Perseverance: Increases endurance. Excellent for any class.
Alacrity: Increases dexterity. Good for rangers.

Cool cheat man. But I'm going to use my way on placing and recruiting.

very good guide. Nice somebody thinks before they acts.

Combat

The other half of Monsters Den is the combat. Unlike many RPGs, you can choose who and when you want to attack. In general, I like to fight in the rooms with the smallest number of enemies, then work my way up to the boss fight. Itâs up to you though.

Whenever you start a battle, you will be prompted to adjust your party formation. Thereâs two things to consider here. First, you should consider who has the ranged attacks. Since they can hit anyone from any range, ranged units such as the ranger, mage, or conjuror should be placed in the back. This also preserves them from withering melee attacks. I donât recommend melee weapons given to the aforementioned units because of their poor damage reduction.

Secondly, you have to decide where your melee attackers go. Unlike ranged attackers, melee attackers can only attack whoever is directly in front of them. That means the people in front and to the sides. Therefore, the front middle square allows you to hit all three squares in front, but it also allows all three of those monsters to hit you in turn. On the sides, you can only hit whoever is directly in front of you or whoever is diagonally across of you, but you can only be hit by those two monsters. As such, you need to balance the need for survival and the need for damage dealing when considering where to put your melee units. The warrior, with his high endurance, armor rating, and damage, is ideal for taking the front middle square. I would recommend putting clerics on the sides in the front so as to allow greater survivability and a chance to hit enemies.

You should also know the interface. On the top left corner, you will see the person whose turn it is, along with their hit and power points. To the side of that, you will find their accuracy, damage reduction, poison resistance, and stun resistance, expressed in percentages. On the bottom left corner is the main combat panel. It contains your skills as well as options to retreat, retreat as a group, or rest, which increases your power regeneration for the turn. Above the panel is your health and power regeneration. On the bottom right, you will see the order of the turns, dictated by quickness. Your heroes are marked in white, while enemies are red. The little squares there dictate the position of the unit, in case youâre wondering.

So now youâre attacking. Who to attack? Chances are that your fastest units will be your ranged units. You should always aim first for what I call âsupport units.â This means the spellcasters: Lichs, Runecasters, Orc Shamans, and the like. When fighting the Cult, ALWAYS aim for either a neophyte or an acolyte first, as the Voidstalkers and Aetherguards they summon are very tough. It is best to knock them out before they can put any debuffs on you or heal/summon their teammates. After, concentrate on the strongest units like Trolls or Bone Horrors. In boss battles, knock out support units first, then rain down ranged fire on the boss. In the absence of any of these units, just let your ranged units take care of the enemy ranged units and your melee heroes take out their melee monsters.

Healing is a big part of combat as well. Any truly balanced team MUST have some unit able to heal their comrades, preferably clerics but also including rangers. As a rule of thumb, heal whenever someoneâs health gets to about half. The cleric is amazing at this; with the heal, heal all, and revive skills, he is absolutely indispensable in any campaign, but more so the Fall of Tellunos.

In terms of what attacks to use, I usually start with the Rangerâs Pierce and the Mageâs Fireball to knock out as many support units as possible as well as weaken other monsters, then follow up with a barrage of regular attacks to regain power and destroy the rest of the enemy. Although the warrior is powerful, I value him as a sponge for soaking up damage as well as a finisher; his attacks are more than able to finish off any weakened foe. Clerics should have healing as a top priority, and then attacking second.

Thanks for this walkthrough.

Note: Apologize for the weird symbols in place of punctuation marks. Apparently between here and my word processor is different.

Undead

The undead is the easiest group of monsters. Although they're relatively fast, their attacks are not the strongest, and many of them have poor armor.

Skeleton: -10% damage reduction, 50% poison resistance, 40 quickness. Skeletons are the basic melee units of the undead. They are very susceptible to damage, and don't deal an exceptional amount of damage except in the beginning, so leave them for last. They are easily defeated by a single power attack. They have a little health regeneration, but it really makes little difference unless you leave them be for a long time.
Bone Horror: 50% poison resistance, 20 quickness. Bone Horrors are the melee powerhouses of the undead. Not only do they have a ton of health and a hard-hitting attack, they also reflect damage, so keep that in mind. The good thing is that they are slow. If you have a rogue or barbarian instead of a slower warrior along with two ranged units, you may have a chance of killing the Horror before it strikes.
Lich: 50% poison resistance, 35 quickness. The spellcasters of the undead, Lichs are not particularly powerful. Still, as ranged spellcasters, they should be eliminated first before they wreak havoc with your plans. Their spells include Deathly Chill, which may have a chance to stun (I've been lucky so far, so I'm unsure about it), Poison Cloud, which damages and poisons all of your units, and Fear of Death, which damages all your units and stuns two of them.
Undead Archer: -10% damage reduction, 50% poison resistance, 50% quickness. Undead Archers are the standard ranged units of the undead. They are very similar to the skeleton statswise, but they can only fire arrows that deal medium damage.
Vampire: 50% poison resistance, 60 quickness. Vampires are the hit-and-run units of the undead. They are their quickest but weakest unit, and can hit at range. Every attack they do will drain some of the target's health and give it to him. Vampires are not very hardy though, so they're pretty easily killed.

Priority:
1. Lich/Boss
2. Bone Horror
3. Vampire
4. Undead Archer/Skeleton

Undead Addendum:

I have some fixes. First of all, the Undead Archer is able to do a melee attack along with its arrows, but it only does so after depleting its power.

Wraith: 100% Poison and Stun Resistance, 60 quickness. The Wraith is sort of an oddball. It has poor health, but it is very resistant to physical damage and is very quick. Its attacks are pretty powerful, since it ignores armor. Wraiths are also capable of using a few special skills, including Spectral Touch, which does 30 power damage and gives you 30% of the damage you dole out back to you, and Fade from View, which heals it and renders it invisible to attack. The easiest way to deal with them is with a mage. A single magic bolt will kill them. Since they are indeed really easy to kill, they are pretty low on the priority list.

This is a really good guide!

Earthen Armies (Dwarves)

The Dwarves are the toughest buggers you will have to face. Not only are they well armored, they have strong attacks, high health, and plenty of buffs for themselves to make your life harder. On the plus side, they are the slowest group of monsters, so hit 'em hard first and knock out as many of them as you can. Boss battles tend to get really messy.

All dwarves have a melee attack that costs no power. They also have the ability to use Dwarven Ale, which heals them and gives them 10 damage resistance temporarily. Expect to see them using it quite often when their health is depleted. It does use a chunk of their power though, so it is a good way to whittle it down to prevent them from using more devastating skills.

Runecaster: 10% damage reduction, 20% poison resistance, 50% stun resistance, 20 quickness. The runecaster is the most annoying support unit in the game. They have good health and a variety of resistance, making them hard to finish off. They seek to make their already tough to kill compatriots stronger and more durable. Rune of Protection gives all friendly units 15 damage resistance, while Rune of Strength increases friendly damage by 20 percent. Dwarves are already hard to kill, so eliminate Runecasters before they can do any buffs.
Dwarven Warrior: 30% damage reduction, 20% poison resistance, 50% stun resistance, 30 quickness. The Warrior is the main melee unit of the dwarves. As a result, heâs very hardy and can deal a fair amount of damage. He also has a skill, Punishing Blow, which will reduce your damage by 50%, so watch out.
Dwarven Maniac: 20% poison resistance, 100% stun resistance, 40 quickness. Dwarf Maniacs have the lowest health for melee units among the Dwarves, but that doesnât mean they arenât dangerous. They are the quickest dwarf units, they can deal a ton of damage, and their Hammer Slam is devastating: It hits the units in their melee range as well as the person directly behind whoever they chose to aim at, and the person they aimed at gets stunned. Maniacs are also capable of hitting people directly in the back row, so try and take them down after Runecasters.
Dwarven Veteran: 20% poison resistance, 50% stun resistance, 35 quickness. Veterans also have high damage and health. They can regenerate 60 health, and they are also capable of using Hammer Slam. These guys are tough to take down, especially in numbers, so watch out.
Dwarven Crossbowman: 20% damage reduction, 20% poison resistance, 50% stun resistance, 35 quickness. Crossbowman are probably the strongest ranged enemies in the game. For ranged units, they have pretty high health, and their crossbow ignores armor.

Priority is hard to establish among the Dwarves, because theyâre all so tough and similar, but as a rule kill Runecasters first. Afterwards, itâs up to you. I like to kill Maniacs first, then Veterans, then Warriors, while taking down the Corssbowmen with my ranged units.

Meh...sorry my walkthrough really sucks, I'd have to agree with you, but no need to flame me. I wrote this like 6 months ago and it actually did take me about 20 mins not 3 and good walkthrough parsat, but try making your own thread for it

I thought about it just after I started mine, but I figured double posting all of my stuff on another thread wouldn't be too good.

Creatures

The creatures are an odd bunch. They aren't particularly hard hitting after you get better armor, but they have a variety of debuffs that can be pretty annoying. Their health isn't as great as the other races, so that's an advantage there; they make up for this with their general swiftness though.

Greebler: 65 quickness. The Greebler is one of the more common beasts. It has poisonous claws and can attack at range. The Greebler is pretty weak, attack and healthwise. Take down more powerful foes first, and save the little guys for last.
Poison Drake: 100% poison resistance, 45 quickness. Poison Drakes are one of the weaker units, along with the Storm Drake. Their main attack is spitting poison, which does a little contact damage as well as added poison damage. It also has a regular melee attack.
Basilisk: 30 quickness. The Basilisk doesn't have much armor going for it. Although it has a decent amount of health, it really isn't that tough. The big problem about these buggers is that they like to stun your units, rendering them unable to do anything for that turn beside regenerate health and power. Their big stun move is Petrify, which stuns all your units in their range. Their regular attacks also have a chance to stun. Because stunning puts you at a serious disadvantage, it's best to target these creatures first.
Gargoyle: 80% damage reduction, 100% poison resistance, 60 quickness. Gargoyles don't have a lot of health, but they make up for it with a bunch of speed and armor. Gargoyles, as flying creatures, can hit your back row. When they are severely weakened, they will use the skill Stone Form, which heals them and gives them 1 defiance (their health cannot be decreased to less than one until their next turn). To heavy armor units, gargoyle attacks really aren't that bad; they are more of a threat to your less heavily armored back row, so watch out for that. If you can stun them, that would be best. Otherwise, you will have to concentrate your attacks on the Gargoyle. On higher levels, where your weapons and stats are better, the gargoyle become less of a threat, but in the beginning, watch out!
Arachnoid: 25% poison resistance, 45 quickness. The Arachnoid has about the same health as the basilisk. These guys also specialize in debuffing. They almost always first cast their Web skill, which decreases your entire party's quickness by twenty. This can be devastating in battles with a ton of creatures, or in boss battles. Other than that, they really aren't much of a threat, damagewise. Kill them first if there aren't any more threatening creatures to prevent their Web, but aim for stronger creatures if they are there.
Storm Drake: 55 Quickness. Storm Drakes are among the strongest units of the creatures. They are quick, and they can deal some pretty big damage. Since they are able to fly, they can target your back row. They are capable of a lightning attack capable of hitting multiple units that they use quite rarely. They mostly squander their energy swooping down on your back row. Since they hit pretty hard, put them high on your priorities.

Now for the priority list. There isn't any true "support unit" among the beasts; they generally act independently, with no healers (like beasts). Focus your attention on the big debuffers first, then their powerhouses, then Greeblers.

1. Basilisks (Their stun will seriously hamper you on big battles)
2. Storm and Poison Drakes
3. Gargoyles
4. Arachnoids (If you can hit multiple targets and kill them before they debuff you, put 'em up with the Basilisks)
5. Greeblers

good walkthrough parsat