What can a player expect from PS:T?

I'm thinking of reinstalling it on my computer, and haven't touched the game in years. I never completed it either.

What mods/patches/ect. do I need or should I download?

TIA

I'd play with just the official patch & Platter's fixes the first time. All available on SP.

There is absolutely no need to power game this game, you should role play it and not worry about traditionally important stats. Keep an open mind and try things out. Most of all, keep in mind that advancing the plot and learning things is far more important than finding items or killing things.

Read through the intentionally sparce manual. It gives some good information, but most things you will learn along the way.

One semi-spoiler:

Wisdom rocks. Start with 16-18 and you won't be sorry. Also, charisma is quite a good stat to have high. As said before, don't concentrate on the normal stats for a character build. You will have ample opportunity to improve stats throughout the game.

Do a full install (http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showpost.php?p=625046&postcount=3) if you can - it helps avoid some problems with reading from the CDs.

Tal: The link to Platter's fixes seems to link to some generic hosting company page with ads - perhaps his site has been taken down already.

I found the files here:
[snip]

Platter's original site hosting is gone. But there are a couple of mirrors out there:

http://planescape.outshine.com/index.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20070624054335/http://www.planescape-torment.org/

The first is more complete.

Enjoy the game!
I am also using the restoration pack, which you may want to consider.

This game is mostly about good dialog options and recovering memories: so boost wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Also, high dexterity helps with a few dialogs. :)

The game is very hard to get into at the beginning but the quality of storytelling is unmatched.

I recommend to roleplay your character, not to lust after the best rewards.
If you are a powergamer you can fight respawning monsters anytime until you have more than 1000 HP and all stats 25 if you really can't help it, so there's no need for reloading dialogues until you get the best outcome or similar things.

Hmm, sorry about that Tal, I didn't know that site's reputation, was just one of the first sites that turned up what I needed in Google.

This game is mostly about good dialog options and recovering memories: so boost wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Also, high dexterity helps with a few dialogs.

Nearly all important fights can be avoided by talking and you nearly always get a better reward for doing so. So neglecting the physical stats is some kind of "powergaming" in PST. But it has the drawback that you are weak in combat and even the reappearing standard thugs crowding the streets can kill you. It's not that fun dying ten times when crossing a new area either. Consider how you want to play your game when choosing your stats, what is important to you.


The "ice knife" spell is buggy, since it can give the thac0 penalty permanently. If this happens to one of your party members it can easily be fixed by dying and getting resurrected. Dying once in while can be beneficial.

I had no trouble dying when crossing areas (thugs etc) when my character was built to be a mage (high wisdom, intelligence, charisma) and (9's for strength and constitution). You can take levels as a fighter to boost your hitpoints and combat skills to make you a bit tougher. You also have to rely on your companions to help with the fighting. But that makes it all more fun for me!

Cha is mostly useless. You only get some bigger rewards, but gold is not really an issue in this game. Sometimes you may be able to solve some quests, but usually the same quests can be solved with Int or Wis.
18 Wis is a must at the start of the game. And get it as high as possible fast. You get an insane amount of bonus experience this way. Int is also important, not only for a mage but for solving certain quests and gaining memories.
Con and Str are only important if you plan to be a Fighter the whole game. Dex however is very important since TNO cannot use any armor.
My suggestion would be to max Wis from the start and put an equal share of attributes between Int and Dex, if you plan to use a thief or a mage.

There are some dialogs where you can only get bonuses (XP, and important upgrades) by having high charisma. I would certainly not neglect it. It's much more important than high dexterity initially, unless you want to play a thief.

Getting hit / killed is only annoying in this game... ;)

(EDIT: well there are some parts where it's less cool, but you can run away or talk and still make it). Icewind Dale this ain't. ;)

Charisma is HUGE in conversation with Ravel.

nothing that a single casting of friends wont solve though

You're CHR should be above average to begin with, unless you don't mind recasting after a quickload.

Personally, I find casting friends annoying. My mage character (with 6 levels of thief and fighter) with a full party brought charisma up to about 16-17 before increasing dexterity past 10 or so, and did wonderfully.

You're playing an undead scarred hulk. What's so charismatic about him?:D

He's got a silver tongue, though. Charisma is more than just skin deep ;)

I consider dexterity the least useful stat, extra options for high dex are rare, the first 5 points don't give any AC and since you can't wear armor the little AC bonus for very high dex won't change much.

Agreed with kmonster there. Dexterity have few uses. The one stat I can never do without is Wisdom. Most seem to enjoy the Nameless One with Str, dex and con 9. And Buff up as much as possible on Int, Wis and Cha. This is just about the only game I know of that this actually works, which I guess is why people love it so much.

If you want to go big badass indestructable warrior, Str, Con, Wis and focus on fighter levels, will make you into a juggernought of destruction. But you pretty much miss what most considers to be the strong points of this game.

A couple of little spoilers ...

Strength -- Putting a point in strength only progresses you through the strength categories (each level of exceptional strength taking one point. That is, unless you have an 18 strength at sixth level and take fighter as your seventh level. Bang! 19 strength.

Dexterity -- Your Dex must be at least nine to gain thieving skills.

Hit Points -- To max out hit points always take the fighter level up to a new level first through ninth level. At tenth level, take thief first (for 1d6 instead of +3 for fighter). At eleventh level, take mage first (for 1d4 instead of +3 for fighter). You get one hit point for every level of a second or third class. So if you are a 9/9/9 F/T/M (and took fighter first at all levels) you would have the normal amount of hit points for fighter, +9 hit points for thief, +9 hit points for mage.

When you first reach level 7 you get a small bonus depending on the class (+1 int for mage, +1 dex for thief,+1 str and being allowed ++++ in a weapon for fighter).
When you reach level 12 first with the same class you get a big class dependent bonus, if you reach it with another class first you only get the small bonus for this class instead.


Don't ever use a stat point to raise strength from 18 to 18/.. . Like T2B wrote you can get 6 raises for one if you get the strength raise from an external source, like the level 7 bonus for fighter.
But the bonus isn't as earthshaking as it looks, if you have 9 strength, use the spell to raise it to 18 and wear a tattoo which gives +1 you also have 19.


Although con doesn't help with dialogues I wouldn't underestimate it. With 9 con you regerate one hitpoint every 60 seconds, for each extra con point it takes 5 less seconds, at very high con you'll even regenerate several hitpoints per second (extremely powerful). You won't have a cleric in the party for a long time, so if your low con NO gets hurt you'll either have to do a long walk to the next resting place, die, spend money or wait for an eternity. If you start with 14 con you also have 10 permanent HP more than if you start with 9 con and rise it to 14 later.
You should also know that you get the full con bonus to HP for each level of your highest class, so a mage15/fighter3/thief4 with 19 con gets 15*5=75 bonus HP for example.

Yeah, as Rastor used to point out, playing TNO as a fighter makes the game MUCH easier. I played through as an LG fighter a few months ago and just skipped dex and char. I had a good wis, reasonable int and everything else went into Str and Con. After a certain part in the game it was too easy. TNO was just taking everything out. But I prefer playing the game as a mage with focus on int and cha.