Dungeons & Dragons Tactics Impressions

IGN’s D&D Vault has cranked out more impressions of Atari and Kuju Entertainment’s newly released Dungeons & Dragons Tactics.

Any encounter that isn’t flat out fighting other bland non-casters isn’t going to need more than bland non-casters. However, as far as I can tell, you’re rarely in that situation. Each mission requires a certain wisdom in the selection of what party members will be involved, and you may need to run a mission more than once to figure that out. You can, in fact, stop a mission partway through at the Game Menu (Start key). You’ll forfeit any experience or items that you’ve gained so far in the mission, but at least you can back out of it if it starts to go badly for you.

Each class has a certain set of abilities upon which I’ve come to rely as I move through the missions, so I tend to use them for specific purposes: The druid throws out summoned critters like nobody’s business, and starts out on the map with a pet dog that’s pretty tough in a fight as well; My mage sews complete chaos with a number of daze, stun, sleep, and charm effects; My rogue dances up to enemies without them noticing him, sneaks behind them, and then tickles their ribs with a cleanly placed dirk; My bard sits in the back of the party serenading everyone into a complete fighting frenzy. Of course, I haven’t mentioned my Dwarvish fighter who relishes the idea of more than one opponents, as he gets the opportunity to fire off his Cleave feat and blow them all down like so many bowling pins.