Your party diversity is very important in some areas. Putting experience points into one skill can be dangerous because it makes some areas simple and others difficult. For example, stacking one type of magic will prevent the mage from being useful in damage output against monsters of the same element. However, if you do stack, no need to fear. The game prevents characters from being useless in certain fights by adding special abilities within skills. Let's use the mage example again. With enough points in one type of magic, the mage can obtain a spell to resist that particular element, thus making him or her not completely useless in combat. Legend of Grimrock is designed incredibly well.


Legend of Grimrock can be played many different ways ranging from a party of weak spellcasters to unkillable minotaurs stacking viality. Not recommended for casual or new players. There is a typical party build which is:

• Human fighter (front) - Swords, Armor
  
• Minotaur fighter (front) - Mace, Armor
  
• Insectoid mage (back) - Spellcraft, Any Magic
  
• Lizardman rogue (back) - Any Skill (except Dodge)

My build was a full insectoid party with evasion tank fighters in front and mage/rogue in the back. I picked this build because it was very simple and my biggest concern (from what I thought) was going to be food. From there, I went full swords on both fighters, split spellcraft and fire on mage, and full missle weapons on rogue. I enjoyed this build because I hardly got hit by physical attacks. However, stacking made some parts difficult. Two problems I encountered were: over encumbrance (very often) and splash magic attacks. Luckily, magic projectiles can be dodged pretty easily and not many monsters have splash magic attacks.

While trying to defeat an enemy, you want to avoid being damaged as much as possible by ducking in and out of the line of fire, waiting for weapon cooldowns to expire, attack, then rinse repeat. Depending on the monster, you can predict the direction it will move then be able to react accordingly. However, this can be difficult with narrow corridors or more than one monster. Avoid these terrible situations by:

• Planning out an escape route
  
• Fighting in at least 2 by 2 tile rooms
  
• Use doors with chains to quickly hit enemies then close the door after 2-3 hits

Ideally, we would all enjoy to remove monsters one at a time but sometimes that is just not possible. If the combat situation is dire:

• Back against a wall
  
• Find a room with a door chain
  
• Fall into a trap door

The last one is usually helpful because many good items can found this way.


When dodging is not enough, timing attacks can completely block damage without the hassle of dancing around enemies. The typical player will just attack when the weapon's cooldown has expired and not think twice. Attacking an enemy at the start of its attack animation can prevent it from doing damage. Here is the problem: misses. Missing the target with one of your attacks can ruin the "stun" rotation.

In Toorum mode, high speed weapons (such as swords and daggers) make it possible to stun lock most enemies.

The most annoying gameplay mechanic in RPGs for hoarders. Approaching too close to the max carry weight for one character can cause the issue of over encumbrance, thereby reducing your party's movement speed. The following list are ways to keep your character going normal speed:

• Keep sacks and only 1-2 wooden crates (crates weight to slot ratio compared to sacks is terrible)
  
• Use light armor, toss any heavy armor (heavy armor is... well... really heavy)
  
• Toss unimportant items
  
  • Any weapon that your characters don't specialize in
    
  • Blue and green gems
    
  • Torches (unless you have less than 2-4)
    
  • Any note (notes are not needed under any circumstance)
• For the hardcore hoarders, stack strength and get the endurance skill

In Legend of Grimrock, over encumbrance is not the only problem encountered when dealing with inventory. It is a slot based system as well, meaning you have a limited amount of slots before not being able hold anymore regardless of how much they weigh. This means inventory management is key to keep what you actually you need. You will find two types of items that will allow you to avoid filling up all inventory slots: sacks and wooden crates. As suggested above, it is better to keep sacks instead of crates because they have a better slot to weight ratio. To stay better organized, throw similar items into sacks if possible.

When talking about inventory management with items, there is good news and bad news. Good news is that some items of the same type stack indefintely, bad news is that it can subtly cause over encumbrance issues. Holding on to 20 throwing knives with no one specializing in them, let alone using them, can add up over time.


The following is a list of the best equipment items that can be obtained in the game.

• Best weapons
  
  • Sword: The Dismantler or Sword of Nex - Level 8/Level 6
    
  • Dagger: Assassin's Dagger - Level 7
    
  • Axe: Ancient Axe - Level 10
    
  • Mace: Icefall Hammer - Level 11
    
  • Missle: Crookhorn Longbow or Crossbow - Level 10/Level 4
    
  • Staff: Shaman Staff - Level 7
    
  • Orb: Zhandul's Orb - Level 9
    
  • Throwing: Throwing Axe or Shuriken - Throughout the game
• Best armor
  
  • Heavy: Valor Armor Set - Levels 7, 8, and 10 (3 items)
    
  • Light: Chitin Armor Set - Levels 4 (2 items), 6, and 7
    
  • Weightless: Lurker Armor Set and Pit Fighter Gauntlets - Levels 1, 5, 6, and 9 (2 items)
    
  • Shield: Shield of Valor or Shield of the Elements - Level 7/Level 10
    
  • Jewelry: Spirit Mirror Pendant or Fire Torc or Frostbite Necklace - Level 6/Level 7/Level 6
    
  • Cloak: Huntsman Cloak - Levels 3 and 5 (debatable)
    
  • Bracelet: Bracelet of Tirin - Level 7 (debatable)

There are no special projectiles or reach weapons hence why they are not listed.


The following is a list items that are considered to be significant in game.

• Compass - Level 2 (Only useful for old school mode)
  
• Bone Amulet - Level 2 (Opens an iron door to obtain Zhandul's Orb)
  
• Book of Infinite Wisdom - Levels 4 and 9 (skill increase)
  
• Tome of Health - Level 3 (skill increase)
  
• Tome of Fire - Level 6 (skill increase)
  
• Red Gem - Level 10 (Opens an iron door to obtain Crookhorn Longbow)
  
• Remains of Toorum - Level 10 (Unlocks Toorum Mode and an achievement)
  
• Skull - Levels 2, 3, 7, 8, and 10 (Applies to Minotaur's special trait, end statistics, and an achievement)
  
• Treasure - Levels 2, 3, 6, 8, 11 (2 items), and 13 (Applies to end statistics and an achievement)

• Map Marking
  
  • Marking special locations on your map can be useful such as marking the crystal of life or certain items dropped
• Quick Save/Load
  
  • Some areas of game may require some high levels of memorization or events done in a timely fashion
    
  • F5 for quick save and F9 for quick load (default)

• If you have ever wondered, "Do you find Toorum's bones while playing as him?" the answer is no. That detail was discovered by the game developers. The secret room where Toorum died contains the same items except obviously his bones.
  
• Toorum is the only character who has the ability Thunderstruck (double movement speed).
  
• Fire is the best element to increase because of how widely used it is. Air is a close second because most monsters are vunerable to the element (especially the final boss).
  
• Minotaur's headhunter trait only applies to skulls in open inventory (not ones kept in containers).
  
• Torches emit the brightest light in game.