Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor Hints

Can you give me some combat tips?

• 1 of 9: The first thing that you should learn is how to run away or avoid a fight. Unless you need to kill a monster as part of a quest, or unless it's between you and an essential part of a dungeon, you can probably avoid fighting it. You can always come back later when you're at a higher level or have better weapons and armor.
• 2 of 9: Also, realize that you can completely bypass some fights if you want to.
• 3 of 9: The Master level Air Magic spell of Invisibility provides a good alternative to combat at many points.  In some cases, Invisibility is your only real option.
• 4 of 9: Pay close attention to Body Magic spells such as Regeneration and Protection from Magic as well as the Spirit Magic spell of Preservation.  Between these spells, you can keep your party members from getting killed most of the time -- as long as you just keep one person conscious long enough to retreat.
• 5 of 9: Certain monsters will have resistances to certain types of spells.  They may have partial resistances, which just reduce the odds of causing damage and the amount of that damage.  Or they may be completely immune to spells. Trial and error or the Grand Master Identify Monster skill will tell you what these resistances and immunities are.
  
  Similarly, a very limited number of monsters are immune to physical damage. These include some types of medusas and ooze.  Weapons won't do any damage, unless they're enchanted to do magical damage, and then, only the magical damage applies.
• 6 of 9: Regardless of the kind of attacks you use, you should try to kill specific targets as quickly as possible.  When you use the quick-attack or quick-spell keys, the game will select the closest monster to you.  This may not always be the one that you attacked in the previous round, though.  That's why I prefer to click (or control-click) on the view window when I'm facing tough enemies in turn-based combat.  (It's generally not worth the trouble to try to pick out targets if you're in real-time.)
  
  And when you are using spells, you will want to cast spells that will help you quickly kill a few monsters.  Casting a spell like Inferno -- which does a little damage to a lot of monsters -- will not do you much good if you're using it on monsters with large numbers of hit points.  Instead, try a stronger single-target spell, like Incinerate.  But if the targets are fairly weak, a broader spell may do the trick.
• 7 of 9: You should also try the appropriate defensive spells (Fire Resistance, Air Resistance, etc.).  Day of Protection (Light Magic) gives you most of these defensive spells in one easy-to-cast package and provides greater protection at the same level.  With the spell, you don't have to be proficient in multiple types of magic.  But the individual spells -- scattered throughout the types of magic -- are also sufficient if you haven't yet learned or can't learn Day of Protection.
  
  Stat-enhancing spells may also be worth your while.  Heroism is a good spell, since it makes all weapon attacks do more damage, and Hammerhands works well for Unarmed fighters.  Haste also works well, as long as you remember that your party becomes weak when the spell wears off.  If you have Light Magic, try Hour of Power (to cast most stat-enhancing spells at once) and Day of the Gods (to boost your primary statistics).
• 8 of 9: You may also try turning monsters against each other or to your side with Mind Magic spells Berserk and Enslave, Light Magic spell Paralyze, and Dark Magic spells Reanimate and Control Undead.  The "enslaved" spells (including their Dark Magic equivalents) don't always work as well as they should -- with monsters just running away more often than they help you -- but they can still be somewhat useful, if only to temporarily get rid of one opponent. Just make sure that the targets aren't immune to whatever spells you want to cast on them.
• 9 of 9: If all else fails, it may be time to retreat or teleport and try again. Note, however, that all monsters will heal back to full hit points if you leave the map or dungeon where they are located.  So if you only have a little bit of damage left to finish off a monster, try to kill it first, even if it means waiting until you can Regenerate some extra hit points.

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