Examples of what you'll encounter is this weird universe...
Introduction :
Torment is a masterpiece. It is based on D&D 2nd edition rules, taking place in the Planescape universe from TSR. The Planescape universe (better to say "multiverse") is quite different from the Forgotten Realms or any ordinary Heroic Fantasy world : it is a kind of hub from where you can go to any universe. And the city of Sigil, where the main part of this game takes place, is considered the "center" of the multiverse. You can encounter anything in this unique place, demons from the 412th plane of the Abyss, Devas from the Heavens, Robotic beings, Objects with personality, etc.
About Gameplay :
Your main character is called : The Nameless One. You cannot customize him much in the beginning : you start as a level 3 fighter. All of your 6 main stats (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) are at 9, & you can distribute 21 points on them, to a maximum of 18. The main difference between Torment & other rpgs is that the most important stats are not the physical ones, but the "mind" ones. Intelligence, Wisdom & Charisma are what will lead you to victory. Because you can fight your way trough Torment if you will, but what truly sets this game apart from the mass of other rpgs is that it is possible to clear most quest & get through most situations without fighting, and that the "smart" way is almost always more rewarding than the "Me See Me Kill" approach. By using your head rather than your hammer, you will earn more exp & more loot, gain more information, etc. You can talk to almost anyone ( or anything ) in this world, & you'll realize quickly that there is much more dialogue here than in any other rpg. The dialogs are fabulously written, it is simply a matter of wether you like reading or not. If you are the knd of person that enjoys a good fantasy novel, then this is THE game for you. If you find reading tedious, well you probably haven't bothered with my rant anyway. The plot is quite simply the greatest I have ever seen in any video game, and though the fights aren't numerous, they are great & some battles are truly epic.
About the storyline (the first 5 minutes) :
You wake up in a mortuary. There are corpses all around you, some are dissecate, some are animated zombies. A skull flies towards you and starts jabbering. His name is Morte, and yours is? You can't remember. Are you dead? It seems you are not. Your body looks like a corpse, but you know you're alive. You're covered with scars. The ones on your back are like writings. Morte reads them out to you : "Find your Journal, Find Pharod." Who's Pharod? What journal? Dammit. First thing is to escape from that mortuary. Morte tells you the room is locked, but he saw one of those workers (workers? yeah, the animated zombies are cheap employees...) was holding a key. You have to kill the zombie to get the key. Then you break out of the room. Morte explains that the guys running this place are called "Dustmen", they are a faction of people who are obsessed with Death. They believe this life is some sort of purgatory, and that everyone should quit it as soon as possible. They never suicide, however, as they aim to bring enlightenment to the masses, to help them reach "True Death". He tells you they are nutters, and advises you to keep your mouth shut...
Important Section : Set up your game correctly!!! :
- You cannot make a full installation of this game using the Setup program. You need to "fake" it. Install the game & remember the name of the directory (here I'll take C:/Games/Torment for example). Copy the contents of cd2, cd3 & cd4 to the game directory on your hard drive ( if you have the 2 cds only version just look for the relevant directories ). Now it should contain 3 more directories, named cd2, cd3 & cd4 (you don't need to create them, those are usually already on the cds). Open the Torment.ini file in your game directory, & change the paths to those directories. You don't need to do anything about the cd5 path since there is no cd5 in Torment.
- Patch the game!!! The 1.1 patch corrects many bugs like infinite dialog loops, game slowing down, etc. ( NB : if you have the "2 CDs only" version of the game, it's already patched, and patching it would only mess up your data, so don't do it. )
- Apply the fan-made Fix Pack!!! This is a *high quality* fan-made patch that fixes even more stuff. Thanks to Platter, Ash, Chris and everyone else who worked on this gem. The official website for the fix-pack is now dead so I decided to host it on my site. Click here to download it.
- Do not miss the fantastic "Max HP" mod either. Credits to Grog for this marvel! No need to re-roll your HP at level up any longer! Click here to download it.
- Setup your game options correctly. I would advise you to push the combat difficulty to the max to make the game more challenging & thus much more enjoyable. Setup your automatic pauses, IMHO the really useful ones are "no more target", "weapon unusable", and "character badly hurt". I strongly suggest that you turn off the party AI because it really sucks. I also usually setup the feedback for character selection to the max, just for fun. There are some easter eggs voices if you click & select one of your teammates about 10 times in a row. Setup the balance between sounds effects, music, etc, to suit your tastes.
Various Info & Advice :
- The Nameless One is a peculiar character. He starts as a Fighter, but he can become a Thief or a Mage if he finds someone who can train him. Despite being multi-classed, he can only be one class at a time. This means you have to choose wich class is active. All exp gained will go to that class, & thus he will level up in that class only. He will only be able to use items & skills wich are compatible with that class. For example : even if you put all your skill points in Hammers, you won't be able to use them while you are a Mage. You can switch classes as many times as you wish, you just need to find someone to train you for this. So you can consider TNO starts as a level 3 Fighter, Level 1 Thief, Level 1 Mage, with the fighter class active. Switching class does not make you lose any exp of course, if you were level 6 Fighter before switching to Thief, you will be level 6 fighter if you switch back to it.
- Every time TNO levels up, he gains one stat point he must put wherever he wants, to a maximum of 25 (wich is truly a godlike value in D&D rules). Remember this when you create your character. Also know that this only works the very first time he reaches a level. Because of TNO's switching class ability, you could think about switching classes every 5 minutes in order to level them all & thus get much more stat bonuses : sorry, it won't work. For example : you are level 6 Fighter, level 2 Thief with the Thief class active. You earn enough exp to reach level 3 Thief. You will not gain the bonus point. You also only gain 1 HP because TNO gains the full dice roll of the class he first reaches a level in. Additionally, he gets "specialization" bonuses at specific levels, that will depend again on which class you reached that level first with.
- Intelligence, Wisdom, & Charisma are the most important stats in this game. They give you loads of additional opportunities through dialogue. A high wisdom will even give you a bonus to all exp gained by the character. Max Wisdom (25) earns you a 33% bonus. ( Note : High Wisdom is great and all that, but no use going crazy with it. With the exponential gap between levels in D&D rules, another 20% exp won't make all that much difference in the end. And this bonus does not apply to teammates anyway. ) Dexterity can also give you some opportunities like *catch the pickpocket's hand* or *break his neck before he can call for help*. Constitution & Strength are very nice, I guess, but even at max difficulty your teammates are powerful enough to handle the fighting by themselves, so there's no real use making your TNO a war machine. Using skill points to boost "mind" stats will prove much more useful. In fact, even if you buff up your physical stats, TNO isn't such a good Fighter. He cannot wear any armor, and when you compare that with Morte's natural AC of 2 and his 75% resistance to all physical damage... Who do you want up front? However he can be a truly fantastic Mage, blasting enemies from afar while the rest of the team protects him. Otherwise, if you feel like leaving him out of the fight altogether, go for Thief, as you will level up faster, which means more Stat points, and thus more cool dialogue options. As a guide, an Intelligence, Wisdom & Charisma of 19 will give you access to 99% of the cool dialogue options & special rewards of the game, and a Dexterity of 13 will do the same for agility-based options.
- ( Obsolete if you have the Max HP mod ) With the D&D rules setting, when a character levels up, he earns a random number of additional hp, depending on his class. A fighter will gain 1d10 (means a roll with a 10 faced dice), A thief 1d6, a priest 1d6 and a mage 1d4. A multi-classed character will earn only the half of the dice roll since he levels up twice as often. Would be a good idea to save your game before you level up your char, so that you can reload if you've been unlucky with the dice roll. Note : if you apply the Max HP mod ( see further down ), all this hassle becomes a thing of the past.
- Talk to everyone, search everywhere, examine everything.
- *Know* your teammates, talk to them a lot.
- Enjoy yourself.
Mortuary Walktrough:
Here is a walktrough for the very beginning of the game, aimed at making you discover how much this game is filled with opportunities & playable in tons of different ways. Doesn't spoil much at all, you should try playing the mortuary bit by yourself once, then play it with this, to see what you had missed.
Spoilers :
Here are the other characters that can join your team. Each of them has a real personality & story, they're much more "alive" than any other character I've seen in a rpg. The relationship between you & your teammates is a very important part of the plot in this game.