Phase one was easy: two Rapiers, two nunchucks, two Chain armors, and off to the races.

Garland was slaughtered, and so were the Pirates. On the way to Dwarf Cave, though:

That monster band got a surprise round and flattened my leader with two criticals. The rest of the party couldn't keep up with the monsters' damage, and holy crap that's about the earliest party wipe I've ever had. The PRNG shall ever swing.

Anyway, when the fighters hit level 5 for 2-Hits, I couldn't resist trying them on the Peninsula Northeast Of Pravoka. PNEOP abuse always centers around the FIR2 or HRM2 spells, taking advantage of ZomBulls' weakness to both in order to beat a monster you have no business beating. But this party hasn't got those options. I want to beat this place with brute force.

The first fight was a TYRO, and I even got hopeful after everybody lived through two rounds and Judo landed a critical. But no, RUSEless fighters don't get to beat a 480 HP monster with 2-14 damage after absorb.

Fight two was a ZomBULL plus two TROLLs. The latter pack 3 hits and more damage with about the same HP, so they had to be targeted first. My party traded kills one-for-one with the first TROLL, then the second as well! The ZomBULL kept landing hits, but..

Epee wins all by himself! Holy crap, 2292 EXP for one warrior! That just under TRIPLED his prior experience total!

He still had to hike back to Pravoka by himself, but that wasn't a problem, beating a single GEIST then OGRE along the way.OK, that was amusing enough that I gotta do it again, especially now with an extra 50 HP on the lead fighter.

Well, FrWOLVES definitely wouldn't work without FIR2, with about two FROSTS required to level the party. Neither did four ZomBULLs, though I did manage to kill two of them.

Then I did beat a TYRO! Epee's extra HP let him survive until the third blow before dying, which was enough time for the others to kill it. The last hit was a critical from a BB for 80 damage, which caught me by surprise too quick to grab the screenshot.

Next I scored a quality win against two ZomBULLs, with all four warriors surviving, and leveling the BBs to 7 for a strong HP up.

And then I conquered FOUR ZomBULLs! With one fighter and one BB standing, who each got another entire level off that. The cash from those six ZomBULLs funded the purchase of two Silver Swords from Elfland, and I returned for yet another round. (Sure, I could trounce Marsh Cave easily by now, but I'm having way too much fun abusing the Power Peninsula.)

I victimized four more ZomBULLs, with both BBs standing to receive the experience this time. Then three ZomBULLs with the full party standing, and that gave me what I wanted: a level 10 Black Belt.

Now I could win every fight here, except only a big enough pack of FrWOLVES. My party could kill one Giant, ZomBull, or Troll per round like clockwork. I beat more GIANTS, a few FrWOLVES, lost to FrWOLVES, beat GIANTs again, ZomBULLs again, and finally three ZomBULLs that leveled my second BB to 10.

 

I'll spare the details of how a level-11 brawler party crashes through Marsh Cave, but I will note that I didn't use a single healing potion. Those are my stats on exit from the cave, with an average of under 60 damage taken per warrior. More than half of that was from the Wizards.

 

Astos did connect with his infamous RUB, but the warriors brawled him into the floor.

In Melmond, I did buy a Steel Armor. Nothing else to spend money on, with no spellcasters.

Of course, sometimes I sure wished I had some multi-target magic...

  

... but more often a battle plan of Fight - Fight - Fight - Fight was more than enough to carry the day. At this point, the Fighters and Black Belts were just about equal in combat capability. Superiority would depend on the target's Absorb, which factors in twice as much against the multiple-hitting martial artists as against the fencers. Once the fighters made level 14 for their third hit with a Silver Sword, though, they would stay pretty superior until the BBs made level 21. Of course, the fighters would stay in the lead party slots, with considerably superior absorbing armor and more HP.