UPP vs. JUPP

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Hey! I'm here again with another question. For those of you that have read Ken Egervari's Ultimate Powergaming Party (UPP) and Jukka's version (JUPP), which of the two is better? For me personally I haven't tried any of Jukka's characters because I want to avoid ECL (I know it's irrelevant in the long-run) and I find Egervari's approach very effective even with six characters. I

I liked that the party is pretty balanced and that it can melee in normal mode and toast the oppositon in HoF. It even has a diplomat for some role-playing feeling added to it, and the sorcerer still is effective.

So, what do you think?

 

I might have a *little* biased opinion, but I really do think that the JUPP is an improvement over UPP.

Essentially, JUPP parties survive HOF mode without breaking much of a sweat, while still bringing in all the functionality that the UPP has. (Minus the increased micromanagement of keeping up the buff spells, of course.) The inclusion of ECL races is more than counterbalanced by using only four characters. Frankly, having more than two or three arcane casters blasting enemies is a bit of an overkill, even in HOF mode. A twin Wail kills everyone on screen already..

 

Well, I'm sort of partial towards Ken's guide. Basically because I find the characters in that guide a lot easier to implement. Also because I am not a great fan of HoF mode. Sure, it might seem like a contradiction to only play normal mode and powergame...but still, the incredulousness of HoF mode puts off even the powergamer in me.

Coming back to the point, Ken's guide might be overkill like Jukka said earlier, its a whole lot easier to understand.

To be fair, Jukka's guide was truly a great feat of intelligence and sheer number crunching. Kudos to him for that. However, the complex multiclassing, item dependency and spell lists put me off. No offense Jukka, just personal opinion.

Anyway, thats my vote!

 

I'm rather biased due to egervai's irritating and constant advertisement of his FAQ when it was first posted at GameFAQs, but I believe that even taking into account the bias, Jukka's UPP is just better. The party offered itself isn't as flexible as in egervai's--quite a lot of alignment restrictions--, but that's hardly an issue when both take a number of 3 int characters (no point in varied alignment for roleplaying purposes). JUPP also offers more useful insights on the particular functions of the items and spells used, while UPP just throws some stuff at you.

 

The JUPP looks like a well-researched piece of work. It is an interesting and enlightening read. I am amazed at how so many of you people manage to figure out all the intricacies of the game (I bet even the developers don't know their game this well).

The biggest problem is that it makes me want to ditch my current party and start again. What a pain.