Snow in summer, ice in my heart,
Death’s cold fingers tear us apart.
=)
NIce try, but it’s already been in my head all morning.
This is why video game music never has lyrics, dammit.
Just think of the poor NPCs in the guild hall. They have to be homicidal by now. Over and over and over…“You’re a bloody Bard Rabbie, don’t ya know any other songs!”
LOL yeah, that’s no shit.
One of the taverns later in the game has a singer who will take requests. But Rabbie just sticks with his greatest hit.
We tried to get Tom to stream this Wednesday. Sadly we lost the vote.
It’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of it. I’ll add my vote to the mix next week as well, if I remember.
So I figured out what to do with that first Elven puzzle weapon, and wow. It doesn’t do as much straight damage as my sword did, but the spell point drain from enemy casters is a huge advantage in combat, especially when combined with skills like Taunt and Levitate to get casters to the front row and then Sweeping Slash to hit all of them at once. A yellow fight against a bunch of casters felt more like a green one when all they could do was weak melee and no summoning.
Visited the Duke and now I’m off on yet another errand for yet another NPC. Need to finish up a few Skara Brae and SB Below side quests too as I have the feeling I am about to move beyond the confines of the city soon.
Just popped out of Skara Brae for the first time last night after finishing the Duke’s task. The forest looks amazing! I’m excited to see some new places and new enemies. Should I have explored Mangar’s Tower BEFORE I left Skara Brae, or is that something I’m better off coming back to later? I have the quest to explore it and find the Snare item that will help defeat him, but it seems like I should be following the main quest instead for now?
Also, I now have two Elven weapons. I have Dispelling Disciple, the mace looking thing, and solved the two puzzles on the weapon. I also have the flaming sword I removed from the zombie’s head after defeating the cultists. That had a single puzzle on the weapon itself. Am I now “done” with both of these, or is there an Elven Shrine somewhere that will accept one or both?
You can do it whenever. You don’t need to do it as part of the main quest. It’s useful because there are yet more resources inside of course (xp, stuff, etc).
I believe there is a shrine for every Eleven weapon. I might be mistaken. And I don’t think that applies to the ones you craft.
BTW, for those playing the original trilogy, and since there doesn’t seem to be anything in the way of manuals for the old games, if you’re looking to transfer your characters from BTI to BTII, it doesn’t work anything like the old days (not surprisingly). To do this, you need to load up your BTI save, go to the adventurer’s guild, and pick the option to start BTII.
I never would have figured that out on my own. Figured I’d help.
After messing around outside for a bit I went back into Skara Brae Below and attempted Mangar’s Tower. Crushed it in a couple of play sessions, then realized I did not receive/find the weapon/item that I was supposed to be looking for in the tower to begin with. Hmmmm…
Did a quick lookup on the interwebs and it turns out there is a sort of hidden area that contains an 8-wave fight where each wave respawns if you don’t kill them all in the same turn. Tried that a couple of times last night, and got as far as Wave 7 before I lost too many party members to make continuing a viable option. I can win this fight, I just need to figure out the right combination of weapons, skills, spells and get a little lucky.
I got lucky with the bell puzzle fight. I had been standing pretty far back from the bells while interacting with them, so when the group spawned, they didn’t spot me right away. I was able to Hide In Shadows and get the drop on them. That first strike, combined with the elven mace thingy that my fighter used to sap all the casters spell points, made the fight manageable for my Level 10 party. Just barely though, as I lost half my party in the fight and would have wiped if I hadn’t gotten lucky on a couple of crits that refreshed key abilities at just the right times.
Last night I won the 8 wave fight in Mangar’s Tower. I had to retool my whole party for it, including swapping out some skills and putting 10-pt healing potions in my character’s (Fighter) trinket slot to use during the fight. Those saved my bacon, as at least three times I had my bard or my wizard down to 1 or 2 HP and was able to keep them alive for another round using the potions. The fight seems deceptively simple, as it’s simply 8 waves with a total of 40 skeletal warriors and archers, all of whom have only 10HP each, with the warriors also having 1 armor each. BUT, if you don’t completely clear a wave on your turn, it respawns on their turn, therefore you need to find ways each wave to kill between 4 and 6 monsters with only 4 action points.
It was awesome. Each wave was like a puzzle, I would have to judge how many skeletons were in the wave, where they were located, what skills I had available that round, and how I could move my people or the monsters to line them up for the multi-kills needed to defeat 5 or 6 monsters with only 4 AP. Wringneck was invaluable for this, as Trow’s Advantage gave me a free AP nearly every wave. Skills like Conjuror’s Mark, Caltrops and Falkentyne’s Fury were also incredibly useful for dealing extra, AP-free damage to multiple targets. Taunt and Levitate were also very useful in bringing targets to the front rank where more skills could reach them. In the final round, with 6 skeletons and only my Fighter and Wizard left alive, Levitate and Conjurer’s Mark won the fight for me. I wasn’t going to have enough AP to defeat all the remaining skeletons until I realized I could use Levitate to bring one with Conjurer’s Mark into melee range, and by killing him the AOE damage from the mark would finish off the other two behind him. BAM…Fight Conquered. (I got lucky)
I recommend everyone do this fight. The loot is very nice. Somewhere around 1000 GP, several nice crafting items, several weapon/armor items (none of which were better than mine at level 11 sadly) and the Spectre Snare, which is a nice weapon I will give to my Bard. It has +8 STR, +5 CON and +3 AC, and grants a 1 AP skill called “Baylor’s Spell Bind” that deals 7 Mental damage and roots up to three front row enemies for 1 turn. Seems like that could come in handy!
Thanks SlainteMhath… your depiction of this battle has inspired me to get back to it tonight!
Played briefly last night, maybe 45 minutes total. Mostly post-Mangar’s Tower maintenance, including visiting the guild for a review board meeting, allocating skill points (all 4 party members are now Level 13 after the 8 wave fight), reviewing looted gear and equipping upgrades, then wandering around to all the vendors in SB Below and SB Above to sell excess equipment and buy a handful of upgrades.
At this point, my characters all have equipment that is pretty much at the level of or better than anything for sale in Skara Brae (within reason). The vendors never seem to get additional or upgraded stock, so I assume it’s time to move on. I left the city again and entered the Sentry Tower, having found the secret to the bells at the gate. Figured out the first puzzle there and saved/closed for the night. I don’t even think I had a combat for the entire 45 minutes I played!
So I got all the way to the top of the Sentry Tower, and got wiped by the fight there. 3 Paladins followed by an orge-thing with 250+ HP and a melee attack that can kill in one hit. Wow. This one fight is 10X harder than anything I’ve faced to this point. It seems very unbalanced.
So, I’m skipping it. I saved outside the tower and will continue the main quest, gaining some levels and equipment, then come back and finish Sentry Tower later, when all my characters are level 18 instead of level 13. Pretty sure there is nothing in the final room(s) that I desperately need, and I collected plenty of xp and loot on the way up…so I’m good for now.
Cool, thanks for the advice. I don’t even have my 5th party member yet, so you’re right, I am underpowered for that fight for sure. Going to focus on obtaining the 5th party slot and upgrading my crew a bit. I also could use recipes for better health potions and food. Right now the best I can craft is a 10pt potion and 14pt food (soup). When some of your party members have 60+ HP that just doesn’t cut it.
I did pick up a very nice two-hander that lays down two stacks of Rend on anything it hits…however my fighter needs the AC from his tower shield to survive, so I need to gain one more level on him and invest the skill point in whatever that final mastery skill is that allows you to wield two-handed weapons one-handed. Putting the sword and shield together will make him an unstoppable meat carving machine.
Finally got around to this.
I think I hate the save system enough to put it down. Blech.
Too bad; I like the combat.
The sheer number of save totems they put in makes it weird that they didn’t just allow save anywhere in the first place.
I also found the combat interesting. World is quite engaging. Characters pretty good, with great voice acting. (Though the faux Scottish world is a bit of an eye roller)
And personally, I did not mind the save system. It prevents absolutely cost-free save scumming such that getting killed means nothing to you (an RPG convention that really rubs me the wrong way). But you are never all that far from your last save.
For me, the game killer here is the overwhelming number of puzzles. Not a puzzle here and there, but tons of them. Not my thing at all. And as you get further in, the supposed option to just look up the answers in their answer folder becomes less and less of a solution, by their nature, they are very time consuming even if you are provided with the answer.