Best spell in the game. As soon as I got that, I went from a puny mageling, throwing fireballs at orcs then running away to a complete monster. You can annihilate the orcs outside the old camp really quickly. A favourite trick was to polymorph into a beetle, run into a big crowd of Orc Elites and Shamen, decloak and let rip with a Wave O’ Death. Went up about 3 character levels in about 10 mins!
It’s not so unbalanced, because it takes a long time for the spell to cook, and you’ll have angry orcs pounding you until it finishes casting.
I’m still early in this game and I didn’t play the first one. I’m wondering which guild to join. I am leaning toward playing as a paladin because it seems to be the most balanced class. Is that a good idea? I normally like to play mages, but the manual says that they are for advanced players. I am thinking about saving an extra file right before I join a guild so that I can replay it as another class. The mercenary class just seems like a waste of time though. You don’t have ANY spells. Are there some benefits I am not seeing to being a mercenary?
Paladin certainly the best/easiest class for a first play-through because you’ll be a good fighter but still have access to some basic (but helpful) magic. IIRC the mercenaries have the best trainers in terms of strength and their blacksmith is quite skilled, but you’ll be able to convince at least some of them to provide some knowledge/practice later in the game even if you’re a paladin.
After some more time with the game, I changed my opinion and now think that the combat system is actually good. Sure, it’s hard to master (and I haven’t gotten close yet) but it adds a lot to the game. Having a simple click n’ jump combat system would ultimatly become a bore.
Thanks for the idea, I’m just on my way to become a merc, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go through the begining again. I wish you’ve had posted this before I joined an apprenticeship.
All of the classes are fine, so choosing the one that seems to appeal to you most is a perfectly reasonable way to go about things - it’s role-playing, after all.
I think the combat system is actually great, once you get the hang of it. I wish there was more action-oriented combat in RPGs. Something like the great combat in Star Control 2 would be cool to see.
In the cave on the island with the spikes, I can get into the room with the chests, but I keep getting killed trying to get out. I can’t seem to jump, perhaps because of the low ceiling? Is there something I am missing? I got in just fine, over the same trap!
This is the one thing about Gothic 2 that pissed me off…
SPOILER ANSWER
Before you go into the room, there is a torch in the outside hallway you can pull to turn off the spikes.
After you go into the room, you are fucked. There is no way out (unless you have a teleport spell but I didn’t get that until much later in the game). Definitely make sure you have recent game-saves…
There are NPCs in the game who will tell you about that torch under certain conditions. However, the island is just RIGHT THERE and I found the room just by swimming out there.
Anyway I spent like 4 hours trying to jump out of this god damn room. It was the most frustrating thing ever.
I made it out of that room without the torch. Did the same thing, swam out there, got myself stuck, but after about 30 reloads I somehow made the jump across the spike trap (and instantly saved right then).
Okay, I’ve had the game for a little less than a week. I have a level 10 militia guy now with st=38, dex=25, one-handed=35 and bow=15 or 20. I seem to have hit an impasse.
I need a lot of experience to go up levels now, but have killed most of the not-so-buff creatures around the city, tavern and landowner farm. Nastier beasties like wargs and skeletons are showing up, but they completely clobberize me whenever I try to take one down. At best I can sometimes dust them with hit-and-run attacks for a whole day, but this is expensive and not a very efficient way to go up levels. Sometimes I can find a ledge or something the stand on and dust them with bowshots (a favorite tactic with wargs, which seem especially animated and vicious), but otherwise I’m having trouble getting xp’s. I’m guessing I’m missing something here.
A couple other things I’ve noticed:
The manual is craptastic. I discovered completely by accident that I could fry raw meat and get a HUGE boost to my low-cost healing powers. I’m guessing other tools in the game like saws and such yield some result, but don’t know what. With such a meager manual a tutorial would have been MUCH appreciated.
I don’t get damage. I have a weapon that had a damage rating of 45 and a 35 skill using it, and a 38 strength. I notice it works better than my early weapons in some fights, but a lot of the time it still feels like I’m killing opponents off with the death of a thousand cuts instead of righteously smacking them. This is is stark contrast to my damage 30 hunting bow, with only 25 dex and a 15 or 20 skill, which seems to routinely hit hard. Is there some nuance to hand-to hand that I’m missing? By the way, orcs still smack me around like a bad kid with an alcoholic dad. No joy there.
I missed the chance for the quest to get the cabinetmaker to teach me lockpicking, and the thieves guild doesn’t want much to do with me now that I’m militia, so am I just out of luck with that skill? There’s an awful lot of locked chests out there.
Ok, I specialized in two-handers and due to this I kind of lucked out. There’s a cave near the sun circle with about a million skeletons in it (actually 3 reg and 2 shadow warriors). In this cave is a bad assed two handed sword. I would train the reg skeletons to the hunter nearby who would kill them and then for the shadow warriors I trained them out side and ran them around so that I could run in the cave, grab the sword and haul ass out. That’s how I got a good weapon early. I can’t remember any good one handers you can get early.
Did you learn alchemy? If so consider investing some points in it to learn how to make the stat boosting potions,your strength is pretty low for a melee guy.Did you do almost all the quests for the other guilds before choosing Militia?? If not, you missed out of a lot of xp and might want to revert to an old save. Are sure you failed the Thorben quest,I thought he just needed Varos to vouch for you,but it was a long time ago that I was there. Did you play Gothic to learn the combat mechanics ie are you missing alot? I think the left/right alternating slashes work best for keeping from getting hit. Did you talk to everybody at the outlying farms and stuff? There might be some quests you missed out on. I went mage, so I know nothing about the militia specialty quests.
I got his approval, but the quest to get him to trust you and teach you lockpicking happens before you become someone’s apprentic. I did a lot of quests, especially for the mercenaries, but some of their fighters were too tough for me (Rod, Bullock), so I joined the militia. I learned alchemy from the loon in the harbor district. He teaches specific potions, none of which seem to have permanent stat-enhancing abilities. Who teaches those?
There’s a great one hander on the top of the old temple. Orc Slayer, 65 damage (but needs 65 strength). I used an amulet that boosted my strength by 15 till I made some strength boost potions.
Joe, if you haven’t done the old temple area, do so. There’s some really nasty things there, but they can be avoided while you kill the less dangerous beasts. Approach it from the road that leads past the magic golem (the long way) and its a safer road than the obvious one if you look at a map.
I got his approval, but the quest to get him to trust you and teach you lockpicking happens before you become someone’s apprentic. I did a lot of quests, especially for the mercenaries, but some of their fighters were too tough for me (Rod, Bullock), so I joined the militia. I learned alchemy from the loon in the harbor district. He teaches specific potions, none of which seem to have permanent stat-enhancing abilities. Who teaches those?[/quote]
You need to learn some what they teach before the stat increasing stuff opens up. I’m not sure which alchemy teacher has which one but I think it’s the cave lady that has the strength one. If the Thorben quest is in your failed list, I don’t know what you can do to learn lockpicking.The only two trainers I remember for that is him and the Thief’s Guildperson. I do not remember a thief trainer in the Old World, but it’s possible the option never opened up because I already knew it.
Constantino teaches the strength boost potion. You don’t get all potion choices the first time you ask, you have to work your way up to them. I think you need to know some healing potions before he’ll offer strength.
I’ll get the faq from gamefaqs. I have the one from Gamespot, and while it really is an amazing bit of work, it isn’t laid out for skills and whatnot, so it risks telling me more than I want to know.
So I need to know how to make +strength potions, and need to fidn that teacher, and should check out the temple past the magic golem. Will do. I met him; I remember where it was.
