And with that search skill, as you allocate points to it, you keep on finding more and more stuff, even in areas you've been in before.

I seem to have annoyed one of the guards in the Gate area - every time I talk to him he attacks. Hmmm...wonder why? It may be because I inadvertently released that Demon thingy in the Inquisition cellars. I think I'm going to go back there and take care of the Grand Inqusitor as that faction is just plain evil - this would be in character as I have joined the Wielders for moral reasons. My character may be a thieving, unfaithful (Will and Juanita) sneak, but she's a morally upstanding thieving sneak.

My fighter is at level 24 now in a huge crypt outside of Montaillou. He longs for the halcyon days in Barcelona when he could just walk around looking for treasure on the ground...

I wonder if my thief will make it that far? Mind you, she is hardly truly thiefy with 80 in one-handed so far, and more points going in there all the time. I'm just doing the outside of Barcelona quests and still not finding it too hard - doing a bit more sneaking than before.

Help! I stole the chalice and got caught (Inquisition area chest) and now all the guards
are attacking me and my mana is drained totally
away in areas here. Is there a way to stop mana
drain? I have gone so far and done so much I don't want to go back to a previous save.
Also, what's the best plan for killing the Lava
Troll Master? He's eating my lunch, too. <img border="0" alt="" title="" src="graemlins/cry.gif" />

I'm not sure what the Chalice is for - I have it too, - must be a quest for somebody else. Are the guards upstairs attacking you as well? Once I freed Faust and the other prisoner the guards on the lower levels of the Inquisition were hostile but the ones upstairs were oblivious. So I just did away with the guards I had to kill, and I think I would still have been able to join the Inquisition had I wanted to.

I managed to kill the Lava Troll Master with a combination of Ice Magic (Ice Bolt) and one-handed sword. I ran into him unexpectedly and was quite happy to have 6-7 health points left at the end of the fight.

I finally killed the Lava Troll using Smite and
health potients. I think it was an accident because I still can't remember my strategy
I'm now about to attempt to fight Khan in the
goblin village area, but I'm going to give it a rest for the night. I'm at level 14 now and I like
my Feralkin character, The Bull. He's a smart
ogre-type kinda guy.
Schwab, I'm worried. The fighting is hard enough
now so I can't imagine what it's like where you are.
Oh, and one more thing. I can't find Enrique the
Begger leader. Does anyone remember where he was
on the Begger side?

Debra, it sounds like we have similar characters: two-handed melee fighters and I can only tell you to just get used to sucking up damage from now on. Carry plenty of health potions and concentrate on healing magic with a little buffing spell or two.

Also, keep some scrolls of protection (cold, fire, electricity, acid) as they really do help.

Enrique is in the hall of beggars map, he is on a little spot on the very south central part of the map.

Khan is a toughie but if you avoid him at first and go straight west to the next map there is a bounty hunter/merchant who has the perfect weapon...

I think the combat does require strategey as well as muscle, because my thief with strength 4 is doing just fine. I'm in the Ogre caves right now and am plowing my way through them with no real problem. Sneak, hit and run is my motto. Same as always - see if you can lure one of the enemy into following you away from the rest, then attack. I'm finding that most of the enemies won't follow you too far before they turn back - a useful thing if you need to heal up. A fighter could benefit from the Sneak ability as well as a thief can because I'm not finding that the backstab function does much damage anyway - the surprise attack sometimes scores a knockdown or one of those special +125 hits, which is great for the old attack and retreat.

I ran out of health potions a long time ago and gave myself a few points in the healing spell so I don't have to go and fold laundry or make a bed while my demokin is healing. But high Sneak combined with 65 in Fire Magic and 110 in one-handed has done just fine so far except for a couple of the bosses, where I needed lots of extra healing potions and a bit of luck.

Question about that weapon, The Everlasting, I didn't have the money to buy it when he offered
and now he's quit offering. I took on the Shaman
bounty quest for him. Will he offer again or do
I have to try and kill them to get it? I wish there was a money cheat that weapon would really help out.
Hagatha, I really agree with you on the strategy
thing. You have to learn lots of ways to deal with these enemies. Even with a 9 strength you can't just roll in and roll over some of these
characters.

My thief took on the Khan a few levels back by using the fire barrels. As she had relatively poor sneak ability at that time, she just got as close as possible and then ran around dropping barrels. Once all the minions were dead, she took on the Khan. Used up all my extra healing potions, though, and about 6 fire barrels. If you don't have any of these pick some up at the bookseller's store - special stock items.

As I play on, I have to say I don't understand all the bad press about this game.

I'm having a great time. There's a lot of criticism about it being mostly combat in the second part of the game. While that's true, the first part of the game was pretty Baldur's Gate-ish, and the second half is remindng me very much of Icewind Dale2. Now how can that be a bad thing? I'll be playing this one again as a spellcaster just to see if I can do it.

I'm giving it an 8 out of 10 (so far). For comparison's sake, I would give NWN (the original saga) a 7.5 out of 10.

Debra, I never did a quest for the bounty hunter and just bought the weapon right away (still using it BTW) so I don't know why he would stop offering it.

Hagatha, I have to admire your generosity, I give LH no more than a 5 out of 10 simply because it offers so little.

I wouldn't compare this to IWD2 since that game is party based and much more strategic, plus it uses D&D rules, plus the gameplay is much more consistent and was always billed as a mostly combat game.
Lionheart is single character (companions are available but you have absolutely no control over them and they leave as soon as their quest is done) and combat is tedious and repetitive...the crypt I'm in has about 75-100 enemies per level.

Also, there are little annoyances that really add up, like the map function (no notes, cannot re-size, no in-game mini map), the clumsy interface (no single character sheet, small # of quickslots, one spell only selected), combat speed (enemies run but your char cannot, impossible to target while paused, hard to target enemies at all while they're moving like the wind, no to mention multiple enemies).

I can see how someone not expecting much might appreciate what the game does offer, but the people who were waiting for it and paid $50 got something considerably less than what was promised: an epic RPG with lots of freedom and varied gameplay for all different types of characters and a gameworld that responded tangibly to player actions.

I don't want to sound like one of the Official Forum whiners, these are really my own impressions from playing so far and I'm getting to the point where I just want it to be over.
I play for maybe an hour or two then switch over to Wizardry 8 which is much more interesting for me.

I'm on the Monserrat road and it is very tough.
I thought I'd just run past the tons of enemies
near the castle (which I though would be a place
of R&R) and buy some potients from a merchant there only to find it too was swarming with enemies. My spells don't seem as effective as they were and neither does The Everlasting.
My opinion is that it has to little RPG and too
much action for my taste, but I will try to get
though it.
I wish you could put notes on the map and that it
marked places entrances and exits if nothing else.
I wish you had the ability to do turn based combat or that your enemies didn't gang up on you
at warp drive.
I have moved 4 of my favorite spells into quick slots which helps me get more bang for my buck,
but again things just move too fast for me to be
very strategic in the thick of things.
Well, if wishes were horses beggers would ride.
Good luck to all and to all a good night.

I've finally found something that I can't do just yet - the battle in the Nostradamus cave. My usual hit and run won't work here and I can't sneak, which isn't REALLY fair, given that my thief skills are the best ones I have. Unbuffed I got about halfway through the battle - better buy some buffing spells!

Whew! Got through it after all. I keep forgetting about those vampirism potions. That one was a bit dicey, through. I need to decide whether to put the rest of my skill points into magic or melee.

Hagatha where are the Nostradamus caves? Are you passed Monserrat?

I'm just doing the Montilliu quests (not sure of the spelling) - the first place you go to in France after you get through the mountains when you are looking for the relic that has been stolen. The Nostradamus area is one of the map areas that you are given in that village. One of the vllagers (I believe it is the witch) gives you the map location.

Well, Harold finally made it out of the crypt (that's the name of the char I chose, Harold Ruthgar) and it was pretty horrible, constant fighting with plenty of retreating to try and isolate revenants from succubi from shrieking terrors from giant skellies from... well, you get it by now.

Oh, just wait till you meet the revenants...


Level 29 now and I just picked up a perk that raised my agility to 8 so I'm noticeably faster, Thank God.

Debra, I found it helps to play with the "target" option, it has a slider that adjusts how your fighter tries to target enemies. He can go "hectic" meaning he swings a lot faster but misses more, or go "planned" meaning he swings a lot slower but always hits and I think gets more criticals.

I'm definately behind you guys. I've been using
the targeting feature on planned for the harder
monsters and quick for low level groups. I think
I'm going to have to go back to Barcelona for more
healing potients cause I keep having to use so many and there is no merchant in site. Where's
the next merchant you get to?

I'm just in the midst of the Crypt myself. Now that I have two levels of backstab and a one-handed ability of 135, I've perfected the art of backstab and run (out the door and up the stairs)! That first guardian was one tough cookie, but the second one was just a big tub of lard. Revenants are a pain, but again hit and run is my motto. Actually I'm finding those frozen screamer things to be the worst but they too can be run away from. It seems that my thieving abilities are high enough for the time being (all of my perks have been thief related) as I haven't run across a chest orr trap I couldn't handle for a long time so I'll just concentrate on magic, evasion, diplomacy and one-handed for a while. My biggest problem right now is that regenerating demon standing outside the town. He may just have to wait for a while.

In answer to your question about the merchants (sorry, I meant to answer that) there is always the one at the crossroads; there's two in Barcelona, there's three in Montaillou, one in the mountain area (although I don't think he has potions)- those are the ones I can think of off-hand. There is usually one fairly nearby and you can always use the blue crystals to get to the crossroads.

Woo-hoo! Ivory Mace plus 2 levels of backstab = dead undead!

Now if I could only figure out how to kill that demon outside of town...

That's weird Hagatha, I killed that daeva before even hitting the crypts. I assume you have the necklace that prevents his shapeshifting?

I do. But last time I tried him I had yet to do the Crypts and the Nostradamus quests, and not only am I several levels higher now, my strategic skills are much sharper, having had to cope with Revenants, Assassins and the like. So perhaps next time I tackle him it won't be so hard. That's what happened with the Khan - he seemed impossible the first try, and dead easy the second.

I think one of the reasons I'm enjoying this game in spite of all the combat is the fact that I'm playing a thief-based character rather than a straight fighter. I'm having to be a lot more creative than I might otherwise. Whether my character will stand up to the rest of the game remains to be seen, but so far, so good (with the odd reload). And anyway, even Baldur's Gate seemed impossibly difficult the first time I played it, so maybe this one will be easier next time. Now that I know what's useful and what isn't (i.e 90 points wasted in Ice magic) my next go-round will probably be less laborious.

IF I were to replay this game, I would have a fighter/mage. But that's a pretty big IF.