The Dark Eye Help with Drakensang: The River of Time

[drexciya]

Adding a ring gives you another 10, and since then I've rarely run out of Astral Energy because now the other more useful spells like sleep and Plumbarmy heavy arm are actually worth using and provide a better value for money.

That's TDE for you. Damage spells are not the way to go.

A game-specific problem is the lack of collision during fights, which makes tactics like protecting your mages by proper positioning difficult. A real mage can do much more with his bigger AE pool, but he's so squishy.

Mages aren't that squishy in my opinion. Just pre-cast (and keep up) the Mage Armor spell and they'll be better protected then warriors. Put an attribute enhancing spell on top of it (speed) and it gets even better. They do have low hit points but there are items in the game which can make up for that as well.

 

[Turjan]

Mages aren't that squishy in my opinion. Just pre-cast (and keep up) the Mage Armor spell and they'll be better protected then warriors. Put an attribute enhancing spell on top of it (speed) and it gets even better. They do have low hit points but there are items in the game which can make up for that as well.

This is certainly true for high levels. During the late stages of the game, I actually used my battlemage mostly as tank (he was pretty much invulnerable), and you would be able to do the same with a normal mage. However, you first have to get there.

 

[abnaxus]

Hey Siobhan, thanks for the answer. I realised the complete edition (Drakensang+Am Fluss der Zeit) I bought comes with a pdf version of the rules (second printing, in 2008, I think it has to be the 4.1th edition) and it does say that once a shield is equipped, the weapon PA value won't ever be taken into account. Actually, I found a digital version of Wege des Schwerts and it seems that Drakensang uses a simplified version of the core ruleset with handpicked additions from the extensions. For instance, the special skill Linkhand doesn't exist, and neither does the Meisterparade maneuver. In the videogame adaptation, there is no option to convert an attack into a parry, etc.

Even if there is no way to check how exactly the developers implemented the rules (in-game, the console gives feedback about attack rolls only), I think you're right, there is no combination of weapon/shield parry.

I'm 99% sure in the first Drakensang the first parry is always the weapon parry. You can even notice it in the combat animations. But River of Time changed quite a few things.