Playing RoA 1+2

[Jasede]

Who cares. 50XP is the minimum XP you will ever get. You can never gain < 50XP in this game, ever, so the impact of saving is about as high as the impact of loosing a few copper bits in D&D.

(You have to know that the original, German RoA uses a different XP scale. In the English versions, all XP gains and losses are multiplied with 50. Probably because everything is bigger in America)

But to answer, no there isn't. Pretty bad idea to remove it. But then again: since I can't bear losing anything, however minimal, I only saved in temples in RoA 1, thus giving dungeons a much higher survival feel.

Err. That was a bit too long.

Focus: No.

 

[sheek]

Who cares. 50XP is the minimum XP you will ever get. You can never gain < 50XP in this game, ever, so the impact of saving is about as high as the impact of loosing a few copper bits in D&D.

But if you save before each battle (standard RPG practice) you will hardly ever advance except by defeating new enemies or completing quests (rarely). I would guess you get 50% of your experience through fights.

 

[Jasede]

Nonsense, because only a first time battle gives you good XP. All subsequent encounters with the same enemy type give you 1XP. exactly as much as saving costs. Okay, you will be missing out, maybe, hmm, 200 XP total, but even then, if you do all quests and explore everything you should still end up with 2300XP. 2300 and 2500 aren't that much of a difference and I think the safety of saving is worth more than a few XP.

And EVEN so... if you dislike having to pay for saving, you can make a notice how often you saved. For every eight times, you should enter the mines in Prem once. Entering them gives you 8XP. Every time. [Yes, you could abuse this to build a strong character. This is, by the way, the answer to your question: If you lose a character and can't be bothered to normally level one up, just let him enter the mines again and again until he reaches the level you desire.]

You're COMPLETELY wrong about the 50%. You get about 12% from random encounters, at most. You only get good XP from fights for FIRST TIME encounters, all other encounter XP are so low that they hardly make a difference. Quests is where the XP meat is at, and exploring options in dungeons. Meeting the unicorn gives 200 XP total [Awesome]. Solving the gryphon's riddle give more XP than a fight ever well, with exception of three good first-time encounters in Daspota.

 

[sheek]

You are probably more right about the proportions. I avoid saving anyway because I originally thought the 50 XP was too much and playing as if it is increases the challenge. And I know about the cheat, I want to avoid them for the same reasons - except I had to get money to resurrect my character.

 

[Roqua]

I always had a witch in my party, I thought they were great personally. Also, for RoA 2 you need a certain spell, camoflage or something, to get into a dungeon/city. I didn't have any points in it at all, so taht screwed me for a while. Seeing as leveling up is rare, I think I actually cheated to get in.

I would suggest not usig a walkthrough for this game, as 90% of the fun is figuring it out alone.

I also suggest leveling up your mages wand as soon as possible. Some spells that are nice and sometimes needed that seem stupid is the rainbow bridge one and some other ones.

Conjuration is useless to start, but when you build it up it gets great.

The boss fights in this game require saving before, unless you are a cheater or a cheater/walkthrough user.

My advice is build the party you want. Everyone has access to all the same skills. Jester's aren't useless, just kind of stupid.

Its easy in all three games to get endless water poaches as well as +5 belts of might. Please keep in mind you are going to play the greatest series ever made for a computer. You are retarded for not having played all of them 50 times.

Just wait until you get into your first fight and see how good combat in rpgs can be, and how hated certain colors will become to you. Also, your gay spells that you can actually use when first starting are used even in Riva, such as blind and that crap.

What I would would do before you start playing is print out the "what this spell does" file that is part of the game in part 3, as all the spells have stupid names and when skill points and skilling up is more important than in most games, its nice to know what does what and be able to refrence it at any time.

ps: you need to write down your own notes so have some paper and a pencil handy.

 

[theverybigslayer]

But if you save before each battle (standard RPG practice) you will hardly ever advance except by defeating new enemies or completing quests (rarely). I would guess you get 50% of your experience through fights.

I was saving everywhere and everytime
I did not know about the penalty and was wondering why my xp hadn't never increased.

Thanks for the lot of information, I am going to try again these wonderful games.

 

[Saxon1974]

But if you save before each battle (standard RPG practice) you will hardly ever advance except by defeating new enemies or completing quests (rarely). I would guess you get 50% of your experience through fights.

I was saving everywhere and everytime
I did not know about the penalty and was wondering why my xp hadn't never increased.

Thanks for the lot of information, I am going to try again these wonderful games.

Ha! I didnt know about the save restriction either and was just wondering the same thing. Call me crazy but I kind of like not saving in the dungeons, it increases the suspense when you finally make it out. Bard's tale games were this way.

 

[Dandelion]

Just started Blades of Destiny for the first time, and I already have some questions

1) I tried to buy a lute at the start af the game and use it in a tavern..does it have any effect? It doesn't seem to.
2) I don't see "dance" in taverns, where can I use it?
3) Failed cheat or show in taverns: how long before they forget?
4) Magic in straight line only It's truly horrible

 

[Fowyr]

Just started Blades of Destiny for the first time, and I already have some questions

1) I tried to buy a lute at the start af the game and use it in a tavern..does it have any effect? It doesn't seem to.

Dunno, try use instrument skill in the tavern without any music instruments.

2) I don't see "dance" in taverns, where can I use it?

Use acrobatics instead. Half of skills is not used in the game.

 

[Jasede]

1) Having an instrument in your inventory increases your chance / degree of success when playing music in a tavern. This is especially true in RoA 3 where great instruments are available, but not so much in 1. You should probably use pickpocket or gamble instead, though.

2) You should see it in RoA 2 and 3.

3) I think it's 1 week- if it's not 1 week it's 2 weeks. It's been a long time since I last played. There's a lot of taverns. Maybe a month? I think it's 1 week, though. And I think, but am not certain, that a week has 12 or 13 days.

4) This'll be fixed in RoA 2 and 3. Until then you'll just have to deal. Magic isn't really there to do damage anyway, except against certain monsters. Mostly it's there for utility spells and healing. In RoA 2 and 3, it becomes more important for its many disabling and status effect spells while still being extremely important utility-wise.

 

[Garm]

Ouch...having to pay XP for saving is stupid. I understand it's supposed to prevent save/loading exploitation but it would suck to get a random crash while playing.

 

[Jasede]

It's really not a big deal.

I actually like it: the fee is big enough to make you think twice about saving, but not so big that you can't make a backup save when you absolutely have to.

 

[MMXI]

Ouch...having to pay XP for saving is stupid. I understand it's supposed to prevent save/loading exploitation but it would suck to get a random crash while playing.

You only pay experience for saving outside of temples. If you stick to saving at temples you lose nothing, just like in a good chunk of old-school RPGs. Being able to save constantly kills any sort of tension the game could otherwise build.

Anyone who thinks otherwise can fuck off and play Oblivion.

 

[Garm]

Ouch...having to pay XP for saving is stupid. I understand it's supposed to prevent save/loading exploitation but it would suck to get a random crash while playing.

You only pay experience for saving outside of temples. If you stick to saving at temples you lose nothing, just like in a good chunk of old-school RPGs. Being able to save constantly kills any sort of tension the game could otherwise build.

Anyone who thinks otherwise can fuck off and play Oblivion.

[/quote

Ah, ok then that's fine. I retract my initial statement then. One of these days I'm going to have to play this series.

 

[Calem Ravenna]

4) Magic in straight line only It's truly horrible

Heh, this is the one thing in BoD that annoys me to no end. Seriously, if the game had proper targetting I would rate it higher than Star Trail maybe, but as it is I usually just skip it whenever I go for a whole trilogy playthrough (ok, I also skip Riva and end up playing Star Trail only - so much for the whole trilogy). Fairly minor issue, but combined with the lack of an automatic combat resolution option it destroys the fun for me.

I once read that there is supposed to be some patch/hack for Blade of Destiny that implements the later games' targetting system. Never found any more information about it though and now I don't even remember the source.

 

[MetalCraze]

Ouch...having to pay XP for saving is stupid. I understand it's supposed to prevent save/loading exploitation but it would suck to get a random crash while playing.

Back then devs still hired QA personnel.

 

[golgepapaz]

A question for the knowledgeable.Does the spell level increase the effectiveness of spell ? or just the rate of successfully casting spell?
Say ,does the spell fulminictus do more damage at spell level 5 than the spell level 4, or saving against dance spell harder with the increasing spell level?
Is there sweet spot for succesfully casting a spell so I can focus on other spells.

Jasede had said, dont raise a spell over , say 5, five years ago :D.Should I heed to his advice or not?

 

[Jasede]

I said "don't raise spell level over 5 for non-combat spells", if I remember that right! And it was just a guideline. You should increase spells you use a lot to much higher than 5- 10, 12.

But! If you have the choice of increasing a spell past level 5, or starting to build up a new one, it makes way more sense to build up the new spell.

Note: this only applies if you do not save-scum.

As for spell ranks, as far as I remember, all they do is increase chance of success. I think Fulminuctus and Ignifaxius both increase in damage, but the other spells just become more likely to be cast. Transversalis Teleport is particularly hard to cast, so that's another one to increase past 5 if you have spare points.


The point of my "don't raise past 5" suggestion is mainly so you can get as many useful non-combat spells are possible. There are tons of spells you have to only cast once in the entire trilogy- and when you do, you'll wish you had them!

For example the "turn into a kid" spell, or the "melt ice" spell, or the "exorcism spell" (that one twice), or "summon spirits". The list goes on!

Plus, it's fun to experiment with all these spells. See if they work in certain situations or not. And the more you have of them, the more you can do that.

 

[Zomg]

Someone remind me what skills and stats and spells don't do anything, I may do a run of these again.

Also where the magic/unbreakable weapons are in RoA1

 

[SCO]

Sorry can't really remember much else. I think I would probably rely more on caster types than melee types because weapons break too often.

Weapons break often when you don't sharpen them with a whetstone after a fight (except some magical ones - only some - that are unbreakable).

Yes it's a pain.

Remember in some situations (travelling, opening doors) your best char for what you want to do needs to be in front of the party. Drag and drop them does the trick but it's also a pain. No easy computer sort handholding here (mostly).

Cutlery/cooking pot seems useless, but prevents diseases, it's a good idea to get more than one water bag per person sometimes - if someone doesn't have water they share, watch the food.

Get sleeping bags / blankets, again preventing diseases and discomfort in sleeping in the open.

Spoiler

Real - not fake - travia amulet is one of the best ones, even if it doesn't look to do anything - it removes the need for food (maybe not water, can't recall).

Later on, and on the later games you'll get the opportunity to get 2 magical items, one that is temporary, one permanent (apparently) that make some micromanagement go away.

 

[Wolfus]

If you have problems with XP loss in BoD, you can use "cheat". Travel to Prem, in the north part of city there is "invisible" entrance to mine. Each step inside gives you some XP - you can just run in and out there and gain 8th level before you start adventuring.