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Catchall thread for my many autistic questions about Dark Sun: Shattered Lands

hal900x

Augur
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A good place to own a gun.
Inevitably when I play an Turn-based RPG I have many mechanics questions. Instead of making twenty threads I'm just going to update this one periodically.

Question 1: do thieves use stealth in any way in this game? I gather backstabs are achieved solely by attacking from the opposite side from combat direction.

Question 2: What's the difference between Psionic Sciences and Devotions? Are you limited from Devotions if you are not a Psionicist? Or does Psionicist simply get more PP and access to all 3 disciplines?

Question 3: Are there any thief skills that require manual activation (outside of dialog triggers) such as detect traps, detect secret doors etc?

..Many more to come, assuredly, as I progress through the game.
 

Fowyr

Arcane
Vatnik
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Messages
7,671
1) Just backstab as far as I know.
2) As far as I remember, Psionicist gets access to all three disciplines and could use these bracelets that impart new diciplines. Also it gets disciplines on the level up.
3) Nope. Thieves are needed to climb some walls.
 

hal900x

Augur
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Messages
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Location
A good place to own a gun.
2) As far as I remember, Psionicist gets access to all three disciplines and could use these bracelets that impart new diciplines. Also it gets disciplines on the level up.

Do all classes get to add Sciences and/or Devotions on level up? Or are non-Psionicists stuck with what they get at creation? I played this many years ago, and IIRC I had a non-Psionicist with Mass Domination (OP, btw) so if my memory is accurate every class gets more psionic abilities as they progress. Still not sure about the difference between Sciences and Devotions and neither is anyone else that I've found.
 

T. Reich

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Apr 15, 2013
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not even close
Inevitably when I play an Turn-based RPG I have many mechanics questions. Instead of making twenty threads I'm just going to update this one periodically.

Question 1: do thieves use stealth in any way in this game? I gather backstabs are achieved solely by attacking from the opposite side from combat direction.

Question 2: What's the difference between Psionic Sciences and Devotions? Are you limited from Devotions if you are not a Psionicist? Or does Psionicist simply get more PP and access to all 3 disciplines?

Question 3: Are there any thief skills that require manual activation (outside of dialog triggers) such as detect traps, detect secret doors etc?

..Many more to come, assuredly, as I progress through the game.

1) No stealth. No idea if/how backstabs work.
2) Non-psionicists are limited to one school, have limited PP pool, and can't advance their psionic skills in any way - they're stuck with what they get at chargen. Psionicists get a lot of PP, access to all three school, get to learn new or improve the already-existing disciplines on each level up and via special psionic bracelets.
3) IIRC, thief skills are only applicable/useful in a handful of locations where you get a dialogue tooltip to perform a specific action that can be done by a thief class. I simply created a 5th thief character at chargen and swapped one of my chars with them whenever I could perform a "thievly" action. Thiefs are pretty useless in DS:SL as far as class utility goes.
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
1) No stealth. No idea if/how backstabs work.
2) Non-psionicists are limited to one school, have limited PP pool, and can't advance their psionic skills in any way - they're stuck with what they get at chargen. Psionicists get a lot of PP, access to all three school, get to learn new or improve the already-existing disciplines on each level up and via special psionic bracelets.
3) IIRC, thief skills are only applicable/useful in a handful of locations where you get a dialogue tooltip to perform a specific action that can be done by a thief class. I simply created a 5th thief character at chargen and swapped one of my chars with them whenever I could perform a "thievly" action. Thiefs are pretty useless in DS:SL as far as class utility goes.

Huh, so you can just level up a character to any level at gen?
PS: to backstab, you attack from the opposite direction from whichever side that mob was last attacked by a party member.
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
Question 4 (repeat): Do Thri-Keen require empty "hands" to make all their natural attacks, or can they hold weapons and still benefit from the multiple attacks?
Question 5: What purpose does choosing an element have for Druids? Don't think only have access to Cosmos sphere anyway? Or do you actually get access to the chosen sphere? How about weapon sphere restrictions for Druids?
 

Sceptic

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
10,871
Divinity: Original Sin
Question 4 (repeat): Do Thri-Keen require empty "hands" to make all their natural attacks, or can they hold weapons and still benefit from the multiple attacks?
You need empty hands to get the 4 attacks. If you equip weapons then you go back to the regular 2 attacks like every other class. Once you start getting magic weapons they outclass the regular attacks IMO. Note that none of this affects the extra acid attack, you always get this one no matter what.

Question 5: What purpose does choosing an element have for Druids? Don't think only have access to Cosmos sphere anyway? Or do you actually get access to the chosen sphere? How about weapon sphere restrictions for Druids?
IIRC the sphere restricts the type of material that druids and clerics can use (though you can bypass this entirely by multiclassing and making a fighter/druid, which unlike in Faerun AD&D can use all weapons and all armour without any restriction, as if they were a fighter. Same for fighter/preserver). And if you look at the manual there are 5 spheres: Cosmos, and one for each element. Druids get access to all Cosmos sphere spells, and to the spells of the specific elemental sphere they choose. You didn't ask, but here goes anyway: clerics get access to the elemental sphere of their choice in the same way, but only get limited access to Cosmos, namely only up until spell level 3, which means they miss out on the most useful divine spells (Cure serious/critical, Neutralize Poison, etc), which is why Druids are a much better choice.

I think T.Reich explained Psionics pretty well but if you're still not 100% sure how they work let me know. Also, I disagree with him about thieves, backstab is a HUGE damage dealer if you take full advantage of it, and my fighter/thief outdoes my gladiators in terms of raw damage. The special use of thief skills come up as dialog boxes, either when you get close to somewhere where you can use them (eg there's a hidden area only thieves can access in the sewers under Draj) or in dialog (pickpocketing someone). Psionicists similarly get a couple of options to mind-control during dialog by the way, which can bypass fights.

Hope you enjoy the game, it's one of my favourites.
 

pippin

Guest
Should I go for four multi classed chars or one half giant gladiator + 3 multi classed ones will be enough? Also, I tried the game a few times and people always booed me on the arena. Does this mean anything?
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
Should I go for four multi classed chars or one half giant gladiator + 3 multi classed ones will be enough? Also, I tried the game a few times and people always booed me on the arena. Does this mean anything?

Half Giant Gladiator will help you get through the tougher parts of the early game, and later it will keep you from being ridiculously OP so I go with this setup. The crowd will throw money at you if your combats are not too short and not too long, and killing blows help too, but the money is trivial at best.
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
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Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
Gotta love those game breaking bugs in this game. If the giant has to be called to pull me out of the pens to fight, that's the end of the game. He blocks the gate.
 

Sceptic

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
10,871
Divinity: Original Sin
Should I go for four multi classed chars or one half giant gladiator + 3 multi classed ones will be enough
Either is fine, I've run with both kinds of parties. Really, the point of multiclassing is to eliminate the restrictions in the non-warrior classes and make them sturdier, gladiator obviously doesn't have this problem.

Also, I tried the game a few times and people always booed me on the arena. Does this mean anything?
It means you were too slow killing the things in the arena and the spectators are unimpressed :P It doesn't change anything, though they do throw a bit of coin at you if you do really well.

Gotta love those game breaking bugs in this game. If the giant has to be called to pull me out of the pens to fight, that's the end of the game. He blocks the gate.
You could just kill him and escape then and there! It's actually possible, though taking a sneaky route is more interesting (and gets you big bonus XP)
 

T. Reich

Arcane
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Messages
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not even close
1) No stealth. No idea if/how backstabs work.
2) Non-psionicists are limited to one school, have limited PP pool, and can't advance their psionic skills in any way - they're stuck with what they get at chargen. Psionicists get a lot of PP, access to all three school, get to learn new or improve the already-existing disciplines on each level up and via special psionic bracelets.
3) IIRC, thief skills are only applicable/useful in a handful of locations where you get a dialogue tooltip to perform a specific action that can be done by a thief class. I simply created a 5th thief character at chargen and swapped one of my chars with them whenever I could perform a "thievly" action. Thiefs are pretty useless in DS:SL as far as class utility goes.

Huh, so you can just level up a character to any level at gen?
PS: to backstab, you attack from the opposite direction from whichever side that mob was last attacked by a party member.

No, you get the starting level whatever thief. It's more than adequate to perform all the thiefly checks in the game anyway.
 

T. Reich

Arcane
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Messages
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not even close
Btw, arena fights are not limited in any way. There's nothing stopping you from playing the arena infinitely.
Once, I decided to push it as far as I could, and I ended up nearly reaching the game's level cap this way.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
Go 4 ant people with max stats 1 psionic/fighter/mage and 3 psionic/fighter/druids.
Use crazy psionic melee buffs (like psionic claws and sheet) it synergizes very well with 4 arms. Very strong in first few areas. Also psionic mass domination or something is also very strong. Druid spells are very strong (superior to all other magic). Mage is okay.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

PrettyDeadman

Guest
Yeah, I made a mistake. It was 3 thri-kreen fighter/psionicist/druids and 1 elf fighter/thief/preserver.
The obly problem with thri-kreen extra attacks as I udnerstand is that they are only useful if you use no weapons but you will have to use weapons later in the game.
 

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