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Legend of Grimrock 2

Darth Roxor

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I thought I've seen everything on the Codex, but people defending walking dead scenarios is something new.

clearly you've never been in any thread about sierra adventure games
 

Whisper

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I thought I've seen everything on the Codex, but people defending walking dead scenarios is something new.

Choice and consequences means that some (not smart) decisions will lead to unwinable or very hard game.

Or you prefer hand-holding instead? And "respawning" food stores that make food meter pointless. Why add it at first place if no matter that you do it is always full?
 

Whisper

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# One of the secret ways of beating this mod is NOT to enter the hub at the start. The key to that door is the Gear Key, which coincidentally is the same key used to unlock the portal found at the end of the vanilla game. If you can ignore that door and still reach the top of the Warlock's tower, you're good to go!


How did you learn this? I want to give a try for this but need more information.
 

Unkillable Cat

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I thought I've seen everything on the Codex, but people defending walking dead scenarios is something new.

Choice and consequences means that some (not smart) decisions will lead to unwinable or very hard game.

Or you prefer hand-holding instead? And "respawning" food stores that make food meter pointless. Why add it at first place if no matter that you do it is always full?

Respawning food in your inventory would make the food meter useless, yes.

A 'Create Food'-spell (like in the Eye of the Beholder-games) instantly makes the food meter useless.

But the way Grimrock does it is by spawning a monster, which you kill for the food. Not just in front of you, either. Turtles spawn on the beach, herders in those underground grottos, and then snails, ice lizards and ratling pirates in their respective habitats (depending on which game/mod you're playing). Yes, not all of the food-dropping monsters are pushovers, the ratlings in particular like to bring in Darth Fuxor, Wielder of the Huegcannon to ruin your day. The game doesn't hand you that food on a silver platter, you must earn it.

Speaking of Grimrock and the "Lost City"-mod, I forgot to mention one further aspect: Ambushes. "Lost City" LOVES to spring ambushes on the player. I'm not talking the usual brand of monster closets like John Romero designed, where you can usually spot what's coming a mile away. I'm talking having an empty room/area suddenly teleport in monsters out of thin air (literally in one case) the moment the player steps on a particular square, and the monsters just so happen to block all the exits. This will happen again and again and again and again. Pretty soon it stops being about challenging the player and devolves to just annoying the player, especially since the answer to the ambush 99% of the time is Ice Bombs and the occasional force field.

I gave up on the Lost City after the nth ambush in the pyramid. Not because it was unwinnable, but because I had had enough. Yes, the mod is hard (it explicity advises against people playing on Hard) and it offers some interesting challenges with some of the ambushes, but one could easily remove half of them without detracting anything of value.
 

V_K

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The purpose of a food system is generally to limit resting and to make your party push on in suboptimal condition every now and then.
If the consequence of a food system is that you get a game over if you take too long figuring out a puzzle - in real time, no less - then it's a bullshit food system. The only thing it makes you is save before every puzzle, then reload after you've figured it out and do it again as quickly as possible. It doesn't add anything of value to the game, just boring grind.
 

Whisper

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The purpose of a food system is generally to limit resting and to make your party push on in suboptimal condition every now and then.
If the consequence of a food system is that you get a game over if you take too long figuring out a puzzle - in real time, no less - then it's a bullshit food system. The only thing it makes you is save before every puzzle, then reload after you've figured it out and do it again as quickly as possible. It doesn't add anything of value to the game, just boring grind.

In LoG2 and Lost city food almost do not deplete if you just stand there and do puzzles. It mostly depletes at actions (such as fighting) and regeneration (if you spend all resources on weak fight/facetank every mob).
And we are talking about Hard here. If you play on Hard you shouldnt complain that game requires some planning/good playing to be won? on lower difficulties you spend much less food.

So food system in Lost City punish rest-camping (you have potions/crystals/native hp regen) after combats, you try to win fights in optimal way. It do not push doing puzzles.
 

Piotrovitz

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Fuck, just reading about LoG2 makes me want dump my current Blackguards playthrough and start LoG2 with some wonky party.

LoG1 was fun and nice throwback to oldschool RT dungeon crawling, but it felt a bit unrefined (too few mob types/weapons/party builds/etc).

LoG 2 fixed all that, and playing it I haven't had such a blast since long time. (slightly less than in Underrali's case, but still).
 

Piotrovitz

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The purpose of a food system is generally to limit resting and to make your party push on in suboptimal condition every now and then.
If the consequence of a food system is that you get a game over if you take too long figuring out a puzzle - in real time, no less - then it's a bullshit food system. The only thing it makes you is save before every puzzle, then reload after you've figured it out and do it again as quickly as possible. It doesn't add anything of value to the game, just boring grind.

Yeah, agree with artificial time limit cause by food system in RT game being bullshit, but I don't think it's the case in LoG.

The food is so abundant there, I never really felt any pressure TBH.
 

Nyast

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I started playing "The guardians" mod, and a few hours in so far, it's excellent. It starts into an underground damaged facility and you need to go outside to find gems and ore to repair it. As it opens up, various chambers unlock new abilities for your party ( cooking, mining, etc.. ). It acts as a hub, and the outside areas are layed out a bug like Grimrock 2 as a map with various areas which you can explore in a non-linear way. Loving it so far, except two things: first, I'm getting frequent crashes ( the original Grimrock 2 never crashed ), like every 30', which means that every 30' I lose 5' of progression. Annoying as hell. The second issue is that saving / loading times seem to take a bit longer than in the original game, or as I recall, so that makes the crashes doubly more annoying.
 

Unkillable Cat

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I started playing "The guardians" mod, and a few hours in so far, it's excellent. It starts into an underground damaged facility and you need to go outside to find gems and ore to repair it. As it opens up, various chambers unlock new abilities for your party ( cooking, mining, etc.. ). It acts as a hub, and the outside areas are layed out a bug like Grimrock 2 as a map with various areas which you can explore in a non-linear way. Loving it so far, except two things: first, I'm getting frequent crashes ( the original Grimrock 2 never crashed ), like every 30', which means that every 30' I lose 5' of progression. Annoying as hell. The second issue is that saving / loading times seem to take a bit longer than in the original game, or as I recall, so that makes the crashes doubly more annoying.

I'm also playing "The Guardians", and I'm enjoying it so far.

Barring one issue: Ambushes. They're EVERYWHERE. Step into a square containing dirt and bones, there's a 75% chance of an ambush taking place where enemies are spawned in.

Step into a square that's an obvious chokepoint, and there's a 50% chance it's an ambush.

Find a chest that's out in the open, it's an ambush.

And everytime you as much as get NEAR one of those power gems, you're gonna get ambushed. If not while approaching the gem, then it's when you pick it up, or making your exit afterwards.

Save early, save often.

Nyast You may need to patch your LOG2-exectuable with that "4 GB"-patch mentioned in the readme. Here's the link.
 

Nyast

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Unkillable Cat Thanks for the hint. That indeed fixed my constant crashes. I can now enjoy the mod as intended.

I agree that the ambush system can sometimes be frustrating. I gave up Might & Magic X at the final dungeon due to its poor ambush system, but so far in this mod it's not as bad. Crossing my fingers that it doesn't get worse. On the other hand, I'm enjoying the really nice exploration sense, the non-linearity and the good level/map design. At the beginning the food system keeps you on your toes, but it's now getting easier once the areas open up and you accumulate a lot of ingredients. It's pretty well balanced so far.
 

Unkillable Cat

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I agree that the ambush system can sometimes be frustrating. I gave up Might & Magic X at the final dungeon due to its poor ambush system, but so far in this mod it's not as bad. Crossing my fingers that it doesn't get worse. On the other hand, I'm enjoying the really nice exploration sense, the non-linearity and the good level/map design. At the beginning the food system keeps you on your toes, but it's now getting easier once the areas open up and you accumulate a lot of ingredients. It's pretty well balanced so far.

I just reached the swamp. Remember those dangling egg-sacs that you can smash and sometimes drop items? EVERY TIME you come within a square of one of those, a super-fast insect swarm-enemy is spawned in that square. Without fail. That's before you factor in the free-range roaming ones running around the map. Have Fire Burst on standby at all times in the swamp.

And the Grimwood-map south of the starting map? Be wary of those thorns in the NE, that's the nastiest ambush I've come across yet. (Ditto for the one where you're climbing for the power gem on that very map.)

I am... hesitant to say that this mod is balanced. It is Very Important which parts of Livingrock you activate first. The kitchen takes top priority, the healing crystal chamber thereafter. I don't think it matters much whether you activate the general store or the creation chamber next (as they're both damn useful, but not as essential as the others) but to date I haven't seen a reason to activate the Basic Library - I spent that Power Gem on the Archives instead, which then literally asked me to feed it paper while it regurgitated the Plot Exposition for the mod, before finally begging for another power gem! (At least you get 100 XP for every Blank Page put into the thing.) The Windgate Chamber is best activated once you find Windgate access points, of which I've only found two so far, and they're not THAT useful.

And then, of course, it's the question of what items to buy in the general store. I first bought the cook book for my Farmer, but I've yet to see a gain from that. Then I bought the Mining Guide (again, for my Farmer) and I've been smashing rocks willy-nilly, but at the same time I'm disgusted at the short lifespans of the pickaxes. Finally I bought the spear, because it can be used underwater, and in the very first water section aboveground I found another spear, so that quickly pays off.

A similar dilemma is down in that 'Shrine of Whatixname"-dungeon where I've only found one key, but have about four rooms to choose from. I get the feeling that this mod presents players with a lot of choices, but only a handful of them are 'correct' ones, or at least need to be made in the proper order.
 

Unkillable Cat

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# One of the secret ways of beating this mod is NOT to enter the hub at the start. The key to that door is the Gear Key, which coincidentally is the same key used to unlock the portal found at the end of the vanilla game. If you can ignore that door and still reach the top of the Warlock's tower, you're good to go!

How did you learn this? I want to give a try for this but need more information.

My apologies for not replying earlier to this, but I honestly missed seeing this post (both times). :oops:

I got stumped on a puzzle where I knew what needed to be done, but not how to get that done in-game. So I scoured the Grimrock-forums, various YT-videos and the Steam discussion for this mod, where the author confirmed that NOT entering Livingrock is one of the secret ways of beating the mod. And IIRC there is another shovel out there. Somewhere. Don't ask me where, 'cause I honestly don't remember.
 

Whisper

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# One of the secret ways of beating this mod is NOT to enter the hub at the start. The key to that door is the Gear Key, which coincidentally is the same key used to unlock the portal found at the end of the vanilla game. If you can ignore that door and still reach the top of the Warlock's tower, you're good to go!

How did you learn this? I want to give a try for this but need more information.

My apologies for not replying earlier to this, but I honestly missed seeing this post (both times). :oops:

I got stumped on a puzzle where I knew what needed to be done, but not how to get that done in-game. So I scoured the Grimrock-forums, various YT-videos and the Steam discussion for this mod, where the author confirmed that NOT entering Livingrock is one of the secret ways of beating the mod. And IIRC there is another shovel out there. Somewhere. Don't ask me where, 'cause I honestly don't remember.

I found it. Gem (or Granite) mines under Grey Foothils.
 

Whisper

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I just reached the swamp. Remember those dangling egg-sacs that you can smash and sometimes drop items? EVERY TIME you come within a square of one of those, a super-fast insect swarm-enemy is spawned in that square. Without fail. That's before you factor in the free-range roaming ones running around the map. Have Fire Burst on standby at all times in the swamp.

And the Grimwood-map south of the starting map? Be wary of those thorns in the NE, that's the nastiest ambush I've come across yet. (Ditto for the one where you're climbing for the power gem on that very map.)

I am... hesitant to say that this mod is balanced. It is Very Important which parts of Livingrock you activate first. The kitchen takes top priority, the healing crystal chamber thereafter. I don't think it matters much whether you activate the general store or the creation chamber next (as they're both damn useful, but not as essential as the others) but to date I haven't seen a reason to activate the Basic Library - I spent that Power Gem on the Archives instead, which then literally asked me to feed it paper while it regurgitated the Plot Exposition for the mod, before finally begging for another power gem! (At least you get 100 XP for every Blank Page put into the thing.) The Windgate Chamber is best activated once you find Windgate access points, of which I've only found two so far, and they're not THAT useful.

And then, of course, it's the question of what items to buy in the general store. I first bought the cook book for my Farmer, but I've yet to see a gain from that. Then I bought the Mining Guide (again, for my Farmer) and I've been smashing rocks willy-nilly, but at the same time I'm disgusted at the short lifespans of the pickaxes. Finally I bought the spear, because it can be used underwater, and in the very first water section aboveground I found another spear, so that quickly pays off.

A similar dilemma is down in that 'Shrine of Whatixname"-dungeon where I've only found one key, but have about four rooms to choose from. I get the feeling that this mod presents players with a lot of choices, but only a handful of them are 'correct' ones, or at least need to be made in the proper order.

Read class description. If have farmer in party he can both Cook and Mine. This books are for parties with no farmer in them.

If you do not have keys for some doors, probaby you can pick locks? Try it.
 

Whisper

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Fuck, just reading about LoG2 makes me want dump my current Blackguards playthrough and start LoG2 with some wonky party.

LoG1 was fun and nice throwback to oldschool RT dungeon crawling, but it felt a bit unrefined (too few mob types/weapons/party builds/etc).

LoG 2 fixed all that, and playing it I haven't had such a blast since long time. (slightly less than in Underrali's case, but still).

I enjoy The guardians more than original LoG2. But i enjoyed LoG2 also. One of best games i've played.
 

Nyast

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I just reached the swamp. Remember those dangling egg-sacs that you can smash and sometimes drop items? EVERY TIME you come within a square of one of those, a super-fast insect swarm-enemy is spawned in that square. Without fail. That's before you factor in the free-range roaming ones running around the map. Have Fire Burst on standby at all times in the swamp.

And the Grimwood-map south of the starting map? Be wary of those thorns in the NE, that's the nastiest ambush I've come across yet. (Ditto for the one where you're climbing for the power gem on that very map.)

Yeah but those insects die in a single fire burst, and as you said it happens all the time without fail, which makes it predictable. In fact the square on whcih they appear is right in front of the egg sac, so even their location is predictable. That's probably why it didn't annoy me all that much, compared to, say, MM:X where you'd be ambushed by a bunch of strong monsters, in a configuration that you absolutely cannot expect.

The thorn-like monsters in the dark forest are indeed more of the "trap" type, since the way is conveniently blocked behind you. I just hope that was an exception. Most of the other ambushes I've encountered so far where in more open areas ( like, the chest on the beach at the north ) so I don't mind them as much. But yeah, I agree with you that the abuse of ambushes would be a weakness of this mod.

I am... hesitant to say that this mod is balanced. It is Very Important which parts of Livingrock you activate first. The kitchen takes top priority, the healing crystal chamber thereafter. I don't think it matters much whether you activate the general store or the creation chamber next (as they're both damn useful, but not as essential as the others) but to date I haven't seen a reason to activate the Basic Library - I spent that Power Gem on the Archives instead, which then literally asked me to feed it paper while it regurgitated the Plot Exposition for the mod, before finally begging for another power gem! (At least you get 100 XP for every Blank Page put into the thing.) The Windgate Chamber is best activated once you find Windgate access points, of which I've only found two so far, and they're not THAT useful.

And then, of course, it's the question of what items to buy in the general store. I first bought the cook book for my Farmer, but I've yet to see a gain from that. Then I bought the Mining Guide (again, for my Farmer) and I've been smashing rocks willy-nilly, but at the same time I'm disgusted at the short lifespans of the pickaxes. Finally I bought the spear, because it can be used underwater, and in the very first water section aboveground I found another spear, so that quickly pays off.

A similar dilemma is down in that 'Shrine of Whatixname"-dungeon where I've only found one key, but have about four rooms to choose from. I get the feeling that this mod presents players with a lot of choices, but only a handful of them are 'correct' ones, or at least need to be made in the proper order.

I see. I didn't have a farmer in my party so my experience has been quite different. The first 1-2 hours I was on my toes for food, so unlocking the kitchen then the cooking book was priority #1, no questions asked. After that, I had explored a bit and found all these blocking boulders, so getting the mining book was naturally my second priority. After that I started to have breathing room so there's a bunch of things that could get unlocked in various order. I opened the creation room just for food, in case of, then the crystal chamber since I started to have accumulated like 8 useless crystals; then I went for the windgate ( but I haven't found any teleportation spot in the world yet, so it's been useless ), the basic library ( haven't unlocked any spells yet either ) and finally the library ( I had like 20 blank scrolls, I used half of these to get the story and xp ). In terms of gold keys, I unlocked the spear next, but I haven't found how to use it underwater: none of my characters seem to be able to use it, so it sucks. I unlocked the mortar for my alchemist, and next I'm eyeing the rope to climb down pits.

I finished the main starting areas ( the beach, the two wood areas, the shrine of the god ), and I've completed half of the swamp, the lake and a bit of the cemetery and the catacombs. I accidentally fell into that ratlington area, but I haven't found the proper entrance yet. Will resume my explorations today.
 
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Unkillable Cat

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I see. I didn't have a farmer in my party so my experience has been quite different. The first 1-2 hours I was on my toes for food, so unlocking the kitchen then the cooking book was priority #1, no questions asked. After that, I had explored a bit and found all these blocking boulders, so getting the mining book was naturally my second priority. After that I started to have breathing room so there's a bunch of things that could get unlocked in various order. I opened the creation room just for food, in case of, then the crystal chamber since I started to have accumulated like 8 useless crystals; then I went for the windgate ( but I haven't found any teleportation spot in the world yet, so it's been useless ), the basic library ( haven't unlocked any spells yet either ) and finally the library ( I had like 20 blank scrolls, I used half of these to get the story and xp ). In terms of gold keys, I unlocked the spear next, but I haven't found how to use it underwater: none of my characters seem to be able to use it, so it sucks. I unlocked the mortar for my alchemist, and next I'm eyeing the rope to climb down pits.

I finished the main starting areas ( the beach, the two wood areas, the shrine of the god ), and I've completed half of the swamp, the lake and a bit of the cemetery and the catacombs. I accidentally fell into that ratlington area, but I haven't found the proper entrance yet. Will resume my explorations today.

The spear is a pretty basic weapon that requires two hands. I have one of them on my Battlemage, who has no points in any combat-related skills.

I'm currently clearing the cemetery, but the new 'Cursed' debuff is a pain. -5 on all stats and no XP-gain while it's on?

I've not found this ratlington area, but I did discover that Firearms are REALLY cool in this mod. I found the Repeater in the cemetery (and used it to discover a nearby secret) and will be skilling that up more.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Read class description. If have farmer in party he can both Cook and Mine. This books are for parties with no farmer in them.

:deathclaw:

I read it in the readme, but because the Farmer's character sheet didn't have the icons for "Miner" and "Cook" I assumed otherwise.

I'm restarting with a new party. It may just be two Gold Keys wasted, but considering how brutal this mod is I'm gonna need every help I can get.
 

Whisper

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Read class description. If have farmer in party he can both Cook and Mine. This books are for parties with no farmer in them.

:deathclaw:

I read it in the readme, but because the Farmer's character sheet didn't have the icons for "Miner" and "Cook" I assumed otherwise.

I'm restarting with a new party. It may just be two Gold Keys wasted, but considering how brutal this mod is I'm gonna need every help I can get.

What difficulty do you play?

Also this mod is best thing i found in this year. No exageration.
 

Unkillable Cat

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What difficulty do you play?

Also this mod is best thing i found in this year. No exageration.

I was playing on Normal.

The argument for me restarting the mod is that I have a 'default' party for LoG2 where I've locked down three out of four: A Lizardman Knight who maxes out Light Weapons and dons Heavy Armor, a Ratling Alchemist using the best ranged weapon available (usually throwing weapons) while brewing potions and bombs, and an Insectoid Battlemage. The fourth character is not fully decided, and often fills in whatever roles may be needed by a LoG2-mod. I've often used a Minotaur Fighter focusing on Heavy Weapons because of the skull-collecting thing, but recently I've come to realize that Minotaurs just don't have a place in my party, and doubly so in these two mods here ("Lost City" has ~16 skulls, but at least nine of them need to be spent to solve puzzles, leaving the real value much lower.

The party I originally used in "Guardians" had a Ratling Farmer and a Human Alchemist, and beside my blunder I just wasn't feeling that Farmer being useful. He's supposed to have the same 'plants-in-his-inventory-grow-in-number'-gimmick as the Alchemist has, except with food - except I could not ever spot a moment when that actually happened. So with no reason left to include a Farmer, I felt it was best to put him out to pasture, and bring in a Human Fighter instead and have the Ratling return to his Alchemist duties. In "Guardians" Humans have a 10% bonus gain on XP and can pick a (Human-only) trait which adds 20% XP gain on top of that. Combine that with the Spirit Pendant and you have a 55% bonus gain on XP!

I'd like to praise the "Guardians"-mod for one of the most subtle, yet simple puzzles I've come across. In the cemetery there's an unfinished bridge (just the frame, can't use it to cross the river). Normally no one would think much of that, cemeteries are often depicted with derelict structures. Except on one end there's a sign which reads "Delivery Point", which made no sense... even when I found that one of the cemetery's many graves is located right on the other side of this bridge, and that it belongs to "Joe the Carpenter, who never got his last shipment." Huh. I don't think anything more of it, until I'm swimming in the river that runs through the cemetery, and I spot an item I can pick up... namely, a bunch of planks. After spending a minute thinking about this, I wondered: "Why don't I drop the planks on the square marked "Delivery Point" and see what happens?" (There's no XP-reward for doing this, but it REALLY cuts down on the travel time in that map.)

And one nagging point: Spells must be learned from a scroll before they can be cast. This also applies to spells your spellcaster may still not be qualified to cast. Fair enough. Except the spell school-requirements are listed on the scroll, but NOT on the icon for the spell in the character sheet! Fortunately the (Basic) Library does have this info in its 'vending windows', but what if players don't have access to that structure yet, or the spell isn't available in the library? Creates a small problem which needs a pen and paper-solution..
 

Whisper

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What difficulty do you play?

Also this mod is best thing i found in this year. No exageration.

I was playing on Normal.

The argument for me restarting the mod is that I have a 'default' party for LoG2 where I've locked down three out of four: A Lizardman Knight who maxes out Light Weapons and dons Heavy Armor, a Ratling Alchemist using the best ranged weapon available (usually throwing weapons) while brewing potions and bombs, and an Insectoid Battlemage. The fourth character is not fully decided, and often fills in whatever roles may be needed by a LoG2-mod. I've often used a Minotaur Fighter focusing on Heavy Weapons because of the skull-collecting thing, but recently I've come to realize that Minotaurs just don't have a place in my party, and doubly so in these two mods here ("Lost City" has ~16 skulls, but at least nine of them need to be spent to solve puzzles, leaving the real value much lower.

The party I originally used in "Guardians" had a Ratling Farmer and a Human Alchemist, and beside my blunder I just wasn't feeling that Farmer being useful. He's supposed to have the same 'plants-in-his-inventory-grow-in-number'-gimmick as the Alchemist has, except with food - except I could not ever spot a moment when that actually happened. So with no reason left to include a Farmer, I felt it was best to put him out to pasture, and bring in a Human Fighter instead and have the Ratling return to his Alchemist duties. In "Guardians" Humans have a 10% bonus gain on XP and can pick a (Human-only) trait which adds 20% XP gain on top of that. Combine that with the Spirit Pendant and you have a 55% bonus gain on XP!

I'd like to praise the "Guardians"-mod for one of the most subtle, yet simple puzzles I've come across. In the cemetery there's an unfinished bridge (just the frame, can't use it to cross the river). Normally no one would think much of that, cemeteries are often depicted with derelict structures. Except on one end there's a sign which reads "Delivery Point", which made no sense... even when I found that one of the cemetery's many graves is located right on the other side of this bridge, and that it belongs to "Joe the Carpenter, who never got his last shipment." Huh. I don't think anything more of it, until I'm swimming in the river that runs through the cemetery, and I spot an item I can pick up... namely, a bunch of planks. After spending a minute thinking about this, I wondered: "Why don't I drop the planks on the square marked "Delivery Point" and see what happens?" (There's no XP-reward for doing this, but it REALLY cuts down on the travel time in that map.)

And one nagging point: Spells must be learned from a scroll before they can be cast. This also applies to spells your spellcaster may still not be qualified to cast. Fair enough. Except the spell school-requirements are listed on the scroll, but NOT on the icon for the spell in the character sheet! Fortunately the (Basic) Library does have this info in its 'vending windows', but what if players don't have access to that structure yet, or the spell isn't available in the library? Creates a small problem which needs a pen and paper-solution..

I just check with Wiki for spell requirements if i forget.

You party is Ok for normal, i guess. For hard you need to optimise.


Game (the Guardians) is more fun for me than Lost City. More exploration/better puzzles/clever fights and feeling of danger (when you rush to your base because it is safe there). Almost never have this feeling in games.
 

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