Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[Gunnar]

I thought the enemies in the church were total bitches, with all the instant death attacks, now I'm getting level drained?

 

[Emmanuel2]

I thought the enemies in the church were total bitches, with all the instant death attacks, now I'm getting level drained?

Remember, getting permanently level-drained, beheaded, cursed, stoned, floor dropped, teleported, OHKO trapped, randomly teleported, etc. are fun mechanics.

 

[Haplo]

Well, instant death isn't so bad. But level drain.... that's prolly worth a reload.

The fun just begins :D

 

[Gunnar]

This is the first old school wizardry type game I've played.

My party has been repeatedly destroyed in every way imaginable, beat up and badly mauled on a routine basis. My samurai has been slain 17 times so far, suffocated, inhaled, beheaded and exploded by demon bosses. I have teleported into solid rock, drowned, turned to ashes and been level drained for 6 levels. The Hunter has been hit with many traps, including the one that ages you, and because I made him a human, his age is becoming a concern. There are some bosses running around that are impossible!!! (but i have a few ideas on how i might beat them). And it's great! The rewards always feel commensurate to the challenge, and it's satisfying to complete the areas in a way that it wouldn't be without the difficulty.

I benched the Alchemist to serve as my Disassembler, and replaced him with a new character, who can cast all spells and will end as a Summoner (gotta level him up a lot though). Samurai and Lord are dual wielding, doing great damage! I have mastery with my Brawler, but still waiting for my Samurai, Valkyrie and Hunter, all coming very soon.

I have recently encountered an altar in the Ishmag Underground Sanctum that changes a persons race to 'Devilish', but I don't know what that means for the character.

This game is crack, by the way.

 

[Haplo]

Good read! Keep up the good job!

Regarding Devilish race, it's a monster race. Most non-humanoid spirit-pact monster adventurers (recruited with a Summoner) belong to this race.
Has fairly balanced stats, slightly higher then human, for example. Can never use Innocent equipment... but can use Cursed equipment with no penalty.
And has long life expectancy, so if aging is a concern for the Hunter, this could be the solution.

 

[an Administrator]

There are some bosses running around that are impossible!!!

You mean floor masters? (red dots on the map)

 

[Gunnar]

Good read! Keep up the good job!

Regarding Devilish race, it's a monster race. Most non-humanoid spirit-pact monster adventurers (recruited with a Summoner) belong to this race.
Has fairly balanced stats, slightly higher then human, for example. Can never use Innocent equipment... but can use Cursed equipment with no penalty.
And has long life expectancy, so if aging is a concern for the Hunter, this could be the solution.

Ah, thanks! Interesting, I'll have to think about it. If I switched him to a long life expectancy character, wouldn't he gain stats like a child though?

There are some bosses running around that are impossible!!!

You mean floor masters? (red dots on the map)

Yeah. I've been knocking them off but it doesn't seem to do anything. Maybe there's a reward for killing them all?

 

[Jasede]

They're there for you to steal nice loot from using a Master Thief.

 

[Haplo]

If he's age is 20+, then he's already in the "mature" area, I think. Trouble is when a Monster Adventurer starts with age 0.

I wouldn't hurry to beat the Floor Masters. They have some nice equipment that can be stolen and make some tempting Summon contract targets.

 

[an Administrator]

Yeah. I've been knocking them off but it doesn't seem to do anything. Maybe there's a reward for killing them all?

Leave them alone, then come back with a powerful summoner and make them your powerful 7th member of the party.

 

[Gunnar]

They're there for you to steal nice loot from using a Master Thief.

I wouldn't hurry to beat the Floor Masters. They have some nice equipment that can be stolen and make some tempting Summon contract targets.

Leave them alone, then come back with a powerful summoner and make them your powerful 7th member of the party.

Dang, I was hunting them for sport too :D Now I know who to target with my summoner, though. thanks!

If he's age is 20+, then he's already in the "mature" area, I think. Trouble is when a Monster Adventurer starts with age 0.

Oh, that's great then. What do you do in that case, intentionally hit them with the aging trap? I've been using the Kiss of the Goddess to try to lower his age, but you only lose 1 year, whereas the Treasure Chest one can give you like 4 years.

 

[Jasede]

You can use Alchemy to make an item that ages them, or you can intentionally get them killed and raise them to bring their age up.

 

[Haplo]

If he's age is 20+, then he's already in the "mature" area, I think. Trouble is when a Monster Adventurer starts with age 0.

Oh, that's great then. What do you do in that case, intentionally hit them with the aging trap? I've been using the Kiss of the Goddess to try to lower his age, but you only lose 1 year, whereas the Treasure Chest one can give you like 4 years.

I pair them with a character with the rez spell and send them naked to the Training Hall.
If they turn to ash, I rez them at the temple. Doesn't cost much since they are level 1.
Anyway I run all new characters trough the Training Hall to level 6 or so. That's rather fast.

 

[Courtier]

By the end of the game all your characters, even the ones left in the tavern, will have aged several decades from exploration/traveling time alone. Changing classes ages you and there are plenty of items that do it. You can use Protectorate to raise stats (especially luck) to offset the age leveling penalty.

DO NOT kill the floor masters if you want to be able to summon them at any point, they don't reappear. If you kill all the floor masters you will get the Hero's Book of Secrets at the tavern, contracting them also counts. They have high summon resist so you will need to disable them and use a brawler's Clean Hit

 

[Gunnar]

Good read! Keep up the good job!

Regarding Devilish race, it's a monster race. Most non-humanoid spirit-pact monster adventurers (recruited with a Summoner) belong to this race.
Has fairly balanced stats, slightly higher then human, for example. Can never use Innocent equipment... but can use Cursed equipment with no penalty.
And has long life expectancy, so if aging is a concern for the Hunter, this could be the solution.

I just changed him to Devilish and it let me put his Innocent Cloak back on (thankfully). Any notable cursed items I should be looking out for?

 

[Haplo]

For a Hunter? Not sure.
For a Brawler the World weapon is worth a special mention I think. Low damage per hit (can double it with enchantment though), however x2 damage to all races except Gods, +10 Hit, +10 Attacks. Two handed, so +10 Attacks stacks with normal attack limit of 10 attacks leading to 20 attacks per round. And most do connect due to the yuge accuracy bonus. It can be found at the Royal Tomb and onwards.
As I understand many good Brawler weapons are cursed. Also stuff you can potentially steal from monsters, like Devil Claws, Dragon Claws.

 

[Haplo]

My Brawler routinely does 600-670 damage per strike with The World. And he can combo up to 4 strikes (where the 4th hit can deal triple damage if it's "Clean Hit"). Over 900 per strike with War Rite orCounter Attack bonuses. But he does have Mark of Ruin 50% damage bonus.

 

[Gunnar]

My Brawler routinely does 600-670 damage per strike with The World. And he can combo up to 4 strikes (where the 4th hit can deal triple damage if it's "Clean Hit"). Over 900 per strike with War Rite orCounter Attack bonuses. But he does have Mark of Ruin 50% damage bonus.

Wow, ok I'll look out for it.

Currently stuck on the dark god boss. If I get close to him, he just wipes out my front line in 1-2 turns. If I stay far away from him, he regenerates all damage and uses statuses that hit me no matter how many times I use magic resist spell. Not sure if there is something I'm supposed to have done. I can't read any of the ancient books and there are a bunch of glowing orbs that tell me they want me, but I can't seem to do anything with them.

Also, Greater Demons, holy crap you can get an xp piledriver from those guys! I banged out a level 34 bishop no sweat. I was trying to help him identify my loot, but it doesnt seem to have helped much. How high does his level need to be to identify loot easily?

 

[aweigh]

dunno if Courtier or someone else already mentioned it but yes, there is very much so a reward for killing off all Floor Masters other than stealing their loot, and I didn't even know about this shit even after (probably around) +1000 hours of E: Gothic playtime.

Apparently once you kill off all of the game's FM's you can go to the town Church, do a quick Prayer and receive an item that will allow you to increase the % of "Level 3 Tier" loot (i.e. "rare drops").

This will only be possibleat the very, very, very end of the game though. But, hey, just goes to show how much crap is packed in this game even after obsessively playing it for hundreds of hours I still didn't know there was an item like this.

 

[aweigh]

btw, Devilish race is (IMO) the de-facto best race for a party.

- longest life-span
- best spread of attribute points
- can equip cursed items (huuuuuuge plus)

in the negatives column it is only in E: Gothic where they got properly balanced the most:

- in E: Gothic, unlike E: Original for example, you can't start out as Devilish
- E: Gothic also features a lot of godly-tier weaponry and armour that is simply off-limits to Devilish race characters (balance!)
- E: Gothic features harsher (slower) XP progression for uber-races, and Devilish is the slowest of all races

For example there's not much point in making an "Innocent" Devilish Alchemist as:

- an Alchemist's worth is measured by how high their LVL is, and thus a Devilish one is not optimal for such a char-type
- Alchemist's end-game / godly-tier armour (for example, Angel Sandals and Magical Wreaths) can't be equipped by Devilish race chars

etc, etc. Just pointing out, once again, how incredibly balanced E: Gothic is as an RPG. I wish Obsidian's next Stretch Goal was to force Joshua Sawyer to play E: Gothic and E: Original in order for him to learn what real itemization and balancing is in an RPG.

just because a race, item, class or skill is useful or powerful it will will always run into checks and balances, in any Elminage game, but in Gothic most of all.

 

[aweigh]

Gunnar

Don't sweat it over Cyclonus too much: last time I was playing the PC version (this was about 2-3 months ago, before I started my current 3DS 'remix' version playthrough) i was getting party wiped by Cyclonus even though I've beaten him countless times. I ended up killing him with only my Thief left alive because he got a lucky dice roll and managed to stay hidden throughout the last leg of the fight and he was capable of dealing juuuuuuuuuust enough DMG to Cyclonus to slowly "outpace" his HP Turn Recovery.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is: bosses are supposed to be hard. And, btw, lol @ your face when you do beat him and realize you still have to escape on foot. haha... ha... heh.

(And yes, it absolutely pays off to deal with his Vampire minions ASAP as their level drain can make the fight fall into "reload" territory; although if you want to be truly loyal to the Wizardry spirit instead of reloading utilize a character's Wish spell and sacrifice 1 of his/her levels in order to restore everybody else's Drained stats... it's what I do).

 

[Gunnar]

Gunnar

Don't sweat it over Cyclonus too much: last time I was playing the PC version (this was about 2-3 months ago, before I started my current 3DS 'remix' version playthrough) i was getting party wiped by Cyclonus even though I've beaten him countless times. I ended up killing him with only my Thief left alive because he got a lucky dice roll and managed to stay hidden throughout the last leg of the fight and he was capable of dealing juuuuuuuuuust enough DMG to Cyclonus to slowly "outpace" his HP Turn Recovery.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is: bosses are supposed to be hard. And, btw, lol @ your face when you do beat him and realize you still have to escape on foot. haha... ha... heh.

(And yes, it absolutely pays off to deal with his Vampire minions ASAP as their level drain can make the fight fall into "reload" territory; although if you want to be truly loyal to the Wizardry spirit instead of reloading utilize a character's Wish spell and sacrifice 1 of his/her levels in order to restore everybody else's Drained stats... it's what I do).

See, I didn't know you could do that, and level draining was the one thing in the game I thought was unfair because there was no counter. good to know.

btw, whats the remix version?

 

[aweigh]

3ds port of the game with the first half of the game's dungeon's "remixed" into different floor layouts, however the end result of these remixed floor layouts is that they made the first half of the game's dungeon's much, much easier.

in general the 3ds port makes the game much more casual, however they did a fair amount of the PC versin's stock 714 item's attributes, stuff like making the Quenstene weapon L-range but Evil-alignment only with +2 Accuaracy bonus and less damage, thus making it a good early-game L-range weapon for Evil/Thief type characters; whereas in the PC version the Questene is simply an S-range weapon that isn't worth a 2nd glance.

changes like that: i.e. small stuff but to someone who has played the PC version extensively they end up being "immediately noticeable".

Random encounters were casualized as well, with enemy stats dropping by 1 or 2 points in every Attribute, however on the flip side Floor Masters and story bosses' stats were increased even more than by how much I increased their stats in my PC difficulty mod.

And yeah, this includes stuff like lowering % of "Summon Resistance" of enemies thus there are no longer almost any enemies where you'll need a Brawler to "Clean Hit" them into submission first as I think in the 3ds version the only enemies with 100% Summon Resistance are post-game ones.

To make this shorter:

- revised around 25% of the existing 700+ stock items from the PC version to be either more powerful, have a different range or tweaked for different race/alignments.

- the remixed dungeon floor maps are casualized, easier to navigate and always feature a shortcut back to the beginning.

- FM's and bosses' ststs were increased substantially, but the revised weaponry makes up for the challenge.

- majority of normal enemies stats were subtly lowered by 1 or 2 points.

Biggest and most "game-changing" change is the addition of full monster "Inventories" for 80% or so of the game's Bestiary, which means the Thief can now steal a giant turtle's beak or shell or a dragon's fangs and these can be equipped by whoever can do so. It seems like a huge change but not really: the stock items will still always be better; there is simply much more variety in weaponry in the 3ds port since the Thief can steal more enemy-type weapons and not just the Humanoid-enemy weapons (like in the PC version).

- 1 brand-new music track for the game's town that is a beautiful, haunting choral piece. I dare say this little MP3 is the single best reason to play this 3ds port.

The game is, of course, in Japanese. I already modded into the 3ds ROM english translated full new item list (there are now 916 items in total, counting enemy beaks, claws, talons, etc), and there are 25 new enemy sprites.

Only reason I haven't made a thread about this is because:

a) the 3ds rom is 400-500mb and It takes too long for my connection to upload it to my FireDrop account. I will over-night upload it if anyone wants me, though. Items, enemies and spells I have translated into English; everything else is in japanese.

b) don't know nor care to look into how to make a "patch" for the ROM.

Oh, also they added option to pay massive amounts of Gold Pieces to change a char's Ex-Skill or to "buy" Experience Points.

 

[aweigh]

oh! right, they also:

- can now unlock devilish and magical puppet races in the early game

- added 2 new races (well, their data was already in the PC version but unused in the game): giant race and goblinoid race. both races are EXTREMELY OVERPOWERED and will make any playthrough a completely cake-walk.

sooo, yeah, that's about it. AFAIK there is no new ending (not that such a thing would really matter all that much. hundreds of hours played and to this day I have yet to sit through the opening cutscene).

 

[Sacred82]

Gonna start the game soon, have a party planned:

Werebeast Brawler
will stay Brawler.

Human Thief --> Samurai
Human for the spell oints if that makes a difference

Dragonewt Valkyrie
maybe Dwarf?

Human Alchemist --> Hunter

Faery Bishop
Faery was recommended to me for that sweet initiative

Human Mage --> Alchemist

I wanted to come up with a physical combat party. There are too many humans for my taste but not knowing how the game works I wanted a balance between SP and HP. Also the party might actually be better without class changes?

What about the hunter, waste of time?

What's the gist on Bards?