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There are really only two factions despite the fact the game tries to portray there being three paths (warrior of the order being the third). Either you join the bandit camp or you join the monastery -- do the former if you want to be a melee/ranged fighter or do the latter if you want to be a caster. Story-wise the only significant difference is in the first chapter. Other than that the rest of the game plays out pretty much the same. I'd recommend bandit for a first playthrough as it's the most interesting, imo. If you want to see the other faction just go back and play through chapter one siding with the inquisition and maybe chapter two to play around with magic (although it really isn't that exciting). As mentioned above, neither side is good nor bad.
Well, it's hard to answer and not spoil, but I felt the Inquisition was the more good out of the two. The bandits seem to want to go back to the old status quo of corruption and illegal activity and I get the impression it's more of a cover story that they're trying to stop the oppression.
IIRC The Inquisition swooped down on the Island and instantly took control from the people running the Island in the first place. The "Bandits" just wanting their Island back I would hardly call "illegal"....
You can play the game for quite a while before you make the final decision and join one of the two (three) factions; explore the safe parts of the island, visit bandit swamp (and already do some jobs for them before joining them, earn gold needed to enter the town), you can also go to town and talk to people, do some minor jobs and see who's who and what their motivations are. Just don't try to enter it through the front gate (use the back one). You can always exit the town by jumping the wall and RUNNING.
First time I played it, I joined the mages and the second time "bandits". I can confirm that bandits are more fun. Inquisitors are religious freaks that want you either in or dead. Mages you can at least join willingly, though.
Bandit quests are better and I think it's a bit longer faction to play, also.
IIRC The Inquisition swooped down on the Island and instantly took control from the people running the Island in the first place. The "Bandits" just wanting their Island back I would hardly call "illegal"....
I meant all their illegal doings while in control of the city. Basically, they were corrupt tyrants, though not particularly evil. The impression I got was that they're just butthurt they aren't in power and most of the people complaining about the inquisition (like the original city guards) appear to be butthurt because they won't be getting bribes and stuff anymore.
And it was more or less shown that the inquisition was in the right for keeping people away from the ruins.
Ok thanks for the feedback. Still not sure what i want to do.
So I shouldn't joint he inquisition if i want to remain a fighter\ranged fighter? I wouldnt mind a few spells but mainly want to use fighting\bows\alchemy.
Ok thanks for the feedback. Still not sure what i want to do.
So I shouldn't joint he inquisition if i want to remain a fighter\ranged fighter? I wouldnt mind a few spells but mainly want to use fighting\bows\alchemy.
Long story short: They segregated the ranged nuke spells from the utility spells in Risen. The only 'magic' you'll miss out on is fireball, freeze, and magic bullet -- none of which are particularly anymore deadly than simply using a ranged attack like bow/crossbow given the right amount of LP spent. The utility spells you can make use of through scrolls which you'll find in abundance. Ranged attacks, particularly magic, are brokenly overpowered anyway. The game was first and foremost designed for melee combat.
Ok thanks for the feedback. Still not sure what i want to do.
So I shouldn't joint he inquisition if i want to remain a fighter\ranged fighter? I wouldnt mind a few spells but mainly want to use fighting\bows\alchemy.
You can pretty much be a fighter in any faction, even the mages. The main gameplay differences are as follows:
Bandits
Can only train staff-fighting up to 7.
Can't use rune or crystal magic.
Warriors of the Order
Can only train sword- and axe-fighting up to 7.
Can't use rune magic.
Mages
Can only train sword- and axe-fighting up to 7.
Also, you can only train pickpocket up to 3 if you resolve a certain quest in favor of the bandits, but you can do this and still end up going with the Order; I'm not sure if you'll be able to train it or not in this case. You can also train sword- and axe-fighting up to 10 as a member of the Order as long as you do so before joining the Order, though this would require you to use explore quite a bit of the island in the first chapter in order to get the necessary LP. I wouldn't recommend it unless you absolutely must play as a sword-fighting mage, since raising strength has a much more marked effect on your fighting ability early in the game. (You can't do the same thing for staff-fighting, BTW, since you only gain access to the level 10 trainers after making your faction decision.) Also, in the case of axes, being unable to raise the skill past 7 is not a major detriment since the best upgrade - the ability to wield axes one-handed - occurs at skill level 6.
And the best axe in the game gives you 6 free points in axe-fighting, though admittedly you only get this near the very end.
Note that sword- and axe-fighting are generally superior to staff-fighting, in no small part due to the ability to use shields; plus, staffs do less damage and I've heard that the level of the staff-fighting skill that's supposed to boost their damage is broken.* Focusing on staff-fighting could be a fun challenge if you find the game too easy with shields, though. Also, the main advantage of mages over warriors of the Order, the ability to cast from runes, has a minimal effect on the game due to the fact that warriors can just make scrolls instead and, in fact, are required to get the scroll-making ability in order to finish the first chapter (bandits can also get the skill but aren't required to); you also get a ton of scrolls through exploration. All in all, the differences between the classes are fairly minimal thanks to scrolls and the relatively small impact of weapon skills on your fighting ability compared to strength/dexterity.
All of that aside, if you want to play a fighter type, I recommend going for the bandits. That way, if you ever want to replay the game as a mage, you won't end up repeating all of the same content.
Edit: Huh, I thought you could only train crystals up to 7 as a warrior of the Order, but I can't find any evidence for this online.
Ok, so we realised there are no purely good or evil sides in Risen. There are, nevertheless, different principles and philosophies on each side.
Therefore, as you can see in this thread, there are quite diverging standpoints as to which faction is the lesser of evils.
Suggestion:
Why don't you just play the game already and decide on the run, the way it comes naturally to you?
As for the skill dev, you could just try and figure out yourself...or, to drain the game of its fun* , follow the advice of Coyote.
* I mean it. The game is dead simple on the char dev end. You'd have to be a fucking inbred village idiot to mess this up.
codex, you conflicted bitch.
If you want to know the 'right' way to play a game, you could go with a low-on-rp action adventure or a railway blobber as well.
Heh, well, I generally agree with this sentiment. I avoid giving advice with regard to character build in games like Arcanum, Bloodlines, Fallout, Torment, etc., in part because I believe that the fun of the game comes from discovering what works and what build fits your play style and also because it takes a lot of the replay value out of these games if you play them the first time with a "perfect" character (e.g., high WIS, INT, and CHA in Planescape). But a lot of that comes from the different content you access by playing different types of characters. In a game like Risen, where (a) most of the skills are combat-oriented, (b) there aren't many options to differentiate between two builds based on the same melee/ranged/magic archetype(s) (as there are, for example, in KotC, the NWNs, or the Wizardries I've played), and (c) most of the content is the same across playthroughs, I don't find it as detrimental. In fact it can sometimes be detrimental to go in not knowing about the skills if the game doesn't provide enough information for the player to get a sense for their effectiveness (for instance, someone recently complained about the game being too twitch-based and training having a minimal impact on combat in part because he was playing a very ineffective build). And he did ask about how factions interact with character builds; I was just providing him with the information that I felt was relevant.
That said, I do advocate playing the game more naturally rather than seeking to optimize your character (e.g., taking permanent potions as you come across them/their ingredients rather than saving them all up until you've trained your skills as high as you want to so you can be a god in the last thirty minutes of the game) as the path to having the most fun with Risen and the Gothics.
Ok thanks for the feedback. Still not sure what i want to do.
So I shouldn't joint he inquisition if i want to remain a fighter\ranged fighter? I wouldnt mind a few spells but mainly want to use fighting\bows\alchemy.
You can still use/create spell scrolls as any character type. And neither side really sets you up to be a good or bad guy. In fact, I can't think of many NPCs that aren't dickheads in one way or another. Like one bandit quest involves collecting protection money from the shopkeepers, but the shopkeepers are all corrupt in their own way so even as a good character you might even come off feeling justified.
Everyone can get to Axe 10 as Karakos teaches regardless of faction. Though more than 8 is pretty useless.
Also everyone can get sword to 10 as long as you get the training from Fincher while unaligned. Last level is kinda useless though.
Don't learn pickpocket 3, I'd even skip it completely. You get no exp, can steal one item per person and they all suck. Those few quests where you can steal quest items you are better of just challenging them and beating the crap out of them.
You can do all the quests in the bandit camp and then become a mage/warrior of the inquisition. There are next to no faction specific quests for bandits but a ton for mages/warriors.
I never took pickpocketing. Bandits do have quite a few faction specific quests in regards to fleecing people in harbor town and also later taking over harbor town.
You can also engage in some group on group combat for one of the ruins but that is not faction exclusive and can be done while still independent.
Warriors/Mages do get ranged combat -- magic, and its just as viable/good as archery/xbow.
Ah, you're probably right. That lines up better with my memory, but I wasn't sure so I looked it up here, where it says that Karakos doesn't train Order members.
This reminds me, I was wondering:
I found out late in my last playthrough that it's possible to levitate into Harbor Town from the path northwest of the west entrance (where the apprentices are training out front) that leads up the side of a nearby cliff to a cave full of gnomes. On the left side of the path just before the part where you would turn right towards the cave, there's a tall rock jutting out that you can climb up, and if you go as far up as you can before casting levitate, you can make it into town by aiming for the left corner of the wall near the entrance. I know it's possible to get a levitate scroll before you go into town, although I can't remember where; you might have to make it past the ghoul cave into the northeast section of the island. Anyway, it made me curious as to whether the programmers acknowledged this possibility like they did in Gothic 2 for unusual methods of entering Khorinis (where Lares had a special dialogue and you'd get something like 500 experience points). I doubt they did since it's so obscure, but has anyone tried this when entering HT for the first time?
I never took pickpocketing. Bandits do have quite a few faction specific quests in regards to fleecing people in harbor town and also later taking over harbor town.
Everyone gets those quests so they are not faction specific. And apart from whom to give the quest objects and what slightly different reward you get those quests play out the same for whatever side you want to go. If you are thinking of the follow up quests that a few of the Dons men offer then remember that even if you go ultimately order you can still do 3 quest of the 7 for the Don without problems ( apparently you can even do all quests for the Don and then let yourself capture but that might bug the game). So even if I go for mage or warrior of the inquisition I can see all the content. Which to me is a major flaw in the game.
Coyote, I'm using german worldofrisen DB as reference. Pretty sure you could also just use minsky mode ingame and look for yourself.
And no, no extra exp for using that way to get into town. It's not really worth it because you get so much money ingame that there is no point in saving a 100 gold for the bribe.
I never took pickpocketing. Bandits do have quite a few faction specific quests in regards to fleecing people in harbor town and also later taking over harbor town.
Everyone gets those quests so they are not faction specific. And apart from whom to give the quest objects and what slightly different reward you get those quests play out the same for whatever side you want to go. If you are thinking of the follow up quests that a few of the Dons men offer then remember that even if you go ultimately order you can still do 3 quest of the 7 for the Don without problems ( apparently you can even do all quests for the Don and then let yourself capture but that might bug the game). So even if I go for mage or warrior of the inquisition I can see all the content. Which to me is a major flaw in the game.
Do the Harbor quests for the Inquisition (4/7) and you'll get a letter of recommendation for the mages. IIRC, that is needed to become a mage. Otherwise you'll only have the option of becoming a Order Warrior. And I don't see how that could be considered a bug. You are told several times that the Inquisition press-gangs people outside the town into service... (Now perhaps there is/was a bug that allowed you to become a mage despite having worked "for the Don".) And there are some faction specific quests for the Bandits (most after they've retaken the Harbor.)
The only (more or less) "good" faction are the mages (as in they're neither corrupt, nor oppressive, nor powerhungry), but you can't join them without working for the Inquisition. Otherwise there are no huge differences in the quest paths. It's mostly flavour and/or minor.
The game might become confused to which faction you belong if you do all 7 quests for the Don and then get caught by the Inquisition. That's what I meant by bug.
And you're obviously right about becoming a mage only by recommendation. Forgot that but all you lose is rune magic which sucks anyway.
The only (more or less) "good" faction are the mages (as in they're neither corrupt, nor oppressive, nor powerhungry), but you can't join them without working for the Inquisition.
So a mod doesn't like discussion so this will go in every thread:
I came to the forum because I like Fallout. I like New Vegas, too. I like the Mass Effect series.
So, is there anything to discuss here? I can't think of anything.
I do sometimes feel like I should post more in RPG Discussion. I read the threads, but honestly what is there to discuss? PS:T was great. Arcanum was flawed but great. New Vegas was good. Fallout was good. Two out of those three games are a decade old. Mass Effect 1&2 were fun unless you don't like video games then it was BSB.
What else is there?
I should feel bad for not posting here enough, except that's wrong and really I should not because there's nothing to talk about. The only thread I found interesting was a thread about powergaming Fallout, an ancient game, rofl.
Even though there's a funny way to end one bandit quest with the 2nd level of Pick Pocketing, I felt the skill points invested in this should've gone to something else.
