So Drakensang...

[abnaxus]

More serious; the endless Attacke - Parade - Attacke - Parade - ... - Attacke - Parade Spiel in DSA was annoying on higher levels. Otherwise I always preferred it over D&D because of its varied skill-system and that more than one attribute was important for a skill.

Isn't there a Counterattack skill that is unparryable?

 

[Morkar Left]

No. Maybe in the latest edition (4rth?). But you could never have more than 1 parade per turn.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

Just do group battles, since no combatant can parry more than one attack per round you just keep ganging up on stuff until it dies. Well, unless their armor class is higher than your maximum damage.. Then it's just fishing for critical hits.

You know what, the combat system WAS kind of awful, especially with all the more indepth stuff like comparing the weapons' capabilities for attacking and blocking and calculating the individual modifiers for your attacking and parrying from that. So that made this more of a peaceful universe than belligerent DnD.
Just use magic or bribes instead I guess

 

[Wolfus]

Here in Slovakia is DSA almost unknown. I bought PnP version on drivethrustuff, because I love RoA trilogy but noone wants to play it with me

Also:

 

[Gurkog]

TRoT is good because it isn't completely filled with annoying mobs and the hiking isn't quite as bad. Some of the encounters are actually fun and there is decent use of skill checks. There is some way to increase the movement speed in the INI IIRC so be sure to do that. The expansion is considered shit because it goes back to having heavy combat. Honestly, the combat would probably be great if it was just turn based, but instead it's like Ulminati says, a really bad MMO.

FAKE EDIT:

Only drawbacks for me were the combat. RTwP isn't the problem, the problem is that enemies are constantly chasing your mages/archers and there is no attack of opportunity or defense line you can build to block them. Think about Benny Hill style runs. Best is to give even your mages a lot of hp and use them for melee combat and buffing most of the time. Another flaw is that your chars can't die and healing is too easy.

Ahhh yes, but I do consider this a flaw of it being RTwP since that system has never really done attacks of opportunity right or blocking IMO.

If OP plays the first one, avoid that rat dungeon at all costs! It's a lame joke on the developers part and seeing rats rush through your fighters to get at the weaker mages/archers is infuriating.

I always do the rat dungeon the moment it becomes available and love every second of wiping constantly! To keep mages alive you need the armor spell and increasing a weapon skill so that the mage can parry. If the mage has enough agility for dodge, get that to help against archers blowing your ass away. Once I learned those simple defensive measures my mages rarely die.

 

[Wolfus]

I also did the rat quest immediately and it took me about 1655956859865 re-loads and half of my hair :D

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

It helps to be an elf. (or to wait until you get an elf into the party) Because the Meek be you spell works on the rat mother, so you can take her out of combat, defeat the other rats and still have time to heal up until she becomes hostile again.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

Hah, the rat dungeon. Heck yes, good times. A critical injury on each hit. Or two, I forgot. That was probably the most difficult fight I had even at the level I actually managed to do this. The ending fight with endlessly respawning demons from hell? Eh, whatever. No sweat. But rats? Oh nooo!

Probably kind of like that joke with the giant flame breathing rat in the tavern basement in this more new-ish (not so much anymore) Bard's Tale.

 

[Gord]

I have seen campaigns where there was not a single bit of combat -

That's because combat was that horrible in DSA that nobody wanted to play it

Hah, we had larger fights lasting over several evenings - fun times.
Later on we settled for house rules that sped things up a bit - special attacks that caused much damage but were hard to pull off, poison to soften targets up a bit, etc. (although poisons in DSA were mostly unusable in combat unless you got a bit creative and the knight in shining armor types wouldn't touch it either). We played on 3rd edition, no idea if it's much different now.

Looking through the old stuff makes me a bit sad that my group eventually split up shortly after we had finished school.

 

[abnaxus]

It helps to be an elf. (or to wait until you get an elf into the party) Because the Meek be you spell works on the rat mother, so you can take her out of combat, defeat the other rats and still have time to heal up until she becomes hostile again.

IIRC if you cast Paralysis on one of the small rats, new ones will stop spawning and you can just gang up on the big rat.

Pretty cool that Meek be you works, though. I'd have expected the big rat to have an exceptionally high MR.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

It helps to be an elf. (or to wait until you get an elf into the party) Because the Meek be you spell works on the rat mother, so you can take her out of combat, defeat the other rats and still have time to heal up until she becomes hostile again.

IIRC if you cast Paralysis on one of the small rats, new ones will stop spawning and you can just gang up on the big rat.

Pretty cool that Meek be you works, though. I'd have expected the big rat to have an exceptionally high MR.

Yeah, problem is you get Paralysis so late, but an elf starts with meek be you...

I didn't know this trick but it makes sense, new ones only spawn when the others are all dead, so I guess you could use Meek be you on a small one to achieve the same effect and gang up on the mother.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Giving these games a go starting with the first one. So far, so good. I did get my ass raped quite nicely in the rat dungeon, so I geared up my guys aaaaaaaaand...


then chickened out anyway and went to fight amoebas below the temple. I still want to go back to fight those rats because I ain't no punk, son.

And I have a stupid question. I saved Cary Elwes Dranor and he's chillin at my rib, but I can't put him in the party. Is there a way to switch him in at the moment, or do I have to continue with Xena, Oghren, and Leliana because of plot reasons?

 

[Brother None]

He should be able to join you again if you finished Salina's Request, but note the party limit is 4 in total, so you would need to leave someone else in the house to have him join.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

He should be able to join you again if you finished Salina's Request, but note the party limit is 4 in total, so you would need to leave someone else in the house to have him join.

Yes I talked to Salina and the quest is completed, but how do I make "him joining the party and other party members staying at the house" happen? I've gone into the house and spoken with him and he changes his goofy accent and confesses that he's really just a farm boy.

Now is there a moment, like in Dragon Age when you leave the camp, that this game prompts you to decide on your party? Or maybe, like in DA2, there are little devices that you click on that brings you to a party select screen?

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Shit, I think I figured it out. I just loaded the game up and saw that you could tell your companions to go home, which might imply that if I reduced my party to 3 members I could then ask someone at the house to join me. Right now I'm at the marsh area and walking is painfully slow so I'm not going to test it at the moment, but I believe that I'm correct.

Anyhow, if I am correct then a mod should delete the word "Literate" from below my name and just put "Relentlessly stupid asshole."

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Played 1 and 2 some years ago, they were fun for what they were. The setting and story are bad though and the gameplay mechanics could only be considered good when compared to the trash we got in these last years.

But hey, since you got them, why not give them a shot?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Right now I'm at the marsh area and walking is painfully slow so I'm not going to test it at the moment, but I believe that I'm correct.

Download SQLite Browser, open your savegame with it, execute
update _Instance_PC set SneakSpeed=1.5, WalkSpeed=2, RunSpeed=5.5, CurrentSpeed=5.5, MaxVelocity=5.5;
It's essential to keep your sanity.

Annoyed to watch the animations for gathering herbs/skinning animals again and again? Open C:\Games\Drakensang\export\db\static.db4
UPDATE _Template_Talent set TaActions =0 where TaCursor ='GatherHerb' OR TaCursor='SkinAnimal';

 

[Kem0sabe]

1 was horrible in every aspect, 2 looked nice but the story let it down as well as the combat. To be honest they have little going for them.

 

[hoverdog]

1 was horrible in every aspect, 2 looked nice but the story let it down as well as the combat. To be honest they have little going for them.

What was so bad about the story? I think it was rather good. No ancient evils waiting to wake up, no evil cults trying to take over the world, no powerful artifacts snatched by any bad guys. A really interesting, uniquely (at least for a cRPG) low-profile plot.

Combat really begged for a turn-based mode, but I enjoyed it definitely better than in the first game (which is horrible).

 

[Cosmo]

What was so bad about the story? I think it was rather good. No ancient evils waiting to wake up, no evil cults trying to take over the world, no powerful artifacts snatched by any bad guys. A really interesting, uniquely (at least for a cRPG) low-profile plot.

Combat really begged for a turn-based mode, but I enjoyed it definitely better than in the first game (which is horrible).

This.
D2's low-key story and sense of flavour were a breath of fresh air; they made the game a lot better and more original than the first one. Had the designers been able to add to a third iteration the same level of improvement, perhaps a whole new series would have risen to prominence in the CRPG world...

 

[Gord]

Only things I really missed in the second part were a few more and different party members and more branching between Cuano and Forgrimm as in the Zollfeste (the castle where you encounter the kraken). I thought the latter was a nice idea that unfortunately never really came up again afterwards.

 

[Kem0sabe]

It was standard fantasy, with both games they failed to innovate on any aspect of crpg´s. The only reason to play an rpg that doesn´t have much to offer in terms of story, characters and dialogue, is for the combat... and why would anyone go through either of the game for their combat or encounter design?

As was said, if the games had a good turned based combat system with a lot of skill use and interesting encounters, then i would have loved them for that, as they didn´t...

 

[hoverdog]

Innovation is overrated. I would give tons of potato for an uninnovative clone to Baldur's Gate. Or Arcanum. Or Freespace. Or Master of Magic.

That said, River of Times's plot was kind of innovative - just how many times do you see such a low-key plot stripped of most of fantasy tropes?

 

[Gord]

If I would restrict my consumption of books, movies and games to those that really innovate, I'd probably spend most of my (free) time staring into space.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Should it be praised just for being low-key? Writing wise it was nowhere near good.