Various Thoughts

The game’s optional concluding chapter turned out to be both better and worse than I’d feared.

The first part is balanced pretty well and has you re-visiting/re-facing some of your earlier foes, with only the Pitax portion being ridiculous (save it for last). The second part unfortunately is infested with Wild Hunt enemies… even occasionally sending them at you in waves. It’s pretty straight-forward though and the scenery is interesting so it ends up a superior overall experience when compared to the earlier exploration of the House at the Edge of Time.

Then there’s the final battle, which really piles on some nastiness. Like a lot of RPGs the boss here has several forms (each with its own set of minions) that you have to work your way through with no chance to rest in-between. The second form being the most dangerous by far as a good chunk of your party will likely end up Dominated unless you happen to have some sort of defense against it. After the third form falls the true form appears and engages you in a battle of wits. That part’s pretty cool and offers a variety of checks to make the final-final battle easier. At least I think that’s what succeeding on those checks does. I passed them and my party got revived and fully-healed, which may happen even if you fail but I have no intention of fighting through the boss’s first 3 forms again anytime soon.

Expect your party to reach level 17/18 by the end of the game if you have both of the XP Sharing options enabled. In the last chapter the PC of this playthrough looked like this: Naked with +1 Weapon (the green attributes are due to Bokken’s masterwork potion, which gives a permanent +2 to all of them) and Fully Equipped.

The fifth chapter is where, before Patch 1.1, the game started to get notably buggy. With impassible doorways, unresponsive NPCs, and quests that wouldn’t trigger. Difficulty-wise though it’s remarkably easy overall and a high armor class actually ends up useful. The fifth Ancient Curse segment however gives you a preview of just how much more unfair the encounters can get by introducing enemies with paralyzing auras and touch-based ray attacks which deal sneak attack damage and cause blindness.

The sixth chapter is filled with those enemies, and pre-patch it was a nightmare to navigate. Post-patch it’s much more doable as the paralysis can be avoided with the Blight Fight feat, the blindness is no longer permanent, and the teamwork feats that turned them into living machine guns were changed. The chapter’s still a massive slog though; an incredibly unfun hack & slash deathmarch with annoying puzzle aspects tacked on (I never was able to figure out how to get behind that locked door at the southern end of the 2nd floor, across from the basement steps). Though to be fair a large chunk of the enemies can be avoided if you know exactly where you’re going.

Depending on your choices, the game can conclude right after defeating the boss of that last chapter. Which is the way I went with this first playthrough (fiend-blood Eldrich Scion) since the team was suboptimal in a large number of ways and I didn’t want to slog through even more annoying enemies in the seventh chapter. My second playthrough (which was started while waiting for the 1.1 patch to fix the chapter 6 progression-blocking bugs) with a Scaled Fist/Knifemaster/Sword Saint is currently in Armag’s Tomb, and that’s the one I plan to take through the seventh chapter.

Up to the Rushlight Tournament invitation now in Chapter 5 with a playtime of >70 hours (not sure how much of that is loading times though), at 14th level with Kingdom ranks of 7, 6, 6, 10, 9, 5, 6, 8, 6, 4.

Chapter 3 turned out to be nowhere near as bullshit as Chapter 2, with most of the enemies being much weaker than the enhanced owlbears. There are still a few unfair encounters scattered about (such a zombie mage with infinite Enervation casts and a class of characters with permanent unavoidable stat-draining auras), but for the most part the chapter’s a breeze, with Chapter 4 being even easier once you get over the initial shock of having no time for kingdom development (development occurs at the end of the chapter instead).

Some things:
– Try to focus on Economy first to increase your income; note that after 40 rank-ups a project will appear to cut upgrade times in half.
— The really game-changing projects start appearing at Kingdom ranks 6+.
– Do not pick the ‘neutral’ adviser in the beginning, else you’ll eventually get hit by a nasty debuff.
– When a dwarf pops up demanding recompense for his ancestors’ expenses, give him the money. His request is worded badly and he’s one of the 10 artisans.
— That said, the artisan quests currently seem to be broken (they still give you expensive gifts though).
– Save an Emerald, an Emerald Necklace, the 3 “On Transmutation” books, and the Roc Egg; they’re needed for sidequests.
– Make sure to explore the Dire Narlmarches sometime after Armag’s Tomb; the main quest won’t send you there.
– Armor class is kind of meaningless with all the attack bonus bloat (reminds me of the first NWN). You’re better off with damage reduction and miss chance.
– The Shambling Mound in the Elk-Portal Abandoned Keep area can only be killed by negative energy for some reason.
– The Bridge-area Linnorm and Owlbear Treant in the Everblooming Flower area on the other hand have to be killed with cold iron.
– Make sure to bring the Second Execution battleaxe with you when you set off on the Varnhold Vanishing quest.
– You can find/get some pretty cool daggers and kukri, a nice Necrotic fauchard, a sai that causes bleeding, a club that casts Vampiric Touch on crit, a Dex-damaging sickle, and a mage-enhancing scythe.
— The other weapons so far aren’t as exciting and/or have annoying drawbacks.