Getting Harder…
 

I'm on the 3rd Trial fighting Orcs and Ogres and I've started to have to run away. For example: Buff up and take down the Orc Captain and then hawl ass to stay alive. Buff up and go back for clean up.

My party may be too weak. My so called "mage" (unfortunately my main character) is a Spellweaver elf and that was apparently a big mistake. If I could dual class him as a thief like D&D I could add another fighter to compensate, but of course that can't happen.

Not sure how much further I can go. I'll keep at it, but without running away I would have lost the last 2 battles.

Slow down the combat and make sure to use all available buffs and a couple of potions. Open every fight with a fireball. Spend the next 2000 xp exclusively on getting more punch. Also visit every merchant when you're through this area.

I don't have fireball. As far as I know it is not available in Ferdok so I have no AOE options that I know of.

Ah, yes. The last battle along that road took me a while. I had to do one by one.

Btw, it also occurred to me relatively late that you could put XP into Vitality points.

Wel, if you feel the need to "dual-class", you can always let a non-thief learn the relevant thieving skills (most importantly picking locks). By the end I had the dwarf pick all the locks, and had no thief in my party.

Where did you find a thief trainer? I don't recall seeing one.

There are several thief trainers out there, I think I remember one in Ferdok, I think, in a rather hidden & shady corner (where else ?) ;)

You did the "Find the Thieves' Guild" quest you got in Avestrue, didn't you?

Thats right I forgot about that. I just finished the Dragon Eye and it wasnt too difficult. I think I'll keep my thief with me for now.

I know this is an old thread, but it's right at this point that I've run into the same problem. My main character is an elven ranger. she is great at picking flowers, disarming traps and healing, and can shoot arrows quite slowly and to little effect. No melee skills, making the Amazon quest with Rhulana and her 'sister' impossible…

Now the orc and ogre business on the way into Grimtooth Castle also seems impossible. Same as Todd, the best I can manage is running away, if my party doesn't get immediately wiped out over and over by the onslaught of orcs. I'm trying to free Gondwin without success.

From what I had read about the game, it seemed that the composition of the party didn't make that much difference, but I feel that I've made some terrible mistakes building my characters to get in this pickle.

My party's main strength was shooting arrows :) Like I've said in some other thread (or was it this one?) there comes a point in the game in which enemies fall faster from wounds than from their health falling to 0. With bows you have several special attacks that automatically create wounds, I think one that does 2 wounds and one that does 1, that's 3/5 right there. Add to that a couple of wounds from other members' special attacks and most of the tough enemies are down (some bosses are immune to wounds though, but if I remember correctly they are not common)

My main was an elven ranger as well. You can somewhat make up for the lack of melee skills by getting and leveling up the summon animal companion spell (I played the German version so I don't know what it's called in the English version). An animal companion can be a lot of help, especially at higher levels if you can summon a bear that has the ability/chance to knockdown your enemies. It's also a great tank obviously. I'd recommend to get that spell ASAP.
Another spell that is a must for a fragile ranged elf (or any caster for that matter) is "Armatrutz" (German name of the spell). It's the spell that gives you a great armor bonus and that lasts for 5 minutes (300 seconds).

As for Rhulana opinions may vary but I turned her into a melee fighter/tank to go along with Forgrimm (my fourth character was Gladys who I mostly used as a thief/mage hybrid). That worked out pretty well.

By the way, you don't have to do the Amazon quest right away. I wasn't able to deal with the enemies right away either. I came back after I had gotten a few more levels in that animal companion skill and then at a later level quite easily beat the fight with a bear, Rhulana and little me. Make sure to summon the bear before starting up the dialogue with the sister.

Some good tips there. Naturally I abandoned the Amazon quest to come back later, and after running away a bit in Silver Falls to renew my party's health and completing that quest line, I was buffed up enough to beat the Amazons.

Still, all I can summon is a rat, but I will work on that. Thanks guys!

My general advice is to "dual class" someone to become a thief. I'd pick a fighter to do that, since casters tend to require more experience points to be really useful. I picked Forgrimm to become my fighter/thief, and it worked very well.

The strength of archery is not damage, but wounds. With 2 archers you should be able to kill most (non immune) mobs in 1/10th of the time you would with other classes. Enemies can have 1000000 hit points, but they only have 5 wounds.

Yes, that's right.

But there are also other weapons striking wounds. I don't remember anymore how it was in the first Drakensang game, but in Drakensang 2 there were several ones, swords, mainly. And a few daggers.