Drakensang:RoT Some spoiler-ish questions

Ovenall

SasqWatch
Joined
January 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Just started playing River of Time the other night. Really enjoying it so far.

Thought I'd start a thread for some questions I have, knowing there's some very enthusiastic players of this game here. Some spoilers follow, but answers will be appreciated.

First off: Are daggers any good? I chose the female elf-ranger and am using her for buffs and ranged combat with her bow. Knowing she's going to need up close melee ability of some kind too, I noticed that she has the most points in daggers for this. Is this worthwhile, or should I give her points in sabers or some other melee weapon? Seems like daggers generally suck in RPGs unless there's a backstab damage… So, what's your opinions on how to use her best?

Second: I'm playing as a human warrior. Just to try it out, I took Cano's route into the toll fortress. The rat catcher guy caught me twice. I managed to kill him and the dog, and go upstairs. The archers kept catching us too. Of course I was trying to sneak the whole time. I even sent Cano sneaking by himself to take out the archers and he was still caught. Is this just impossible route to take unless you have a full party of stealthy characters?

I've reloaded and taking Forgrimm's route at the moment… hopefully it will go better.

Also- I left Nadoret and forgot to upgrade my armor. I picked up a better sword, but still just have the tabard and shield I got from the watch duty. Am I in trouble? I really wish you could find some kinds of armor off the people I keep killing…

Thanks for any help or suggestions you can give me. I'll post more questions here as I have them.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Regarding the archers and the sneaking part read here : http://forum.dtp-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=247&t=17862

About the daggers : Try it the reverse way : Look into your special combat skills page and look which special abilities can be carried out by which weapons … The "deadly blow" or "deadly sting" (I really don't know how it is called in the English-language version of the game) is one of the most deadly abilities … And yes, daggers can perform it … But you need a LOT of this green bar stuff for this (under the character's head) …

As a melee weapon alone, daggers don't do much damage - but i must admit that i haven't tried so this far. Every time i had the possibility to use daggers, I switched into these other sting-like weapons (how re they called in nglish language ? What Cuano and Drano prefer, for example) instead.

On leaving Nadoret : In some parts you can go back at any time. Not while you're within a castle of course, for example.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Just look at the special abilities, look at what which weapon can do, and build up your character according to this choice.

Example : If you see that sabres can do a "hammerfall" (pun intended ;) ) , then just take the sabres - but don't change mid-game into another weapon !

If you want to do a special kind of damage in the end, then just chose a weapon which can achieve it …

For fighters, I always put a few points into 2-handed sword/hammer fighting, and that from the beginning on. This's a planning into the future.

And by the way - you get (as always) this information via a right-click on he special combat abilities (just in case you didn't know that) … ;)


Edit : And yes, I meant the rapier.

Edit II : Or do a right-click onto your preferred weapon and lokk if what this weapon can do is on the special abilities page, too !
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Great idea to look at the future damage-types and simply plan for those.

Another question- without revealing too much, does it make sense in River of Time to use a Fighter as a main character? Obviously you need a balanced party, so does making a Fighter work well?

Also, how well does ranged (bows) work in this game? Is it worth having the female ranger (can't think of her name, sorry) use bows?
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
OK, my main character is a fighter and I chose the elf, Fayris. Is this a mistake long-term? I understand there are no other Mages available as NPCs? Should I start over as a Mage of some kind?

Help!
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
I don't know how early you are in the game, but you get party members who re able to balance the party.

Either Fayris or Jaakon have magic abilities, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem - just make sure the get both healing spells and Armatrutz (badly tranlated as "fastness of body") !

Plus, a few long-distance weapons aren't bad, either.

A plus are spells which hinder the enemy, like Plumbumbarum.

As a last note : Make sure to build up Fayris' bow abilities - but also give her something for close combat !
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Can someone explain how Miracles work? Cano has them, and I cannot figure out how the system to use them works. There's no manual (I got it via download), and the brief mention in the tutorial was not very clear.

Thanks.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
You use them like spells.

The round dots are - in the mechanics - a bit similar to astral energy : You use astral energy for a spell, and then an amount of the energy is gone. Must be replenished, after that.

The "Karma Energy" - this comes from the God directly ! mut be "replenished" for further use of miracles, too. Or so I understood it. If a dot under the portrait is full coloured, then it has enough "karma energy".

Now, how is this energy replenished ? By doing deeds that the God likes.

Phex is the God of Merchants and of Thieves alike - so they get "replenished by thievery, in this case (not by trading, as far as i know) - and that is : open up locked treasure chests, pickpocket from people ...

For proper role play you should also know that Phex - Cuano's God - frowns upon greed. Following the path of greed is = following the path of Phex demonic antagonist. In TDE, everyone of the Twelvegods has a demonic antagonist. The demonic antagonist of Rondra, for example, has followers which are called "Black Amazons". You see them in both Drakensang games.
So, Phex detests greed, and thus, pickpocketing from poor people as well. By doing so, a character comes more and more closer to the demon of greed, who offers at one point a demonic pact. This isn't carried out in any of the TDE games, though.

Phex rather likes deeds of wits. The wittier a phexian deed is, the more he likes it.
But this aspect isn't carried out within the game either.

So, to sum it up in short : Miracles work "mechanically" much like spells. And the karmal energy is replenished by going "phexian deeds" like pickpocketing, opening locked chests, and defeating evil enemies.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Alrik: Thanks so much for your help. I had a rough idea how miracles work, but the four colored circles didn't make sense to me... and frankly I still don't get it 100%. I'm sure once I play with it a bit I'll be OK.

As it stands, I find I try to keep Cano out of battles as much as possible. I'm playing a meta mage (awesome summoning ability so far... I'm at the elf village), and with Fastness of Body, I find I can get him into melee battles without much problem.

I usually start the battles off with Fayris' bow, then some debuffs from my meta mage, then get Forgrimm in melee and take it from there. I'll get Cano in once the enemies are busy hitting the other characters or the skeleton. I wish there was some stealth/backstab option for him. Cano is the only character I've had die so far. He's fine for a while but will suddenly take one big hit that wipes him out. I've bought him some additional armor, and have been bumping up his willpower and vitality, but I guess a thief character just isn't a good fighter.

Again, it seems the fastness of body gives way better protection than any armor. Forgrimm ends up taking more damage thn either my main character or Fayris, and I've upgraded his equipment as much as I could so far.

Having lots of fun. Much better than the first Drakensang. I still groan a little at some of the battles (does there really need to be 6-8 mire beasts at a time?) as they get to be all very similar, just repeating the same strategy over and over. But overall I like this game a lot.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Give Cuano a high value in dexterity (I think), the special skills of evading I and II, and then he'll live much longer.

With his ... rapier ? he hast abilities the others don't have : The chief of the thieves guild can teach him ... what is this called ? a kind of "sting" that causes at least one wound ... and it ignores the armor ! Give him a lot of stamina (through constitution ? I don't remember), and he'll be able to do 5 wounds, wjhich result in the death of ANY creature no matter how much life points it has left !

But the deadliest thing is the - as I call it - the "deadly blow", a kind of "sting" that only these weapons like rapiers can do ... But I don't remember anymore where it can be taught ... At Hammerberg, maybe ?

Plus, he has his small miracles of "stardust" - which is working like a kind of debuff - and the "thrown stars" (Phex' sign is the star, by the way, and the moon), which he can use even if he isn't able to fight anymore ...

But what's Cuano best at that is opening locked chests !

(And yes, his original German name is Cuano - in the official forums I learned that his name was "translated" as "Cano" - such a rubbish ! )

Regarding backstab - different from (A)D&D there is not a direct ability for actually hitting the back of an enemy - but the enemy cannot - as the rule set says - parry hits from behind !

Read the console during a fight, it shows how fights work !
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Thanks again. I think I'm still at the beginning. I haven't found a thieves' guild at all. I should probably go to Nadoret and learn some more combat abilities. Where can I learn evading?

I think they might have changed his name because the word "guano" in English means feces, usually from bats. That sounds almost exactly like Cuano when spoken in English. Just a guess though.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Guano is the German word for it, and yes, it sounds like this, too ... But no-one ever complained ...

Depending on who you play ... in the barracks, there's someone ...
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
More spoilers:

My party is around level 6-7. I've worked my way through the Elven ruins, easily killing the various gargoyles and crypt lice, disarming traps, etc. No problem so far.

I cannot kill Zant. I can barely make a dent in him. I've used 3 out of the 5 seals (can't find the other 2, though I doubt it would help much). I've got a level 7 undead summons, I use Cano's debuff miracle, I'm shooting it with fire arrows from Fayris... barely making a dent.

Do I need to just level up somewhere else for a while? Is level 6-7 too low? Or am I missing something?
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Do search for the other seals ! And especially use the one that stops him from regenerating !

And if you can't kill him - you can always go back to Nadoret and do other quests there ! This way you get more experience points !

Plus : You must also put a few points into the primary stats ! Konstitution is especially important, as are strength and courage.

This is especially important, because for example willpower is checked with three primary values I think even with Constitution, courage and strength altogether - but I don't remember anymore. So, the higher the primary value, the better the check result !

In my opinion, the seal to stop him from regeneration is the most important one of all.

And let your hero(es) with magic capabilities use their magic first ! Because later, when the Zant has drained them off their astral energy, then it's too late to use spells ...
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Zant is a pain. I'm playing on difficult and spent a few hours trying to beat him w/o using any seals on difficult with a L7 party before giving up.

Anyway, I agree with Alrik, if you use the seal of power he becomes a pushover, as he loses regen and stops doing ridiculous damage. The main problem then becomes inflicting damage vs. his 10 DR. Believe it or not, Cano is the most useful character in this situation. I think there's a seal that removes his high DR as well, if you're still having trouble.
 
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
14
What's DR ?
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
It's the first example of weird game balance I've come across so far. Up until the elven ruins, I had some tense battles that required some tactics and had characters knocked out (Cano) but suddenly I got to the ruins, and it became really easy. I could almost let my characters go all melee on the various gargoyles and skeletons and probably be OK, or at least need to intervene just a little bit. But then I came across Zant and it's impossible.

I have finally found all the seals, and after - no exaggeration - an hour of going back and forth over the ruins, I found all five pieces of the map. I'm going to head back to Nadoret first to get some training, then I'll head back to try Zant again.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
It's meant to be so.

One of the pleas/wishes of the community was a reduction of the general fights - in favor to rather fewer, but harder battles.

This is one of them.

Personally, I found it a bit disappointing that we can't battle a "normal" Zant within the game. I played the exclusive demo on the Games Com in 2010 (or was it 2009 ?), and the normal Zant there was much easiert to defeat … What you see here is a magically enhanced demon - and enhanced far beyond any sane measure - from the "modern" aventurian point of view.

The ruins had once been (about 500 years BEFORE Bosparan's Fall) been founded as a high-level Bosparanian scientific research site / academy - excelling in the fields of summoning magic.

Skeletons, for example, most of them are kind of animated by demons inhabiting them. So, technically speaking, skeletons are demons, too. At least some of them, because there are other kinds of skeletons and undead creatures as well.

You can learn that and much, much more of the background lore in this thread/discussion : http://forum.dtp-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=14843

This research site/academy was seemingly founded by Fran-Horas himself - a notorious emperor. And capable of using magic. The wiki says that "his repressions against Gareth" - the town that would become much later the main capital of the Middle Realm, thus replacing Bosparan - led to a civil war … his troops against those of the people of Gareth.

The result was the infamous First Demon Battle ("Erste Dämonenschlacht" - the word "Schlacht" can be either translated as "Battle" or as "Slaughter", too).
The high-level arch demons he summoned against the people of Gareth were too powerful - in fact they were so powerful they eradicated BOTH armies … The result is the wasted land that lies now directly at the border of Gareth … If you visit Moorbridge, you get a taste of what it's like there …

Therefore, Fran-Horas is condemned among the Aventurians. No-one likes to talk of him. His name is forever connected with one of the greatest and most infamous battles of the continent of Aventuria.

After this battle, the Dark Ages began. They lasted several hundreds of years.

Bosparan's Fall was after these Dark Ages. With the Second Demon Battle, again summoned by a Horas-emperor : Hela-Horas, nicknamed the beautiful emperor". Four Gods were interventing to ban these "demon hordes" she had summoned by using a ritual of Fran-Horas.

The oldest of the Elves seems to have been fighting in this battle, too.
Or so I understood her.

Wiki page on him : http://www.wiki-aventurica.de/index.php/Fran-Horas
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Another question-

I went to Nadoret and entered the thieves' guild. I have Cano in my party.

What is supposed to happen here? I've talked to everyone I could find, and did the quest from the woman downstairs (distract the guard at the harbor) but I can't get anyone to give me a quest.

There's the two dwarves who speak gibberish, and the people in the kitchen, but no matter how amny times I talk to people, nothing happens. What is supposed to happen or what did I miss?

There's a door to a Lavatory (marked on the map) that is closed but I can't open it. Someone is talking behind it.

Any help here? Thanks Alrik, there's very little info on this game in English.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Back
Top Bottom