Risen Helpful tips and info

Risen can be tough to get into, so here are some tips and useful info: (hopefully this will motivate more people to try this awesome game, and not be dissuaded by the negative reviews of the Xbox360 version, the PC version is NOT the same! )
GET THE PC VERSION!

1. If you are new to Gothic like game, at first, don't explore too much, set your goal to get into the Monastery ASAP. This way, you won't be frustrated with game mechanics that would be better explained @ the Monastery.
Also, wondering around too early will usually result in a lot of early deaths.

2. To folks with some issues with combat. Remember this is a PC game, you have the flexibility of binding macros to keys and buttons. Not that it is necessary but I find that binding "dodge left/right" to the "left/right scroll" of my mouse. It helps.
(Also, as posted in the impression thread, you can edit your keybindings, even those that were locked by the game.)

3. Read every book stands, and save your herbs, don't be too hasty to sell off anything you found. Some of them are used for various quests, some will trigger new dialog options. And there is a herb that can be used to make potions that permanently increase your stats.

4. Getting a magic character require that you save up as much Learning Points as possible. You will need a lot of them to learn spells.

Speaking of magic, I played around with them quite a bit, and yes they are all useful:


4. Arrows does more damage if they hit the head of a mob. And you can "cheese" some fights by climbing up to a high ledge and arrow down your opponent at your leisure. You will want to get many arrows as you can. (You should see the screenshots I have for killing certain mobs, they literally had arrows for hair. )

5. Gnomes may look cute, and harmless, but don't run into a group of them thinking that you can just walk over them. Their size make them harder to hit, and they KNOW HOW TO FIGHT, esp. in groups...

That is all I can think right now, feel free to add more.

Rant: Some of the reviews are really disappointing to read. Most of them for the Xbox360 version. Honestly, this just reaffirms my conviction to not get a console. Consoles seem to attract a very different type of audience, then "old farts" like me...

Thanks for your tips!

Question: Do i need to save potions and stone plates for later use, as I had to in Gothic NotR? I mean do I need more learning points the more I proceed in one attribute? I only got 30 Strengh now, and I notice that there was no 'barrier' at 30 where you had to spend more learning points. If this is true, I can use permanent potions at once, right?

Oh and I wonder for which weapon skill I should go as a mage. I'm in the monastery right now and use the big axe from the bandit camp and the ring +1 axe ability. It served me well, and I plan to go for 2H-weapon, sword or staff, or axe, I don't have studied the skill tree yet, anyway, what would you suggest (without spoiling please )?

I'll just throw in here that if you get enough skill points in a weapon style like Axe or Sword, eventually you'll be able to wield two-handed types of those weapons with one hand - meaning that if you get high enough, you can wield a 2h sword AND a shield, for example.

My personal preference is to stick with the axe style. So far, the strongest weapons I've found were axe-types - they even beat the secret weapons like Souldrinker, as far as I can see (unless Souldrinker has secret properties that aren't displayed).

Bateman:
Use potions and Stone plates whenever you like IMO. But because they exist, I'd recommend you spending your LP more on skills then attributes.
And yeah you can use the potions whenever.

As for weapon, as cool as I think staff fighting looks. It pales in viability and protection when compared to either sword or axe/hammer and shield combo.

As long as you have the LP, you can train sword/axe fighting. And I recommend that.

six30two, there actually is a special 2-handed sword Beserker's Sword that is 80dmg/80 str that you can get even at chapter 1.

But I agree with you that axe and hammers are better. But…. Having finished the game, I don't think I will invest so much in axe fighting. Reason being:
Edit: While on the subject of weapon choices. On my future playthroughs, I will definitely just stick with Crossbow.
Not only do crossbows generally have higher dmg. But they are easier to aim, esp. since you can "zoom" with it, which would result in more headshots (which does more dmg).

Hmm, I was thinking about it and I also tend to skill axe now. But then there is that special axe… screw it, I'll go for the gatling gun magic arrows first and will think about the melee weapon later. Even without skills (or on level 2/3 with rings) I'm doing fine right now. The crossbow beeing very helpful also, great weapon. I'm still fascinated by the staffs, since I'm a mage… maybe you get a big double-blade staff like the inquisitor? That would be really cool.

Bateman said:

I'm still fascinated by the staffs, since I'm a mage… maybe you get a big double-blade staff like the inquisitor? That would be really cool.

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Me too. I think that double blade staff is the coolest looking thing ever. And I rather like the staff fighting style (it is actually different from sword and axe fighting, which both looked the same in term of the kind of swings that you get to do).

It is a shame that they didn't make staves with great stats. Oh and btw, you do get to have your own double blade staff. I will say no more about when, where or how, since it could be a big spoiler.

Helpful tip: Stock up on Conjure Skeleton scrolls. He is great for distracting the enemies and he's very strong. I've had 5-6 ghouls on him at once and I just attacked from the side. He's also pretty decent with Ogres, just you have to keep attacking with him so the Ogre gets stupid and doesn't attack.

Crossbow fun - feels like cheating

Yes, of course, climbing on the highest rock with a crossbow is getting yourself an easy way to kill. But using the crossbow on ground level sometimes makes me feel I'm cheating…

Quite early in the game, I didn't have a proper weapon and no decent clothing, I got myself a crossbow. I was far from ready to take on a man, any man, in the arena. At that point I stumbled into three ghouls. They looked scary from a distance, so I stayed away as far as I could and took out my crossbow. Well, would you believe it: I killed all three, one by one, without taking any damage myself. It took me seven ghouls to discover that they're actually capable of killing me. I thought they were the easiest creatures of Risen, easier than an ordinary wolf. I had a hard time killing a wolf at that time.


Now I progressed. I'm having a bastard sword, I'm stronger. But I've spent no learning points on dexterity or crossbow. As far as archery is concerned I'm only using a better crossbow, so I need less bolts to kill one ghoul. And by now I've taken on some skeletons too that way, i.e. the easy way. Lord Patroscon was a piece of cake.

"4. Getting a magic character require that you save up as much Learning Points as possible. You will need a lot of them to learn spells."

Not entirely accurate…
Basically at the end you are often FORCED into melee (anti magic crystals?), in which case you want a decent str score (the ONLY thing determining damage - forget about weapon "skills")..

But most of the time you can kill an enemy from a distance, that means either crystal magic (which is available to warriors of the order!) or archery. Archery is a trap since it depends on pumping points into bow skill AND dex. While you will be swimming in mana potions, you will not find many arrows in the game… so you have "ammunition" problem with bows compared to blasting. My favorite is to blast things with lvl 10 fireball, if they reach me and i can't manuever, then i pull out a close combat weapon (and shield!)

So your options are:
1. Melee - you will have to do that on occasion - spend ALL your early points on STR until it is at 100... do not consume any + str things, do not waste points elsewhere.
2. Archery - more expensive and lower damage than crystal magic
3. Crystal magic - more damage, more ammo, and just all around better than archery… downside is that you have to get some +mana items to be effective… and you HAVE to get level 10 ASAP in crystal of choice.

I completed it as a pure mage. There are a few cases where you'll bump into anti-magic crystals, but you can always get the enemy away from the crystals.

I maxed out the fire crystal, alchemy, 3 Seals and the rest in mana. I had tons of mana at the end, and could pretty much nuke anything I came across, especially when I had Fred (the skeleton you summon) as a tank. He's fragile, but he manages to get people clumped up, so you can fire away like crazy.

How do fire and ice compare? In the Gothics, I usually found water based magic more powerful than fire.

Fire does more damage for less mana, fire later gets area of effect blast (small).
Ice supposedly traps enemies... doesn't seem all that useful since you can typically kill them before they reach you with fire... Not sure how it will work out with multiple enemies.

A short summary of Frost VS Fire:
- Fire has the highest damage, but only slightly higher than Frost.
- Fire has a fairly large explosive radius when maxed out, so it does damage to several enemies.
- Frost has a fairly long freeze effect on most enemies, epsecially once you've maxed it out. Only the most powerful enemies are more or less immune to this, and will only get stopped for a short time.
- Fire is easier to aim due to the explosion - you can hit the ground or a wall and still hit the monster. Frost must hit accurately or it won't have any effect at all.
- Fire costs 8 mana per cast, Frost costs 10 mana per cast.

All in all, I prefer Frost for "battle mage" types, since it's a fairly good crowd control. You can freeze one or two enemies and then deal with the last one while the others are frozen. Also, it gives you a perfect chance to use power attacks on the ones who are frozen - this deals a lot more damage than regular attacks. A single attack, regardless of how much damage you do, will always break the ice, so the more powerful the attack, the better.

Fire is excellent as a main attack spell for mages, since it does quite a lot of damage, especially when hitting several opponents. Frost can be a bit annoying if you use it as your main attack, since it has no effect on already frozen targets. That basically means you have to constantly wait for them to get out of their ice before shooting at them again.

That basically means you have to constantly wait for them to get out of their ice before shooting at them again.

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Interesting, one of the mages in game explicitly stated otherwise… i wouldn't know though…

Can you max both easily?

no, it takes 90 LP to max each one. (9 whole levels)...

But there's more than 180LP's in the game, so you should in theory be able to do so and still have LP's over for other uses.

There is absolutely no point of doing so… You will always blast with the exact same crystal magic… And by wasting 90 LP you severely cripple your character… there are some parts where you must use melee for example (which is why you should put those 90 LP towards getting 100 str… before consuming permanent + items).
then there are a ton of skills you need, like alchemy and prospecting and lockpicking and so on and so forth.

Even if you insist on crippling your character by focusing 100% on magic (to the point where you are wasting points without getting any stronger in magic), just dump those extra points into MANA, at least you will have 90 mana to show for your efforts.

Corwin, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to max out two schools of magic. Without crippling your character.

Im trying to get the max all 3 attributes achievement. Is that even possible?