Gothic 3 Geldern... yikes

ToddMcF2002

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I've liberated Montera and Cape Dunn, but Geldern is too much. Anytime there is a Shaman I'm basically toast (no pun intended). Heck even the Goblin Shaman outside of Sildern took me down a few times. Freakin magic.

And folks say this game is too easy. I'm wearing Paladin armor and have 400 Str, dual wielding or single wielding with a Paladin shield. I've tried rings too.

hmmmm....
 
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Two or more casters spell trouble. Ice lance is my best friend here, the basic tactic is to freeze all but one and melee the last one. You can also use summons (even a goblin will be fast enough to take out a caster).

For the particular case of Geldern I use the following somewhat cheesy tactic: deal any killing blow)

1) Cast bloodlust on a guard standing next to the shaman (shamen are immune).
2) Let the guard hit the shaman to make the shaman hostile.
3) Cast ice lance on the guard to freeze (but not kill) the guard. Without freezing the guard will knock down (but not kill) the shaman.
4) Once unfrozen the guard will go for you, just run around and let the shaman take out the guard (since he uses magic rather than a melee weapon he WILL kill the guard).
5) Watch the other guards scream "murderer" and gang up on the shaman, making short work of him:p

This probably wont work if your Arcane Knowledge is very high as you dont want to kill the guard with your shot.
 
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Are you sure you want to liberate Geldern right now? Do you realize that after you liberate 3 towns, all Orcs then become hostile towards you?
 
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They will only become hostile to you if you talk to the bosses inbetween liberating the cities (it's X number of conversations with the bosses that triggers the hostile reaction, where they go from "someone is attacking our cities" to "we don't trust anyone anymore!" or something similar). However, most players (myself included) tend to actually talk to those bosses, so he's most likely about to make the whole continent hostile, yes.

I personally prefer to wait with the last towns untill I'm ready for it (often after I've cleared the desert). So I just prepare all cities (do all the quests etc), and then wait untill I'm done with the desert.
 
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Just for the record, I went with the 0 magic option. Is everyone saying that is a showstopper? I decided to do an archer dual wielder. Even the Goblin shamans are trouble for me, nevermind the 3 or 4 orc shamans in Geldern!
 
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Getting that skill is very hard though. Getting mana regeneration is a lot easier, but requires a lot of Ancient Knowledge, which Todd doesn't have.

I suggest you try all that a bit later (once you have the best armor, bow etc it's all a bit easier). The desert is much easier, as long as you are capable of dealing with sand crawlers (upgraded mine crawlers). Being good with a bow should help you clear most of the desert.
 
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Just for the record, I went with the 0 magic option. Is everyone saying that is a showstopper? I decided to do an archer dual wielder. Even the Goblin shamans are trouble for me, nevermind the 3 or 4 orc shamans in Geldern!

A zero-magic character will do ok, you'll just have to be more careful in a few select battles. I've gone through the game using no magic but scrolls (open lock and the occasional ice lance).

It isnt a showstopper, but you should save the liberation of Geldern until fairly late in the game (I do that regardless). Geldern is among the hardest liberation quests in the game (Ishtar and Faring might be comparable but the mages are more spread out there). Without magic your best bet is to kill one shaman quickly in melee and then run outside the city. The orcs will come rushing after you, but you wont have to fight all the shamen at once. Dispose of the enemies as quickly as you can and close in on any shamen that you see. Mobility will protect you from crossbow bolts but not magic.

You might also consider using whatever Ice Lance scrolls you have found. I can only think of two other places in the game where these scrolls are put to better use, both places have three casters close to each other and are late game locations.

I'd spend five points on ice lance (taught by druids and water mages IIRC) even with a non-caster character though. The spell is very low level, so you should eventually have enough Arcane Knowledge from books and artefacts to learn it. Even if there are plenty of ice lance scrolls in the game they are random drops, meaning that one might run out of them at the wrong time...

And armour doesnt help all that much against spellcasters, but a few extra HP (I typically end up with around 600 points as a warrior type character) might mean you last one fireball longer...
 
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I think my ancient knowledge is up to 75 or so. I read the lecterns wherever possible and the tablets. I've got the Paladin Armor and I wasted LP's on dual wield. I seem to get knocked down alot with dual wield and never with a shield (because greater shield parry?) not exactly sure why.

Yes armor is useless against shamans. There is no actually protection against fire or ice if you look at the armor stats. My health is in the 400's, and one close combat fireball is worth 400 plus apparently.

I rush the shamans, that's how I took out the Orc's outside of the domed city. I'm in the desert now so I'll stay there and see if I can build up more ancient knowledge. LP's arent exactly hard to come by. The only skill I'm still actively developing anyway is hunting. I want 230 and I'm at 180. Everything else I'll put into magic after that.

Still love the game. Boy is it Looooooong. Not a bad thing at all though.
 
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I rush the shamans, that's how I took out the Orc's outside of the domed city. I'm in the desert now so I'll stay there and see if I can build up more ancient knowledge. LP's arent exactly hard to come by. The only skill I'm still actively developing anyway is hunting. I want 230 and I'm at 180. Everything else I'll put into magic after that.

Still love the game. Boy is it Looooooong. Not a bad thing at all though.

I found that the best feature of shield parry is the extra armour stat rather than the active parry, so I make sure I have a shield on my back (it still adds to the armour) even when using bow.

If you've focused on hunting so far I think it's most rewarding to stay on that path. Archery is IMHO the most rewarding type of combat and damage increases with higher skill. 230 and the silent death bow isnt enough to insta-kill goblin shamen either:p

As for the others:

AK - Low level Arcane knowledge will only be good for support anyway. Get whatever utility spells you want (ice lance is IMHO the only low level one of interest) but dont pump AK actively. Get the quick learner skill once you have 100 points though, it only takes 5 levels for that skill to pay off if you havent spent points on AK just to get there.

STR - Strength increases melee damage as hunting does for arrows, but I found that in practice (due to the speed of melee combat if nothing else) the benefit of pumping STR are less impressive than for pumping hunting. It makes more of a difference to be able to take out a goblin shaman with one arrow than to be able to take him out with one melee hit (due to the interrupting effect of melee combat). You might want to park it at 250 (which is where you can lift up millstones for extra points) but I would absolutely not take it further for an archer.

Hitpoints: 400 will already take you quite far, but more is obviously better... Having more than 500 points is more of a convenience than anything else, but HP are fairly cheap.

G3 is not really hard enough to require optimisation of the character, but if you want to avoid waste I wrote a bunch of suggestions on "parking points" in this thread some time ago: http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2853 :)
 
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I often create "battle mages" that have enough AK to get mana regeneration (the most overpowered skill in the game, by far) in addition to decent fighting abilities (either decent str/hunting to get dual wielding, or enough str to get the 2H halberd).

Getting to level 50 or above is no problem at all, so it's easy to get enough learning points.
 
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Sure, there is definitely enough LP to go around for almost any kind of character:) Clearing the entire map should easily take one to the mid-high 70s.

Mana regen is nice but only really necessary if one use offensive magic a lot, and then it should be combined with a decent mana pool as the rate is proportional to your max mana. If magic only is used as a supplement the plentiful mana potions will do, and dont require the spending of tonnes of LP on arcane knowledge. And while magic is a very convenient form of combat I find it a bit of a waste when one already has high hunting (not to mention that archery is a more involved form of combat that one might be tempted to stop using as magic is so easy to use;)). A melee-magic combination would have less redundancy in the skillset.

Btw, I think both regen skills were nerfed a bit by the community patches. I recall them being much faster in the early versions.
 
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Mana regeneration also has the advantage of virtually limitless healing and summoning abilities. Having a golem/demon to tank for you as a hunter can make hard fights pretty easy.

I suspect the regeneration was previously a fixed number, but is now based on % of max mana. I seem to recall a small mana pool being regenerated almost instantly back in the days (5 mana per second or something similar).

I'm not sure though; it's been a while since I played G3 v1.2.
 
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Summons as distraction is a good tactic at times. I've only used the odd scroll for it, and dont know the AK requirements for the various summons. I do think that mana potions would suffice for such limited support.

My main argument against AK in this situation is more on the emotional side. If I played a hunter and didnt focus on hunting at least until I can kill goblin shamen with one shot (around 350 hunting IIRC), but instead took AK to 250 (probably enough to to kill them with one fireball/ice lance instead), I'd be too tempted to use the easier magic way and drop my trusty bow for the rest of the game. For that reason I tend to only take hunting high enough to gather trophies when playing a character with offensive magic abilities, and not bother with AK at all when playing a ranged character (the scrolls I find will usually suffice for any magic needs except that measly ice lance).
 
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Aye, once you get 250 or so AK, magic becomes very, very powerful, and I agree it is hard to resist using it.
 
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You have to spend learning points on HP. It can be done at Innos and Beliar shrines, or from water mages (not sure about this one) and druids. I think you get 20 HP per 5 LP spent.
 
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Just finishing a game with no magic. Shamans are indeed to be dreaded! I planned my early liberations based on how many shamans were in the town. Later, I made sure to bring along a buddy to divert some of the casting and tried to use cover, trees, anything to get close to the shaman and beat him down quickly. Goblin shamans I could often get with a few arrows and some dodging behind rocks and trees.

Geldern, as you have learned, is full of the bastards, so I had to lure them out to the nearby ranger camp, where I got the druid and his boys as allies (comes a point early in a liberation when the town will empty out and follow you all over the map, even to Nemora, Reddock, etc.) Pretty much all the rangers died, but the Druid survived and Geldern got liberated.
 
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