Eschalon discussion

I found my Paladin to play easiest too, chamr. I'm playing a straight arcanist, but I guess you'd say I was powergaming him. I raised Perception to 30 at the very beginning. I'd say that wasn't power gaming because this guy sucks at everything but magic. He started with 30-something hit points, can't hit a barn with a weapon, but man can he put the hurting on the beasties if his mana holds out I've got alchemy up to 13 and I buy the two ingredients to make mana potions everytime I see them. I try not to use Divine Heal because it eats up valuable mana. I use a LOT of potions.

Just discovered a rather cruel, and rather fun, little game for my assassin to play. When he's in a dungeon and facing a group of uglies, he snuffs all the lights, taking advantage of his hide in shadows, lures one of the uglies into a room (i think they follow you if they can hear you, even if they can't see you), and closes the door. Then it's just me, him, the dark, and one BIG AX! If one of my chops de-cloaks me, one move and he can't find me again. Poor bastard never stands a chance. When it's all over, I open the door and think, "NEXT!".

Originally Posted by chamr
Just discovered a rather cruel, and rather fun, little game for my assassin to play. When he's in a dungeon and facing a group of uglies, he snuffs all the lights, taking advantage of his hide in shadows, lures one of the uglies into a room (i think they follow you if they can hear you, even if they can't see you), and closes the door. Then it's just me, him, the dark, and one BIG AX! If one of my chops de-cloaks me, one move and he can't find me again. Poor bastard never stands a chance. When it's all over, I open the door and think, "NEXT!".

This technique works well in crowded rooms also. Had about five goblins in a room with me when the lights went out. Was no shortage of targets to hit whenever one wandered out of range. And once they figured out where I was all I'd have to do is step the to side and start all over again.

Dungeon crawling is certainly the game's highlight.

Patch 1.03 FINAL now available for this excellent game:
http://www.basiliskgames.com/book1.htm

Fixes listed here:
http://www.basiliskgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=740

How long does this Eschalon game last? Like how many hours played? Is it big like Morrowind or small like Gothic?

Much smaller. I'd say 25 hours is probably an average run. The land area is reasonable but the content isn't very dense.

It seems to vary greatly depending on your play style (e.g. "turn over every rock" vs. powergame) and character build (some are easier to play than others). Over on the basilisk forum people of said anywhere from under 20 to around 40.

I'm a complete-ist so my times will be higher than average. Not counting the handful of restarts, I think I'm about 25-30 hours in and I'm guessing I'm around 2/3 done. Although my class is healer, I'm developed as an axe fighter with bow and divinity skills which seems like a pretty strong build.

I'd class myself as a completist as well*. I remember being 12.5 hours in and only getting up to a part that many people were up to at 8 hours.

[*Except for when I'm finding a game a chore (like that Bethesda game that everyone is probably sick of hearing about).]

Well, I've played it for just over 2 hours and have made it through the first village and gone to a graveyard. Looking at the map I bought, there's an awful lot more to go!!

I've played over two hours, too but with five different character builds and obviously, I'm still exploring the ruined village and it's nasty little dungeon. This game could take me months, not hours.
Do any other people ever show up in this game?

Yes, in the first real village you visit after playing around in the ruined one. Nice little dungeon though isn't it!!

A note on that first dungeon: it was one of many early hints to me that this was going to be a good game. I went in with my first character right away, got maybe a third of the way in and realized I was over my head and would have to come back later (which is what I've done with subsequent chars, btw). After that I thought, "sweet. a game that isn't afraid to offer a challange early on that you may have to walk away from for a while." How many current cRPG's have the balls to present a tough decision like that to the player so early on?

I made it through quite easily at the beginning of the game with my only concern being running out of torches!! I thought it had just the right level of difficulty for a first level character!!

So corwin was I right about what I told you about Eschalon?

Originally Posted by Corwin
I made it through quite easily at the beginning of the game with my only concern being running out of torches!! I thought it had just the right level of difficulty for a first level character!!

Well la-di-da mister smarty-pants.

Originally Posted by Corwin
I made it through quite easily at the beginning of the game with my only concern being running out of torches!! I thought it had just the right level of difficulty for a first level character!!

The starting dungeon is punishingly difficult for a ranger archetype. A bow can’t be used with a torch, but an archer can’t hit anything in darkness. Arrows run out. Arrows cost money. Complete it on level 1 without the Cat’s Eyes spell? No chance, not without game reload after reload. But I like that about the game: in order to succeed the adventurer must have the right skills for the job. No namby pamby “let’s make all the combat skills functionally equivalent” aRPG nonsense for Eschalon.

Yeah. What he said.

Well, it's finished off 4 out of 5 of my builds--the mage is the only one to perhaps have a chance, but I want to hear a human voice(well, nonhuman, computer-generated text- based voice anyway) so I'm moving on. But I'll be bock.