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Post by Ofecks on Oct 31, 2021 18:48:11 GMT
The Prodigy Dragonslayer
So I need to kill the Dragon in book 9 that lives underground in Zarryx. It comes for you if you don't have both numbers for the magical door. Thankfully it's easy to bypass with either unlocking the door or, ironically, a Fireseed, but this time I want to kill it in combat. It has some ridiculous stats quite befitting to a dragon - 43 CS / 58 EP. It's a good example of an Optional Superboss in this series. Completely skippable, yet really tough and worth bragging rights (or in this case, filling in a spot on the awards screen) for winning.
Let's go back to its stats for a minute. It's basically a pre-nerf Zakhan Kimah. You can get a bonus of +8 by not having the 'Swerd and using the Psychic Ring. In Prodigy mode, you can get a further +8 by wielding the Anari Senate's Broadsword against it. That's what I did. To make it easier, I decided to start at the beginning to pick up some CS-boosting goodies. I thought I'd save myself some time by starting with book 2, but that backfired upon me unexpectedly. Thankfully it wasn't a dealbreaker.
Books 2-4: Took fast/easy routes through all of these, picking up the following: - Shield - Fine Durenese Broadsword (+3 CS!) - The 'Swerd - Padded Leather Waistcoat - Firesphere - +4 Alether - Silver Helm - Dagger of Vashna
Book 5: This one gets its own entry, because I did something surprising. I got the Heroic award for 'Swerding Haakon with 3 or less EP remaining! Here's how I did it: I simply un-equipped the 'Swerd in combat and punched the Darklord for 0 damage at -7 CR until I had 5 EP left. Then I took up the golden blade (now +11 CR), rolled a 7 for some good damage, rolled a 3 and took 2 damage myself so I was then within the award window, then an 8 on the next round for an instant kill. First try, too. Perfection. I also picked up the Oede Potion to use later.
Book 7: TKoT was not very interesting. I may have gotten the Silver Bow of Duadon, but I don't remember. My plan for book 7 was to kill the Zagothal and use the Gold Key to check the Prodigy bonuses on the Fine Quarterstaff, which is only available that way. But I realized on my first attempt that my EP wasn't getting restored from Kai Healing. Apparently you need to complete all 5 Kai adventures to get the loyalty bonuses! Drat! My original plan was to take Divination for book 8, but I swapped that with Curing instead. #8 I guess wasn't noteworthy either, since I don't have any notes on it.
Book 9: I deposited the 'Swerd and intentionally got captured. This was to escape and get the Sabito off the pickpocket, just to prevent losing my +4 Alether. I got re-captured so I'd get back the Dagger of Vashna to instakill Kimah. I also brought a bunch of healing drugs, thinking I might need them after the dragon fight. So I get the Senate help voted I needed, grabbed the special Broadsword, got through the cauldron drop, picked up the Psychic Ring, and found myself staring down the dragon.
With all the bonuses, I was at a whopping 53 CS. +10 holy crap. Before I rolled the first round and thought to myself... "is it possible?!?" Indeed, I rolled a 9 and instantly beheaded the dragon. Wow, ok. Kinda anti-climatic, really. At least I can say my prep work was effective!
That's not all!
Book 10 (BONUS!): Having looked over my MK discipline layout (WM, HM, NX -> PN -> CR -> PS), I realized I had most pieces in place to attempt a no-equipment Torgar run. I knew I was going to have to fight at least 2 combats bare-handed, one of them (the garrison) at a not-good ratio, so I restarted book 9 using campaign data and chose Pathsmanship instead of Psi-surge. Then took Invisibility in 10 for the Solaris roll bonus. I went the Cetza route and stayed out of trouble until I ran into the Krorn pack, who I fist-fought Bruce-Lee-Style for 8 rounds at -2 CR. Fast-forward to Torgar where I kicked some more butt, but not without difficulty: 7 rounds at -5 CR. But I survived and Solaris helped me sneak past The Sarge for the win.
I'm glad I got it done, but I think I could've made it easier on myself had I started with book 1 and/or taken PS instead of PN or something. I'll take the victory regardless, and I now have both Heroic Meta Awards. I am "Zutgorak Zazgogshad", the Monstrous Monk. *flex*
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Post by Ofecks on Oct 31, 2021 20:15:13 GMT
The Law-Abiding Cetza 'SwerderThe final Bounty award I was missing was kill both optional bosses with the 'Swerd at the Battle of Cetza in book 10. With the exception of books 8 and 12, carrying the 'Swerd is a liability on Prodigy mode, so I thought I'd get this one done on By-The-Book ("law-abiding") rules for the full +8 bonus. The main issue was being moreso at the mercy of the RNT since there's no guiding. Also getting favorable stats at the start. It took a lot of restarts, but I managed to get 19/29 after a while. My plan was to roll until I got a 9 for CS and just take whatever for EP, but the first time I got 19 CS I also got 29 EP on the same attempt. That's some crazy luck. Kai disciplines: HL, 6S, MB, HT, CF -> AK -> MM -> MS -> TK I learned my lesson and started with book 1 this time. I'd say this is an ideal (or close to it) loadout for BTB. There's really no point at all taking Weaponskill because of the randomness and because the 'Swerd is so powerful here. Interestingly, upon reaching book 6, SS rolls WS for you if that's your last discipline, and I got Swords! How fortunate. Although I don't think the app tells you. I did turn off the RNT animation because I can't guide it anyway, and I didn't see any extra numbers pop up. Another interesting point - a while back I found a 2nd path through the Barakeesh Sewers where you can escape without getting Limbdeath. I didn't take that path here because I wanted the Oede, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Magnakai disciplines: WM, HM, NX -> DV -> PN -> PS -> AC I wanted to make sure I had completed the Lore-circle of Spirit for the +3 CS bonus. In book 6 I tried getting the Silver Bow of Duadon and rolled very fortunately for the win. Although I started to sweat during the qualifying round when my first two numbers were 0 and 2. Last one was high enough to get me through. I guess books 7-9 weren't notable since I don't have any notes on them. For the main event here, I had collected the usual drugs throughout the campaign and brought all the good ones with me: +2 Alether, +4 Alether, Rendalim's (x3), Oede, Laumspur (x2). On the route in Cetza to fight Ziran, there's a pretty nasty roll that can cost 8 EP beforehand, but there's a bonus for having Animal Control so that's what I chose for book 10. Turns out I rolled poorly enough so that it didn't matter! I used both Laumspurs to fix that problem. Ziran (with Powerstave): Drank the +2 Alether, had a +4 CR with Psi-surge. Killed him in 4 rounds, having rolled 9, 0, 2 (oof), 9. Very good. Baron Shinzar (with Ogg-kor-kaggaz): Right before the combat section (113), I drank 2 Rendalim's and the Oede to bring myself to full EP. Used the +4 Alether here for a +6 CR, again using Psi-surge. 5 rounds this time: 9 (hell yeah), 8 (good!), 3 (urp), 1 (gah!), 6 FTW. I was pretty damaged afterwards but there were a bunch of Healing sections in between Shinzar and the possible Big Ugly Sarge encounter. Since I had Tutelary Divination, the SBoD, and Mentora Weaponmastery with Bows, the garrison combat was a guaranteed skip. I drank the final Rendalim's just in case, but I miraculously rolled a 9 to skip Fatso and I had Nexus to open the door. I claimed my Bounty prize, along with the MK Bounty Meta. Not quite done yet! It's been in my plans to do a full SS playthrough on BTB, all the way through book 17, if time allowed after completing the awards page. I've still got awards to get, but I thought I'd take advantage of having 19/29 base stats and continue on. I took Curing and Pathsmanship for my final discipline choices. Curing definitely helped get some needed restoratives in book 11 since I quaffed my entire backpack in the previous book. I didn't have any Alethers, but none of the infamous Big Bads were any trouble and they all went down first try. I didn't even have any rings to boost my CS versus the Shadow Reavers, since I left all but the essential Special Items in storage. It was fine! Book 12 was a joke as usual, and I was lucky enough to pick up the Kagonite and Adgana to bring to the GM series. There was no way I was re-rolling my perfect stats on this run. The loyalty bonuses were all incredibly useful, too. Here's what I did for GM disciplines: GH, AS, KA, GN -> MG (Magi-magic)-> GP -> KN -> KS In choosing my loadout, I did look ahead using the flowcharts for some trouble spots, but overall I'm far less familiar with the GM series as I am with Kai/MK so I went in partially blind. I didn't have much trouble other than a few unlucky insta-deaths (see restarts below). The ending puzzles in 16 were impossible to figure out, thankfully that’s one aspect you can cheat in SS. Book 17 was cleared on the first try! A lot of fights were immune to psychic attacks except Kai-surge so that’s what I picked. Brought a ton of consumables and used all of them (including the Adgana from book 12), except one last dose of book 13’s Jar of Alether, since I managed to kill Tagazin instantly in the one-round combat with him. The Deathlord himself only took 2 rounds at a +1 CR. Ha! I had Archmaster Curing on standby for a combat emergency but I didn’t ever need it. One fight that was problematic was the 3 unskippable Kajarda in Xaagon, since you can't use the 'Swerd. The Lavas in the Plane of Darkness also gave me trouble. I don't think I would have survived if I didn't kill Tagazin in the one-rounder. Restarts - 6 Book 2 Helghasts (rolled a 9) Book 14 Rideable Kraan not happy (rolled 0) Book 15 Failed joust with Shugkona death knight (rolled 0) Book 15 Failed joust with Shugkona death knight again on the very next attempt (rolled 0) Book 16 Ended up at a spot where I had to discard the ‘Swerd Book 16 Same spot as above but I failed to de-boat the Elder because I chose to use Alchemy instead of Magic. Conclusion:That's it for Seventh Sense this go-round, I think. Tomorrow is my deadline and I've got some more write-ups to do at other internet spots. So this is a good spot to end things. I didn't get all of the awards, but pretty close to it. The ones that are left are pretty problematic for one reason or another. Overall, I've had mostly incredible luck getting these in less than a dozen campaigns, by my count (all the Fresh Starts I counted a single run). Still can't believe 11 Fresh Start only took 6 restarts. I pasted together snips of my final awards page, hope this doesn't break all the tables: The "new" banners on some awards were because I screencapped them as soon as I got all the awards in the book, some of which were a while ago. Also imgur converted it to JPG and I have no idea how to fix that (it's a PNG). Oh well. Thanks for reading! Until next time.
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Post by anotherknight on Nov 9, 2021 22:38:52 GMT
Reading the old books many years ago, I won some combats with a -11 in CS. I guess that deserves an award nowadays.
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Post by uziel on Nov 14, 2021 5:31:43 GMT
You inspired me to try one last time Ofecks. Finally got that final reward in the Magnakai area. Now onto the Grandmaster books.
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Post by Ofecks on Nov 14, 2021 18:06:50 GMT
You inspired me to try one last time Ofecks. Finally got that final reward in the Magnakai area. Now onto the Grandmaster books. Sweet! Please remind me which was the last award you needed? I'm guessing it's the silver one with the "new" label. I don't have Version S installed at the moment so I can't check. Let us know how it goes with the GM stuff! There's no way to look at the source for those so you'll have to start guessing and trial/error things.
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Post by uziel on Nov 15, 2021 11:23:26 GMT
The last one I needed was the treasure meta one. I never looked at the source previously anyway, and just worked it out on my own, via the in-game award hints. So that's no big deal. Looking at the 1-20 book runs in hardcore or by-the-book. There's 3 listed: 1. 1-20 book run, no deaths or restarts 2. 1-20 book run, dropping the Swerd at book 3 3. 1-20 book run, starting at 10 CS / 20 END I was initially thinking about combining the 2nd & 3rd ones together. But I got to book 8, and this is brutal. After 3 restarts, I don't think it's possible (would need rolls of 8+ 4-5 times out of 6 rolls) doing this with such low stats & without the Sommerswerd. In the interest of my own sanity, I might attempt these challenges one at a time, before focussing on the individual GM books. I like to get the more infuriating awards out of the way first where possible. That no deaths / no restarts run just looks evil....
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Post by Ofecks on Nov 15, 2021 17:10:10 GMT
The last one I needed was the treasure meta one. I never looked at the source previously anyway, and just worked it out on my own, via the in-game award hints. So that's no big deal. Oh, ok. That was one was tricky for me in vanilla. I'm surprised you managed to get it done without the full list of things that count! Did you finish 8 and 9 with backpacks full of junk? Do you have a final list of items you acquired? I'd be interested in seeing that. If you recall my experience a couple months ago, I would highly advise not to stack any of those! If the low-stat run in Version S is similar to vanilla, that can (and should) be done with BTB rules so you can get the full 'Swerd bonus. I just remembered that Version S' HC mode is very very different to vanilla's. Maybe you can find skips for the trouble spots. BTW, how did you get past book 7 in HC? The solution was stumping another player in the VSHC thread.
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Post by uziel on Nov 16, 2021 11:46:12 GMT
Oh, ok. That was one was tricky for me in vanilla. I'm surprised you managed to get it done without the full list of things that count! Did you finish 8 and 9 with backpacks full of junk? Do you have a final list of items you acquired? I'd be interested in seeing that. I cottoned on that the list seemed to be anything that was deemed "useless" & possibly a few special items, based on stuff that Dave & I spoke about years ago. It quite literally is an award I've attempted maybe 20 or so times, both in SS & S versions over a number of years. Reading some of your posts also helped me round out my list, as you mentioned a couple of things here & there too. But I'm sure I grabbed some things that I didn't need. I quite literally grabbed & stored everything. My storage was completely nuts by the start of book 12. And yes, full backpacks of junk in 8 (silver sacks and/or archery items) & 9 (all that crappy treasure near the start of the book from the Giak fight & the Khmar riddle reward). If you recall my experience a couple months ago, I would highly advise not to stack any of those! If the low-stat run in Version S is similar to vanilla, that can (and should) be done with BTB rules so you can get the full 'Swerd bonus. Yeah I worked that out the hard way! Now doing the low CS/low endurance run first, and definitely doing it by-the-book for the +8 Swerd bonus. Will definitely do the "drop Swerd before book 3" one next, then finally the no death run. I just remembered that Version S' HC mode is very very different to vanilla's. Maybe you can find skips for the trouble spots. BTW, how did you get past book 7 in HC? The solution was stumping another player in the VSHC thread. Yeah HC is totally different, it runs really differently and is super fun! There's weapons & artifacts with all kinds of extra bonuses and features, quite unlike other modes, which massively help out in a number of ways. It really feels like a different experience. Book 7 wasn't particularly difficult, that I remember? I did books 1-12 in hardcore so long ago now, but I really don't recall it being all that hard? I've not tried HC mode past book 12 though, so can't speak for how hard that is.
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Post by yggalag on Nov 16, 2021 13:24:39 GMT
Yes, that'd be me. As of now, i've still not figured out the solution. Same problem as before: the Zakhan statue doesn't pose a riddle, but instead flat out attempts to drown me (ranting about treasures that weren't found beforehand). Afterwards, it flat-out skips the fight with the Oudagorg (that'd otherwise provide the best route out via climbing up its dead body) and places me in front of the red/green/secret path crossing, where all three lead to Lone Wolfs untimely death (tried all three). I'm pretty stumped as to what to do differently, and i'm kind of sure i havent selected the wrong route through book 7, because on the way i did pick up another artifact and i dont think an artifact would be placed on a route that is surefire doom. I'd still be grateful for every hint or tip, because i'm slowly despairing over Zahdas maze and evil trickery...
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Post by uziel on Nov 18, 2021 5:11:38 GMT
Sorry to hear that yggalag! I'm in the middle of 1-20 run right now, but I'm hoping to finish it tonight or tomorrow. I'll re-run book 7 in HC mode and see if I can recall my steps on what I did. I did the run a couple of years back and earnt every award (as per my screenshot), so unless I've gone loopy, I'm pretty confident it's possible. But let me confirm in the next couple of days & I'll report back.
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Post by uziel on Nov 18, 2021 8:39:19 GMT
Failed on my 1-20 run, and it was frustrating me enough, that I figured I'd give Hardcore the first run in a long time. On running it, straight away I could see the differences. I did say it had been a few years since I last attempted it, and I can only assume when I ran (& got) the HC awards, it was in Dave's original SS version (not UrQuan's S version).
I did a crazy good run on my 3rd attempt (got +5 warhammer in book 1) and got every artifact I could find easily (Ornate Crown, Bulging Pouch; Star of Kirlundin, Stone of Suukon) without straying too much (as I didn't want to risk dying), and nothing does help. The "obstacle" you can't get past really is that point with the riddle in book 7. Sorry for the original misleading info, as I just assumed I must have run HC in UrQuan's version, but clearly I was wrong. Sincere apologies yggalag.
That also means I think I've now snookered myself in my quest to get every award. As you can't get the HC award for the Grandmaster series with SS-S... I may try installing Dave's version again and seeing if that helps me... otherwise that's a real bugger, as UrQuan vanished and is likely not coming back, and Dave got busy with real life and hasn't been on here in years, which is a real shame (I miss talking on here with Dave!).
edit: In retrospect, installing Dave's version of course wouldn't work, as he never implemented GM awards.. so, yep, no away of getting that award. Damn.
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Post by yggalag on Nov 18, 2021 11:29:42 GMT
...can you give me a tip as to where one can find the ornate crown? The last idea i have to get past the book 7 thing is that maybe you need to have found every artifact up to this point, and i've not heard of this one yet. I know, i'm grasping at straws here, but its better than nothing.
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Post by uziel on Nov 19, 2021 5:37:27 GMT
...can you give me a tip as to where one can find the ornate crown? The last idea i have to get past the book 7 thing is that maybe you need to have found every artifact up to this point, and i've not heard of this one yet. I know, i'm grasping at straws here, but its better than nothing. Reading back on some old posts, I don't think it's going to be possible. UrQuan did allude that there was an obstacle that you couldn't get past in Hardcore mode, that I assume he left in there for some reason... maybe until he had time to further develop Hardcore into the newer books. He also posted a list of artifacts in the order you can get them in, and the last artifact you can find is in book 7... As to the Ornate Crown, it's all the way back in book 1. You must go deep beneath the earth, to rub elbows with a noble in a place that hasn't been kissed by the sun in eons. Let me know if you need more info.
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Post by yggalag on Nov 20, 2021 19:00:16 GMT
...now i really wish i could get my hands on the source code just to eliminate that obstacle and continue hardcore mode. P sure i know now where to find it, thank you for your help.
with much regards
Yggalag
Edit: and now i cant even get my hands on the epic fail award in book 7. I have to disregard the crack in the wall and go through the red arch to earn an enemies respect...i've done that (and died there obviously), but no medal...
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Post by Ofecks on Nov 21, 2021 17:38:11 GMT
In vanilla, each Epic Failure checks for having passed through 2 sections. The YLAYQEH section, obviously, as well as another one previously in the book. The one for book 7 is section 2, and you need to have IV, PM, or DV to get there. If you lack those and just wander into the red arch, you won't get it. Maybe Urquan changed the requirements?
IIRC I also had trouble getting the EF in book 10 in version S but that requires killing Big Ugly and I might've forgotten.
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