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Post by zliplus on Jun 29, 2012 4:23:49 GMT
Bringing along both the magic spear and dagger of vashna to be safe. Took 10 damage for the shadow gate, but luckily avoided the shrapnel. Shot the sea serpent and chainmail guy to death, fighting the rest to get adgana and the chainmail. Used up all 4 laumspurs since well, why not - there's no healing for basically the whole book anyways, and it's a long way to go.
Took chip damage as I made my way through the piles of enemies. Avoid a few with the bow, but running low on arrows. Killed the wall guard with the spear and used the rest of my healing items, leaving me at 36 EP with alether and adgana. Rolled lucky to avoid the full caravan, instead just shooting down the guard and replenishing my quiver.
Decision time on how to kill Kraag - the Sommerswerd is out because it's a pretty high chance of guaranteed death. I could use the dagger for no instadeath rolling, but it's a fairly tough fight since I didn't take dagger weaponmastery. (+3 ratio with psisurge, 33 to 45 EP). -1 ratio with psisurge is also fairly winnable, but the damage I take may be too great with no healing left. Using Helshezag requires a roll with a tiny chance of death, but gives a much easier fight (after an initial fight).
Chose the Helshezag route, killing the crypt spawn with my trusty magic spear. Didn't epic fail the roll, and took out Kraag at a +8 ratio easily with 26 EP remaining. Dropped the dagger of vashna to pick up Helshezag, hehe. Also, just realized that psisurge only costs 1 EP per round now, and is +6, making it much more viable. I screwed up the ratio calculations before too.
Poor luck rolling inside the dread city meant I had to fight 2 battles before reaching the inner sanctum, and more bad rolls in combat meant I dropped down to 11 EP. Still, it's finally the end of the line, and the final full heal has arrived. I can also use the Sommerswerd again, and smashed the mind reaper into dust with it. Gnaag, of course, dies automatically.
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Post by zliplus on Jun 29, 2012 4:54:59 GMT
Final Battle Count with the 'Swerd: 54/68
Deaths: 14 Other Restarts: 2 Total: 16
Highlights: Died to Chaos-Master 5 times. Eventual win took 11 rounds, with 3 EP remaining. Only other source of multiple deaths: Javek poison.
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Post by kamikaze1900666 on Jun 29, 2012 23:11:25 GMT
Bravo. I've had a couple 5 EP or less close scrapes with the CM getting this one, but fell to the villains mostly (and once to the Corporeal things). Seems the RNT liked me when I'm fighting gods, but hated me otherwise for book 11 on this run.
I liked seeing you use the tactic of choosing the Circle of Spirit + Weaponskill for this challenge- it's a stark contrast to the one I used (Sixth Sense, Camouflage, Tracking, Animal Kinship, Healing)
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Post by melusca on Jul 12, 2012 16:04:16 GMT
Very interesting thread, I've been trying to get this award many times and still haven't succeeded. I'm currently trying with your build (damn, getting into that much fights without Healing is really what I'd call "hardcore"). Pretty smooth sailing in books 1-3 (I even threw off my Effigy at the end of book 3 to fight Akra, since I had a bunch of spare EP, but I skipped the Helghast fight and its awful unavoidable 6 EP loss), however book 4 was completely insane. I kept rolling 3s and used all my Laumspur, I even had to quaff one to survive the Holy Water explosion. Thankfully that book almost doubled my fight count (I got from 14 to 26), I hope this will be more useful than the potions.
I have a question however: does running away from a fight (especially on the first round) still counts towards the award?
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Post by Dave on Jul 12, 2012 18:53:00 GMT
As long as every round of a particular combat (including short or "interrupted" battles, like from evading) was fought with the Sommerswerd equipped, it will count toward your total. Even in fights where you "must fight the first two rounds unarmed", as long as the sommerswerd is equipped, it'll count. At least, I'm pretty sure.
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Post by zliplus on Jul 13, 2012 14:10:55 GMT
melusca: With my build, since you don't have healing, it's important to not get in over your head and fight absolutely every fight you can. Since you go through Books 10 and 11 with the Sommerswerd, that's 10 or more fights that you'd not have with the deposit strategy (worse, even, since most the those fights are unavoidable). Not having all those non-Swerd fights gives you quite a bit of leeway elsewhere. I should also point out that my route was focused on the RP aspect of never depositing the Sommerswerd, rather than getting the award. In particular, it's much more efficient to not bring the Swerd at all for Book 9 and just avoid prison altogether.
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Post by melusca on Jul 14, 2012 19:35:22 GMT
Yup, I was completely overwhelmed in books 5-6, and when I could not even defeat the various beastmen in book 7 I decided to restart with a different build (Weaponskill in Swords, Healing, Animal Kinship, Mindblast, Mindshield - talk about tanking). I finally got the award with this one. Books 4-5 were a real carnage, 16 and 18 fights respectively (I didn't even know there were so many fights in book 5). Got really lucky against the Helghast in book 8, so I proceeded to slaughter every monk in my path and didn't bring the Swerd for books 9-10-11, since I was nearing 80 fights with it at the end of book 8. It was a close one though. Anyway, thanks for your advice, it could be useful to someone else.
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Post by ultimatechaos on Nov 5, 2012 21:09:04 GMT
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Post by morik on Nov 12, 2012 19:40:02 GMT
I'm new around here, and a little confused. So I think I want to play through hardcore, but I don't really remember what the books are like (except for the first 6 or so, which I played through on projectaon prior to discovering seventh sense). What is this combat ratio with the swerd you are talking about? is this for some achievement tracked by seventh sense? What is 'CM' which is brutal with the swerd? I don't see a book title which would abbreviate to CM... EDIT: Found 'Chaos Master' in another thread... but they said the swerd bonus applies? Is it that it is still significantly harder with the swerd than without it? I've gotten holy water a couple times, but never found a use for it I haven't managed to find a magic spear either in book 2... The hardcore restriction on skills seems pretty hard, especially for someone who doesn't know the books. (I last read them at least 20 years ago). My inclination was to grab non-CS skills, since I like having extra information and "cool" abilities. E.g., healing (to help me pick myself back up after low CS combats), sixth sense, camouflage, hunting (cause of the reaction speed, and also save some backpack slots), tracking. Though that makes me sad to miss out on mind over matter and animal kinship. From reading this thread, it appears the above skills (with no knowledge of the necessity of discarding the sommerswerd) would get me killed repeatedly?
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Post by Dave on Nov 13, 2012 3:38:22 GMT
Hardcore is neither for the faint-of-heart, nor the new-of-book... Only veterans who are pretty familiar with the books should try the Hardcore mode. Your best bet is to play on By-the-book mode or Prodigy (probably By-the-book at first, so that weapon bonuses make more sense.)
Once you are familiar with the books and the gameplay, you'll be able to enjoy the modifications to the regular experience that the alternate modes offer.
(and yes, CM means Chaos Master, and yes, having the Swerd, even with the full bonus, is harder than without it.)
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Post by zliplus on Jan 8, 2013 14:50:02 GMT
Hey all again - it's been a while hehe.
To add some (presumed background), one issue with the original/by-the-book reading of the series is that the Sommerswerd provided such an enormous boost that balancing the fights were almost impossible. In order to deal with it, the books basically added heavy penalties for having the Swerd on many fights, esp. bosses, mostly negating the effect of having it. In Hardcore mode, the Swerd itself is heavily nerfed to not be so overwhelmingly powerful, but the enemies remain the same; therefore, some fights become absurdly difficult if you have the Swerd. The Chaos Master is one such fight (though still doable, thus the point of this run) but Kimah is far worse - beating Kimah with the Swerd practically requires rolling nothing but 0s.
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Post by zliplus on Jan 8, 2013 14:50:37 GMT
Oh, and happy new year, everyone!
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Post by blash on Jan 9, 2013 6:57:04 GMT
Hey all again - it's been a while hehe. To add some (presumed background), one issue with the original/by-the-book reading of the series is that the Sommerswerd provided such an enormous boost that balancing the fights were almost impossible. In order to deal with it, the books basically added heavy penalties for having the Swerd on many fights, esp. bosses, mostly negating the effect of having it. In Hardcore mode, the Swerd itself is heavily nerfed to not be so overwhelmingly powerful, but the enemies remain the same; therefore, some fights become absurdly difficult if you have the Swerd. The Chaos Master is one such fight (though still doable, thus the point of this run) but Kimah is far worse - beating Kimah with the Swerd practically requires rolling nothing but 0s. Personally, I played through 1-12 (waiting for 13+, sigh :-( ) with the alternative weapon system (special bonuses etc. but nerfed SS, that is +1 CS only instead +8) always having the SS. I balanced activating Dual Wield and starting with 19/29. Anyway, I had a special CS bonus against "Dark Champions", but I don't remember if it's available in "pure HC" mode.
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Post by zliplus on Jan 29, 2013 20:26:19 GMT
In HC mode, you can't start anywhere close to 19/29 or get the alternative bonuses. Also, you do get the special CS bonus against Dark Champions (like Chaos Master) but not against Kimah - this is one of the reasons it's so ridiculously hard (seriously, it's like -11 ratio with absolutely all bonuses or something).
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Post by Dave on Jan 30, 2013 5:39:15 GMT
Yeah, the thing is, Kimah is just this guy. Actually, a big wimp. But, the equivalent of a big wimp with a machine gun. Certainly not a "champion of Naar", but a serious threat, nonetheless.
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