2) Fire on the Water Solution

[champskees]

Book II: Fire on the Water

Fire on the Water is perhaps one of the most important books in the series, as it introduces the legendary Sommerswerd, which will be used countless times throughout future LW adventures. The book is fairly poor in terms of design and provides very little replay value when compared to some of Dever's other titles. There are many random die rolls which could have opened the gameplay up a little, but Dever tends to make most of these random events equally as forgettable, with many providing only minor differences that do not impact the player in any meaningful way. I thought the trip to Port Bax was perhaps the best set piece of the adventure, though the epic naval battle was also quite fun to navigate.

This adventure has quite a narrow path to victory, with many insta deaths throughout, many of which are due to the player not possessing the correct item. There is a mandatory roll whilst on a ship that means a 10% chance of instant death. If the player was able to carry a bit of gold from Book I, this roll is probably the main obstacle they will encounter following this walkthrough.

Again, most will know that Animal Kinship is very useful in this adventure as it allows you to bypass the Helghasts. Another pitfall is approaching the ticketing booth with exactly 20 Gold Crowns (in fact 21 is perhaps almost just as bad), because you will not have the option to play Cartwheel, meaning a likely death on the highway to Port Bax by your unknown assailant.

Skills (6):
• Camouflage
• Hunting
• Healing
• Weaponskill
• Mindblast
• Animal Kinship

From Book I:
• Book I Weapons (1-2)
• Book I Backpack Items (0-4)
• Book I Special Items (1-2)
• Book I Gold Crowns (13-22)
• Backpack

Start with:
• 0-9+10 Gold Crowns (23-41)
• Seal of Hammerdal (2-3)

Two items:
Take Shield (+2 CS)(3-4)

If you do not have the appropriate weapon to match your Weaponskill, and it is one of the following:
• Short sword
• Mace
• Quarterstaff
• Broadsword
Then take the appropriate Weapon (2). If you already have two weapons, drop one of them.

Otherwise, if you do not possess a Chainmail Waistcoat:
Take Chainmail Waistcoat (+4 EN)(4-5)

Otherwise:
Take Healing Potion (Restore 4 Endurance when used)(1-5)

001
160
348 Fight CS 16 EN 25 Harbour Thugs for two rounds, then evade (roll one more combat round).
125
300 Roll 0-9:
        • 0-1:  224
                  146 Fight CS 15 EN 15 Giaks.
                  345 Fight CS 16 EN 24 Drakkar.
                  243
        • 2-3: 316 Roll 0-9:
                        o <5: 107 You have the Kai discipline of Healing.
                                 074
                        o 5+: 094
        • 4-5: 081 Roll 0-9:
                        o <5: 260 Don’t bother taking the sword.
                        o 5+: 281
        • 6-7: 022 Roll 0-9:
                        o <5: 119
                        o 5+: 341
        • 8-9: 099 Roll 0-9:
                        o <5: 326 Fight CS 15 EN 25 Drakkar.
                                 184
                        o 5+: 163
240 You have the Healing discipline. Restore all Endurance points lost thus far.
236
222
175 Roll 0-9:
        • <5: 053
                 321 Eat a meal or lose 2 Endurance.
        • 5+: 209
197 Roll 0-9:
        • 0: Death.
        • 1-4: 078 Lose 1 Endurance & lose Chainmail Waistcoat (if you are wearing it)(3-4).
        • 5-9: 167 Lose 2 Endurance & lose Chainmail Waistcoat (if you are wearing it)(3-4).
337 Lose all Weapons & Backpack Items.
      You have the Kai skill of Hunting.
139 Take 2 Meals (2).
027 Restore 2 Endurance.
312
117 Pay 1 Gold Crown (22-40).
148 Eat a meal (you have the Hunting skill).
257
181 If you have exactly 22 Gold Crowns:
        • Take Short Sword(1). Pay 3 Gold Crowns (19).
      If you have exactly 23 Gold Crowns:
        • Take Mace/Sword(1). Pay 4 Gold Crowns (19).
     Otherwise:
        • Take Dagger(1). Pay 2 Gold Crowns (22-38).
186
136 If you have less than 20 Gold Crowns:
        • 238 Take 1 Silver Token. Play until you have at least 22 Gold Crowns.
           If you lose all of your Gold Crowns: Death.
        • 186
136 You have 20+ Gold Crowns.
010 Pay 20 Gold Crowns (2-16). Take Ticket to Port Bax(4-5).
      Roll 0-9:
        • 0-3: 051
                  103 Take Laumspur Meal (restores 3 endurance when used)(3).
        • 4-6: 195 Pay 1 Gold Crown (1-15).
        • 7-9: 339 Pay 1 Gold Crown (1-15).
249
039 You have a ticket to Port Bax.
346 Eat a meal (lose Meal(1-2)). Pay 1 Gold Crown for the room (0-14).
280 Roll 0-9:
        • <5: 002 You do not have the Kai Sixth Sense skill.
        • 5+: 108 Lose 2 Endurance. You do not have the Kai Sixth Sense skill.
168 If you have 0 Gold Crowns:
        • 025 You do not possess either the Kai discipline of Sixth Sense or Mind over Matter.
        • 153
        • 130
      Otherwise:
        • Pay for the room. Pay 1 Gold Crown (0-14).
314 You have the Kai discipline of Hunting.
290 Eat a meal (lose Meal(0-1)).
200
060 Fight CS 8 EN 11 Halvorc. Ignore damage inflicted on you in first two rounds.
076 Take 2 Gold Crowns (2-16) and leave the Dagger.
033
088 You have the Kai discipline of Camouflage.
179
071 
235 If you have Weaponskill with Short Swords: Take Short Sword (1). Drop other weapon if you have one.
132 If you have Weaponskill with Spears: Take Spear (1).
150 Eat a meal (you have the Hunting skill).
334
115
080 You have the Seal.
015 Add note: Password is ‘Sunset’.
      Take Healing Potion (restores 3 endurance when used)(1-2).
      Take 2 Meals (3-4).
      If you have Weaponskill with Maces: Take Mace (1).
      If you have Weaponskill with Broadswords: Take Broadsword (1).
      If you have Weaponskill with Quarterstaffs: Take Quarterstaff (1).
      Leave the rest.
244
047 You know the correct password for the bridge.
111
265
191
318
062 Show him the Seal of Hammerdal.
263 Take Red Pass (5-6).
246 You have a Red Pass.
202
031 Restore 6 Endurance. Roll 0-9:
        • <5: 176 You do not have the discipline of Sixth Sense.
                 277
        • 5+: 254 You do not have the discipline of Sixth Sense.
069 You do not have Mindshield. Lose 2 endurance.
311
299 You do not possess a Magic Spear.
118 You possess Animal Kinship.
279
023 You possess Animal Kinship.
144 Take 2 Meals (5-6). Lose all Gold Crowns (0).
349
284 Eat a meal (you have the Hunting skill).
009
196 Lose Seal of Hammerdal (4-5). You do not possess Sixth Sense.
123
040 Restore all Endurance points lost thus far. Take Laumspur Potion (restores 5 endurance when used)(6-7). You do not possess Sixth Sense.
242 Take Sommerswerd (5-6).
        • Adds 8 to Combat Skill (additional +2 if you possess Weaponskill with any sword).
        • Doubles damage vs. undead.
152 Roll 0-9:
        • 0-3: 216
        • 4-6: 049
        • 7-9: 193
100
267
309
026
066 Fight CS 15 EN 15 Zombie Captain. Enemy immune to Mindblast. Undead.
218
043
286
109
120
225
350 End of Book II.

[Ofecks]

Very cool stuff. Another minimum combat path. On the opposite side of the spectrum, getting 4 Seventh Sense book 2 awards in a single run looks a bit like this:

High Combat (12), Bounty A (kill 5 Helghasts), Bounty B (kill Harbour Thugs, Street Thieves, and the assassin), Death-Defying (survived being poisoned twice)

Setting this up requires some stuff from book 1, namely re-rolling your character until you get a high CS AND high EP AND weaponskill in spear. That will likely take hours unless you cheat or can program a bot to do it (SS resists a lot of tampering, so probably not). Otherwise, killing two Helghasts in combat before getting the 'Swerd simply isn't feasible as they both have high CS. I don't have the skills to program something to calculate those exact odds, but they're undeniably low. You also need to meet Banedon to get the CSP and NOT have Animal Kinship to both suffer and survive one of the poisonings.

Additionally, you have to kill all of the street thieves unarmed and take a really specific path through the death-hulks to encounter the final two Helghasts. The biggest hurdles are - actually getting bitten by a sand snake (you have to roll for it), the poison damage you will suffer is not restorable via the Healing discipline, and killing the Spear Helghast (which is also one of 5 Kai series boss fight award targets) whilst going in with diminished EP. It is also likely that you'll take some starvation damage unless you got lucky with the roll during the coach ride to pick up the Laumspur meals.

[Nym90]

My solution to the last book has the disadvantage of introducing a small risk of instadeath while traveling with Rhygar due to having Sixth Sense (which makes little sense, but so it is).

Fighting Parsion feels more ethical than killing Halvorc, plus you get more loot. But I agree that it is a much harder fight.

[krazz]

I think there's a slight error in the solution on the 176 -> 277 part of the solution. It appears that after 277, you should turn to 69. But that's not an option at 277. Instead I think you should go to 311 directly, and 69 should appear on the 254 branch only.