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Post by oede2joy on Jun 20, 2011 7:49:30 GMT
Much has been made of the hassles carrying the sommerswerd creates when going against Kimah and the Chaos Master. I was wondering what it would be like if Lone Wolf never carried the sommerswerd around. Those two boss fights would be easier, but I wonder if he would miss that trusty +8 CS and get worn down by your run of the mill baddies. While it probably wasn't Dever's narrative intention for LW tromp around without the sommerswerd, in Fire on the Water it does say that "after the defeat of Vashna, the Sommerswerd had been bestowed upon the allies of Durenor as a mark of the trust and allegiance that exists between the two kingdoms." This suggests that the SS really was an "in case of emergency only" type of weapon and that for centuries it had sat in the palace in Hammerdal. Not the kind of thing Kai lords just carry around with them on any old adventure. So I'm going to play the adventures assuming that after book 2, LW brought the sommerswerd back to Durenor and traded it in for the seal of Hammerdal, until the next time that it was really, really, really needed. Then he continues on with his adventure by tracking down Vonotar in Kalte.
I always imagined Lone Wolf starting out with those outdoorsy disciplines: tracking, animal kinship, hunting, and camouflage, plus one elective. Picked randomly, that turned out to be mindshield. Not bad. Random numbers led to a CS of 17, which will help make up for the lack of a sommerswerd, and an endurance of 22. The first couple books I added the disciplines of Healing (how else could LW have recovered completely in just a few hours after book 1?) and weaponskill (since that whole book was about fetching a weapon).
Now on to Kalte. SPOILERS!!! We took the longer route over the Hrod Basin, though it didn't turn out very well for my guides. I, however, lucked out with some good random numbers that let me just mow through the ice barbarians. The same random numbers let me easily rob them of the blue stone triangle and firesphere (yes! my favourite special item!) once I fell into the Caverns.
Things went well from there. That firesphere comes in handy a lot, deterring the Javek and the Ice Demon. Speaking of the Ice Demon, luckily I remembered the right combination for those rods after breaking its statue. One way you get an extremely useful effigy, the other and you get a doomstone that might kill you. Another tough situation is the imprisoned Helghast. It seems to me there are very few clues telling the reader not to free the prisoner. Vonotar is a sorcerer, so it seems logical he would use a pentagram to imprison someone. It's especially harsh because the next prisoner is the essential Loi-Kimar, so make sure to rescue him, even if you're turned off by a bad experience with the first prisoner. Luckily for me, my LW had been to Ragadorn, so I could bypass the Helghast without too much meta-gaming. After rescuing Loi, things went smoothly and I used the effigy to capture Vonotar, we transported back to the ship and now on to the next adventure, my next chance to get a cool magical weapon.
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Post by johntfs on Jun 20, 2011 12:40:40 GMT
Although, ironically, the Dagger has no particular CS bonus until you use it against Kraagenskul in Book 12.
For my part, I carry the S-Sword around in Books 2-8, but put it away until Book 12. And in Book 6 I have a personal rule that I don't use it except in specific circumstances (against the Undead Summonation) or when I'm alone with no friendly witnesses (the Dakomyd, the Acolytes, the robbers or the Cenars).
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Post by kolinovic on Jun 21, 2011 14:48:24 GMT
IIRC the villains of Sommerlund are nigh unbeatable without it too... I'm gonna do this on my next runthrough though
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Post by oede2joy on Jun 23, 2011 5:15:06 GMT
yeah, I predict the villians are going to be a big obstacle book 11. But that's far into the future. Lone Wolf's immediate concern is to figure out what the deal is with Ruanon. In his down time after capturing Vonotar, he learned how to use Mindblast, increasing his potential CS to a pretty formidable 25. (Base of 17+shield+silver helm+weaponskill+now mindblast)
The Chasm of Doom is, in my opinion, the weakest of the books in the Kai series, but the early parts do have a nice horror movie feel to them as Lone Wolf and the rangers see many ominous signs and vague clues as they journey south. Once you figure out the who, what, how and why it turns into your run-of-the-mill "Lone Wolf saves the world from an evil threat" adventure.
Things were pretty slow on the trip down (took in a show, turned down at the fortified inn) until I decided to take a detour to Eshnar, since that's where the actor said he got D'Val's sword. Whenever I play book 4 I'm always intrigued about what happens if I go to Eshnar, but I always get killed when I go there. This time was no exception. Even my hunting skills weren't enough to get me out of the way of one of those flying metal disks. Oh well.
The book 4 reboot, random numbers allowed me to be lucky enough to camp at an old temple, where a couple redeemers gave me some holy water. That will definitely come in handy later. Those guys were much more useful than the Redeemer Grey Star met in Suhn, who gave him an amulet that lead him away from Jhana the Wise. Decided to go to Ruanon this time, and made it to the River Xane with three of my rangers surviving. We hopped a boat to the mines, during which time they vanished into thin air. Weird things happening down here. Somehow LW made it through the mines without too much battling-I remember there being a cat locked in a room before-and hid in a cart, escaping with the help of his friendly countryman turned mine slave. The mad dash towards the Sommlending fortification is one of the most exhilarating parts of the whole LW saga for me. I remember the first time I played it, battling the dogs, hearing your countrymen cheer you on, then almost getting taken down by a sniper; my heart was racing. This time I got through pretty easily, even finding time to battle a couple war hounds. Met the Baron, showed him the Scroll that Gwynian gave me, which has to be one of the most useless special items ever. If you don't have it, the exact same thing happens. It's like the Kazim Stone. Though it would be interesting if everyone just thinks the Baron is crazy if you don't present the scroll and no attempt is made to stop Barraka. Kind of a very long insta-death punishment for not investigating that hut. Was never tested much while repelling the invaders, just imagine if I had the sommerswerd on me! Lone Wolfs first experience shooting an arrow was succesful, killing the Vassognian officer cold.
Now on to the Maakengorge. From here to the end there are a lot of insta-deaths that are rather hard to see coming, it's almost like a Grey Star adventure (ok that's my last GS reference, I think). Getting trapped in the cellar of the hut could be seen as punishment for being a greedy item scavenger, but what about the demon creature that will kill you if you choose to sneak into the temple at the Gorge through the unguarded entrance? (and if you do not have the sommerswerd, as I don't). That always seemed unfair, since it's only logical to try to sneak in through the place with no guards...or is the lack of guards Dever's clue not to go there? Anyway, I was able to bluff my way past the guards and avoided the instadeath awaiting if I didn't go directly to the balcony (probably the most unpredictable instadeath until the end of book 6). There I interrupted Barraka pre-sacrifice. As he ran to attack me, I fished some holy water out of my backpack and threw it at him, blowing his arm off and sending his burning body stumbling off the edge of the abyss. Which is a pretty bad-ass way to take down a villian, I have to say. Picked up the dagger of Vashna and said, "aha, NOW I have something that can kill a darklord!" Also made a mental note not to mix it with holy water.
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Post by oede2joy on Jun 26, 2011 8:15:33 GMT
On to Shadow on the Sand.
This was the first time I'd managed to avoid Maok and his goons the whole time. The limbdeath was kind of a scare, but it still felt pretty cool to avoid the city-wide manhunt, sneak into the Zakhan's palace, and even steal his stash of oede. Almost as cool as I felt being able to handle half a pint of Bor brew on the Skyrider! I also got a kick out of Dever's wording when I took out the sentry by the Itikar pen: "your attack is silent and deadly". I was a little disapointed that I was never able to find a jeweled mace inside the palace, but then in the caves outside of Ikaresh I give my leftover oede to a pox ridden wretch, and he gives me a jeweled mace. That will come in handy later, and I'm glad there was a reward for being so generous with my precious, precious oede. Escaping Maok also helped me figure out how many cities there are in Vassagonia, by reading a poster about the Zakhan in a Barakeesh square. Because we all know that the map is kind of confusing on that point. Reached the tomb, and made it to Darklord Haakon's swivelling villian chair. This isn't talked about as much as Kimah in book 9 or the Chaos Master in book 11, but Haakon is much easier to defeat without the Sommerswerd. Instead of fighting the cryptspawn and Haakon himself, I just have to defeat the Dhorgaan, with a very manageable CS of 20, plus a jeweled mace gives you +5 CS, then grab the evil stone he drops and send him to another dimension. In that other dimension I'm sure Haakon is wondering why he didn't just wait until LW died of old age before trying to excavate the book of the magnakai. but that's some other darklord's problem now.
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Post by moonblade on Jun 27, 2011 3:25:43 GMT
If I remember correctly, you can get the jewelled mace inside the palace if you're captured by Maouk. While you're running here, there and everywhere rooting around for your goodies, you might find a plain box with a snake and some MACEZ!
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Post by johntfs on Jun 27, 2011 14:13:47 GMT
I generally take the Limbdeath path to get Oede. Consider that Kimah apparently has six or seven of those Jewelled Maces but only one dose of Oede. On the other hand, the manhunt is pretty cool and I like blowing up the sewers at the one point.
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Post by torben on Jul 1, 2011 2:14:35 GMT
Hi, I find this whole idea of adventuring without the SS very interesting. Actually, when I found this website and decided to replay the books after not having touched them for so years, I decided to play it a bit hardcore, so I did not get healing or curing and I lost the SS (on purpose) in book 5 - I wanted to play without SS, but with a good in-game explanation why LW does not have it (call me a nerd ) Anyway it was an interesting experience, because it made some parts of the book that were a cakewalk before, very difficult. So please find my experience below: Book 5, 2nd part: Without healing and the SS, it is actually quite tricky, as even with high stats the many battles against Drakkarim etc. can wear you down and you have very few options of healing, especially since you lose your potions together with the SS! The battles itself are still manageable without the SS, no overpowered enemies. Book 6: I decided not to take curing in Magnakai again to spice it up. With later battles in mind, the Bronin Warhammer becomes an important asset, so I forgo the Silver Bow. Still low on potions, once again death by wittling away of Endurance points is the biggest threat. The battle against the undead in the graveyard and the pirates really become a threat because of that. After the pirates, only the Dakomyd is left, and since you can buy potions after them, it is not really a bid deal if you have decent stats. Book 7: Same as before, you must navigate more carefully and find a path that avoids too many fights to preserve your E, but it remains manageable even without the SS. It also provides a second in-game chance to lose the SS without losing the Silver Helmet. As I was looking for a challenge, I decided to be strict on safekeeping (only Special Items, no potions) so I lost all my potions at the end of the book. Book 8: Without potions, curing, healing or the SS, this really gets tricky. The best approach I could figure out was to take the land route because that way you get some potions from the fortune teller and you can avoid all fights before the Danarg (the Vordak are optional and you can avoid the Helghast by camping outside the city). Avoiding the Helghast is a little bit of a downturner, but was necessary because in the swamp I have to face a poison snake with double damage that will kill me if I am low on E at that point! After that, it is comparatively easy until I come to the final battle with the Vordak. Without the SS, this is really very difficult, because it is very unlikely you can defeat the Vordak within the time limit even with optimum stats. Book 9: Starting without the SS, this is actually a more relaxed book, because you don't need to follow the path that takes the SS away from you. Again, making sure you keep your Endurance is the main challenge, and as you can meet Kimah with full E if you don't play around with Drakkar stormtroopers or Gourgaz, the fight is not too difficult either if you have decent starting CS (16 or above). Book 10: The challenges are carefully balanced to provide challenges for LW both with the SS and without. The Drakkar Stormtrooper Captain actually becomes a boss fight rather than a pushover if you don't have the SS - his stats are not better than Kimah, but you will most likely meet him without full E. Book 11: With decent stats the battles in this book are actually manageable, the main problem without curing is endurance again - and you actually get double the pain, because without curing, you miss the chance to find many of the endurance-increasing goodies! The CM itself is not too difficult, provided you have decent beginning stats and some circles already, the main challenge is that you actually lose a lot of E against the CM, cannot regain enough E after the battle and then you have to face the villains, be zapped by Vonotar and then fight Vonotar himself. The battles itself don't have too bad combat rations, the problem is that you won't have E to last through all of them. Book 12: Not too difficult without the SS as you get Helshezag - as long as you don't treat its E loss as permanent. But in order to have any shot at winning without the SS in the GM series, you need to take curing to get the Silver Bracers, and you need to get the Kagonite Chainmail (which is difficult if you have too many disciplines already...) Book 13: Since we have curing now, Endurance loss is not the problem it used to be, but without the SS you need to carefully choose disciplines to be able to avoid encounters you cannot win. Tough, but manageable. Book 14: Fully stashed with potions from Ruel, the early stage is easy enough, until you get to Banedon himself. Still you have a good chance of surviving the battles if you have decent beginning stats, the right disciplines and treat Helshezag's E loss as non-permanent. Book 15: You lose all your potions here if you don't safekeep (I didn't). Until you are buried alive it is fairly easy, after that you have no potions and are down to 15 E. If you treat it strictly, you cannot recover E now because starvation is not a wound from battle, but that would make the book practically impossible. The battles itself are still ok with manageable combat rations without the SS, the challenge here is E loss because there is many tough battles at the end. Book 16: You lose Helshezag here, which will be a real pain in the ass in book 17. Other than that, the battles are manageable, though again you need to be more careful to look for opportunities to avoid tough battles if possible to preserve E. Book 17: This is the only book I in the series I would label impossible without the SS: You don't have Helshezag anymore, which even at optimum stats will leave you hopelessly outclassed against Tagazin (twice!) and the Deathlord. Book 18 to 20: I never made it this far without the SS, so I have no direct experience in tackling these without the SS. Book 18 should be ok, the enemies are generally less tough than book 17 IIRC. Book 19 has no tough unavoidable fights I can remember, and in book 20 you get this other magic sword. The enemies in book 20 have no higher stats than the Deathlord, but you have a magic sword and higher CS at this stage, so it should be possible to make it.
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Post by ikatempura on Jul 1, 2011 3:39:45 GMT
Hi good analysis torben!
If the entire adventure is a Olympic marathon:
Book 5 Section 1 = Starting line Between books = Water breaks Book 20 Section 350 = Ending line Combats = Stamina loss from running / jogging Death = drop out of race
Without healing/curing and SS/special weapons - torben's LW run would have a high chance of (natural) LW dropping outta the race.
Seems like healing/curing and SS/special weapons are like drugs or stimulants!
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Post by oede2joy on Jul 26, 2011 8:37:06 GMT
well, I was working through book 7 when my computer crashed, erasing my 7th sense lone wolf data. So far I haven't yet been able to summon the gumption to start all over again from Flight From the Dark.
However, I doubt I could do a better job than Torben's analysis anyway. Thanks for the book by book summaries, that's exactly the things I was curious about.
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Post by Great Bear on Sept 4, 2011 22:09:46 GMT
I started playing through the series after discovering the site and remembering fondly the few books my school library had at the time... (good memories!)
I created my LW and when I read the word 'monk' I immediately set my heart on quarterstaff (the most "monkish" weapon on the list to me). I found the Sommerswerd and thought 'wow!' and started using that thinking 'If this is what the sword weapon is like, I can't wait to get the quarterstaff equivalent!'
Never came. I stuck with the SS sure, but wished the author had peppered the series with top line weapons of each line with relatively equitable power, all interesting and useful. It would have made encounter balance for the author easier since instead of realizing you have 1 overpowered weapon, you just realize you've got many (now) "overpowered" weapons and raise all encounters accordingly since that's now the baseline. Now "overpowered" weapons are no longer a balance issue!
Having just finished the series, I might go back and stow the SS on getting it to try, but to be honest, I'm not sure how well I'd do since a lot of the important bad dudes are really high CS!
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Post by johntfs on Jul 10, 2014 10:32:47 GMT
I started playing through the series after discovering the site and remembering fondly the few books my school library had at the time... (good memories!) I created my LW and when I read the word 'monk' I immediately set my heart on quarterstaff (the most "monkish" weapon on the list to me). I found the Sommerswerd and thought 'wow!' and started using that thinking 'If this is what the sword weapon is like, I can't wait to get the quarterstaff equivalent!' Never came. I stuck with the SS sure, but wished the author had peppered the series with top line weapons of each line with relatively equitable power, all interesting and useful. It would have made encounter balance for the author easier since instead of realizing you have 1 overpowered weapon, you just realize you've got many (now) "overpowered" weapons and raise all encounters accordingly since that's now the baseline. Now "overpowered" weapons are no longer a balance issue! Having just finished the series, I might go back and stow the SS on getting it to try, but to be honest, I'm not sure how well I'd do since a lot of the important bad dudes are really high CS! When you get to Book 16, you can use the Deathstaff, which is +10 CS vs the S-Swerd's +8.
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kai
Kai Lord
Posts: 59
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Post by kai on Feb 26, 2019 23:37:11 GMT
First, logically, the sommerswerd can only be used by the kai, so giving it to the durenese would just be plain stupid for lone wolf to do. The deathstaff only gives +10 cs in that one fight. Plus, it's an evil weapon created by Naar, so why would lone wolf use it? Finally, Helshezag ep loss is permanent.
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