BRB, Re-Rolling DruidHoly crap, I’ve done it.
Also (not pictured) - Spirit of the Sommlending (no WS/HT).
So… yikes. 1-12 HC without either CS-boosting discipline is quite nasty. As you might imagine, book 11 is a real problem. Tacking on a lack of Hunting/Huntmastery didn’t make much of a difference (although it does require some additional planning). Fact of the matter is, being down 8 CS stacks the odds wildly against you.
Before beginning the run, I turned off Intelligent Autoheal in the gameplay rules to give myself a slight advantage. So every section without the combat system counts for Healing/Curing. I honestly didn’t think that’d be allowed to earn awards, but yeah, apparently any option with an asterisk is fair game. I wonder how many restarts I could’ve saved myself over the course of cheevo hunting if I had done that before! Probably a non-zero amount, I imagine. I wasn’t aware Prodigy rules let you heal starvation damage by consuming meals, either! Also, I turned on all the cheat options for the archery tourney in book 6, although the one for Weaponmastery didn’t apply for this run. Furthermore, I disabled RNT and combat results animations since I couldn’t do any RNT guiding anyway and I figured I’d be spending quite a while fighting battles in book 11 over and over again. Finally, I downloaded the actual font the books use (ITC Souvenir Light) to use in the program. Nifty! That’s something else I should’ve done a long time ago.
Getting these two awards is basically roleplaying as a Druid, at least the nature/moon-worshiping Warcraft version. I chose
Healing, Animal Kinship, Sixth Sense, Mindshield, and Mind Over Matter as my disciplines. I think that was the right call. Invisibility and Pathsmanship aren’t all that useful in the MK series on this run. The only viable stat choice is 17 CS / 23 EP.
The Kai series was somewhat uneventful, although I had a close call with the ice-floes in book 3. I rolled low and didn’t have Hunting to save me, so I fell in. Managed to get out, though. Actually, books 1-5 were all completed without any restarts! I collected all the usual goodies, and made a point to grab as many Alethers as I could. I ended up with 3 left over, so I could have skipped some. Not sure where, maybe book 5? I picked up 5 of them there. Ideally I’d have acquired the Oede but I needed at least 2 Alethers from book 5 and you can’t get
any if you catch the Limbdeath. Liberal Alether quaffing was done throughout the run, I assure you, including both the Crypt Spawn and Haakon in book 5. It was extra effective on the former, bumping me up two ranks on the combat table instead of the usual one (-1 to +1). I was also amused at losing 2 EP in book 4 by hiding in the crops after the battle. I almost always pick Camouflage for the Kai series, so it’s rare I get to that point without it.
My Magnakai Discipline order was Nexus, Animal Control, Divination. Then Psi-screen for book 7 and Curing for book 8. I thought that having DV for book 6 might save me a few Gold in Quarlen (it lets you meet the mercenaries), but I forgot that in vanilla SS, you can only buy 1 of each potion at the shop in Eula. D’oh! Anyway, DV was pretty useless in book 6 but I needed it for book 7. Turns out Psi-screen was useless in book 7, too. Oh well. My first restart was because I failed the qualifying round of the archery tournament. I don’t think that ever happened to me before because I always take Weaponmastery. Thanks to the “cheat” options, I managed to best Altan on the first try but it really came down to the wire (3 TP left!). One more thing about book 6 - did you know you can sell the Silver Bow of Duadon to the weapon shop in Eula for a measly 3 GC?!? I sold my regular bow to them but I was kinda shocked that it was an option. Careful clicking was needed!
I put the ‘Swerd in storage for books 9-11. With the Zakhan, I opted to regular-combat him with the DoV since landing the throw was a 50/50 without bonuses. I chose the Psychic Ring option since I thought that’d be 1 CS lower, but I forgot that the nerfed stats do not exist in Hardcore rules! So Kimah was 34/40 and my ratio was -6. Not good. But I happened to roll very well and won with 8 EP left on my first try.
Book 10 is where things get really interesting. I had one restart here but it’s because I tried the combat-less route first, through the Isle of Ghosts. Unfortunately, since I was bringing a full backpack of potions to use in book 11 (and I ended up using every last one of them), there was no room for meals and I found out the hard way that there are many more meal checks on that route. So I limped into Torgar, completely starving and low on EP, and ended up dying very quickly to the garrison. On the 2nd try, I fared much better via the Cetza route (only 2 meal checks!): I landed the bow shot vs garrison (a 50/50 since I had the SBoD but no WM) then miraculously avoided DAC for the win.
9 attempts on book 11. Which is low, I got incredibly lucky. Making it through with all these restrictions is really not feasible. I thought for sure I’d exhaust my 16 attempt limit. I brought 4 Alethers, one for each of the really nasty fights: Chaos-master, Shadow Reavers, Villains, and Vonitar. The hard version of the Reavers had to be fought because I didn’t have Psi-surge. It's probably no shock to anyone: the Villains caused most of my restarts. I chose to use the +4 on Chaos-master because he has more EP to chew through. So I was -8 on the Villains. My winning attempt was pretty wild. I rolled pretty “meh” on CM, so I was down on EP when I reached the reavers. I used two of my 4 restorables beforehand, but I ended up wasting them because I
crushed the skelly crew in combat. I could also say the same for the Villains, although on this run, nothing less will suffice. I rolled 7, 9, 7, 8, 0, all in a row. Last round was a 5, and I had a single freakin EP left.
1. I quaffed the whole Silver Flask and my last Rendalim’s to start the Vonitar fight with 10 EP. 0 CR, and I did not roll well, I was down to 1 EP again starting the final round. I needed an 8, 9, or 0 to win. RNGesus came through for me once again and granted me a 9, where I took no damage. I still can’t believe it. Here’s my combat log for the nasty fights:
Book 12. I still had some potions left in the bank, so I brought 1 Alether (for the 29 CS Drakkarim Hit Squad on the boat) and filled the rest of the pack with +4 Laumspurs. And the ‘Swerd of course. Dropped my Fireseeds and old Quiver to make room for the forthcoming treasures. On my first attempt, I forgot to loot the Kika from the Drakkarim I needed to kill for my disguise into Argazad. At the gates, I lacked both disciplines needed to get past the guards, as well as the proper currency to bribe them. Using Gold Crowns is an insta-death. Whoops! On my second attempt, I got skewered by the sniper during the naval battle, and my third attempt ended when I rolled too high to get the Kagonite Chainmail and Adgana. Those two items were important because I’d be stabbing Ol’ Kraagenskul with the Dagger of Vashna, and at 45 CS I needed as much of my own as I could get. On my fourth and final try, I defeated him at +3 CR, not rolling particularly well (1, 4, 5, 6, 5, 3), but it was enough. And I coasted to the end for victory, at last. Turns out that the Helgedad tunnel is safer than the street in HC (unless you’re trying to avoid all combat) because the 2 fights down there are easier, overall.
I think if I had to do it over, I’d find and keep a 2-handed normal weapon at some point before book 9, to use on the first round against the harder combatants.
For my penultimate Seventh Sense quest, there’s another difficult campaign ahead of me. Another HC run, this time without Healing or Animal Kinship. This might actually be harder than the last one… we shall see. For sure, I’ll need to pick up as many EP restoratives as I can get my hands on. Not sure yet about disciplines, I’ll have to do some research first. Definitely Weaponskill, Mindblast, and Hunting this time!
e: on second thought, I don't think I'm going to tackle that right now. That last run kinda killed my motivation. I'll finish off vanilla SS when I get the bug again. Until next time!