Playing the series from the beginning.

[Almeida]

Hi, I've being following the Project Aon for some years now but only recently did I download all the books available and started reading past the first four books.

One thing I'm wondering is if it's possible to read all the books in order, using only one character. Meaning that if you died on book 15 for example, then you would start all over from book 1. I think I've read somewhere in the forum that someone did that, but aren't the odds very small for something like that?

I'm sure you gain lots of equipment and disciplines that will help you out, but I remember some places in the books where you would die if you rolled a 0 for example. And some parts you always need to go through, like the falling mast in book 2 or when you are running away and Captain D'Val saves you in book 4. This means that even if those sections are only like 10 in the 28 books, that means that you only have around 35% possibility of getting to the end. And this is not counting several others way that you can die in the books (combats, etc).

Is this as difficult as it seems to pull off?

[Oiseau]

In fact, it's not difficult -- it's impossible. To be exact, it's highly improbable. The unavoidable random deaths come fast and furious in the Grand Master series (13-20). To give you an idea, here's a list from memory.

Book 2 : Falling mast, 10%.
Book 4 : Arrow from some Drakkar, 10%.
Book 5 : Fall from the Ikitar, 10%.

I remember none of this stuff in the Magnakai series.

Book 13 : Tarzan swing, 10%.
Book 13 : Falling bridge near the end, 10 to 40%.
Book 14 : Gaining access to Kaag Tower, 10 or 20%.
Book 14 : Fleeing Kaag near the end, 10%.
Book 15 : Charging a guy on horseback, 10%.
Book 15 : Leaping the chasm near the end, 20 to 40%.
Book 16 : Faking your way past the Vashna-lovers, minimum 10% (more with Sommerswerd).
Book 16 : Big black vortex near the end, 20%.
Book 17 : Tagazin's unicorn delusions, 20%.

Memory fails me for Books 18-20, which I haven't played often enough (yet) to know for sure what's unavoidable. But to all this, you have to add the following unavoidable battles, each of which requires insane luck to survive, given the circumstances in which they occur :

Book 9 : Zakhan Kimah.
Book 11 : Chaos Master.
Book 13 : Exterminus.
Book 14 : Ice Dragon (Nadziran).
Book 15 : Magnaarn.
Book 16 : Series of difficult battles in quick succession.
Book 17 : Tagazin (up to 3 times) followed by Ixiataaga (CS 60).
Book 20 : Zantaz.

You can actually deal with Zantaz, to be honest, since you can avoid nearly every threat before him, and your EP is in the 50's at that point. Kekataag the final boss has CS 60 like Ixiataaga, but you get special bonuses to fight him, and you haven't been nearly slaughtered by numerous previous CS 55 enemies.

Finishing Books 1-20 with a single character is only reasonable if you give yourself mulligans to use in critical situations (say, one per adventure, with permission to accumulate them). Oh, and don't even try without the maximum initial CS and EP.

[Almeida]

It's much worse than I thought then. So I will probably try to play the books while "saving" my progress at the end of each adventure. Then If I die I only start at the beginning of that book.

[Al]

That is the way I normally play the books, it is like a video game, with saves...
Al

[nigthhunter]

Yeah me too except that if I die, I am continuing where I died. It's like why retake the book from chapter 1 if I know what to do already. It's sure that if it's a book that I never read, I'm taking this
advantage to explore the book, try different way etc. But like everyone else, I have read these books a million time, so I'm not annoying myself for some virtual death.

[Almeida]

Are the books that dificult without good rolls at "character creation"?

[shadowfalcon]

in places yes

[Dusk Fox]

I wouldn't know, considering how badly I cheat. I imagine that if I ever decided to play the game "fairly" it'd be a lot harder. I will say that I play the various tough combat sections out by the book, though--I pasted Zakhan Kimah fair and square, and Tagazin trounced me like an anemic hemopheliac at Tuesday night fight club by the rules.

[Darkash]

Eh, don't listen to these bums. It's possible to at least get to book 17 in one run, with 10/20 initial CS/END. And the only rule you are streching is Alether usage in book 11. Other then that, it's possible, I should know. (Yes, I did it. Once. A long time ago.)

[Al]

But does it matter, really? The whole point of the book is that you can do them again and again and again...
Al

[shadowfalcon]

and dang yeah last time i played through i thought i'd explor somewhere different as i usualy go the sebb jeral way but this time i ended up on ghost island anf had to fight tagazin and walked away with about 5EP luckily i had some oede on me and such

[Al]

Like I said, though, that is the whole point, explore have fun and all that good stuff. I only started reading the books again about 6 or 8 months ago when I joined the forum, but I enjoy just trying new things in the books to see where they take me. If I die, I die, but like video games that is half the fun.
Al

[Runeheart]

And at least you can read and complete the LW books using different paths unlike the FF series which usually end up with me reading the book till I know 'the path' and never looking at it again. I'm currently trying -getting frustrated- by 'Legend of Zagor', but at least there is re-readability with this one, with the four character choices at the start of the book.
There is nothing wrong with the system, my brother and I would design and game with each other, and we were under 13 at the time. (sometimes the simple things in life are often the best, that's quoted from an advertisment -probably heard everywhere-)...

[elost]

I always play the first eight books without saving, that is with a requirement upon myself to take all the first eight books at first try for admitting myself to continue. I do my first "saving" after Jungle of Horrors and from that, I play book 9 so many times it takes for me to succeed, and the same thing with the rest of the books.

Actually, I have only made book 1-12 with the same character twice in my life. The first time, I took a break after Magnakai (very proud over myself) and never started with book 13. The second time, I had the ambition to begin book 13, but I got too confused with the new series and how about applying the new rules upon my old character... so it never came of.

Of course, this means that I still haven´t played book 13-28, even though I have owned them for something around 5-8 years I think. They stand untouched in my book shelf - every time I look at them and admire my collection, I think of the coming moment when I will lock myself away from the world and just play the whole series from book 1 to 28... I think it will be next summer, when my studies are finished - or maybe already the coming Cristmas or spring?