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The Dark Eye Realms of Arkania 2(& 3?)(DOS), some questions

Zer0wing

Cipher
Joined
Mar 22, 2017
Messages
2,607
Hello from someone who never played RoA before. That was fairly easy to install on moderns OS's, so that's a good start.

So, general questions. What kind of party is good and optimal for first playthrough? There's a lot of skills to choose from but given that it's a video game and not P&P, I guess alot of them are trap option or barely used ones, so which ones are optimal to level up? Yes, I've heard that game itself does not level up skills optimal enough, so expert mode it is.
Also, differences between RoA2 and RoA3 to consider?
 

haraw

Educated
Joined
Nov 13, 2008
Messages
95
The games are too easy for cheesing. Read the manual and go with what you think are useful characters and skills. Like would you prefer weapon-skills over dancing/music-skills in a game with orcs and shit.

There are plenty of skills and spells that don't work at all in both of those but you can't really fail the game if you chose to put your skillpoints in them.
 

eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
In general, I like to have 2 pure fighters (a warrior and a dwarf) and 4 casters, usually 3 efs and 1 wizard. Dwarfs are good because they're a mix of warrior and thief, which isn't one of the stronger fighting classes. They can cover anything thieves can do while keeping up with warriors. Elfs are also very good; they have the strongest equipment list in the first game, then get downgraded in the second but can still hold up well with fighting. I can't remember what the real differences are between the various types, but I take one of each and I'm sure that covers pretty much every skill. For wizards, I like to focus on movement. There are a number of puzzles in the games that are frustrating without the use of the teleportation spell, and wizards are probably the only character you'll have that will ever be able to cast it.

RoA 1 and 2 are very much about travelling and outdoorsmanship. You need to prepare for travelling, which means you'll need different equipment for different seasons; snowshoes, coats and heavy blankets for the winter, herbs for medical emergencies, plenty of food. Certain paths are also blocked off during certain seasons as well, so you should be prepared for that.

RoA 3 has no travelling and is focused on the town of Riva. It's pretty different from the other games; it's still good but a big part of what made the first two fun was its Oregon Trail travelling system. A lot of the skills that were necessary in those games are no longer important.

I think riding and animal training are skills that are never used. There's this weird bear event in RoA2 that may use animal training but I've never been able to do it right and I doubt it does anything, and it's definitely not important.
 

Siobhan

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 25, 2013
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472
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I think it won't take you long to figure out which attributes are important, but skills are tricky without advance knowledge of the game.

Combat: most magic weapons are swords, so it makes sense to level that on every character except mages; bows are good, but there's only one or two magical ones so don't level it on too many characters; keep in mind that weapons can break or be destroyed by spells, and sometimes the game takes away your equipment for some dungeons, so you might want to put a few points in unarmed as a backup (not needed for mages, their staff is indestructible).

Nature: mostly useless for RoA3, but essential for RoA2 since you need to find herbs while traveling to cure diseases and hunt for your food

Body: most of those are useless if you are willing to save scum like crazy; for a reasonable playthrough go for swimming, climbing, physical control and self control as there's many skill checks for them with potentially hazardous effects (from getting ambushed to instant death of a character); stealth is only checked on the leader, so there's no point in leveling it for more than one character.

Social: completely useless; even haggling since money is easy to get in both RoA2 and RoA3 if you know what you're doing; that said, haggling can make a first playthrough a bit easier

Lore: mostly useless, a mage in the party already has enough points for everything important the game checks

Treat Disease: incredibly important in RoA2, and you need it on at least two people since characters cannot cure themselves

Treat Wounds: useful in RoA2, but requires a high skill level to avoid the serious downsides; in RoA3 it becomes pretty useless since you'll never be far away from a safe resting spot.

Intuition: both are very useful, but only checked on the party leader afaik

Locks: essential

I won't discuss spells here. In many ways a good spell selection is the difference between an easy run and one that will make you tear your hair out, and I don't want to ruin all the fun for you.
 

Sinatar

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
569
I won't discuss spells here. In many ways a good spell selection is the difference between an easy run and one that will make you tear your hair out, and I don't want to ruin all the fun for you.

Eh, there are like 600 useless spells in these games, figuring out which ones are worth it isn't exactly "fun".

Horriphobus, Paralyzation and Bambaladam are the combat spells du'jour. Maybe some Fulminictus if you want to do some magic damage.
 

Siobhan

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 25, 2013
Messages
472
Location
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Might be worth pointing out that the non-damage spells you listed all have a large risk of failure at low levels since you get a penalty for the enemy's magic resistance. That's also why they're risky against the enemy's you'd really like to take care of asap, like mages.

I'd also recommend
Break Domination, Lightning, Iron Rust, Duplication, Acceleratus, and Magic Armor. A few points in Pure and Clear make Cure Poison redundant. Rest the Body is good in RoA2, Transversalis allows for some nifty exploits. Some spells are used only once for special events, such as Melt solid and Banish spirits.
If you want to do a solo run of RoA2 with maximum cheese, Magic Armor is your biggest friend since the effect stacks, so you can quickly push your AC to ludicrous levels and then auto-resolve without taking any damage.
 

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