I have one thing to say about this game, I just bought it , I read all the bullcrap about how combat is difficult and it's not like your average RPG , yet they offer ASSASSIN and MERCENARY as two character options. I happen to like combat and I figured , it would be a good way to play the game having combat skills , I mean you enter a world like this you should know how to use a sword at least you should be able to play by the sword just as well as by your wits or your mouth am I right? To say it's a brutal place after all that has assassins and mercs as viable professions is reasonable conclusion to arrive at. However when they say COMBAT is difficult they mean for the player not for your targets.
What is odd is when I played as an assassin I was successful with two jobs had to kill a merchant and his bodyguard , the merchant was easy the bodyguard fought , I took damage , here is the kicker , no way to heal was obvious or presented, or even made clear to me. The result being my next mission I had to go on with reduced hitpoints and I had to kill two more people this time spies one with a lightninig fast dagger the other with a crossbow , I killed both of them. but then a third one comes in and I'm down to 11 hitpoints by this time and he has no armor ,only a dagger , I've got an iron scimitar and a shield , I've got poisoned javelins, missed wtih all of them and again and again he closes the gap and stabs away until I'm dead. Great game.....lousy combat. If you play Ironman mode then the enemy should be just as lame as your character and easier to kill if they have no damn armor on and the fact that you have a longer reach with a sword , not to mention a shield too?
I think this game sucks and ROLEPLAYING is nothing without combat. NOTHING, you may as well read a book instead , I suggest Sherlock Holmes.....lol....the combat in this game is lame and the map sucks too. The combat is very dissappointing and to me is a game killer being that the game itself is kind of Indie in design and retro , it's not as open a world as a modern computer is capable of. I bought it on sale so I will keep messing with it for a while but the thing is I had higher expectations , It should be possible to be a warrior just as well as a fast talking politicial type, to limit the combat side is just foolish in my book. There should also be healing potions so you don't have to keep dying when you get too many opponents which the game will throw at you even after you win what seems like insurmountable odds. It's like being punished for liking the action side of the RPG.
Why even have weapons if the only way to succeed is to talk your way out of every situation or manipuluate others? Some of us like to get our hands dirty.