The Eye of the Beholder Thread

[Glop_dweller]

Yes it did have the symbols printed on the manual pages. GoG (and others) have had the validity check changed so that they accept any input.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Click the second link in my signature.

But the Amiga version is the superior one. It's the only one with directional sound, isn't it?

Return to Chaos appears to be based on the Amiga version of Dungeon Master, since it features directional sound and amplitude of sound varying with distance. The author, George Gilbert, seems unaware that the Amiga port released in 1988, since he states that "Return to Chaos (hereafter RTC) is my Windows version of the FTL classic "Dungeon Master", originally released on the Atari ST and Amiga in 1987".

 

[Unkillable Cat]

To be precise, Dungeon Master was released on December 15th 1987 in North America on the Atari ST, just in time for the Holidays.

All other releases came later, starting with the European release of the ST-version in 1988, then the Amiga-version in late 1988, then every other official version, and then finally the MS-DOS version in 1992.

 

[octavius]

Return to Chaos appears to be based on the Amiga version of Dungeon Master, since it features directional sound and amplitude of sound varying with distance. The author, George Gilbert, seems unaware that the Amiga port released in 1988, since he states that "Return to Chaos (hereafter RTC) is my Windows version of the FTL classic "Dungeon Master", originally released on the Atari ST and Amiga in 1987".

Damn...so there is a proper DOS version after all?
How about Chaos Strikes Back? Did that also get a remake based on the Amiga version?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Damn...so there is a proper DOS version after all?
How about Chaos Strikes Back? Did that also get a remake based on the Amiga version?

The Return to Chaos version of Chaos Strikes Back also has directional sound, so I assume is also based on the Amiga version.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Sadly Chaos Strikes Back never got an official release on the IBM PC/MS-DOS.

But then again, Dungeon Master 2 never got released on the Atari ST or the Ami- wait, it WAS released on the Amiga?!?

And it was released in Asia before Europe?!?

I am snookered.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yes it did have the symbols printed on the manual pages. GoG (and others) have had the validity check changed so that they accept any input.

Oh. The item symbols from in the game. Ok. My brain was thinking damn codewheel. Yeah i know what you mean now.

 

[Taghor]

For the long time EOB1 fans... Here is something not found in the clue-book; found it way back, while searching the walls:

AFAIK it is the only button of its kind in the game.

Spoiler

This spoils what it does:

Spoiler

It disables the Mantis attack during the level 10 special quest.

Hang on - the rewards for that level's Special Quest are the rings dropped by the Mantis Warriors that are spawned in. Doesn't this negate that reward?

I once read a post by a player who claimed to have been unable to complete the game after playing EoB1 for five years.

*Funfact: The developers put a giant spider in the walls outside of the map on level 5, [presumably] so that the area would always play the spider's footstep sounds.

Funfact two: There is exactly one use (AFAIK) of a very well concealed button —not listed in the cluebook!—, on level 10. This button disables the mantis attack part of the special quest. I suspect it was there for developer testing, and forgotten about before the game shipped.

Ah yeah! "THAT FUCKING BUTTON!" And I already saved too after pushing it.

I once read a post by a player who claimed to have been unable to complete the game after playing EoB1 for five years.

*Funfact: The developers put a giant spider in the walls outside of the map on level 5, [presumably] so that the area would always play the spider's footstep sounds.

It's actually two spiders, and they're inside the map, just in an inaccessible 2x2-room. There are empty shelves in that room as well.

Funfact two: There is exactly one use (AFAIK) of a very well concealed button —not listed in the cluebook!—, on level 10. This button disables the mantis attack part of the special quest. I suspect it was there for developer testing, and forgotten about before the game shipped.

This is one of the few things about EotB1 I have only recently heard of. I've yet to test it proper.

Hi guys, this issue just happened to me in my latest run.

I accidentally pressed the button and saved before triggering the special quest itself. The Mantis warriors do spawn but they don't drop any rings one is supposed to get for killing them. The rings are very useful and missing them really spoils the fun out of that otherwiese perfect run. Adding for the worse, i now also don't get the Wand of Frost after the first sequence of the special quest in level 11. A secret passage button in level 10 (west of quest room) also lost functionality.

In both cases the bell sound and text for quest success do trigger but no rewards...
In my previous run (i had not pressed the button before starting the quest fight) it went smoothly and all 4 rings dropped.

Could anyone please hint me at a solution how to 'uncheck' that forsaken button in level 10's quest room? This being the second run in a row already, i really would like to avoid starting over again. The game is easy and fine but this bug really destroys so many hours of play i invested...

 

[Glop_dweller]

EoB1 only supports one saved game ... officially, but I would often make manual duplicates of the save file in case of corruption or other unfortunate event. For instance in my experience EOB can get flaky in the uppermost levels during the late game, though there is really no reason to revisit them aside from lost item retrieval.

I don't know of any method of resetting the map state for the game other than (presumably) hex editing the .sav file, or level.tmp file? My impression is that the temp file records only the presence and position of user placed items on the floors.

Perhaps the All Seeing Eye could help? I really do not know from experience... having not used it yet.
Level tile teleport is listed among its many features.

*The Unkillable Cat would surely know.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Nope, I'm lost on this one.

 

[pjs]

You could just pretend you had a perfect run. It's not like any of those are actually necessary for anything - either the game itself or if you plan to continue with EOB2.

 

[Taghor]

Thank you guys for your swift replies!

When even you don't know - then it's a thing that's really hard to figure out...

Glop_dweller You are perfectly right and i have now learned my lesson the hard way. I will have to make bakup saves for a better future... Do i assume correctly that i have to save some ASE data as well? Which files should i transfer to the backup folder?
I play on the steam version which comes with an ASE 'light' version. Works fine and as of yet i did not have any need to cheat myself anything which is possible with the full version if i got that right.

While i feel tempted to edit the save for either unchecking the button (which had set the level flag to 1 - whatever that means...) or alternatively cheat the rings in to regain my soul freedom, i have one last idea that i could try out be ordinary means. More on that below.

pjs Yes, this would be my last way out if nothing helps. I have gotten a bunch of rings and the chars are strong enough to make a good stand when transferring them to EotB II, which i defeinitely plan to do. With the equip of part I and the excess XP the game should not be that difficult to beat. I just wanted to do a perfect run and actually gathered all items along the way and put them into the dwarven halls (so they don't lay around confusing me when running through the levels to reach certain spots).


Maybe this is part of the problem - i basically gathered everything and also maxed out the amount of darts to get out of the area in level 6 where you can indirectly refill the dart launchers to even get more of them.


To tell what's happened since my above post:
I continued play and cleared levels 10-12 until the final confrontation. When returning back to the special quest in level 10, i surprisingly got 2 ring-drops by the Mantis... I felt pretty intrigued and tried again and again. Never more than 2 rings.
So i went to level 11 and fulfilled the speciial quest there. And 'tada' the wand of frost did spawn this time. But by now i can only get 1 ring out of level 10's special quest at a max. It's really estranging but i will try out something else to see if it helps. If it does i will report in so that other forumites get informed, too.

If anyone has a solution - and be it editing - i would be very glad to receive advice! I just don't know how to do that magic by myself and would prefer a non-cheating solution of course.

 

[Taghor]

Unkillable Cat Since you are such a long term veteran on the game: Some years ago you told on this thread that there would not be any race bonuses in the game. I am speaking of resistances and weapon bonuses for Halflings and Elves, pointing to the data card that came with the game (EotB I). However for the parts II and III i have not found any verification on such an exclusion. The data cards contain nothing in that regard. Do EotB II and III also exclude these specials (they are mentioned in the manuals to exist there as well).

 

[Taghor]

I don't know when you will be able to read this - as a noob i have to wait for approval before my posts will be visible to you.

However, i had an idea, tried it and it worked like a charm: I ate all rations, drank some poison potions (heal afterwards) and squandered away loads of cleric scrolls that were just lying around. Then i went back to level 10 and triggered the special quest: all 4 rings did drop!

So, the solution is: Reduce the amount of overall items existing in the game. There seems to be some overload which leads to limitations regarding item drops for enemies. By reducing the number (eating rations, using up scrolls, drinking potions) of items in the game you can set free slots for the game to handle (i also had a golem on level 12 not dropping a bone key).

Doing so, the effect of the button in quest room in level 10 of Eye of the Beholder I is:

- a secret button in a neighboring room (west) just creating a short connection between an otherwise accessible area stops working. You instead read a warning 'to stay on alert and avoid trouble' when clicking on the corresponding wall.
- the effect of holding the Mantis special quest spawns in their alcoves does not work at all.

The above is about the steam version of the game (Gold Box 1).


I am glad my run could be saved and wish you all a happy day!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

However, i had an idea, tried it and it worked like a charm: I ate all rations, drank some poison potions (heal afterwards) and squandered away loads of cleric scrolls that were just lying around. Then i went back to level 10 and triggered the special quest: all 4 rings did drop!

So, the solution is: Reduce the amount of overall items existing in the game. There seems to be some overload which leads to limitations regarding item drops for enemies. By reducing the number (eating rations, using up scrolls, drinking potions) of items in the game you can set free slots for the game to handle (i also had a golem on level 12 not dropping a bone key).

This is new information, even to me.

One area which can generate a LOT of extra items in EotB1 is the dart launchers on the sixth floor. There's a passage there with pressure plates and dart launchers, so a careless party will end up looking like a freelance dartboard, but a cunning party can score loads of free weapons.

Once you reach the end of the passage you are asked to put either daggers or darts into the wall niches to make that particular wall section disappear ("Silverware rack. Be neat.") and with that carve your way through the walls ahead. However, as a side effect all the dart launchers reload a charge every time a wall section disappear. So by making only one wall disappear, and then running through the passageway again, lots of darts can be collected. Far more than are ever needed, even to remove every single wall in that silverware-section, and for the Special Quest on the 8th floor.

I've done that countless times, but I've yet to come across an item limitation-glitch, like you describe. I'm not saying you're wrong, but this is something that requires further testing to determine fully.

Regarding the racial bonuses, I only have the bit in the Data Card for EotB1 to tell me this. I actually cannot confirm/deny that they're present in any of the games, as I can't "see" the attack roll with all its modifiers. I CAN say with 100% accuracy, however, that the concept of 'Prime Requisite Stats' conferring an additional 10% XP-bonus when above 15, is bogus.

 

[pjs]

In level 6 when grinding Kenkus I have certainly seen that after a certain point, no more items are dropped. I have suspected that this is a per-level limitation that applies to at least some items held by the monsters. I have not noticed that a level 6 full of kenku junk would affect other levels though. But I would not be surprised if there was a some kind of connection.

 

[Taghor]

*snip*

pjs Yes, this would be my last way out if nothing helps. I have gotten a bunch of rings and the chars are strong enough to make a good stand when transferring them to EotB II, which i defeinitely plan to do. With the equip of part I and the excess XP the game should not be that difficult to beat. I just wanted to do a perfect run and actually gathered all items along the way and put them into the dwarven halls (so they don't lay around confusing me when running through the levels to reach certain spots).


Maybe this is part of the problem - i basically gathered everything and also maxed out the amount of darts to get out of the area in level 6 where you can indirectly refill the dart launchers to even get more of them.

*snip*

Unkillable Cat
Missing any allseeing eyes to look into the programming, i derived my conclusion from the following indicators:

1. Along the campaign i noticed that enemies - in contrast to my previous run - did drop less loot the further i came. This was most obvious with the respawning Thri'Kreen and with the Kenkus who used to drop Halberds and food rations / staves respecitvely
2. in contrast to the previous run - where i could not solve the special quest of level 9 (darts) - i this time maximised the amount of darts to get out of what you describe. Even after solving it this time, i have about a dozen regular darts left
3. After the number of rings dropped on level 10 was changing depending on my progress / actions i was finally assuming a direct interdependency.

So i reduced the number of ingame items proactively and it worked as intended and to best effect. I dunno anything about the programming aspect behind this phenomenon. It was a conclusion after noticing the above indicators and also reading quite a bit on different fora about the game. I was a kid when playing the game on my Amiga for the first time (and nostalgia aside - the sound definitely was better!) so i have a feeling in my guts that the amount of items is a thing in this game.


As a side note, i was a bit disappointed that i could not transfer the bones of the NPCs over to EotB II. While their stats are meh, i actually like their design and moody story when being resurrected. Sadly they thus will be left behind...

 

[pjs]

pjs Yes, this would be my last way out if nothing helps. I have gotten a bunch of rings and the chars are strong enough to make a good stand when transferring them to EotB II, which i defeinitely plan to do. With the equip of part I and the excess XP the game should not be that difficult to beat. I just wanted to do a perfect run and actually gathered all items along the way and put them into the dwarven halls (so they don't lay around confusing me when running through the levels to reach certain spots).

You might be interested in reading comparisons of grinding the characters to the max in EOB1 and EOB2 in such a way that they get close to max levels in EOB3 - in contrast to just regular run, and even a run with non-modified characters. Bottom line: the biggest asset are the overpowered items provided by EOB1. You'll be able to see a minor difference, for example, how long the final boss fight in EOB2 takes. But nothing very dramatic. Still, if you like to maximise the journey even if it isn't necessary, go ahead. That's a little bit of my playstyle as well (though I don't think I go to such extremes).

I ran through EOB1-3 with the same characters, with the goal to maximise the power of the characters at the end. As recommended (back in page 5 or so), I chose human paladin, dwarf fighter, human mage and human cleric. (Level caps on other demihuman characters are annoying in EOB3; thief is not really necessary and I could use Insal to fill in the blanks in EOB2.) My goal was to explore almost everything and grind the game so that I could get to level 18 at least and the mage could cast level 9 spells. As an afterthought, maybe the paladin could have been switched to pure fighter, as the paladin special abilities (except a few weak spells) haven't been implemented in the games.

As has been stated before, EOB is very different from gold box games in the sense that even if you explore everything, you get so little XP that level caps are not even close. A thorough exploration of EOB1 grants you about 150K experience per character. I didn't keep track of EOB2, but I think it would have been around 300K additional XP without grinding. EOB3 gives about 600K additional experience. In order to achieve my goal of maxing the characters, I did a couple of hours of grinding in EOB1 Kenku nest (about 500K extra XP -> everyone reached the L11 level cap or even above). In EOB2, XP grinding is much faster: I trained about 1.2 million XP in about an hour or so by sitting next to the lever in the greater guardian lair (forget about using the fireball trap, next to the lever is 10x faster). So, I intentionally grinded more xp that was necessary to achieve level caps in EOB2 (about 2,1M total xp at the end of the game, mage a bit more as I used the level-up from the dying elf there). So when I started EOB3, after killing a few monsters, the levels raised after each kill to 15, 16, 16 and 17. The mage obtained L18 and got access to level 9 spells in level 2 of the temple of Lathander, and the cleric got L20 just before the end battles.

Obviously, the games were very easy with these supercharged characters. I rarely even bothered with casting spells, the front row warriors equipped with a long sword and a short sword just chopped everyone to pieces very easily. If I recall correctly from previous runs, EOB3 is rather easy no matter what you do. And this was really just a pointless exercise of maximisation, because you don't really need any of those high-level spells in EOB3.

The bottom line here is that if you want to do some grinding, the lever by the EOB2 guardian lair is ideal for this. Kenku lair in EOB1 also works for smaller amounts of XP. The undead beasts in the mauseleum in EOB3 seemed to be rather painful in contrast, but I didn't really try it that much. So, if you want to maximise the characters in EOB3, you really should do some uber-grinding in EOB2.

Btw. in dosbox-x, the EOB1 crashes at start unless you start with 'loadfix'; in EOB3 you have to use something like 'loadfix -20'. I finally managed to update EOB3 to Aesop/32 engine manually; various installers didn't seem to work properly.

Just for the kicks and comparison, I just replayed EOB2 with non-imported characters, 2 fighters, 1 cleric and 1 mage. Starting with 69K xp, they ended up with 310K xp before Dran Battle, ie. mostly level 9.

Dran battle was significantly more difficult because the L9 fighters kept missing much more than L13 (difference is +4 THAC0); the battle took 3-5x longer and I also had to retry a few times as I kept making mistakes now and then. Elsewhere there wasn't too big of a difference (except I used spells such as lightning bolts more); however, mantis attacks were somewhat annoying and the frost giant prison was somewhat difficult until I cast invisibility on the party (after which the giants started missing much more).

A few notes. Helmets, whether regular or +1, don't seem to do anything in EOB2 - clearly a bug (in EOB3, at least enchanted helms do affect AC, even if you get the cap -10 rather quickly). EOB1 was full of various rings, there is just 1 ring of feather falling in EOB2(!!). EOB1 was also otherwise full of overpowered items compared to EOB2. Also, only one usable bracers (+5) in EOB2. It takes quite a while to get the first level 5 mage scroll: azure 3 for wall of force and azure 4 for cone of cold. So most of the time those spell slots were wasted. Cleric got to level 5 and obtained access to true seeing only in azure 3. So unless you know the game already and/or have maps, some parts may be trickier. Also having to rely on magic dust to curing petrification, which could sometimes become an issue unless you know what you're doing in the medusa labyrinth and the trapping phase (so it takes guts not to pick up full 6, or you have to be careful with saves/reloads).

One unique built-in feature of AD&D games (also with Gold Box) has been the ability to modify the characters
Just for kicks and slightly different experience and challenge, I'm considering a replay. Experiences and thoughts about playing with non-modified characters?

I did a playthrough of EOB1-3 (two fighters, cleric, mage) this way with non-modified characters. In EOB1, I replaced the fighters with Keirgar and Anya as soon as I was able (reasonably good stats and HP, Keirgar excellent even). Calandra would have been a very similar replacement to Anya in EOB2. The run was pretty smooth nonetheless, even though the cleric and mage ended up being rather fragile (the cleric had less than 40 HP at the end of EOB3, the mage a bit more than 40 HP). Obviously the overpowered EOB1 items helped, especially in EOB2. EOB2 might involve a bit more heavy lifting if I you start with fresh characters and don't modify them - even if you start fresh with maximized characters, you can see the differences.

 

[Taghor]

pjs
Thanks for the heads up! I actually have read the whole thread before registering here. Your notes are pretty valuable information to remind for progressing further!

I only hope to not run into the dreaded death traps of which there are a few in EotB II. IIRC, I think that was the reason for me as a teen to drop the game i had payed so much money for. Nowadays, i will try again and look forward to another fantastic (and pretty nostalgic) experience... EotB I was a hell of a ride and goosebumps with a happy smile all time (umm, except one critical situation...) long.

I chose the magic bracers in EotB I just because i seem to memorise that there a some magic shortswords to be found. Ring of Wizardry is nice but now i rather have a lack of fingers to fit the rings my party has gathered already. But 2 x +2 of protection simply was too good to leave behind...

Maybe i will do 2 runs in EotB II one of which will be with the current party. But afterwards i will also try for a challenge by choosing several multi-class chars with the meager starting equipment for a second run. There is some place to farm tons of XP to catch up.

 

[Semiurge]

pjs
Thanks for the heads up! I actually have read the whole thread before registering here. Your notes are pretty valuable information to remind for progressing further!

I only hope to not run into the dreaded death traps of which there are a few in EotB II. IIRC, I think that was the reason for me as a teen to drop the game i had payed so much money for. Nowadays, i will try again and look forward to another fantastic (and pretty nostalgic) experience... EotB I was a hell of a ride and goosebumps with a happy smile all time (umm, except one critical situation...) long.

I chose the magic bracers in EotB I just because i seem to memorise that there a some magic shortswords to be found. Ring of Wizardry is nice but now i rather have a lack of fingers to fit the rings my party has gathered already. But 2 x +2 of protection simply was too good to leave behind...

Maybe i will do 2 runs in EotB II one of which will be with the current party. But afterwards i will also try for a challenge by choosing several multi-class chars with the meager starting equipment for a second run. There is some place to farm tons of XP to catch up.

Someone should add some Taghor avatars for the EoB gallery, such as:

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

TAGHOR!!!


RISE!!!

 

[Taghor]

You might be interested in reading comparisons of grinding the characters to the max in EOB1 and EOB2 in such a way that they get close to max levels in EOB3 - in contrast to just regular run, and even a run with non-modified characters. Bottom line: the biggest asset are the overpowered items provided by EOB1. You'll be able to see a minor difference, for example, how long the final boss fight in EOB2 takes. But nothing very dramatic. Still, if you like to maximise the journey even if it isn't necessary, go ahead. That's a little bit of my playstyle as well (though I don't think I go to such extremes).

I ran through EOB1-3 with the same characters, with the goal to maximise the power of the characters at the end. As recommended (back in page 5 or so), I chose human paladin, dwarf fighter, human mage and human cleric. (Level caps on other demihuman characters are annoying in EOB3; thief is not really necessary and I could use Insal to fill in the blanks in EOB2.) My goal was to explore almost everything and grind the game so that I could get to level 18 at least and the mage could cast level 9 spells. As an afterthought, maybe the paladin could have been switched to pure fighter, as the paladin special abilities (except a few weak spells) haven't been implemented in the games.

As has been stated before, EOB is very different from gold box games in the sense that even if you explore everything, you get so little XP that level caps are not even close. A thorough exploration of EOB1 grants you about 150K experience per character. I didn't keep track of EOB2, but I think it would have been around 300K additional XP without grinding. EOB3 gives about 600K additional experience. In order to achieve my goal of maxing the characters, I did a couple of hours of grinding in EOB1 Kenku nest (about 500K extra XP -> everyone reached the L11 level cap or even above). In EOB2, XP grinding is much faster: I trained about 1.2 million XP in about an hour or so by sitting next to the lever in the greater guardian lair (forget about using the fireball trap, next to the lever is 10x faster). So, I intentionally grinded more xp that was necessary to achieve level caps in EOB2 (about 2,1M total xp at the end of the game, mage a bit more as I used the level-up from the dying elf there). So when I started EOB3, after killing a few monsters, the levels raised after each kill to 15, 16, 16 and 17. The mage obtained L18 and got access to level 9 spells in level 2 of the temple of Lathander, and the cleric got L20 just before the end battles.

Obviously, the games were very easy with these supercharged characters. I rarely even bothered with casting spells, the front row warriors equipped with a long sword and a short sword just chopped everyone to pieces very easily. If I recall correctly from previous runs, EOB3 is rather easy no matter what you do. And this was really just a pointless exercise of maximisation, because you don't really need any of those high-level spells in EOB3.

The bottom line here is that if you want to do some grinding, the lever by the EOB2 guardian lair is ideal for this. Kenku lair in EOB1 also works for smaller amounts of XP. The undead beasts in the mauseleum in EOB3 seemed to be rather painful in contrast, but I didn't really try it that much. So, if you want to maximise the characters in EOB3, you really should do some uber-grinding in EOB2.

Btw. in dosbox-x, the EOB1 crashes at start unless you start with 'loadfix'; in EOB3 you have to use something like 'loadfix -20'. I finally managed to update EOB3 to Aesop/32 engine manually; various installers didn't seem to work properly.

Just for the kicks and comparison, I just replayed EOB2 with non-imported characters, 2 fighters, 1 cleric and 1 mage. Starting with 69K xp, they ended up with 310K xp before Dran Battle, ie. mostly level 9.

Dran battle was significantly more difficult because the L9 fighters kept missing much more than L13 (difference is +4 THAC0); the battle took 3-5x longer and I also had to retry a few times as I kept making mistakes now and then. Elsewhere there wasn't too big of a difference (except I used spells such as lightning bolts more); however, mantis attacks were somewhat annoying and the frost giant prison was somewhat difficult until I cast invisibility on the party (after which the giants started missing much more).

A few notes. Helmets, whether regular or +1, don't seem to do anything in EOB2 - clearly a bug (in EOB3, at least enchanted helms do affect AC, even if you get the cap -10 rather quickly). EOB1 was full of various rings, there is just 1 ring of feather falling in EOB2(!!). EOB1 was also otherwise full of overpowered items compared to EOB2. Also, only one usable bracers (+5) in EOB2. It takes quite a while to get the first level 5 mage scroll: azure 3 for wall of force and azure 4 for cone of cold. So most of the time those spell slots were wasted. Cleric got to level 5 and obtained access to true seeing only in azure 3. So unless you know the game already and/or have maps, some parts may be trickier. Also having to rely on magic dust to curing petrification, which could sometimes become an issue unless you know what you're doing in the medusa labyrinth and the trapping phase (so it takes guts not to pick up full 6, or you have to be careful with saves/reloads).

One unique built-in feature of AD&D games (also with Gold Box) has been the ability to modify the characters
Just for kicks and slightly different experience and challenge, I'm considering a replay. Experiences and thoughts about playing with non-modified characters?

I did a playthrough of EOB1-3 (two fighters, cleric, mage) this way with non-modified characters. In EOB1, I replaced the fighters with Keirgar and Anya as soon as I was able (reasonably good stats and HP, Keirgar excellent even). Calandra would have been a very similar replacement to Anya in EOB2. The run was pretty smooth nonetheless, even though the cleric and mage ended up being rather fragile (the cleric had less than 40 HP at the end of EOB3, the mage a bit more than 40 HP). Obviously the overpowered EOB1 items helped, especially in EOB2. EOB2 might involve a bit more heavy lifting if I you start with fresh characters and don't modify them - even if you start fresh with maximized characters, you can see the differences.

Now that the journey of our heroes is about to continue, i read your invaluable advice more thoroughly and will take them to heart (sadly i cannot yet upvote any posts, 'too green i am' Yoda said).. With some 300k XP under the belt, i guess that after checking the inventories we have to set out and uncover the dark mysteries of Darkmoon... I plan on taking the mage scrolls with us so we can lend a helping hand on the arcane arsenals of NPCs that would be willing to join us on our quest. Let's see whether we have something useful for them.

On my cursory searches about the EotB series i often read that San Raal would be such a powerful mage (wall of force) but i'd rather prefer Amber to join the party. IIRC, there is a story behind her and her skills will come to use as well. Hopefully we won't miss anything of significance or trap ourselves without San Raal's dark powers. Would you advise for him, nontheless?

pjs
Thanks for the heads up! I actually have read the whole thread before registering here. Your notes are pretty valuable information to remind for progressing further!

I only hope to not run into the dreaded death traps of which there are a few in EotB II. IIRC, I think that was the reason for me as a teen to drop the game i had payed so much money for. Nowadays, i will try again and look forward to another fantastic (and pretty nostalgic) experience... EotB I was a hell of a ride and goosebumps with a happy smile all time (umm, except one critical situation...) long.

I chose the magic bracers in EotB I just because i seem to memorise that there a some magic shortswords to be found. Ring of Wizardry is nice but now i rather have a lack of fingers to fit the rings my party has gathered already. But 2 x +2 of protection simply was too good to leave behind...

Maybe i will do 2 runs in EotB II one of which will be with the current party. But afterwards i will also try for a challenge by choosing several multi-class chars with the meager starting equipment for a second run. There is some place to farm tons of XP to catch up.

Someone should add some Taghor avatars for the EoB gallery, such as:

Yes, despite the sparse roleplaying elements that are used in the games, one immediately gets attached to most of the NPCs. I will never forget my child joy when meeting Taghor for the first time only to find out that he would now join us in our quest! A very likeable and iconic character! The implementation is a classic. Too bad only four of us can go on...

TAGHOR!!!


RISE!!!

Dwarves rule!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I wouldn't advise San-Raal at all, unless he happens to be better than your own created Mage.

He has few Hit Points, low DEX and is an Elf, meaning Raise Dead won't work on him.

About his only positives is that he has a few spells learned that you won't pick up until later on, namely Wall of Force and Stone to Flesh. WoF can be used to cheese a couple of places, and if you rez San-Raal early enough he may be ready to use Stone to Flesh by the time it's called for... but other options exist.

Amber has no super-important spells, is one level lower than San-Raal and is a multiclass-Elf to boot, but at least she's got DEX 18 and her other class is Thief... though you need a Thief to get to her remains in the first place. Other options exist.

 

[pjs]

I wouldn't advise San-Raal at all, unless he happens to be better than your own created Mage.

He has few Hit Points, low DEX and is an Elf, meaning Raise Dead won't work on him.

About his only positives is that he has a few spells learned that you won't pick up until later on, namely Wall of Force and Stone to Flesh. WoF can be used to cheese a couple of places, and if you rez San-Raal early enough he may be ready to use Stone to Flesh by the time it's called for... but other options exist.

I suppose the first question is, do you go with 4, 5 or 6 characters. If you opt to go for 4, then I agree you don't need San-Raal (or anyone else). The main benefit is that everyone gets more XP. Or if prefer to avoid "Restore Game" in any way you can. I suppose your alternative to San-Raal is taking no-one. Because the only major contender is the dwarven fighter/cleric (to get a second cleric as a backup). I have never found use for additional fighters (though in EOB3 with "All Attack" and Polearms this could be very debatable), so you want to have two of your own, modified to the max, which are better than the alternatives. So, if you're going to add someone - except Insal for a brief stint to pick certain locks - it would be either San-Raal and/or the cleric.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I always go with Calandra and Tanglor. Calandra has good Hit Points, which are welcome in the Silver Tower.

Shorn would also be a decent pick, except whether he offers to join your party seems to be a 50/50 tossup when you free him. There are other mechanics related to him, but I've yet to research them further.