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Also what kind of characters are suitable to winning vs Agathoth without bola or bombs... If any? It's so easy with them it almost feels like cheating, but seems extremely hard to pull off reliably without those.
Throwing. It gets batshit insane THC with high perception and synergy bonuses (all ranged weapons do), plus it ignores DR as its weapon effect (so skip crit, you don't need it). Something like 9-9-4-10-4-4 block+throwing+crafting works great, but you don't really need crafting if you use full Power Armor (although it will hurt your THC and weapon mastery odds but then you can get Alchemy instead for ridiculous berserkers and neurostims).
My most recent playthrough killed Agathoth with spamming dagger crits. I'd gone through the AG questline and took every Critical Strike option to boost it, then I used upgraded Neurostimulant for huge AP and just fucked him up.
Also what kind of characters are suitable to winning vs Agathoth without bola or bombs... If any? It's so easy with them it almost feels like cheating, but seems extremely hard to pull off reliably without those.
One of the problems I had with the game is that some paths are awesome (Thieves has sooooo many free skill points). And some are really difficult and have much less opportunities for free training (Praetor).
Ranged weapons get high THC easier than other weapons, since you have two weapons with +3 THC synergy bonuses, and 10 Perception is monster THC for ranged weapons, since 1 point of Per is worth 8 THC for ranged weapons.
The main problem though is not running out of decent ammo, which brings us back to Crafting.
I just remember having like 10% chance to hit pre-bola on a 10 PER crossbow run, but I don't remember if I used the synergies for thc increases. Used bolter too, which doesn't help with thc.
Makes sense that crafted throwing would do better on the thc front.
One of the problems I had with the game is that some paths are awesome (Thieves has sooooo many free skill points). And some are really difficult and have much less opportunities for free training (Praetor).
I don't think that's a bug, I think that's a feature. You can't have different paths and actual branching without differences. Some paths should be harder and easier. Everything being equal gets you banal results, case in point, 2004 - 2021.
I remember Thieves path actually being god awful during the earlier version because it stretched you too thin by requiring a overly varied skillset, so it's not like a particular path being harder or easier was ever set in stone.
Thief's path seems particularly tailored for metagaming. You can steal everything in Teron and come away with a lot more skill points than most backgrounds, as long as you do everything in the perfect sequence (there's a guide for it, somewhere). Not to mention you can use the healing machine twice, iirc. Most people recognize this as bad design, but for me it was a lot of fun trying to squeeze every little skill point out of my build and starting over countless times until I got what I wanted.
Thief's path seems particularly tailored for metagaming. You can steal everything in Teron and come away with a lot more skill points than most backgrounds, as long as you do everything in the perfect sequence (there's a guide for it, somewhere). Not to mention you can use the healing machine twice, iirc. Most people recognize this as bad design, but for me it was a lot of fun trying to squeeze every little skill point out of my build and starting over countless times until I got what I wanted.
One of the problems I had with the game is that some paths are awesome (Thieves has sooooo many free skill points). And some are really difficult and have much less opportunities for free training (Praetor).
I don't think that's a bug, I think that's a feature. You can't have different paths and actual branching without differences. Some paths should be harder and easier. Everything being equal gets you banal results, case in point, 2004 - 2021.
The issue, if there is one, is that there's no real way to tell about what the different branches entail beforehand. In AoD, you pick a rail to go on, then at some point it has branching rails again. But you don't really get much foresight into what the options entail before you do them, especially in not in Teron. Since you're just a stooge with limited ability to discover what's going on, you'll only get a proper picture when you've done
Comparing the various paths through Teron, anybody done the math on which path gives the most SP? To my mind the options could be most likely
Boatmen -> switch to Aurelian in Maadoran (gets Darius tomb)
Boatmen -> IG
Thieves playthrough straight up
Thieves into IG
Thieves into Aurelians by helping them with the mine (tomb again)
Something else? Assuming every sidequest is done ofc (thieves have more sidequest shit available, with extra reward for the pickpocket girl and the thieving for the bandit camp quest). Some complications depending on the stats, and starting background, on whether you can get both Feng and Cassius trainings, Aemolas village access while in Teron, and so on. And it's not SPs, but the combat trainings of the different guilds help a lot too, if relevant to ones build - melee for thieves, ranged for assassins, and whatever IGs get and at which point, I forget...
One of the problems I had with the game is that some paths are awesome (Thieves has sooooo many free skill points). And some are really difficult and have much less opportunities for free training (Praetor).
I don't think that's a bug, I think that's a feature. You can't have different paths and actual branching without differences. Some paths should be harder and easier. Everything being equal gets you banal results, case in point, 2004 - 2021.
The issue, if there is one, is that there's no real way to tell about what the different branches entail beforehand. In AoD, you pick a rail to go on, then at some point it has branching rails again. But you don't really get much foresight into what the options entail before you do them, especially in not in Teron. Since you're just a stooge with limited ability to discover what's going on, you'll only get a proper picture when you've done.
The lack of agency is the usual complaint about the player's position in the narrative, you're really limited in what you can do in a quite artificial way. You can usually do, main quest-wise, what your employer asks - or betray them at scripted places but not elsewhere. Whether or not you can kill a plot character doesn't depend on your skills and interpersonal relations as much as it fitting a predetermined script.
One of the problems I had with the game is that some paths are awesome (Thieves has sooooo many free skill points). And some are really difficult and have much less opportunities for free training (Praetor).
I don't think that's a bug, I think that's a feature. You can't have different paths and actual branching without differences. Some paths should be harder and easier. Everything being equal gets you banal results, case in point, 2004 - 2021.
The issue, if there is one, is that there's no real way to tell about what the different branches entail beforehand. In AoD, you pick a rail to go on, then at some point it has branching rails again. But you don't really get much foresight into what the options entail before you do them, especially in not in Teron. Since you're just a stooge with limited ability to discover what's going on, you'll only get a proper picture when you've done.
The issue I had with it was that I was left feeling that some storylines got a lot of developer time and some were an afterthought. Also some of the free training opportunities don't make that much sense. Thieves get a bonus to all melee no matter what, but Praetor has to sacrifice points into Cha to get training in... Dagger? A thief can literally do everything in Teron - including a super easy solution to the noble hostage quest for example.
Boatmen -> switch to Aurelian in Maadoran (gets Darius tomb)
Boatmen -> IG
Thieves playthrough straight up
Thieves into IG
Thieves into Aurelians by helping them with the mine (tomb again)
Merchant to aurelian via mine is the best for non-combat, but not sure it's as good as TG for hybrids while you're in Teron itself. Might have to skip militiades due to low combat skills, which is a shame.
Going pure thief until the assassination mission in maadoran, then going up and ratting them out to aurelians showers you in so many delicious SP. No tomb, but you get the extra vial as a bonus.
Merchant to aurelian via mine is the best for non-combat, but not sure it's as good as TG for hybrids while you're in Teron itself. Might have to skip militiades due to low combat skills, which is a shame.
I wish I hadn't read up about this game. I started playing it a while ago, and it seemed pretty deep and magical - and then I read about how it's cheesed and meta-ed, and that's spoiled it for me
Thief generally is. They have a lot of Thief-only trainings available. Getting the girl who tries to steal from you in Teron to join Thieves Guild is good for an extra Thief-only training too. And there are lots of small +1 SPs to be had from stealing in the inn and elsewhere, as well as breaking into residences, but those don't require you to be a member of TG faction.
Although Merchant gets a lot of free training in Maadoran. Merchant -> IG defection gets a lot of SP too, if they sell out to Cado first, because you can get Cado's training over Linos's training on top of the other merchant's training and then finish with IG (preferably Kingmaker) training instead of Linos's reduced training. Then you can backstab IG for House Aurelian if you want. If you're going for high SP you typically want a background with high HA rep and collect both Feng and Cassius trainings. 7cha usually works wonders for unlocking bonus training dialogues too. The House Aurelian training is just a reputation check though, not a faction check, so if you do something like a 10 cha build you can probably get it with any faction.
It's not any easier than the normal solutions, but it's free SP when you do that thief solution halfway, then actually complete the quest by other means.
Merchant to aurelian via mine is the best for non-combat, but not sure it's as good as TG for hybrids while you're in Teron itself. Might have to skip militiades due to low combat skills, which is a shame.
Merchant to aurelian via mine is the best for non-combat, but not sure it's as good as TG for hybrids while you're in Teron itself. Might have to skip militiades due to low combat skills, which is a shame.
Thief generally is. They have a lot of Thief-only trainings available. Getting the girl who tries to steal from you in Teron to join Thieves Guild is good for an extra Thief-only training too. And there are lots of small +1 SPs to be had from stealing in the inn and elsewhere, as well as breaking into residences, but those don't require you to be a member of TG faction.
Although Merchant gets a lot of free training in Maadoran. Merchant -> IG defection gets a lot of SP too, if they sell out to Cado first, because you can get Cado's training over Linos's training on top of the other merchant's training and then finish with IG (preferably Kingmaker) training instead of Linos's reduced training. Then you can backstab IG for House Aurelian if you want (preferably after collecting extra IG training in Maadoran). If you're going for high SP you typically want a background with high HA rep and collect both Feng and Cassius trainings. 7cha usually works wonders for unlocking bonus training dialogues too. The House Aurelian training is just a reputation check though, not a faction check, so if you do something like a 10 cha build you can probably get it with any faction.
I forgot to add +5 sp for the ettiquette scroll, but yeah I meant the complete infiltration including that and the mantra scroll sp. If you don't get the scroll, you can infiltrate bloodlessly, but afaik the only way to get into the bedroom is to DFA the guard.
Does anyone get more faction-specific training than thieves? As commerce I think you can get
15/10(15?)/15 from Zenon/Linos/Cado + 15 Cassius/Feng since you have rep
, which is almost there except Azis' reward "scales".
Thief gets the most, especially if you count the extra sp from using thief skills in the TG quests, but Assassin is close, depending on whether you betray AG for IG in Assassin Quest 2 or not, or join Aurelian start of act 2, and depending on how you want to count +1 CS points. Assassin can also maximize the freebie points in Teron while Thief can't. Thief should also spend at least 15 sp to bump steal to 3 for the Thief prelude, while Assassins should leave steal at 1 (I haven't found anything amazing fo steal, although steal 3 almost pays for itself as a Thief). But the best benefits of the Thief path is a) Killer of Men title and b) Levir's jar in act 2.
Here is the head to head (assuming Thief Cha 7 vs Asassin Cha 7): Thief prelude +10 (Cado's Locks), +3 skill use / Assassin prelude +1 cs, +2 body count / Mercenary prelude +2 cp, +3 body count Aziz +10 melee / Fulvio +15 ranged Livia +15 / Coltan +5 (alchemy) Lucius +10 CS (Cha 7) / Agatai +10 CS* +15 cp to cs if cs < 6, otherwise +10 cs TG Quest 1 +2 skill use / AG Quest 1 +1 cp, +1 Word of Honor, +2 body count Cado's goblet mission +3 skill use / Shanty town thief +1 cs, +1 body count Feng OR Cassius +15 (+1 cp or +1 cs for killing Cassius) / Feng AND Cassius +30, +1 skill use for Gelbo's Ring (requires betraying Feng. Let Cassius live, get the ring from Feng, then use Persuasion or Lore to get Antidas to accept the ring despite Cassius' snitching) TG Quest 2-3 +3 cp, +3 skill use, +1 cs, Killer of Men title / AG Quest 2-3 +3 cp, +1 skill use, +1 cs
Instead of AG Quest 2-3, Assassins can betray to IG. Assuming you choose to kill Antidas, you get +3 cp, +2 cs, and the Imperial Guard training +10 melee, +10 block and +10 dodge
Solving Aurelian Outpost + Raider Camp by Terminator path gives +5 cp, +2 cs and a lot of body count.
Solving Aurelian Outpost + Raider Camp by Manipulator path gives Cado's goblet mission for Thief and +1 Word of Honor.
A thief could also forfeit getting either title and solve the Outpost by combat and Raider Camp by Thief method, giving + 3 cp, +3 skill use, +1 cs (no Word of Honor)
Assassins can dump the Steal skill, while Thieves should either raise Steal to 3 to get all the prelude points, or forfeit the bonus prelude points (but you can still get +10 lockpick from Cado by looting the merchant's body after he's been assassinated). Thieves also need to raise steal to 4 if they want to get the Commercium ring in TG Quest 2. I haven't found a good use for high Steal so I recommend Assassins dump it.
Steal 3 costs 15 sp and earns back 7 sp (3 from the full Thief prelude, 4 total from Teron inn) so the net is -8.
So an Assassin dumping Steal comes just a few points shy of a Thief with Steal 3 in terms of benefit points. Thieves that dump Steal come out ahead the most.
In Maadoran, TG can get Levir's canister AND TG Q5 before betraying Levir, while AG can get Darius' Tomb quest by switching to Aurelian praetor.
