I think I screwed up (Dead Nations/Hargrimm)

Woolie_Wool

I picked the wrong dialogue choice when I walked into the Dead Nations, pissed off Hargrimm by not believing he would spare me if I "submitted", and for whatever foolish reason, overwrote my quicksaves. My last hard save was an hour earlier in the Trash Warrens, and I ran off and did the Warren of Thought after that, so now I'm two hours out from my last hard save. Hargrimm has a huge, gigantic number of minions who will surround and kill me if I fight them. I suppose I could abuse the resurrection mechanic to slowly grind the ghouls down by letting TNO die over and over, but I can't get my spells back or heal my companions so even if I did kill all the ghouls, TNO, as a level 4 mage who's used up all his spells, is way too weak to beat Hargrimm, who fully heals himself every time I die. Am I going to have to do the Buried Village and the Catacombs all over again or is there a way to get around this/level grind somewhere else?

Really this game is kind of disappointing me. I expected some awesome role-playing and weird Planescape trippy stuff, but so far the game just wallows in squalor and gross-out comedy/shock value with lots of repetitive, unpleasant combat against trash mobs with characters who would probably get their asses kicked by a level 1 Baldur's Gate party fresh out of the Friendly Arm Inn. Can I please get at least a ranged weapon or something for TNO somewhere so he doesn't have to stand there in melee with his awful AC and get butchered?

"Buff your mental stats," they said. "It will unlock dialogue options," they said. I should have just rolled high STR and DEX and stayed a fighter. Being a wizard with 13 CON, 9 STR, and 12 DEX and trying to stab people with a tiny little knife makes me sympathize with Xan's worldview.

elminster

If you aren't running on android/IOS you could just enable the console and Ctrl+Y them all (or a bunch of them). That or Ctrl+R yourself until they are all dead.

Woolie_Wool

Adding SetPrivateProfileString(‘Program Options’,’Debug Mode’,’1′) to the end of Baldur.lua for PST:EE just makes the game overwrite the lua with the default and erase all my settings.

How ironic that the game known for its involved story and lackluster combat lacks Story Mode, which was introduced by the game known for its tactical dungeon crawling and story that amounts to an excuse to crawl dungeons.

Meyahi

I don't want to spoil you or anything but you should be much higher than lvl4 even as a new mage. You should try to chat with Dak'kon a bit.
Wisdom is very important in letting you gain levels fast.
Loot everything and buy tattoos in the Smoldering Corpse area. (Wisdom, always, and int if you have sub 18 since you need that to finish Dak'kon's mage related dialogue, Charisma (15 or 16 don't remember) is also useful if you want to peacefully resolve the Dead Nations vs Rats quest but the options is still very easy to miss).
If you still feel too weak, just advance the main plot and you'll have more followers helping you overcome your shortcomings.
If you regret becoming a mage Dak'kon can turn you back into a fighter. He's in the smoldering corpse bar.

The last option is to use the cheating axe from the console for dialogues and not using it for combat. You'll be sure that you won't miss any dialogue option due to stat checks. I advise against it though since it breaks immersion.

Woolie_Wool

My WIS is 9, it's not enough to even pass Dak'kon's first circle; I thought INT and CHR would be more important. As for regretting being a mage, I selected my starting stats with being a mage in mind, 9 STR is pathetic for a fighter. My problem is that I can't use my class to proper advantage without a ranged weapon (I never send single-class mages into melee in Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale).

As for advancing the main plot, I thought

fetching Pharod his water bottle

was necessary to advance the main quest. Hargrim's got the key and I'm officially on his shit list.

Meyahi

About Pharod's quest:

Are you still trapped there? if yes, follow the quests and kill Soego you'll be able to leave. There is another exit that you can then acces to get what you need for pharod and it's the Sphere not the water -there is also an interesting puzzle like area but you can go there later since you will be asked to. You don't need the audience with the Silent King

Purudaya

Woolie_Wool said:

Really this game is kind of disappointing me. I expected some awesome role-playing and weird Planescape trippy stuff, but so far the game just wallows in squalor and gross-out comedy/shock value with lots of repetitive, unpleasant combat against trash mobs with characters who would probably get their asses kicked by a level 1 Baldur's Gate party fresh out of the Friendly Arm Inn. Can I please get at least a ranged weapon or something for TNO somewhere so he doesn't have to stand there in melee with his awful AC and get butchered?

"Buff your mental stats," they said. "It will unlock dialogue options," they said. I should have just rolled high STR and DEX and stayed a fighter. Being a wizard with 13 CON, 9 STR, and 12 DEX and trying to stab people with a tiny little knife makes me sympathize with Xan's worldview.

All I ever heard about PS:T over the years was how unique it was because you could talk your way through most anything and that there were only a "handful" of combat encounters if you chose the right dialogue options. Yeah...turns out that's not true at all. My base 14 CHA/18 INT/18 WIS mage has seen *plenty* of combat, and I can't think of one fight that has been more satisfying than it has been boring or frustrating. It's still a great game and beautifully written, but the half-baked combat is a significantly larger part of it than people say.

I'm also playing a mage: level to 6-7 as a fighter, find a trainer who will help you spend proficiency points in daggers (nowhere is this explained in-game), and talk extensively with Dak'kon. With his buff spells and regular casting of blur, you can sort of fighter/mage it through combat (even with low STR/DEX/CON) until you start getting higher level spells. As far as ranged weapons go, I haven't seen any kind of lootable/buyable ranged weapons in the game whatsoever (to the point where I'm starting to wonder why I have quiver slots at all) and I'm over half way through. There is an optional party member that is exclusively ranged, but if you hate the combat in this game then you're not gonna like what it takes to get him.

Keep playing, though; maybe drag the difficulty slider back. The narrative is definitely worth it.

Woolie_Wool

Meyahi said:

About Pharod's quest:

Are you still trapped there? if yes, follow the quests and kill Soego you'll be able to leave. There is another exit that you can then acces to get what you need for pharod and it's the Sphere not the water -there is also an interesting puzzle like area but you can go there later since you will be asked to. You don't need the audience with the Silent King

That requires me to kill Hargrimm, which as I said, I can't do. I am stuck inside the Catacombs, not the Dead Nations, because setting foot inside the Dead Nations will lead to my immediate death.

As for the narrative, does it ever get away from grimy slums and disease-ridden freaks and bizarre creatures who do not act anything like people? I want to meet a person somewhere in this game, not some high-concept idea of a "being". The only character I've met in seven hours of playing who was at all engaging was Morte, and that was in spite of his ridiculous slang dialect (is it Cockney? Polari? Why can't he just say "rumor" or "money" like a normal person?). Because if stuff like Dak'kon's philosophical nonsense, insane cannibal body collectors, and warrens of garbage are what this game is about, I'd rather just wash my hands of it, read/watch someone else's spoiler-filled analysis, and go replay Pillars of Eternity (which does the philosophical thing with a setting and characters I can actually relate to) or something. I'm staring at having to go back and replay two hours of a game that has so far completely failed to engage me in the hopes that it might engage me in the future. If I had actually been having fun up to that point I would have gone ahead and done it already.

Doubledimas

After finishing this part,

you will arrive in the upper class parts of Sigil. And deal with humans mostly.

Meyahi

If you could leave the dead nations, you could go to the drowned nations. That's where the sphere is.
You can also go to the drowned nations through the rat faction by talking to many as one and promising the death of the silent king. You don't even need to actually complete the quest to access the drowned nations area.

If you don't like the setting, nothing can be done about it. The next big area is different but we're not here to convince you to play the game while you whine about it.

Vokasak

Woolie_Wool said:

TNO, as a level 4 mage

Jesus penis. I'm pretty sure my TNO was higher than level 4 as a mage before even leaving Mebbeth's hut. Try talking to Dak'kon, especially if you took the obvious advice and invested in your Wis early on.

Edit: Nevermind, I just saw your post where you said your wisdom was a 9...
It may be time to reroll. For what it's worth, my favorite part of the game is once you get into the Lower Ward / Clerk Ward.

elminster

Woolie_Wool said:

Adding SetPrivateProfileString(‘Program Options’,’Debug Mode’,’1′) to the end of Baldur.lua for PST:EE just makes the game overwrite the lua with the default and erase all my settings.dungeons.

Make sure you have smart quotes disabled.

Woolie_Wool

Well I redid that part and got to the wards, and the game is finally getting interesting with a whole bunch of plot revelations happening one after another, and it's been three or four levels since I've had to fight somebody. Also I'm investing all my level-up stat points into WIS so it's up to 14 now.

Kind of wish they had started doing that earlier. CRPGs of the era seem to be pretty universally bad at first impressions, but this one was particularly bad at it. It was when

Morte divulged his backstory after I recruited Fall-from-Grace

when I finally understood how this game got its reputation.

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Pokota

I've more-or-less abandoned my first attempt (16 STR/CON/WIS) and am focusing on my second.

Did you know you don't retain your Thief abilities while you're a fighter? Or do I actually need more Thief levels for that to carry over like in regular Dual Classing?

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