Any tips?

[Larry]

I'm having a hard time to say the least. Playing as a warrior and i'm still in the start village about three hours in and level 5. When I use the pyramid it brings me to a room in the catacombs that leads to a locked door that doesn't seem to have a key in sight or a lever to open the door. I'm guessing the pyramid leads to the main objective(Finding the demon possessing the leader of the village) but I can't progress any further anywhere else in the game because of "Boss" mobs that appear at random.

I went ahead into the catacombs, cleared out the first and second floor(Bar the really tough boss mob in the top left corner of the second floor map and the tough conjurer boss mob) but I keep hitting a freakin' wall in the form of boss mobs that seems to be way too powerful for me to take on at my level.

I need tips on how to progress. I read that you should grind Orcs outside the village until you're at least level 10 but they're quite tough and hit like a truck. What the hell do I do? I've got Augmented Defense ability, repair, Swords and Axes(Which are the only weapons around). I've got 30Str and 15 Agility and 12 Int and 12 Constitution. My armour shouldn't be too bad(The shield I stole from the shop keeper aswell as the armour which are above average I think) and my weapons are okay. I deal about 33-35 damage at level 5.

It just seems too unforgiving and feels like it's pushing me to grind in order to progress. I'm enjoying it but dying to a boss mob time and time again without any inkling that it's there until it cracks your skull open is more than frustrating especially when there's no quick save and the main menu has a significant delay. :/

[OctopusOnFire]

I'm also new to DD, but I started playing as mage. Maybe it's a bit easier playing from ranged, but anyway, I'm also playing melee mostly, and if you keep all the quests up to date you should be fine.

[Larry]

It was fine and really easy for the first bit but then you literally hit a wall. At least I have on medium difficulty. The first level and second level are relatively easy to clear out but those boss mobs are just incredibly tough and I don't have the potions or food to chug in order to take them down.

[ants-in-yer-pants]

Using a bow helps a lot at the start (short bow will do until you get the agility and strength to use the compound bow) but it takes a little bit of shooting and running until you find a nice one to use, and there are 3-4 op abilities that can be aquired earlyish in the game. Freeze is helpful against the orcs especially the drummers, deadly gift scorpion traps are very powerul even at level 1 and poison weopon is particularly useful if used on the bow. Not all of these will work against undead however. Meteorite strike can be used in the same way as the bow but you will need a few mana potions to be able to spam it enough to take down the bosses.

Alchemy at level 2 will allow you to create health potions from the red mushrooms as long as you can aquire small empty flasks from the traders in aleroth.

[Larry]

Four hours played... I think i'm just going to restart on easy and save myself a lot of trouble. I really don't have the patience to grind mobs in a single player RPG or be set back every time I die and have to progress using trial and error tactics.

It's a good game, I really like the old school RPG feel to it. It's deep and there's so much there that you just don't get in games these days but I really can't play something so unforgiving and brutal.

[Larry]

Screw it! I'm done! Going against orcs only for ten of them to pop out of nowhere when i've set the damn game to Easy. This is just too much BS for me to handle. /rant.

[Raze_Larian]

You should be able to see opponents on your mini-map before they are in range.

The orcs to the north, east and west of Aleroth are weaker and in smaller groups than if you go too far south.

Tips and Tactics.

[OctopusOnFire]

You shouldn't be grinding, I dunno who told you tht but I havent grinded for 1 second. Do all the quests in the healer's village, unless you have to get outside of it. Just keep doing the quests inside the village until you clear up the catacombs below it. Freeze won't help you much with undeads, and I guess your biggest problem will be not having the best equipment ever to protect yourself.
Learn 1 level of alchemy, you'll be able to combine hp and mp potions to get 1 restoration, it's way more efficient and it'll keep you in the fight longer. Also learn 1 lvl of repair, you won't need more but it's critical to be able to repair your gear without having to run back.
Also learn 1 protective skill, like the phisichal def aura from the mage skill tree (I think you need a couple more levels to learn it).

In short, do the quests, and enjoy the stories and the atmosphere (some of the best I've ever seen in a game), don't focus on the grind, and if some area is too difficult for you, just try to discover all the earlier areas, there are many side quests that will give you much more xp than grinding for hours.

[Larry]

I think I have done all the quests in the village. I duplicated the healing gems, opened all the houses, picked the dundane flowers for the shop keeper and helped the elf. I got to level 3 or level 4 with it and gained a level or two in the catacombs. I've cleared it out bar the boss mobs and gotten to catacombs level 3(With all the tombs you have to open in order to access the next floor). I've also gotten Slasher but not given it to the Orc(I want to hang onto it). I think I managed to kill the boss mob guarding it but i'm not too sure. I did managed to kill one boss mob but the others seems to be too tough.

I'm primarily in the warrior tree at the moment. I have repair, Augmented defence(?) which helped a lot, elven sight and Axe Mastery(Which did a lot for damage given how Axes are the only items I can use right now!). I'm too low to learn anything else(Level 5).

Did I miss a big chunk of content here or what? I took care to take my time exploring the village and doing each quest aswell as doing the catacombs.

[Natook]

I use a lot of potions, kiting, and resting. I usually go in to the catacombs, fight a bit, go up to the village and rest in the bed (where I woke up in the beginning), go buy a bunch of potions and then go down and fight a bit more.

Learning traps is very useful and alchemy as well. Using the scorpion trap in a room full of mobs is really nice.

When you progress into the world you will be surprised at times and encounter mobs which will kill you instantely. For me, its part of the charm of the game. I like that it's not linear and predictable. Some areas you simply have to revisit later. Quicksave is your friend though.

[Raze_Larian]

At the start of the game you can make it to level 4 killing the zombie Jake twice, though it would require a bow and a lot of running, or Meteorstrike and less running. He wouldn't give as much experience on level 5, but then he would be easier to kill.
The easiest place to kill him would be in the small cemetery, since you have room to run away if you need to (on level 1 this would give you enough experience to get to level 3). There is less room in the cellar of his house, which is just south of the cemetery (on level 3 that would give enough experience to get to level 4).

At the beginning of the game you can rely mostly on food or sleep to heal after combat, and just use potions during. Eventually restoration potions[www.larian.com] become more effective than individual health or mana potions (when you have more than 80 hit points or mana).

At least in the disk version, there was an exploit where you could finish the axe quest but keep Slasher, by making sure that you did not have any axes at all in your inventory when you talked to the orc (if you had Slasher he would take it, if you had any axe he would test it and give it back, but if you had no axes he would act like he was given Slasher, possibly designed that way so accidentally selling the axe wouldn't break the quest).

Merchant inventories reset after about 10 or 15 minutes real time, so you can keep checking back with George to see if he has any better weapons.

If you quick save before running your mouse over an item/chest/merchant or hitting the alt key, you can identify the item or trade with the merchant, then quick load to get different stats or inventory. This can be done repeatedly to get the best stats or specific bonuses on an item (save after finding good candidates) or looking for specific items (such as spellbooks or charms) from merchants. Don't waste too much time with this, though, it really isn't necessary to get the best possible equipment (though it helps at the start of the game).

There are lots of good axes in the catacombs, but you should also have Sword Expertise on level 2 if you started with a male warrior. With one point in Sword Expertise and Augment Damage (the starting skills for the male warrior), you just have to save and re-load to get another level of each. This also works for other characters, but you have to put the first skill point in yourself (their own starting skills do not get a bonus).

Stun helps with a melee character, but I don't recall what level you need to learn it (and it doesn't kick in very often until you get it up a couple levels).

[ants-in-yer-pants]

Im playing the steam version now and I can confirm you can keep slasher still and turn in the quest. I put a chest in my inventory and then dropped it in my base for storage, I put slasher in the chest and it worked. It didn't work if I just had slasher on the floor though.

I haven't tried the warrior yet on the steam version, was wondering if the save game and loading the same file straight after (not quick loads/saves) still gave the extra piont in the male warrior starting skills, good to hear it still does! I didn't know it works for other classes though... I presume I can do this later in the game?

[Raze_Larian]

Yes, for a mage, survivor or female warrior I think you can put the first skill point into Sword Expertise and/or Augment Damage at any point in the game, and the next time you load a save after that, these skills will be at level 2.

[Slurgi]

I'm playing a warrior on hard difficulty and I ran into the same problems as you. Here's what I did to get past the beginning:

1) Invested 1 point into meteorstrike(combined w/ mana chugging you can kill monsters that will 1 shot you in the beginning)
2) Bought as many hp/mana pots as I could (always pause and use hp pots in battle)
3) Used quicksave/pause a lot
4) Kept 1 pyramid stone next to the starting bed to heal when I needed

Also, I skipped some of the tougher monsters and came back. There's no reason you need to kill the mini-boss monsters the second you run into them. Just keep killing skeletons in the catacombs until you can start fighting orcs. Once you can kill orcs you'll be strong enough to stand a chance against the conjurers/skeletal guardians. Also the further down you go in the catacombs the better weapons you'll find. By skipping the tougher mobs on level 1 & 2 I found a mace on level 4 that kills almost everything in 1 hit.

You scale in power REALLY quickly once you find some semi-decent items & level up. The stuff in the very beginning you buy from shop keepers is literally trash.

[Oreas27]

I use the inventory glitch and duplicate scorpian traps, as thief and mass spam them all over map.. i then proceed to the hammock position and sleep as the experience rolls in. ^^

[76561197970562881]

You start with meteor strike and can fire it many times even if you are going warrior. I found that the catacombs were a cakewalk as long as I knew when to use meteor strike instead of melee. Just blast blast blast blast run blast blast blast run etc on the tougher things. Easy peasy, no need for grinding. I'm about level 20 on my first playthrough and once I started using all tools at my disposal the game has been pretty easy on medium.

Also, quicksave a lot, this is one of those old school games where you might die at any time. not ideal, but easy enough to mitigate with quick save/quick load.