Starting Heart of Winter Expansion

[wyavalanchefan]

So I have researched that in order to start the expansion, all characters must be level 9 or higher.

As of now, all 6 of my party members are above level 9 - yet Hjollder continues to tell me I am still not strong enough for the task at hand.

Is this a bug or is there another prerequisite that needs to be completed before starting HoW?

[Black Sheep Inc]

Out of curiosity, what's your party comp? I may not know the details, but I can tell you with certainty that level 9 is not necessarily the minimum requirement. I tried running solo fresh start HoF with mages a while back, and found that all of the runs eventually died to Hjollder's level requirement. Tinkering around with the console allowed me to determine that, when playing alone, level 9 is not high enough for mages to enter HoW: they need to be at least level 12.

Now, this is purely speculation on my part, but i believe that, in actuality, different classes have a different level requirement, and that 9 is simply both the lowest and most commonly used (likely belonging to one or all of the warrior subtypes). If that's true, and if a certain percentage of party members have to meet their requirements for HoW to trigger, then it is possible for certain, more unorthodox, team comps to need to be higher than level 9 as a whole in order to start the expansion. (If you were running six mages, for example)

Granted, I don't know if any of that speculation's correct. I've been wanting to test how the level requirements work for over a year, but have never quite found the time, energy and motivation. If nothing else, I can repeat what I said before: level 9 isn't necessarily the minimum requirement in all cases.

[wyavalanchefan]

Thank you for responding!

Here is my groups makeup:

11th level Swashbuckler (Thief)
9th level Monk
9th level Sorcerer
11th level Avenger (Druid)
9th level Priest of Tempus (Cleric)
9th level Shaman

As far as the main story goes, I am currently on Chapter 2 - 2nd level of Dragon's Eye.

Let me know if you have any other input or questions.

[Black Sheep Inc]

So I tested that party comp at the levels you listed, and no—it’s not just you. As near as I can tell, you need around 250000 experience points per character in order to proceed, meaning that both your sorcerer and shaman will likely need to be level 10 before Hjollder will let you pass. .

[Black Sheep Inc]

Also, after loading up some of those old mage files and doing some other tests, my new conclusion is this: Regardless of the party's size, at least one character must have 250,000 experience points in order to start HoW. The actual level of the character in question has nothing to do with it, but they will coincidentally be at least level 9. So long as this requirement is met, the other party members can be as low as level 1 with no experience whatsoever and it will still work. I hope this helps!

(Side note, after this latest round of testing, I have no idea now how I arrived at the conclusion that mages need to be at least level 12, and apologize for the false information.)

[wyavalanchefan]

Thanks for your hard work!
You are correct: When I passed the 250k mark for each characters XP, my party was transported to Lonelywood.

Appreciuate all your feedback! You were the Hero my party needed - not the one they deserved!