Tips for Noobs:

[traviniperv]

I've started this game about 100 times and finished it about 20 times (back in the Win98 days). Learned a lot of things that might help some frustrated of you new people getting frustrated.

01 - Mods are good. They come in the form of .DRES files and need to be put in your RESOURCES folder, not the main game folder.
I actually forget that sometimes when I havent played in a while and am starting a new game. At the bare minimum I recommend something which increases your inventory size. There are probably more mods for that one issue than any other type. Shopkeepers are rare and far apart in this game. And the transmute spell isnt available right away. Also I dont think it gives you full value for item. Plus things like potions and scrolls cant be transmuted, only sold. Also the game is a lot easier if you have a huge stash of potions.
XP multiplier mods are nice too, but be wary of anything that provides x10,000,000 XP, it will unbalance your game. Kanes XP rings is a good mod (google for it). Just dont use the big ones. The 10x, 100x, and 1000x are probably best to use all the time. The 100,000x are for when you're trying to buff up a weak statistic quickly, like Strength on someone who was previously a full time mage. Mods that remove fog of war might seem nice, but keep in mind you need fog of war to tell you where you havent been yet. Some of the best goodies are in narrow side passages and you dont want to ignore or miss them.

02 - Get used to using the hot keys, especially TAB for the map, and H and M for potions. Also Z for picking up nearby items automatically.

03 - Health and mana potions potions can not be wasted.
You only use exactly what you need and no more. Dont ever be afraid to hit the M or H key or the little icon in the lower left corner, even if you are still 9/10ths full. Elixers can be wasted, but are still useful for when you need to buff up both HP and MP quickly at the same time.

04 - There are a limited amount of enemies in the game and ultimately a limited amount of XP. If you really screw up your character build you can not fix it easily.

05 - There is XP. You cant see the numbers but they are there in the background.
In fact there are mods to let you see the actual XP numbers because so many people demanded this. Building up each skill point requires progressivly more XP. It requires much more XP to go from Melee 60 to melee 61 than to go from 1 to 10. HOWEVER, for individual characters it is generally best to pick one skill and specialize. Trying to make a jack of all trades usually ends up with a relatively unimpressive character. Though they will be able to hold their own.

06 - Your party on the other hand does need to be balanced.
A recommened group for new players is two fighters, two archers, two combat mages and two nature mages. If you get one of the many recommended backpack mods you wont need to take that stupid donkey with you and waste party slots. (Also, you eventually find more than 8 characters and have to start dropping some off. I recommend doing that in the middle of a major town so you can find them again if desired.) Going with an all melee or archer party is very possible. An all mage party will be difficult for new players, especially in the last 1/3rd of the game.
Even though you will have to split up XP with a group of 8 people, the game is overall easier with large parties. They can back each other up, distract the enemy, and heal. In fact at some points its very effective to have 4 people attacking and 4 dedicated healers.

07 - Strength boosts HP, Dexterity boosts HP and MP. Intelligence boosts MP. Melee mostly boosts strength, but has a small effect on Dex and a tiny effect on Int. Archery mostly boosts Dex but has a decent effect on strength and small effect on Int. Spells of either school boost Int but have a small Dex effect and a super tiny Str effect. Spell casting completely by itself is not enough to raise HP sufficiently. Fighting with bare hands only raises strength, not the melee skill. Since improving the melee skill is helpful it makes no sense to do this. Keep a basic melee weapon in the inventory of mages at all times. One they can actually use, that doesnt require a high strength or Dex.

07 - All characters need health to stay alive, so hit points are important even if you have dedicated healers and keep casting protection spells.
From time to time you will need to switch your mages over to melee or ranged and let them build up their strength and dex to boost hitpoints. This is also a good time to have your fighters switch over to healing spells and raise their magic just a little. Every fighter and archer should always have Zap, Healing Hands, and Firebolt available in their spellbook for this reason. If you boost Combat magic up high enough with Firebolt, also consider adding in Combat Healing. They dont need to level too high, just enough to let your mages fight hand-to-hand for a little while and keep them alive. Then switch back when your mages arent quite so wimpy. The good thing about raising Str and Dex is its possible they can equip slightly better armor.

08 - Magic skills raise faster than intelligence.
You need Int for a good MP, but if you focus on one magic skill eventually the spells will be too powerful and expensive to cast constantly. When that happens you can either switch back to Zap or Firebolt as they are always the cheapest at any given skill level, OR, you can start using the other magic and raise that skill to also raise Int and MP. Or you can use bows for a while to raise Ranged and Dex, which will raise MP slightly. You can also pile on the blue potions and just keep chugging them down all the time, but that can be tedious. If your mages have very low HP eventually tough bosses will be able to get one-hit-kills and then no amount of potions can save them.

09 - If you download mods that change the ratio of XP gain, or stat gain, then obviously all of the above rules change completely.
I recommend a vanilla experience for first-time-players. The game is quite winnable on Easy, you just have to stop occasionally and think about whats going on.

10 - Dont be afraid to pause.
Like most other party games (Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale) you can pause the game and issue commands. Its OK to stop, check your HP, and hit the health potion button if you need to. Also, enemies dont generally follow you very far, so if you need to back off to heal thats perfectly fine. The exception to this is sometimes you will be trapped in a medium size room with a boss and cant fall back enough to take a break. Save often. Keep track of the AI options in the lower right corner. It generally makes sense to have the group stick together, so dont let melee characters follow the enemy too far.


11 - Area effect spells usually dont hit too many enemies, not even the mighty Fireball. However, they are very good for breaking up multiple barells and treasure chests at one time. Summon spells can be nice but I find its easier to to just zap or firebolt enemies. Unless you are trying to do a solo Mage game in which case you will need the extra bodies. Buff spells like mage armor can be cast multiple times to increase their duration. This is much better than wasting time in the middle of a battle to cast it again. EVERYONE should have at least a couple Resurrection scrolls, even if they are a mage and have the resurrection spell and lots of MP. Sometimes you get hammered and only have a single fighter left to run away with. Fighters should probably have 3 or 4 resurrection scrolls.

12 - Dungeons have loads of secrets, most of them are not obvious.
The very first dungeon (that guys basement) has a special section of wall that can be bashed down and open a secret room with lots of goodies. You wont find it unless you hover the mouse over that section of wall. When in dungeouns you'd probably do better to zoom in and pan around frequently. Most moving platforms will activate if you simply stand on them, but buttons which do other things like open doors or disable traps are usually not standing out. Similarly, most dark rooms actually have a torch against the wall if you simply look for it. Click on it once and it will light up and stay lit forever.
Dont be afraid to backtrack and see if you can find a hidden object you may have missed before. It may have monsters (which are ultimately limited and so is XP) or nice equipment you normally woudlnt have. The first real dungeon you explore (with a boss at the end, and a new character) has many secret rooms and some really darn nice weapons & armor. Also, it is possible to walk back from the very end of the game to the very beginning, though it obviously takes a while. But there wont be enemies slowing you down and sometimes theres shortcuts (like that broken fortress wall with the big door).

13 - Those little standing stones restore health or mana to anyone that stands on them. Fighting enemies in the vicinity of them is a lot more efficienct than drinking potions constantly. Try using one member to draw enemies back to your party there. Fairy's can also heal you, but only once and sometimes they just wont do it.



--- More to follow.

[traviniperv]

14 - Your starting character is a human, and can raise all stats equally.
Eventually you will have access to up to 2 dwarves (maybe 3?). They raise melee fast but other skills slow. Even by the end game I find they are not much better than a human fighter. Since I also recommend all fighters have some skill in magic, its probably best to NOT bring your dwarf characters all the way to the end game. Swap them out with humans when you finally get more than 8 characters.

You can also get a lizard man towards the last third of the game, but I forgot how his stats advance. I think he is also more geared towards melee.


Before the first main dungeon, and after the basement of that guys house, you will find a white statue in the woods near the sign telling you where the crypts are. Click on that tall white statue and it will open hidden stairs to a mini-dungeon, where you find new types of enemies, and some good equipment. The game has MANY secret areas like this, usually filled with goodies. Sometime they are in the overland area, sometimes they are in dungeons. Mini dungeons within the main dungeons. They may even have a different theme to them and unusual enemies.

If you dig around the internet you can find maps of these places. Dont be afraid to backtrack if you missed them. Its usually worth the trip.

[traviniperv]

SAVE FREQUENTLY!!!

The game auto saves but only after important story elements. Those are extremely rare. Manual saves are a good idea. If you run the game at a non-standard resolution (anything above 1024x768) you will experience the occassional crash. I just lost about 35 minutes worth of work.
Also, if you alt-tab a lot the game will crash eventually.

[Berahlen]

Keep several save slots -- alternate one or two for general use, and keep a third one after every major area.

The reason? The port on Steam appears to use a lot of the engine changes from Legends of Aranna, which was notoriously unstable. Not only does it crash frequently (even on lower supported resolution), but ingame data can become corrupted badly enough that your save files become crash-prone as well.

I nearly had to restart the entire game shortly after the Traveler's Camp because both of my save files picked up some kind of cascading bug that would crash the game exactly X seconds after loading. Only the autosave -- far, far earlier and forcing me to redo quite a bit of content -- allowed me to take another shot at it.

[Tyrchon]

Great List!

[76561198862441491]

Locking this one up to make sure it doesn’t get necro’d again. Thanks for understanding!