[SPOILERS] Path of Blood, Source Masters, and Purging Wands

[Orion Invictus]

I was unable to find specific answers to these questions, so here we go.

My goal is to see if a character with the Villain tag can also pass the Path of Blood. I've had my summons and totems kill every enemy so far and never lied to anyone, but now I'm about to unlock Source Vampirism.

Via save scumming I found that I'm on the verge of unlocking the Villain tag (allowing Hannag to drain all the animals and draining 3 spirits did it), so I'm just crossing my fingers that I didn't miss something along the way, like an enemy I accidentally killed via poison damage or whatever.

My first issue is with the Source Masters. Will Hannag killing a bunch of forest animals or Jahan killing demons stop me from passing the Path of Blood?

My second issue is when you unlock Source Vampirism. From what I understand, you cannot use it, ever, including when your god tells you to. How do I prevent it? There's no way out of my soul unless I use it, and no dialogue option (that I know of) lets you refuse it.

My third issue is with the Purging Wands. Does this count toward the Source Vampirism thing? Because if so, I'm already screwed.

[Raggle Fraggles]

Ok bear with me because i'm mostly gonna speculate in a non cohesive manner. but in short, I don't think it's possible with the Villain Tag.

I haven't tested the purging wand thing, but on the assumption does count (and it should as purging wands acts as Source Vampirism and the Path of blood requirement is to respect source. Using a purging wand is not respecting source) In addition, you killed Shriekers, so you done killed somebody. The only only way to progress off of Fort Joy without using a purging wand would be to Help Slane by giving him a purging wand and have him deal with Shreikers. On the Nameless Isle you would have to take the back door into the Academy and skip pretty much everything else on that Island, including the Shreikers there. You can leave Driftwood i think withoutn ever actually having to do that Reimond fight at the blackpits and you should be able to teleport your way around the Shrieker in the mines.

I don't know if killing with totems/summons circumvents the no kill rule since you'd have to summon them, and by extension you kill the person. Unless you have another party member do the summoning. The run you're doing now will be a test for it, it seems. As for Hannag/Jahan, you're technically involved in the killing so maybe? That's the real test here, anyway.

For Source Vampirism, best bet would be to learn the location of Nameless Isle some other way. Only way I can think of that doesn't involve killing anyone is failing to obtain source points from every possible person. BUT doing it what way won't get you the villain tag via Hannag Malady will give you the location this way, so you don't have to do that Hall of Echoes source vampirsm thing. BUT she will die by the end of the game

Only 3 ways to leave Driftwood, getting ti form your God, which is the Source Vampirism method, learning it from the Advocate, which is only possible through killing those Blackring dudes around the Blood Island tree, or the before mentioned Malady way, which voids you getting the villain tag. Looks like you;d have to bank on source vamprism on your god when learning it doesn't count, since their source is still there when using it in that particular instance. Or find another way to get the villain tag that somehow won't void Path of Blood requirement

Also, make sure you never steal anything either. Can't steal. Make sure you didn't do that.

In short, testing ALL of those things requires a very specific playthrough doing and skipping very specific things and most people wouldn't bother. Looks like you're the guy doing the testing. On instinct, I want to say it's not possible because of what's involved with Hannag and you getting the villain tag in the first place. Someone has to die in order to get the villain tag as far as I'm aware, might just be impossible.

TLDR: Shouldn't be possible due to contradicting circumstances in Act 2.

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Raggle Fraggles:

I haven't tested the purging wand thing, but on the assumption does count (and it should as purging wands acts as Source Vampirism and the requirmeent is to Respect source. In additoio you killed Shriekers, so you done killed somebody) then the only way to progress off of Fort Joy would be to Help Slane by giving him a purging wand and have him deal with Shreikers. On the Nameless Isle you would have to take the back door into the Academy and skip pretty much everything else on that Island, including the Shreikers there.

I don't know if killing with totems/summons circumvents the no kill rule since you'd have to summon them, and by extension you kill the person. Unless you have another party member do the summoning. the run you're doing now will be a test for it, it seems. As for Hannag/Jahan, you're technically involved in the killing so maybe? Guess you'll that out too.

For Source Vampirism, best bet would be to learn the location of Nameless Isle some other way. Only way I can think of that doesn't involve killing anyone is failing to obtain source points from every possible person. Malady will give you the location this way, so you don't have to do that Hall of Echoes source vampirsm thing. BUT she will die by the end of the game

Addtionally, make sure you never steal anything either. Can't steal.

In short, testing ALL of those things requires a very specfific playthrough doing and skipping very specific things and most people wouldn't bother. Looks like you;re the guy doing the testing. On instinct, I want to say it's not possible because of what;s involved with Hannag and you getting the villain tag in the first place. Someone has to die in order to get the villain tag as far as I'm aware, might just be impossible.

Thing is, I'm already in Arx and used the Purging Wands on the Shriekers. "I" (my summons) killed Slane because that was the evil thing to do, so that path was out. It never even occurred to me that I'd already killed the Shriekers until I was about to unlock Source Vampirism about 30 minutes ago.

Using summons does circumvent the no kill rule, or so I've read. I guess I'll take my chances with Malady since I might have already ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up with the Shriekers.

Is there a debug mode I could enable, maybe? It'd certainly help to find out if what I want is even doable.

[Raggle Fraggles]

I don't know about a Debug mode, but the Cheat Commander mod can give you any tag you want. So you can get to the Path of Blood the normal way, then use it to get the villain tag at the last second and see what happens.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1499553252&searchtext=cheat+commander

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Raggle Fraggles:

I don't know about a Debug mode, but the Cheat Commander mod can give you any tag you want. So you can get to the Path of Blood the normal way, then use it to get the villain tag at the last second and see what happens.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1499553252&searchtext=cheat+commander

I'm fairly certain there's no check in place for the presence of the Villain tag. Regardless, assuming I've already screwed up, I'm not going through the entire game again just to check this out, at least not right now. I like the game and find something new with each playthrough, but these restrictions make for some boring gameplay.

[Raggle Fraggles]

There's a reason why pretty much everyone just hired a custom merc character to get that Path of Blood achievement haha

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Raggle Fraggles:

There's a reason why pretty much everyone just hired a custom merc character to get that Path of Blood achievement haha

I'm not even doing it for the achievement (using mods at the moment because I got bored of the base content), just sheer curiosity. I want to see if you can have a "pure" Villain character.