Blackguard Advanced Guide

If you haven't read “Rules and Class Guide” by felipepepe and/or the manual, those have good starting information and analysis.
If you still are having problems (like most of us) understanding Blackguards' take on The Dark Eye rules and how to win the game on the hardest settings; this guide is for you. This guide details weapons, armors, skills, talents, and tactics with analysis. Character creation, hierarchy of needs, and so forth.
Includes a basic walkthrough, some battle guides, and notes regarding patch 1.3 changes.

Other methods will be just as good if not better so check the comments section, too.

Introduction

If you haven't read “Rules and Class Guide” by felipepepe and/or the manual, do so.

Blackguards repeatedly uses the conversion of 1-20 into 5% to 100% chances. (10 would be 50% for example.) The level to point system used is level 1 to zero points, level 2 to eight points, level 3 to thirteen points, and level 4 to eighteen points. Spells and talents all have 3 stats associated them and as a result even 18 points in one talent or spell paired without high basic statistics failing a stat check and therefore the activity fails. When using AP remember threshold concept: 599 AP is not enough to purchase a 600 AP ability nor is increasing strength one point likely to change attack, parry, dodge, or ranged attack but may contribute to a change if used with other boosts. Meaning save AP, AE, vitality, money, and supplies as much as possible, to allow for large expense or changes in available trainers.
Trainers may not available when you would want or when you would think makes sense; be ready all the time. Lastly, fights within a chapter are not created equal: the order the fights are attempted is important.

Basics:

Blackguards is tactically about your heroes avoiding damage and the enemy taking damage. Strategically, it is about money, gear, and adventure points.

Damage Avoidance (in order of effect):

• 1. Position: Your enemy (and you) cannot hit if they cannot move into face bashing range for melee or if there is a wall in the way of magic and/or archery.
  
• 2. Parry: Each turn heroes with a melee weapon equipped have a chance to parry one (melee or archery) attack, negating all damage. The chance is determined by the parry statistic. The number of parries can be lowered by special attacks that forfeit parries, or raised by defensive stance to two.
  
• 3. Dodge: Each (melee or archery) attack has a chance to be dodged. This is the dodge statistic. It may be raised by spells, potions, basic stats, or the dodge special ability tree.
  
• 4. Armor Rating cuts damage by a fixed amount. (ie: 5 damage onto 2 armor rating will result in 3 damage. Each armor set adds 1 to armor ratings.
  
• 5. Armor Percentages: Armor pieces may raise a heroes resistance to one or more of the damage types. (ie: 50% bashing resistance will reduce 4 bashing damage into 2 received damage)
  
• 6. Vitality: A hero with 1 vitality will be able to fight, drink potions, etc. so increasing vitality will allow for more damage to be taken.

Damage Sources:

• Melee: swords, axes, spears and such that require close proximity.
  
• Archery: bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons. These use ammunition which must be purchased and managed.
  
• Spells: damaging spells may deal bashing, fire, poison, or magic type damage. May also or instead reduce statistics or manipulate the battlefield.
  
• Poisons: Added poisons to archery, melee, or from spells. May deal damage and/or reduce statistics for several turns.
  
• Environmental: Falling chandeliers, pits of mud, traps, explosive gasses are just a few of the possible examples. Some such as pits may result in loss of turn; others may add poison; some deal far more damage than can be resisted; such as a gate closing on to a hero (or enemy).

Money and Gear Priorities:

When spending your parties money, it may be advised to follow this hierarchy of needs:
1. Type specific weapons: Each hero should be specialized in one or more weapon types. Without the corresponding weapon the adventure points spent in these weapon talents are useless. Remember to purchase ammunition and shields.
2. Basic Armor: Attempt to fill every slot first, to reduce damage.
3. Better weapons and armors along with belts
4. Potions: Health and astral potions
5. Saving: At times your party will be asked to pay 300 or more gold pieces. “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
6. Other: Poisons, traps, trowing weapons, books, advanced potions, and everything else.

Adventure Points (AP)

In blackguards while there are not classes, certain abilities and combat roles require far fewer AP to obtain in combination than others. For example the “fast” weapon ability tree that contains feint, targeted stab, death blow, and blade storm are most simply paired with a weapon talent that can use those abilities and abilities that also require high agility and dexterity statistics, such as the dodge tree or archery tree. As a result of this a few combat roles become noteworthy. This goes back to how to deal damage to your enemies. Every character needs at least one damage dealing option: spells, archery, or melee. In addition, they may serve other combat roles such as tank, healer/buffing, or delivering the coup de grace.
Combat roles:

• Melee Tank: Takes lots of damage, deals lots of damage, heavy armor required. Ability Hammer Blow required.
  
• Melee Dancer: Deals damage and wounds, maintains a distance, heavy armor suggested.
  
• Specialist Archer: All five archery talents, must use bows, may be cross trained.
  
• Strike Mage: Uses spells to deal damage, often deals the last 1-6 damage to weaken opponents in coup de grace, often cross trained.
  
• Nuke Mage: Uses spells to deal damage, often level 3 or four field wide spells, must be cross trained as something else.
  
• Utility Mage: heals, buffs, debuffs, no or little damage done themselves, often cross trained.
  
• Minimial Archer: crossbow (or bows) with targeted shot (less investment than specialist), often cross trained.

Adventure Point Spending Hierarchy:
1. Weapon Talents and Spells- one per hero to start off with (major spells only)
2. Special Abilities: Weapons- only the ones the hero needs for his/her weapon (or astral regeneration)
3. Special Abilities: Defense- dodge, vigilance, armor use, shield fighting, etc.
4. Mage Special Abilities- steady casting, astral mastery, aura shield
5. Basic statistics- to allow fulfill prerequisites for 2 and 3 (start at top of list again)
6. Important Talents- See talents section
7. Minor Talents and Spells- See talents section and spells section
8. Master Archer/Melee Weapons Master/Alternative Weapon Talents/ Spell Range

Melee:

Some general notes:

• Dual wielding is problematic since only the right hand weapon will be used in special ability strikes and unless both are the same type 2 weapon talents will use more AP than one. By in large, shield use is a better option in terms of cost and effectiveness.
  
• Melee weapons may have abilities such as wounds, distance, or poison.
  
• One melee weapon talent type per melee user is advised as it gives the greatest effect for the least AP.
  
• Power Blows, Hammer Blows, or Death Blows should be the standard attack for melee fighter for added damage. Liberating Blow and Blade Storm can be used when surrounded. (Liberating Blow with a distance great-sword...)
  
• Fient is now fixed. Tooltip still incomplete.

Weapons: types and analysis

• Axes and Maces: single handed weapons best used with shields. They may use all abilities in the heavy weapon tree. Plentiful. (Suggested)
  
• Spears: 2 handed weapons that use the 3 of the fast weapon tree. Spears inherently have the Distance modifier allowing them to be used over short cover, short characters, and increasing the area for attacks of opportunity. Common. (Suggested)
  
• 2 Handed Swords: benefit from all of the heavy weapon tree as well as feint. May have important distance modifier. Hammer Blow and Fient! Common. (Suggested)
  
• Swords and Sabers: most versatile weapon able to be used with all of the fast weapon tree and all but Hammer Blow from the heavy weapon tree. When used with shield may have both parry and melee attack above 20. Plentiful. (Suggested)
  
• Daggers: use the fast weapon tree, rarely modified. Uncommon.
  
• Fencing weapons: Use fast weapon tree, sometime modified for mages. Uncommon.
  
• Staves: mage weapon of choice. May use low level talents from both trees. Uncommon.
  
• 2 Handed Bashing: use heavy weapon tree. May deal infantry damage which is rarely resisted. Uncommon.

Archery:

Notes:

• Ammunition is slightly limited, heavy, and costly; it is best to have one bow and one crossbow user to limit the availability issues.
  
• Having ammunition like fire or sinew cutter can allow the hero to bypass immunity to piercing damage without added weight of a second bow or alternative weapon. This tactic will require spending a turn changing weapon set.
  
• All of the ranged weapons have optimal distance ranges outside of which a -10 aim penalty is inccured. Outside of these ranges or without hawkeye marksmanship, only normal shots have the highest hit percentages.
  
• Targeted shots should be the standard attack for archers for +5 damage.
  
• Triple Fire often deals less damage than Targeted Shot and has a lower chance to hit, but rarely can do very high damage. -12 attack. (Must use hawkeye marksmenship to achieve good hit chance.)
  
• Arrow Storm drains ammunition and deals less damage than Targeted Shot, use only on groups or to hit over walls. -14 attack. (Must use hawkeye marksmenship to achieve good hit chance.)

Archery can fire further than spells even accounting for spell range ability tree.
1. Bows: may use all four archery tree abilities and have multiple ammunition types. Arrows are the cheapest. Arrows do the same damage as bolts as long as longbows are used.
2. Crossbows: may use the first 2 of the archery types and have multiple ammunition types. Bolts are slightly expensive (4.25x arrows) and may be unavailable.
3. Thrown weapons: most expensive, require belt slot better used for potions or poisons (imo). These weapons can however be extremely effective in harder fights. Look for knockdown.

Spells:

Mages have limited Astral Energy (AE) and spells cost AE. Most mages will have between 30 and 50 AE. Level 1 spells cost less AE than level 4 spells and thus can be preformed more times before using an astral potion or resting.

• Field wide spells are less useful as Blackguards will send a stream of enemies at your party as you kill those in the map rather than have an army waiting in the wings.
  
• Where as with melee or archery the goal is to get 18 points, spells may be useful with only a few points in them. This allows for more diversity and utility from spell casters.
  
• Due to stat reducing poisons, it is wise to over-level spells central to your tactics. These poisons further penalize against useing not acquiring level 4 spells

Damage Spells:

• Cold Shock: Combination debuff and damage cold shock lowers enemy stats and deals some damage. Level 1 is useful for coup de grace and level 4 is a field wide debuff for 30 AE. Damage is magic.
  
• Thunderbolt: cheaper than cold shock but without any debuff, thunderbolt is good for coup de grace attacks. Damage is magic.
  
• Witches Bile: does little damage but may incapacitate the enemy (this is rare) The poison effect is instant and does not reoccur. Damage is poison.
  
• Ignifaxius Burst of Flame: Single target fire strike; mostly used for damage or coup de grace. Level 4 is a "cone of effect;" in reality it sends out 3 randomly tageted fire strikes amoung targets in the cone, these strikes will seek independent targets. Use level 1 most of the time, save levels 2 and 3 for priority targets like mages and level 4 for groups. Some fights require lighting barrels of oil, or have grass that can be set ablaze; fire arrows or fire-bolts may be used instead. Level 1 has highest single target damage to AE ratio. Damage is fire.
  
• Ignisphaereo Fireball: fireball that effects a small radius. Useful for setting things ablaze or groups of enemies. Only the center hex receives full damage. Situational, AP and AE expensive. Damage is fire.
  
• Culminatio Ball of Lightning: Sends out wisp of lightning that does 8 damage to everything in path. If enemies are grouped up, it will deal damage to them in turn. Lowest AP cost for area of effect damage spell. Higher levels are hard to justify investment as damage does not increase. Level 3 places a trap. And level 4 places a cloud that damages only the closest character. Suggested use for grouped enemies only. Damage is magic.
  
• Wrath of the Elements: Deals damage and likely to knockdown enemies costing them their next turn. Higher levels have higher damage and radius. The knockdown is useful. AP and AE expensive. Damage is bashing.

Buffing Spells:

• Move as Lightning: Level 3 gives 2 turns per round for 3 rounds for 15 astral energy (AE). More than twice the movement speed and 2 attacks per turn. AE heavy, but AP cheap. (Must haves; imo.)
  
• Hawk-eye Marksmanship: If there is an archer level 2 for 8 AE gives +3 damage for 3 turns. (9 damage for 8 AE is highest possible without enemies being grouped up.) Level 4 adds +5 damage for 4 turns for 16 AE. Suggestion use sparingly or with Move as Lightning. Supper power with tripple shot and Move as Lightning. (Must haves; imo.)
  
• Ecliptifactus Shadow Force (shadow summon): Gives a mage who can fight, 2 turns to attack or an attack plus a spell. Really useful for opening doors, chests, activating traps, drawing enemies into traps, and doubles mages non-spell damage. Can use level 1 to re-summon out of danger. Level 4 results in temporary invulnerability. Downside AE expensive, AP expensive, only one shadow active per party, re-summoning does not heal the shadow, and if the shadow is lost mage loses remaining AE. (Must haves; imo.)
  
• Sensattacco Masterstroke: Level 1 increases melee damage by 3 for 3 turns for 10 AE. AE costs go up from there and never become equivalent to other spells.
  
• Standfast Catlike: Level 3 on a hero with the dodge tree special abilities results in 100% dodge chance or immunity to everything except area of effect spells, traps, preexisting poison, criticial hits, and enviromental damage. In addition the melee attack boost allows for special attacks against high ranking late game foes who have incredibly high dodge and parry statistics. (Must haves; imo.)

Healing Spells:

• Witches Spit: light heal at level 1. Higher levels add magic and fire resistance. Healing balm is better in terms of healing. Suggest limited use in fire and/or magic heavy fights.
  
• Clarum Purum: removes poisons and increases poison resistance. Poison is almost everywhere, but 60% resistance only stops damage not more problematic stat reductions. (2 poision damage every turn or -25% dodge and -25% attack?) Absorb the damage and healing balm instead.
  
• Magica Infracta: only needed against paralyze, frenzy, and animal ability enchant. All of which are rare and best dealt with other ways, imo. May be useful. AP cheap, AE moderate.
  
• Healing Balm: level 2 on all mages not in metallic armor. Level one is a cheap heal; level 2 is a powerful heal; level 3 gets rid of wounds that are otherwise expensive; level 4 heals for several turns. Suggest one mage at least up to level 4. (Must haves; imo.)
  
• Fortifex Arcane Wall: block enemy arrows, or movement for several turns. Less face bashing on your archers or mages. AP and AE expensive and blocks your arrows. Only one mage per party suggested. (Must haves; imo.)
  
• Gardianum Magic Shield: useful late game against magic spells. Only need one in the party, at least level 2. Field wide spells, mostly cold shock level 4 bypass the shield. (Must haves; imo.)
  
• Fastness of Body: adds armor rating to target. Suggestion: Use standfast catlike instead.
  
• Duplicatus Double Vision: makes target harder to hit. Suggestion: Use standfast catlike instead.

Debuffing Spells:

• Paralyze: Level 1 stops an enemy from attacking, level 2 protects a ally (at the cost of their turns), level 3 can stop many grouped enemies, and level 4 can be used to make almost un-kill-able fighting tank. AE expensive and situational. It is a necessary counter to enemy use of berserk, swarming, mages, and rescuing out of position allies. (Must haves; imo.)
  
• Lightning Find You: cheap AE, AP spell that weakens enemies' stats, many players swear by this. Level 4 is a field wide debuff. Level 3 is very useful against bosses.
  
• Corpofesso Aching Limbs: similar to Lightning Find You but weaker.
  
• Karnifilo Frenzy: Used on back row enemy mages and archers to avoid damage and devastate enemy formations. AE and AP expensive. Higher levels can be used to aid tank heroes that are surrounded. (Must haves; imo.)

Talents:

• Body Control: Protects heroes from slipping on wet ground, getting stuck in the mud, or knocked down by enemy attacks. All heroes will find it easier if at level 2 or 3. Melee fighters will want level 3 or 4.
  
• Willpower: Allows heroes to ignore wounds and reduce hostile spell durations. Most heroes will find it easier with level 2 while melee fighters or late game parties will prefer higher levels.
  
• Perception: Finds traps and pitfalls. Using this talent will take an entire turn, as such is best on an archer to add to ranged attack probability. Due to traps being every where at least one party member should strive to be level 4 and use this on the first turn.
  
• Traps: disarm and place higher and higher traps. Problem is that doing either takes a whole turn and removes the possibility of attacking that turn. Suggestion is to walk around or ignore damage from traps.
  
• Streetwise: level 1 adds 1 movement and all heroes should purchase this. Level 4 increases gold and decreases cost of inns, so one hero should invest to this level. Melee fighters will benefit the most from the added movement while mages will enjoy the added cleverness. Multiple experts will not stack (Haven't actually checked, see comments below).
  
• Survival: level 1 adds 1 movement and all heroes should purchase this. Level 4 decreases cost and weight of provisions, so one hero should invest to this level. Melee fighters will benefit the most from the added movement while mages will enjoy the added cleverness. Multiple experts will not stack (Haven't actually checked, see comments below). In general it is cheaper to use provisions than inns, but they are heavy and may not be useable even if you have bought them.
  
• Animal Lore: coup de graces rely on knowing the enemies vitality. Animal lore will tell you that and other things about non human foes. As of patch 1.3 hit percentages are visible all the time, to compensate there is a dodge/parry bonus when facing non-human enemies. 20% attack and parry is worth it for melee fighters.
  
• War Craft: coup de graces rely on knowing the enemies vitality. War craft will tell you that and other things about human foes. Additionally War Craft level 4 allows a hero to change weapon sets for (not as the in-game wording says) one of the 2 actions per turn.As of patch 1.3 hit percentages are visible all the time, to compensate there is a dodge/parry bonus when facing humanoid enemies. 20% attack and parry is worth it for melee fighters.
  
• Treat Wounds: Treat wounds exchanges expensive health potions for tricky but cheap and superior bandages. “Extra AP” should be spent here. Note: there is no such thing unless non-mage crossbow hero without any alternative weapons is made. (Don't do that either.)

Walkthrough: (minor spoilers throughout)

Blackguards' battles have some quirks best known before playing:

• Board-Wipes: A board-wipe is when all enemies are killed in a single turn. In several maps a steady stream of reinforcements arrives replacing the defeated enemies. On some of these maps the battle can be more easily won by causing a board-wipe. For example one map features 5 zombies that are replaced, if defeated, at the end of each turn. In order to win quickly, orchestrate a board-wipe: use spells that grant extra actions per round (shadow summon and move as lightning level 3), weaken enemies so that they will die in one hit, and group them up and destroy with AOE attacks like liberating blow, sword dance, or fireball. Certain battles can only be completed by board-wipes as the reinforcements are scripted as being nearly endless.
  
• Boss battles: Some battles feature a boss. These sometimes require killing all enemies, but many only require killing the boss. These battles sometimes have un-defeat-able enemies such as wisps, supporting the boss. Wasting attacks on enemies that won't go or stay down is obviously a bad tactic.
  
• Spawns: Many battles feature spawn points that can be interacted with to be shut down. Battles featuring these often require (either effectively or from a programing level) shutting down every spawn.
  
• Extractions: These feature a zone into which the heroes must all enter to escape the battlefield. Sometimes endless enemy reinforcements will spawn, sometimes a puzzle must be completed, other times there is a turn limit, yet other times if all enemies are defeated the extraction is assumed to be successful. Rarely these missions feature stealth. If you understand the stealth system please leave a comment explaining it down below or write a stealth guide.
  
• Enemy variety: Blackguards for the first 3.5 chapter features enemies that are most readily classified as weak, intermediate, and bosses. That is to say that most enemies are just improved and re-skinned versions of a standard foe. In the last chapters enemies diversify into more focused roles like spell casting mages, high armor rating tanks, specialist archers, agile slashers, and high health titans. For most of the game specializing techniques like the armor ignoring fast weapon tree abilities or anti-spell spells are useless. During the last chapters they become absolutely required.
  
• AP and money: Always do the side missions. They grant money, AP, teachers, and loot. That said the order in which the quests are done greatly influences their difficulty level in comparison to party ability. Remember there is no iron man mode with auto-saving, so save often and reload as needed.

Character Creation, Prologue, & Memories:

While the pre-created character classes are playable, I suggest using the expert mode. Expert mode allows for far better control of abilities. Choose a set of combat roles as explained above. It is strongly suggested that every character is a mage; even pure melee fighters benefit from the mage ability aura shield while wearing metallic armor.
During memories you the player are forced to use only your initial abilities and the weapons you started with. Try to spend as many of the initial points as possible to alleviate this issue. (This changed with patch 1.3, now weapons and armaments form the initial character creation screen carry over to memories. No longer will a custom bow mage be forced to use a staff, unless the player gave the character a staff in character creation.)
The prologue consists of one enemy. It only takes one or two hits to kill. The first memory, part of chapter 1, exists as a tutorial on bodychecks and mud, and using the mud at the south end of the screen to trip your opponent makes the duel extremely simple. The second memory requires taking out two thieves and should be simple. The third memory, in chapter 3, requires killing 5 enemies then running to the exit. I suggest killing two enemies then hightailing it to the exit where 2 reinforcements will be waiting. Kill one and another will pop up; that makes five. The fourth memory requires destoying a crystal and destroying the enemies. The fifth memory, immediately after memory four, the destruction of 4 crystals, the enemy boss that then spawns, and then killing the until then constantly resurrecting foes. Shadow summon and level 3 “move as lightning” make quick work of the crystals. Then debuff and focus the boss, healing as needed. Use the maps automated traps to your advantage. The sixth memory (staying in the trance) is does not contain a battle and leads to a bad end.

Chapter 1:

Approximately, 38 fights possible. This is the sizable extent of the demo. I suggest you listen to dialogue from the NPC in the first town as it serves as advice on AP spending. Patch 1.3 has the sherif appear too early in Morbal, cosmetic bug/oversight only.
Important Loot:

• Gambeson gloves are one of the few non-metallic gloves in the game
  
• Small belts come with 2 slots
  
• Mascaron Staff, if the party needs a second mage staff
  
• Zubaran's Staff best magic staff for several chapters
  
• Naurim Axe
  
• A set of metallic pants and greaves
  
• Longbow best bow in the game
  
• Assorted ammunition types
  
• Books for: Shadow Summon & Cold Shock
  
• one complete leather armor set
  
• Bone mace (axe)
  
• vials of the poison ajax
  
• woodworms
  
• key to greatest treasure
  
• Neetha Pole (2 handed bashing) infantry damage

Important Training Abilities:

• Huntress- targeted shot, survival, animal lore
  
• Duelist- dodge 1& 2, shield fighting, armor use 1 & 2
  
• Researcher- spell distance 2, steady casting, astral regen 1&2, healing balm, witch's spit, clarum purum

Difficult Side Quest Fights:

• Dwarven brothers' game, have all party members possible or return in later chapter.
  
• Missing staff unless you ignite swamp gas
  
• 2nd dragon hunt battle, pools indicate stalagtight's targets
  
• fights in Morbal, end of chapter

Chapter 2:

Approximately 16 fights in total. Some are right after the other without the oppurtunity to rest, heal, or resupply.
Important Loot:

• War belt from Takate
  
• Gladiator armor pieces
  
• slavedeath- 2 handed sword

Important Trainer Abilities:

• Slave Trainer- 2nd level combat abilities, shield fighting 2, armor use 3
  
• Gladiator Madam- hammerblow, battle reflexes, liberating blow, 2nd level combat abilities, shield fighting 2, armor use 3
  
• Gladiator Healer- several spells and mage abilities

Difficult Side Quest Fights:

• All fights are required, see louse queen guide under “Other Notes:”

Chapter 3 to 3.5:

First Memory begins chapter.
Important Loot:

• war belt
  
• greatest treasure (belt)
  
• Hunter's belt
  
• Black metal pieces
  
• Frenkel the Pig
  
• Obsidian Dagger
  
• Wizard Staff
  
• Shaman's Belt
  
• Helm from Inheritance
  
• long bow x2
  
• Arbalest (crossbow)
  
• Bauk wud (axe)
  
• greatsword, boron's sickle, rodacomb (2 handed swords)
  
• jungle tiger's spear (spear)
  
• arena victory armor,
  
• 2nd complete leather armor
  
• gambeson armor pieces for set
  
• books: fireball, fire strike, lightning storm, arcane wall, cold shock, paralyze
  
• Many other options

Important Trainer Abilities

• Researcher moves
  
• Gladiator Madam returns
  
• Fight Instructor- more level 3 fighting abilities (not blade storm)
  
• Druid Preist- witch's spit, witchs' bile, wrath of elements, cold shock,
  
• Wizard-move as lightning, standfast catlike, double vision, spell range 3, several debuffs
  
• Archery Master- All archery talents, hawkeye marksmenship,
  
• Healer- Aura Shield

Difficult Side Quest Fights:

• Zubaran's Kind Heart
  
• Heart of the Forest
  
• several arena fights (appear random)
  
• Inheritance from dead fighter
  
• New maiden quest line
  
• Goldglue transport (due to stealth)

Chapter 3.5 to 4:

(caravan heist is the tipping point)
Important Loot:

• Left overs from 3
  
• bloodletter (spear)
  
• shell shield (shield)

Important Trainer Abilities:

• All trainers from 3 return
  
• Assassin- dodge 3, blade dancer, blade storm among others, game plays differently with these abilities

Difficult Side Quest Fights:

• Damsel in distress quest line
  
• Tomb of Eulicks
  
• carpenter's shop quests
  
• Sick merchant quest line
  
• Unrest at the pyramid (Thanks to saboikie)

Chapter 4:

A couple of memory in this chapter. Entering last memory is believed to lead to bad end. Not being supportive may results in bad end.
Everything gets harder now.
Important Loot:

• Frenkle quest reward (magic resist and drain Axe)
  
• Dwarven Crossbow
  
• 2 lillies (stave)
  
• Light Plate Armor
  
• Armor from starting town

other options avaliable
Important Trainer Abilities:

• All trainers return from chapters 1, 3, and 3.5

Difficult Side Quest Fights:

• Battlefield
  
• Frenkle the pig's quest (graveyard)

Chapter 5:

Begins with entering the cave system. Magic resistance is a major statistic from here on in.
Important Loot:

• everything left unfinished
  
• Priest's inventory

Important Trainers:

• Priest- can teach everything

Difficult Side Quest Fights:

• Not angering the gods
  
• Everything is difficult during this last chapter

Not Anger the Gods Optional Objectives:
Source for some information: http://steamcommunity.com/app/249650/discussions/0/558746089602860313/
1. Oceans- Don't poison water, instead block entrance with arcane wall
2. Death- Don't use the bones or crystals
3. Order- Don't smash the lights
4. Fair Fight- Don't hide in the water pits
5. Traps- Don't use the pressure plate
6. Small- Don't hide in empty pen
7. Fire- Don't shut off fire, kill ogres
8. Fields- Don't poison fields
9. Home- Heal the girls and keep them alive
10. Cage- Free the girl, bring to exit
11. Magic- Don't use blood bowl
12. Thief- Either don't get seen or don't kill guards
Effect of Completing Quest: Unknown, possibly survive crevasse. (I suspect, but do not have proof that other missions like freeing the sacrafice girl from the pyre in chapter 3 may also count toward these objectives.) see comments.

Other Notes (minor spoilers)

Toughest Early Battles (minor spoilers):
1. Louse Queen
2. Eulick's Tomb
3. Louse Maze
4. Heart of the Forest
5. Zubaran's Kind Heart quest battle

Louse Queen Guide (minor spoilers)
For those not aware the battlefield is arranged with a hole in the center. At the bottom is the heroes' starting area and an object that must be protected. At the other five direction (remember hexes), are low level enemy spawns that can be shut down by interacting with them. Running between each of these is poison that flows into the central hole. The poison turns smaller enemies into time bombs that explode after 2 turns. The player has 4 heroes for the fight, this is unchangeable.
First turn, send a hero to the right most spawn, the left most spawn and around (to the right) the back most spawn. Second turn close the back, right, and left spawns, heal the object or the hero who closed the leftmost spawn. Third turn, move the spawn closers counter clockwise to the back right and back left spawns; the leftmost closer should attack and physically block the bosses progress toward the object; the protector should heal, move to block, or attack as needed. Fourth turn, close the remaining two spawns; continue to block the boss, and heal the blocker, object, self. Fifth turn, spawn closers move to opposite side of boss by passing by the top of the central hole. This lures smaller enemies near the boss, blocking its movements and likely exploding damaging the boss. Sixth turn, boss should die under focused attacks from entire party. If fight goes on remember to use potions, poisons, special attacks, and healing pots to extreme left and right of the battlefield.

Your Hero: (minor spoilers)
Good options for your hero's development include but are in no way limited to:

• Full bow archer with healing balm
  
• Minimal bow archer with several spells
  
• Pure melee fighter (any of the suggested weapons types) with several talents (allowing other members to focus on other skills)
  
• Minimal Archer + Melee Fighter (suggest using swords and sabers) + warcraft at level 4 to switch between options (may add full archery, attack spells, debuff spells, and/or healing spells)
  
• Mixing all roles is possible but insanely expensive in term of AP

MAJOR Spoilers:

• Aurelia- is best used as a crossbow or bow minimal archer then add the good spells. She benefits from shadow summon already at level 2. Learning several spells will exhaust her AP.
  
• Niam- is best as an archer with some utility spells. Spear use is a viable alternative. (Mourn the dead.)
  
• Takate- is a spear user. Due to quest rewards of great spear items he will likely keep with that talent. Extra point might be used to teach 2 handed swords for use with distance enabled Greatsword.
  
• Zubaran is best as a healing, buffing, and coup de grace mage. He might need to get magic shield. These roles will exhaust his AP.
  
• The dwarf- uses axes and maces. Extra points can be used for party talent needs; easliy masters 5 talents by last chapter. He is also tends to be the parties main damage dealer with Hammer Blow ability.

Achievements:

Several achievement appear to be bugged:

Master of the Arcane, Jack of all trades, & Rohal's Heir appear to unlock prematurely.
Fiends for Eternity, Top of the Food Chain and others APPEAR to be bugged to not unlock.
Free Fall & I am Leonardo may require using some trick.

The other achievements appear to operate as intended and be clear in how to unlock them. Additionally, look at global stat percentages if the stat is 0.0% it is likely bugged for now.
Comment down below.

Comments Please:

Someone needs to explain the stealth system and how to pass stealth levels.
Someone needs to check how to not anger the gods in the last chapter and what it does.
Someone needs to tell me when I am wrong or forgot something.
Someone may wish to clarify what is happening with certain achievements.

Bugs, Glichtes, Quirks (Always changing)

Always changing see comments down below, patch logs, and change logs.

• In chapter 3, talking to the torturer at the end of his quest, sometimes spawns the carpenter in jail ready to be rescued, without prerequisite quest.
  
• The combat wheel now merely selects the spell/tool to be used and allows the player to choose the target. This is a beneficial change, but may require retraining for some players.
  
• In chapter 4, the rebellion missions (pyramid and alchemsit) activate prematurely resulting in continuity errors with the dialog.
  
• See achievement section, not yet updated.
  
• The game saves demo data and full game data into seperate folders this will result in demo saves not being usable without copying and pasting them into the appropriate folder. Standard is "C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Daedalic Entertainment GmbH\Blackguards\Save" Thank you 'NikNik' and other posters at "http://steamcommunity.com/app/249650/discussions/0/666826251247285279/"

[Pompan]

I know I'm late, but the link attached under Bugs, Glitches... is flagged as malicious by Steam and won't open.

[Lets Go Brandon! FJB]

Stealth seemed to be a Line of Sight thing.. I was able to take 2 or 3 turns before enemies actually took a turn.. Only once, maybe twice do i recall Stealth options though..

[Lets Go Brandon! FJB]

Blackaguards only seems hard on a handful of fights.. Unfortunately, BG ends up being a save scum fest...Like 3 consecutive fights, or bringing teh wrong arrows, etc.. Things that are unforseeable by the player, and/or out of players control... Feels cheap...But Im glad i bought it (Bg1&2 for $7.00 bundle) WOuld have been PO'd had i payed full price though!

[Lets Go Brandon! FJB]

Wisps can be killed with magic melee weapons.. I gave Takate a 2handed Sword, and a Spear, both with pure Magic dmg, and would 1-2 shot the wisps with that horrible Lily flower monster SoB!

[sam.a.inc]

Maybe they made it a scripted event in a new (to me) patch?

On easy Xcom is easy and if you go online and look up tech tree, trigger points, and reload saves it becomes laughable. If you play on classic or hard and don't save, it can be a real pain.

[Lampros]

Hmmm, that's odd. I was sure the frenzy was a scripted move, but I guess I just had a weird RNG luck (though 6-7 replays in a row?).

Is XCom harder than BG? Kinda hard to believe, given that a lot of kiddies seem to play it, and it's not a niche game! ;)

How moddable is it? I may just mod my soldiers to be stronger perhaps.

[sam.a.inc]

Shaman fight is one of those things that seems very random. I never had a frenzy from him. Instead I had poisoned floor, and endless waves of slugs. The slugs pinned my people and the poison drained hp. I suppose You're right about the spell being important then, but hold off on purchase until entering the cave, more than enough AP there to buy the spell before the fight.

It has been a bit since I BG2ed, so maybe a patch fixed it.

Xcom(2014 or 20whatever) is tons of fun. The problems are long play sessions, unforgiving difficulty and glitchy sight line issues. The pros memorize where the sightlines get crazy and all the maps. The rest of us save often, and play on easy for our first couple goes. That said I have like 350+ hours on it, the expansion, and the long war mod. (No intention of beating long war.)

[Lampros]

I think it's fight with the shaman - probably the fight before the Urias fight. He double frenzied me on 6-7 re-loads in a row, so I assume that's how the encounter was scripted without fail? It was always the same two guys, too - my MC and Naurim.

On BG 2, that's too bad; I thought I heard the game got easier, because the devs incorporated the complaints about difficulty in BG 1. One store and one trainer - yikes. A lot shorter, too, I heard?

Speaking of XCom - how is it? I was thinking of buying it tonight, in fact. But since I am a medieval/fantasy type of guy, I wasn't sure if I'd like all the sci-fi trappings. Is the underlying game sound?

[sam.a.inc]

Re: Lampros- Never ran into a double frenzy problem. Which fight specifically did that happen with?

BG2 is crazy difficult due to the progression system. The battles are very linear and you only get one store and one trainer. There is no 'extra' AP to go round. Taking that into account, its just a tactical slough up hill. There are no cheap tricks or wise moves. If you beat BG1 then BG2 is more of the same without much/any of the fun. It feels like playing XCom's long war mod.

[Lampros]

I agree that these type of attacks are rare, but they are devastating when encountered. On one of the last fights, I really struggled badly because the enemy caster kept frenzing my two melees, and they hacked each other to death, and I didn't know what to do. After many re-starts, I ultimately gave both x-bows with the worst ammo, so they wouldn't harm each other much for four rounds or whatever that thing lasted. Still it was a brutal struggle, as Takate and Zurb could only do so much before these two fratricidal idiots came back.

By the way, I just got BG 2, but I see no guides anywhere - unlike BG 1. Do you know where I can get comprehensive tips - or is there enough continuity in the two games that I can simply wade in without preparation?