Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) General New run with Survivor char, + questions (spoilers)

I played a new Warrior character for awhile, but I was not liking the idea of doing the same thing all over again. Especially after I kind of wanted to break the main quest, but it didn't work. So I decided to try out a Survivor character to see how I liked it.

I'm really enjoying playing the survivor so far, especially as it supports what I want to do, ie quickly dashing and sneaking to my goals rather than fighting my way through to them. I do often miss the spin attack, but I really like the Sneak ability, it really helps out. I can get a whole mess of enemies chasing me, then sneak off to an empty room to catch my breath and get ready for the next run. Works great above ground too, if a bunch of things are chasing me, I can just run until I'm out of their view, then sneak, and they immediately stop chasing. Gives me a reason to develop strong stamina too. Not so useful for stronger fast enemies though... I also liked starting out with one point in identify and lockpick.

One thing I noticed that may be a bug...when I'm sneaking, my stamina will drain, but when it reaches the end, sometimes it will just reset and fill up again instead of draining all the way. Not that I'm -complaining-, it just doesn't seem right.

Another thing I noticed that I never noticed before on the other two character classes, is sometimes, seemingly at random times, my weapon display (the "browse weapons" button that shows what weapon you're currently using) shows just a fist (no weapon) when I'm clearly carrying and using a working weapon. If I re-equip the same weapon, the display updates to show it. More of an irritation than anything, since the weapon still works even though it's not shown.

Here was my method or steps I took so far.

1) Gather my starting equipment/gold, two minor health etc, view two cut scenes

2) Visit Otho and Geomoe to get healing quests, collect mirror and destroyed leather pants

3) Visit George, buy a short bow, get the quest to get herbs, when he goes into his room, steal all of his items including the charmable leather armor and his bread, also item from chest. Sell enough items back to him to afford ID'ing the leather armor.

4) Kill Zombie Jake x2 (with short bow). I start with the one in his basement first, since you can run around the tiny room in the middle, making it easier. I put most or all of my 10 points into agility, then went after the 2nd Jake. Again put most points into agility.

5) Healed both patients, collected point in Restoration, got quest to free Lanilor, underground to Mardaneus's house, collected emerald (I think) and all bottles of wine etc. Freed Lanilor, raided Mardeneus's house for items, collected herbs, went back to George, bought new armor at (somewhat) better prices.

6) Collect 2nd pyramid. Run/sneak through catacombs as quickly as possible. I put one point in alchemy, one in repair, one in Mace Expertise (I'm partial to maces esp. early on, I love that 50% damage boost). Collect all axes and the nice maul to sell later. Trigger all four tombs without fighting, go down to next level. Collect Shoes of the Scorpion. Collect all nice items on the final floor (esp. Bat of Striking and Amulet of Glory). Pay one last visit to George, then complete the Mardaneus' Sanity quest. I was originally going to skip it, thinking it was too time consuming, but then I figured I'd be down there anyway getting items, so might as well.

One small note, I've come to really dislike fighting those first skeletons, there's just so many of them and they're worth so little xp, it's just irritating. Not that more XP is what I'm going for right now, but that's beside the point. I guess they're better if you don't go for Jake first heh.

7) Dump all non-essential items off at George's (or wherever), drop one pyramid. Get Escort Healers quest. Run/sneak all the way to Zandalor encounter, then on to Dwarven, avoiding combat if possible. Talk to other Marked one, collect Dwarf scroll, activate teleporter at Dwarven. Run onto Ars Magicana. Drop pyramid and go back to Aleroth to collect items; uncover the Aleroth teleporter, go back to Ars. Repair any item below 60%, sell all axes and other unwanted items to Geoff for a good sum of gold to work with (I got a little over 12,000). I still have Slasher, but I believe I'll sell it because I'd rather have 1200 gold than 1500 (or whatever) xp right now.

8) checked the local vendors for better weapons and armor, then went on to Verdistis to talk to Finnigan, retrieve his lockpicks. (by this time I had gone over to lvl 6). I gave Finn his lockpics then bought them back, I didn't really want to complete the quest, but I wanted him to have better prices just in case heh. Checked Mpenzak for any interesting items. Used pyramid to go back to Ars Magicana (don't have human scroll yet).

9) Head to the Barracks, on the way collect all potions etc from overturned cart, and all beers from the cart crash. Went to see Gen Alix (complete escort the healers quest, get the quest to deliver a letter to Capt Mitox). Check Armory for any good equipment, then activate nearby teleporter. Armory will of course be looted later.

10) Head to Talk to Capt Mitox, do both army quests using the mine shaft then sneaking/running in towards the goals. The supply train was pretty much trouble free, the Well on the other hand was a little more trouble; lots of Heavy Orcs that move quickly, so sneaking away was not an option. Simply used the pyramid to get back to Ars Magicana, then teleporter pad back to the barracks, then back to Capt Mitox to get the invitation to Castle Stormfist.

At this point I was at lvl 7, a little over halfway to lvl 8. This sequence took a little over three hours. I'm a little nervous about going to castle Stormfist at this lvl, but that's next on my list. I believe I'll need to be lvl 8 to beat the Succubus without too much trouble (1st level of Poison Weapon), and doing the mandatory Stormfist quests should easily get me there. Escaping Iona's Dungeon should be a breeze at this point, especially being able to sneak.

My current stats are:

Str 27
Agi 54
Int 11
Con 22
Offense 37 Damage 16-21
Defense 47 Armor 49
Reputation 15

(I don't think the Mace Expertise damage boost shows up on the stat Damage display, not sure on that)

I really thought having the Survivor's defense boost would result in me getting hit far less, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way much. Though granted, I often am being hit by some (relatively) higher level enemies. I still think the Warrior's to-hit bonus works better than the Survivors bonus to avoid hits.

Well, thank you for your time, any feedback is appreciated. In case you're wondering why I'm typing all this out instead of playing the game, it's because I'm not at home right now, and can't play

This is a bit of an exploit, but if you have Slasher identified, but not in your inventory (or any other axes), and talk to the orc in the catacombs, you can still pick the option to give him the axe and complete the quest, without actually giving it to him.

Hmm interesting to know. It sure would make up for my first time through when I kept handing all the axes over to him (including Slasher, without identifying it), and still never completed the quest. I thought that was just how the quest went, you keep giving him all the axes until he says you found the right one heh. I was really kicking myself when I found out how much gold the extra axes were worth.

Any ideas on why stamina sometimes resets to full when sneaking? I made a new survivor character to do a Stormfist castle run, and noticed it with that one too. It doesn't happen all the time, just randomly. Or why it sometimes shows that I'm not holding a weapon when I am?

And on the subject of random things in the game, anyone know why sometimes you kill a single enemy, but two XP messages come up?

I assume the stamina resetting is a bug; I noticed it a few times as well with my warrior. I didn't encounter the fist icon with a non-broken weapon equipped (or recall it being mentioned before), but then I didn't switch weapons that often, so didn't use the weapon bar much.

The second XP message is probably an experience bomb.

Hmm interesting, but usually it seems that experience bombs say "experience bomb" and it's 10x the normal xp. This is the exact same ammount of xp, only it comes up twice. Sorta like the same thing with loot, sometimes you kill a single enemy but he drops double loot. I wonder if the game sometimes accidently writes two monsters into one, or considers one enemy two kills. It's all I can think of.

i think it happens when you have a weapon that has life drain/lightening bonus that can do extra dmg on top of your original dmg. if say your enemy has 3 health left and you hit him for 30 and your life drain procs for 4 dmg, he die twice to your two simultaneous attacks.

this happens a lot when i use a dagger that has lifedrain(i think, or lightening or something). and it is really sweet when it's a boss that gives tons of exp. although for those bosses, saving/loading is almost mandatory so even if i do get a double-exp proc, i probably will need to load anyways.

Thanks, I think that's a reasonable explaination. I'll have to maybe do some testing on that.

i am thinking about doing a new run too, we can help each other out and give each other suggestions/ideas.

1, instead of using a survivor, a warrior would be just as good, better stats/better special move. although, you do need a frog/cat (for normal mobs) spider statue (for orcs). what you do is, run, get some distance, use the statue and then all the mobs chasing you become green(friendly) to you, you can use that coupled with saving/loading to pull off some really crazy stunts. for example, the engineer in cursed abbey, he summons a tons of armies, no worries, lure all of them out, use frog statue, go back to the engineer, he is alone now, kill him.

Hahah good one. I always wanted to beat the engineer, first few times I tried it was like insta death though, I didn't even know if it was possible.

But yeah, it can be exciting to pull off some good stunts. I don't know if you saw this in the other thread, but I started yet another thief to try a Stormfist run, made it there and out of Iona's Dungeon at lvl 4, I'll tell you that was some experience. I only barely made it out with the five Minor Shadow's potions I went in there with. I initially was putting my points in a little strength, a little agility, and some constitution, but then figured constitution is probably doing me the most good. If I try again, I'm putting it all in constitution, it's much needed both for the health and the stamina. I figure when you're level 4 and everything attacking you is around 10 levels above you, higher agility won't help much, you're bound to get hit anyway. If I try again, I'm dumping it all into constitution I think. To get to Stormfist under lvl 3-4 would require skipping a few quests. Assuming I had 1-2 skill points by the time I got there, I'm wondering what's most useful to spend them on. Probably Alchemy for one.

Warrior could be the way to go, but I'd rather be able to sneak at any point then to be using up minor shadows all the time. Of course in Iona's dungeon, sneaking is all but useless, and stamina goes fast running anyway, so shadows are essential.

Anyway, cool, I look forward to any tips you can share.

Well I tried getting through Stormfist and Iona's dungeon again, and once again couldn't do it below level four. I feel like getting the free point in Restoration is a must, but healing both patients takes you up to level 2. Then I think rescuing Lanilor (for his semi-affordable potions) and getting the 2nd pyramid is a must, and those two things take you close to level 2 (you get xp for opening the catacombs, and more for getting the pyramid. I skipped getting George's herbs.

I found that you can't ignore getting the Escort for the Healers quest (if you want to do the Army quests for your invitation) because otherwise you won't be allowed to see Gen Alix. Then I think there's no way to get the two army quests without completing the Escort quest (more xp for that). I believe completing the escort quest bumps you over to lvl 3. Completing both army quests then reporting back to Alix gets you quite close to four, then at Stormfist, 2-3 quests in should bump you past lvl 4.

It would take some sacrifice, but I'm sure Lanilor can be skipped, relying only on the other healers and George (who tend to have a limited supply of minor potions) and what is found at the overturned cart. You could also skip getting the pyramids since you lose them right away anyway at Stormfist, but doing so would make the Army quests a bit more difficult and costly. Also I don't know if that would have any effect on the game since the imp takes them both, and you'd only have gathered one. Heck, the patient healing could be skipped too if you're willing to live without the free point in Restoration (also the opportunity to get it would be lost after you complete the escort quest). I did pick up pleny of bread if I needed to "top off" after a fight or a level-up (I put all my points into constitution).

I figure you need at least 4-5 minor shadows to get through Iona's Dungeon (though with all my preparation, it was a lot easier to get through this time knowing the general route). I also got the idea to mix up five minor elixers and drinking them in the dungeon; this seemed to work like a charm, the fire arrows that were devastating the last time were much more manageable.

So skipping Lanilor, the two patients, and the pyramids might let you slip out under level 3, though the 3500 xp you get from escaping the dungeon might push you over anyway.

As I said before, the next step (the Succubus) presents quite a roadblock. I did three reloads in Ars Magicana trying to get a Poison Weapon skill on something before giving up. I figured items with a +1 skill are pretty hard to come by anyway, but not only that, I don't have the STR and AGI requirements for probably 75% of the items available at Ars. I really wanted to avoid doing it with Scorpion Traps (which would also require going up to lvl 5) or a frost sword (which would only be a viable option if all the ghosts and mummys were carefully lured away first) But I think I'd still have a summoned thing to deal with...so I'm not sure about the next step.

I got through the sewers and through the Stormfist treasure room to rescue Zandalor, then finally decided to go up to lvl 5 and release scorpions on the Succubus. It felt cheesy but it worked like a charm (you don't even come out of shadows when releasing scorps), unfortunately by the time they killed her, it pumped me to about level 6 and a half. I guess I can start on the council members now, I suppose I can use the same method if needed elsewhere (like with Josie), but it would just seem to take a lot of challenge out of it. I doubt there's really another way at lvl 6 though. I suppose it IS a survivor skill, and they had the chance to nerf it in a patch if they thought the power of scorpions was a mistake. Just seems unbalanced I guess.

edit:

Heh I went to Haunted Abbey and released 9 scorpions, they ravaged the place and I went from lvl 6 to 9 in about a minute, then to 10 in about one more minute. Went downstairs and released more and went up to 11, then released 9 more on the Engineer, took him out, taking me up to lvl 12. Fun stuff. I reloaded of course. Not a good option if you're trying to keep your levels down (for some unknown reason). I bet I could release 20 of them in one of the sewer areas and have it cleared out in minutes. Does anyone know if scorpions stop working after they wonder off a certain distance?

i am thinking here the best items that you can receive before you go to wasteland are probably the dragon armor. so what i would do is, do whatever quests you have to do in order to ring the bell, you will probably get to level 9~10 ish, then you should try collecting the dragon armor and get some good armors.(of course for items in stormwind castle you want to get them while you are still there armor page ). then you ring the bell and go to wasteland. once you are in wasteland, get Sword of the Gods, Axe of a Hundred Crusades(i think you should have 2 completely different weapons, one for manadraining,one for frost/stun probably), spirit form, and large charms from Kroxy.

then you can try to beat the final bosses at a record low level.

but doesn't the thought of that give you an adrenaline rush?!

what do ya all think?

just a vague gear plan:

necklace: Ruby Amulet (Lady Anastasia’s cottage in Stormfist Castle)

helm: Closed Helmet(Council of Seven Meeting Hall)

chest: Breastplate of the Dragonheart

gloves: Bone Gloves/Gloves of the Dragon

belt: Belt of the Dragon

leggings: Random Plate Leggings (orange) from Imp’s Castle (btw, why is imp's castle infested with LIZARDS? shouldn't it be called Lizard's Castle?!)

boots: Boots of the Vampire

ring 1: Sapphire Ring from verlat

ring 2: Ruby Ring

Shield: Shield of the Dragon

weapon(s): Sword of the Gods, Sword from the Stone, Axe of a Hundred Crusades, Bow of Hilfin(if you don't mind the exp from that transformer quest chain)

armor/weapon page

If you wanted to finish at the lowest possible level, you might just want to take the armor in the council of seven. It's in a chest, just like the closed helmet. It's called: Dwarven Plate Armor. If you want to finish at a higher level, the Helm of the Dragon is the best helmet. The Larian Armor is also very good, but you'll get a bunch of xp killing all the bugs.


BTW The Castle is called the "Imp's Deserted Castle", and if you walk around it, you find a bunch of dead Imps. And Alrik even says that a cult of Dragon Worshipers live there. With all that information, you can probably make a reasonable guess...

I would guess scorpions do stop working at some range. Testing weapon and magic range (here) I found that enemies not shown on the mini-map are not shown on-screen if you move the screen focus over (enable Caps Lock or hold down the Shift key). Basically, that meant a range of a couple screen height/widths away from the character.

If there are traps (and presumably ressurected or summoned creatures) active, the game does extend the distance it controls their actions, but I am not sure by how much, or how long.
If you ressurect a few creatures in a confined area, release a scorpion and teleport away the ressurected creatures will turn hostile. Approaching the place on foot, you may be able to determine how close you need to be for the scorpion to start attacking, if it did not do so right after you left.


The helm and breastplate from the council hall are potentially pretty good. I used both for awhile until I got the dragon armour (the dragon armour was better, but it wasn't a huge difference).
The bow dealer in the Dark Forest elven village sometimes sells mythril armour, which has no strength requirements, but can have a high armour class (not sure how likely they are to have various bonuses, though).

Wow, thank you for all the responses. I actually stayed up too late last night playing this character heh, but it was fun.

Sliced Peaches: You were right, I ended up being able to ring the gong at level 10, evening of the 8th day. And it looks like my idea of skipping the two patients and the pyramids in Aleroth wouldn't have helped me anyway, since I ended up with level 10 + 22,364 xp, which in itself is enough to bring a character up to level 4. In fact at around 22k each, Josie's dwarves were each enough to bring a character to lvl 4.

I actually did ring the gong and got my free point in Spirt Form from the dragon last night, but I arrived in the wasteland relatively broke and ill equipped, and I'll likely gather up a few more items before I go for real. Though the thought did occur to me that I should just try going for it, though even with Shadows, sneaking, ghosting, poison arrows, and scorpions, it would still likely be a challenge at lvl 15 (arriving at Wastelands gave me level 15).

I still want to do the wishing well, I thought I'd use it to get 10 AGI, but 10 STR might be more wise at this point...more on that in a bit.

I've been thinking of what choice pieces of armor I can pick up before I go, I purposely did not look at (ie pass my mouse over) the Dragon Gloves or the Dragon Shield, in case I wanted to get them ID'ed later. Same with the chest piece and helmet in the Council Hall. In fact I think I'd be safe at this point to put two more points in Identify (currently still at lvl 1) then do the Marcus quest to get the point for lvl 4 (usually only available at lvl 13).

I did end up grabbing quite a few items on the fly, and had them identified at a shop later (so the save/load trick is no longer available on those). I can still go after the other charmable ring farily easily, and at least two other good amulets (Dragon Amulet at Abbey and the Holy Amulet)

The real problem I'm going to run into at this point as far as armor goes is my strength. It is only at 25 (maybe 27 now), but I think most of the armor we're talking about has a requirement quite a bit above that. The leggings at Imp Castle sound promising though. But yeah, that leaves me either hoping for something I can wear with a few charm slots, or trying to charm something like an amulet until my STR is high enough. Which can be expensive. Which brings me to my next problem, gold. I know the orc camps can be looted for lots of sellable items, but you can't loot and stay in shadows at the same time, so that would mean leading the hordes away then sneaking back. But it's possible. Also the central guard/watch area has quite a few stealable things.

Usually I try to have my repair skill maxed out to get max value on items, but that's not possible at the moment. In fact I haven't put one point in repair so far. If I recall correctly, the Talking Tree contains a gold resist spirit charm and one random silver, maybe I can get a Silver strength charm there. But still, that only brings me up to around 35 STR.

Twoheadedragon: I may be able to get by with taking out a dragon rider without going up an extra level, I can't be sure until I try. Half the trouble will be luring the Dragon guys out of the room first so I don't have to fight them. Before hand I'll just drink minor elixers until my lowest resistance is around 100, then whack at the rider at my leisure hehe. I figure if I stay just below level 11, it will all be the same, I'll still arrive at Wastelands at 15.

Raze: Yup I think you're right, I did some experimenting in Wastelands and in the infested Orc camps last night, and that sounds about right. You only get the xp if you're in the general vicinity, about the same distance range as where summoned things turn hostile. Which does give me an idea, maybe I could release about 30 scorpions in the middle of Orc Central (luring the chief out first) then teleport away before they can kill anything (or much), wait 5 minutes, then teleport back. I'll have to see if that might work. I did do that last night at level 6, except I didn't teleport away, and went up about 6 levels in 3-4 minutes.

Also thanks for the tip on Mithril Armor, that might be very important to me at this point. I might get lucky and find some Mithril Armor with a few charm slots.

Real quick, here's how things went for me. Entered Stormfist at lvl 3, left Iona's dungeon at 4. Killing the Succubus took me to level 6. The Elven Council quest took me to 9 + about 60% of the way to 10. Croxy bumped me to about 80% to 10, and Geomoe to about 95%. Antx took me right to 10 (I didn't kill anything in the Impworld/bee/wasp area, and skipped the level up bonus, just ran with what loot I could carry). Retrieving the Axe of Stone and getting the Dwarven Council member took me to about 22k past level 10. I found out that you don't have to whack away at Moriendor to progress the scene, just hit the lever and run to the room that he normally runs to, and it will progress from there

Thanks for all the tips guys, I'll hopefully come up with some more good ideas and find some choice items. I'll let you know

I took the strength bonus from the wishing well, giving me 35 str, I hope I chose wisely. I still don't know if I'll keep it, but don't know what other choice I have. That will give me access to a few more pieces of armor. I'll definitely be able to wear the Dragon Gloves, the Dragon Belt, and the boots of the Vampire. The Dragon Helm, shield, and chestplate will probably be a no-go, along with any other heavy plate item. I did a bunch of theiving raids in Orc territory, didn't come up with as much as I'd hoped for though. If I can make enough for a large strength charm, that will get me to 43. Then if I can get one to roll up at the talking tree (after getting my alchemy point item) that will get me to 51, still not quite enough for say the Dragon Shield (55), but very close. Maybe the trick will be to drag the stuff with me so I can use gold charms. I just don't know how I'll afford them.

Which brings up the point that if I want to keep my level somewhat low (god knows why), then fighting imps for their loot is probably out for the most part. And if I can't afford some decent charms, all the gathering of good charmable armor is kinda moot. Other than the inherent boosts it might add. Maybe the answer is to just use whatever silver charms I can afford and go with them. I'm not sure. I need a new source of stealable weapons etc. I know about the city watch building. I could try my hand a pickpocket heh. I know I'll get more when I go to the wastelands, but I only have 5 skill points to work with at the moment. I plan to use two on Identify. I'll need at least one point in Charm Weapon. Hmmm

For Raze: by the way, that trick didn't work, apparently when you leave the area, not only do you not get XP from scorpion kills, but the killing seems to effectively stop. I did several tests of this, a few times releasing 20 of them in the same spot and teleporting away, waiting a few minutes, then teleporting back. It was as if I never left, same Orcs, Scrops in the same positions, etc. If I stick around, 20 scorps make short work of the Orcs there. Once I had three surrounding a giant Orc, so I knew he couldn't last long, but no matter how long I stayed away, he was there when I got back. In fact, his health reset back to full everytime even. Got me wondering, if you load something up with poison then teleport away and wait, will they wait to croak until you get back?

thanks for writing all that up smashy.

first of all, gold shouldn't be a problem because Rimmer sells ale to you at 5g a piece but you can resell it for 32g, so technically you can have infinitely amount of gold, so just use the "-" trick to get some gold and never worry about it again. plus, there are so many things in the world of divine divinity, it would take forever to pick them up and sell them, it would be no fun either.

next, str/agi shouldn't be a problem because for 14 levels of leveling, you gain 70 stat points. wishing well is 10, shrine of good and evil 5, the magic lockpick, 20, you start with 10+15=25 (let's say you pick a warrior/survivor) so basically you have 130 of str or agility without any gears.

(don't worry about vitality/magic, simply save/load for good versions of gears that will give you those, it's much easier to save for a piece of gear that will give you 100 magic(you need 25 int t get 100 magic as a warrior) than 25 agi imo)

last, i think what we need to do first before starting a crazy low-level run like that is determine what gears we need, i havn't beat the game yet so i havn't seen a lot of the gears in person, so it would be nice if you could list a set of gears(from ring to leggings, everything) that you think are the best available without getting any EXP. this page does list some of them but not all i am afraid.

also, have you though about changing to a spider/cat/frog when your scropio is killing someone? that way you can avoid some exp "i think".

Really? I didn't know that worked. But then I just found out that when you use a statuette, it doesn't get "used up" in the process. I always thought it did. Good point though about leveling up when I get to wastelands, that should give me plenty of STR. I've already used the Shrine of good and evil. Maybe at this point it's worth spending the 2,500 to get a free point in traders tongue too.