Has anyone attempted to finish the game with the lowest level possible and if that is the case what was it.
Reaching lvl 10 I was wondering if I could already finish the game so I have been trying to do just that.
Since I did not aim my playthrough around this objective, I am sure it would be possible to do much better than where I am right now.
Here is a few ideas and things I tried.
- First of all the obvious block is reaching 12 starstone.
To quote design documents the starstones are
List of Star Stones and Blood Stones
Cyseal
-Star Stone on ground near exit to Luculla Forest
-Star Stone in the crime scene in the tavern
-Star Stone dropped by Braccus on death
-Blood Stone owned by Evelyn
Black Cove
-Blood Stone in the Pontius Pirate fight
Luculla
-Star Stone in the Immaculate Trial
-Star Stone on Mangoth if he hasn稚 sacrificed (becomes bloodstone if he has sacrificed)
-Blood Stone in the Maradino Lair
-Two Blood Stones in the Loic Cellar
-Blood Stone when destroying the totem in the goblin village.
Hiberheim
-Star Stone in the Boreas treasure room
-Blood Stone when destroying the Iron Maiden in the prison
Dark Forest
-Star Stone in the tomb at the end of the knight痴 tomb
-Star Stone buried in the source temple near the teleportation mirror
-Blood Stone near Cassandra痴 actual corpse in the Temple of the Dead
I had collected the 6 first ones.
In the Silverglen map, near the story teller, there is a place where you can warp to the other side which let you reach Loic's cellar ( I guess you can also reach that passing the gobling village and going by the phantom forest).
The one with Mangoth can be easily obtained by running in shadows to the altar and just leave after having the stone activated.
For the goblin totem, you can sacrifice a character to destroy the totem and manage to collect the stone back with a character walking in shadows as well as resurrecting him/her.
The one in King's stone is easily obtained by using walk in shadows and passing the trial then just walking the right path.
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For the last one I went to get the one near the Cassandra bones but it could be skipped for the one inside the source temple.
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- For the phantom forest amulet check
It is possible to steal hunter's edge gate key.
To be able to go on the other side of the phantom forest map, I killed the wizards apprentice and could go inside the wizard house directly skipping the whole white witch part of the scenario.
I did not test if it is possible to teleport from one bank to the other on the map and maybe avoiding this step as well. I also have not tried to pickpocket the portal key.
EDIT: it is possible to steal the portal activation stone
With some testing from my other savegame, it is possible to throw a pyramid far enough (with 22 strength or maybe slightly less) to avoid being killed. However that is probably too much stats with lowl lvl characters.
EDIT: After some more testing I managed to throw the pyramid far away enough with 15 strength.
- Regarding the source temple door check
To pass the first source temple door I went to kill the demon in the swamp. I could not try pickpocketing to see if the rune is available from the demon directly which avoid a fight.
As a tip for this fight, you can teleport the boss inside the prison in the middle of the room which renders him sort of useless and then kill everyone around.
It is also possible that the demon near the temple is an easier kill than the one inside the swamp cabin.
***Raalzen is definitely easier to fight, he only does fire dmg***
EDIT: I tried pickpocketing with 5+1 and it is still not enough. It is possible to get pickpocketing+1 on boots and gloves but I am missing the boots right now and cannot test with 7 pickpocketing.
EDIT2: I tried with pickpocketing 7 and it is still impossible.
- Defeating the void demon invasion
To repel the void demon invasion I went to the Immaculate village in the north east of the Silverglen map and bought tenebrium bars from the blacksmith apprentice. He will start to attack you rght away seeing you are not immune to rot. I easily escaped the fight and went to the Big bloodstone in north west.
It might be easier to collect tenebrium directly in the mine and since you have to get there eventually .
A mistake I made was to enchant a weapon that already had a different elemental damage and you hit the bloodstone it will heal it so I had to redo it with a different weapon.
After the invasion is repelled and all the rooms opened, you can process to the source temple.
- Void armor disabling spell
So you actually need to have that. To get the spell in the mine is fairly easy, just get there, either kill the totem to get the password from the skeleton or (if the information is correct) you could lockpick the door.
For Leandra's blood. You can avoid Mangoth fight by using the lever to open the secret room directly. Once inside solve the buttons puzzle and walk in shadows to get in the middle room and get the blood. No dialogue was initiated but not sure if it is because I was hidden or because I did not fight Mangoth above.
The candle ritual does not need the different trials to work if you know the steps.
Finally I could access the last area and to my surprise, not being able to make the witch witch and Leandra friends again, you have to face Leandra with the crow.
Problem is now that there are a bunch of deathknight with a void armor and so it seems getting the void removal spell in the mines is a must.
Still I have been experiencing with what I could do in there. I found a cheap, albeit very long, way of killing Leandra without retaliation. So you can engage in a talk with one of your character alone. With the other one you can take away Leandra with teleport spell, actually you can use the one that does not do damage. Now the way to kill her without fighting is to create a ooze puddle, teleport Leandra with the spell that does not inflict damage but put her in the poison which will damage her. Rinse and repeat (it takes a while) and eventually she dies.
Once Leandra is defeated you can start engaging the prince deathknights. You can remove their armor prior to the fight but sadly it is impossible to teleport them like Leandra.
It is a pretty tough fight as their armor comes back eventually and they are also immune to fire damage. Petrification and blind with a lot of lvl difference usually will not work. It is possible to freeze them using rain and freezing touch.
Using a combination of self teleportation, some summoning and a lot of sneaking, I could isolate one and work on it then went to the second (well sort of in theory because eventually your spell will fail and they might regroup and you have to manage loosing the aggro on one again).
Before you start any fight I had all my resistance above 100% or more which makes the fight against the void dragon doable.
The hardest part is probably trying to keep the stupid "Goddess" Astarte alive. I think she should be buffed, not only because it is making the fight much more difficult that it would be without her but also because it does not match the lore to have a stupid half witted, pathetically weak lump to have supposedly been facing the void dragon by herself before.
It is also incredibly unfair that the AI is focusing her so much or casters instead of trying to hit the actual tanks.
It would be probably easier with a double wizard set up.
The best way to deal with keeping Astarte alive is to teleport enemies getting near her the further away possible. Also creating a lot of fire and explosion patch (or just smoke) between her and the enemies so they focus you instead of her and she just away chilling by herself.
Eventually I got to kill the boss this way.
The strategy for the void dragon is similar. You want to teleport all the mobs the dragon will summon away from Astarte and somehow trap them in a field of fire and smoke so that they loose track of Astarte and actually focus your characters (although I will advice to sneak with your caster to avoid getting stunned/blinded/knock-downed every turn).
Eventually you will grind the 14K HP of the dragon.
In good turns I was doing 300-400 hp per turn. Again, the fight could have been easier running two wizards instead of one only as a melee character has little chance to hit anything with a huge lvl difference like I had.
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If someone was aiming for lowest lvl possible, I am sure it will be possible to do earlier with casters only.
The second teleport spell is available at lvl10 which could be enough. Maybe it is even possible to do it before that if both casters alternate teleportation but it is on a higher cooldown than feather drop.
Other useful spell are Boulder dash, Magical poison arrow, Piercing ice shard(although I did not use it), small and strong regenerate small fireball (but long cooldown), explode, possibly others that I did not use/try.
I have not ever got the lava core spell either, I am not sure of the level restriction (I guess none if it is a scroll) and it one shot the void dragon then it solves a lot of problem).