Second part, Damian. Why didn't he kill us ?
He already asked Patriarch to open a passage to the Hall of Echoes, but was refused. As the last dragon knight, the player character was the only hope he had of implementing his plan to resurrect Ygerna.
For combat, the level dependence was reduced in DKS, several difficulty changes were addressed, and some opponents were changed (particularly the start of the fjords). The flying fortresses were also redesigned; there were no extra quests added, but most anti-dragon shields and generators were removed, and they were made more fortress-like. DKS is still more challenging at the beginning and tends to get easier, but doesn't become a cakewalk (even opponents a few levels below you can still be dangerous in groups, unlike in D2:ED). Playing on nightmare difficulty I did stop assigning stat points (level 15) to keep the game challenging, and another person played without a helmet or breastplate and level 10 stats, though using a less direct combat strategy (the creature, summons and Charm) much of the time. Despite nightmare difficulty arguably not being hard enough most of the time (though some people also complain the casual difficulty is not easy enough), it is balanced much better than D2:ED. Actually I didn't find the balance that bad in D2:ED; difficulty jumps meant you should do something else first, and in general if a game gets too easy you can always pick a handicap.
