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Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Prosthetic_Mind posted:

You say that speed determines how fast you can attack with something, but how relevant are the numbers actually? I'm guessing you can't attack 4 times with the dagger for every 1 attack against a battle axe wielder, otherwise there wouldn't be much reason to use the heavier weapons apart from penetration.

Problem with the game is that it's very difficult to make accurate measurements of anything that happens in combat. You only get a notification when you're hitting something (but not who is doing the hitting, in case of several people), but a lack of hits can mean that your skill is too low, that you're swinging too slow or that you roll too low.

That said, it seems to me that 30 is not 4 times as fast as 120, it's something more like twice as fast. As long as you can beat armour, a 2-handed sword destroys anything way faster than any other bladed weapon.

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Prosthetic_Mind
Mar 1, 2007
Pillbug
I see. It might be worthwhile to switch to a dagger against a poorly armored opponent before going all out, but not in general use, assuming that the numbers the game gives you have any meaning.

Raiad
Feb 1, 2005

Without the law, there wouldn't be lawyers.


To add to what the others have said, a well armored character will have at minimum normal encumbrance, which will likely increase to heavy as a character takes damage. This adds 30 and 120 to the speed respectively, making the baseline speed 60 to 240 depending on the attack type. There really isn't a good reason to favor speed over damage.

At least until you throw alchemy into the mix.

Burzmali
Oct 22, 2013

Raiad posted:

To add to what the others have said, a well armored character will have at minimum normal encumbrance, which will likely increase to heavy as a character takes damage. This adds 30 and 120 to the speed respectively, making the baseline speed 60 to 240 depending on the attack type. There really isn't a good reason to favor speed over damage.

At least until you throw alchemy into the mix.

Speed rules in ranged combat, a shortbow is more accurate at lower levels and has a high enough penetration and speed that it will do much more damage than a larger bow in the long run. The benefit of speedier weapons is that they tend to be lower weight, which compounds their effectiveness. The down side is that there is no delay on the first attack and a penetrating hit on the first attack can OHKO many enemies and stun lock others. Fo melee, you want the highest damage weapon with enough pen to deal with your current enemy's armor, that doesn't move you into high encumbrance. For ranged, short bows all around, really no reason to use anything else unless you are determined to overkill trash mobs.

nweismuller
Oct 11, 2012

They say that he who dies with the most Opil wins.

I am winning.

Burzmali posted:

Speed rules in ranged combat, a shortbow is more accurate at lower levels and has a high enough penetration and speed that it will do much more damage than a larger bow in the long run. The benefit of speedier weapons is that they tend to be lower weight, which compounds their effectiveness. The down side is that there is no delay on the first attack and a penetrating hit on the first attack can OHKO many enemies and stun lock others. Fo melee, you want the highest damage weapon with enough pen to deal with your current enemy's armor, that doesn't move you into high encumbrance. For ranged, short bows all around, really no reason to use anything else unless you are determined to overkill trash mobs.

I actually tended to favor brass handguns for ranged weapons, on the theory they'd penetrate anything and provide a good first volley before my front line tore into the enemy.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
So, uh, what's the actual point of this game? What's the plot? Or is that not really relevant?

mauman
Jul 30, 2014

Whoever's got the biggest whiskers does the talking.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

So, uh, what's the actual point of this game? What's the plot? Or is that not really relevant?

If I recall correctly -

Fight the forces of Satan, more or less.

edit: er, does that really count as a spoiler? I thought that was really obvious given the setting. I've spoiler-tagged it just in case and will fully remove it if asked.

mauman fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jan 17, 2017

nweismuller
Oct 11, 2012

They say that he who dies with the most Opil wins.

I am winning.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

So, uh, what's the actual point of this game? What's the plot? Or is that not really relevant?

The point and objective, according to the manual, is to gain fame such that your heroes' names live throughout all of history. As such, your 'Fame' score is basically, well, your score. There are some larger events you can get tied up in, but a lot of how you'll accrue fame is seeking out various places that are troubled by various things and solving their troubles dramatically. One common way to gain fame, for instance, is finding 'raubritter'- robber knights who use their castles to prey on nearby travellers- and putting an end to their depradations permanently. A rather less common but much more impressive feat is if you find and slaughter a dragon. And so on.

I'm deliberately avoiding discussing the largest overarching plots, to avoid spoilers.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug

nweismuller posted:

I actually tended to favor brass handguns for ranged weapons, on the theory they'd penetrate anything and provide a good first volley before my front line tore into the enemy.

Pretend I made a real good "biblically cannon" joke right here.

CAPT. Rainbowbeard
Apr 5, 2012

My incredible goodposting transcends time and space but still it cannot transform the xbone into a good console.
Lipstick Apathy

nweismuller posted:

The point and objective, according to the manual, is to gain fame such that your heroes' names live throughout all of history. As such, your 'Fame' score is basically, well, your score. There are some larger events you can get tied up in, but a lot of how you'll accrue fame is seeking out various places that are troubled by various things and solving their troubles dramatically. One common way to gain fame, for instance, is finding 'raubritter'- robber knights who use their castles to prey on nearby travellers- and putting an end to their depradations permanently. A rather less common but much more impressive feat is if you find and slaughter a dragon. And so on.

I'm deliberately avoiding discussing the largest overarching plots, to avoid spoilers.

Do these plots involve Satan?

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:

Do these plots involve Satan?

Literal devil worshippers.

Burzmali
Oct 22, 2013

nweismuller posted:

I actually tended to favor brass handguns for ranged weapons, on the theory they'd penetrate anything and provide a good first volley before my front line tore into the enemy.
The short bow has pen 4, which is enough to penetrate anything weaker than plate armor, and almost every non-human. Set up correctly, an archer with a short bow has 3 - 4 times the ROF of a gunner. When you have 4 + 1 archers attacking at substantial range occasionally you can lay down enough fire to stagger and pin down some advancing formations.

Cantorsdust
Aug 10, 2008

Infinitely many points, but zero length.
I loved this game since discovering it a few years ago when it came on sale on Steam. It has aged well except for the clunky combat, which plays out as a poor man's Infinity engine style. I'd love to see a remake in a proper high resolution and readable text. I was just loving around the last time I played--looking forward to seeing how someone who knows the game plays!

I don't know if you need it, but for anyone playing there's a very nice save game editor that can edit stats/skills, fill in saints and alchemy formulas, etc if you're trying to show things off.

nweismuller
Oct 11, 2012

They say that he who dies with the most Opil wins.

I am winning.

Burzmali posted:

The short bow has pen 4, which is enough to penetrate anything weaker than plate armor, and almost every non-human. Set up correctly, an archer with a short bow has 3 - 4 times the ROF of a gunner. When you have 4 + 1 archers attacking at substantial range occasionally you can lay down enough fire to stagger and pin down some advancing formations.

Penetration 4 won't fully penetrate mail or brigandine, though. I just prefer a single powerful volley to soften the enemy up.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012
Yeah, I like giving out handguns and playing pike and shot in combat.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous

sullat posted:

Yeah, I like giving out handguns and playing pike and shot in combat.

Let's avoid trying to summon Hey Gail to this thread, shall we? :v:

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
:confused:

Wow premature phone posting.

What's wrong with pike and shot though? I'm not sure it'd be my small party formation of choice but... Seems okay?

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

:confused:

Wow premature phone posting.

What's wrong with pike and shot though? I'm not sure it'd be my small party formation of choice but... Seems okay?

Nothing's wrong with pike and shot, it's a joke about a goon who's a military historian specializing in the early modern period and has a great love of pike and shot to the point of doing reenactments.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

nweismuller posted:

Penetration 4 won't fully penetrate mail or brigandine, though. I just prefer a single powerful volley to soften the enemy up.

The ideal (but annoying) setup is slow, heavy ranged weapon and then swap everyone to a faster one as soon as they shoot once.

George Rouncewell
Jul 20, 2007

You think that's illegal? Heh, watch this.
I seem to remember Short Swords were super deadly in the hands of a good swordsman. You could attack fast and even though you did piddly damage you effectively stunlocked everything.

Or was the stun effect only there for penetrating hits?

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug

Cythereal posted:

Nothing's wrong with pike and shot, it's a joke about a goon who's a military historian specializing in the early modern period and has a great love of pike and shot to the point of doing reenactments.

Huh! Ya learn something awful every day.

Raiad
Feb 1, 2005

Without the law, there wouldn't be lawyers.


Chapter 3: The Adventure Begins! Really!

Killing gutter trash is good for getting some early experience and local reputation, but it won't make us famous heroes. For that, we need to hit up the local merchants. Heading to the various offices and offering our services has a chance to yield a quest.



4 Florins isn't a lot, but there's more to life than money. Each quest will also give us a small amount of fame.



There are three main quest types that you can get from these offices: fetch quests, break-and-enter quests and Robber-Knight quests. I generally don't bother with breaking and entering- accomplishing them requires skills we don't have and equipment that we can't afford. I also don't really want to ruin my reputation in a large city for 4 florins. I make a note of it and try elsewhere, but we don't have any luck in the other stores and offices in the town.





You can also receive quests from the Town Hall of a city. Generally getting these jobs requires a good amount of fame or charisma.



Of course The Idiot has neither.



There are three ways this can go down- You get the quest, you waste your time or you get publicly shamed. Our reputation took enough of a hit that we now risk calling attention from guards who will want to arrest us.



We go into the alleyways to clean our reputation by soaking it in the blood of the destitute and desperate, but Iolanthe decides to take a moment to practice her diplomatic skills.



It pays to always try to talk your way out of a situation for that chance at a Speak Common increase. God knows that there will be plenty of enemies available to kill.







A short bit of murder later and we are at least inconspicuous enough not to risk unwanted attention from the law.







We are not welcome in this city anymore, however. If you have a negative reputation, people won't be as willing to trust you with important tasks.



With that, we venture out into the open field. The only reason not to just walk outside is if you are actually wanted criminals. The party muzzles The Idiot and waltz out of town.



Finally, on update 3, we get to the actual game. Moving around the overworld is accomplished by clicking where you want the party to go. There top-right shows the passage of time. Going through the forests or swamps increases the speed at which time passes, as well as offering some nasty encounters. A new party will want to stick to the roads and plains whenever possible.



Just a short ways away from Padderborn we find another town.



Entering a town has some considerations as well. Since we are (currently) not wanted criminals in the town, we can walk up to the gate with our heads held high.



Well, in a few hours. The gate is closed at night, so we wait until morning.



We have all of these options open to us if we want to cause a scene just to avoid paying a paltry toll. Most of them will obviously leave us with a lower reputation. However, always try to talk your way out of the toll before paying it.



It didn't yield any results this time, but it didn't cost us anything to try. Each attempt gives a chance at improving Speak Common, and sometimes you avoid having to pay the toll as a nice bonus. This guard wasn't having it, so we went ahead and paid.





We get another job offer while we're here. This one's just a simple fetch quest, so it should be a good match for us (note- this is not a guarantee)



We leave the town, and head to the next.





Yet another fetch quest. Now that we have a few good leads, we consult our map



Conveniently, Leer and Gronengin are right next to each other, and relatively close to boot. On the other hand, Ulm is quite a trek for a quest we are not likely to succeed at anyway, so we put that quest in the back of our minds. This should be a simple get there and get home.





Going north we approach our next town...



But get interrupted by pilgrims. Random encounters in Darklands don't necessarily involve people trying to kill you. We spare a little time to help them out- we don't have any money, but we can make sure that they get to their destination safely.





Iolanthe even becomes a slightly better person!



Finally, we find a guard who's not an rear end in a top hat a responsible member of his post.





Another thieving job. We add it to the list of things we'll probably never do.



As we leave town, we encounter medieval copyright protection. The manual has all of the codes throughout the book, so the player would need to prove they bought the game by looking it up. The game kicks you out if you pick the wrong code. Fortunately, you only get this screen once a year in game or so.



We continue north, coming across a large swamp. Thin rivers like the ones on screen can easily be crossed, so we can avoid having to suffer the muck.



For a little while, at least.



Wolves can be bad for a fresh group of adventurers. Individually they're pretty weak, but too many of them can be dangerous.



Thankfully, Nimrod manages to use his experience as a hunter ward them off.



Even further north, we finally find Leer. The dark blue terrain are floodplains, which are like swamps but worse.



I somehow missed a screenshot of the small shrine to the northeast of Leer, but we reach our first stop. If we were better, richer people, we would give the poor old monk a donation for the scroll.



We are neither of those things as of yet. We head west to the other destination.



Occasionally, we get advance warning of a threat. Sneaking away rarely increases woodwise, but it's a pretty slim shot.



We fail, and encounter some bandits. Iolanthe trys to put her diplomacy to good use.



Negotiations have broken down.



A brief murder later and we're back on the road.



Inexplicably, while we're wandering the swamps of Northern Germany we are set upon by a far more dire threat.



The bishop is a poor judge of character given that we basically robbed that poor monk. However, Iolanthe manages to convince him that we're actually not a bunch of murdering pricks.



We keep heading west...



past Gronengin



and reach our second destination- a small grove of trees that is not meshing well with the surrounding landscape.





But first, some wolves!



In any other circumstance, there is no real reason to visit these kinds of places.



Waiting around doesn't accomplish anything.



A little investigation gets us the result we want, however.



Since it's on the way back, let's take a moment to visit this monastery





Well, talking to them doesn't give us any answers, so let's just go right up to their front gate.





This was actually pretty lucky- we aren't particularly famous or charismatic, so we didn't have a high chance of being let in.



Most monasteries are like this one, but most don't have the alchemical library. First, I check out the saints.



First, I check out the saints.



All of these saints require far more virtue than any of us has. We decline to get any of them.





The alchemist has some good formulas on hand, but all are way out of our price range. We should come back some day when we're richer.



It was worth a shot.



Finally, we rest up.



Before we depart, we ask about the news. We are absolutely not going east right now.



With all of that done, we begin our journey back. Getting this far was easy enough, so it should be to bad, right?



We run into some bandits, but they don't pose any real threat.



This type of encounter with bandits is lead by a slightly stronger bandit, which I didn't show off earlier.



In Zwolle, I finally look at my party information. We are awarded the fame after getting the materials, so theoretically we can say that we're done right here. Of course, we still need that cash so we're heading back.



I also try to make a friendly trade with the local alchemist.



He wasn't interested.



We keep on keepin' on.



Hah! Just more bandits. :smug:





:stare:





:stonk:



...so, things can go really bad early on, even when the enemies are weaker than you. Poor Nimrod is gone forever. If we had won the fight, we would have been able to loot his equipment.





As it stands, the survivors don't even have their own equipment. At least they left us with the quest rewards.



Our cash is all gone as well. While Darklands won't give you an immediate game over for losing a fight, the results are almost worse, as getting back on our feet legitimately would be difficult now. The Idiot's armor was worth several florins alone.



Pressing F8 allows us to camp, which is the cheapest way to heal up. That said, it's important to keep a watch. Every night spent increases the chances of being discovered.



Two types of people will invade your camp- bandits and soldiers. Bandits would be really bad news right now. Fortunately, we can try to talk these guys into letting us stay.



Fortunately they buy Iolanthe's story. This reduces the risk to zero for 7 days, which gives us plenty of time to heal up. Killing the soldiers or bandits would have had the same effect.





We talk our way into Munster, which is really lucky considering that we're flat broke. I also get a formula that will be incredibly useful very soon, but not for the reason you might expect.





Finally, we get back home. Amazing how quickly everything turned to utter poo poo, making this whole experience totally not worth it. Iolanthe isn't having any poo poo right now.





Not worth it at all.





We also trek to the neighboring town and get our other





Still not worth it.



Now that we're back in town, it's time to fill the Nimrod shaped hole in our hearts.



Death isn't the only way out for an adventurer. They can also retire, though this takes 20% of both available cash and bank notes.





Creating a character here is much like creating a character at the beginning of the game, with one key difference- characters made mid-game do not start with any equipment. So unfortunately, we can't create a bunch of knights to steal their equipment. At this point, it would have been better to reload or restart the game, but we're going to press on.





We meet a woman with a striking resemblance to our good friend Nimrod. Her skills as a doctor are not going to be helpful to us immediately (she still only manages to heal 3 points per night, and healing scores don't add together), but now we have a backup if Iolanthe departs from us. All things considered, Gugelhupf gave us a pretty big benefit of the doubt, considering we're pretty hopeless. In addition to her medical knowledge, she is drat good with people, which will make certain things much easier.

Next time! We invest our hard-earned gold and get back in the game!

mauman
Jul 30, 2014

Whoever's got the biggest whiskers does the talking.
Welp....that went south quickly :v:

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.
Yep. That's Darklands. I've never tried to get a party off the ground after a severe beating, will be fun to see you do it.

Deceitful Penguin
Feb 16, 2011
Short and brutish indeed.

I really wish the game wasn't so arcane and incomprehensible, because it's pretty cool what its got going on.

Thankfully, we have you Raiad to do it for us. :v:

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous

Fat Samurai posted:

Yep. That's Darklands. I've never tried to get a party off the ground after a severe beating, will be fun to see you do it.

Eh. As long as your fame isn't too high, just buy some basic gear and go kill basic thugs for a month.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.
I usually do that at the start, so the beatings I take happen when I get cocky and bite off more than I can chew. At that point is painful to go from Plate to Leather.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Man, this is giving me some serious Das Schwarze Auge flashbacks.

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Well I knew Gugelhupf wasn't going to get it without a tragedy, but it still comes as a surprise.

"What happened to your friend?"
"He was killed by bandits."
"That's terrible! I hope I can help. What do you need me to do? I am a baker by birth but a surgeon by trade!"
"We are going to wander the streets and kill bandits."
"Oh. Deary me."

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
Bandits are just going to be kind of a thing no matter where we go, aren't they?

Pierzak
Oct 30, 2010

Glazius posted:

Bandits are just going to be kind of a thing no matter where we go, aren't they?
Yes, they're background noise. Like rain, or bedbugs.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug

Pierzak posted:

bedbugs.

A melodious background song of screams and cursing.

Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.

Raiad posted:



All of these saints require far more virtue than any of us has. We decline to get any of them.

I see Raphael shows up here twice. Is this some sort of randomization drawing the same saint twice for the same monastery?

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





So did we have saints that could have helped us out and not asked them? Never played this game before so I'm curious.

DGM_2
Jun 13, 2012
I was afraid of this. It's been many years since I played but I remember that you always need to have your Endurance be several points higher than your Strength. That way you pass out rather than die when you get beaten down.

Ironically, "The Idiot" has the smartest build in this regard.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
The opposite. Endurance damage knocks you out, strength damage kills you. You always want to have more strength than endurance.

Raiad
Feb 1, 2005

Without the law, there wouldn't be lawyers.


So far, the only person with a saint is Iolanthe, who doesn't have enough virtue to use it. We're still several good deeds away from being able to count on Jesus powers to get us out of trouble. Saints can heal damage, so theoretically one could have helped us but once a character is KO'ed or dead, there isn't anything that can be done for them.

Several aspects of the game, including Saint, Alchemical formula and ingredient distribution are assigned at the start of a game. Saints tend to double up, though I'm not sure if it's a bug or a design decision to have the possibility of fewer available saints in some places. Formulas don't seem to have the same issue, but only half or so of the possible formulas are available for purchase. The others have to be obtained by trading.

In general, higher strength than stamina is better, partially for the lowered chance of dying and partially because strength affects damage and some events. There are a couple of considerations that will come up eventually that may put a higher endurance as better than a higher strength in the long run, however.

Finally, I'm pretty sure that about 80% of the population of medieval Germany is some form of bandit, thug, ruffian or ne'er do well. We'll be running into them a lot.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012
There are a couple of really good saints that can heal you, St. Cosmas I think has low virtue requirements and will heal you in a pinch. Always be buying saints, even if you can't use them. It's like 1 groschen to study in a church or monastery.

Raiad
Feb 1, 2005

Without the law, there wouldn't be lawyers.


Chapter 4: Where the Real Money is Made



Last time we left on a bit of a low note. We lost all of our gear as well as our dear friend, Nimrod. However, not all was bad- we still managed to complete our quests and collect some funds with which to get back on our feet.







The men are eager to get some equipment and get back into the fight. Iolanthe's not having any of that, however. She puts the entire amount in the bank. The party's close to where she can enact her scheme, but she doesn't want to risk losing the necessary cash along the way. In retrospect it would have been a good idea to keep a florin to be able to pay the gate tolls, but she was confident that she could talk her way in.



Money that's held at the bank will show in the notes of the party information screen. This money is perfectly safe, so it's a good idea to have some tucked away in case of emergencies like this.



Gugelhupf steps up to talk to the guard. Her higher charisma makes her better suited for these sorts of tasks.





Iolanthe trades knowledge with the local alchemist, then heads to the pharmacist. There we find Manganes, a rare ingredient that's crucial to her plan.





The bank fees were a bit of a waste, but finding the Manganes was much easier than expected so I don't begrudge the cost. We buy some of it and head to the next town.





On the way to the next town, Kempen, we meet another alchemist who was willing to trade. We passed on the deal, however.





In Kempen, Iolanthe makes another trade and buys a Philosopher's Stone from the local Alchemist. She also finds the other two ingredients for her experiments.







At the Inn (note- normally a bad idea), she sets up shop and gets to work on the formula she learned last time. Success at alchemy is determined by alchemist's skill, intelligence and the quality of the party's Philosopher's Stone. This sum is added to a constant that decreases as we make more potions in a single night. For 1-3 potions per night, the value is 100. The formula-specific mystic number (difficulty) is subtracted from this,



For 4-5, the constant decreases to 50, and continues to decrease as we attempt more potions per night. As a result, we have a 67% chance if we stick to 3 potions, 17% up to 5 and no chance at success higher than that. We wouldn't even have that 17% chance if we didn't buy the Philosopher's Stone, so any increases to that or the alchemist's skill or intelligence can make the difference in whether producing a potion is even possible. Note that if the sum of the PS, skill and intelligence of the alchemist exceed the mystic number, you can essentially make an unlimited number of potions at once (caution- don't make more than 255 at a time). While Thunderbolt has one of the best per-potion profits, there are better potions to make money with. We don't have the formulas or cash available for the ingredients to mess with that, so we stick to the Thunderbolt potions.



Fortunately for her, the party and the inn, she managed to succeed in creating her potion.





We head back to Duisberg, and sell those potions. Because Duisberg is a larger city than Kempen, the shops offer more for the potions. Each potion is worth 3 florins thanks to Gugelhupf's higher charisma. In other words, all that time, effort and death that occurred yielded an amount of money equal to 1/3 of a night's worth of work (before we count the cost of the ingredients). Going on adventures is good for a hobby, but it can't compare to having a good alchemist and a good salesman working together for cash.

Now that our system is set up, we reinvest most of the money into Manganes, which isn't as readily available as the other two ingredients. Rather than return to Kempen, we go to another nearby city.



Koln is the largest city in the game. As such, ingredients are cheaper and our potions will sell for more.



Once we stock up on Aqua Regia and Choleric Base, we camp just outside of the city. We still have a 33 percent chance of failure, and things will get bad if something goes wrong in the inn.



This process continues for a bit.



In the middle of all of the potion making, I take the time to trade with the alchemist. This here is the most important potion in the game. It restores Strength and Endurance, which will be vital in later fights. One of the first goals in the game is getting someone this formula. The formula can't be bought so you're at the mercy of the RNG during a trade to get it.



Two of the key ingredients aren't available in any of the three cities that we've been visiting, so we'll have to explore to find them.





Once I exhaust my Manganes supply, I take a boat back to Duisberg. We manage to schmooze the captain into letting us in for free.







This turned out to be a bad idea, as we end up in the thug-ridden back alleyways. We haven't had a chance to resupply, and if we were to lose, we could lose everything that we've worked for. So, we take an alternative strategy.





Joestar family secret technique!





If a character reaches the edge of the battle field, it will allow them to escape. The bandits move at the same rate as our characters, so we could escape unscathed. Note that there are several enemies that move faster than humans, so running around with no armor isn't really viable in the long run.





It's easy to forget that running is an option. Enemies never run away, but there's no reason that we can't. The Idiot isn't pleased by this approach, but even he isn't about to try to take on armed foes as he currently is.





And this goes on for a bit. Occasionally, a character attempting alchemy will gain some skill, regardless of whether the potion making was a success or failure. A failure wastes the ingredients, but the experience can be worth it.





And we keep going...







And going...







And before we know it, we're loving rich.

Next time! We're back in business!

Citation- Getting Rich thru Alchemy. This is a pretty good guide to telling you what potions are more profitable than others and what is required for each potion.

Raiad fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Feb 5, 2017

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Deceitful Penguin
Feb 16, 2011
It wasn't lead to gold but explosives to gold at least works~

What are you going to do now with your well gotten gains? Buy a lotta perfume and frilly hats?

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