The Lost Heir Trilogy

I gotta disagree. I’m no stranger to all powerful builds, but you really have to thread the needle and ride by on just barely passing a bunch of stat checks and knowing all the right choices to make. For someone starting out and just trying to make it through the game without losing a companion and failing a bunch of checks, they need much less.

Here’s what I’d recommend in loose order of priority:

I’d recommend one combat skill to be high, so you need a high blades, archery, unarmed, or magic. Magic is obviously the most useful, as it manages to count as both a combat skill and a noncombat skill, being both useful in more situations and easier to build up as a result. I find archery the least useful - it really won’t carry you through the final battle in the second book.

Everyone needs charisma. Everyone. It’s just too useful.

Next, building a mid to high agility or strength. You want one of the two. If you’re building a high strength, endurance usually follows. That said, endurance isn’t that useful on its own.

You’ll then want to try to get one of the knowledge stats up. Arcana, nature, and history are all about the same level of easy to raise and about the same level of usefulness. You really only need them up to about 60 to get all the major checks you need with them. Geography’s real rewarding if you can get it up, but it’s also the hardest to raise. Religion isn’t that useful and it’s hard to raise high unless you’re a priest or cleric, or you spend a lot of time training with Peter/Petra. The only real deal with religion is the level 50 (or is it 40? Now that I think about it, I think it’s 40) that you need to make if you want to go into the necromancer prestige class.

And all of these priorities are going to vary a little based on class focus. Thieves are going to end up with high agility, stealth, and devices, which they can use as a bit of a substitute for passing obstacles that you’d need knowledge skills for, for example. Anyone taking a lot of wizard levels is going to have a sky high arcana skill without much effort. And so on.

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The reason why I say you need another skill besides magic is that magic while is normally a kill all skill, it doesn’t always. There are a few rare instances where magic either can’t be used or isn’t good enough. In the battle with Thuja, when the guards rush you, you can’t use magic. Instead using a dagger works, or unarmed. In TLH2 using magic when attacking Ludd, and fighting the army inside the city, you won’t kill the commander with magic, but you will with blades (ofc this is if you don’t negotiate a surrender, or poison them, etc. And this was from 2 updates ago, so maybe that was changed)

Also when describing it, I meant for TLH as a whole. Just TLH1 I agree you do need significantly less. Knowledge stats, aren’t really used much in TLH1 except for a few instances, and thats more of just an additional bonus then to prevent any detrimental losses (not counting losing your sword and bedroll.)

We already agree on the agility or strength.

Religion is always the least in my priority for knowledge, but I find the bonuses for taking a level in Priest in TLH2 is actually very helpful.

Actually we recommend the same skills. Just I said 2 combat skills, and perception. (Perception is more useful in TLH2 in case your lacking in something else. Like when investigating the haunted house and you don’t have significant Arcana to know it isn’t a ghost, mitigating the damage from the “surprise” in Tornassa, fending off the assassin if you aren’t strong or agile enough, finding the loose brick if you don’t have enough strength or magic to silently open the door and you want to avoid killing the innocent guards although that might just be the gem of seeing. Perception can be replaced most of the time with a variety of other skills, but it’s a very good secondary imo)

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Yeah, except that use of the dagger in the end of TLH1 actually requires 0 skill in blades to work out alright. The only other instance I can recall where magic would not work is against the prison warden in TLH2, and that check can be either circumvented via a high relationship with your companions or failed and then made up for with a high agility or magic check.

I actually prefer losing my bed roll in TLH1, to be honest. I like the +relationship opportunity it provides.

I agree that perception is very useful, but it can be hard to build up if you’re not very familiar with the game, and in almost every case, another skill that you will have likely built up can substitute for it (or the Gem of Seeing just plain skips the check, like the door you mentioned). It’s just lower on the priority scale as a result.

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throws table
I never knew that, but then again I only learned how to look at code a couple months ago.

I didn’t mind losing the bed roll, but you would lose your sword as well, and when I was playing a blades focused build without magic or good archery… I got beat pretty badly.

I also don’t like using companions tbh. I prefer using skills to boost my own that’s my own little niche. I simply can’t rely on a companion to fight for me. Especially since I normally max them all with 90-95 at the lowest.

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No, the LH1 ending need 40 blade, otherwise you only kills one and another guard will knock it off your hand. A successful dagger strike kills 2 and give +3 blade.
@EmperorHeartless

Right, but with no skill it avoids all damage then opens up the opportunity to kill the rest of the guards with a decent magic, archery, unarmed, or agility score (as long as you either attack the demon summoning guard or dodge the attack, respectively). You don’t need a blades score to use the dagger in that situation.

You can also get that if you take Peter and Karl with you, they are nearly useless in the tight room you can personally take care of all three guards.

Sorry if this was already asked somewhere (I looked for the answer to my question but couldn’t find it)
But can someone post a list of all the legendary mounts and the animal companions you can get

I am interested in seeing this guide if possible. Just recently got into the game and already played it through probably 100 times.

Ah, but Cunari is like a cheerful plush bear compared to some of the other advisors. Stuffy, but has an esoteric sort of charm!

I could picture a hostile takeover of the Academy. Interesting idea!

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That can sort of happen in Life of Wizard. Conquering the world with legions of demons, undead, magically altered humans, and at least one golem was pretty fun. Of course, retiring immediately after, even as a lich, was pretty odd.

Oh, I don’t know… At least in D&D, many liches withdraw from worldly affairs to be able to focus on their studies of the magical arts, after all :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

@Lucid So um… When can we expect the part 3 beta, and where do we sign up for the beta test?

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September? With a release in Feb again? Lots to write and I should have more time in the summer.

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Shhh… Go focus on CSComp! :joy::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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will you stick to your formula of stat progression?.. you may have seen all those “OP” stat sheets people posted in here… multiple 100 stats might be appealing to some, not for others like who like just a single max stat or at best 2 as it’s better for RPing… but hey, it’s just my opinion, sure to be drowned by more vocal people (jess lovers)…