The Lost Heir Trilogy

@TheDrake

WTF HOW ?//

Hundreds of playthrough, figuring out every possible way to accumulate stats, and take long term considerations.

Alexia, the Necromancer.
Health: 100%
Specialized Training:
Priestess Levels: 1
Thief Levels: 1
Wizard Levels: 1
Prestige Class: Necromancer

MORALITY:
Evil: 100%

ABILITIES:
Agility: 80%
Charm: 79%
Endurance: 20%
Perception: 72%
Strength: 20%
Willpower: 23%

SKILLS:
Archery: 90%
Devices: 80%
Magic: 91%
Blades: 9%
Stealth: 80%
Unarmed: 3%

KNOWLEDGE:
Arcana: 85%
Geography: 66%
History: 100%
Nature: 60%
Religion: 100%

RELATIONSHIPS:
Jess: 100%
Petra: 62%
Theo: 100%
Brinn: 64%
Lord Vale: 77%
Lord Tovor: 81%
Archmage Cumari: 84%

Your mount: an undead Dreadhorse named Midnight.
Shadow, your Shade familiar.

KINGDOM
Army Surplus Size: 100%
Army Power: 100%
Army Morale: 100%
Army Food: 0%
Citizen Reputation: 100%
Citizen Fear: 100%

Army Delays: 4

TATTOOS

  • a series of blue stars up your neck

INVENTORY

  • a pouch on your belt containing no gold
  • a spellbook
  • a sword on your belt
  • a holy symbol secretly dedicated to the goddess Shadi hangs around your neck
  • a dagger in your sleeve
  • a bow strung over your back
  • Auriel’s Grief: a silver necklace with a blue gem in the shape of a teardrop sitting in your pocket

A backpack containing:

  • a lockpick set
  • a rope
  • a lantern
  • a water skin
  • flint and steel
  • a hammer and a few iron spikes
  • a sleeping roll
  • a strange amulet to an unknown God
  • a package of poison
  • the Book of the Dead bound in human skin
  • a statue of a spider stolen from the wizard Luimar by Amos, your foster father

You are wearing:

  • your clothing
  • the Circlet of Daria, resting on your head
  • the Cape of Shadows over your back (+20 Bonus to Stealth)
  • the Gloves of Archery on your hands (+20 Bonus to Archery)
  • the bone Necklace of Nature around your neck (+20 Bonus to Nature)
  • the Gem of Seeing in your pocket (+20 Bonus to Perception)
  • the Feather of Glibness in your hat (+20 Bonus to Charm)
  • the Cloak of Spiders over your shoulders and down your back
  • Thuja’s Belt of Speed around your waist
  • your family signet ring (+3 to All)
  • the Thief Token, an amulet the shape of a dagger, on a chain around your neck (+3 bonus to Stealth, Devices and Agility)

I’d argue that this is better because:

  1. “Abilities” aren’t checked very often, and rarely without offering a “Skill” or “Knowledge” based option that works just as well. Perception and Agility are the only two that seem worthwhile to maximize, although Charm has its moments… :slight_smile:
  2. You have two high skills (archery and blades) – but both are at 100%, and therefore neither will benefit from being used in game 3. I, on the other hand, have 4 at > 80 – it is likely that all 4 will be useful (and further improve) in game 3.

Note that I qualified for the dragonrider class, but declined to pursue it, as the Necromancy bonus was much more attractive.

There is still room for improvement: Considerable gold can be saved by not picking up the weaponmasters and not upgrading my horse (bad riding horse → fully trained warhores), and min/maxing should allow the history score to be reduced while improving skills (although I think the net result will be a trade between archery and magic, which is nicely balanced now).

Could you send me a link to the house as well? How comprehensive is it and can we add on to it?

Hey! i just wanted to say that I liked the Ist game. It had great characters and story. The only problem for me is that the skill checks are so high that it makes certain builds kinda useless. For example,I wanted to play as a monk so that I could punch things to death. When I got to the boss fight,it was flat out impossible to win without losing someone. Now, maybe the monk class gets more opportunities to shine in the 2nd game, right now it’s not a a viable build. It sort of sucked some of the fun out for me.
Speaking of that,the other half of the class,Religion is also fairly useless. You get the opportunity to heal once or twice,but thats it.(Certainly not in the boss battle.) The bulk of the spells go to Magic based classes. Perhaps in the 3rd game there can be a upgrade that has buffs and debuffs and it can be used on your entire party.
There also the fact that some stats/skills are unevenly overpowered such as magic,blades,agility,stealth,and especially charisma.
others are near useless like willpower(which you don’t get many opportunities to raise,like you do for charisma.) There are also some stats that I wasn’t sure of. What does strength and endurance do? Am I supposed to double up on classes to make mine more effective?
But again despite my issues,I still enjoyed it and I’m going to buy the 2nd game.

You can definitely make it through the final sequence in the first game without losing a companion with an unarmed focused monk; I’ve done it (with an unarmed focused thug as well). Having a high agility, strength, or getting the cloak of spiders would help, though.

Some stats are definitely a little overpowered in terms of usefulness - magic and charisma being the real big offenders.

Will is only used for and primarily built via demon summoning (which is more useful in the 2nd game than the first).

Diversifying stats is usually a good idea. If your character only has 1 or 2 high skills, they’re going to be SOL in a lot of situations. Diversify too much and none of your skills will be high enough to be useful, though, so learn to strike a balance. You don’t have to take different kinds of classes to do this, but it can help. If you’re focusing on one class, it’s probably going to really crank up one or two stats all on its own, so that frees you up to develop other skills instead of those when you get the opportunity. For example, if you’re going monk, maybe not take every opportunity to crank up your unarmed skill that you possibly can - your monk levels will give you a significant unarmed skill all on its own, so it only needs a little help.

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Okay! Thanks for the advice! I’ll try it. So if was playing as an assassin for example,I wouldn’t need to continue going to my respective guild to get better,it would do that on its own? If Im understanding this right.Speaking of underpowered stats,I don’t believe that Perception and Agility get many opportunities either.(Unless joining other classes helps for that too)
As I recall,the only real boost for the former is getting the Gem and I’m not sure about the later. Really though what DO Strength and Endurance do? Is the former supposed to make my attacks have more damage and the later increases my resistance to attacks? Also,how do I get the Spider cloak?

I’ve gotten out of a pinch more than once with Agility and Perception. I have fun building pacifist characters and seeing how far I can take them, so I’ve played through several times with a non-combat character, some of whom were also non-magical. Agility and Perception both helped me a lot there, and whenever they’re used successfully the skill points go up. I’m also thinking of both books one and two at this point, though, since it’s been a while since I played the one without the second.

The first book, you can just go with your intuition and usually end up o.k.

If you want to prepare for the second book, think how you want to develop your character - during “down-time” and “wait periods” is where character development comes into play.

There will be encounters later that use different characteristics.

@InfiniteDreamer - To get the spider cloak the straight-forward method you should be an evil character.

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Speaking from my own experience I learned that if you want to be prepared for any situation you need to have a good amount of points in several skills. 2 in combat skills, one of which is ranged and the other melee (magic is ofc OP, but certain situations you’d need a sword or a dagger), one body stat (agility or strength), charisma, perception, and then level your knowledge stats specifically Arcana.

Then again that’s my own experience, and I always go for that “All-powerful” feel.

Agility and perception definitely get some boosts from other classes, though agility is easier to raise than perception. One helpful hint with agility, since you’re going unarmed (as opposed to magic, blades, or archery) is you can choose the lute as a child growing up (instead of a spellbook, sword, bow, etc.), which gives a +15 to agility and charisma.

The game is dictated by pass/fail stat checks, with no real damage system to speak of. So having a strength of 80 won’t make you do more damage on attacks, but you might run into attacks that will only succeed with, say, a strength of 80+ or the like. Strength is also used for checks on things like bashing down doors, quickly ripping out a demonstone embedded in a statue, and so on. Endurance is similarly used for occasionally staying conscious through attacks (but only rarely, and only for specific checks), keeping active for long periods of time, and so on. Endurance is rarely checked, in my experience.

To keep advancing as an assassin, just select the class from your mentor in the beginning, select training in it in Ludd if you want to, do the job in Ludd, and the job back in Elmsvale. That said, I hate the assassin class and almost never take the second level of it in Ludd because it has such poor stat advancement. I’d recommend a level in guard if you’re going blades, or a level in wizard or druid if you’re going magic, or a level in ranger if you’re going archery. As long as you have that first level in it, you’ll still be able to do the jobs in Ludd and Elmsvale.

To get the cloak of spiders… It’s potentially gotten on the way to the final city in the first book. You will encounter some side passages in an underground tunnel. To take the proper one to get the cloak, you need one of the following: a high relationship with Peter/Petra (80+, I think), 60 perception, 50 or 60 religion, 50 or 60 history, or the Gem of Seeing. Any one gets you past it. Then you’ll encounter some skeletons. To get past them, you need one of the following: 70 magic, 60 or 70 unarmed (I forget which; I think 60), a high relationship with Peter/Petra (80+), a level in priest and either 70 good (relationship bonus with all companions but Jace/Jess at 80+) or 70 evil (relationship bonus with Jess/Jace, penalty with the others, IIRC), OR, a lute. Any one of those will get you past the skeletons. Then, to get past the traps after the skeletons, you need one of the following: having been an evil priest and controlled the skeletons, you can send them to set off the traps, or, 60 or 70 device skill (I think 60), a good relationship with Gill/Gale (80+), or 50 endurance to just tough out the traps. Any one of those get you past the traps. Then, to get the cloak off of the column, you need one of the following: 50 or 60 agility (I think 60), a high archery skill (60 or 70, IIRC) and a bow, a high relationship with Karl/Karla (70 or 80+), or to be a demon summoner and send your air mephit up to get it. Any one of those gets you the cloak.

It’s been a month or so since I’ve played, so the numbers are a little fuzzy.

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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