Drakensang/WRPG's/CRPG's general?

Cool I'll definitely check out the sequel as well. And yeah I think I'll have to look up some rulebooks, but I think I'll manage for now, gonna play a little more at least.

Try the Shadow of Riva when you get a chance, as for the new games if you're going caster avoid the direct damage and go for the buffs. Thief characters are also unbelievably broken under certain conditions - priest of Phex notably,

I remember doing a thief and wrecking shit. Stealthing on ramparts and pushing guards down was satisfying.

I'm a bit intrigued but it looks like it has aged sort of poorly. Though I only looked at some screenshots and I generally don't mind older games.

The game is not easy to play, a lot of the nice QOL sysyems you are used too in other rpgs aren't there. On the other hand there are many ways to complete quests depending on your class and allegiances, it is just not easy to see. Nothing tells you that those dialogue choices are there because of your stats/class, like old fallouts and bg.

It's grimdark Might and Magic dnd: autistic edition with tactical isometric combat. What's not to like?

Oh I was talking about Drakensang.

Well that certainly sounds compelling. Okay there's no harm in me trying it out, in the backlog it goes.

Thanks for the heads up on the dialogue checks, good to know.

I like it more like this, makes each playthrough different.

I really liked the Drakensang games, they were like a more comfy version of Neverwinter Nights 2. The German retail release had the rule book of the tabletop RPG included as a PDF, so I was able to look up how skill checks work because the manual did not explain how the various stats worked together. I would attach the PDF here, but it's in German and I guess that wouldn't be of much use to most people here, and it's over 16 MB large. Maybe someone at >>>/tg/ has an English copy.

>Maybe someone at >>>/tg/ has an English copy.
They don't, but I can help. Only got two books, though.

And here's number two.

I've really gotten into it now but I'm still early in the game. I lived in Germany for a bunch of years so manuals in German would be fine.
I was wondering about casters, there's no point to level up a weapon skill if I want to use offensive magic correct for my damage right? Just a bit confused since every caster starts with some points in weapon skills that can't be removed.

I ended up picking the necromancer class which had skeletons and some cold spell, but also points into saber.

Thanks a lot, that's a ton of information.

Haven't played the game for awhile, but you probably shouldn't, no.

Probably due to your "background". Every sort of culture has some starting points in various weapons in The Dark Eye, presumably because you played around with those weapons in mock-up form as a child or some-such. Think wooden swords and such.

You've done it now. Here ya go!
Basic Rulebook for character creation attached

And here's the book detailing skills.

Furthermore, if you're interested here's a mega-link for pretty much everything published concerning DSA. All but but a handful of it is in German, though, just so you know.
moz-extension://0a44aa44-e602-40a8-9f9d-ea0b1fd50023/mega/secure.html#F!KcYnFRwB!svAhjnY3pBgihPFs2CUoUg!ydgShZrR

Well, that came out wrong, sorry about that.
mega.nz/#F!KcYnFRwB!svAhjnY3pBgihPFs2CUoUg!TUIGlbzS

I actually liked the system. Feels very natural and sensible.

It's not as complex as it seems, and you have video on YT to explain some of the finer points.

B.t.w. - the River of Time expansion is in a few ways better. Also has a nice campaign.

Don't get the pen and paper rulebooks if you only plan on playing Drakensang, they changed the rules for absolutely everything so much, it's barely recognizable anymore.
You know how in most D&D video games there are minor changes, like spells not having material components, which really change the viability of certain builds and tactics?
For Drakensang everything got changed. In the pen and paper for example, damage spells cost 1 mana for 1 point of damage they do. Human characters have about 30 to 35 HP (and you don't get any from leveling up). Spellcasters have about 40 mana on start at max (again, not scaling with levels, raising that max value is insanely expensive), so you can kill one person, using up most of your mana. But not to worry, you regain somewhere between 1d6 and 1d6+5 mana per night ,meaning you can kill one guy every 5 days. Unless you want to cast anything else that is.
The Dark Eye has a lot of flaws as a pen and paper game, and the rules don't work for a computer game at all, so the existing games stray very far from the source material.

Cool thanks, even if not everything is applicable to the pc game it might still be a good read.

Maybe I need to play more German games to easier differentiate between VA:s but that guy really sounds like Xardas.
English VA's in the game have mostly been comically bad so far.

The pen and paper game has 150+ pages rulebooks detailing the summoning of demons, conjuring of elementals and raising of undeads. On top of a 400+ pages magic rulebook, a 300+ spell rulebook and a 200+ page "basic rulebook" that doesn't contain character creation (another 300+ pages).
Oh, both raising undead and summoning demons is punishable by death in most of the world, and even conjuring elementals can lead to a swift demise at the hands of an angry mob / ill - informed town's guard who thinks you're summoning demons; so all these rules are nigh unusable in practice.
But I guess it's better than the extended rules for mounted underwater archery…
What I mean is, Drakensang might not be too complex, but the game it's allegedly based on is a nightmare of complexity, illogical and dysfunctional rules and covering of edge cases whilst at the same time ignoring basic shit.

Sage for off topic.

There's only a handful of VAs in Germany.
99.8% of them are shit.

To be fair, a lot of these hundreds of pages of rules are redundant or examples of how they would be used in practical terms, not to mention all the fluff. It looks like a mountain but you actually just climb a steep hill. Doesn't make it any better, though.
From what I hear, the new edition is supposed to be better, but I haven't looked at it in depth, so maybe we just have another 4th edition with all the bullshit in it in the making, who knows.

I don't remember, but do NPCs even react to necromancy in Drakensang? I'm willing to bet that they don't, which would be a shame, but I honestly can't remember.
Go Brabak or go home!

I don't think the NPCs care about undead.
But then again, I only played the demo and stopped at character creation, as it had a "Tulamid Metamage (Necromancer)" class. I spilled my spaghetti everywhere.

From what I hear, 5th edition only has the "Base" rulebook so far. Seeing how in 4th edition the "base" rules were mostly invalidated by the later books, I haven't read it yet. Maybe in a few years, once mage and cleric rules are released.

Also, >Brabak
Good choice, if only it weren't so expensive (no affinity for demons like Rashdul gets). And no Pentagramma house spell, what the hell.

Yeah, that really ticked me off as well. These three words just cause so many questions, mostly "what the fuck?"

Last I checked was almost 5 months ago and they still haven't brought out anything new? Oh well, I'm not in a hurry.
Monetary wise? Exorcisms, summoning, banishments and council ain't cheap, my man, easy enough to earn that coin. Besides you can always just do some odd jobs for the academy.
GP wise? You get quite a bang for your buck, I think it's a good deal. Especially since you don't have anything else likewise, unless you come from Yol-Ghurmak, and that's quite a problem in itself.
Well, the current form of Pentagramma is rather recent and Brabak never cared much for banishing the various spirits and demons they summoned (see Bradonon Beldurian or Ystaion du Berilis), especially if you can just use a Reversalis and be done with it.

Is it easier to get into?

You can take the base warrior character, put points into one weapon skill, casually replace your gear with dropped shit, and see 75% of the content no problem. The prequel/second game adds some more shit into the mix to account for but it's still pretty low entry.

I fapped a lot of ds2.

All I'll say is that game really gave you a reason to go elf PC

Lords of Xulima's pretty decent. The story's end is really bad though, and the graphics are laughably bad… really everything but the gameplay is awful. But when it gets going it actually gets going really well. You should play on either old school or hardcore though.

...

that's not even the worst portrait

Thanks.

If I'm playing a Thief in Drakensang the dark eye, I would still want to level strength for more melee damage with daggers since nothing else helps melee damage right? Or should I ideally not even go into melee and instead stay in the back with throwing weapons? Speaking of, is throwing weapons actually a decent ranged alternative? Feels a bit lame to never get to loot some super special bow or crossbow and instead just craft/buy new daggers.

The Dark Eye is fine as a pen&paper game, most of the rules that people complain about are optional. What truly throws most people off and makes adaptation into a game difficult is that The Dark Eye despite being inspired by Dungeon&Dragons doesn't play like your typical murder hobo game and instead is a autistic german medieval fantasy simulation.

Wounds.
You want skills that deal wounds.
4 (or 5, don't remember) wounds and an enemy is dead regardless of HP, works on everything barring a couple of bosses.
This makes the dwarven fighter one of the worst NPCs because he's not really specced for piercing weapons.

max out your WILL.

if you have no will, enemies will quickly accumulate wounds on you and at 5 wounds you're fucking dead. no matter your characters class, you fucking max out that willpower stat ASAP.

Oh boy that sure takes me back.
I should still have my character sheet somewhere.

Except the autistic simulation hardly works.
Some raw materials are more expensive than the goods manufactured from them, customs would make some everyday items unaffordable in certain regions, horses starve to death since they basically have to eat 23 hours a day, characters can only carry kilograms of shit without being encumbered (meaning a regular human can carry about 30 pounds of stuff at most) and so on.
Also, my alchemist can easily quadruple his money just by brewing healing potions, effectively breaking the economy if I wanted to.
I feel like they wanted to go for the economy simulation thing, but it's not really functional.
Source : my party has a merchant with pretty high haggling and trading skill, as well as my own alchemist. We hardly use our abilities, lest we ruin Aventuria's economy.

It's been a while and I don't remember much, but here are 2 tips I wish I had known before playing Drakensang:

You can't make a defense oriented character. Though it sounds as if the dodge skill worked against multiple attackers, it's functionally identical to parry, doing nothing when you get swarmed. Focus on constitution and damage output instead if you don't want your mighty warrior to fall against a couple of rats, dodge or parry only matter for duels.

Play a caster as you'll get an armor exclusive to the PC which doesn't hinder casting. This would be wasted if you play a class without casting.

Well, I guess I might as well try it again.
No reason not to, especially after all the tips in this thread.

Also, are there elfus as party members?
This is important.

Ah, I remember the wound mechanic. I played a charlatan and put some points in that one skill that lets you do wounds. It's my favourite way of killing enemies.

looks like an MMO without the other players.

Not as far as I know.