[Challenge] The honorable mage

BattleLord

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Rygal Deros is a ironman mage with an unique mindset. His believe is that killing from a distance is not a fair fight and every battle should be fought up close. His lonely journey to save the world will not be easy.

The rules for this challenge are simple. You create a new mage character and try to survive without using any distance attacks. So no staves or wands, daggers are the only weapons you are allowed to use. Also skills that attack from a distance are forbidden. This limits your starting skills. Here is a list of the forbidden skills:
- Fireball
- Ice storm
- Lighting bolt
- Staff mastery
- Wand mastery
- Arcanist
As additional difficulty you are not allowed to use companions for this challenge since it would be too easy then. Even the buyable weak warriors are not allowed.

EDIT clarification of some rules that might be unclear:
- Adaon is optionally allowed in the unknown dungeon since you could see him as a quest related NPC like Bruno and Zilda. It's better if you manage to clear it without him of course, but you won't be disqualified for taking him with you.
- Companions are otherwise not allowed not even for their companion quests. This makes companion quests unable to do during the challenge. This also includes "A mad wizard"

Some tips for completing the challenge:
- Summoning isn't forbidden so this'll be a major help. In the beginning you can only use the sparkling but as soon as you get better reputation with the wizards you'll be a lot stronger with the golems by your side.
- Sacrificial dagger is a possible drop very early in the game and one of the best weapons available in this mode. After a while you'll be able to get the bluesteel dagger, which will be your strongest option until you manage to kill a primeval bear and afterwards finally find the scalpel in the ark.
- Since you can only wear daggers, agility will be one of your major skills. Personality will also be important later in the game to unlock the stronger summons. You might want to pick up some endurance too to counter the mages weak starter health.
- Disintegrate is an option since it just buffs your next attack. I tested it with another mage character and it works.

Good luck! If anyone tries this challenge I would love to see how it goes in a reply on this post. I'll be posting my progress in this challenge here as well.
 

DavidBVal

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Ouch... unless you grind insanely, this is going to be a pretty short run :cool:
 

BattleLord

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DavidBVal":1w3kkk78 said:
this is going to be a pretty short run :cool:

You were right about that. Rygal bit the dust when a bunch of monsters ganged up on him and his sparkling when his mana was low. I also underestimate this run a little bit, there were a few points I didn't expect:

- The damage daggers do is even lower then I expected. Maxing out agility helped a bit, but even then the damage is barely enough to fend off enemies. The sparkling helped a lot for this though and was my main source of damage at the lower levels. And at the higher levels this'll be even worse since you'll be stuck with the bluesteel dagger until you manage to kill a primeval bear and leveling up agility will be even more expensive.
- Mana. Since the sparkling was so important, suddenly I needed a lot of mana to keep summoning him and keep my mage shield up. But since I spend all my points in agility and endurance I barely had enough mana to keep summoning.
- A big problem too was money. For the ironman run I had to keep some potions with me at all time to use in time of need, but I also had to spare up the 1000 gold to buy a bluesteel dagger in the sewers. And since all my stats except agility were low I could never pick the best route in quests so I earned a lot less. I needed to rest a lot in inns too, so that was a big unexpected gold drain.

I'll try this challenge again someday in the future but I'll probably change my strategy a bit to prevent those things from slowing me down again. I'm a bit worried for the time between getting a bluesteel dagger and getting good enough reputation with the wizards guild to summon golems though since I fear I'll be very weak then.
 

BattleLord

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Here I am a few months later to try this challenge again with a fresh start. Meet Korg Croc. Another member of the honorable mages clan. Unlike the previous mage, Korg is surviving a lot better and made it safely to level 5 already.





A few more things I changed for this run:
- To deal with the damage issue I just played it a lot safer. In the beginning you'll need to go back to the inn after every few fights. Without companion or reliable damage you have to think about every challenge very carefully. Long dungeon runs are also out of the question. However, I liked this. It really made me feel like I was just an adventurer trying to survive and not an overpowered demi god blasting away everything in my path.
- I waited with upgrading to Lesser Summoning II until after I got Mana Surge I. For a mage with low intellect, mana is limited and having to pay 20 every summon + mage armors is just too much to afford. A level 2-3 sparkling is not that less helpful at the lower levels and 40% cheaper which allows you to keep up your much needed mage armor.
- To solve the money problem I didn't fully go for Agility first like last time, but invested some points in the dialog skills (Intellect, Awareness, Personality) This helped me maximising my early game profits and allowed me to buy the bluesteel dagger in the sewers very early (the thirth best weapon available in the entire game) With this weapon I was then able to finish up the harder start game areas. Even with this, the constant inn visits weight very heavily on my budget and I really feel like the adventurer just trying to get by and earn some coin to keep living, like it is said in the opening of the game. That is a feeling that I never got when playing through the game normally.

Also as a sidenote, I was forced to cheat the challenge a little bit. I severly underestimated the difficulty of the Unknown dungeon and almost died from the guards. In a last desperate attempt to survive while running away with only 2 health left I set Adaon free and he dispatched the guard easily. Technically this does mean that I used a companion for this part, but I'm not counting this since I just see him like one of those obligatory quest companions like Zilda and Breno. (However if/once I die I'm going to try and do the dungeon Adaon free next time)

Hopefully I can do a level 10 update post sometime in the future, but we'll see.
 

Chefbobby203

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Man killing those primeval bears is going to be really tough on that guy. I could solo them on hardcore with my cleric at level 11, but that character was super tanky(full health bar restore on death) and even then I needed quite a few potions.

Think how glorious it will be when you get that drop though
 

BattleLord

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Here I am again with another update (an another character). Meet Ryal Derak, the most succesful member of the honorable mages clan. He reached level 10 already and has a powerful fire elemental to help him during his dangerous quest.





Here are a few more tips I gathered for getting the best gear possible.

- The best things to get at this level are armor and health since those add to the survivability of your character while mana only helps with going on for longer (resummoning elementals and recasting mage armor) which is a secondary concern.
- For your bluesteel dagger it's optimal to buy it at Jabal since the only other place to get it is in the sewers. Those are only open after completing the unknown dungeon, which is an area best avoided until you have a fire golem to protect yourself.
- For body your best gear is the lionskin cuirass, it gives a lot of armor and health and isn't too hard to get if you play it safe. Just lure the minotaurs to the town and attack them in the back while the guard is dealing with them. If you land the final blow you have a chance of getting the horn needed to get this armor.
- For your back you can take the Cloak of Survival if you don't have a problem with letting some Varannari die. Just start the quest, go down to the hunters, don't attack them yet but go back up to get the help of some legionnaires. Let them kill the hunters while you stay in the back.
- As hands you can get the laboratory gloves very easily after just killing a few poisonous spiders. After finally completing the unknown dungeon you can switch over to the essense gloves that are found in Tremadans tower
- As rings you can just some elemental rings you find in the beginning and afterwards get the Oasis ring to buff your endurance and since you need 3 personality to summon a golem you can buy the traders ring to get to 4 personality and get more mana.
- For your feet the Arcane leather boots are slightly better then the Journeyman ones, even if they are pretty expensive.
- The buckler is best as shield since you get a lot of armor from your mage armor and the "shield" property of the buckler makes sure you always use the most of it. If you know you are going to face a specific element a lot you can swap temporary to the appropriate orb. Once you can kill the Goblin king you get the charred buckler to get a bit more health and fire resistance.
- Town hall quests are a great way to get more gold and experience. Certainly if they point towards areas with foes that can drop steel weapons to get the money from that too. Just take your time finding out exactly where your target is so you don't have to spend too long in a dungeon.

The next challenges for me will be to start the shard of fate quest and find a way to defeat the dangerous foes needed for that and complete the last two quests needed to get into icemist. I tested already a bit and with a vulcan dagger, a strong fire elemental and a lot of potions I should be able to clear that one soon enough. I'll keep all of you updated when I reach higher levels with this challenge.

Also this run I managed to do it completely companion free already. I gave Gris her ring but that rejected her for my team so she is still a level 3 in kingsbridge. But I had to leave Adaon behind in his cell in the unknown dungeon this time.
 

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