Dark Sun Shattered Lands playthrough

[Skatan]

Decided to give this oldie but goldie a spin the other day. Don't know much about neither the game nor the setting. Did a few minutes of browsing beforehand about the game and the rules and took some tips and tricks, ie knowing the game has max level rather than max exp meaning multiclass is superior to singleclass characters. I admit so far I am having a blast! I smashed my way through the pits on Balanced difficulty with my quite overpowered team. The rolls were crazy high so it was very easy to make insanely strong chars. Also the game let you put even more points after rolling. No idea if that was as in the original or some kind of GoG addition, but I could basically max out all stats I think? But I don't mind to be OP, it's for fun and not for the challenge.

Here's my team after killing everything in the pits, I did three fights IIRC (the fourth was with ridiculously strong enemies so had to reload and go for the escape instead). I faked allegiance to Scar and killed him in the arena, which was a fun twist. Killed the other rival team too but inside the slave pens, then as I escaped I cleared house and killed all guards, templars etc. Only the poor sod Gilal I let live.

The team is romping through the sewers now. Finished the main quest there with the chieftan and his daughter, killed everyone and will move into the optional area soon to find someone named Dagolar (I think). The team consist of the powerful mul leader Skatan with his three foxy lady friends. Fun anecdote, as I was creating the team and flipping through races and portraits, my wife saw me looking at these dashing, pixelated beauties and wondered what the hells I was doing. Of course then I had to choose three ladies to accompany me just to tease her. Had to rename them to their classes though since the UI is kinda hard to know who you are controlling in the middle of fights.

 

[O_Bruce]

I like how in the character sheet, Fighter/Cleric/Psionic gives of different vibe from the rest by striking alternative pose

I don't know anything about this game, but I wish you fun with it regardless

 

[Skatan]

Hehe yeah the female dwarf portrait is quite sassy! Looks more like some kind of dancing pose than a fighter's stance. Had to go two half-elves for tripleclasses, but I regret it cause the two portraits and the player icons in the game are too similar so even with their names I don't always know who I have targeted. There's no circle around the char to show who is next, just a text box with their name. But it works mostly ok, and I have to say that so far I find this old engine a lot better than I thought I would. I have a vague memory I've tried this old game once before but getting wrecked in the first arena (you start as pit gladiators and have to fight directly upon entering the game before you are ushered into the slave pens and can walk around, talk etc) but this time I smashed these fights easily so not sure what I was doing last time.

Anywas, time to finish the sewers! Just need to google where the hells I can sleep and rest! Have done 20 fights in a row and are running out of health spells.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

This and the sequel are some of my favorite DnD games. Triple dual classing, elemental spheres with good spells in almost all of them, psionic wild talents, and one of the best intros of the genre.

Athas in general is a fantastic world.

You rest by the campfires, by the way. Just click on them.

 

[Skatan]

Yeah I understood the mechanic of the camp fires I just couldn't find it! But I ended up finding one in the end, finally. I finished Dagolar's nest and killed everyone and everything on the first try, so I think it went quite well. I do also check a LP on YT a bit for some tips and tricks and saw him struggling on that fight but it went well. Now I am roaming the wastes trying to find my way around but the map is a bit hard. Someone says a village is "north west" but there is no exit north, so I go west thinking I can then go north, but nope. I may have to google a world map just to save me some time running in circles since I am not really the kind of person who enjoys too much fedexing around the world chasing after people to deliver a bag to, but let's see.

Wish I had made one more Ranger/Cleric/Preserver. That one is a beast! Easily the best at everything. Clerics are a bit under-whelming so far to be honest. My charname psionicist use Dominate to great effect a lot and a funny thing I noticed is that if I manage to dominate all enemies alive, the encounter ends and they just vanish! The game see it as no enemies around and therefore exit the fight mode stealing my precious exp from me, heh. Gotta stop doing that.

A few things making the game harder; Can't tell how long buffs last and can't see THAC0. I decided to dualwield with my charname fighter and so far it seems to work even if I should get steep penalties. I guess my hulk-like STR gives enough bonuses to make me reliable hit anyways, but would still be nice to see rolls or at least some stats.

I had completely missed this generation of game(s), only trying a few of the dungeon crawler types (Ultima). I think I can see how BG1 became a sort of iteration from this style of game before it, it is very similar in style. Having a world map and fast travel would be a god-send for a lazy guy like me though. I wonder if someone ever seriously considered an EE or remake of this? It was perhaps never famous enough, but it sure seems like it would have had the potential.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

You can look at your buffs on the character menu screen, and they will show up in your combat statistics as well if you have buffs up.

What is your elemental sphere for your cleric? Fire clerics have enough nukes that they stay interesting, but yes, at the end of the day clerics are inferior Druids on the world of Athas. They have higher multi-classing potential and less RP restrictions, but their spell list is just worse.

I like to take a halfling Water Druid/Psionic. Water druids get an extra save-or-die spell at a lower level, and I specialize them in Disintegrate powers. Just throwing instant death nukes out everywhere and buffing the party otherwise. I consider a Water Druid necessary for RP reasons, particularly if you have a half-giant.

Spoiler: Hint

Did you find the Enlarge scroll in the sewers? Only scroll of its kind in the game, if you want to maximize your spellbook. It's useful too.