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.

 

[Skatan]

I have one cleric that is water and one that is wind IIRC, the druid I think is fire, so maybe I messed up there. I briefly checked a char guide who said to try and take one dominion of each but I ended up missing one since mainchar wasn't either (he is figher/thief/psi). Made him thief cause I read another tip it's easier to have the thief as party leader for when there are thief interactions in the world like climbing or pickpocketing.

I had this idea I could spam out elementals and use as walls of meat (well, not meat technically) in front of my chars to save hitpoints but it seems I can only have one active. It always says the summoning fails if I try to cast a second one even using another character and another element.

yeah I have the enlarge spell but haven't used it yet! I mainly use my arcane for Web, Slow and an occasional fireball. I guess Enlarge and Haste is a deadly combo but so far my chars hit very hard already and I greatly enjoy the crits you get from stunned enemies. You seem knowledable, do you know how to trigger backstab/sneak attack? Does one only need to attack from the back or do I need to also be invisble (my psi power have an invisibility 'spell').

Haven't used disintegrate actually. Was afraid it would also remove loot?

Most of my guys are around 6/6/6 now with the occasional straggler (the ranger and preserver classes are 5 I think). I am running back and forth to the main city to deliver alchemical ingredients and got lost trying to find a second city called Denethorn or something similar (the one Northwest )

 

[WarChiefZeke]

You seem knowledable, do you know how to trigger backstab/sneak attack? Does one only need to attack from the back

Yes, you get your backstab damage from attacking from behind. Or if they are stunned/paralyzed. Even if you aren't a psionic, if you chose Telepathy as a wild talent you get improved invisibility and ego whip (1D6 turns of stun), always useful for your thief.

 

[Zaxares]

Oooh, another convert to Dark Sun/Shattered Lands! This game was one of my absolute favourites during the early 90's too. (Sadly, I can't really recommend the sequel. The models/animations for Wake of the Ravager just look so GOOFY, and there was this annoying bug where magic items that had permanent effects got converted into charges instead, so you could find your favourite sword like Darkflame suddenly disappearing halfway through the game and not knowing what had happened. There's still some bright spots in WotR, and it's worth at least one playthrough, but it didn't reach the standard Shattered Lands set for me.)

And yeah, Psionicist is an absolute beast in the Dark Sun games. You have a really powerful Save or Die spell straight off the bat in Disintegrate (although it's expensive to cast), you can stun dangerous enemies with Ego Whip or Id Insinuation, or turn enemies into allies with Domination or the even better Mass Domination. I highly recommend at least one for every party. You can also pull off some seriously powerful OP combos with Psychometabolism skills, although I usually don't bother with them since my chars tend to have massive Strength (try out a Half-Giant sometime! They have a starting max of 24 Str!) and can tear through just about any foe in 1 round by dual-wielding.

I also think that the Dark Sun games are, to date, the ONLY D&D cRPGs to actually have a functioning psionics system in parallel with magic, making them unique in D&D gaming history.

And yup, if you're coming from later D&D editions, the thing to know about Clerics/Druids in Dark Sun is that DRUIDS are the main healers in this setting (as in, if you want to be able to cast the higher level healing spells like Heal, you need a Druid). Clerics worship an Elemental Sphere (Air, Fire, Earth or Water), and they have greater access to elemental spells of their chosen sphere (none from their opposite, I think), so they're better suited as buffers, battlefield controllers and summoners. Preservers, despite their unique lore mechanic, are your standard mass blasters/battleground controllers like other D&D setting's mages. It's still highly helpful to have one to deal with tons of annoying enemies, plus the game-breaking Haste spell.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

I had this idea I could spam out elementals and use as walls of meat (well, not meat technically) in front of my chars to save hitpoints but it seems I can only have one active. It always says the summoning fails if I try to cast a second one even using another character and another element.

This idea still has merit even with a lone summon. You will want the "Wall" spells like Wall of Ice, Stone, Force. Throw a wall of fire into the entryway and use a fire elemental to guard for a little extra spice. This creates a chokepoint for your elemental to guard the entryway. Then you can nuke and cast area-of-effect spells with impunity. Having more than one element, while certainly not needed, is still useful as some will have different walls than others.

For more caster heavy parties I use this strat quite a bit, since you are almost always outnumbered.

If you want more summons, consider the "Domination" power from the psionic tree. You can have as many dominated enemies as you like. Defeat them before the battle ends if you need the xp, but you can hit level cap without doing this and there are random encounters.