Let's learn and play Eschalon Book 1

[Master Hosen]

Hey everyone I will be doing a let's learn and play series on Eschalon Book 1 that will be uploaded to my youtube channel mastahosen. The idea for this is to give people who have not played (and those that have) an idea what the game is a about and what my experienes of it are like

So wether you are new to Eschalon or a vet come check out my videos on the game. If you have any questions about it or want to discuss character builds feel free to send me a PM on youtube or my steam account which is noobtaco

Thanks for your time and best wishes to you all

Hosen

http://www.youtube.com/user/MastaHosen?feature=mhee

PS: I also have Eschalon Book 2 and if enough people want me to do videos of that I can! =)

[SigilFey]

I think this is really helpful. Can't believe no one has responded yet.

Here's my two cents, and I'll focus mainly on character skills:

1.) Do not over-generalize when choosing skills. The game does not really cater to characters with a wide range of abilities, and is pretty melee heavy regardless of what you choose. A selection of 4-5 skills to begin with is more than enough. Any more, and your character begins to suffer from the classic jack-of-all-trades weaknesses. The same should also be said of character attributes. Envision a character with certain strengths and weaknesses and stick to it as you play.

2.) Try to get a melee skill up to 10-15 as quickly as possible. I've found that once I am at that level, I can go toe-to-toe with almost every enemy that pops my bubble of personal space for the first half of the game. It still allows for a lot of points to be assigned to other skills later on if you wish your character to be a magic-user, theif, archer, etc.

3.) Magic, ranged weaponry (especially thrown weapons), and theiving skills are VERY ineffective at low levels. It's best to build them up slowly so that you can begin taking advantage of them later in the game. It's sort of disappointing not to be able to use them effectively right off the bat, but it does give a sense of acheivement when you do finally bring them up to speed and have the melee weaponry skills in place to back them up. (The one exception to this is the "Pick Locks" skill, which is extremely useful at all stages of the game.)

4.) I recommend avoiding choosing either Cartography or Alchemy as starting skills. Without spoilers, it is possible to gain these skills early on in the game quite easily--long before, in my opinion, they will have a major impact on gameplay.

5.) Dodge, Mercantile, Lore, and Survival are commonly overlooked skills that are actually suprisingly useful.
-Dodge, when taken as a starting skill, may seem like a waste, but by assigning one or two points per level, it quickly becomes a massively effective bonus for the player. By the time it is around 25-30, the player should notice a huge change in the flow of melee combat.
-Mercantile, Lore, or a combination of both can save the player thousands of gold pieces over the course of the game. And gold is tight in Eschalon; enough so that players may consistently feel as if they are always on the brink of poverty even late in the game.
-Survival allows players to heal and regenerate mana more quickly while camping. As camping is the only viable way to regain hit points and magic points regularly (potions are rare and expensive in the game), and the random encounters which spawn while you are resting can be brutal or outright impossible if you are already injured, a high Survival rating ensures you will have to deal with fewer reloads and may even be able to fight through some of those random encounters soaking up the precious, precious experience.

6.) General hints:
-Exploration in each map area is usually not too unforgiving, but I would suggest following the storyline if the time has come to transition to a new area. Wander off too far in the wrong direction, and you'll be looking down at yourself as a pile of goo.

-The game is not ridiculously hard, but it might seem much harder than more "new-school" games in the Diablo/Elder Scrolls/WoW vein. Take it more slowly, play to your character's strengths, and use the terrain to your advantage. It is also possible to flee from combat by putting enough distance between you and your enemies or by reaching the border of a region. But those same enemies will still be there waiting for you if you return!

-Avoid wasting potions or magical scrolls, as they are difficult to replace, and most characters will need them in bulk to get through some of the harder boss fights or set-piece battles.

-Leave the junk where it lies. Encumbrance is not only limited by space, but by weight. Unless your Mercantile skill is very high, you won't get more than a few gold pieces by selling the average dagger or axe. Even lower-grade armour is useless as a pawn item. Carry the good stuff with you and learn to spend more wisely to avoid constant inventory management.

-Never travel anywhere without light and food. Light is needed, as even nighttime aboveground is DARK. And while there are a lot of nay-sayers about the pointless inclusion of food in RPG games, I find it to be very functional here. There are many areas that do not allow for camping, and players can find themselves stuck with low health and mana and too many enemies nearby to rest. Eating different foods replenishes health, mana, or both by very small amounts. Much like a rogue-like game, eating a bunch of food can allow you to pass turns to bring yourself back up to combat readiness and save the much more effective potions for those moments when you're about to have your nose realigned with your left ear by something as big as a bar-stall trough and twice as smelly.

Okay, so maybe it was forty-three cents...

[ThreePea]

Thanks, SigilFey. I am just starting out and that was some great advice. Thanks for taking the time to write it down.

[SigilFey]

No sweat. I'm naturally verbose.

[held]

Nice Let's play videos, I will watch them and maybe after that I will buy the game too ;)