making money?

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Rocier
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making money?

Post by Rocier »

Every eschalon game I always pick a ranger to start with and every time im frustrated with how difficult and annoying it is to play. But this time i find it particularly annoying because it seems a little more difficult and my quiver and pocketbook are always empty!!! I took foraging and alchemy hoping to make money selling components or potions, but nope, all i get is cabbage cabbage cabbage!!!! Then i had to dump points in elemental magic just to kill the bugs on the second overworld screen.

So I've got a number of basic skills, lbl 6 archery , lvl 5 foraging and thats about it. any tips? Cash would be nice. I'm fighting other achers in this abandoned guild hall andthey are absolutely wrecking me.
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xolotl
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Re: making money?

Post by xolotl »

Rocier wrote:Every eschalon game I always pick a ranger to start with and every time im frustrated with how difficult and annoying it is to play. But this time i find it particularly annoying because it seems a little more difficult and my quiver and pocketbook are always empty!!! I took foraging and alchemy hoping to make money selling components or potions, but nope, all i get is cabbage cabbage cabbage!!!! Then i had to dump points in elemental magic just to kill the bugs on the second overworld screen.

So I've got a number of basic skills, lbl 6 archery , lvl 5 foraging and thats about it. any tips? Cash would be nice. I'm fighting other achers in this abandoned guild hall andthey are absolutely wrecking me.
The Marauders in the Guild hall are rather tough - depending on my character, I generally try to come back to them later. It's not the easiest area to get through, especially early in the game.

And yeah, rangers can have a tough time with the Stinging Swarms... When I played through with a ranger, I had fortunately already decided to have Divination backup, so I had a spell that would touch them. One thing I'd recommend highly, since you already have Elemental, is the Dazzling Spell flare, once you can afford/find it. It's extremely handy for ranged fighters, for keeping your enemies at bay.

As for the cashflow issue, the beginning stages of Book III are certainly quite cash-tight. I've never felt as though I had tons of money to spend at the beginning. It's especially tough since for the most part, you can't even camp-grind for loot to sell. (One exception is the Guild lower level, once you're able to take them on more reliably.) I'm not sure at what point Foraging starts making you money - I've yet to put more than 3-4 points into it. My impression is that it takes awhile. Even at level 2-3, though, it's generally at least sufficient for keeping your character fed and watered, though. I don't really have much advice for making money, other than that you do start having some breathing room eventually.

And as for general character effectiveness, as with previous Eschalon games, the mechanics of the game really reward specialization. If you want to have an easier time, be sure to be pumping nearly all your points into one key skill, and one or two key attributes. If you've picked more than a handful of skills on the creation screen, you'll have a harder time... With my ranger, I had only started out with Bows 5, LightArmor 3, Divination 1, Repair 1.

Getting your primary weapon skill up to 10 as quickly as possible is recommended as well, 'cause that's when you get your Feats, which make a huge difference. Be sure to switch to "power" attacks when you have a feat ready, since they'll always hit. With some careful movement and placement, you should hopefully be able to coerce single enemies to run after you (rather than whole groups), which can make it a lot easier too (even if you do end up doing some silly running-around while waiting for your Feat to recharge).
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Re: making money?

Post by Rocier »

thank you for your very detailed response. I fear i may have spread myslef too thin on my skill points
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KillingMoon
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Re: making money?

Post by KillingMoon »

I think your ideas weren't bad, but they won't work well within Book III, due to mechanics that aren't explained anywhere in the game.
Foraging only gives you food and water until your Foraging skill is quite high (12? mid teens? I don't even know), only then you'll start to find reagents. And your Alchemy skill needs to be quite high as well to become valuable. In Book II your idea would have worked out better, but in Book III the skill levels you need are quite high and the game too short to profit from them.
A bit of Mercantile is probably better for saving money. For a ranger I noticed that a Dealer's Hat, which gives 2 levels in Mercantile, already brings the price of a basic arrow down from 2 to 1 gold. You'd need quite a few arrows, so that's useful. I'm not sure if 1 level in Mercantile already works to make an arrow cheaper, it's possible, I just don't know this.

If you're not playing as a pure ranger, but are combing with magick anyway, it would have been better to start with either Elemental or Divine magick as your free skill; you then are guaranteed a good attack spell off the bat and don't need to waste so much arrows in the beginning due to your character's initial ineptitude with any physical weapon.
It makes a big difference with which type of character you play in Eschalon. A mage is easiest, a ranger is still quite good, melee is getting tougher, and it's going to be really hard if you specialize in rogue skills. Throwing weapons could well be impossible.
Specializing is indeed very advised, most skills start to pay off if your level in them is in the teens, but combinations with magick you should always be able to make work.
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Re: making money?

Post by Painted Lady »

xolotl wrote: Getting your primary weapon skill up to 10 as quickly as possible is recommended as well, 'cause that's when you get your Feats, which make a huge difference. Be sure to switch to "power" attacks when you have a feat ready, since they'll always hit.
Actually, that is not quite true. I am currently playing a Ranger, and am trying for the True Ranger challenge. I am now taking on the Blue Nidaria. With my character at level 27 in bows, I haven't been able to invest enough points in spells to do much serious damage to a tough enemy.

When I switch to Power mode and use my Feature, I get a strike about 60% of the time. The rest of the time there is a message that the Blue Nidaria are 50% resistant to projectiles. Fortunately, the Feature is still available after the missed attack. So, if I'm not too damaged by the Nidaria's magic attack, I can fire again and stay in the battle. Then, of course, I have to turn and run so that the Feature has time to reactivate itself.
Last edited by Painted Lady on March 29th, 2014, 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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xolotl
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Re: making money?

Post by xolotl »

Painted Lady wrote:Actually, that is not quite true. I am currently playing a Ranger, am and trying for the True Ranger challenge. I am now taking on the Blue Nidaria. With my character at level 27 in bows, I haven't been able to invest enough points in spells to do much serious damage to a tough enemy.
Heh, yeah, the Blue Nidaria are the exception to every rule, I think. I've yet to have a character who could take them on reasonably. I was pretty much doing just what you described for my ranger. Any other enemy in the game is a guaranteed hit when you do your Feat, though. :)
KillingMoon wrote:it's going to be really hard if you specialize in rogue skills
Yeah, I was having a super hard time with my rogue, and actually ended up abandoning that char for awhile. I think for rogues, you've just got to accept that you can't really have your cake and eat it too. With the number of skills you need to develop to be effective at the rogueing (a new word!), you really just can't afford to be also putting points into getting good at a weapon. The way the current Hidden/Silent mechanics work, too, you're going to be exposed as soon as you attack, anyway, so a rogue is probably going to have to purposefully go for a very-low-kill-count game. That's been my recent observations, anyway. I've yet to try again... Instead I opted to work out some frustration with a Bludgeoning-weilding barbarian type which has yielded much satisfaction.
Rocier wrote:I fear i may have spread myslef too thin on my skill points
It is, of course, in the nature of an Eschalon game that you might sometimes find it best to just start over with a fresh character, when the one you started on isn't working quite right. I'd consider myself rather seasoned in the series, and as I mentioned above, I just abandoned a nonworking char too. So, don't feel bad. :) This is all part of the game! We must all strive to take Dwarf Fortress' mantra to heart: Losing is fun!
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Re: making money?

Post by xolotl »

One possible suggestion for getting some extra income, btw, would be to install one or more of the available mods, though of course it wouldn't be a "pure" playthrough. The two bigger ones available now (Rockhammer Mine and Moonrise Alchemist's Tower) wouldn't really help until the midgame or so, but they'll both provide you with quite a bit of extra gear to sell. Moonrise Tower particularly.

There's a newer one out which adds various things to the main Rockhammer map, intended for the early game. You'd want to have that installed right from the beginning, though.
Rocier
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Re: making money?

Post by Rocier »

Woa, extra content mods? cool. Ya I was browsing the forums and I noticed the map is quite small. The game in general seems dissapointingly small. I was really expecting a grand finale after all this time... Not to QQ.

So I've just gone back to the save/load scheme before opening chests i used in previous games to make money. I really dont like doing that, but i gots no choice! I'll do a harcore playthrough with a mage next time.
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Re: making money?

Post by IJBall »

xolotl wrote:
Painted Lady wrote:Actually, that is not quite true. I am currently playing a Ranger, am and trying for the True Ranger challenge. I am now taking on the Blue Nidaria. With my character at level 27 in bows, I haven't been able to invest enough points in spells to do much serious damage to a tough enemy.
Heh, yeah, the Blue Nidaria are the exception to every rule, I think. I've yet to have a character who could take them on reasonably...
My Mage-Healer mix were actually able to take on the Nidaria with relative ease - Dense Nimbus spell (which isn't supposed to protect you from Nidaria, but currently does!...) combined with Fleshboil, and you can take Nidaria out pretty simply. :)
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Re: making money?

Post by Leyden »

Rocier wrote:So I've got a number of basic skills, lbl 6 archery , lvl 5 foraging and thats about it. any tips? Cash would be nice. I'm fighting other achers in this abandoned guild hall and they are absolutely wrecking me.
I had a ranger/mage/jack of all trades character (to many low level skills early in the game). I found that a good keg solves many problems. Guild Hall Guys taking you out? Plant a keg in the dark around a corner with a long hall and lure them to it. Archers are harder to lure than marauders because they will only chase you so far. You just have to stay ahead of them, allowing you to get far enough away from your keg for safety, but still have a clear shot at it taking them out as they pass it.

Poison works too, but it takes longer and I don't like the feeling I get waiting around for them to die. (I found six flasks of it early in the game and did resort to using it on some of the Guild Hall guys.)

For the Guild Hall guys, I used the kegs on the beach next to Lilith and some from the ship.
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Re: making money?

Post by Painted Lady »

Rocier wrote:So I've got a number of basic skills, lbl 6 archery , lvl 5 foraging and thats about it. any tips? Cash would be nice. I'm fighting other achers in this abandoned guild hall and they are absolutely wrecking me.
I have never been able to play a Ranger without having Elemental so I could get Predator Sight. Gilda usually carries that spell. With it you can pull all of the lights out of the sconces and still nail the enemy. He has trouble getting to you because you are in the dark.

One thing I have found indispensable in my Ranger playthrough is Malacchi's Gruel. There aren't any trainers for Divination, and the book doesn't appear until later on in the game. I hated having to pop the points for Divination, but was going to starve to death otherwise. I was walking everywhere in order to forage, but it still wasn't enough. After about Level 5 in foraging you start finding alchemy ingredients, but you stay short of food.
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KillingMoon
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Re: making money?

Post by KillingMoon »

Strange, I was always hoarding the bittercup seeds and wild cabbage with only 1 or 2 points in Foraging. Malachi's Gruel and Draw Water I'm always putting up for sale as soon as I find them. Then still I need to sell food every so often because of weight issues. But I don't camp, that should make a difference.
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Re: making money?

Post by Lord_P »

IJBall wrote:
xolotl wrote:
Painted Lady wrote:Actually, that is not quite true. I am currently playing a Ranger, am and trying for the True Ranger challenge. I am now taking on the Blue Nidaria. With my character at level 27 in bows, I haven't been able to invest enough points in spells to do much serious damage to a tough enemy.
Heh, yeah, the Blue Nidaria are the exception to every rule, I think. I've yet to have a character who could take them on reasonably...
My Mage-Healer mix were actually able to take on the Nidaria with relative ease - Dense Nimbus spell (which isn't supposed to protect you from Nidaria, but currently does!...) combined with Fleshboil, and you can take Nidaria out pretty simply. :)
Yeah, in my playthrough I stopped using spark only after finding out that the Nidaria were resistant to it. So I changed my tactic to fleshboil times infinity, then camping for mana. :lol:
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