Pure Mage. You may not wield or swing a weapon other than dagger or staff; you may not place more than 3 points in either of these skills. (Bare fists are allowed).

Never killed a single creature with anything other than a spell. Never used a single torch, never spent points in cartography (got 7 from paying the trainer, and then reading the book), and all other skills aquired were from books.

*Spoiler*

Screen

~Akark

Nice Akark!

It was actually rather easy at first, but it got progressively harder later on. But it was rather entertaining, working on a second play through now.

~Akark

Actually, I just completed my first runthrough of Book I, and apart from using one or two Demon Oils that I had found while dungeon-crawling (oh, and I guess I used the Incinerator Flask as well), I hadn't used any alchemy at all during the game. The money you can take in by selling alchemy ingredients is pretty decent. I'll have to play another round with alchemy and compare.

The runthrough did seem overly difficult during the first half, until I got my character straightened out, but I had attributed that to just taking the first die roll I was given (which included a few pretty low stat numbers) and a whole lot of overdiversification early on in the game. Once I actually settled down and focused on my character's core strengths, it got much easier.

So anyway, yeah, I wouldn't say that an alchemy-less game was that difficult, really.

***edited to blank***

I have completed a number of challenges in a single game.

1. There Can Be Only One
2. Pure Mage
3. Lover, Not a Fighter
4. No Alchemy

****SPOILER PIC****

There Can Be Only One -- (I took the challenge to mean books & trainers were acceptable but that I could use no initial or level gained skill points. Total Possible Skills Points -- 1 Class Point + 20 Initial + 60 Levels + 2 Book.

The picture shows 83 Elemental. I gained cartography though trainer and book. -- My interpretation says this is allowed but I neither trained, assigned, or read a book on any other skill.

2. Pure Mage (I only assigned points to Elemental which is the very definition of 'Pure Mage'.)

3. Lover, Not a Fighter -- (I never armed a weapon... all kills were done by magic (Not even portcullis kills... an acid grub got an assist on a goblin because I couldn't find them in time.).

4. No Alchemy -- Never trained the skill... all potions were bought.

Here's a new one because of circumstance --- NO ARMOR.
Due to the 83 elemental thing, I could only use rings & amulet. I wore Traveler's shirt & the pants the entire game.

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A couple of things to note.

Check out the 93 perception --- MUHAHAHA!
Check out the 423 Mana --- (Wearing 65 mana in rings, amulet, and belt but still... seriously, I had 358 natural mana!)

Does this pretty much end the 'Pure Mage is too hard!' thing? 'Cause I never died... I had 35 fire darts at the end there, it's just ridiculous how much damage I could put out in a hurry. I only really used the fortify mana to hit Destroyer. I found out that if you have enough mana, the higher level spells are definitely worth it over fire dart -- at that point, it was the saves for full that blew chunks!

elsol....that's awesome, man.

Delayed Gratification: essentially, it's like Peon, except that you aren't allowed to speed-run. The trick here is to earn levels without ever taking them. The interesting part about this one is that as you go on in the game, experience comes in larger chunks, but gets harder to get. Eventually, you kill off all of the available thugs. You can sleep and wait to be ambushed, but the ambushing monsters get tougher based on the level you could be, not the level you are. It's a progressive challenge, really - how far can you get?

Here's my Noob. As you see, he's in Bastion Spire with the Crux of Ages. Unfortunately, placing the Crux nets him 2500 xp, which is kind of a kick in the teeth after everything I went through to avoid killing anything. I could have just made the deal with Magruk (or whatever his name is), but I wanted to see if I could get by him without killing him. I did, but it would have been a lot easier if I hadn't used my only invisibility potion at the bottom of the stairs. I think.
Apologies for poor quality of image; I'm bandwidth-challenged.
For the record, the only creatures I killed were the Dimensional Eye in Shadowmirk and the two Goblin Chiefs--one of whom I was able to get with a portcullis so I only got 25 XP--Yea! Aha, you say--you must have killed the raptor in Shadowmirk too! Not so. I hid while the raptor killed the two noximanders, then I bombed it with demon oil until it wasn't quite dead. I can't take credit for planning it this way, but I noticed it was still taking damage from the noximander poison, so I stood back and let it expire. No xp for me, but the gates opened.
Against that, I did for some reason get 150 xp for a spider that Walter killed! Especially egregious considering that Walter heroically sacrificed his life in the process.
BTW, my character is wearing (almost) nothing but what he woke up in--not even sandals. No armor (the armor penalty there is for the Burglar's Gloves I donned to help me through the locked door--note lockpicking skill), no amulets, no rings (except brewmaster and that barely used), for weapons only darts (for inanimate objects), hammer (ditto, though I admit I did swing it at the raptor a couple of times) and demon oil. Not saying I wouldn't have used a Shadow Cloak if I'd found one, but the loot isn't that great at low levels, and I didn't go out of my way to look, obviously, lest I have to kill something.
It was a hoot to play it this way--I particularly enjoyed watching the baddies follow me from one area to the next and mix it up with another set of critters. Bloodsippers vs. walking dead, goblins vs. noximanders, and of course the perennial favorite: thugs vs. town guards. Oh yeah, and gatekeepers are pushovers. I'm never paying that 100 gp again.

a new one: No quick-travel. By itself, kinda meaningless - it mostly makes things more time-consuming, rather than more difficult. In combination with noob and/or speed-run, however...

It's impossible to achieve the Kill Everything ending, because if you try to, you'll have to go to Darkford and kill the guard that's guarding the INSIDE of the door. And if you do, you can't get out. And if you get out of Darkford first, then you can't get back in to kill him. See the problem?

Not a problem if you can cast Portal, at least. Couldn't be used for a non-Elemental user, though. More troublesome would be kiling the Magic Guild person in Blackwater, no? At least on my version, there's a bug wherein the game crashes if he takes damage (or dies, or something - it's been awhile since I've tried).

[quote="Turtle Oh yeah, and gatekeepers are pushovers. I'm never paying that 100 gp again.

[/quote]


I haven't paid the 100gp since I discovered I could sneak into the dark area at night at the NW gate and pull the switch, back out of the trees and walk in to drink at the well. I admit it is a tiny bit annoying to have towalk around to that gate everytime I fast travel but it's still worth that little bit of walking.

And here I thought I was a champion sneak. Obviously I have much to learn.

The game crashes if he starts casting a spell, but if he can't see you, he doesn't start casting, so attack him at night.