Newbie starting Eschalon - please help out

[waryk]

Thank you very much for your replies everyone! Between your posts and IJBall's awesome thread I think I have a layout as good as I'll get.

I've decided on the following:
Light Armor 1 (Most early game armor is Light Armor)
Pick Locks 1 (To use lockpicks)
Swords 6
Hide in Shadows 1
Disarm Traps 1
Move Silently 1

As for stats, I took IJBall's advice, rolled until I had 14 strength and 14 endurance, and pumped all my stats into endurance for the 76 HP start.

Heaven or Hell I'm going to stick with this character and hope for the best!

[IJBall]

2) Are there any caps for stats or skills?

No known caps, but Cartography and Alchemy don't give anything more over 20.

Cartography especially I wouldn't bother beyond about 5, honestly. I think that Alchemy actually stops providing benefits above level 15, unless I'm mistaken...

You need to get Alchemy to Level 20 to mix Invisibility III potions yourself. But every other potion (including Invisibility II) can be mixed with Level 15 Alchemy.

As for Cartography, you really only need Level 1 Cartography - that can pretty much get you everything that you need. Getting to Level 5 will fill in water for you, so that's pretty good, but probably not totally necessary. (And you can easily get to Level 7 without burning any of your own Skill points - just do Garrett's quest, pay him for Levels 1-5, and use the "Mapping Your World" skill book to get to Level 7.)

Still, I like the game where I took Cartography to Level 16+ - not only are chests, barrels and corpses uniquely ID'ed on maps, but you can even see enemies approach on the minimap before they show up on the main screen.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Oddly in all of this nobody mentioned the other MAJOR use of spot hidden. It helps you notice traps before you step on them or open the chest they're on. You can't disarm the trap if you haven't spotted it.

[Dragonlady]

Oddly in all of this nobody mentioned the other MAJOR use of spot hidden. It helps you notice traps before you step on them or open the chest they're on. You can't disarm the trap if you haven't spotted it.

If you go back to page one on this subject, I mentioned finding traps.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Oddly in all of this nobody mentioned the other MAJOR use of spot hidden. It helps you notice traps before you step on them or open the chest they're on. You can't disarm the trap if you haven't spotted it.

If you go back to page one on this subject, I mentioned finding traps.

<bow> <scrape> <bow> <scrape>

Would you believe me if I said I'm an editor so I'm used to ignoring words in blue? Of course, any reader on the board under 35 will probably have no clue what I mean by that.

[Randomizer]

You could hold off on Spot Hidden until you get a book (try merchants in Bordertown as a likely place) if your perception is over 10 on the initial roll. Just stop and hit space bar a few times to check for traps on chests and in the dank cellar. There is usually blood spots or a corpse near a trap.

I wrote the above. Since I'm well over 35, I know what you meant about blue.

I still remember trying to use a copier with blue ink text as a similar problem.

[waryk]

Things are going quite well. Got to level 5 by indulging my anal-retentiveness and picking every lock and disarming every trap.

Got Cartography to 5. Going to keep pumping Swords to 20 (it's at 18 now). Zero idea what to do after that. Really hope I find a Book that teaches Heavy Armor soon so I can ditch Light (except for Trapper's Gloves - love those!). Thinking of pumping Hide in Shadows, but I'd need to get Diviniation to make it worthwhile (for Cat's Eyes spell).

I'm happy I've done more reading so I can avoid over-pumping Endurance. Current stats are all at 14 with the exception of Endurance which is at 32. Going to try and focus on Str and Dex from now on and raise them as high as I can.

[Dragonlady]

Oddly in all of this nobody mentioned the other MAJOR use of spot hidden. It helps you notice traps before you step on them or open the chest they're on. You can't disarm the trap if you haven't spotted it.

If you go back to page one on this subject, I mentioned finding traps.

<bow> <scrape> <bow> <scrape>

Would you believe me if I said I'm an editor so I'm used to ignoring words in blue? Of course, any reader on the board under 35 will probably have no clue what I mean by that.

Ha, since I'm now 64, I know what you mean. And you may rise. It gets so boring having to look down and see balding heads!
Oh, and don't forget 'whiteout'.

[Randomizer]

Hide in Shadows is always worthwhile since it makes it much harder to be hit even if you can't hit that well in the dark. Just watch for when you lose the status and have to move again.

When you are wounded it's really great to allow you to hide and heal by just hitting the space bar.

[Evnissyen]

...So long as you have a ranged attack, otherwise your enemies just end up wandering away from you.