Karkadinn

I did that, but it didn't help; the wolf has appeared in at least 3 different spots for me, so I assume it's a matter of RNG and y'all were just luckier than I was. Because of how long it took to find and kill the thing, my damage output and survivability were just too low to be able to outpace the fight's mechanics. Rather than go around farming xp and being bored out of my skull for a few hours, I decided to just start over from scratch and retry the 2-manning achievement later when I had a better idea of late game boss strategies. Thanks to all for trying to help, though.

Originally Posted By: Danny the Fool So rewarding someone for managing to do something difficult is now punishing everybody else for not being able to do it? Hasn't that always been the case in video games, with or without achievements? Isn't that half of the entire reason we play them, that it feels rewarding if we manage to pull it off? If your options are 'take a path with x rewards' and 'take a path with x-1 rewards,' then yes, I see functionally no difference between that and 'take a path with x+1 rewards' and 'take a path with x rewards.' The difference between rewarding and punishing at that point seems mostly rhetorical to me. As a previous poster has somewhat brought up, though, this can be remedied by the simple expedient of swapping out one reward for an equivalent one, by giving achievements/badges/etc for full completion for each difficulty, instead of reserving some for some difficulties and then giving zilch to the other difficulties. That way everyone gets what they want. I don't mean to be too negativity-spreading, though. Unlike the OP I'm certainly not bored with the game, even if I have my nitpicks. It's not perfect, but it's definitely close enough to the good old Spiderweb experience to be worth my money and my time.

Well, if he's going for achievements, he's likely to be down a party member much of the time and avoiding the easier difficulties. I don't think it's entirely fair to tell someone who's having trouble to just turn down the difficulty when the game punishes you for doing so. Also, could be he went melee like me. I haven't played enough to know how it is for ranged characters, but for melee I've had a very ample challenge just on Normal. Pretty much every major boss fight seems to have mechanics that punish melee characters specifically. It's heartening to hear that someone else had trouble with Antje, though. I'm trying to decide if I want to grind up more levels to beat her or just give up on the run and start from scratch.

So, for my first playthrough I've been getting along with a blademaster and Sevilin, both built the same way - center tree and a bit of the left tree, lots of strength and endurance for meleeing. There've been a lot of tough boss fights, but I've always managed to pull through with smart consummable use... until Antje. I cannot freaking kill this woman. I know what you're supposed to do, run find the wolf and everything, but it takes 3-4 turns minimum just to find the wolf, 3-4 more to kill it, and while Antje is vulnerable I'm lucky to get any melee hits on her at all, between the summons, the status effects, the healing, and the accursed knockback. I've spent ages trying and trying, but I just can't stay close enough consistently enough to make any significant progress. I only have to heal once every dozen turns or so, but she's too good at locking me down in the meantime. Is there a way around this fight, or some strategy that could make it a lot easier, or am I just going to have to go back to the trainer and switch my bladesmasters to 'bowmasters' or farm a few more levels? Both chars are level 19 right now.

Hmm, guess I'll take the minor risk and recruit someone to make it a duo adventure, then. If this hasn't been confirmed or debunked by the time I've finished the play-through I'll poke back in with definitive proof on whether the temporary quest people count or not. Gracias for the responses.

So, I've been a huge fan of Spiderweb for a long time, and was really happy to buy Avadon at basically full price on Steam (not like it's pricey anyway). I'm planning on a couple full runs to nab all the achievements but I had some questions that I didn't see answered anywhere - it would suck to get to the end of the game and find that I don't get the achievement because I misunderstood something! For 'Take Only What You Need,' do the temporarily recruitable quest npcs count against that total, requiring you to solo the rest of the game, or are you allowed to recruit one real party member and also have your temporary quest helpers? On a related note, if you do need to solo it, is it possible to get 'Don't Bug Me With Your Issues!' without recruiting anybody? And last, this is just a request for advice instead of asking about mechanics... is it more practical to try for 'Without a Scratch' on Normal with a party of 1-2, or on Hard with a larger party? Really hope to see more SS stuff on Steam in the future. Playing through Avadon after such a long absence of meaty Western-style rpgs has been like a blissful drug hit for me.