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This was a pretty fun challenge and not as hard as one might expect. "No canisters" is usually paired with the pacifist route but I wanted to see if I could kill all the endgame bosses (Oroboros, Danette's Shade, Goettsch, and Geneforge'd Trajkov). This video (14 min) summarizes the playthrough and I'll soon upload all the raw gameplay footage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=serW-ZeqteE&list=PL4yB6b4DfcFEo_vSYiqN72MQdU6ewuiOG I only put points into combat skills (1 point in Melee Weapons, everything else in Agility/Missiles/Quick Action/Evasion, ending stats are 20/20/15/11 with items equipped). The biggest tips for getting through the game are: - fight enemies one at a time whenever possible - save before/after every fight - constantly restart combat so you can reposition and execute extra attacks. - every fight is possible if you have enough space to run away PS If you want to achieve the maximum level possible (~21-22) you should always be killing enemies / doing quests that are 1-2 levels below you. Some of this requires running through zones without killing anything so you can reach lower-level enemies in further areas e.g. Holding Cells. Clearing everything besides The Geneforge zone will get you to level 19, and then you can let Trajkov use the Geneforge (+1000 XP at Lv20), kill him, use the Geneforge yourself (another 1000 XP), then destroy the Geneforge (another 1000 XP). I ended at level 21 - if I had used the Geneforge, read Codexes, and used canisters I probably could have reached level 22. PSS it is possible to shape Fyoras without using canisters! Get the skill point from Learned Jaffe.

Couple of additions, could be due to patches. - The Gallus Meg quest gives 200 XP at level 12 rather than level 10. - The Western Workshop Sholai Leadership check is level 9 rather than level 1. - Gavrila and company are hostile if you are Taker aligned. - Learned Halm will train you even if you are a Taker as long as you do not have a Trajkov Amulet.

Any way to find this within the game's readable source files? Trying to figure out optimal clearing order for the highest endgame level (without abusing infinite spawns). I also vaguely recall that some enemies give a different amount of XP than what is indicated by their level.

Dialogue can be changed easily, but adding additional characters into a zone and changing their behavior takes much more work.

Wands and crystals are fair game...I'm not that crazy, I'm just roleplaying a Trakovite!

No canisters, no magic! I've found a highly efficient tactic is one point in melee weapons early to wield a steel sword, and from there it's all missile and agility.

Yeah, I'm trying Anything is possible with enough reloads, so it's more of trying to figure out a balance between using consumables, zone order, and not relying entirely on luck.

Great, thanks! Sounds like a feasible strategy even for a non-canister PC.

Was it easy killing Goettsch? I've never seriously tried after seeing his level 23? tooltip.

My take on this is that high variability in enemy count heavily affects the player experience. On Torment, for example, if two Pyroroamers jump on top of me I have to reload. A fight can sometimes be 2-3x times harder than it "should" be because of the number of enemies you walk into. While I love a tactical approach of isolating enemies and waiting for favorable pathing, I definitely think having a creation army duke it out with many enemies at once is the core spirit of this game. Unfortunately, as you've laid out in your post trying to do this usually just means your team gets rolled by area abilities. On the other hand, the game becomes trivial if the player chooses to kill enemies one-by-one with the assistance of 8 creations.

@Randomizer Digging this back up, I saw your thread where you got level 21. I'm nearing the end and only have a few xp sources left: the codexes/canisters, The Geneforge, Shaper/Inner Crypt, Spirit City, the Front Gate, and The Great Temple. There might be a few other level 15+ enemies scattered around the map, but not many. What level were you around this point? I am currently level 17 but I don't think this is quite enough to even bring me to 20. Do you think I'm just being pessimistic or I failed to optimize earlier? One notable thing is that I missed out on a bunch of leadership / mechanics but at this point I think I'm too high level to get xp from those.

Not even one semester later, probability theory comes back to haunt me! Thank you for such a detailed response.

I have been trying to get the Ur-Glaahk in Freeplace to spawn for an embarrassingly long time...I'm not sure if there's another factor (like maybe you can only kill one of these rare creatures?), but I must've tried over 100 times with no luck.

I think it's the perfect way to canonize savefiles.

You put crystals in the machine, then flip the switch. If nothing happens then you probably didn't put in enough crystals.

Yeah, you have to wake up the mind.

BTW I estimate Benttooth's spawn chance to be somewhere around 5%. You can scum by saving in a different zone, then enter Crag Valley check if he's there. If not you can load your autosave and try again. I did this for about 9 minutes, totalled around 30 reloads, and got him to spawn twice.

My approach is to drop everything on the ground...one pile for shaper equipment, one pile for batons and javelins, another pile for wearable equipment, and so on...

Very nice and comprehensive! Another fun thing about the remake is the Overload skill...if you have enough patience you can get a few tough characters to kill themselves as they chase you around.

Yup. If you've already guzzled too many...you might as well use them all! The magic number is:

Thanks! I definitely I didn't put enough consideration into a ranged build, mainly due to an irrational fear of running out of ammo. Once I'm through with this I'm gonna give that one a spin. Wow...I just tried out the "ranged-vs-pylon" strategy and this would enable me to reach the entry baton much earlier in the game. I can take it a step further and step out of range after I attack and whittle the pylon down by restarting combat. I'm now thinking I should cut this run short and restart with the following game plan: Northern Mines (control baton) -> Sealed Lab / Ancient Crypt (skill points + Leadership belt) -> Holding Two (reaper baton) -> Icewalls/Western Workshop (vampiric lance) From there it should be much smoother sailing than my current melee guardian...I've already slightly messed up my save by joining the Takers before getting training from Halm/Dig anyways...

Would you be able to share more details about your current stats? I have a Guardian with 9 strength / 14 melee weapons. The numbers on my Guardian Claymore show 25-117 (+168%). I am wondering if it would have been better to have invested entirely into strength + FSG in the first place.

Edit TLDR / Post-mortem: I'm confident I can get to an ending, but that's no more of an accomplishment than, say, a pacifist run. Currently, my character is pretty strong (gear is Quicksilver Chain, Danette's Cloak, Guardian Claymore, Dancing Boots, Mica Band, Girdle of Strength, Shaped Shield), but still not strong enough to clear everything (I mean everything everything, e.g. I want to kill Goettsch) in a reasonable amount of time, nor strong enough to acquire any better gear (e.g. I want Bhargeth's Girdle from Crossroads, Hammer Bracers from Drayk's Vale, and all the goodies from the Crypts / Great Temple). I feel that a ranged build might make my life easier, so I've opted to restart. If I ever manage to do this one heck of a challenge I will make a new post. --- First things first: 1. I love min-maxing. 2. I love spending more time than necessary on Spiderweb games. 3. I find it ridiculous that the Shapers would ever spare your canister-drugged-up-insane-butt even if you saved their entire civilization. Goettsch was spot on when he said "You can wander this world for a thousand years, and you will never find a more baffled or impotent group of fools than the Shaper council." Therefore, I present my one-canister (since Firebolt is required to advance the tutorial) + Torment run. That means no magic and no creations - consumables are ok. To make things more interesting than a pacifist run, my goals are: destroy the Geneforge, defeat every major character, and clear every zone. To maximize skill points, I wanted to visit the Sealed Lab without leveling any Leadership/Mechanics/Stealth. My approach was to kill pylons one-by-one with the claymore, and since I forbade myself from using the heal canister, I had to walk back to town after every kill. So, it is surprisingly possible, but takes lots of patience. If you're interested in watching the wholesale, mind-numbing abuse of quicksaving, combat, and stealth mechanics, I've uploaded my gameplay footage at 4x speed, cut into somewhat related chunks. I put a tiny bit of commentary at the start of the first two videos, but don't really plan to do more. PS1: There are going to be several areas down the line where both luck and abuse of game mechanics won't be enough for me to achieve a full clear - prime examples are Sealed Lab and Icewalls, where enemies will endlessly spawn (and as solo I can only kill 1-2 of them per round). Mechanics/Leadership/Stealth might help, but usually requires high levels to bypass the hardest combats. Advice is appreciated, especially a heads-up on other zones where this playstyle isn't going to work. PS2: I passed through all three southern mine zones but they did not turn green. Perhaps there is another clear condition, like waking up the mind or handling all the pylons? PS3: There are a few instances where I avoided Pyroroamer damage by standing around a corner - in the big scope of things it's an inconsequential bug, but I thought it should be noted. If someone else has already caught it, that's great.

This a million times. I am so glad the Kickstarter hit that stretch goal. + Krodar is the best boy. His dialogue genuinely made me chuckle.

It's actually not too demanding to do it on Torment, if you are like me and willing to reload over and over. I had quite a few inefficiencies in my run, namely: - playing as Agent - never joining a faction - using only the heal/firebolt canisters (in fact, the only time I used shielding/battle pods was to tank a mine in the Barrens Bunker) - ending level 14 with 31 skill points (after destroying the Geneforge, so more like 21) yet another edit: - 45 extra living tools I managed to loot quite a large amount of good gear, but I don't think much is truly "needed" in order to attain a good ending. The general idea is exactly as OP described - I'll note that I was basically reloading every time an enemy triggered combat mode. Torment was the first difficulty I tried with this but I don't feel as if I skipped anything substantial -- I am not 100% certain but am willing to bet every zone with a non-combat clear condition should be able to be completed on both Normal and Torment. My final pacifist map is mostly green (though I never bothered to venture into the wastes). Unfortunately as a no-creation pacifist there are many combat-required goals you miss out on (complete Cockatrice Research, discover the great secret?, kill Goettsch, etc.). I'm currently attemping a "normal" Torment with no canisters (well, only Firebolt). It's a bit of a wild ride.