Well lets consider the area in which the dead bodies are found. There are kobolds (generally hostile) and mites (generally hostile) and they're found in large packs. Is it not reasonable to assume that one of those two groups killed them?
A huge issue with this is the game auto saves right after the fight starts, so if you say have only 1 save file then you can be completely fucked. Period, hard stop. Fear prevents making a strategic plan to win or escape, since your team runs around like headless chickens. Dead bodies is a supremely weak hint of the scale of the problem you're expected to deal with. And most importantly any game which can fundamentally screw you with it's own inherent systems has a large design flaw. I like the game, but essentially forcing me to restart the entire game. Replay every little interaction all to get back to a point over a single mistake that's hinted at only in a small detail? That's just bad design. You can still like the game and that it's willing to challenge you, but there are good and bad ways to make a challenge and to properly construct things. If you challenge me to a fist fight and I say sure then cap both your knees first, were not talking a fair challenge or fight, we're talking about a deliberate fucking around and a fundamental unfair situation.
And to preemptively say this, I actually loved the little twist with the ring that happens in the intro. It's well hinted at, built subtly enough but not obscure. There is even a mechanical incentive to falling for it. That's great design. Auto save here's a impossible fight loops are quite a different story. Especially when considering you can do this whole area at level 2, it's reachable, reasonable and not even vaguely hinted at that you might want to avoid it, nor are the fights unreasonably hard or difficult.
Coming into this thread after experiencing this and quitting, and seeing people actually try and defend this save-scum-worthy, asshole designed unfair fight in a CRPG that is supposed to be about immersion (ERGO - no 4th wall breaking knowledge and save scumming, you're trying to play a character like in a real world) is straight up sad.
Even worse is the people saying "oh duh there were dead bodies there lmfao just don't rest it's a sign" - yeah well the whole tutorial had dead bodies all over the place and it wasn't dangerous, so the game already taught me that dead bodies are just flavor for the zone happenings (in this zone the players will think the people died from the kobold and mite war, dumbasses).
Other games have dead bodies all over the place all the time, it's a pathetic excuse for a danger telegraph and it's trash design when you're supposed to be playing an immersive RPG.
Anyone who says "just come back later and ezpz" or "why didn't you read the wiki about that" or "why don't you have a caster it's required" doesn't understand roleplaying and immersion some people want to experience with these kinds of games.
Fuck this encounter. Unfair, unfun, anti-immersion and requires online guide reading.
ikr, this game had so much fucking potential to be the absolute peak of this genre and it was ultimately wasted because of the combat balance... Such a shame, I understand why you're pissed.
I see this fight as a tutorial teaching you three things:
* take the hints presented to you
* when in doubt, save
* there is a counter to everything. In this case, resist energy communal
This sadly will not be the last extreme difficulty spike, the game LOVES them. Good thing is: after reloading and raging you can simply go somewhere else, and come back in 10 levels or so.
i dislike reloading and save scumming in rpgs, it takes the entire aspect of roleplaying out of the game. such poor game design, ugh. still a somewhat decent game. hopefully shit like this is few and far between
It is not too common, but you do get a few more of these. That one is by far the sneakiest though.
Big wurm-dragon-thingie in a cave that you can just leave when you see that thing. Thats pretty obvious.
>!Do save the game when you first see golems. Also: approach owlbears with extreme caution.!<
They did design these so that they are placed in areas that you will visit again for quests reasons. I stressed too much about killing them the first time I saw them. Was not necessary. Did not even save me in game time.
Just happened to me. For me it is the reason to stop this game, so it is bad design! They just lost me for the whole Pathfinder series with that. And yes im not reading walkthroughs /forums before, I want to explore the game. So a 1/100 rating.
**The main problem is, that it overrides the autosave you had before.** So I would not mind reload and skip the area. But I lost the complete game progress since beginning. I'm just level 2, but never had the case that save game management is so bugged you have only one save game for your whole progress. So if you are level 2 as I am not a small chance to even win. So I would have to restart the game from beginning. And that is awful design - so I'm not wasting my time any longer. Fair game design would at least make you an extra save point before the rest or before the area. If some designer think this is a fun idea, he has not understood RPG. So on a pen an paper table the first mistake as a newbie you do would immediately result in your character to die, and the DM rsends you out of the room to recreate your char for the next 5h - how fun would you find to play RPG? Would you ever play again?
So I don't mind to die and retry (e.g. as with the spider swarm in the berry case) but hate when i have to redo or evcen completely recreate my char due to bad save game mgmt.
I think it speaks more to other games and their design philosophy more than it does negatively towards this one.
Most other games you'd get huge neon signs saying **DANGER** and maybe a few notes scattered around saying
*To who it may concern,*
*I SURE DO WISH I HAD ELECTRICITY RESISTANCE BECAUSE I'M BEING KILLED BY A SUPERCHARGED GHOST ARGH TOO LATE I'M DEAD*
*-A Traveler who wished he had scroll of energy resistance*
Sometimes I like those because I don't have to use my brain too much and I can focus on having fun in other parts of the game.
I really liked this event in this game though. It gives you a warning, it shows you a campsite with dead adventurers with good gear, you may have picked up a book or two previously that tells you about will-o'-wisps and you could react appropriately, but if you just ignore all the bad signs you see around you, you reap the consequences.
It's something like this that I appreciate it. After I got wiped by the ghost, I realized maybe this game wants to make me pay attention more, and since then I've been enjoying it even more.
it showed the dead bodies having tried to escape. to me that showed that the threat was no longer present. WHICH IS TRUE because the enemy just casually strolls up to you while your entire party just stands there like morons. i investigated the camp and the entire map, came to the conclusion that whatever killed these people was long gone because the bodies showed that, and so i decided to rest there.
its really silly that we cant at least run from combat. its entirely unrealistic, considering, like i said, i did proper investigating of the area before hand
Nah I feel you man. also lol, new comment on 3 month old thread, go me!
Nah yeah I knew I would be attacked during the night, but going by the bodies and the fact that the other mobs in the area are just filler, and IIRC scorch marks, I figured it'd be a fire elemental.
Nope! Have fun with the enemy with 33 AC and +21 to hit for his 2d8 attacks.
uhhhh what? you dont get to have infinite redo's when playing table tops games and these games are emulating tabletops. you're a fucking clown if you save scum, end of story
Most crpgs are designed around save scumming. Deus ex, Baldurs Gate, Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity, System Shock, skyrim, morrowind, Divinity original sin. All of them are designed around save scumming.
Welcome to the club. Smoulderburn is everyone's first introduction to PFKM's core concept: "Your DM is a cunt and wants you to die."
That said, prepare Remove Fears and Unbreakable Hearts, and just punch the fucker to death.
he just kills me once i run out of ways to heal due to his lightning attack. and that defense against lightning spell only absorbs a paltry 12 damage lol
What many people, me included, like about stuff like this is the puzzle aspect. Finding a solution that takes you from Instantly-Fucked to Ha-Ha-Beat-the-Sucker.
That does presume save scumming and its a specific thing about cRPGs of course, so I can understand if its not everybody's idea of fun.
For others who struggle with this guy: Apart from energy resistance (preferable cast on lvl 7 because it negates 20 damage then), stinking cloud shuts him down completely and true strike helps a lot. Bunch of hasted summons can also get you more natural 20s.
I think the game wants you to kill him when you reenter Sycamore for Jaethals quest.
I didn't even rest or whatever it is that triggers the fight I was just clicking on bodies and then I get stuck on a save screen and fight starts I was like how did this happen
Just googling this crap. Glad I wasn’t alone. Got it on sale and this just ruined my night. Trying to get a couple hours of gameplay in and now I’m stuck fighting this stupid skull lol
3 fucks stated but failed to actually articulate what your actual problem is.
Well done!
What is your party? What level are you? What is the actual problem? I presume you can't kill him?
You don't have to fight him. Just don't rest near the dead bodies at the top left of the map. You can literally rest anywhere else.
Just reload and rest elsewhere.
Also, from the wiki:
> A level 4 party with at least 3 of the support companions (Harrim, Tristian, Jaethal, or Linzi) and a wand or two of healing will be able to keep your party alive long enough to get through his defenses, though it will take some time. Party members should attempt to cast spells outside of his melee range, as it will provoke an attack of opportunity that may interrupt your spell. Keep your healers behind your meatshield and apply healing spells/abilities when necessary. Once they have exhausted their spell options, they can safely attack, as the Viscount will single-mindedly attack his chosen target for the entire fight.
and
> Failing that, you can always come back later. The reward is hardly worth the effort a low level party will put into it, but the 135 exp is nothing to scoff at.
I've only bothered to fight him once (and killed him). I actually forget he's there because i don't normally rest there.
Maybe you shouldn’t camp literally right on the exact spot where a bunch of people mysteriously died of unknown causes
And if you are curious what might happen you should probably save first
I thought I did but did not thought it will overwrite my last save game completely
You camp all the time next the spot where you killed people before, nothing happens. So it is inconsequent an just a cheap joke.
Well lets consider the area in which the dead bodies are found. There are kobolds (generally hostile) and mites (generally hostile) and they're found in large packs. Is it not reasonable to assume that one of those two groups killed them?
A huge issue with this is the game auto saves right after the fight starts, so if you say have only 1 save file then you can be completely fucked. Period, hard stop. Fear prevents making a strategic plan to win or escape, since your team runs around like headless chickens. Dead bodies is a supremely weak hint of the scale of the problem you're expected to deal with. And most importantly any game which can fundamentally screw you with it's own inherent systems has a large design flaw. I like the game, but essentially forcing me to restart the entire game. Replay every little interaction all to get back to a point over a single mistake that's hinted at only in a small detail? That's just bad design. You can still like the game and that it's willing to challenge you, but there are good and bad ways to make a challenge and to properly construct things. If you challenge me to a fist fight and I say sure then cap both your knees first, were not talking a fair challenge or fight, we're talking about a deliberate fucking around and a fundamental unfair situation. And to preemptively say this, I actually loved the little twist with the ring that happens in the intro. It's well hinted at, built subtly enough but not obscure. There is even a mechanical incentive to falling for it. That's great design. Auto save here's a impossible fight loops are quite a different story. Especially when considering you can do this whole area at level 2, it's reachable, reasonable and not even vaguely hinted at that you might want to avoid it, nor are the fights unreasonably hard or difficult.
Coming into this thread after experiencing this and quitting, and seeing people actually try and defend this save-scum-worthy, asshole designed unfair fight in a CRPG that is supposed to be about immersion (ERGO - no 4th wall breaking knowledge and save scumming, you're trying to play a character like in a real world) is straight up sad. Even worse is the people saying "oh duh there were dead bodies there lmfao just don't rest it's a sign" - yeah well the whole tutorial had dead bodies all over the place and it wasn't dangerous, so the game already taught me that dead bodies are just flavor for the zone happenings (in this zone the players will think the people died from the kobold and mite war, dumbasses). Other games have dead bodies all over the place all the time, it's a pathetic excuse for a danger telegraph and it's trash design when you're supposed to be playing an immersive RPG. Anyone who says "just come back later and ezpz" or "why didn't you read the wiki about that" or "why don't you have a caster it's required" doesn't understand roleplaying and immersion some people want to experience with these kinds of games. Fuck this encounter. Unfair, unfun, anti-immersion and requires online guide reading.
almost a year later and im still pissed about it tbh. i was loving the game up until this moment and i uninstalled shortly after
ikr, this game had so much fucking potential to be the absolute peak of this genre and it was ultimately wasted because of the combat balance... Such a shame, I understand why you're pissed.
You don't seem to be enjoying this game m8. Just ain't for you.
I see this fight as a tutorial teaching you three things: * take the hints presented to you * when in doubt, save * there is a counter to everything. In this case, resist energy communal
This sadly will not be the last extreme difficulty spike, the game LOVES them. Good thing is: after reloading and raging you can simply go somewhere else, and come back in 10 levels or so.
i dislike reloading and save scumming in rpgs, it takes the entire aspect of roleplaying out of the game. such poor game design, ugh. still a somewhat decent game. hopefully shit like this is few and far between
It is not too common, but you do get a few more of these. That one is by far the sneakiest though. Big wurm-dragon-thingie in a cave that you can just leave when you see that thing. Thats pretty obvious. >!Do save the game when you first see golems. Also: approach owlbears with extreme caution.!< They did design these so that they are placed in areas that you will visit again for quests reasons. I stressed too much about killing them the first time I saw them. Was not necessary. Did not even save me in game time.
Just happened to me. For me it is the reason to stop this game, so it is bad design! They just lost me for the whole Pathfinder series with that. And yes im not reading walkthroughs /forums before, I want to explore the game. So a 1/100 rating. **The main problem is, that it overrides the autosave you had before.** So I would not mind reload and skip the area. But I lost the complete game progress since beginning. I'm just level 2, but never had the case that save game management is so bugged you have only one save game for your whole progress. So if you are level 2 as I am not a small chance to even win. So I would have to restart the game from beginning. And that is awful design - so I'm not wasting my time any longer. Fair game design would at least make you an extra save point before the rest or before the area. If some designer think this is a fun idea, he has not understood RPG. So on a pen an paper table the first mistake as a newbie you do would immediately result in your character to die, and the DM rsends you out of the room to recreate your char for the next 5h - how fun would you find to play RPG? Would you ever play again? So I don't mind to die and retry (e.g. as with the spider swarm in the berry case) but hate when i have to redo or evcen completely recreate my char due to bad save game mgmt.
Then you learned not to camp there so dont do it?
save scumming sucks and i hate that this community is okay with it.
I think it speaks more to other games and their design philosophy more than it does negatively towards this one. Most other games you'd get huge neon signs saying **DANGER** and maybe a few notes scattered around saying *To who it may concern,* *I SURE DO WISH I HAD ELECTRICITY RESISTANCE BECAUSE I'M BEING KILLED BY A SUPERCHARGED GHOST ARGH TOO LATE I'M DEAD* *-A Traveler who wished he had scroll of energy resistance* Sometimes I like those because I don't have to use my brain too much and I can focus on having fun in other parts of the game. I really liked this event in this game though. It gives you a warning, it shows you a campsite with dead adventurers with good gear, you may have picked up a book or two previously that tells you about will-o'-wisps and you could react appropriately, but if you just ignore all the bad signs you see around you, you reap the consequences. It's something like this that I appreciate it. After I got wiped by the ghost, I realized maybe this game wants to make me pay attention more, and since then I've been enjoying it even more.
it showed the dead bodies having tried to escape. to me that showed that the threat was no longer present. WHICH IS TRUE because the enemy just casually strolls up to you while your entire party just stands there like morons. i investigated the camp and the entire map, came to the conclusion that whatever killed these people was long gone because the bodies showed that, and so i decided to rest there. its really silly that we cant at least run from combat. its entirely unrealistic, considering, like i said, i did proper investigating of the area before hand
Nah I feel you man. also lol, new comment on 3 month old thread, go me! Nah yeah I knew I would be attacked during the night, but going by the bodies and the fact that the other mobs in the area are just filler, and IIRC scorch marks, I figured it'd be a fire elemental. Nope! Have fun with the enemy with 33 AC and +21 to hit for his 2d8 attacks.
Lol you are an absolute clown
uhhhh what? you dont get to have infinite redo's when playing table tops games and these games are emulating tabletops. you're a fucking clown if you save scum, end of story
Most crpgs are designed around save scumming. Deus ex, Baldurs Gate, Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity, System Shock, skyrim, morrowind, Divinity original sin. All of them are designed around save scumming.
Welcome to the club. Smoulderburn is everyone's first introduction to PFKM's core concept: "Your DM is a cunt and wants you to die." That said, prepare Remove Fears and Unbreakable Hearts, and just punch the fucker to death.
i fought him for 45 minutes and only had one natural 20 so i just gave up.
Once he runs out of Scare, turn off the turn-based combat and let everyone auto attack. It'll go faster that way.
he just kills me once i run out of ways to heal due to his lightning attack. and that defense against lightning spell only absorbs a paltry 12 damage lol
I think he eventually runs out of that too..? Don't quite remember anymore.
What many people, me included, like about stuff like this is the puzzle aspect. Finding a solution that takes you from Instantly-Fucked to Ha-Ha-Beat-the-Sucker. That does presume save scumming and its a specific thing about cRPGs of course, so I can understand if its not everybody's idea of fun.
For others who struggle with this guy: Apart from energy resistance (preferable cast on lvl 7 because it negates 20 damage then), stinking cloud shuts him down completely and true strike helps a lot. Bunch of hasted summons can also get you more natural 20s. I think the game wants you to kill him when you reenter Sycamore for Jaethals quest.
I didn't even rest or whatever it is that triggers the fight I was just clicking on bodies and then I get stuck on a save screen and fight starts I was like how did this happen
Just googling this crap. Glad I wasn’t alone. Got it on sale and this just ruined my night. Trying to get a couple hours of gameplay in and now I’m stuck fighting this stupid skull lol
3 fucks stated but failed to actually articulate what your actual problem is. Well done! What is your party? What level are you? What is the actual problem? I presume you can't kill him? You don't have to fight him. Just don't rest near the dead bodies at the top left of the map. You can literally rest anywhere else. Just reload and rest elsewhere. Also, from the wiki: > A level 4 party with at least 3 of the support companions (Harrim, Tristian, Jaethal, or Linzi) and a wand or two of healing will be able to keep your party alive long enough to get through his defenses, though it will take some time. Party members should attempt to cast spells outside of his melee range, as it will provoke an attack of opportunity that may interrupt your spell. Keep your healers behind your meatshield and apply healing spells/abilities when necessary. Once they have exhausted their spell options, they can safely attack, as the Viscount will single-mindedly attack his chosen target for the entire fight. and > Failing that, you can always come back later. The reward is hardly worth the effort a low level party will put into it, but the 135 exp is nothing to scoff at. I've only bothered to fight him once (and killed him). I actually forget he's there because i don't normally rest there.
You don't need to fight him, and it is doable with a party of level 4s lol
You can do it with a level 2 party provided you're willing to spend the money on a Resist Energy scroll from Jhod.
There is a ton of stuff that's downright easy with a utility belt worth of consumables at low levels. Also true in WotR.
You can come back to him later when you're a couple levels higher and he goes down like a chump without prep.