Goblin Warrens

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Have heard a rumour that you can get more experience by hiding and avoiding the goblins than by killing them all. Does anyone know if this is true. If so what exactly do you need to do?

 

I have indeed heard this but have not attempted it yet. I believe what needs to be done is to sneak the party past the sleeping goblins in that first area south of the entrance. I am unsure how far you have to sneak in order to get the experience but suspect perhaps only as far as the hungry goblins room or perhaps to the spider area.

I also suspect that once this has been done and the experience has been awarded it would be best to wake the little buggars and give them a one way trip to the Nine Hells...

 

Hm. I always wondered what is this "Only alerted three of the camps" text when you're entering level 2. First camp would be Goblins... second Orcs. But third?

Weimer to the rescue!

"[AR3002.BCS] AR3002
You have gained experience by using your skills to sneak deeper into the Goblin Warrens and only alerting two of the camps. 700
You have gained experience by using your skills to sneak deeper into the Goblin Warrens and only alerting three of the camps. 525
You have gained experience by using your skills to sneak deeper into the Goblin Warrens and only alerting one of the camps. 1050
You have gained experience by using your skills to sneak deeper into the Goblin Warrens without alerting any of the camps. 1575"

So it is possible! All that's left now is how.

 

I did it on HoF mode.

[SPOILERS]

The "HoW" of it:

Entered goblin warrens, cast improved invisibility on each of the characters (sorcereress had it). Walked through the level clockwise, past the golbins (1st camp), orcs (second camp), wolf riders (third camp), then through the spider room (very entertaining, if the spiders can't see you, they rush out and attack the wolf riders!), then from the spider room into the orog/troll camp (fourth camp). Go to the entrance, rogue detects and disables traps, leave - 1575 xp.

Improved invisibility is important because ordinary invisibility/ invisibility sphere/ mass invisibility end when you open doors or disable traps. I never did it on normal mode, but I admit I never tried, so I bet it is possible with the right amount of invisibility spells and rogue sneaking.

 

Hm, I think I might have to try this on my next runthrough.

 

Interesting. But is it actually "more" experience than you'd get by simply hacking and slashing your way thru the goblin hordes?

I suppose that the answer could be yes, since nothing would prevent you from getting the sneaking XP, then turning around and attacking the goblins from the rear.


Hmmmm, something to consider.

 

I think thats what you would have to do (go back and kill them) otherwise you would have to complete the rest of the warrens without ever leaving and/or would have to keep sneaking in and out - and it would also keep you from doing the other two quests there - (the one with the bracers and the one where you can talk the depressed goblin leader into leaving). So just doing the sneak would certainly not be "more" than killing them and doing those other quests but it would be a nice "addition" to that...

 

Because of the dynamic fighting XP calculation, extra XP is not really important.

 

Actually I would say just the opposite - since almost every party goes through a time when they are getting almost 0 exp for kills then any additional quest exp you can gather is even more useful since its not effected by level.

 

I know at the point I did it, I was getting 0 xp for goblins and orcs. I believe the orogs were actually turning in xp for kills, however they all had to die anyway when I revisited the goblin whelp for the bracers, etc.

 

It won't affect the XP your party has in chapter3 at all if you have gained a few extra XP in chapter1 or not in a normal game.
It's only really useful if your party is already level15 or so in chapter5 and won't gain many fighting XP any more or if you're going to face a difficult fight.
Maybe you can kill some monsters faster and gain more potions and ammo for a short time, but that's all.

 

Well if it gives 1500 exp points I don't see how you can say it wont effect your exp at all??

It will make it 1500 higher - all exp points are useful and those from quests are at least not effected by level and thus are more "consistently " useful.

Why would these points be any less useful than any other ones? The more exp you "bypass" as not useful the slower you level up - the slower you level up the less effective you are and the more likely you are to get your butt spanked. Gaining exp and thus developing and leveling your character is after all the whole concept behind D&D...

If you mean its not necessary to beat the game well of course its not but that doesn't make them meaningless and 1500 is a fairly significant amount for doing a little sneaking - especially since it does not keep you from getting the "normal" exp you would get by simply going back and killing them.

 

ArtEChoke, normal invisibility does not end when you open doors. It does end when you pick items up.

The 1575 exp is pretty pathetic in HoF, considering you could be getting 2x that _per_kill_, depending on party level. They should have multiplied all non-combat experience awards by five or ten in HoF.

 

I always go for the bonus exp.

As soon as I enter, I send my "scout" buffed and stealthed to the spider area and kill the spiders. A little side note on the spider area, make sure you are visable when opening the spider area door, otherwise the spiders head to the goblins to the south and attack them. I grab the corpses and give them to Pondmuk for the door password. After dealing with the doorguards, head to the next level, get the bonus exp, then head back up and finish the level off.

If you are a powergamer like myself, the spider's two loot piles are random treasure that are set on entery. An extra incentive to check that area out first.

 

@wanderon: seems you didn't get the point

You get 1,500 extra quest XP, but you get 1,500 fighting XP less later.

In Fell Wood (chapter3) you can fight skeltons endlessly, but you only get XP until a certain party level is reached. Fighting XP gain stops at a certain level, no matter how many quest XP you gained in chaopter1.

Another example:

If your party level is 7 and you defeat a level 10 monster, you get 6,300 XP.
If your party level is 8 because of the 1,500 extra XP you gained before you get only 4,800 XP for the same monster.
So the extra 1,500 XP don't matter any more after fighting just 1 monster.

With the static XP system, XP differences stay until the end.
This is different with the dynamic system.

I like the dynamic system more, since the old system worked like this:

- party1 gets more XP at the beginning than party2
- party1 can fight harder monsters or solve quests better than party2 because of the higher levels
- so party1 can even increase the XP difference during the game
...

So the game gets either too hard for party2 or too easy for party1.

 

On a side note, I browsed quickly through that quest list and the "excellent walkthrough with detailed info on all the quests in the game, descriptions of locations, online maps and more." seems to be somewhat lacking.

 

@Kmonster - so your answer then is to try to get as little quest exp as possible so you level up as slowly as possible so you can get more exp from fighting??

I just can't see that - I think in spite of the fact that fighting exp points decrease as your level gets higher that you still get a better gaming experience by gaining as much exp as possible as quickly as possible. For one thing the higher the average party level (sum of all party members levels/number of party members) then the more enemies you face which should at least partly balance out the lack of exp for lesser monsters. And the challenge of combat in the game is in defeating your foes not in how many points you get for doing so. The other "challenge" in playing the game is in developing your characters and finding "kewl" items to equip them with which also points to doing as many quests as possible and leveling as quickly as possible IMO.

Then again I probably don't play the way most folks do so my opinions may not be in the "mainstream" but thats OK too.

I always play minimum reloads - no reloads except for crashes or total party death (or no reloads at all sometimes). I don't use cheats or hacks. I don't min max - rule of thumb for minimizing is no more than -2 from whatever the starting level is.

I tend to make "theme" parties and generally try to RP them as much as possible in this hack and slash environment (doing quests as the party personality might dictate rather than just for the "best" result).

I never squat or use mules - I take levels as soon as I get them altho I am not above speading out my party development in order to enhance some of the party members levels. I may start the game with a solo or only my casters and add a rogue or warrior just before the Palisades battle then add warriors or rogue before leaving for Shaengarne and perhaps one member before the fortess and/or add my final character at the start of chap 2.

I also play an odd variation of the game on occasion that I call a No R&R game where I do not reload and do not raise dead. When a party member dies I replace them with a random character from some premade "pools" I put together. This is a fun option that leads to some very strange partys since I have no control over the class of the "random" choice. My rogue dies and I may get a druid. My druid dies and I may get a tank. My tank dies and I may get a sorcerer. The ability to MC to whatever you wish helps out when trying to fill some roles that become lost and it makes for some new and innovative stategies and tactics to have to deal with foes with an oddball group rather than the typical 2 tanks, cleric, arcane caster, rogue, specialty class makeup.

Just talking about it makes me want to do another one...

 

Taluntain - it seems it misses a few quests and class-related options.