Goal: Kill everything at the lowest levels I can within my restrictions.
Self Imposed Restrictions
1. No consumable use, summons, spellbinds, spellstrikes, or any temporary buffs.
2. Enemies aggroed as a group must be fought as a group. May not pull more than one group of enemies at a time for tactical purposes either.
3. No kiting.
4. No abusing reload to win fights by RNG swings.
Starting Build
Wild Orlan Fighter. Laborer background (1 Mechanics and Athletics.)
17 Might, 15 Con, 3 Dex, 21 Per, 3 Int, 19 Res.
Level 1 Ability: Knock Down
Chose Wild Orlan for its defenses. Moon Godlike is a better choice but I didn't want to play it.
Might, Con, Per, and Res all pumped to make my character more survivable so that he could use more of his health pool in a given fight due to Constant Recovery and other forms of endurance regen.
Progress
So far I have cleared about as much as I can at level 1. These were some of the most notable events in my playthrough thus far:
Scrounged about to get enough money to buy the Blunting Belt, acquire minor deflection and fortitude granting equipment, and gathered all available companions so I could strip them of their gear before dumping them off at the inn. Kana's Fine Estoc and Durance's Staff served me well and I regularly used the Saint’s War Armor Second Chance effect both to survive bursty encounters and to disarm traps the good old fashioned way without dying. By default it can be assumed that I used the highest DR available against damage types in a given fight, Estoc for melee dps and Durance's Staff for ranged unless I mention otherwise.
Barely managed to beat the first huge pack of guls, revenants, and skeletons that I had to kill to progress into Raedric’s castle through the dungeon. Wedged a revenant in the door and picked off all the guls with a fine hunting bow then beat the rest to death with dual maces one by one.
Killed Nedmar because there was no way I was going to be able to beat Osrya at this point or otherwise free Giacco. He practically one shot me with Divine Mark the first time so the second time I wore Saint’s War Armor and won. Proceeded to Raedric and agreed to kill Kolsc so I could loot the whole place.
Went down stairs to priest floor and pulled the Acolyte of Berath solo in the hallway because he aggroed with the patrolling Temple Guardian when I tried to pull it. Needed to use Saint's War's Armor to survive its burst. Then I killed the Temple Guardian and nabbed his Plate Armor.
Went to Caed Nua and fought the flame spirits. To my surprise one of the corners by the door of the keep made an excellent choke point and allowed me to fight them one by one. Killed the flame blight at range and then took out the remaining 3 small flame blights. Got 6 Primal Fire for my trouble. Immediately enchanted the Fine Estoc with Burning Lash because I was confident I would use it to help solve the Caed Nua phantom/shadow fight bottleneck later. This is the only time I enchanted a weapon in the run as a level 1, was very careful with my enchanting mats planning to only use them if there was a fight I knew I could only solve by using them to boost my gear. The need hasn’t arisen yet.
Went to Black Meadow and took out the wichts to get Fulvano’s Boots (+1 con), then went to Madhmr Bridge to take out the looters and get the Hermit’s Hat (+1 might.)
Went and defeated the bears. The bear is ahead of the young bears and ordinarily when you get to the choke point (crevice in left side of cave) it is the one in front. During my testing trying different angles and strategies I noticed that sometimes the bear would pause briefly before starting to run towards me and a young bear would get to me first. I watched the bear and pondered what could cause this. Turns out it often goes into idle animations that it is locked into for a short period of time. By engaging at the beginning of such an animation I was able to get a young bear between the bear and my char and thus safely kill the bear before finishing off the others.
Went and defeated the boar group in Magran’s Fork. Wore the disengagement defense bonus cloak buyable from the smithy to reduce damage taken while repositioning to get more boars in range of quarterstaff and wore a Fine Robe (combined with blunting belt enough DR to keep the young boar’s hits at minimum damage while maximizing attack speed) and barely won.
Was barely able to beat the first wave of the Xaurip camp in Anslog’s Compass. Approached camp closest to xaurip champion to give him a headstart over the skirmisher, swung him into position at the skull chokepoint. 3 xaurips on my side, 1 xaurip and the skirmisher on the other. Xaurip champions have 3 lay on hands uses and will use them when any ally has 1 or 2 dot of hp left. Killed the xaurips first making sure all 3 lay on hands were used, then killed the skirmisher and finally the champion.
Killed the xaurip priest, skirmisher, and xaurip at the camp in Madhmr Bridge. I used two trees as a choke point and the xaurip priest ended up not being in my los and didn’t attack me while I used the xaurip as a shield to take out the skirmisher.
Cleared everything else currently available in the game except for the following:
The bandits that stole the smith's supplies (too much ranged sneak attack dps.) Ludrana and her Goldpact Paladins (too many bursty spells.) Kolsc and Raedric's groups (not even a contest.) Most of the human inhabited portions of Raedric's Hold in general. The huge pack of guls in a room in the dungeons. All the groups of two or three guls in Anslog's Compass (Spit Blood hits like a truck.) The spore enemies in the cave (1 sporeling patrolled and was able to pull solo and kill to complete Aufra's quest but none other than that.) The stag in Esternwood and Black Meadow. The forest lurkers. The will o' wisp room and two skuldr infested rooms as well as any pull with more than one shadow in the Temple of Eothas. The trolls in Madhmr Bridge and the Xaurip High Priest + 2 Xaurips. Most of Caed Nua.
Don't think I can reliably kill any of that stuff at my current level. Leveling up would let me boost Mechanics to 4 and acquire most (all?) locked and hidden loot currently available. I'm particularly looking forward to getting Gaun's Share (draining flail in Temple of Eothas.) Hopefully one of the locked chests in Raedric's place gives me a Fine Large Shield too...heck even a large shield would be nice I don't have one yet. Definitely picking Weapon and Shield Style as my 2nd level talent as I plan to primarily use shields once I get a decent one. Anyone have any suggestions? Perhaps things I should look out for after I pass Caed Nua and the world opens up a lot more? Gotta admit all that freedom is pretty daunting in a way.
