|
Arkandian Explorer Guidebook Index Getting Started Dungeons Tactical Battles Skills Equipment Damage System Crafting & Enchanting Special Tools Tricks & Tips Getting Started Upon entering the world of Arkandia you are poor, unskilled and weak. Before facing any real challenges you should follow the guides presented in order to delve into your first dungeon and taste your first battle. Once you've completed this brief tutorial you first priority should be to find some better equipment, your starting clothes won't do much to protect you and your weapon barely scratches your enemies. You get better equipment from diving into dungeons, defeating enemies and finding chests, or even better artifact chests. Artifacts are very powerful items that are usually much stronger than the randomly generated loot you'll find. Before doing this however you will want to pick a combat style for yourself, it's no good wanting to be a warrior and heading into the dungeon holding a spellbook! Your chance to hit an enemy in combat is determined by the weapon you are using. Once you've decided on your combat style it'd probably be a good idea to visit the shops and see if you can afford to buy a basic weapon of this type. Don't worry about how many slots it has, these aren't important to you now and you can always sell it back later. Once you're ready you'll want to head to the map screen and start delving into some... Dungeons Each dungeon shown on the map screen has a difficulty level, this level is displayed by the number of skulls underneath it. As a rough guide consider that the skulls match up with the following skill levels: 1 Skull - < 200 2 Skulls = 200 - 400 3 Skulls = 400 - 600 4 Skulls = 600 - 800 5 skulls = 800+ Depending on your equipment you may be able to defeat dungeons above your skill level, this will do wonders for your skill gain and enable you to find even better loot, but it's dangerous. Before you're equipped with strong items however you might want to stick to dungeons at or below your skill level in order to collect better gear or gold and resources. You'll notice as well as the skull rating some dungeons also have an icon above them. This icon means that this particular dungeon is repeatable... Repeatable dungeons are part of the main campaign and unlike regular dungeons are never the same layout, once you've left your progress is also forgotten which means that you'll need to begin from the first level. Sometimes these dungeons will become increasingly more difficult the more times you've beaten them, however their potential rewards will also become increasingly more valuable! Whilst inside a dungeon you navigate your character using the arrow keys, monsters within the dungeon will not chase after you and you have no time limit in your exploration, sometimes it's better to explore all your paths first before fighting a creature to continue Eating food within the dungeon will heal a few hit points. Regular Chests contain one or more magical items. Artifact chests contain one powerful magical artifact. Several resources and gold may also be strewn around the dungeon. Some dungeons contain a special Quest Chest, the contents of these chests vary greatly. A dungeon is considered to be cleared once you have opened every chest and defeated every enemy, when you leave the dungeon after clearing it will disappear from the map so be sure you've collected everything of value before clicking "Head Out". Repeatable dungeons also contain staircases, in order to use these simply walk over them and click "Go Down" on the menu bar. If you grow tired of dungeoning perhaps you should try your hand at... Tactical Battles Tactical Battles are shown on the main map screen as a sword and shield icon, just like dungeons these vary in difficulty as shown by their skull rating. Unlike dungeons, you won't be taking an active part in these battles. You will command your squad of up to 6 combat units. These combat units can be equipped with any spare loot and equipment you have found or created and have skills much like your own. To customize and inspect your units use the "My Squad" button from the main menu. During tactical battles both armies will face off against each other taking turns alternately. During a turn a unit may both Move and Attack, Move and rest or simply rest. Your unit's weapon will determine the type of attack performed, it's a good idea to keep your eyes open for specific weapons which while weak to you will give your units powerful attacks. Attacking costs mana points, yes even swinging a sword costs mana! The amount of mana each attack costs is also determined by the weapon used. Moving and resting will recover 20 mana points, however if a unit rests without moving they will recover 40 mana instead. Skills Almost everything you do in the world of Arkandia will require a skill to determine how well you do it. The upside to this is that every time you do something which requires a skill you will also actively increase that skill! Combat skills are raised by getting into fights, Leadership is raised by leading your squad and Bargaining is raised by buying and selling. Here is a list of all your skills and their effect: Weapon Attack - Determines your chance to hit when using any melee weapon in battle. Weapon Defense - Determines an enemy's chance to hit you when equipped with melee or ranged weapons. Magic Attack - Determines your chance to hit when using any magic based weapon in battle. Magic Defense - Determines an enemy's chance to hit you when equipped with magic based weapons. Mana Lore - Confers strength bonuses to your attacks using magic based weapons and improves the effectiveness of magical spells. Anatomy - Confers a damage bonus to all physical attacks, including melee and archery. Tactics - Grants a bonus to your chance to hit an enemy, if the enemy has a higher combat skill than you the bonus is increased. Blocking - Determines your chance to block an incoming attack with your shield. Dodging - Reduces your enemy's chance to hit you in battle. Archery - Determines your chance to hit when using any ranged archery weapon in battle. Spell Resistance - Determines your chance to resist an incoming magical spell. Alchemy - Your ability to create Potions using the craft system. Observation - How well you see in dungeons, the higher the skill the more tiles are revealed when you walk. Blacksmithing - Your ability to create weapons using the craft system. Tailoring - Your ability to create armour using the craft system. Artistry - Grants a bonus to success to all crafting attempts. Leadership - Increases the skill gain and improves performance of your units during tactical battles. Scavenging - Upon a crafting failure grants a chance to recover resources that would otherwise have been lost, also grants a bonus to amount of gold found in dungeons. Mysticism - Grants a bonus to effectiveness when using magical items like healing potions. Bargaining - Determines how much gold you can buy and sell items for. Enchanting - Used to Disenchant resources and magical gems from items as well as attaching magical gems to socketable items. Equipment Equipment refers to things such as weapons and armour and comes in numerous shapes and sizes as well as levels of effectiveness. Standard loot from dungeons is randomly generated so you never know what kind of item to expect when opening a chest. Each item can have a selection of special magical properties. These magical properties can turn a poor item into a deadly one. Item properties are all added together and a final is calculated, so if your hat has a critical hit chance and so does your sword, the total is used. Each property is capped to a certain number, you can check the total of all properties in using the buffs button in the main equipment screen. Here is a list of properties and their effects: Critical - Grants a chance that each hit will be a critical one. Critical hits do an extra 50% damage. Weaken - Grants a chance that each hit will weaken your enemy. Weakened enemies deal less damage when hitting you. Mana Drain - Grants a chance that each hit will reduce your enemy's Mana by 20% Hit Chance - Increases your BASE chance to hit an enemy during combat. Dodge - Increases your BASE chance to avoid an attack dealt by an enemy. Spell Damage Increase - Increases the damage dealt by magical spells such as Fireball and Lightning Lance. Damage Increase - Increases the BASE damage you deal in combat. Life Leech - Grants a chance that each hit will heal you for 20% of the damage you deal. Pierce - Your attacks ignore this much armour value of your enemy. Stealing - Grants a chance to steal a small amount of gold from an enemy with every hit. (Note: This does not reduce the enemy's gold value upon death) Protection - Increases your armour value by this amount. Mana Increase - Increases your maximum mana by this amount. Hit Points Increase - Increases your maximum hit points by this amount. Learning - Increases your chance to Increase a skill when using it. Improve Potions - Increases the effects of potions by this amount when used in battle. Improve Scrolls - Increases the effects of scrolls by this amount when used in battle. Fame Award - Increases the amount of fame you are awarded from events. Stun - Grants a chance that each hit will stun your enemy making them miss thier next attack. Loot Chance - Increases your chances of finding both more and superior quality loot. Bleed - Causes your enemy to bleed and lose health every turn. Poison - Causes your enemy to lose a small amount of Mana every turn. Mana Burn - Causes damage to your enemy based on their current level of mana. Resist Bonus - Grants a bonus to your chance to resist magical attacks. Burn - Causes your enemy to lose Mana based on their current level of health. Corrode Armour - Grants a chance that every attack will corrode an enemy's armour, reducing it. Mana Leech - Grants a chance that you will recover 20% of the damage dealt to an enemy as mana. Damage System Arkandian Legends games use the D6 system for damage. The system is simple to understand once you know how it works and is a tribute to old pen and paper role playing games. 1d6 refers to 1, 6 sided dice. This gives a damage of 1-6. 2d6 refers to 2, 6 sided dice. This gives a damage of 2-12. Here's where it gets a little more complex. 4d6 and 2d12 offer the same maximum damage of 24, however 4d6 offer a minimum damage of 4 since 4 dice are rolled vs 2d12 which offers 2 so only 2 dice are rolled. 4d6 also offer a greater probability factor for higher damage since the chance of rolling 4 1's is much lower than the chance of rolling 2 1's. Crafting During your adventures you will collect a lot of base resources, these resources can be converted into powerful magical items using your crafting skills. In Explorer, unlike previous legends games, armour and weapons crafted in this way are base socketable items. They come with no magical properties but are able to be greatly enhanced using Enchantment and magical gems. The Potions selection remains the same. Once you have a socketable item you will need to find some magical gems to infuse it with. the most reliable way to obtain these gems is to disenchant magical loot you have found. (Disenchanters can be purchased from the shop or found). when disenchanting an item there is chance (1% at 500, 25% at 1000) that each magical property on that item will be successfully removed and converted into a gem. Though only 1 gem can be obtained from any item To attach this gem simply click it and select the item to attach it to. Your chance to succeed is listed when mousing over an item. It is possible to attach more than one gem of the same property however your success chance is much lower each time. Upon failure the gem is destroyed, the item will never be destroyed. This system can be used to create highly customized magical items to tailor your own play style and with enough patience an immensely powerful item with magical properties beyond those normally seen even on artifacts. Special Tools The border isles are home to 2 very special tools, the Vandal's Pickaxe and the Vandal's Sledgehammer. These tools allow you to take home furniture and even walls from dungeons. While exploring a dungeon if you see something that you think would look good in your own house simply hit it with a sledgehammer and it'll magically teleport back to your furniture stash. In order to place good looking walls at your home you'll need to use the vandal's Pickaxe to steal the right type. Note digging out a wall doesn't open a tile to movement, it's still full of dirt! These special tools are the only way or acquiring new furniture and walls to decorate your house with. Tips & Tricks If you find some food in a dungeon but already have full health, save it for later! Carrying a sledgehammer can be useful, sometimes valuable items are trapped behind furniture! A Disenchanter is a useful thing, carrying one while exploring will allow you to disenchant items and keep your pack empty. Your storehouse is endless, if you're not desperate for gold it might be worth saving potions and other battle items until you need them later. The Archmage's dungeons are BIG, stock up on potions before heading in, nothing is worse than getting to the last level only to run out of health! The Twisted Prison can be repeated constantly and eventually you'll always find a powerful vampire to add to your squad. Different races may be appealing, but always be aware of the pros and cons. Playing the previous chapters of the Arkandian Legends and earning achievements will award you with useful bonuses when starting a game. You don't take part in tactical fights and the squad doesn't help you in dungeons, so feel free to do some equipment swapping. A good start would be taking the hat and shoes from one of your two buddies. Having trouble raising some of your stats? You can't block (or raise Blocking) without a shield equipped. Don't worry, there are no two-handed weapons to make you stop using one. Using magic items can raise your mysticism and/or enchanting skill. Go ahead and experiment in crafting. You probably won't stumble upon a recipe, but you'll gain valuable scavenging and artistry skill while you burn those ingredients you really have too much of. Pack a weapon you aren't skilled with when exploring weaker dungeons, or if you're willing to leave after a fight or two. Longer fights give you more of a chance to improve your defensive skills, not to mention that tactics doesn't seem to improve if you aren't fighting a superior opponent. Guard, guard, guard. This is especially true if you run across a rare weak mage; gold is plentiful enough that you'll barely feel the loss of quitting after one fight, and raising your magic defense and magic resist from nothing to somewhere in the 200s is well worth the long slog of defending and casting heal. Just try to make sure the mage will die in two hits at most before you run yourself out of mana and almost out of health. Tactical Units only moving a few tiles? Pay attention to the weight of items you equip them with. The new Sneak spell combined with Sledgehammers can be combined to defeat a dungeon without even fighting! |