Last Hope Graveyard

[PowerWyrm]

I've started to play ToME 4 again with b38, and new to me is a new area, the Last Hope Graveyard. I visited it unspoiled with my first b38 character... and of course it didn't end well. So here are a few spoily questions:

1) I entered the area at level 19, and it seems that you can even enter at level 1 if you want... Is that suicidal? What's a good level to enter?

2) Upon entering, a message pops up that the entrance has been blocked... but you can still leave. Bug?

3) The letter on the floor explains a few things, but I don't get the parts with the doors... Having played Eye of the Beholder, I was expecting all doors to be closed and the door on the right opening all of them, pouring out an army of skeletal warriors... but it's not the case. What to do with the coffins? Open them all and fight what's inside? Or leave them alone?

4) With my first character, I opened the door to the right AND THEN one of the coffin, resulting of a curse being attached permanently to the character (curse of madness?) and a new talent tree being unlocked (from the Cursed class). With a test character, I opened the same coffin BEFORE opening the door to the right and nothing happened. Is the "cursing" random or only happens if you open the door to the right first?

5) Celia... Do you have to kill her or is there something else to do?

6) I've learned that you can unlock Necromancers with this quest if you read some lore. Anything special to do? Are the lore randomly generated (I suppose the two parts from the necromancer in the Blighted Ruins have nothing to do with that)?

[faustgeist]

Definitely a level dependent area. I typically go mid 20s and it's still a fight.

Not sure about leaving with Recall, before Celia is killed.

Each coffin has a chance of a named/elite/boss similar to farportal instances, though they are almost always undead in nature. Nice exp, nice loot. Some coffins can bestow curses as you have discovered.

To unlock the Neco class, Celia has to be dispatched.

Cheers!
~R

[Velorien]

I would humbly disagree with the "nice xp, nice loot" description. I have found neither to be the case, especially as weighted against the incredible risk and the difficulty of dispatching the bosses. They are simply not worth taking on for their own sake.

The trouble is... if you ignore the coffins and proceed straight to the main chamber... well, try it and see. Ideally with a character you're not too attached to.

[faustgeist]

heheh, maybe I need to revisit the graveyard soon

You are definitely right... it IS a challenge.

~R

[Dracace]

It is a bug if you, after talking with the mayor of the city, can't see the Graveyard image in the world map next to Last Hope?

[PowerWyrm]

You need to talk to the alchemist, not the mayor.

[noxnoctum]

About Celia and the various tombs, do those curses go away ever? Are they permanent?

[wobbly]

To unlock the Neco class, Celia has to be dispatched.

Cheers!
~R

& something else obviously, because I've killed Celia & still have no necros

[Mewtarthio]

You need to read all four parts of the Necromancer's Primer series, which is the lore that tells you how to be a necromancer. The lores show up randomly after you get to around level 20 or so, though I'm pretty sure it counts if you get them from the fortress library, too.

As for the coffins: If you choose to open them, you've got about a 10% chance of getting cursed, a 50% chance of releasing a random elite undead, a 5% chance of uncovering an artifact, and a 35% chance of getting nothing. If you choose not to open them... well, that would spoil the surprise.

The curses are permanent, but you can turn them to your advantage if you're willing to invest some generics in the tree. Alternatively, you could just ignore them: They're not all that debilitating.

[snoop]

I don't like one thing about the graveyard, and that's the fact that the Temporal skill to run a few turns forward in time (can't remember the name now!) doesn't let you inspect each tomb beforehand and find out which one has the curse or treasures, it's random each time. That just completely breaks my suspension of disbelief. If it's too imbalancing, then there should be some other reason given for why it doesn't work... like the necromantic energies in this unholy place break down the laws of cause and effect or somesuch.

[Mewtarthio]

The contents of the coffins aren't generated until you actually open them. If opening coffins didn't clear the chronoworlds, then a paradox mage could just use See Threads to repeatedly reroll until he got the result he wanted (namely, an artifact).

Note that opening coffins isn't the only way to clear chronoworlds. A similar thing happens when you visit a store for the first time after a restock.

[snoop]

The first time I hit the graveyard I was playing a Temporal Warden. I figured I'd be able to use Precognition to find out which coffins to open, assuming that they were set at level creation; if I got a curse, then I'd just not open that coffin when I went back to the actual timeline. I was disappointed to find that wouldn't work! I've never played a Paradox Mage, but from reading the Spin the Threads description I guess my expectation for it would have been that each of the three time threads would reveal the same treasure in the same coffin. I mean, it's not like Schrodinger's Cat, presumably the treasure or the curse or whatever is there before you open it! It's interesting that it's not how it works, especially since except for the coffins and the shops, as far as I know everything else gets generated at level creation. Now, you could come up with a neat explanation for why the coffins don't work that way, as I suggested above. For shops, it's more problematic... within the reality of the game, how do you explain that the shop's inventory doesn't exist until you visit it?

Yeah, I know... it's just a game. But in a game that incorporates temporal paradoxes and now epistemology as fundamental game mechanics (awesome!), and especially given its turn-based, deterministic nature, I think it's worth making things as consistent as possible.

[darkgod]

fixed

[noxnoctum]

Well I finally killed Celia on my current shadow blade playthrough. Feels good man . Now I just have to try to kill the Master so I can make some kind of undead Necromancer for my next run.

[kevlar]

Well I finally killed Celia on my current shadow blade playthrough. Feels good man . Now I just have to try to kill the Master so I can make some kind of undead Necromancer for my next run.

Starting game as a non-undead race necro is far better IMHO