N00b questions about shielding, blood of life and branches

[Mankeli]

Howdy!

New to the forums and TOME, definitely not new to roquelikes in general. I have a few questions concerning version 1.1.2. Having a blast so far, thanks for the game! Not sure about the forum etiquette so sorry if this is the wrong section but I most certainly do want spoilery answers . My questions are:

1) I didn't notice lives increasing in the character sheet after drinking the Blood of Life, is this how it's suppose to be? I'm not sure but I think that one character that drank the potion could go to negative -1 lives when he perished and still came back from the Eidolon plane.

2) I'm I supposed to clear all the tier one starting dungeons for exp and stuff and is there a downside in doing so (besides the obvious of having your character killed if you suck)? Is there a time limit of some kind after which you can't win anymore?

3) I'm playing a skeleton level 19 archmage but I'm not sure I understand the mechanics of Disruption Shield so can someone explain it to me -if it's worth using/learning that is.

4) My other character who is a dwarf reaver screwed up in the temporal rift and died twice (three deaths overall). Character screen tells me that I still have 2 lives left + one quaffed blood of life. Is it possible to win the game dying this early, how many lives people usually need in the Far East and beyond?

5) About saves: If I have a mental save of, say, 5 %, then is it the same as confusion immunity 5 % when trying to resist enemy's confusion attack?

Thanks in advance!

[HousePet]

1) Blood of Life is a separate system to the adventure mode lives.

2) No time limit.

3) Instead of taking damage, your current mana is raised. If you reach maximum mana, all hell breaks loose in the form of an arcane damage storm.

4) People do win the game in Roguelike mode.

5) Saves are not percentages. They are not really comparable to status resistances.

[tylor]

Disruption shield is as good and as tricky to manage as you can guess from description.

[The Revanchist]

Watch out if you're drinking the Blood of Life. Or any Potions. Really anything "consumable" that is "infused with nature.

The reason being, if the game considers you "undead", whether by being undead (ghoul, skeleton, lich), or having anything granting "undeath" status (whatever of unlife, typically), then you can use the thing. But it'll do nothing. Except waste it.

[Mewtarthio]

It's just the Blood of Life that does that (because you're not "alive"). Every other consumable in the game works normally. Of course, the game doesn't have that many consumables anyway (Brotherhood quest rewards, Blood of Life, Sandworm artifacts).

1) I didn't notice lives increasing in the character sheet after drinking the Blood of Life, is this how it's suppose to be? I'm not sure but I think that one character that drank the potion could go to negative -1 lives when he perished and still came back from the Eidolon plane.

Blood of Life extra lives are different from difficulty-related extra lives. You don't go to the Eidolon plane in that case: You revive on the spot with full resources and all statuses cleared, but your talents are still on cooldown.

2) I'm I supposed to clear all the tier one starting dungeons for exp and stuff and is there a downside in doing so (besides the obvious of having your character killed if you suck)? Is there a time limit of some kind after which you can't win anymore?

No time limit. The only risk is boredom.

3) I'm playing a skeleton level 19 archmage but I'm not sure I understand the mechanics of Disruption Shield so can someone explain it to me -if it's worth using/learning that is.

It's hard to master. It basically turns your mana bar into an upside-down health bar.

4) My other character who is a dwarf reaver screwed up in the temporal rift and died twice (three deaths overall). Character screen tells me that I still have 2 lives left + one quaffed blood of life. Is it possible to win the game dying this early, how many lives people usually need in the Far East and beyond?

It is quite possible to beat the entire game without dying at all.

5) About saves: If I have a mental save of, say, 5 %, then is it the same as confusion immunity 5 % when trying to resist enemy's confusion attack?

Not at all. Your saves are compared to the enemy's power to determine whether you "shrug off" an effect. If your save is higher than their power, the effect's duration is reduced even if you don't shrug it off. If your save is significantly lower, you suffer a cross-tier effect on top of it.

[IvenGray]

It's OK if you die 2~3 times before reaching the fareast, and it would still be fairly promising for you to win the game. For some characters, it's harder to die between Reknor and High Peak, while for some characters it's easier.

[Mankeli]

Thanks for the quick answers guys!

One more question: If I choose to go with mindstars on my high willpower mindslayer, can I wield three of them because of the extra slot controlled via the said mindslayers mind? I just tested mindstars for the first time with mastery 1.2 and 5/5 in psiblades on my dwarf wyrmic and the damage output seemed pretty insane even for tier-3 mindstars and moderate willpower. And that was only two mindstars. Two bad his defences/resistances sucked and I lost the character via poor play.

[HousePet]

Of course you can wield three of them.
What else would that slot be for?

[Mankeli]

Lé cool. Three mindstars feels pretty powerful eventhough my mindslayer only has tier-3 stars currently.

Another question: skeleton's bone armour, is it a shield or an armour? The racial's name is "bone armour" but the descriptions insists that it is a shield. The reason I'm asking is because I want to know if the Archmages shield boosting talent (Aegis?) boosts this shield as well? Playing 1.1.2.

[Theyleon]

Bone armour is a damage shield, and is affected by aegis afaik.

[Mankeli]

Thanks again.

Another undead related question: Dying to to get the permanent lich form on a necromancer doesn't really count as dying, does it? So you can have a permanent lich form in roguelike mode too?

[Theyleon]

You will 'die', but the lich form ability will immediately resurrect you as an undead lich. It won't affect roguelike - there are actually at least 2 other ways to survive dying in roguelike.

[Mankeli]

Interesting, what's the other besides BoL?

Will NPCs shun my character after the lich transformation or will the lich form provide inner cloak of deception of something?

[Mewtarthio]

Interesting, what's the other besides BoL?

Blood of Life, Ring of the Dead (an artifact ring that boosts Luck and breaks after you die), and the Skeleton Re-Assemble racial ability can all bring you back from the dead, even if you lose your last life. There are also a number of talents that preempt your death, such as the paladin's Second Life or the Cauterize prodigy.

Will NPCs shun my character after the lich transformation or will the lich form provide inner cloak of deception of something?

Lichdom won't turn NPCs hostile. Maybe you're still "fresh" enough that they can't really tell.

[Mankeli]

Thanks!

But the questions keep on piling up : Does reaver's bone shield stack with skeleton's bone armour so that you can have them both active at the same time? If so, I think I may try a skelly reaver of bonesy protection next.