I'm familiar with AD&D, but since the computer games tend to have their quirks I was doing some online research before I create my party and start playing. The plan is to transfer the characters from game 1 to game 2 eventually.

The manuals seem rather lacking in certain things, so I wanted to get this stuff figured out first. For instance, they neglect to tell you whether you get the better of armor proficiencies when you multiclass or dual-class in these particular games: that sort of thing. (I have figured out that you get the best armor.)

But I ran into a couple of serious things that *I need to know* and wonder if there are others of similar magnitude.

1) There are racial level limits in the second game, despite not being in the manual. Sure, they're in the README, but honestly, those are usually useless with games like this so I wouldn't even think to look.
2) I've heard that if you transfer your party the enemy hit points are doubled!?!? Is this true? Heck, the manual doesn't even *mention* transferring characters--I just assumed you could because of other AD&D computer games. If this is true, would setting the difficulty to EASY make it more along the lines of BALANCED?

Those are the kinds of stuff I really need to know before I start. I generally like to do lots of multiclassing, and finding out I've topped out too soon on levels and the enemies all strangely have doubled hit points would be a rather rude awakening.

So, what other things are there about this series that I need to know?

Thanks for any replies!

Dark Sun 2: Wake of the Ravager is unfortunately a pretty buggy game. I wouldn't be surprised if there were many things missed out in the manual as it feels like the delivery was very rushed.

From what I remember, there are really not too many compelling reasons to transfer your characters from the first game anyway. Many of the best items you find in Dark Sun: Shattered Lands will not be imported and will instead be replaced with money.

The most important thing to know is that the Dark Sun games are buggy. You should keep multiple save spots. Don't overwrite the same saved game repeatedly. Most of the bugs are pretty minor, but it's possible for a script not to get triggered.

Multi-classed characters are a very good idea in the Dark Sun games. The games award massive amounts of XP at regular intervals, and you have limited space for party members. Triple-classed characters will have no issues. There are level limits for non-humans, but the only one that really matters is half-giant rangers, who can only reach level 8. Half-giants are probably overpowered. If you have a half-giant in your party, you will probably win the game -- even half-giant rangers are juggernauts when hasted.

As in the Gold Box games, party composition is endlessly debatable. However, I think clerics are useless. Clerics are restricted to level 3 healing spells, which makes druids substantially better. You can skip having a cleric in your party. Their only real advantage is the ability to turn undead, and this is not a big deal. You only get major access to one elemental sphere. In my opinion, fire and earth have the best cleric/druid spells. Fire has good offensive spells, and earth has good defensive spells.

Transferring your old party to the second game can make it too easy. It's also a little buggy. The characters will transfer just fine, but some of their equipment might get turned into pottery shards or other vendor trash. Not every item from Dark Sun 1 was implemented in Dark Sun 2. It's worth doing at least once, but these games really aren't that hard. It's possible you'll end up looking for ways to make them more challenging rather than worrying so much about enemy hit points.

Thanks!

Yeah, I guess I'll just skip the transfer and remake the party in the second game.

Are there any lists of the important bugs? For instance, I understand there are bugs that break things and prevent you from getting to content that you might not even know have happened. I'd like to know where those are so I can reload if I get them, rather than moving along blissfully unaware that I've missed fun or broken my game so I can't finish it.

I tend not to replay games (too many fun games to play!) so I want to get the most out of it the first time around.

Most of the bugs are minor nuisances, such as an NPC who may refuse to recognize that he's been rescued because you solved the quest before you talked to him. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter -- you still got the award and the XP. If you're a obsessive completionist, it may bother you to know that there's an NPC out there whose personal quest isn't marked as resolved, but I can live with that.

However, there's a huge, game-breaking bug that some people have experienced in the first game. The end game battle is triggered by a script in an area in the early game, but sometimes the script never triggers. Nobody is 100% sure what causes this bug, and many people never experience it. Some players believe it's because an early quest script is buggy. This is a very slight spoiler perhaps. Outside the Fields of Draj, in the White Sands area, you will meet an NPC named Laussa. She wants you to find her a tribe. The script for this quest seems very temperamental. What I've read is that you must allow Laussa's script to complete for the final battle to happen. This means that when you tell Laussa about a new tribe, you must let her slowly walk off the screen before you leave the area. This should complete her script and let the final battle trigger later. Other people say that the bug may be related to a scroll you find on a body in that area. It's probably best to make sure you pick up that scroll as soon as you enter White Sands.

Beyond that, I guess just keep multiple save points. Bugs are rare, but they certainly do happen. There are also a couple surprisingly tough battles that you may lose if you're unprepared.. As far as lists of bugs, no, I don't know of anything like that.

If you want to make sure that you experience the entirety of the games, you may want to read the clue book. This is included in your GOG.com download as Cluebook.pdf in each game's installation directory. There are a couple quests that you may miss out on in your first playthrough, so this is something that'd I'd recommend if that's important to you.

Doubling the hit points isn't nearly as bad as you might think. It's not like the AI in these games is godly. The battles in WOTR will be a bit grindier, but you'll use the same tactics to win. And your party going into the game is WAY more vetted (much better spells and slightly better equipment) than starting out fresh. It is true that the sickest equips from Shattered Lands don't carry over though.

Important bugs: the only gamebreaker I've encountered in Shattered Lands is what krachtm described with the Final Battle. If you complete her quest, Laussa has to be allowed to walk off the screen (it's common for people to teleport away thinking everything is fine). If you don't do her quest then you have nothing to worry about with her.

Other obligatory spoiler on the Final Battle script not triggering is Wyrmias. And, I'll try to keep it vague by simply saying that it's the same principle as Laussa. Either finish him completely or let him walk off the screen.

Multiple saves, absolutely! You don't need a separate save every time, it totally depends on your habits. But certainly make a separate save in new areas, after major battles, etc etc.

I know and remember less about Wake of the Ravager bugs, but once I get the time I'll be happy to compile a list of gotchas in these games to make them less unfriendly to new players.

I ran into one game-breaking bug in Wake of the Ravager. Trying to avoid spoilers, but there is a part of the game where you enter a mirror. Make sure you save your game before entering! Many people have hit a bug where they are unable to leave the area.

After reading the WotR readme, it seems that the racial level caps aren't going to be as big a problem as I thought. The game uses an optional rule called "Exceeding Level Limits" where a demihuman with exceptional stats for their class's prime requisite (e.g. Strength for Fighter, Intelligence for Preserver) can gain levels beyond what would normally be required for their race. If you were like me and just raised all of my character's stats to their maximum value (an average of 20+), the bonus levels are more than sufficient to reach the game's level cap (15 in all of your classes).

As for importing, I can confirm that having imported characters in WotR DOES result in enemies having double their normal HP. However, you can still sort of get around it by importing your characters, and then re-creating those same characters in WotR and transferring all of the good equipment from your old characters to the new ones, and then starting the game with the new characters. You lose out on some levels (fresh WotR characters start out at an average of level 6 or 7. If you were extremely thorough in Shattered Lands, you'll probably end up with close to a total of 700k XP, which puts imported characters at about level 10 or 11) and any bonus scribed spells/psionic powers, but you could simply use the cheat code that gives you access to all spells/powers, and then not use the spells you haven't learned.

Money doesn't transfer over between games, so another big bonus of importing is that if you bring over all kinds of magic equipment in your inventory, you can sell a lot of them off and wind up with a nice starting capital of about half a million ceramic pieces, even without touching some of the better armor and equipment you imported.