Hey guys and gals!

I remember borrowing this game from my friend a good while back, he said it had historical figures from the crusades in it, but it had magic and RPG elements.
I also remember getting maybe 2/3 of the game, but quitting, because I felt it was impossible to progress, some sort of fight that I couldn't win.

So my two questions are, is it possible to finish the game without resorting to some kind of cheating or glitching, or having the difficulty setting at the easiest (not sure there are one to pick)?

And, what beginners tips do you have for me? I remember going for close combat, but having high perception and healing magic.

I would appreciate any help you can give me.

Thanks gog!

Hey,

happy to hear that there are still people wishing to play Lionheart ;)Yes, it definitively is, the only problem is that it might become boring after a while because about the last 1/3 is nearly pure hack n' slay without any interesting quests (thought the dungeons are still quite good)This might have made things a bit difficult, because melee fighters rather need high agility and strength. For building your character:

The game is easiest with an archer. Give your character high agility and perception (8+) and pretty good luck and you should manage the entire game without bigger problems (you'll get a perk at lvl 33 that makes the rest of a game almost a joke).
If you prefer melee fight, I must warn you: Most of the game can be played quite good with a melee character, but the final dungeons are VERY MUCH more difficult with melee than with ranger, so they might frustrate an unexperienced player. If this does not scare you off and you make a melee fighter, invest in high strength an agility. Unarmed should also invest in luck and perception. Unarmed become better in the late stages of the game, while armed fighters start off very good but stagnate a little bit later.
Another alternative is a fire wizard, also a good ranger. Invest mainly in Intellegece, and a litte in perception and agility.

Important for ALL chars is:
- invest a little in one of the heal skills (you urgently need a way to turn mana into hp as the game proceeds)
- don't drop agility too low (defines your chars moving speed - you'll go nuts if your character walks with the speed of a turtle with foot ache)
- especially in the beginning, invest in find traps and pick locks, and be sure to have your trap searching mode always enabled - you'll miss lots of things if you forget this!
- if you want to use your spells a little, invest in several diffrent branches of magic. Why? Your total points invested in magic define your mana. The higher you raise on branch, the more skill points you need for one point - so if you invest in several diffrent you get more total magic points, hence more mana. This is one of the most overseen tricks for spellcasting chars.

So far ;) I hope I could help you!
mfg XRayStar

I'm a total noob, but I did notice you can import and export characters, so even if you feel like the game is being really hard as long as you make a little progress you can restart without losing your character's progress.

I just started playing this after picking it up during the recent Interplay sale. So I had read about how this game devolves into hack and slash and built a Feralkin two-handed weapons fighter, but after reading this I'm not so sure it was the best choice. I'm only level 5 and haven't joined a faction yet, though I've been able to go toe to toe with some of those fire trolls in the sewers. Should I rethink things through, or should I just hang the character and roll a new one?

I played the game this way too - Feralkin, two-handed weapons - to try and see just how much the game would be imbalanced (!). Turns out it's playable!

However it also depends on what skills you plan on using on the long run. I chose Tribal magic (Domination and Protective), putting quite a lot of points in Diplomacy helps (to get XP easily when you can talk your way out of things, and see more of the story - some potions will help though), and the rest in Find Traps/Hidden doors, as XRayStar said it's very helpful for a first playthrough (at least). My character also has its stats quite evenly set, but you can increase them quite easily with different items. Read the manual and its changes in the readme for more info, there are quite a lot of things in Lionheart which are not that classical.

When using dual-handed weapons, try to keep at least two of them, to inflict different types of damage. Also, and this is VERY important, you have to rely on the targeting system. It's one of the interesting things you can learn from the manual which are not very obvious when playing. Targeting (you can find this option in the circle of buttons) is actually quite easy to use because I found the enemies design is quite consistent (tall monsters seem to be quite easily crippled when aiming at their legs etc.). Along with the targeting, use the above slider to choose the attack speed and thus a good balance between damage and attack speed. With the high damage available with a two-handed weapon, this can be quite devastating!

Lionheart indeed devolves into 90% pure hack'n slash in its last third, although sneaky characters should have a different experience. The first third is a mix of dialogue and action (in lesser quantities), the second third is more action-oriented. Transition zones are almost fighting only.The last third has very few yet very important dialogues, which can still be solved without any fight (including the last boss, IF you have followed all the story threads earlier to get info from a specific character). I beat the last boss both diplomatically and with my swords and tribal spells. This structure fits the story but it's true the game suffers from not having more quests and all in its last third. However, knowing that, you may find it enjoyable enough! I certainly liked slicing enemies while disturbing/slowing/turning them against each other along the way...

Concerning difficulty, and to add to what XRayStar said: I found the game has two other particularly difficult moments, by the middle of the story - in the Crypt and after, well, after something big occurs and turns the tide against you (completely). At this point I think the devs made a mistake by choosing to stick to story-related facts which are detrimental to the gameplay, so the delicate balance between the two is clearly off for a few hours and it may be discouraging. As a hint, just be very careful with your mana resources then, and with good Perception, you can find spirits quite easily, especially where bodies are (be careful and explore a bit); Druids also need to draw their spirit from somewhere... Golems are magically animated, and provide a very good source of spirits when killed! As to the Crypt, you'll be locked in there... which brings me to my last point.

Monsters level seem to be both character-based and area-based. So, if you tend to skip through a lot of things, you will have to be sneaky or rock-solid by the end. However, if you do most quests, explore and fight, it should be easier on the long run. If monsters seem too hard to beat at first, try to gain one or two levels, you should be a bit ahead of their starting level for their area, and things will start to be easier.

bushwhacker2k is right, you can also import your character if you struggle too much. It should get you ahead of the monster levels in the "normal" zones, and with enough experience allow you to counter-attack harder ones. At one point you will also get better, fantasy-like items (weapons and armors are quite true to history during a first playthrough, again a good idea story-wise but not very motivating at times). Lastly, you can try the Scion of Lionheart mod. It adds a lot of nice touches (mana regen, yeah!), but can turn down the difficulty too much (and renders some random areas unplayable as monsters are way too ahead of you there - the random teleport to "astral" zones when using blue teleporters. Save before using them!!)

Wow, that was long, I hope it will be helpful to some of you!

Also there are a huge variety of equipment in the game.... after playing through 4 or five times i am still finding new things!

Here is a very good tip.... don't touch the red crystals, the ones which spawn enemy until you have some good area effect spells. Then click on the crystal a number of times very fast and spawn all the enemy and kill as quick as you can.

You get tons of junk, heaps of money and sometimes a couple of insanely good equipment.

Actually, this makes me wonder, when is this final third of the game? What location would you say this starts at? I've been playing the game slowly and just made it to France without any issues, but considering how large the world map is, I'm wondering if it is a particularly problematic region that I should be looking out for.

I'm worried about this because so far I've really enjoyed the game and don't want to see things go down the tubes.

The desert (second last section) is pretty difficult, even where you have a strong character who normally kicks ass up to that point, making your kick ass hero much less kick ass and much more dead if your not very careful. The desert will slow you down quite a bit, but it is well worth clearing the whole area for the experience.

Just a note to any who are starting this game....there is a very big design flaw within Lionheart:LotC towards the latter half of the game. I apologize for the spoiler information below, but if you screw this up like I did, you will be forced to start the game over from the beginning. (Unless you have a huge chain of game saves and you can reload before the design flaw happens.)

************************** Spoiler *****************************

(Very necessary spoiler info below. You will want to read this if you are new to Lionheart)























Once you reach Montaillou, it is possible to completely miss the opportunity to venture to the Caverns of Nostradamus.

My suggestion is this. Immediately upon reaching Montaillou, save your game and do not overwrite this save until after you get the Caverns of Nostradamus marked on your map.

Your next step is to find DaVinci and speak to him about finding Nostradamus. He will eventually tell you to see the Weird Woman to the south. Do not leave DaVinci until you have successfully progressed in the Nostradamus quest line.

Go to her hut, and speak to her until she marks the Caverns of Nostradamus on your map. Do not start any other quests in this area until you have that location marked on your map.

Once you have the location of Nostradamus marked on your map, you can go about your business as you see fit.
***End Spoiler***

The reason you should stick to this plan is due to the fact that you can complete all of DaVinci's quests in Montaillou without ever getting the Nostradamus quest line, and then he will no longer be available to speak to you about Nostradamus. Essentially, you will not be able to progress any further in the game than Montaillou if this happens. Game Over.

I had to start completely over because of this, so please pay special attention to the Nostradamus quests when you get to Montaillou.

I was able to fix the problem.

1. Do the steps from this post: https://www.gog.com/forum/lionheart_legacy_of_the_crusader/resolution_question/post7
2. Open {lionheart_directory}Data\Resources\Levels\3 Montaillou\Dialog\weirdwoman.DialogTree using notepad
3. Find the second occurence of the line Reply Text=Perhaps you can help me. I seek the seer known as Nostradamus.
4. Remove everything between Requirement=!None and this line. Save the file
5. Voila, you can go to Weird Woman, the dialog about Nostradamus is available