Grimrock

I randomly saw someone play Grimrock 2 on Twitch. They were playing a mod, the House of Hardabar I think. Anyway, it rekindled the old fire I used to have for this game so I decided to reinstall it and play it through again (I downloaded that mod too, although have not played it yet). I played the crap out of this game back in the day, including mods when it first came out, but it's been 4-5 years since I've touched it and had forgotten lots of things.

Went with just regular hard difficulty. Ratling rogue dex build and insectoid rogue strength build in the front row (for quickness); both dual wielding light weapons and backstabbing of course, then a minotaur barbarian in the back who was built to throw and do alchemy, and finally a human battle mage in the last spot (skilled, fast learner; I prioritized getting light, invisibility, forcefield and meteor storm spells quickly). I was happy with the party, but maybe a full wizard would have been better early and mid-game for more mana (late game it doesn't matter, for me at least, as I always had enough mana and was regenning it fast enough). And a minotaur strength rogue in the front instead of the insectoid might have been better too, but I didn't want two of the same race because then I would have had to share the skulls (and omit insectoid's race food bonuses - not that those helped me much).

Early game was no problem. Had to reload the first boss fight with the trees (viper roots) a few times. The knife throwing rats in the first or second dungeon also gave me some trouble, as well as getting surrounded when I jumped into pits (I made it a point to jump into all of them). Another super tough mini-boss battle was with the stone golems in the Twigroot Forest (the area you enter from the Forgotten River) because I did it fairly early. Next I explored the general areas of the Forgotten River and Sleet Island, which were no problem. Then the Ruins of Desarune, which were tough, especially the ice elementals in the meditation spire room (maybe there's an easy way to do that fight, but I just found an area to hide in and ventured out to do hit and runs at them with lots of saves in-between). I had also forgotten how huge the Ruins were; I thought I was just popping into another dungeon to check it out but then they kept going on and on...

After the Ruins, the Bog felt easy, and the other areas were no problem. I should have gotten the rope from the early gold key stash though because jumping into pits and then having to use healing potions just felt like a waste. The semi-final boss battle, the dragon at the top of the castle, was no problem. I took him out on first try and I think he was only able to summon two waves of enemies. The real boss fight in the Trickster's Lair was much harder. I still got it on first try, but had to use all my healing shards and healing potions to get through it. (Got the Island Master down to about quarter health right at the start of the fight, but then lost track of him and had to fight mostly his clones until I finally squished him at the end).

Guess it's now time to take a look at some of the mods that have come out in the last 4-5 years. But yeah, great game, still holds up, and I just wish they would make a third one in the series. I think it would be pretty easy in principle (not necessarily in practice) to upgrade (more spells, more weapons, more races and classes, towns and shops, maybe NPC's that you could talk to and even recruit as a fifth companion... yeah, just the same basics as the old game but with more, new stuff).

So I played the the main game through a few more times. It was much easier of course once I could remember again where all the good loot was, what to rush early and so forth. My last party was a lizardman dex rogue, insectoid barb dual wielding light str weapons, a back row minotaur barb who threw stuff, and a human utility alchemist mage who mostly spammed invisibility while the front row went around backstabbing everybody.

The thrower is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it sucks to have to go around picking up your throwing weapons and sometimes you might not use them simply because you are worried they'll end up dropping in some pit or water, on the other hand, picking off enemies from a distance is just much safer, and I especially like swatting those suicidal fire elementals out of the air with a double axe throw, and you of course get double throw which gives you two attacks with one click.

For the final enemy, I just face tanked him - people say you shouldn't do that in this game, but he's too slippery otherwise and will end up making lots of clones, so imo it's easiest to just pot up and then stick to him like flies to shit, and use blue crystals to res the party when a few of the members die. Even without abusing (stacking) rage pots and on hard difficulty, he still goes down pretty quickly to a high DPS party build.

This was a strong team, although when I play a mod blind, I'll probably go with the same front row, but I'll make the back row minotaur an alchemist instead of barb, and take a human wizard for the fourth party member. That way the party will be slightly weaker by endgame, but early game my wizard will have more mana to cast spells when magic attacks matter more, and mid-game I can get meteor shower since there's no need to put 5 points into alchemy. And I'll also get alchemy 5 earlier since the alchemist minotaur won't need to get con 2 and air 3 first for force field and invisibility, so then I can brew frost bombs, rage potions and bear form potions, which make can make a huge difference if you remember to use them.

I really like the ratling or lizardman dex rogue because you'll of course use daggers, so by level 5 you can already be dual wielding and backstabbing enemies. Also, there's no need to put points into accuracy since this guy will have very high accuracy from dex alone so you peak with light weapons 5, critical 5 and dodge 3 quite early (I think I put the last few points into athletics for the extra health simply because there was nothing better anymore). Also, no need to put points into armor since you'll want to wear the rogue armor and dex gear anyway.

The front row barb that dual wields light weapons reaches his full potential much later since you need light weapons 5 to dual wield non-dagger weapons, and critical 5 to backstab with them, plus you need some points in accuracy too, and also I put a few points into armor so that he could use some pieces of mirror armor, and then dodge 3 you get very late (this is with all tomes of knowledge and the early mirror pendant going to him).

As for the human alchemist mage, I do like her a lot too, but the way I built her, I started with alchemy 1, con 1, air 1, then con 2 (for light and force field), then air 3 for invisibility, then con 3 just to be able to regen energy faster and for the darkbolt, then alchemy 5, then air 5 since I didn't think I'd have enough point for meteor shower anymore or would get it too late. So yeah, this build is very strong once you get to alchemy 5, but obviously that happens a bit late in the game, which is no problem if you've beaten the game a few times already and therefore find the early parts easy, but if the battles were harder, then I'd like to get my alchemy 5 earlier and meteor shower mid-game too for when it's actually useful - later on I mostly just use invisibility + backstabbing.

MostlyHarmless wrote: ↑Sun Jun 25, 2023 4:04 am I randomly saw someone play Grimrock 2 on Twitch. They were playing a mod, the House of Hardabar I think.

Can you please give link to that Twitch with House of Hardabar mod?