The Witcher

[Bob the Insane]

Okay, a little help here please...

The Beast is kicking my butt... I have had no real issues in any fights up to now, but after numerous tries it is clear that I must have missed something in my preperation for the fight (of which I admittedly did little)...

I am playing on medium...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I elected to take the witch's side against the villagers if that makes any difference

[AggonyDuck]

Siding with the witch makes the whole the Beast thingy a lot harder. I personally struggled for a long while with the battle. From what I've read there are a couple of alternatives to deal with it. The first is to hope that you get lucky with the Aard sign and manage to knockdown/stun it and then follow up with a coup de grace. The other option is to concentrate on the hounds that attack Abigail and protect her. She should keep healing you every now and then, which should be enough to allow you to battle against the beast, especially if you have drunk a Swallow potion. Additionally there's one skill you can purchase that makes you immune to pain when intoxicated, which is very useful for this battle. Either way it's a frustratingly hard battle.

[Bob the Insane]

Thanks...

[Xiahou]

RE: The Beast

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

First thing- you don't need to keep Abigail "alive" during the fight with the beast. If she gets knocked down, she'll be up and alive again for the next segment. For me, the fight got alot easier once I realized I didn't need to protect her.

I thought the Beast was kinda cheesy, so I decided to get cheesy to beat him. I drank a swallow, a tawny owl, and started running in circles around the flaming ring until both bars (health/endurance) were full. Then I turned around and hit him with a flame sign and ran again til my health was full. Rinse and repeat until he's dead. In my case, when he was 3/4 dead, I switched signs and managed to stun him, but I could've kept on with the same tactic and killed him the other way too. If you get agony on you and get stunned, it's because you ran too close to the flames. Don't do that.

I think the easiest thing to do would've probably been to make the spectre oil (whatever its called) and use that on your blade to pwn him. But, I didn't have the foresight to learn to make oils prior to the battle, so it wasn't an option for me.

Incidentally, another time saver I found it that you can actually pull off a quicksave right before the fight with the Beast starts, so you don't have to keep watching the cutscenes over and over if you die.

I've gotta say, after playing this game for awhile longer, my opinion of it has only improved since my earlier comments. A thoroughly enjoyable game.

[Kekvit Irae]

After playing it more, I have come to the conclusion that I totally gimped my skills. I may have to restart, and I HATE Chapter 1. :(

[Papewaio]

How's the eye candy?

[Kekvit Irae]

It's pretty good. Not as visually stunning as Oblivion, but the makers have put a lot of thought into making Geralt's attacks look good. You often stare in amazement at how finesse he is when you chain your attacks, especially when you upgrade your combat skills.

[AggonyDuck]

After playing it more, I have come to the conclusion that I totally gimped my skills. I may have to restart, and I HATE Chapter 1. :(

Well the Bronze Talent skills can be gimped to be honest. You'll get a lot more of them in the process of the game. It's the Silver and Gold Talents that are more critical in the end.

[Bob the Insane]

Got past the Beast basically the same way as Xiahou...

It's funny how what seemed impossible is now pretty easy...

Got into the city and again they have achieved a much more lived in, real feel to the place than NWN/NWN2 managed...

[alman7272]

RE: The Beast

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

First thing- you don't need to keep Abigail "alive" during the fight with the beast. If she gets knocked down, she'll be up and alive again for the next segment. For me, the fight got alot easier once I realized I didn't need to protect her.

I thought the Beast was kinda cheesy, so I decided to get cheesy to beat him. I drank a swallow, a tawny owl, and started running in circles around the flaming ring until both bars (health/endurance) were full. Then I turned around and hit him with a flame sign and ran again til my health was full. Rinse and repeat until he's dead. In my case, when he was 3/4 dead, I switched signs and managed to stun him, but I could've kept on with the same tactic and killed him the other way too. If you get agony on you and get stunned, it's because you ran too close to the flames. Don't do that.

I think the easiest thing to do would've probably been to make the spectre oil (whatever its called) and use that on your blade to pwn him. But, I didn't have the foresight to learn to make oils prior to the battle, so it wasn't an option for me.

I did this as well :) I'm not sure...but I may have also used Blizzard (an extremely useful potion that I wish I had a lot more of)

Really, what's absolutely key is potions believe it or not. And a recommendation: get the toxicity removal potion...it helps A LOT.

[Rodion Romanovich]

What a coincidence, I was just browsing around gamespot to see what games had been released lately, and this caught my eye for being one of the more interesting games released lately that I haven't yet gotten. From what the reviews say, everything is great except the voice acting - or?

[Xiahou]

What a coincidence, I was just browsing around gamespot to see what games had been released lately, and this caught my eye for being one of the more interesting games released lately that I haven't yet gotten. From what the reviews say, everything is great except the voice acting - or?

With exceptions, I think the voice acting is generally quite good. The biggest problem I have with the voices is that certain portions sound like they were re-recorded later and they don't blend well with the surrounding dialog. Of course, that's just my opinion- ymmv.

I think the biggest annoyance is their overuse of the same few character models for the various townsfolk. There's a handful of pretty well-done character models, but it seems like I keep seeing them over and over again, with slight variation all over the place. Even still, I've found the locales to feel much more immersive and real than say, Oblivion's were.