Muck and Bates (minor money exploit for morons)

Restoring a saved game from a few days back in which Muck Evil Eye (the presupplied half-ogre), Virgil, and Dog were reparing to leave Tarant with the fake Stillwater Giant pelt to bring back to Myrth in Stillwater, I could not remember if I had stopped by Bates' mansion to tell him of Muck's visit to the Wheel Clan.

Like many NPCs, Bates is really nasty and condescending to persons of lesser or half-ogrish intellect. So when Muck told him (possibly again) of meeting with "Log hair", Bates gave his usual smarmy rebuke. One of the possible responses (maybe even the only one, I can't recall) was more or less "Money?" Bates tossed Muck a few scraps (50 gold I think), then the conversation ended. At which point I talked to Bates again. Same dialogue, same option, same 50 gold in return. Woohoo! I did it a couple more times just to feel like a bad-arse money exploiter (though Bates' attitude really deserved a good arcane axe decapitation).

Now a drift into my play of Muck. He's in his late 30s now, working up to 17 CO, 22 ST before finally putting that last point in Dodge (he's been melee master for a while now, but the autolevel scheme really pumps up his stats and hit points before returning to complete Dodge). He has an arcane axe, and is nigh on unstoppable (at least versus the opposition at this stage of the plot). Hardin Pass was just basically him wading through yetis, polar bears, shiverbits, et al, with neither Dog nor Virgil getting much opportunity to test their mettle.

The challenge in playing Muck is really the challenge of playing a low intelligence character (I refuse to use essence of intellect in this particular run of the game). You lose out on many quests entirely, can't complete other quests, and some you just get shafted reward-wise.

But you're definitely a tank. Especially with a weapon like the arcane axe. Kerchunk!

 

You know, the good thing of the low-intelligence dialogs (either you're an idiot, a drunkard or Frankenstein's Bride) is that you travel by ship free! So nowadays here's what I do when I'm short of cash: for the decent amount of less than 20 coins -or the price it takes to get you drunk-, my party and I get to save our money! (Well, we gotta work for the ship captain, but hey, that's still good!)

 

I have yet to play a dumb character.
I think i know what i'm doing in my next run through the game

-Neo

 

What's funny--and I should've expected it, but since I was reading books and telegrams, I didn't--I traipsed into the BMC with Virgil, got down to the level with the long winding trapped corridor, and went to read one of the sense traps scrolls you find on the assassin bodies there.

Whoops! Me no can read scrolls!

So travelling down that corridor was very interesting.

I managed to finish the BMC without any damaged armour though. (Note that I did not bother with the heavily trapped living quarters level.)

I'm resolved to not drink a single essence of intellect, so I imagine there will be many quests left unresolved, or less than adequately completed, and others never even received.

Hmmm, can one make an offering to Geshtianna without recovering her idol? Brigitte refused to talk to Muck so he could not get that quest.

 

How come? How high is your intelligence, 3 or 4?

It is much more interesting if you order Virgil to walk in front of you and mark a path... That is, if you have enough fatigue restorers. Otherwise next time you can try a character that can spot traps, and voilà! No scroll needed!

The only time I played a dumb-dialog character... Well... Let's put it this way... I ended up deleting it before it could finish. I hope that you'll do better.

Not that I know of, but then again, it could be possible if you force the quest. It didn't work for me, though.

 

lol in the bmc i just ram through all the traps and let virg heal me, they are weak usually, theres only 1 or 2 that are truly deadly i ever run into.

-Neo