FM: Karras' Diary (Karras' Tagebuch)
File: karrasdiary.zip
Play mode: Ghost (fail)
Zero damage (success)
Time: 5 hr 53 min
Loot: 6310 of 7050
Pockets picked: 1 of 2 (all)
Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0
Damage dealt: 70 Taken: 0 Healing: 0
Killed: 2 (others)
Secrets: 5 of 5
Reason for failure:
- Had to kill two spiders in secret corridor en route to Diary Room.
- Destroying the Flesh Transmuter machine alerted the nearby guard.
Comments:
All of the damage and both kills were the two stupid spiders; my only alternative (I thought) was to fight the two combat bots instead
.
However... I now believe the spiders can be ghosted!
At the very beginning, in the courtyard with the big statue of Karras (though it looks more like Karras's fantasy of what he wanted to look like
), directly across from where you begin and up high is a little park with trees. The first secret is up here, and you can get various equipment including an invisibility potion.
The easiest way to get up there, which involves no crate stacking and only one impossible leap, is to head out into the main street to the Keeper's house; take one of the boxes; then head back... but just before the arch into the courtyard, hang a louie and ascend the ladder. Drop the box so it's partially on the platform and partially on the ladder itself (as much over the ladder as possible without it toppling). Hop aboard the box; you can now jump-mantle onto the wall between you and the courtyard.
Once up there, crouch and walk across the spikes to the other side of the arch. Here is the only tricky part: you have to line up on the clear wall southwest of you -- the boundary wall of the tree park -- back up as far as you can on the wall you're standing on, stand, run, and leap. If you hit your jump just right, you'll land on top of the tree-park wall, and you can just run right off the edge into the park. The switch is at the south end, the hidey-hole in the middle of the west wall.
You need that inviso potion, plus the one you get later (in the Keeper's house, I think) to ghost the spiders: I think you should be able to creep close to them, just before you get a first-alert chirp, gulp the potion, and crouch-walk past them and jump onto the ladder. On the way back, use the second potion.
(I used one of the potions to dart over and get the church moneybox; but I already had plenty of loot before that and didn't need it to finish. I didn't use the other invisibility potion.)
But still remains the dreadful problem of the female guard near the Flesh Transmuter machine.
I have an idea about that, in case anyone is interested in trying: if you douse the torch near the standing guard, it might be dark enough to slowly, gingerly nudge her farther and farther away from the machine. It would be tricky, as she spins a lot -- and you'd have to back away before she spun to avoid detection, I think.
But if you conducted a long dance of {nudge, back away, save}, I suspect you could get her quite a distance.
Hm. I just tried it, and it's easier than I thought; she moves pretty quickly... and when you're pressed up against her north side, she won't turn north to face you. You'll still get popped if she's sideways to you and you're too off-center towards the direction she's looking; but if you're patient, you can do it. I managed to nudge her half way down the river.
I don't know how far she has to be before she won't hear the explosion; don't forget, before you throw the switch to scrag the Flesh Transmuter, go upstairs and
close that window!
I don't know if you can get her far enough away. Even after nudging her as above, when I returned to the machine, stood in the "sweet spot," and shot off a fire arrow, she alerted. In fact, she alerted when I shot a broadhead into the machine
; she must be pretty sensitive! One good thing: once you've nudged her, you can see her through the window, so you know for sure whether or not you're busted.
Now to more pleasant areas. I didn't bother with the wine bottles in the pub; they're only worth 100 total, and I wasn't going to burn my invisibility potions so early in the game for that. I later used one to grab the loot from the church collection box: I crept as close as I could from the other side of the altar -- there are several dark spots, and you can move from one to the other when both guards turn away (or as much away as they will) -- then I mossed my path and dropped the key on the ground.
(One of my favorite techniques: if I quaff the potion, then go fumbling for the key, it takes a while flipping through my inventory... burning scarce invisibility time. So I drop the key on the ground at my feet instead,
then I swallow the potion; it's the work of a moment to snatch the key, which automatically puts it in position to use.)
It took a couple times before I got the timing right, but I was able to get back to a (semi) dark spot before I vizzed in again.
I didn't find the candlesticks all that difficult. I crept up the stairs as close as darkness would allow, then mossed a path; when both guards turned their back (lot of waiting time), I ran forward. After being busted a couple of times, I learned to keep the altar in between me and the guard up there with me.
I was able to creep right up to the altar without the raised guard seeing me; from there, I could frob the nearest candlestick. When the guard watching Karras's body turned his back (and the squirmy raised guard was looking away), I stood, frobbed the other stick, then crouched again. I was able to return exactly as I had gone, and I got nothing more than a first alert from the lower guard.
As to the guards in the treebeast area, I triggered the fight (which is scripted -- should it count as a bust, since it's possible to avoid it?), but it only took the guards three or four minutes to calm down after killing the monster. I didn't know about the tiara then, but I got it on my way out, after robbing the church, and I didn't even draw a first alert.
In the escape room with three doors, I easily (and quietly) opened the one directly before me and the one to the right (leading to the first Riddle Room); but shooting the switch for the left door with a broadhead always alerted the guard. Actually two guards -- somebody came through the gate; maybe that parade was just passing by.
I was out of moss, but I did have one water arrow left: I plugged it on the second attempt, and nobody was alerted. As it happens, there is nothing of value in that room anyway, unless you want another picked lock: all you get is a fire arrow, and you don't need one.
As several people have noted, you can open the door to Riddle Room 1 by just throwing a flare at it -- an odd programming mistake, I think. You don't need to blow off the explosive charge, and you don't need to nudge the guard there.
(I wonder if that will work even before retrieving the explosive charge and the fire arrow? Can you bypass those two rooms? Alas, I don't have a save game from that spot except for the one where I was nudging the guard above, and that's too far away to test the door. Too much work. Too lazy.)
I must say, after all the screaming and the crying, the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over on TtLG, I found the riddles (for the door combinations) curiously disappointing; they were much too easy, especially the first one, which just requires a little algebra. The second was more interesting, but even so, it took me only two minutes or so to figure it out and exit.
All in all, it was a terrific mission, as usual for Mr. Oakenshield; and I really wonder whether it may be ghostable after all... if you have the patience to walk that stupid guard all the way down the quay to the other end.
How far away do you need to get her before she won't hear the explosion?
(Say, here's a thought: maybe she'll always hear it because it's
scripted! If so, it's not a bust; but I don't know DromEd, so I can't go check. The question: does she hear the explosion, which isn't very loud, because she actually hears it, being close and sensitive enough, or because her alert is a scripted event?)
Dafydd