I'm glad you are enjoying G2 again! It's a really great game. Granted, I didn't play it before the NOTR add-on so the newer version is all I know, but yes everything you said rings true about picking one kind of thing and putting all your LP into the attribute and skill that go with it.

It's a very replayable game because there are so many things to do in that world, so I'm glad it's back on your agenda.

Enjoy being the nameless hero killling the nameless dragon.

I'm still not real happy with what NoTR did, because Chapter 1 just wasn't fun. It was constant stress, not being able to beat almost anything. Chapter 2 felt almost exactly like Chapter 2 did in the original, so I'm not sure why, but I guess because in the original you were weak and had to pick and choose your paths to avoid orcs, and that's exactly how Chapter 2 played this time.

I'm in Chapter 3 now and in the add-on world (Jarkhendar or something like that) and boy the biggest difference maker for me was getting the Dragon Hunter armor. Suddenly now I just walk up to orcs, shadow beasts, and even Seekers and put them down rather easily. Trolls are another matter entirely. And skeletons.... boy are skeletons hard in NoTR.

To give an idea of skeletons, this is what I just did before posting this very post. Came across a Troll, and no Shrink Monster scrolls anywhere. Even with over 500 hit points and wearing Dragon Hunter armor, two hits still kills me. And no matter the weapon I use, it takes literally about a hundred hits. You see the problem. One mistake and he hits you, you're still okay. Just two mistakes though, and your taking the long dirt nap.

So, I had some Awaken Golem spell scrolls (2). I put a golem on his ass, and then ran around and around the troll to try and keep it's focus on me as much as possible so as to give it a chance to do it's thing. This was an epic battle that lasted several minutes, and when the Golem fell into a pile of rocks the Troll had lost about 40% of it's life. I repeated the process, and when that second golem died, the troll was near death. Still it took 5 Fireballs to finish it off. Done.

Then I come to another troll. No more Awaken Golem scrolls. But I did have 5 Create Skeleton scrolls. So I created 1 and just stood back and watched. The skeleton finished the troll off then calmly walked up to me wondering what to do next.

Skeletons are too damned OP in NoTR.

Recall not having that much problem with trolls. But that was because I didn't fight them head on. Or at all really. They turn slowly, so stay behind them and whack at their heels, constantly turning to match them.
And for things that are fast, ice block helps. Freeze, whack, whack, whack, run away, repeat.

While searching for info about the new difficulty "balancing", i found this:

NdR Custom --- (note: Ndr = NotR)
https://www.worldofgothic.de/dl/download_74.htm

The description is in German. It says: (Google translation, but checked afterwards). edit:
IF you are interested, I can also help with the translation of the readme and/or dialogs.
Caveat: I don't know yet how this tool actually works and whether it is applicable to the English version of the game or not.
edit 2: I found someone who claims it does work with the English version.
edit 3: screenshot added

Um, that's the first issue with NotR. And I've mentioned it several times in these threads you made recently. Raised an eyebrow when you said recently that you used tablets and what not so early, but assumed you knew what you were doing.
Cost is 1 to 30, 2 to 60, 3 to 90, 4 to 120, then 5, so you must know from the get go how many levels you'll get, somehow, and how far you want to take each skill, and what permanent boosts can be found, and train as far as you need, without using any permanent boosts, so when you'll use all of them you'll get to where you want to be at a low cost. Otherwise it's insane. 80 LP takes you from 10 to 60, but only from 120 to 140, for example.

Plan skill leveling carefully to maximize efficiency and minimize costs by taking into account desired skill levels, permanent boosts, and cost scaling.

I knew about the 1 to 30, 2 to 60, 3 to 90, and 4 to 120 and then 5 for attributes (STR-DEX-MANA). What I did NOT know was they had also changed the way skills (1H, 2H, BOW, Crossbow). In original Gothic 2, it always only cost 1 UNTIL one of the two related skills (1H and 2H weapons are "related" as are Bow and Crossbow) got one tier above the other (Three tiers, ROOKIE, FIGHTER, MASTER). So that in original Gothic 2 if your 1H was fighter tier but your 2H was still rookie tier, then it cost you two points to train 1 in 1H skill, BUT the other point wasn't wasted. EXAMPLE: 1H skill is 35 (fighter teir), and 2H ckill is 10 (rookie teir), then if you trained 1H, then it would cost 2LP's, BUT that second LP isn't "wasted" because the result in this example would be 1H=36 and 2H=11, so that even though it cost 2LP's to train 1H, that second LP wasn't wasted as it increased 2H skill.

And the reason I believed it was still this way was because that's exactly how Wulfgar (in the barracks) said in dialogue. It was described exactly as it was in original Gothic 2. So, knowing about the higher costs of ATTRIBUTES, I did in fact save all of my tablets and potions and stew etc regarding STR and DEX (I didn't care about mana because I wasn't playing as a magician). So I did save all of those permanent boosts regarding STR and DEX. BUT, because I thought the skill system was the same as the original, because in dialogue with Wulfgar he said as much, it makes no difference with skills as you still got 1 skill point for each learning point used. The game just sometimes forced you spend 2 LP's, but again, that second LP wasn't wasted as it was applied to the lower related skills.

I guess I'm not able to communicate this clearly, but yes, I knew very well about the huge increase in LP costs regarding attributes (STR-DEX-MANA) but I thought, and in game dialogue said as much, I didn't know that the costs for skills also changed such that as a rookie, it costs 1LP, as a fighter it cost 2LP's, and as a master it cost 3LP's, no matter what tier's the two related skills were. If in fact the game had just changed the costs regarding attributes but left skills the same, then it makes sense to save the permanent boosts for attributes, and it made sense to spend permanent boosts for skills whenever you wanted, so I did.

But that's not the way skill work, despite Wulfgar saying as much in dialogue in game. So, having "wasted" all of my skill permanent boosts at the lowest level (rookie) I knew I was going to be screwed later in game as there just wasn't going to be enough LP's to ever get my skills up to where they need to be.

Part of the problem, and I believe you made this point in one of the other threads, is that because we just don't know (or at least I don't know) a reasonable estimate of how many permanent boosts are available in conjunction with how many LP's we will get as if we knew that, then we could plan accordingly. But I have no idea how many permanent boosts I will end up getting nor even a rough estimate as to how many learning points I will get. Without knowing those, the only possible way to plan is to never use any attribute permanent boosts until your attribute reaches 120 and never use skill permanent boosts until your skill reaches Master. And this game is so unforgiving that I just don't see how you can do that and still progress through the various tasks at hand before that.

For example, if you didn't use any STR permanent boosts until it got to 120, then it would take 290 spent learning points, 29 LEVEL UPs, just to get ONE attribute to 120. And that's just one. Add in the fact that you realistically have to put something in the other attribute (Say you're doing a build that concentrates on STR and 2H weapons, you still don't want to be at 10 DEX late game, or you can forget about any stealth gameplay. And regarding stats, just to get 1 of them to master will cost 80 LP's, 8 more levels. That's 37 levels to get ONE attribute and ONE skill to the point where you start using perma boosts. And that's 37 levels with ZERO LP's left for ANYTHING else (alchemy, forging, animal processing, magic, reading stone tablets, etc.)

There's no way to know how many permanent boosts you'll have even if we can know how many are placed in the world because we still may not find them. AND, I dunno how many levels can be reached by, say Chapter 4, but I'll bet it's not over 30 or so. Playing in the manner I said above (waiting to use perma boosts until they reach the level of maximum cost) results in not even getting there by Chapter 4 AND not having spend ANY POINTS ON ANYTHING ELSE. So... how the fuck do you survive to make it to Chapter 4 unless you do put points in some other things (sneak, pick lock and picklocket are almost absolute necessities given the difficulty curve in NoTR, and you are forced to spend some on animal processing, forging, or alchemy just to advance past Chapter 1 (you must be an apprentice of one of those).

ADDED: Jeex, what a mess and wall of text. Even by my long winded standards this one is long and difficult to understand. I apologize I'm still not being clear. My bad.

Thanks, Amy! <3

Nah, you explained quite clearly what you assumed, but that's really not the case. And since I went with a pure mage build, the weapon skill system never even got on my radar, just knew that the cost per point increased by 1 for every 30 points, for everything. And I'm going on 11 y/o memories here, since I last gave up in 2012.
You should be able to reach 30 by chapter 4 though, seeing as I was still in chapter 3 and probably with plenty left to do and I was at 28 when I last gave up.
But, like you said, training anything to 120 really doesn't seem feasible. 90 could work if you focus, but past that, highly doubtful.

Well, I'm a masochist (not really I just can't get a divorce from this game that I do still love) so I started a new game. I am not going to use any stone tablets, potions, stews, or any other "free" attribute or skill until that attribute or skill is already at the highest cost. For attributes, that would be 120 (above 120 it costs 5 LP's for each plus one to the attribute) and above 60 for skills (skills above 60 are MASTER and cost 3 LP's for each plus one to the skill).

I am going to give this a fair try. I have my doubts about being effective in Chapters 1 and 2 at least without using those perma boosts. But I have my doubts about being effective in late Chapters if I DO use them before that. Common sense says there's no way both of those can be true as if so, no one would ever finish the game without exploits such as save scumming, kiting, using MARVIN, etc. It just can't be that they made a game where the only way to finish it is to use exploits, right?

I'm gonna find out, for myself if nothing else.

No need dear

Okay, I think this is the best way to proceed. So I set out where I wanted to end up, and then worked backward. And, of course, there still aren't enough LP's :), I got it somewhat narrowed down, but I am still at 530 LP's needed (53 levels). Does anyone know if that's too outrageous? I know I finished Gothic 1 at about level 35, but 3 or 4 of those were "wasted" in the sense that you got them in the last Chapter after going to visit trainers was doable. So I figure 30 in Gothic 1. I know 2 is bigger, and of course NoTR adds even more, but I'm still not sure if 53 is doable.

Just asking if anyone has any thoughts on that.

And here's how I broke it down - so if anyone looks at that and says it's also looking way off could you help?

Chapter 1 - 17 Levels
Chapter 2 - 5 Levels (2 is short, unless you go to Jharkendar there, but I prefer Jharkendar in Chapt 3)
Chapter 3- 15 Levels
Chapter 4 - 12 Levels
and if there even is a
Chapter 5 - 4 Levels

If I can do 53 levels, that's 530 LP's, that I broke down that results in me having a DEX of about 150-170, STR of about 130-150, 1H skill of 100, and bow of 100. Two handed and Crossbow are entirely ignored and so only "free" bumps to those likely still moves them into Fighter territory (above Rookie but less than Master). And it allows me to get all the Stealth (25 points), the languages (30 points), the main alchemy (approx 45 points), some forging (20 points) and about 30 to 35 for animal processing.... thus allowing me to experience nearly every aspect of the game with the exception of 2 handed weapons and crossbows... and even then I might be at fighter level instead of just rookie if I chose to play around with them.

Does this seem a completely unrealistic plan? It's hard for me because the last time I played it was over 10 years ago (probably even more than that) and I'm nearing 70 myself and, well, my memory sucks lol. So I'm basing this plan on flawed memory, and the experience of getting to level 3 before restarting this game. Am I way, way off?

And thanks Amy, very good advice. Still, I'd prefer to just "play" games and enjoy them without having to pull out my legal pad and pen and work for three hours to try and pare it down to something reasonable. But, I really think you're right on here, NoTR added such a spike in difficulty that one almost MUST do some planning rather than just playing. Thanks again.

So, have I totally messed up with my estimates? Oh, and the reason for the variations is because there's really no way of knowing if I find all of the perma boosts (tablets, potions, NPC bonuses, etc.) but I hope it seems reasonable. And if I am at least in the ballpark, I think this is very doable and will leave me in a good position to be effective all the way from Chapter 1 to the end.

Nice planning. :)

Can't say anything about the details. But I did a quick Google search for Gothic 2 NotR + max level. People claim to have reached levels 55 to 56, depending on certain (quest) script patches even 58 to 59. But remember that at this stage you have approached (or even completed) end game content. No point in learning new skills then anymore.

BTW:
Amy is a Chat-GPT bot who posts her generic answers all over the forum. I see she learned to reply to posts now.

Really? Damn that one actually fooled me. What becomes of us when none of us can tell who's "real" and who isn't?

"These are dark days" - Apprentice Rupert in Gothic 2.