Frankly I felt that Iorveth's path was significantly inferior to Roche's path.

For one, the comparisons of the quests mentioned in the above post are incredibly selective. Sure the Quarry is more interesting than hunting down corpses to burn or dueling random Knights, but the Quarry is a vital main quest element that affects several side quests while the Corpse-Hunt is a contract quest and the Arena an entirely optional side-quest. A better comparison would be, say, venturing into the Assassin's memories with Deathmold's aid, reliving the meeting with Letho, the infiltration of the Camp, and his death at your own hands. I'd hardly consider mindlessly grinding harpies in a cave in order to view a few five second cutscenes to be more interesting.

Personally, I felt Iorveth's path was pretty half-baked. The Siege of Vergen makes basically no sense- Henselt's entire plan seems to rely on Deathmold running up to gates and blowing them open. Given that Deathmold has no protective magic on at any point during the siege, a single lucky crossbow shot could very well have stalled the entire siege. Even though Henselt has apparently gone as far as to employ Dwarven sappers, not a single siege machine or mine detonation is witnessed during the "siege"- not even a battering ram. Coupled with the rather unimpressive scale and nature of the Dwarven fortifications, the rather weird foray into the tunnels (why is Deathmold here with men brought in from the siege when he was already in Vergen to begin with, and other such factors, and the whole Siege just feels silly, arbitrary, and artificial.

Moreover, when Saskia demands Deathmold's execution, all Deathmold can come up with is to be really surly about having to die even though he is a powerful and, as explciitly established by the material surrounding him, exceedingly ruthless and unscrupulous sorcerer. Despite the fact that mages in-game can teleport away or cast a protective shield at the drop of a hat, he fails to do anything of the sort despite not being restrained when hearing of the command and Henselt's assent to it (the failure of the magi to act makes sense with Eilhart and Radovid or Deathmold and Roche, as in the former case there is anti-magic warding and in the latter Deathmold is incapacitated before he can even react, and is killed shortly thereafter).

I also couldn't stand Saskia's nauseating and laughable idealism nor Iorveth's response to it. My reaction was not helped by her silly character design (why on earth does she insist on keeping her cleavage constantly exposed- it was explained with the sorceresses somewhat with the vanity arising from being previously ugly or rejected, but in Saskia's case it just looks stupid).


I don't see where these objections to Henselt, Radovid, Stennis, etc. are coming from. The behavior they exhibit is pretty typical of real medieval kings specifically and nearly all autocratic rulers in a general sense. One does not generally survive as an authoritarian ruler without being ruthless and paranoid, and in an environment in which Kings are explicitly seen as Divine (as is pointed out pretty early on if memory serves) it is no surprise that the Kings in the Witcher 2 behave as they do. I'm quite pleased that CD Projekt actually attempted to portray somewhat realistic rulers consistent with the period of history that they parallel rather than the absurd shells of men that are typical of most fantasy settings. The opportunity to interact significantly with pretty reasonably developed rulers was a highlight of the Roche path.

Moreover, Iorveth's path as a premise outright doesn't make too much sense. Geralt's genius plan to clear his name and apprehend a regicide is to attach himself to a known terrorist who is explicitly known to have aided in the previous regicide. I mean, even if he succeeds in 'clearing his name' he'll still probably be hunted and hated for associating with brutal elven terrorists (not to mention that Iorveth spends all of his time fawning over Saskia rather than actually appearing to get anything done in terms of the Kingslayer).


Moreover, the progression in Iorveth's path is sort of wierd. An elaborate investigation involving entering a killer's memories and tracking down the hideout of the kingslayers is replaced by Roche telling you in all of five seconds how they killed some assassins and figured out they were going to Loc Muinne. Hell, you don't even properly complete the "Symbols of" quests that are the crux of resolving the curse- Philipa simply gives you half of the items when the plot has run out of things to do. The conclusion of Saskia's illness is also pretty dull and uninspiring relative to the quite dramatic and energetic finale of the Curse plotline that is the analog in Roche's path. And in the end, Roche still does more for you in terms of tracking the Kingslayer and recovering Triss than Iorveth does. While you do gain substantially more insight into the nature of Saskia and Vergen, you learn little of Sabrina and the Curse, Henselt, or Deathmold, so I wouldn't say there's any real advantage to either path in terms of a comprehensive understanding of the situation (plus Saskia's explanation of why she attacked Foltest during the siege of the La Vallette castle is pretty silly and reveals nothing but contemptible ignorance).

I also felt that slogging through yet more Rotfiends in the Loc Muinne sewers on Iorveth's path was pretty dull compared to tag-teaming the Kaedweni camp with Roche, which was at least vaguely exhilarating.

The one stunning advantage of Iorveth's path is the experience rewards, however. By the time I had reached Loc Muinne with Iorveth I was already level 34 despite having skipped the poker face and harpy contract quests. With Roche, I was only hitting level 34 by the very end of the game (as opposed to perhaps level 38 with Iorveth, if the level system actually went above 35) and I had previously completed every single quest in Roche's path and had even ground Harpies for a level. Not to mention that with Iorveth you can indefinitely slaughter the troops at the Temerian and Flaming Rose Camps in Loc Muinne to rapidly and easily accumulate experience.