Pretty neat series. Been playing a few hours and I am in Chapter 1. Just a few questions:

1) Is it important that I get to Krondor quickly in Chapter 1? They make it sound urgent, but I would be taking many days of rest if I were to heal fully between combats. Or is there no time limit?

2) When someone goes to near death status, should the game really just say "Game over. Reload, unless you're bonkers."? I guess I can imagine if you're rich and can pay at the temples, that would work. I certainly can't afford it!

3) Is the game pretty much walking down roads until you get ambushed by the same people, then walking another half mile and getting ambushed again, ad infinitum? I can live with that, it's just disappointing. I did go to one "dungeon" that broke away from that routine a little. I don't know if there's lots of those or what.

4) I heard Antara wasn't as good as Krondor. I'm liking it quite a bit! The interface is much nice, and good story/voice acting. What makes it inferior?

Anyway, I'll keep at it! It's pretty fun. Thanks!

1) Generally speaking, you can take as much time as you like before completing the chapter-ending objective. It's worth your while to explore as much as you can before doing so. Some of the later chapters might impose a time limit of sorts, in that your food supply will be limited and you won't have any ready way to get more.

That said, you won't see a great deal of plot development until the chapter ends - although chapter 1 has plenty of foreshadowing of the things to come, the significance of which may not be apparent until (much) later.

2) Near Death is a status ailment and can also be treated by drinking the healing potion (green colored, although I don't remember its name offhand), which reduces any status ailment by a certain % with each drink, or by resting it off. If you rest it off, it will take a long time, although using the healing kits and resting until you need to apply a new one will speed things up a bit.

Paying at the temples is rarely necessary. Disease/plague is the only condition that will worsen over time; if you don't have enough healing elixir to remove it in one go (one dose takes 5% off of a condition, IIRC) then the temple is the only option.

3) You can stick to the roads, and that's certainly the most direct way to get from town to town, but you'll only turn up unusual stuff by exploring off of the roads, as well as in and around those towns and other 'features'. There are a few caves/dungeons/sewers/etc out there as well. (I'm trying to be general so as not to spoil anything!)

4) Antara - apart from being buggier in some regards - is much MORE combat grindy than Krondor is, particularly later on (and it doesn't help that the combat engine is so sluggish, especially when persistent spell graphics are in place). The biggest fault is that the writing quality isn't as good; the overall story arc is fine, but the character dialogue and some specific plot/quest elements can be downright wince-inducing at times.

Cool, thanks much for the info. It puts some things in perspective.
Now I can rest easier knowing that I don't have to fly through on a time limit. And I think I will mostly just reload on Near Death. I'm usually not incredibly far back when it happens. Maybe I'll tough it out sometimes.
Too bad about Antara. I was liking the graphics and interface quite a bit better. I'll still try going through it a little bit more.
Thanks!