Hi guys.
Now, before I even begin, let me just say that yes, I do love a good challenge. In fact, I welcome it. I love the fact that Risen doesn't hold your hand, or try and keep you away from the bigger, scarier enemies. Instead, it lets you explore, and gives you the chance to find out for yourself just how dangerous this island is.

However, I just started chapter 3 (I'm level 16, which I assume is a decent level for that point in the game as I've done my fair share of quests and whatnot), and currently delving into the saurian temple. Now, a gentle reminder that I said I love a challenge. That being said, this is just downright crazy. Everywhere I turn, I'm faced with hordes of lizard warriors (able to kill me with two power attacks if I don't block properly), priests (able to kill me with two of those fireball spells if I don't step away fast enough), or undead, and a single one of those poses a fair challenge for me. I can handle one, maybe two without dying (but needing extensive healing afterwards), but every corner I take, I'm bombarded with much more than I can handle.

If you ask me, the game was amazing up to this point. It posed a good difficulty level - not a cakewalk, liable to kill you a few times before you figure out a good strategy. Now, however, it's just overkill. I spent half an hour trying to kill two enemies in a hallway, loading and reloading.

It breaks my heart to be complaining like this, because I was genuinely enjoying the game. The difficulty and challenge felt genuine, until this point, where it now feels cheap and lazy. Throwing dozens of extremely difficult enemies at me over and over again isn't what I expected from this otherwise really great game.

Is there something I'm missing, or do people just hack and slash their way through these until they beat the chapter?

You can try do sidequests. Not to increase your level, but to get better weapon/armor/spells and can use spells like Conjure Skeleton to distract enemies.

As I'm currently replaying Risen 1 (almost beaten it) I have some empathy for what you're going through, Big_Lou.

Not sure what character build & faction you are going, but make sure to have as much armor vs. Blade damage as possible. For me, even with the maximum armor that it's possible for me to have Lizard Priests hit EXTREMELY hard, even with their swords.

Make use of a Charge Attack if the weapon you're using allows it. This is hands-down the best combat maneuver you can learn in a melee skill. It allows you to charge an attack and throw yourself at an enemy from a distance, doing additional damage and staggering them if they block. In my experience enemies are INSANELY fast in Risen (way TOO fast IMO) to the point that you can't realistically react to their maneuvers. In Gothic they were fast too, but also quite predictable which balanced it out.

If you can't use Runes, stock up on spell scrolls from Illumar in the Monastery:
Conjure Skeleton - Incredibly helpful for taking enemy attention and attacks.
Berserker - Increases melee damage (I think...)
Magic Protection - Additional damage reduction is handy.

I'm pretty thorough so I've done pretty much everything else you could have done before entering the Volcano, my health and armor are enough that I can take at least 5 hits from any Lizardman before dying.

I'm not really a fan of how Gothic's stat systems work because of how you have to train a stat as much as possible and only THEN use items for permanent stat growth for the best results. I hope you won't end up having to restart the game. If you're a Strength or Dexterity character, be sure to train to 100 and THEN drink stat-increasing potions & eat 50 Eggs and/or Apples (for +5 Strength).

I hope you get something out of this post, good luck!

EDIT: Another thing- despite what a guide I read says you should NOT spread your points thin, you're going to need to be a pretty focused character to hit hard. If you're melee-focused you should ignore Dexterity and Mana completely and only invest in one melee weapon skill. If you're a Magic Bullet Mage you should have lots of mana so you can cast repeatedly.

The only build which should consider investing in something else is a Frost Mage, because you can freeze opponents in place and then you get breathing room and free attacks on enemies.

Admittedly I haven't played a Dex-focused character or Fireball Mage yet, so no idea how viable those are.

Can you post your stats? (just press 'C' and post the screenshot) There is a rather steep difficulty increase at that point of the game which has to be countered by proper gear and skills.

Hi all, happy to update everyone and say that I made it through chapter 3, and am currently working my way through the various high priest temples in chapter 4.

Chapter 3, as everyone else has said, had an insane difficulty spike. I don't quite remember what my stats were at the time, but I was focused on strength/sword fighting with small hints of dexterity and archery in there as well, but only really used that to weaken enemies from a distance before engaging in melee.

If any Risen noobs like myself happen across this thread, I highly advise you to stick through it when it gets difficult. The game really is great, and once your character starts to grow into their stats a little better, the once intimidating lizard warriors and priests slowly but surely become less and less of a threat.

The difficulty spike was no doubt really frustrating, but I'm glad I made it through. There's a real sense of reward and gratification seeing all those lizardman corpses... Hahaha.

Awesome, I'm glad you're managing.

Be sure to post any other questions you have. ^_^