Planescape Torment

A couple years ago I bought this game and then after playing a little bit, stopped partially because of frustration with some of the game elements. Now I’m ready to give it a 2nd try, considering how much I’ve heard about it. That and apparently the same people who worked on the first 2 Fallout games were invovled, so that gives a lot of hope. The problems I had before were basically being attacked at random by the hive thugs, which I’m not used to, as most games have set areas where you can get into fights, and it’s not random at all(In fallout you could get into fights around town, but you usually had to do something to trigger said fight). Add to that I had problems finding places to rest in the opening areas and shops to buy healing items. But I’ve decided to try it again, so I need information.

So I have a couple questions for the good folks here.

  1. Where are there good places to rest in the hive?

  2. Where are the shops and people to whom can sellall this crap I end up carrying about once I leave the mortuary? As well as buying healing items, weapons, etc?

  3. Which items I get in some of the early Areas of the hive and the mortuary should I definatly hang onto(that I will need later in the game)?

4.What are the best skills to invest in when creating a character? (assuming I want somebody who is smart and can hold his own in battle).

  1. Any good way to either deal with or avoid the random attacks from Hive thugs?

  2. Any strategies I should rememebr for survival on the streets of sigil(other then avoid letting the dustman know that I can’t die)? I know the Fallout system quite well, so some of it I remember being pretty easy to pick up, but other parts took more getting used to. Or things I should know about the game?

That should be all. Thanks in advance.

Well… it’s been a while since I played this amazing game, but for random attacks from the Hive thugs… if you can’t kill 'em, there is no shame in running away… but after a short while, killing them shouldn’t be too hard.

1: There is a flophouse in the first area to the west of the Mortuary area. You can rest there. Also, if you befriend Mebbeth the midwife in Ragpickers’ Square, you can rest at her place and she’ll even heal you if you ask nicely.

2: There’s a bazaar area southwest of the area with the flophouse. Lots of different merchants there; there should be someone to buy most of your stuff, and you can get stuff there too.

3: I don’t recall. I don’t think anything non-magical is totally essential. I seem to recall the scalpel coming in handy a few times, other than as a weapon. Stock up on healing charms in a big way.

4: I’d recommend the mage’s path myself, since when you get high level you can cast really powerful spells that look real purty too. But playing as a fighter is valid too. I’d recommend high wisdom no matter what, as that gives you additional choices in dialogue and nets you greater experience rewards. Intelligence and charisma are very useful if you intend to play a mage and/or a diplomatic type, talking your way out of more situations than you fight.

  1. As the poster above recommended, if they grow too much to deal with, just run away.

  2. Talk to people, and pay attention to their dialogue. Do lots of subquests. And sometimes just soak in the atmosphere for a while; Torment is a very deep game, and you’ll miss the point by just rushing through it as quickly as possibly.

Good luck, and have fun. Planescape: Torment is probably my favorite computer game of all time.

Okay, another question, this one more as to the game world.

How do the Dustmen remain economically viable? We know that they pay people for the dead contracts, have to run a big Crematorium furance, buy bodies from the collectors and then any overhead they may have(embalming fluid, etc).

So where do they get the money to do this? They seem to spend a bit of jink for bodies, particulary after Pharod figured out how to fleece them :slight_smile: I know that the Collectors steal anything they can from the bodies(that isn’t sugically attached) before they sell them to the dustmen and nobody seems to give them donations for keeping the streets clean. In our world they’d probably be a ultility, paid by the city government on a budget, but Sigil doesn’t seem to have a city government other then the Lady(and she doesn’t seem to interact with the people there much).

A friend suggested they sell zombies for cheap labor, though even that seems like it proably would not work well. They’d start to stink pretty bad, and they are less capaple then living people at doing things without being told.

Maybe the dustmen have a Minting Machine?

Am I reading too much into this? It’s just the world of Sigil is so interesting and considering how much background info the good folks at Black Isle and Interplay put in there, it seems wierd they’d miss something like that.

I assume you-all are not talking about the "PLANESCAPE" supplement module to 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ?

It wasn’t the folks at Black Isle and Interplay that developed Sigil; it was the folks at TSR (Planescape is a D&D campaign setting.) If you want many more details I have links from my homepage- I DM for planescape games, and I’m working on a Sigil based game for Neverwinter Nights.

The Dustmen have many uses for the bodies; the module “The Eternal Boundary” goes into more detail. Some of the uses are skeletons and zombies for labor or sale (and yes they profit on this), spell components, food (!) and other applications.

The few Factions they touch on in Torment represent a small section of a much larger picture. One of the factions is the Fraternity of Order; along with the Harmonium and the Mercykillers they make the law of Sigil with the tacit approval of the Lady of Pain. The Harmonium are the police, the FO are the courts, and the Mercykillers are the jailers and executioners. There are many more factions and sects interacting in Sigil.

Hmm, this is one area where I actually have a clue…

Right. I posted this as soon as I got up because I couldn’t access the boards last night. I guess I should have been a little more awake.

It does make me wonder, how much exactly did Black Isle add to it? I Know the planescape is a D&D campaign, apparently created because all the other worlds were getting too filled in to work with without violating continutity. I take it the Nameless one is a creation of Black Isle, but I could be wrong.

I would be quite interested in any information about the setting, particulary about the structure of the planes. I talked to the caladian in the smoldering corpse bar for about 1/2 hour trying to make a rough map and even then I don’t think I did well.

Okay, that makes sense. I’ll just remember never to buy any food from the Dustmen.

[Charleton Heston] It’s People, I tell you! Dustmen’s Choice is People![/Charleton Heston]

I knew about the Mercykillers, though I was under the impression they were vigilates because Sigil had no police(at least, not in the Hive). One character mentioned he was Harmonium but I didn’t realize that was the police. I’ve found web pages that talk about a dozen or so different factions, though most you can’t join in Torment.

I picked this one up from the bargain bin and finished it about twenty minutes ago. Totally worth playing to the end. Fifteen bucks well-spent.

I’m definatly beginning to see why my friends were so pissed at me for taking so long to play it.

Particulary since I just found out Dak’kon’s little secret. That’s the kind of thing that would make me have my character kill himself if I thought it would do any good.

Find Deionarra in the Mortuary and talk to her.
Look at the clues. Keep clues. Except for ones that say “A Clue!”. Those are just jokes.
If you find your own severed arm, keep it.
If you follow the clues, you’ll find there a Zombie in the Mortuary with a special surprise you left for yourself.
You’ll eventually have to find a yellow globe. Take it. Give it to the person who asks for it. He soon won’t need the damned thing anymore, so get it, keep it in the NAMELESS ONE’s inventory and NEVER, EVER let it go. Trust me.
Should you ever get Deionarra’s ring, keep it in the Nameless One’s inventory.
Other than that, more or less everything has a immediately obvious use.

Get Strength up to 18 by level 7, and make level seven as a Fighter the first time you reach it (independant classing and all). This boosts that score up to 19 automatically. Get high Intellect as a Mage, otherwise get a high Wisdom score instead. With whatever you have remaining, choose a high Dex or Con - I like COn, as you get regeneration and many more Hit Points.

They aren’t very strong. Get yourself some decent weapons and you’ll do fine. Keep Morte around, and he can clean up against them. Dak’Kon will join you in the Flaming-Man Bar south of the Mortuary. Together the three of you are unstoppable. Also, upgrade your skills by talking to a man east of the Dustman Mortuary.

Well, this game has rules completely unlike Fallout in almost every possible way.

  1. Do NOT insult he Lady of Pain.
  2. See above.
  3. Talk to everyone everywhere about everything - you’ll find so much to do.
  4. Talk to your party routinely
  5. Get magic items idenitified, and get the Nameless One’s Ac as low as you can. A high ex helps, but its hard to have a hig Dex and Con - and I recomend Con. The Faster regeneration is better.
  6. Get a few levels of Fighter (7 or 8 levels should get you the 19 Strength). That will boost your HP a lot, doesn’t take too much time, and you’ll get a proficiency slot or two.
  7. If you plan to go mage, learn how to use daggers well. Trainers are sprinkled throughout the game. Only high level fighters can learn how to use weapons the best, though.

Oh come on, insulting the Lady of Pain is fun!

Anyone want to discuss the plot? After finishing, I read a walkthrough and I know I missed a couple of things, but I don’t have the stamina to go through and play it again just to find those things out (never spoke with – or even saw – Vhailor, for instance). Plus, I think I’m a little fuzzy on what exactly happened – I get the general idea, but I’d love to hear your interpretations.

You know, I insulted the Lady of Pain multiple times and nothing ever happened. So what did I miss?

Can you actually meet The Lady of Pain in Torment? One time I tried killing off dabus to try and provoke her into appearing, but she didn’t.

Yes, you can meet the Lady of Pain. I did it by trying to have Annah pick pockets one too many times, and all the prostitutes and thugs in the area of the Hive outside the Corpse bar became hostile. After killing several of them the Lady appeared, and I found myself in the Player’s Maze.

Don’t worship the doll!

Don’t forget to use charms in difficult combat situations. You can better your armor class and saves through the use of the cockroach charms.

You need to have 16 Wis and 16 Int to get the best game-ending scenario, so raise those scores accordingly. Dak’kon can carry a very useful spell- Strength of One- that increases your score for hours. Use it to boost your Strength for better combat results.

Just remember to put any specifics about end game scenarios and such in spoiler boxes.

Which reminds me… I have a couple more questions?

  1. I did get the severed Arm(ick), and took it to Fell, and I learned about the 4 who were with me before, but when I brought it up, Dak’kon said he didn’t want to discuss it at the moment. So how can I get him to talk about it (my character won’t seem to bring it up in conversation)? When I ask him about “Travels” I can only ask him about sigil.

  2. Do I have to keep carrying around my own intestines(Ewwww)?

Yes, carry your intestines until you get a certain party member. I got sick of carrying them and dropped them, and thus missed out on what they provide. Not plot-critical stuff, but helpful.

I hope that’s vague enough to not be spoilerific.

Well, I dunno exactly what you’re confused about, but maybe you missed a couple of vital conversations? Here is the general outline (obviously, do NOT read these spoilers before completing the game, anyone, they’d really ruin it):

The Nameless One, before he became nameless and immortal, was a guy who did very, very bad things (just what he did is never specified). Later on, he got intensely regretful, and wanted to make amends. Problem was, he’d never live long enough. So he decided to become immortal, in order to have eternity setting things right.

He enrolled in the Blood War so as to have the chance to go down into the Lower Planes and seek out Ravel, a Night Hag whose power was legendary. He appealed to Ravel’s ego; flattering her and coaxing her until she agreed to make him immortal with a ritual spell.

Once she’d made him immortal (by forcing his mortality apart from him), she tested the spell by killing him. Sure enough, he came back but things didn’t work quite as planned – all his memories were gone.

Since Ravel didn’t know why he’d wanted to become immortal in the first place, she couldn’t tell him, and so the Nameless One just wandered away, all his plans for redemption gone.

Over the centuries, the Nameless One had many adventures, died and lost his memory again many times, and lived every concievable kind of existence. Sometimes he was good, sometimes he was bad. We get little glimpses of these past lives all along; he was the sorcerer who trained Ignus, he was the leader of the rebellion in the Lower Ward and the thief of the Lady’s Key, he was the one who earned the undying hatred of the Mercykillers, he was… all sorts of things. His mortality, meanwhile, gained power along with him, and decided it didn’t like its life or the Nameless One, the one who gave it life, very much.

The most important of the Nameless One’s incarnations from the game’s POV is the Practical Incarnation. He was the one who pulled Morte from the Pillar of Skulls, who rescued Dak’kon from Limbo (for his karach), who got the tattoos on his back and who built the tomb. He was organized. He was the only incarnation (that we know of) to actually succeed in discovering much of his origins. The trail led him to the Fortress of Regrets, where the Nameless One’s mortality; the Transcendent One, had taken up residence.

He failed to defeat the Transcendent One, however, and was killed and lost all his memories again.

The current Nameless One is actually a long time after that one. The Transcendent One has gotten fed up of having him run around and has decided to lure him into the Fortress of Regrets and keep him trapped there forever, or maybe just destroy him once and for all.

The TO therefore has left a trail of clues and people for the Nameless One to find. Once he’s followed the trail, it plans to wipe them all out, so as to make sure no future incarnation will ever find the way to his Fortress again.

Assuming, you get the ‘best’ ending, however, the Nameless One actually forces the TO to unite with him, granting him immense power from all the stored-up experience and knowledge the TO has built up through his link with the NO over all the centuries (millenia). Of course, this makes the Nameless One mortal again, and very overdue for death, but he has time to raise and thank all his companions before he dies.

And when he dies, he wakes up in Hell, back where his journey began; in the middle of the Bloodwar. Because of all the crimes he’s commited throughout his long existence, not to mention the fact that his immortality depended on the death of others. However, it’s not a totally dark ending, as implied by the resigned and calm look on the Nameless One’s face in the final scene. He suggests to some of his companion in their final conversations that his penance will not last forever (although it may be millenia) and perhaps he’ll see some of the more long-lived of them again, some time far away in the future.

~pant, pant~ Of course, that’s just a bare-bones summary. I didn’t even touch on some important stuff, like Deionnara and the Paranoid Incarnation. I’d recommend you just play the game again. You know you want to :wink:

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by smiling bandit *
**If you find your own severed arm, keep it.

Done and Done. Is there any other game out there where collecting your own body parts is part of the goal?

You mean that damnable bronze sphere I went all over the underside of Sigil looking for? I was really tempted to keep it, particulary after Mr. “I know everything about you” Pharod turned out to know next to nothing. Try that again and he won’t need to fake a limp :smiley: Bit of an anit-climax, huh? At least I got an Arm and a bottle of neverending water out of the deal…oh and Annah.

I’ll remember that.

1 and 2. I know that quite well.

  1. Well, it seems that the common NPC’s really don’t say anything different from each other, but anyone who has their own name I will seek out to talk to.

Actually, something else that bugs me…How the hell does Morte carry/have an inventory?