Talk:Small Problems

Feel free to comment on this page -- please Game widow 00:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quest write-up! Since you ask for comments, one thing that might be nice to add is a description of the rewards, specifically the Pat option, including any consequences of the choices. 68.34.2.193 08:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Shortcut Possible

If you just want the XP but don't want to bother fetching the harness, it seems you can take the quest, give the nearby santon a bottle of strong alcohol and get the charm to give Mason right away. I noticed that I was allowed to put some random bottle of strong alcohol on the santon south of the village on my first run through the area. I came back later and tried a bottle of every strong drink I had in storage, all were acceptable. I did not find any foods, gifts or weak/medium alcohols that were allowed, yet I didn't try every possible inventory item. Putting a bottle of strong booze on the santon gets you the same clover in return that putting the cat harness does. I'm fairly sure it only works if you first have the quest active. Afterwards the ground around the santon has a couple empty bottles lying next to it. I think it works day or night. While the santon (presumably actually the griggs) will still accept more gifts of hard liquor, putting additional bottles on it before or after you complete the quest doesn't seem to give you anything back. After the quest was completed (taking Pat as my reward, of course!) the santon seemed to work the same way - they'll gladly take as much booze as I'll give them, but nothing more happened. 68.34.2.193 08:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Very interesting :) ... had not noticed that at all, I'll add it Game widow 11:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

BTW, when I took Pat, he just got killed immediately by a giant centipede ... what did he do for you ? Game widow 11:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the add. I hadn't thought of the XP consequences that way. I'm the type that's got to go explore everything and kill all the red dots just because. Bribing the griggs with booze doesn't fail the quest - I think you do still get the quest reward, as mine just advanced the quest to the "I should get my reward" phase. Do you get 2000 xp from removing the harness alone, besides what you get for finishing the quest? I play Guild Wars most often, so I'm not yet used to the concrete talent allocation or limited XP in Witcher.

For now, I'm trying to explore on my own and only reading ahead here to make sure I know how many sex cards to look out for, since the lead ups to those are usually hilarious. Finding stuff on your own in these games can be great fun, but this seems a bit large to discover each little tidbit by yourself. So when the concept of my witcher's very own personal Pat came up, I immediately wondered if you could get his Pat killed. After trying a few times on my own and having such poor luck, I thought maybe there was something here. Pat didn't follow me through the village, he stayed put, then magically appeared when I entered the fields, day or night (like Alvin but without the cutscene.) If I went back to the village, Pat was still with the mason. I had to work really hard to get him killed in the fields. He does attack foes but tries to stay behind my witcher, winding up standing back shooting while Geralt charges in. Getting monsters to even notice him took me ages. After many tries, I did manage to get a Devourer focused on him long enough to kill Pat, but I had to kite that witcher around like mad. Mason didn't say anything at all about Pat before or after I got him killed, either out at the bridge or in his hut. But Pat doesn't respawn.

Side note - In my tests to see if he'd respawn, I did find a way to be in the fields without Alvin either. Alvin follows Geralt from the fields to Lakeside, but if you go back through that gate into the fields, there's no Alvin! That seems more like a bug to me, as I expect fighting in the fields much without Alvin there now will glitch a primary quest.

This particular glitch seems to have more to do with getting Pat killed. I tried again, making sure to keep Pat alive. Now Alvin follows Geralt back and forth through the Lakeside<-->Fields gate. While Pat doesn't appear in Lakeside, he is waiting just inside the gate when I go back to the fields. FWIW Licensed Luny 03:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to see what Pat said when fighting and what his father might say if I got him killed. I was hoping for something like he wets himself and runs back to the village to be a mason after all. When he did die, I wondered if the father would be mad at me or we'd get some dark humor remark like "Aw darn! Well, I guess that's what I get for trying to trick a witcher into babysitting."

Sad thing is, all this was after already spending hours to see if Alvin could get killed ... in which case it seems like monsters will rarely go after him, but his running away gets their attention back on Geralt. If I ran the witcher just right, Pat would hold still and use a dagger to attack a close enemy. Seemed like that was the big difference between Pat's and Alvin's life expectancies. I should just go ahead through and do what I can the first time, but I wind up spending all day playing the same sequence over to test what-ifs! Since I can't give a saved game a name to use when I go backtracking looking for easter eggs.  :( And apologies for the earlier unregistered edits Licensed Luny 14:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah! And Pat did not leave any remains to loot. Licensed Luny 14:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

thanks Luny :)

well thanks for registering :)

so, i believe you do indeed get that 2000 XP just for picking up the harness, in addition to the XP for finishing the quest... and thanks a million for the Pat description.

You can avoid having Alvin follow Geralt around for a while just by avoiding giving him the amulet, i'm pretty sure he only starts to follow Geralt after that. However, you will be forced to advance the plot in order to finish the Dagon quest (getting the gift from the Vodaynoi priest).

check out the forum too if you want to chat with people about the game, or just ask questions. Game widow 14:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)