Dragonknight in Valenwood | Full Solo Campaign Playthrough (Expert+++) | The Elder Scrolls: BotSE
This is an early-access video for Patreon members as a way of saying thank you, so you can watch it here first. This video will be made public on YouTube at a later date.
In this video, I play a full true solo campaign in The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era, set in Valenwood. To spice things up, this playthrough is played on Expert+++, using 9 official difficulty modifiers from Arvan’s Adventurous Achievements, which significantly increase the challenge and change how the game feels. Throughout the playthrough, I talk through my decisions, explain key moments, and share how I approach the game under these conditions. If you’re curious how a full campaign looks at higher difficulty, I hope you enjoy this one!
Comments (4)
At 4:19:29 it says to deploy party size HP in party size sigil hexes, so 1 HP in 1 hex? At 4:54 it says end of session difficulty - that is not your EP of 39, but an estimated 37 in the book? As you went into the final inner chamber, I thought you probably didn't grab as many resistance tokens as you deserved. I was thinking maybe you would have been able to get the giant as an ally! And you did notice your Barkskin helmet later, but probably deserved to gain a few more dice back. The Vinedusk training really worked well for you. Wow, overall what a complicated and challenging scenario! You did really well on this.
Oh my goodness, I completely missed the second {party size} icon! So yes, I should have deployed only a single sigil with 1 HP. Wow, that would’ve made the dungeon so much easier, haha. Well spotted! And as for the EP, yes, “end of session EP” refers to the chart on page 56 of the rulebook, which is 37 EP in my case. I believe I deployed 37 EP (levels 20, 10, 5, 1, 1), so that part should be correct
You are really, really, really brave to try a full random class/race with 9 difficulty increases!!! I'm still watching, but for the first session: At 1:12, you are deploying enemies. Your enemy pool is 4 and the card says one level 5 and one level 1. I thought you would skip the level 5 because it is greater than your EP of 4 but I see you are deploying a level 1 instead of the level 5. Checking the rules, p78, I see I have been making my delves easier than they should be! Your playthroughs are really great for helping me understand the rules better! At 2:01, you are talking about needing to heal and to remove dice from your cooldown. You can go to the tavern twice in a town, right? Even with the augmentation? Once for healing and once for dice removal? But I do like the bow choice here too.
Haha, I think “silly” might be a more accurate word than “brave”! 😄 I’m glad I made it through, but to be fair, I don’t think I’d want to play on Expert+++ again. For delves – yes, you always deploy whatever you can. In some cases you might skip an enemy if there are no valid hexes left or if you’ve fully used your EP for that tile, but otherwise you try to fit as many enemies as possible within your EP. For taverns, yes, you can absolutely take that town action twice, even with the augmentation. I just tend to avoid taverns whenever I can, let alone spending two actions on them. Thanks for watching, as always! 🙂