User:AEon


 * Note: This is still an early version, so many Q&As should be OK, but still missing some details. The FAQ has started to directly link the wiki, more needs to be done to take full advantage of the huge store of information.

Æon's FAQ for The Witcher


 * v0.6 — XXX Q&As — 6/4/2010
 * for The Witcher — Enhanced Edition — Director's Cut


 * Edited by AEon (C) 2010


 * (* Marks changes since v0.1)

Introduction

 * This FAQ is intended for the fans who have enjoyed, played and finished The Witcher, at least once, and are now wondering what quests, and other goodies they may have missed. In short, the FAQ is written for those that want to get more out of the game!


 * Note: I am assuming you more or less know how the game works, i.e. you learned the basics from playing The Witcher. If you want to be informed of things that go beyond "just winning the game", keep reading.


 * A niced-up version of this FAQ in HTML is available at my site:


 * |AEon's Advanced FAQ for The Witcher v0.2 — HTML ***Todo

Overview — Gameplay Mechanics
Should you have played several other RPGs, here you will find a compact summary of how The Witcher works:


 * Basically you talk to NPCs (quest givers), solve quests, gain experience (XP), level up (character build), loot, trade, read books to learn about monsters / plants, explore the world, and progress in the storyline like in any other RPG.

Vitality, Endurance, and Toxicity

 * The most important player stat is Vitality (zero health means death), together with Endurance, and both luckily automatically regenerate over time. So, in theory you would not have to consume anything to replenish either, e.g. the typical health potions.
 * Geralt can meditate at fire places or other safe locations (inns). Several hours of meditation replenish Vitality, Endurance, and also cure Toxicity (poisoning after drinking, or the intake of several potions), plus perform Alchemy.
 * To slightly replenish health, Geralt can eat food.
 * Drinking bottled water restores Endurance.
 * During combat these regeneration methods are usually too slow, the witcher needs to drink potions.

Looting, Trade

 * The Witcher does not have a crime system, so you can loot without any repercussions.
 * Most of the loot is not worth very much, especially food can be sold off for a few orens (gold currency in the game).
 * By default Geralt can not collect plants, he requires the Herbalism skill to identify and harvest plants, plus has to read books on herbs.
 * Differing from other games the Merchants' buy/sell prices for loot are always the same! So you can sell "junk" to anyone who will pay for it.
 * Note: There are a very few exceptions, e.g. Kalkstein.


 * Also differing from other RPGs, the traders will not buy everything, they specialize:
 * Herbalists will buy/sell herbs/ingredients/books.
 * Merchants often offer/buy valuables like diamonds or scarves.
 * Alchemists trade ingredients, books.
 * Peddlers buy food and other "junk".
 * Antiquaries trade in books.
 * Waitresses buy/sell alcohol and food.
 * etc.

Item Respawn, Inventory

 * Again differing from other RPGs, the collected plants will grow back after a relatively short time. This means unlimited plant resources.
 * Items in chests (loot) stay there until you empty the chest. These items do not respawn.
 * Exception: Between the Chapters II and III loot in e.g. chests reappears again.


 * Alas, it is not possible to stow away excess items from the Inventory in normal chests. But you can stow them with e.g. an Innkeeper. Magically, any person with such a storage option will let you access it.

Leveling Up, Talents

 * Solving quests, or slaying monsters will gain the player experience points (XP). With enough XP you will automatically reach the next level and earn Talents.
 * Your abilities on level up can be upgraded, by investing gold, silver, or bronze Talents into skills. Thus making the witcher more competent / powerful.

Time

 * The Witcher has a 24 hour time cycle (accelerated compared to real time), so you will experience sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight.
 * Note: At night you will stumble into dangerous opponents, even in Vizima. Also note some NPCs will only appear at certain times in the day, e.g. at noon.


 * 24 hours in-game (one virtual day) are equivalent to 1 hour 36 minutes in the real world. For an hour to pass in-game you need to wait 4 minutes. Time scale factor is 15.
 * Some quests require the witcher to be present at a certain location at a specific time, this does not pertain to the day though. So you can visit the location several days or even weeks later.
 * Use Meditation to time skip to the time of day you require or prefer.

Combat, Magic & Signs

 * Only two weapons are actually important for the witcher, his Steel sword (against humans) and his Silver sword (against monsters).
 * Three distinct Witcher fighting styles — group, fast, strong — can be employed, depending on the opponent.
 * The witcher can not equip shields and there are none in the game.
 * Armor is basically limited to very few Leather Jackets.
 * During the game the witcher will learn five different forms of magic, called Signs.
 * These spells use up Endurance, thus the importance of regeneration.
 * The Signs are an important addition to sword fighting, providing: Flame attacks, stun, magical shields, traps, mental manipulation.

Non-Continuous World

 * The Witcher is not a continues world, e.g. like Two Worlds, but a sectioned / partitioned world.
 * Each chapter of the game "uncovers" a set of location the player can freely explore (excepting locked areas).
 * Entering caves or buildings or sectioned areas requires a level load.
 * Several times during the game, finishing a chapter will permanently close off that part of the world, so be sure you finish all quests first.
 * Note: Some quests span more than one chapter.


 * Stored items (with innkeepers) usually transcend the chapters. There might be the issue of finding an NPC providing storage access though.

Interaction, NPCs

 * The main NPCs usually have unique green names floating above their heads, marking them as potential quest givers. Other NPCs with generic blue names, like Townswoman, normally only spout one phrase, but otherwise are used as decoration.
 * To make things more complicated some of the latter NPCs actually do have quests or untracked tasks for you. E.g. a peasant women in the Outskirts wanting a certain flower type (Romance Card).
 * So talk to everyone you meet, even when they have a generic name.
 * After solving a quest for a quest giver, be sure to talk to them again, they may have additional information or another quest.
 * Solving a main quest, can have repercussions on some of the other NPCs, thus it can be quite rewarding to talk to them again.
 * To make it easier for the player to detect new dialog options, when talking to NPCs, all new dialogs are highlighted in blue, old dialogs are grayed out.

Alchemy

 * The Alchemy system at first glance daunting, turns out to be quite simple, compared to the complex system e.g. in Two Worlds. Per se you can not create something new, you can only guess at recipes that could also have been learned from scrolls.
 * All ingredients contain one of six possible basic (primary) substances.
 * Not the ingredients but the basic substances they contain are relevant for alchemy.
 * Ingredients can have one of three additional (secondary) substances, these yield additional stats boni.
 * To create potions use alcohol as a base, for oils use grease, and for bombs use black powder.
 * You need certain skills to make Alchemy work:
 * Herbalism: Identify and harvest plants.
 * Oil Preparation: Produce blade coatings (oils).
 * Bomb Preparation: Produce bombs.
 * Ingredients sources are plants, monsters, and minerals.
 * It helps to learn the Monster Lore skill, to recall information about common monsters.
 * Note: You have to know about monsters to extract ingredients.


 * The skills alone are not enough, Geralt needs to read (books) or hear about plant and monster descriptions.

The Witcher gameplay Goals?
There are quite a few things you can/will want to achieve when playing the game:


 * Unravel the story around witcher Geralt.
 * Character Building: Create a powerful witcher.
 * Level up your char as far as possible, i.e. maximize XP gain (grinding is possible).
 * Use alchemy to your advantage (there is not really any experimentation though).
 * Read books and scrolls to learn new abilities, i.e. recognize plants / monsters or brew potions from recipes.
 * Collect and earn heaps of orens (gold).
 * Collect meteorite ore pieces and runes to upgrade your swords.
 * Collect all the Romance Cards.
 * Play the mini-games.
 * Solve all the quests.
 * Have fun :)
 * Have fun :)

How to read up on Dialogs?
Alas it does not seem to be possible to look up dialogs, information about recent quest updates, orens or XP earned. The Journal only updates all the pertinent information, marking new entries with an orange "!".

How to Maximize your XP?
If you want to maximize your XP counts (***was there a Level cap?), to thus push your PC Level, here are some tips:


 * An obvious tip to start off: Play and complete as many quests and side-quests as possible.


 * Play the mini-games, see the The Mini-games? Q&A.


 * Go out of your way to "clean up" all enemies. In some areas the monsters will respawn again and again. E.g. drowners near the river (at night), ghouls in crypts, barghest on the Outskirt paths at night.


 * *** Add more examples.

How to Run faster?
The normal running speed of the Geralt is — compared to the walking speed — already quite brisk for an RPG. But should you want to run even faster, draw the silver sword (e-key by default), and switch to either group (c-key) or fast (x-key) style to then run slightly more quickly.

Note: In peaceful areas — Location Safe (top-right in HUD) — it is not possible to draw your swords.

Interacting with Objects?
Aside from NPCs, you can interact (open, use) with Barrels, Chests, Wardrobes, Plants, and the Remains of slain enemies. Be sure to check all of these, when they have a blue interaction text hovering above them, since most of them yield loot:


 * All sorts of valuables, weapons, food, potions, plants, and junk that can either be used or sold.
 * Orens coins.
 * Meteorite ore and runes.
 * Scrolls, books increasing Geralt's knowledge.
 * Ingredients for alchemy.

First-time Dialog Options?
Usually dialogs with NPCs will let you re-ask questions, letting you listing to stories or valuable information a second time.

Note: In such dialog trees, the dialogs you have already followed are grayed out, helping you remember old information and notice *new* dialog options!

But in several cases your first interaction with a new NPC, can yield unique one-time-only dialogs. You can also insult NPCs in dialogs, thus barring your game from future useful dialog trees!


 * ***Needs testing, you can insult NPCs... I am not sure they will ever talk to you again if you do.

Tip: Always Quicksave before you talk to a new NPC. Should the dialog not go well, simply Quickload again. This lets you experiment with the dialog options.

Is there a Crime System?
Differing from other RPGs, in The Witcher, the looting of objects (see the Interacting with objects? Q&A) is *not* considered a crime. The NPCs completely ignore this.

Violent repercussions usually occur through either dialogs or by some "automatic" area trigger, spawning foes. But you can accidentally attack "innocents", while fighting monsters (very rare, e.g. Village Militia fighting barghest in the Outskirts).

Warning: Killing mercenaries guarding the Inn in the Outskirts or city guards in the Temple Quarter will put the Headhunter on your trail, he is very difficult to defeat.

Fleeing from Foes during Combat?
Usually you should be able to outrun your foes when combat was initiated, thus letting you leave the area of combat, should the fight not go well.

Note: The foes only follow you for a certain distance and then give up.

''***May not always work though? Examples? E.g. I think you loose in a fistfight if you try to run away. In other situations there may not be anywhere to run to, e.g. when cornered on a bridge.''

Tip: When e.g. Swallow can not regenerate your health quickly enough, running away will give you an extra moments breather. Does not work well against foes that shoot projectiles, though.

Backtracking & Meditation?
A well prepared fighter, is a fighter that survives the next battle!

It is always a good idea to completely regenerate before you enter a new area, e.g. a cave or tavern etc. Thus backtracking will improve your chances of surviving the next fight.

Since Geralt automatically heals (Vitality), regenerates Endurance, and also reduces Toxicity over time, you simply need to stand around and wait. It is more efficient to visit a campfire and meditate for an hour or so. This completely revitalizes the PC.

Note: You can also sleep at an inn or some hut with a "bed".

Especially during combat, you may want to consume various goods to up your Vitality or Endurance values. Potions are most potent in this respect, so ensure you always have some at hand, especially Swallow and Tawny Owl.

Whenever you encounter / find a Place of Power perform the Ritual of Magic to boost sign power by 100%. Also take advantage of the sign boosts provided by the Circle of Elements.

Revisited areas yield new Items?
During the game you will revisit areas, the second time under slightly different circumstances.

Examples:
 * The Crypt in the outskirts opens up after you killed the monsters in the first chambers (and have talked to Mikul). The soldiers wanting to loot the crypt opened up the previously blocked passages to the rest of the crypt.


 * Between Chapter II and III, the Temple Quarter is still accessible from the Trade Quarter, you can thus reloot the Temple Quarter.

Tip: Be sure to very carefully re-investigate the revisited area. Very often you will find valuable "hidden" items:

What Quests are there?
The Witcher is a complex game. This list will help you track down those few quests you may have missed for some reason. See the List of Quests by Act (130 real quests total) on the wiki, where you can distinguish by


 * [[Image:Primary quests.png|32px|link=Primary quests]] Primary quests, [[Image:Secondary quests.png|32px|link=Secondary quests]] Secondary quests, [[Image:Trophy hook 2.png|40px|link=Trophy quests]] Trophy quests, and [[Image:Scrolls_generic_icon_letter.png|32px|link=Contracts]] Contracts.

Note: There are a total of six quests that can only be played if Geralt has the proper alignment. Thus only two of the six can be played in one game run. One other quest may not be accessible in Chapter II if you help the Scoia'teal in Chapter I (Declan dies in The Hairy Bear inn).

How to look up missed Quests?
''***Load up the final save game in the save game editor, there is a tab with all the quests that were never started. The list makes it easy to spot the overlooked quests.'' ***Add info on download and install of the savegame editor.

Finding Meteorite Ore for Steel swords?
Even though at the beginning of the game the meteorite ore seems to have much potential (valuable and rare), the forged swords are a bit of a letdown (and expensive), since you will find or receive better swords if you play the game systematically.

For a complete list of meteorite locations and weapon stats for the resulting Meteorite swords (10 combinations possible) visit the wiki.

Finding Runes for Silver swords?
Again, the runes are a quite interesting and valuable items to collect, but they are so rare that only towards the end of the game will you have enough of the same kind to create an interesting sword. And then you may actually receive one for free with even better stats.

For a complete list of rune locations and weapon stats for the resulting Rune swords (10 combinations possible) visit the wiki.

What different Endings are there?
There are three endings to the game, and these are determined by Geralt's choices at critical points in the game. Thanks to flashbacks (series of still images, reminding the player of his past choices) the player is retroactively made aware of the forks in the story.

Basically Geralt has the choice to help the Scoia'tael, support the Order or try to walk the Witcher's (Neutral) path. For more details read the storyline. Depending on Geralt's choices the story pans out slightly differently, some NPCs may not reappear later in the game because they died, some choices will make later decisions impossible.

Following the Order path?
In each chapter you should always explore all areas. Thus informed you should be able to make out what quests are pro Order / Siegfried and which are not. Obviously anything that helps the Scoia'tael / Yaevinn should be avoided (even transporting a letter).

*** A List of Quests that change alignment is in the works on the wiki.

Following the Scoia'tael path?
Again, explore all areas in the chapters, to the only play the quests that are pro Scoia'tael and Yaevinn, avoiding helping the Order and Siegfried.

*** A List of Quests that change alignment is in the works on the wiki.

Following the Witcher path?
This is probably the most difficult path for any completist RPG player. You have to explore each chapter to then painstakingly avoid helping either the Order or Scoia'tael. Only taking on the quests you can morally support.

*** I am not really sure, possibly you could help both sides, playing the opposing forces to your advantage.

*** A List of Quests that change alignment is in the works on the wiki.

Gameplay Alternatives?
The many gameplay alternatives in The Witcher are among the more fascinating and interesting features of this RPG. Meaning, quite often there are several ways to reach/complete a quest. Read: Replay Value! Below a list of situations with alternatives you might like to try out:

Alternatives:
 * ***
 * XXX.


 * Three Endings
 * See the What different Endings are there? Q&A for details.

The Mini-games?
There are only a few mini-games in The Witcher. These are activated as part of the dialog tree when talking to NPCs. Activate the mini-game by clicking the available gameplay icon to the left of the numbered dialog options:


 * Fistfight.
 * For an overview read up on Fistfighting, for details on the relevant fistfighters in the game see the Fistfight quest.


 * Dice Poker for coin.
 * You will need a set of dice, to be found in Chapter I, and Geralt's old dwarven friend Zoltan Chivay to learn the game, to then face off against the players listed in A Game of Dice.


 * Drink
 * Geralt can take quite a lot of alcohol, so as long as he starts off sober', and has enough alcohol in his Inventory, he should dink any opponent under the table. To get sober again drink the Wives' Tears portion or meditate for a few hours. These contests let you win favor with this NPC. You may also gain, often rare, items or additional valuable information.

Easily overlooked Goodies?
A few containers can easily be overlooked:


 * XXX

Foes easily missed?
Some foes in The Witcher will only spawn after certain other prerequisites have been met. Or are dependent on the time of day. E.g. some foes only appear at night. This can make it very easy to miss them, since the foes are often spawned in areas you will quite probably already have explored (by day). For those looking for more XP and orens, some pointers:

Swamp, Chapter III:
 * Large wolf (***details).

Favorite character Quotations?
During the long hours playing The Witcher you may have witnessed many comments from your side-kicks, here is a collection of some favorites:

xxx
 * "xxx" [ ]

Favorite dialog Quotations?
There many amusing dialogs between the various characters of The Witcher:

XXX & YYY —
 * XXX: "xxx"
 * YYY: "yyy"

Geralt's darker moments?
There are a few situations when playing a more darkly inclined Geralt is possible:


 * XXX.

Speculations and Musings?
Here a few game related speculations:


 * XXX
 * YYY.
 * Comment: XXX (AEon)

And various thoughts pertaining to the game, things to wonder about:

XXX and YYY
 * Is there some deeper plot behind XXX?
 * Comment: No.

Curiosities?
Things to try out or places to go after significant changes happened in the game:
 * XXX

Bugs & Workarounds?
Presently (5/13/2010) with the Enhanced Edition released in the Director's Cut version for the PC version of The Witcher, the number of bugs are quite few. But heed to the following tips anyway to avoid possible frustration:

Tips:
 * Save your game often! Every 5 minutes is a good number.


 * Take full advantage of Quicksave / Quickload, e.g. save before you enter a new area, or talk to a new NPC, or begin a game of dice, or start a fistfight. If you loose a fight or a game of dice, you can simply reload the state before the game.


 * Alas the so-called quicksaves are actually *full* saves, meaning every time you quicksave a new file is created, this file is not over-written! This can bloat your C:\ drive.
 * ***Mention moving out save files to speed up load menu.

Bugs:
 * The game can sporadically crash, in my 120 hour run it crashed about 8 times (running the Steam version of The Witcher Director's Cut under Windows 7 (64bit)). Luckily I only lost a few minutes gameplay thanks to the abundant recent saved games. To continue playing, kill the game's task via Ctrl+Alt+Del, then restart the game, and load the last saved game state.
 * There does not seem to be much of a system behind the crashes, in one case exiting a building would freeze the game when it was trying to autosave at that point.
 * Or talking to a person would simple stop the game.
 * Or some cutscene late in the game (Chapter V, talking to Shani in Hospital) would not trigger properly, leaving the game running but with a black screen. In this case at least, rebooting Windows and restarting the game would fix the issue.
 * There are more bugs in the game, but with the save tips above, you should be able to avoid most of them and complete the game.

Cheats? In-game Console?
Alas there is no in-game console, so on-the-fly "cheating" or a change of settings is not possible. If you know differently, post!


 * ***Mention the savegame editor that allows a certain degree of "cheating".

Clean HUD-free Screenshots?
As far as I can tell there is no way to completely turn off the HUD (Heads Up Display) to take clean screenshots. You will always see Geralt's stats on the left side and the mini-map on the right. If you know differently, post this!

Tip: If you move Geralt back towards a wall (or tree), in OTS (Over the Shoulder) view you will notice that the character model will become invisible. This lets you take screenshots with HUD, but at least without Geralt in them.

How to play in-game .bik Movies?
Since all in-game movies are in the Bink format, look for the free Bink player at RadGameTools. Download and install the RADVideo package.

Tip: The in-game movies can be found in the \Data\Movies\ and \Data\ folders. The latter lets you watch the 24 Romance Card movies.

How to take Screenshots?
For optimum quality, .bmp bitmap images are the way to go. Though this comes with a file size price of about 5MB per image for screens running at a 1680x1050 pixel resolution.

To take screenshots plus get a framerate counter as a bonus use the Fraps screen-grabber tool (Google for it, free version available). It takes screenshots instantly (no noticeable lag) in .bmp format. Note the tool lets you bind any key to grab screens. I use the <-key to the right of the left shift-key on a German keyboard, very convenient.

Abbreviations
The Witcher uses quite a few new terms, and the FAQ needs to refer to them at times. To make the Q&A easier to read, here are all the commonly used abbreviations explained:


 * 50o — 50 orens (the official currency)


 * PC — Player Character (you! and your avatar in the game)
 * NPC — Non-Player Character (anyone else you can talk to in the game)
 * XP — Experience Points (controls leveling)
 * Q&A — Question & Answer (the meat of any FAQ)


 * *** — Denotes Q&As that still need to be edited/corrected, etc. ... help?!
 * * — Marks updates / fixes / information additions since the last version.

Feedback

 * Feedback welcome!
 * Please try to look into the Q&As marked with "***", maybe you can help out there.
 * If you have additional info on a certain Q&A, please post it.
 * If you are missing a Q&A or some spiffy quest etc., tell us about it!
 * Also take a look at the Todo & Ideas section, if you will.
 * Any other improvement suggestions welcome.

Credits
The FAQ is based on my (AEon) playing The Witcher, but some valuable feedback was provided by the kind folks at the official forum:


 * The Witcher Storyline and Strategy Discussion

I would like to thank the knowledgeable "old timers" at the forum who patiently answered all my questions. Thanks go to: xxx, and xxx.

Special thanks go to Game widow on the
 * The Witcher Wiki

for letting me post this FAQ in Wiki format there, the invaluable extremely detailed work done on the site, plus the patient and very insightful help with all my questions. This FAQ massively references the content on the wiki.

Todo & Ideas
Some things I am planning to look into for this FAQ:
 * Things to look out for.
 * Money, plant collecting.
 * Tips from the manual... things to remember.
 * Merchants and pricing, they don't buy everything... the buy/sell ratio is 5/1, a few items like gems (e.g. diamonds) have a 2/1 ratio.
 * New Talents that need to be developed into Skills and Abilities.
 * Key binding to M4, to avoid permanent floating text above NPCs etc.

History

 * v4.0 1st public version, 165 Q&As total, 117 new Q&As, 5 updates, 75 changed blocks; massive Q&A update (xxx).


 * v0.5 Putting together the basic Q&As and tips.


 * v0.1 Using the Jade Empire layout, content structure, for this FAQ. (5/13/2010)

Æon