2020-08-25T00:00:00Z
So, you hate dogs, you want the entire species to disappear, I’ve been there. Here’s a “how to” that will work 100% if you do things right.
If you’re like me a seasoned player and you already played the previous DLCs jump straight at the “The camp approach” section at the bottom of this post. If you play the game for the first time and are about to lose patience you might want to read all of this.
Prerequisites:
This “how to” is based on stealth, you can try the brutal approach, I did, it won’t work, dogs will almost always manage to bite your wrist and the enemies will be alerted and you’ll be dead in no time.
The stealth gear:
If you don’t have yet a stealth gear these are the things you need to know:
- Sound: your gear must have 0 (zero) noise before any modifier is applied
- Visibility: you shouldn’t worry about visibility too much; dogs will smell you way before the enemies are able to hear you. Anyway, if you find a piece of gear that has 0 noise, chances are its visibility stat will be low too. Don’t assume black color is stealth, check the item stats. If you need to count on visibility it means you already failed your stealth infiltration.
Early game stealth gear:
The following gear can be acquired in the very first moments of the game after you reach Rattay. Some from traders, but most likely from the first encounters you’ll have with low level bandits.
Hat: Brown felt hat
Coif : Padded black coif OR Padded coif
Outer garment: Black hood there are a few, the one in the link is the best
Body garment: Dark Saxon gambeson this one’s the best
Gloves: Leather gloves
Leg chainmail: Padded chausses
Hose: Tight black hose
Boots: Quiet dark shoes OR Silent shoes
This gear will offer you some level of protection. DO NOT WEAR ANYTHING ELSE!!! No necklace, no shield, no armor of any kind, it’s useless, if you need armor it means you fucked up your stealth attack and you should reload.
Skills:
You can fight even during a stealth attack; you can do things the perfect way and still have an enemy attacking you. Against a single opponent you don’t need armor but skills. As stated above, if you need armor you fucked up your approach, period.
The only way to get the required skills to wipe camps is to pay a visit to Bernard
In order to be able to wipe the camps you’ll need some level of combat skills, leveling up stealth is not enough anymore because the dogs will likely alert one or two enemies from time to time. Spend at least 2 hours in real life training with him. Choose to train “longsword”, you’ll have a greater reach, something you’ll need to kill dogs more easily. Do the training seriously, take these 2 hours as an investment for the future, a lot of stats will improve during these first 2 hours. Ask Bernard to use wooden weapons, he’ll give you a good beating. Some kind of protection is desirable, either by finding the easily accessible treasures during your first moments in Rattay (google for the treasure maps) or from your first encounters with low level bandits. Bernard will injure you even with some good protection because you simply don’t know what you’re doing at this stage. If you have only 1 third of your life left just give up by pressing “G”. You’ll come back tomorrow.
Weapons:
Main weapon: as stated above go “longsword”, even with a shield you’ll be more capable to face the different kind of threats you will encounter.
Bow: not needed, you can’t hit dogs with an arrow, moreover you’ll likely attack at night making it very difficult to target a dog fast enough before he jumps on you.
Shield: not during stealth attacks
Dagger: the “Stealth kill” is a prerequisite if you want to be able to wipe an entire camp using a dagger. Otherwise, you’ll make noise breaking someone’s neck or you’ll risk he wakes up while you incapacitate or fight other enemies.
Perks:
It will greatly depend on how much experience you already have. The base perk you need is “Stealth kill”, the other one you definitely should have is “Rain man”. It rains quite often during the night and this perk will make your life way easier.
Potions:
When you’re still in Skalitz one of the things you can do is pickup all the herbs you can. Also take all the items in your house and sell them to the local merchant, these 30+ groschen will be of great help if you missed the opportunity to ask Fritz to give you some lockpicks while still in Skalitz. They’ll allow you to buy lockpicks in Talmberg from the local trader. Just make sure you’re not encumbered by too many plants in your inventory because you’ll have to escape from Skalitz.
As soon as you’re in Rattay and you have some freedom go behind the Apothecary shop, on the right, down the alley, there’s an Alchemy lab that you should be able to use right from the beginning.
Must have:
- Saviour Schnapps (you’ll need to save the game a lot, especially before a camp attack and maybe even during a camp attack).
- Nighthawk: being able to see better than your enemy will be of great help, especially when you’ll need to spot that guard that was patrolling away from the camp.
- Padfoot potion: probably the most important, a substantial bonus for all the stealth related stats.
Should have? Wish to have?
- Bane OR Poison. Although the idea is to quickly end the fight with a quick decisive blow having a poisoned weapon can save a “semi failed” attack.
The camp approach:
If Mutt is with you, he will ruin every single attack on a bandit camp that has dogs. The reason is the dogs from the camp will smell you approaching, if you get too close, they’ll attack, often drawing a couple of guards with them (semi failed attack).
Draw your sword!
You need to get close enough to hear the dogs growling as they pick up your scent, at this moment stop.
Now, tell Mutt to “Wait here”, otherwise at some point if you get too close, he’ll charge the camp dogs and things might turn really bad for you. The combat between Mutt and the maybe 2 other dogs will make enough noise to alert the guards and they all kick your ass in 10 seconds.
You will be the one that will very slowly approach the zone where the growling seems to come from, I mean really slowly; you want to “pull” the dogs from the camp, the goal is to not alarm the guards that may still be awake.
If you do it patiently you might pull out both dogs, if the camp has two.
Once they charge you, the Nighthawk potion buff will be of a great help, keep an eye on the dogs and quickly walk/run backwards trying to increase the distance between the charging dogs and their masters in the camp.
Once you feel they’re close enough to bite you, start your attack. I usually start with a right mouse button click (thrust attack) for a precise hit. If the dog is close enough and your stats are high enough, you should be able to kill a dog with a single hit. You have to kill the dog(s) ASAP, this is also the moment when you’ll know if your attack is:
- A complete failure: you were probably too close from the camp when you started fighting with the dogs, you forgot to tell Mutt to “Wait here” and he charged, all the guards are heading towards you, your end will be quick.
- a semi failure: you attracted 1 or 2 guards along with the dogs, now you have to fight, if you trained with Bernard now is the time to show your fencing skills. If your weapon is poisoned you can still save the situation.
- The good attack: you did a great job pulling the dogs out of the camp and no guards have been alerted but you failed your thrust attack and now you’re swinging your weapon in panic mode, things could turn sour. Give the order to Mutt to attack by keeping the “X” key pressed, he should distract the second dog or attack the single one giving you a second chance to finish the job.
- The perfect moment: the dogs are dead, with a quick blow you managed to take them both out without the need to call Mutt. The camp is yours, start with the geared sleeping guards, keep Mutt as a backup in case that guard patrolling in the woods that you didn’t spotted shows up.