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  • Best Level Ever: In X, Fort Laegaire and Summer Palace from the The Falcon and The Unicorn DLC provide a nice closure for you and few important NPCs. The fact that the first half of the first dungeon shifts a gameplay from the usual "kill everything" does help, and the rest is one giant satisfying Catharsis Factor against the perpetrators of the Frame-Up as you cut through armies of soldiers including Seraphs.
  • Better Off Sold:
    • Accessories with no enchantments, especially in X where you can't enchant them so they just waste your accessory slot if you equip them. In VI-VIII you can enchant them yourself, but since the enchantment you get is random, you can end up with one that is not useful to you, so unless you like to reload a lot, it's better to sell them as well.
    • Spellbooks, if you don't have any party members that can learn the given spell because no one is the necessary class or those that are already know said spell. They also have high value, especially high-end spellbooks of advanced magic.
  • Breather Level:
    • In III, the Dark Warrior's Keep. Each of the other big dungeons have gimmicks to solve (or in the case of the Halls of Insanity, gimmicky enemies), but this one is just a straightforward slaughter-fest with Mad Dwarves and Jousters.
    • In VI:
      • Among the quests for The Council the one from Lady Loretta Fleise is by far the easiest one, as it requires you to fix the prices for all stables in Enroth. Therefore, you just need to visit every stable once, click at newly shown option, and it's done.
      • Once you get to The Oracle, you're tasked with retrieval of four memory crystals for it. The one located in Supreme Temple of Baa is by far the easiest one to get: not only the dungeon is relatively easy to navigate (and even the final manipulation of bridges with levers can be skipped entirely by just using Telekinesis to grab the crystal) but the enemies here are low-level Clerics of Baa and Fire Elementals and lower Kreegans, which you had to fight before already and in bigger numbers. The other crystals are in Castle Kriegspire (big place with ton of minotaurs), Castle Alamos (complete maze with annoying enemies) and the infamous Castle Darkmoor (full of Beholders and Liches that will repeatedly dispel your buffs).
    • In VII the quests regarding War between Erathia and Tularea are essentially this. They come after the rather brutal rescue of dwarves from the Red Dwarf Mines, which are full of slimes immune to physical damage (and where a wrong turn can lead to an encounter with Medusae, with all what that implies), and the next quest after the war-related ones is the initiation quest for the Path of your choice, both of which take place in That One Level. Meanwhile, war-related quests do not even need to be done at all (they will expire on their own if you ignore them), or you may just exert a token effort and just betray both opposing sides, which makes all quests much easier. The only obligatory quest is to choose the good or evil Arbiter, which will determine your Path for the rest of the game, and that just requires you to get the Arbiter and bring him to his new house.
    • Near the end of VIII you're tasked to retrieve the Heart of the Plane from each elemental plane. Getting the one in the Plane of Air is an example of this trope as it is relatively easy to obtain, as Air Elementals are not that dangerous. The Plane of Water can be also an example if the player has Grandmaster Invisibility as it is much easier to just swim to the jewel and snatch it right from under the noses of the Water Elementals, but they're more dangerous and the Dragon Turtles are very resilient. In comparison, Elementals from the Planes of Earth and Fire have dangerous spells (Fireball/Incinerate and Rock Blast respectively) that can kill weaker members of your team, both dungeons have narrow tunnels/walkways where you can't really employ Invisibility and especially the Castle of Fire (where the Heart of Fire is) is a dangerous dungeon with lava for a floor and narrow benches suspended over it where a small mistake can mean a ton of damage.
    • In general, some promotion quests are laughably easy when compared to other quests. Cleric promotions are most likely to be this for some reason:
      • In VI, both Cleric promotion quests are so easy it is actually more difficult to arrive to the questgiver's location than to finish them. The first one requires you to rebuild the destroyed temple in Free Haven, which essentially amounts to get to said city, find two houses with persons that the quest wants, and bringing them to the ruins of said temple. The second requires you to get stolen chalice from The Temple of the Sun. The dungeon is very short and while there are strong enemies - Monk Masters and a single Minotaur Lord - they are few in numbers, you can easily exploit Save Scumming, and the Minotaur Lord is not even required to fight, as it is in a hidden side-room while the chalice is in the central room.
      • While the second Knight promotion quest in VI is pretty hard, the first one has to be the easiest promotion quest in the entire game: after speaking with Lord Osric Temper in Free Haven, you must talk to an NPC that's on a Tavern... also in Free Haven, and then return to Lord Temper. The entire quest can be done in a few minutes without any combat.
      • First Sorcerer promotion is in similar position. You need to find the Fountain of Magic, drink from it and return to the Lord Newton. While in this case it is at least on different map and you can't completely avoid combat, it is still a quest that is very easy to complete.
      • In VII, the second Cleric promotion quest for both paths is to desecrate the altar in the highest temple of opposing path. In both cases, these temples are on Evermorn Islands which have mostly same monsters as the place where you had to go to complete first Cleric promotion quest, while you're most likely much more powerful now. Plus, both altars are in the second room from the entrance, so you can easily sneak in with Invisibility or just make run for it.
      • In VIII the only requirement for Cleric promotion is to find an item that is located in starting dungeon. True, the part with it is optional, but the monsters there are still rather weak and with few trips to Trauma Inn for rations you can get it before you set your foot on Jadame proper.
      • The first Archer promotion in VI is actually quite difficult and therefore not this trope, as you have to retrieve keys to calibrate the dragon towers from a fortress infested with raiders and ogres plus the fortress itself is surrounded by Magyars. The second promotion quest, however? Use said keys to calibrate towers, which requires you to visit specific towns and click on button on tower there. This can be done in five minutes if someone in your party has master Water magic and Town Portal spell.
      • The first Ranger promotion in VII is by far the easiest first promotion quest, as you must visit a specific dungeon (that can be accessed with zero combat) and the quest is basically completed by getting to its entrance. However, Ranger is also by far the worst class.
      • In X the Freemage class is rather easy to promote, as the promotion itself requires zero combat and you instead have to solve some (arguably rather difficult) puzzles to complete given dungeon. The only caveat is that the promotion quest is only available late into the third act.
  • Broken Base: The "back to basics" approach of Might & Magic X: Legacy (adapting the old-style system of play with a modern feel) has a few fans - mainly younger ones - up in arms. Many of them would like to see the free movement system of the later games like VI through VIII and the turn-based system done away with.
  • Demonic Spiders: Show up in every game. There are enemies that age your characters (nigh-impossible to reverse), enemies that drain your MP to empty in one hit, and enemies that flat kill you (or worse) in one shot. This is notably true for VI where there is no Protection from Magic spell, instead it is a statistic that never completely guards against status ailments.
    • Multiple games:
      • Instant death effects should not be a problem once you level your healer, in VII and VIII at least, to cast grandmaster Protection from Magic. Just keep an eye on the spell icon in case it ends prematurely. Mana drain effects, however, can very swiftly neutralize your ability to heal your party, turning moderately threatening enemies into this. Same applies to HP drain, since it's not considered a status effect and thus Protection from Magic won't save you.
      • Any enemy knowing Dispel has a chance to be incredibly obnoxious, as buffs (such as Protection from Magic above) here are must in some parts of the game. In X the last few dungeons in the game are very annoying because almost everything there knows Purge, the dark equivalent of Dispel.
      • Enemies with the ability to break your items, especially your weapons. The notification can be easy to miss in the chaos of battle, since it often seems as though the affected character was merely hit with a normal attack, but the effects can be significant.
    • Specific monsters:
      • Minotaurs are prone to be this in any game where they appear and when they're not playable. Their lower tiers have already high HP and lot of strength so they can cut you down to size with their axes. Higher tiers usually bring in some nasty status effects, notably Insanity, which quickly cripples your casters. Their highest tier has either attacks that can cause One-Hit KO, or a spell that can do the same but on range. In most games, they're also likely to show up in places you have to visit before you can expect to be properly trained to handle them.
    • Might and Magic II
      • Jugglers. While they're not that strong on their own, as they attack they will constantly "juggle" your party members, meaning they can mix up the placement of your party members. This can quickly cause your back-row members with low health and attack to turn up in the front line and your strongest fighters to end up so far behind they won't even be able to attack. And, of course, they will turn up in large groups or with other, tougher monsters.
    • Might and Magic III
      • Liches. They use magic attacks that have a chance to cause Instant Death, their attack also hits the whole party. A high enough levelled Power Shield can reduce the spells damage to zero (if an attack does zero damage, status effects will not occur), but they are also fought in Magic Cavern, which has unavoidable plumes of purple smoke that dispel magical effects cast from spells.
    • Might and Magic IV
      • Diamond Golems. They have 90% resistance to physical attacks, 1000 HP, and can only be reliably damaged by Golem Stomper (which does 100 flat damage) or magic damage. They also hit very hard, and can break your weapons when they hit you.
      • Water Dragons. They take normal damage from attacks, but they have extremely powerful cold breath and can hit from the water.
    • Might and Magic V:
      • Minotaurs and Gorgons. They have no special resistances, but they have a high physical and magical evasion, hit reliably, and the latter can also turn party members to stone.
      • Energy Dragons. They do about 1000 Energy damage a turn per attack. And the dragons come in groups.
    • Might and Magic VI:
      • The mana drain effect is almost a case of The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard with regards to the Final Battle. Simply put, after you destroy the Reactor in the Hive, you have to fight a lot of Devil Kings, Devil Soldiers, and the Demon Queen, the Final Boss. Here's what makes this setup hard: When you destroy the Reactor, all spells currently on your party are automatically dispelled, leaving you vulnerable, and Devil Kings and the Demon Queen have the mana drain attack, meaning you have to recast them before a dozen attacks from them leave you completely unable to do so. Unless you were completely healthy and full of mana beforehand, escape isn't easy unless you Take a Third Option and simply bludgeon/laser the queen to death before a horde of demons shred you to pieces and run to the exit, pursued by devils.
      • Then there are Eyes. Flying Eyes can cause Sleep. Terrible Eyes cause Fear. Maddening Eyes cause Insanity and can cast Dispel Magic, which quickly robs you of your protective spells. What's worse, each has a different immunity, so if you try to use a spell on them that effects a large group of creature (like say, Fireball) you can't hurt all of them. All three are very vulnerable to Poison, but the only good spell in the game that does Poison damage is Dragon Breath. Even worse, Castle Darkmoor (a dungeon that you have to go to for an obligatory quest) has hordes of these things, and for some reason, they can attack you through walls.
      • Warlocks, the highest tier of spellcasters. They can cause insanity with each hit that connects and do so surprisingly often. Their spells also hurt like hell, avert being Squishy Wizard by having a lot of HP for the point of the game you're supposed to fight them and they are immune to Electrical Damage. They also hang in groups along with their weaker versions so you're guaranteed to get pummeled by a barrage of spells the moment you set foot in the room they hang in.
      • Terminator Units. These things are only enemies that can cause Eradication. No Protection from Magic in this game, so not a thing you can do except raising your Magic Resistance and praying. To top it off, if you cannot fix it yourself; there is only one temple that can heal this (unlike later games), and even fixing it yourself means extremely large recovery time in the middle of a battle against monsters that caused this effect in the first place.
    • Might and Magic VII:
      • Any monster that casts either Fireball or Dragon's Breath. These spells are area-of-effect damage spells which theoretically hit everyone in the area. Problem is, the fire elementals and devils that cast fireball and the liches and necromancers that cast dragon's breath are respectively immune to fire and dark magic, and so they'll get right up in your face and cast the spells over and over. While you can potentially raise your Fire Resistance to a point where Fireball stops doing too much damage to your party, there is no way to make yourself more resistant to Dark damage, so any time an enemy hits you with Dragon's Breath, you're likely to have at least one party member knocked out.
      • Anything that knows Pain Reflection as well. It returns the same damage to you that you do to the enemy (though it thankfully doesn't negate the damage). Doesn't help that this is also Dark Magic skill, and most of those enemies that know it also know above Dragon Breath or Shrapmetal. Better learn how to cast Dispel before that well planned fireball or fire-spike blows up your party with it, and quick.
      • The other side of the conflict in the same game is just as bad. If you like to buff yourself, Dispel will wreck you, especially since Dark Magic doesn't have quick way of recasting multiple buffs at once. Summon Elemental isn't nice either, since it will summon a Light Elemental with ranged attack that explodes upon defeat and damages you if you happen to be close enough (which you probably will if you fight them in a dungeon). Note that depending on the rank, one caster can summon up to 5 of them. And then of course they can cast Hour of Power and Day of Protection ...
      • Medusae, for two reasons. First, they can cause Paralyze or, in the case of 3rd tier, Stoning. These can be blocked by Protection from Magic even at master level, but if you don't have anyone who can cast it or aren't lucky to have a scroll, then good luck dealing with them because having entire party paralyzed or petrified means game over. Second, they are immune to every magic attack that exists in the game and they have ranged attacks that are quite strong, so you have pretty much required to use bows against them or risk getting shred to pieces while trying to get them to the range of your melee attacks. And as usual, they come in groups.
    • Might and Magic VIII:
      • Various Elementals. Their attacks come out fast and hit hard. This is not helped by the fact that the respective planes have tons of them that will gang up on you with no mercy and pound you to the pavement. The Fire and Earth Elementals with Fireballs and Rock Blast are particularly nasty.
      • Boulders. These can be found in the Dark Dwarven Compound and in the Plane of Earth. They explode on death, and they have a ranged attack that deals Physical damage to your entire party. Since you cannot reduce Physical damage outside of having Plate Grandmaster or Chain Master (or using the Vampire's Mist Form ability), whenever one of these attacks hits you, you can expect your spellcasters to go down pretty much instantly. And no, Protection From Earth will not reduce the damage dealt by this attack.
      • Crystal dragons in The Great Crystal will wipe even high-leveled party due to their resilience (strongest Ruby Dragon has almost 2k HP) and them dealing Energy damage that cannot be resisted by any means. And of course they appear in packs!
    • Might and Magic X:
      • Patch 1.4 turned Faceless into these. This patch added a single attack to their arsenal named Dark Nova, which was originally used only by the Final Boss. This ranged attack has a chance to poison entire party, is prone to score criticals and even without that it hits really hard. At one point you get ambushed by four of these things, and if more than one decides to use this attack on their turn it might be as well as Total Party Kill. Not to mention that Erebos will likely show up during that battle as well.
  • Fan Nickname: The side of Xeen that the fourth game, Clouds of Xeen, takes place in is never officially named, but many fans call it the Cloudside to parallel the Darkside.
  • Fanon: Several fans started referring to the planet where M&M 6-8 and Heroes 1-3 take place by the rather unoriginal name Colony, perhaps because of historical mentions of "the Colonial Government". However, in-game references establish that the planet is actually named Enroth, the same as one of its continents. This is particularly clear in M&M 8, as the world is referred to as Enroth while the game is set on the continent of Jadame, so it cannot be a reference to the continent.
  • Fridge Logic: In Might and Magic VI, the Cave of the Dragon Riders, a hideout for a group of bandits that flies in and attacks on flying dragons (hence the construction of the Dragon Towers) is mainly populated by the wyrm family of dragons, who, unlike the drakes and dragons, are wingless.
  • Game-Breaker:
    • Might and Magic II: Enchant Item and Duplication. Now your entire party can have +63 versions of any non-quest weapon, armor or other equippable item. Enjoy apocalyptic firepower.
    • Might and Magic III: Obsidian weapons and/or armor. Just stick it on your favorite party member and point it at the thing you want dead.
    • Might and Magic IV/V has Day of Protection: A Cleric/Paladin spell that grants protection from fire, cold, electricity, and acid, as well three of the four buffs all at once. Since these buffs increase to-hit, attack damage, and adding temporary levels, this can bump the team to unstoppable juggernaut potential. Day of Sorcery, the Sorcerer variation, provides the last buff (reduce physical damage) as well as Levitation, Wizard Eye and Walk on Water, so that one is also incredibly useful.
    • V also has the gem mines, a collection of small dungeons with weak Beholder Bats and Sabertooths. True to the name, there are tons of gems in the walls. Collecting 5 of a certain type: Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, or Diamond, can be taken to a gnome smith to make either a weapon or a piece of armor. Gem weapons are one step below the most powerful (obsidian), and it's possible to go through IV without finding any gem equipment. And this resource is right outside the first town.
    • Might and Magic VI:
      • The gameplay with 3 Sorcerers and a Cleric (or two clerics, and two sorcerers) completely destroys any semblance of difficulty in this otherwise lengthy game. While they are squishy wizards, if you choose for all of them Air Magic as a skill then teach them Sparks, you can clear the monsters outside and in dungeons of New Sorpigal with ease, especially if you push their Air Magic to Expert (possible by using hidden Fly scroll). Then you can get for sorcerers the second promotion before getting to Free Haven, as with Sparks on three people and enough mana the Corlagon's Estate is rather easy to complete. Once you get to Bootleg Bay, you can clear Temple of the Sun and get the chalice for cleric's second promotion, which is also rather easy. From then on, once you reach Free Haven with short side-trip to the Stone City, you have a team of fully promoted members before you technically started the main questline, and all of them have access to Dark and Light magic, meaning you are free to just nuke anything in your path once you get some experience. An alternative can be two clerics for slightly better combat (better armor overall) for slower initial air magic damage, but once dark magic is distributed, it's all moot.
      • Dark Magic and Light Magic, considering VI has both schools available simultaneously. Shrapmetal is simply put, a murderous shotgun blast that blows Sparks out of the water, and learnable by clerics who usually heal people and are better armored. Have fun shredding through dragons with flying armored tank of clerics. When the entire party uses Dark Magic, you won't even need blasters to clear the Hive...
      • Regarding Dark Magic and Light Magic, the items that increase powers of their spells. An item 'of Light Magic' provides 50% bonus to your Light Magic Skill, essentially meaning that if you have 10 points in it, it would behave as if it were 15. Unfortunately, the effects don't stack ... unless it is an effect from a regular item and an Artifact/Relic, such as those awarded for solving Obelisk Puzzle. If a character gets both bonuses, (s)he can cast either completely overpowering Shrapmetals and Armageddons or cast Hour of Power and let the team essentially punch out a Minoutaurs, Titans, and Dragons. And let's not even talk about what happens if you're persistent enough to get a second set of magic-enhancing artifacts as random drops.
      • The Fly spell. With at least an Expert rank in Air Magic, you can easily avoid enemy encounters outside. You can even swoop down to check obelisks and claim treasures while emerging unscathed.
      • More a case of 11th-Hour Superpower, considering how late the Blasters are available in this game, but there is a setup involving them that can kill even a Terminator Unit in seconds. Equip someone (yes, one member is enough) with blaster, remove any items that raise cooldown such as armor(alternatively, master the skill for your equipped armor, which eliminates the penalty), give them an item that reduces cooldown and haste them via sufficiently powered up Hour of Power spell. The end result is a neverending stream of bullets that looks like Disintegrator Ray and surely behaves like one. The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and Dragon Sands stand no chance.
      • There is a spot in New Sorpigal where you can instantly transport your party to the Shrine of the Gods in Dragonsand (you will likely need the hidden Fly scroll that can be found in the side of New Sorpgial's bank). You're likely to die if you do this (especially at level 1), as you'll be surrounded by dragons, but if you can take cover inside the shrine and have each of your party members touch the shrine, they'll be given +20 to all stats and resistances permanently. Such a large boost so early on can make areas like Castle Ironfist or Bootleg Bay significantly easier. If you recruit a Gate Master as a follower, you can even escape death by warping back to New Sorpigal.
    • Might and Magic VII:
      • On Emerald Isle, literally the the first location in the game, it's entirely possible to acquire a Wand of Fireballs (either through making a shady deal or getting the dealer mauled to death by dragonflies) at level one. With a lot of patience and careful maneuvering, it's also entirely possible to use said wand to kill the otherwise virtually invincible red dragon on the island and use Save Scumming to fill your party up to the gills with money and artifacts off its corpse. Again, at level one.
      • The well in Eeofol next to the only building there grants somewhat random reward by drinking from it. This can be anything from a few skill points to an Eradication. Now remember that the negative status effects can be prevented by a Protection from Magic at grandmaster level and you have basically an infinite source of skill points, experience and so on. Subverted in that that if you got here, you probably don't need it that much anymore.
      • To a lesser degree, Walls of Mist. It and the Pit are two dungeons that refresh completely after you exit it, but unlike The Pit, this one has some goodies in middle portal along with barrels that increase your stats. With Invisibility you can quickly refill cash for that spell you want and get some permanent stat increase as many times as you want until you get bored from it.
      • This game also introduces the dark spell Soul Drinker, which damages all enemies on screen for a ridiculous amount, and heals your whole party for a percentage of the damage dealt, even if you deal more damage than enemies have health. What pushes this into Game Breaker territory is that it hits everything on screen, even if it is out of range of every other attack that isn't Armageddon (which hits the whole map). Truly, the only limiting factor is the fact that you need to have grand master Dark magic (and to pick the dark side, storywise), but it sure helps clearing fields of dragons and titans that would otherwise be very time consuming to kill.
    • Might and Magic VIII:
      • It has Dragons as characters that can join the party later. They can't learn any weapon, armor or magic skill besides their exclusive Dragon skill. However, this skill also determines the damage they take and the power of their attack, which is ranged by default. The Dragon skill itself also unlocks spells such as Dragon Breath at level Expert, while normally being an endgame spell of Dark magic, and Flying, all before promotion to Great Wyrm. Barring this, their starting damage is also pretty good and they have best HP growth in the game. And if you feel they are not overpowered enough, they can grandmaster Learning to get levels faster and master Bodybuilding to get even more HP. Oh, and lowest level dragon is accessible without any combat (any other than the obligatory temple at the start) as soon as you get out of Dagger Wound Islands.
      • In Ravenshore, there is a treasure chest disguised as a tree located next to the river in the northern part of the map that, when opened, will always contain either an artifact or relic. With Save Scumming, you can even manipulate it to give you an artifact or relic of your choosing. There's also another one in Alvar outside of the Ogre Fortress at the top of the structure's northern wall.note 
      • VIII (and also VII) allow you to gain theoretically infinite money by buying cheap unenchanted weapons, enchanting them with grandmaster Fire Aura/Enchant Item and selling. Even better if you have high level of Merchant.
      • Speaking of high levels of Merchant, it's entirely possible, and actually surprisingly easy for a clever player who knows how to maneuver around the basilisks in Murmurwoods, to complete the Dark Elf Patriarch promotion at around fifth level and unlock Cauri Blackthorne as a traveling companion. Emphasis on fifth level, because Cauri is level 50, with mastery and grandmastery in all of her best skills. These include Merchant and Disarm Trap, which absolutely trivialize making money on loot for a starting party, and Dark Elf Ability, which gives Cauri the spell Darkfire and thus lets her shell out up to approximately 120 damage to a single target.
    • Might and Magic X has a spell called Word of Light that is essentially a Soul Drinker spell from VII/VIII, but even more useful since last few dungeons in vanilla game have almost all enemies weak to light magic. Not so much in DLC, where everything is resistant to light, however.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • III:
      • Hazards just before a locked door. You can't use the Jump spell because the door is locked, and Teleport isn't retrievable until the mid-game. You just have to get wrecked, unlock the door, and get wrecked again.
      • Fire Stalkers and Ghosts. They are completely immune to physical damage, so it requires spells to get rid of them. Also, ghosts can age you with a touch.
      • Mystic Clouds. They die in one hit by the time you reach them, but they hit at range with an attack that can drain SP to zero. They're typically found in dungeons that require using Jump. And their attack hits the whole party.
      • Plasmoids. They go down quick, but attacking them in melee causes them to break your weapon, rendering it useless until it's fixed. And they can only be fixed at forges.
    • IV
      • Bat Queens in Nightshadow. They move very fast and exclusively target Clerics, so your healer is probably going to get knocked out of commission. And healers don't have good armor options so early in the game.
      • Lava Golems. They do some fire damage, but by the point they are encountered, Day of Protection will mitigate most of their damage. But they are very tough, and they can break weapons if they hit the player.
      • The ghost guards of Winterkill. They're immune to physical damage and so it will require Paladins/Clerics to spam Turn Undead. And all of the ghosts have to be eliminated. Three times. Also, they age the player.
      • Xeen's Guards. They have a very high evasion and they do energy damage, which is harder to negate. However, it's not very much energy damage, so it just takes time.
    • V
      • Sky Golems. By the time they are encountered on the Skyroads, they're pretty easy to beat. But they are fast and tough, so they can take a while to kill.
      • Iron Golems. They're only in the last dungeon, but they have extremely high defense and lots of HP, so whittling them down takes time.
    • VI:
      • Spiders, literal Bats and Cobras, that all occupy Abandoned Temple. All of these monsters cause either Poison (Cobras and Spiders) or Disease (Bats) statuses, which worsen over time, thus incurring bigger penalty to the stats of affected party members. The Abandoned Temble is a long dungeon, so getting any of these means walking back to the exit and getting patched by local priest, since at this stade of the game you're unlikely to have spells and mastery that can help you out. You can sort poison out with purple potion but not disease. To top it off, the rate with which they infect these is obnoxiously high. This essentially forces you to take them on range with magic and bows, as any direct contact is risky. Bloodsuckers that spread disease too are almost just as bad as they infest places where your low-level party will likely show up.
      • Evil Spirits and Skeleton Lords, because both can be found in relatively early places and are not that tough but cause aging and cursing (both of your characters and from players). The latter causes all spells (and attacks) to fail half of time, so even if you have spell to remove it, it may not work and you still waste MP.
    • VII:
      • Slimes in White Cliff Cave. Not too threatening, sure, but they are immune to physical attacks and your mages are likely too weak and with small mana pool to fight them off on regular basis, and the narrow tunnels where they show up don't make matters better, as you can't avoid them so easily. Using enchanted weapons or enchanting them by Fire Aura is probably the best solution. The slimes are much worse in Red Dwarf Mines, though you're most likely tougher as well.
    • X:
      • Spiders. Not too strong, but they can inflict poison, which is a Damage over Time effect in this game that cannot be cured by Trauma Inn or resting, so you need to either visit a temple, cast specific spell or use an antidote. It will also decrease HP with each step/turn until afflicted member is knocked out.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • In VI, movement during turn-based combat is disabled which prevents players dodging any ranged attacks. However in outside areas the player can still move vertically if Fly is active. With a ranged-heavy party and proper timing, a player can avoid taking any damage while clearing some of the game's most difficult enemies.
    • In VII, the range of melee attack for the players is slightly longer than the reach of monsters. The strongest versions of monsters are often the biggest ones - especially the gargantuan Minotaur Lords. The easiest way to deal with Minotaur Lords in Thunderfist Mountain and The Maze is to lure them to chokepoints where they can't reach you and whittle them down in complete safety. This also works on behemoths in The Pit and the tunnels to Eofol.
  • High-Tier Scrappy: In MMVIII, Clerics are the only class that can cast grandmaster protection from magic, which is the only defense against monsters which can automatically kill or eradicate players by hitting them. This makes the Cleric more or less essential, and an annoyance to players who like playing different classes for variety and would like to do 4 different class playthroughs rather than 3 different classes + cleric playthroughs. Not helped that, alongside Sorcerers, they're also the only ones that can reach Grandmaster in Light or Dark magic (the Paladin and the Archer can't go further than basic in Light/Dark), and their second promotion quest is surprisingly easy for either path.
  • Junk Rare: In VI, the final spell for both Dark and Light magic can't be bought in shop and only single guaranteed copy can be obtained by solving obelisk puzzle; if you want more, you have to fight strong monster such as titan or dragon and pray it drops it. In case of Dark magic, said spell is completely useless, making its spell book a case of this.
  • Low-Tier Letdown: The Ranger, who takes Master of None to truly ridiculous levels. They're supposed to be a Magic Knight, but the only combat oriented skill that can Grandmaster is Axe, can't go past Expert in Elemental and Self Magic, and the only skills they can get past Expert are Perception (Master) and Identify Monster (Grandmaster). And not only is ID Monster one of the most unnecessary skills (albeit an useful one) but to add insult to the injury, the Sorcerer can Grandmaster it as well. To top it off: while for Dark path their promotion quests are among the easiest of the game, the promotion to Ranger Lord is actually quite difficult, as you have to sweep Mercenary Guild with Champion of Sword enemies. Unless a player is doing a Self-Imposed Challenge or testing all classes, you'll almost never see people picking a Ranger to be part of their party.
  • More Popular Replacement: The Dark Elf in VIII replaces the Archer in VI and VII. And while the Archer is a pretty good class (probably the best of the hybrids), the Dark Elf is better in pretty much every way. The Dark Elf keeps the Grandmaster Bow and Chain and the Master Sword, Dagger and Elemental Magic, and replaces Grandmaster Perception with the much more useful Grandmaster Merchant and gains the extremely useful Grandmaster Disarm Trap. And on top of that, they get Dark Elf Magic for added bonus. There's no mystery as for why players think the Dark Elf is the most broken character after the Dragon.
  • Narm: The Evil Laugh of Lord Xeen, the Big Bad of Clouds of Xeen in the game's intro is simply hilarious to listen to.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • Many, many games have oversized rats, bats, insects and spiders as enemies. This becomes especially bad with 3D games where their sprites become more realistic. The first dungeon in VII includes giant spiders with a skull as enemies in dimly lit caves, ensuring you'll have a hell of Jump Scare when they suddenly pop up from side tunnels.
    • Bloodsuckers from VI. They are essentially bony bats that have spherical mouth full of sharp teeth. The scary part comes when they attack your party, they expose their teethy, expanded mouth towards you. And that squicky sound they do does not help.
    • If you fear wasps, than some parts of Alvar with them will be a nightmare, especially a forest there, which is full of them. The path from there also leads to their nest, which you should just skip, even if you don't fear the wasps.
    • People in your party affected with Status Effects may look a bit creepy. In case of the promotion of Wizard/Necromancer to Lich, it can be Jump Scare if you don't expect it. The worst of them all, however, is the Zombie status in VII.
    • The Nightmare enemy class from VIII surely lives up to its name. On top of that they're immune to psychical attacks. Better get ready that Starburst spell.
    • In X, The Tomb of Thousand Terrors surely lives up to its name. Tentacles swinging from a hole through a path that you must cross, lever seemingly made from skulls of ... something, unnerving enemies and scarcely lit halls don't help. The fact you cannot even quit when you want only makes it worse. And if you find Dream Shard and use it when you get the chance, you get a second round of this place, except you relive it as someone in essentially shattered dimension with semi-transparent Terrors as enemies.
  • Replacement Scrappy: On the other hand, the Vampire in VIII is seen as a very poor replacement for the Paladin from VI and VII. While the Paladin was a decent tank and damage dealer thanks to his Grandmaster Mace, Shield, and Master Plate, the Vampire trades the Mace for Daggers (he still keeps the shield, but daggers are dual wielded for maximum efficiency), and loses the Plate armor (in fact, he can't even use Chain, being limited to Leather), but the worst part is losing the Paladin's incredibly useful Grandmaster Repair Item for the sake of ID Monster of all things, one of the most unnecessary skills ever. And while Dark Elf and Dragon Magic are rather powerful, Vampire Magic is kind of meh. All in all, the Vampire is a mediocre fighter with okay Self Magic and poor skills.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Might and Magic VI-VIII games have hard Cap on number of Artifacts or Relics you can get before they completely stop dropping. Not only no game tells you this, but the two former games have cap set at 13, which is surprisingly low. This does not apply to pre-set artifacts such as those from Obelisk Puzzle, but if you grab them before exhausting the limit they will count towards it, which means you'll get less artifacts than if you waited until you hit the limit from random drops.
    • There's also rather aggravating problem with some chests and artifacts/relics in them, which is most apparent in VIII. The loot in chests is generated randomly, however if the item is chosen but can't fit in chest it won't appear in there. The game tracks tracks artifacts/relics that already appeared and checks them out (each item can randomly appear only once; there are some artifacts or relics that are preset and those can be obtained each time after respawn). Now if artifact/relic is selected but don't fit in chest, if won't appear but it is still checked out, so obtaining it for the rest of current playthrough is no longer possible.
    • Might And Magic VI:
      • Spells that heal status ailments must be cast within a certain amount of time of the ailment being inflicted or the spell won't work and you'll have to pay to remove the ailment. The worst part is that the window of opportunity is determined by your skill level. While Masters can have days per each point of skill, and Experts have hours, users with the basic skill have minutes of in-game time to remove it, which translates to seconds of real time.
      • Related to the above, the fact that most status ailments don't wear off, and with a few exceptions (Unconscious, Fear, Sleep) can't be slept through. Since you may not have the skill ranks or spells necessary to cure your characters in time, you'll likely spend a lot of gold at the temple in the early game.
    • Might And Magic VIII:
      • Several quests require you to take a specific character into your party to complete them, which is especially annoying considering that the characters are usually underleveled by the time they can join you.
      • The merchants will call you a cheapskate if you have over 10K gold and leave their shops without making any transaction.
      • The boat to Dagger Wound Island offers traveling there on only two days of the week, being completely useless the other five days. This is especially frustrating considering that the boat from Dagger Wound Island to Ravenshore is available all week.
  • Sequel Displacement: While the RPG Might & Magic games weren't exactly unpopular, the Heroes spinoff series became much more widely known and helped define the turn-based strategy fantasy game genre. It's telling that the Heroes games were rebooted in the new Ashan continuity well before the parent series received the same treatment.
  • That One Attack:
    • In III, any attack that can cause an instant death condition, be it Unconsciousness (caused by Major Devils), Death (caused by Minotaurs and Liches), Petrification (caused by Medusas) or Eradication (caused by Terminators). And these enemies all hit multiple party members per attack.
    • Dragon Breath, since you cannot raise your resistance to Dark, it damages your entire party, it is able to knock out or outright kill your spellcasters with a single hit, and whoever uses them is usually immune to it. Shrapmetal may count as well.
    • Painreflection, due to returning the damage to you. Have fun killing yourself while killing your enemies.
    • Dispel, since it removes all your buffs as well as utility spells such as Torchlight and Wizard Eye. It is doubly annoying in Castle Darkmoor where enemies can dispel you even if you cannot see them because they are in different rooms or floor.
    • In VI, Mass Curse, especially for teams consisting entirely of spell casters. This causes your spells to fail half of time, and mass curse curses everyone in your party at once. Especially bad since there is no Protection from magic in this game.
    • The basic attack of Terminator Unit in VI is the most fearsome attack of that game. True to the name of its user, this attack can cause Eradication. Remember, this game does not have Protection from Magic, and there is only one temple(Free Haven) that can cure it, and you have to rebuild the temple first. If you cannot fix it yourself, then you're screwed, because the promotion to use the spell effectively(master level) also needs the promotion quest for fixing the temple.
    • Dark Nova and Sun Ray in X. The first inflicts party-wide dark damage, has chance to crit, and can poison you if you're not lucky. Sun Ray got substantial buff from times of 'VII' and 'VIII' (as well as made unavailable to you) - instead of hitting single target and only outside during the day, it heavily hits the entire party anytime user feels like it.
  • That One Boss:
    • In VII, this Trope definitely applies to Robert the Wise or Tolberti. (The one you have to fight depends on whether you're on the Dark or Light Path; cosmetic differences aside, it's the same Boss.) This guy not only has a lot of hp and powerful defenses and a few immunities, he can cast Hour of Power and Power Cure on himself, and his attacks can cause Eradication. (The best way to deal with this Boss Fight is Save Scumming, and save each time you score a good hit or pray your Protection from Magic holds every time he shoots you.)
      • It's also possible to steal the item you need from him without having to deal with the fight. If you cast invisibility and have a character with Grandmaster Stealing, you can snatch it right off him and he doesn't know you're there. What's funny is that the one who gives you the quest to kill him and get the item still assumes he is dead.
      • The Protection from Magic spell (at Grandmaster level) eliminates the danger of getting eradicated, but it still takes quite a long time before he goes down, meaning the spell will likely wear off before he's done for. If your spellcaster doesn't get a chance to cast it again before being reduced to ashes, OR if you don't have Cleric in your party (the only character class with access to Grandmastery of Self Magic spells), you're back to square one, playing this trope pretty straight.
    • Same game's Xenofex, which is incidentally the next mainline quest. In this case you must kill him, so no an easy way out with stealing. What's worse, he is in a room with a dozen devils or so, many of them being devil captains with Incinerate spell, instakill attacks, and Mana Burn effects so you cannot cast Protection to Magic, making you vulnerable to the former.
      • Xenofex's room is right next to an elevator. Save Scumming combined with exploiting the elevator (elevators are always free kill mechanisms), he is actually one of the easiest parts in the game for the patient player. Save, take elevator up, open the door, do some blasting, back up hit the button. If cleric gets drained, reload. Rinse, repeat.
    • In X, the Limbo dungeon has something called Alien Technology, which looks like the Ubisoft insignia. This Boss has a million hit points - estimated - is highly resistant to magic, immune to conditions, and has overwhelming physical defense. It can't attack you physically, but it has an ability that damages every character by half the damage it receives from physical weapons. (The best way to kill it is probably to stand two squares from it and shoot arrows at it, although this does take a long time. Or if you have someone with Grandmaster Earth Magic and another member with Ressurection, you can use Crushing Weight instead, since it deals percentage damage and this thing is not that resistant to Earth Magic, but the damage done is guaranteed to kill the caster through reflection, hence need for Ressurection.)
    • Both the bosses in Fort Laegaire in The Falcon and the Unicorn DLC qualify. While they are about equal to your own party in level, you are severely handicapped because in this part of the game, your gear has been confiscated and you have to use the second-rate stuff provided by the Blackfangs in the brig.
      • The first one, Perren, has two Mooks helping him; one of them can inflict the Poison condition and the other can inflict the even worse Feeblemind condition. There's no way to obtain any potions that can cure these conditions here, so you have to depend on luck and your own healing spells. Perren himself can cast Fireball, and the only real defense against this is Fire Ward, if you can cast it yourself.
      • The other one, Caindale the Main Inquisitor, fights alone, but he's stronger, using Sun Ray and Pacification, which can cause the Sleep condition. Fortunately, once you defeat Perren, the Blackfangs sell some better equipment, and they also sell some Light Ward scrolls, but the only real defense against Pacification is the spell Burning Determination, if you have access to it.
  • That One Level:
    • In Might and Magic III:
      • The Fortress of Fear. There are exploding chests which need to be searched for the Hologram Sequencing Card, Mummies halve physical damage being undead creatures, and the puzzle can be a bit of a slog, requiring the player to set four corners of the center room to have heads while everything else is an electricity trap.
      • The Cathedral of Carnage. While the enemies here are fairly simple, the solutions to the puzzle are in another dungeon, and completing it requires drinking the Moose Juice, which will kill, petrify, and eradicate two people.
      • The Tomb of Terror. The first two sections are annoying, but manageable In addition to traps that curse the party (and since the curse causes no damage, it can't be resisted), traps will destroy your gems that sit right in front of locked doors. In the final rooms of the dungeon, there are Vampires and Liches, the former of which are a slog even for a high level party, and the latter have instant death magic.
      • The Maze from Hell lives up to its name. Even getting here requires going through the Magic Cavern. But every enemy has instant death, the chests can eradicate (and need to be searched for the plot coupon), and there are toxic whirlpools that need to be avoided.
    • In Might and Magic IV/V:
      • The Golem Dungeon is populated by hard-hitting monsters with ridiculous defenses. The Diamond Golem is by far the worst, essentially demanding you drop your strongest spells in this mid-game dungeon. Fortunately, it's an optional dungeon.
      • The Dragon Cave is full of the eponymous monsters, who can launch very strong attacks from extreme range and love to set you up in a crossfire. And of course there are also the dragon urns, which steal 2000 gold and 200 gems when walked across. Every time. And no, they aren't found again later.
      • The Dungeon of Lost Souls on the Darkside. The puzzles are pretty straightforward, but it is full of hard-hitting very tough Minotaurs and even worse Gorgons.
      • The Dungeon of Death, not just for its monsters, but for its incredibly laborious puzzles (one of which is a level-wide Crossword Puzzle you have to fill in word by word). It also has Lord Xeen as a Degraded Boss on the lowest level — in multiples.
    • In Might and Magic VI:
      • The Devil Outpost, mainly due to the related mainline quest. Like the name would suggest, it is a large room full of Devils, who are endgame monsters with the power to match, and they also occupy the final dungeon. However, this quest takes place in first half of the game, since it's one of the quests required to gain access to the Oracle. They are not limited to their weaker versions either, in fact there is at least one Devil Captain that can drain all of your mana in one hit. The outpost consists of a single room, but that is chock full of Devils that will all attack you once you set your foot there. It is probably wise to clear this quest as last, and make use of the well in Kriegspire that temporarily raises your level by 30.
      • Gharik's Forge, which is where you need to go in order to obtain the Hourglass of Time for Lord Newton's vote on the Council. The place is full of Warlocks and Fire Elementals; the former has strong spells and Insanity, while the latter can fly above your field of view and break your items.
      • Practically anyone playing the game would tell you how much they hated Castle Darkmoor. The reasons are understandable: the place is huge, confusing to navigate and has some obscure puzzles involving teleporter cubes that like to teleport you into points unknown or in the middle of monsters (you have to find a switch and flip it, at which point the teleporter either opens the way forward or takes you to where you need to go). The enemy composition is apparently made to annoy the players as much as possible: Ogres are not too bad, though they can spread Disease, but Liches and Eyes can cast Dispel (so no Day of Protection and Hour of Power) and Maddening Eyes can turn you insane and do so quite frequently. Worse yet, there are quite few huge rooms with literal army of them that provide little cover, ensuring you get a barrage of spells in the face.
      • Castle Alamos is only slightly better. It is also huge, even more confusing to navigate, and to advance you need to solve a quite easy riddle. What is not easy is finding all pieces of it, which are written on trees scattered in the place with no indication on map where they are - not a good thing considering the size of the castle. The enemies are Warlocks, who like to cause Insanity similarly to Eyes, rather strong Air Elementals and Magyars. Thankfully, none of them knows dispel, but they all have ranged attacks, and the former two are immune to Electrical damage, so you're in for a ride if that's your preferred method of attacking.
      • The Tomb of VARN, the third-to-last dungeon in the main questline, is a massive dungeon, and you'll have to search all over for the codes to each pool, some of which are locked behind doors and chests that require keys to open. Looking up the codes in a guide doesn't work, since you need the actual scroll to enter the passwords. The enemies are also fairly strong, and the magic-immune Guardians of VARN can be deadly opponents for a party with mostly spellcasters. Also, the room where you need to enter the codes is radioactive and the related mechanic is truly confusing, especially in a game devoid of Damage Over Time mechanic (which radiation here is) barring trying to walk on water or lava with appropriate counter-measures.
      • The Control Center, the second-to-last dungeon is a whole new bag of tricks. You have to tour the facility to learn how to operate laser weaponry, and find at least four blaster guns to arm your adventurers. The thing is, the facility has gone haywire and is full of floating droids which, while they can be destroyed if caught alone, swarm the whole place in hundreds. Every attack will break your items and has a chance to eradicate (reduce to ash) your characters. You can try grabbing four guns and keep destroying the rogue droids but it is not only fruitless, but also extremely luck-based.
      • From optional dungeons there is The Hall of the Fire Lord. Enemy-wise this dungeon is not too hard unless you wander here as soon as possible (it's accessible very early as it is located in Bootleg Bay) but what makes this dungeon absolutely infuriating to deal with is its layout that is confusing even with walkthrough by your side and a gimmick where teleporters present in the dungeon will drain HP of party members per use if they don't have a piece of amber in their inventory, meaning you have to get said amber (which is thankfully easy), go to their inventory and distribute them. This is also aggravated by the fact the related sidequest requires you to open specific doors, an action that consumes amber, which you may not notice until someone gets hurt when you use one of teleporters. What partially redeems it is, if you get to the bottom, which is not required by related sidequest, you can find a Crystal Skull and an unique variant of Defender of VARN there, nicely foreshadowing Tomb of VARN.
    • In Might and Magic VII:
      • Breeding Zone. See, most dungeons have a respawn time, meaning if you kill the monsters, it takes them a while to reappear in it, usually about three months game time for dungeons. The Breeding Zone, true to its name, isn't like that. It respawns completely every time you leave. That means the usual means of handling a dungeon, clearing out a little at a time, then leaving to rest and regain your health and spells, won't work here. And to make it worse, the monsters in this place are tough. You'll have to deal with Gog, Fire Elemental, and Behemoth type monsters. The Behemoths are miles above you level when you first go into the Breeding Zone, capable of one-shotting your character, and often big enough to completely fill the hallways you're supposed to be sneaking down. To make it all worse, you get no rewards from killing anything in the Breeding Zone. No exp, no gold, nothing.
      • Walls of Mist, the corresponding dungeon on the path of Light in the same game, has shades of this. The catch is that you have to show Gavin Magnus that you're truly a follower of Light, so you cannot kill any enemies while passing through the dungeon. While none of the enemies can deal massive physical damage like the Behemoths, they all have ranged attacks. In other words, while you're running away from all of them, they can still hit you with their Acid Bursts, Lightning Bolts and Fireballs. In addition, the Wizard enemies have the ability to summon Light Elementals, another enemy type with a ranged attack.
      • And finally there are Eofol Tunnels from the same game, a seemingly endless corridor of walls and narrow tunnels filled with aforementioned Behemoths and Medusae with ranged attacks. There is also a jump necessary to progress; it is doable with a base key command but it requires extremely precise timing that would make platformers proud, and if you're invisible you can't use Jump spell because that also breaks invisibility.
      • Thunderfist Mountain is also an annoying place to be, as it is infested with Minotaurs (remember that Minotaur Lord can oneshot your party member), Eyes with their status effects and Elemental Witches. There are also numerous traps mostly involving flying boulders since this is, after all, an active volcano. What makes it so problematic is that this is the single way to Nighon and you want to go there rather soon, especially if you have Sorcerer in your party as single Water Magic Master is here. Invisibility is once again your best friend.
    • In Might and Magic VIII:
      • Baltazar's Lair. Its enemies are Tritons, which can be tough if you accidentally wander in here too soon. A bit worse is the fact that they rise from water, something no other enemy does, which can and will catch you by surprise the first time you get here. However, the true reason for this level being that one is Water Temple-esque changing of water levels, except with more switches, and one of mainline quests involves draining it all. Have fun!
      • Wasp's Nest. If you fear wasps, this dungeon full of oversized wasps will be your nightmare personified. Even if you do not, however, it is still absolutely dreadful dungeon to deal with - there are many,many wasps that gang on you all at once in small entrance rooms, which make hard to split them apart and deal with them that way. The biggest problem is that advancing to next floors requires perfectly timed jumps that are very hard to pull off. Thankfully there is nothing except Royal Wasp Jelly.
  • That One Sidequest:
    • The promotion quests in Might and Magic VI can be rather difficult, especially for the second promotion:
      • The promotion from Crusader to Hero requires you to slay a dragon. His cave is in Mire of the Damned, which is full (and we do mean full) of skeletons, specters and harpies. You can come to Darkmoor village, which is quite close to the cave, however the village itself is also occupied by monsters, so you need at the very least to kill those if you don't want to be chased to the cave. And you have no room inside his cave to fight him; the battle is at knife fight range.
      • The promotion from Cavalier to Champion is even worse. For these you must retrieve Warlord's discharge papers from Warlord's Fortress. Problem is that to do it, you must get to the other end of the Fortress and it is infested with brutal enemies such as Cuisinarts, which are on same power level as Dragons but faster and more mobile. Worse yet, in tight passages there is no way to avoid them (and even if you could they still have ranged magic attack), so you must fight them.
      • The first promotion of Archer is also difficult, since you need to get the keys for the Dragon Towers from Icewind Fortress. There are things such as Ogres and the place itself is surrounded by a ton of Magyars, who can be difficult for someone who's trying to do this quest early.
    • In Might and Magic VII, there is also a plenty of irritating promotion quests:
      • The Light promotion quest from Cavalier to Champion can be this for one simple reason - the quest is to win five times at the Coliseum at Knight difficulty, and the Coliseum's difficulty scales disproportionately to your level. So, by the time you're around level 30, you'll be fighting armies of the toughest monsters in the game like Dragons, Titans and Droids - battles that would be difficult for a max level party with top line gear. Players in the know deliberately keep their level low until they've completed the quest.
      • The Ninja promotion quest in Might and Magic VII. Your goal is to find the "Tomb of the Masters", and you're given a scroll with a cipher (whose keyword is on another scroll located in the School of Sorcery in Bracada). Then you need to use letter substitution to decode the cipher (which, by the way, you can't do in the game itself), only to learn that while it tells you how to get into the Tomb of the Masters, it says nothing about where that tomb actually is. (You can get a vague clue about its location from a "Journal Excerpt" in your castle dungeon, which does nothing to relieve the frustration.) Then, when you finally find the tomb and open it, you learn that you must not only enter the Tomb but also loot a certain item from one of its sarcophagi (which you weren't told about when you got the quest). Guide Dang It! indeed.
      • Same game's Wizard promotion quest is probably tied with Thief below for the hardest first promotion quest. For one, it's a Fetch Quest with six golem parts scattered over entire Erathia. Second, most of the parts are on worst possible places such as an out-of-hand island with Pirate Den in Tatalia, another out-of-hand island infested with Water Elementals in Avlee, or on cliffs of desert infested with Harpies in Deyja. In other words, prepare to run a lot because most of these monsters are way out of your league when you're most likely to attempt it. Of course, most of chests containing parts are trapped, so even if you survive the run to the chest (assuming you know which one it is) you might get blown to smithereens if someone in your party does not know Disarm Trap. On top of that, there are two golem heads and while using the bad one will not fail the quest, it will cause the Golem you assemble and bring to Harmondale castle to attack you.
      • Thief's promotion quest requires you to steal a vase from a small and heavily guarded dungeon. Almost impossible even with invisibility. If you get the wand with Paralysis spell, then this quest will be miles easier, but otherwise good luck.
      • Same game's promotions to Archmage and Lich. Both require you to enter the training ground of the opposite path (ie Walls of Mist in Celeste if you follow the Dark path and Breeding Zone in The Pit in the other case). The opposing city is obviously not happy with your choice and will attack you on sight, which is especially bad in The Pit (residence of many Demonic Spiders). The Dark path compensates it by the fact you need to complete whole Walls of Mist (since the Jars are in the locked room where the exit is), which will probably take longer than your invisibility allows (though there are few 'green' spots to recast it), while in the Breeding Zone you need to get in first third or so then get out of there via hidden path. Of course once done you need to trek out of both places and the cities.
    • Since in Might and Magic X the Runepriest is rather broken, the creators of course tried to offset it by making the connected promotion quest rather difficult. The task is to reach Sudgerd and light the fires on second floor (read: traverse entire dungeon). To even get there, you need the Blessing of Ylath, which is available only halfway into Act III once you reach Karthal, so you cannot get it done fast even if you could handle the enemies. Barring the foe composition of Vantyr Range where Sudgerd is, the dungeon itself houses Dark and Fire elementals (hardiest of the lot) as well as shadow watchers (basically endgame enemies), but the main roadblock is an ambush on the second floor by dozen of these things in great hall while the path you just came gets blocked a barrier (a trick that the game rarely pulls), so it is impossible to fall back or find a spot without being exposed from three sides. To add insult to injury, the quest itself becomes accessible just after completing Act I so it can taunt you while you can't complete it.
  • Underused Game Mechanic: In X getting pushed by enemies seems like an important strategic point early on. In fact, the second boss, Mamushi, is fought on top of Lighthouse and if he knocks you back while you're on the edge of arena, you will fall and get Game Over. Too bad this is basically the only fight where this is employed against you, as it would make for potentially interesting battles.

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