A small character creation attribute exploit

[Alex]

When creating a custom character, all base attributes start at 2 and you get 3 points to distribute freely. First you assign attributes, then skills, then traits. However, you can go back and forth between these tabs.

 

Now, to see the exploit, increase e.g. Intelligence to 5, then get at least 2 levels of Priest or Mage spells to unlock the Improved Intelligence trait, then select said trait, after which you can decrease Intelligence all the way to 1, not 2. After that, you can change skills and traits as you wish. Doing similar tricks for all attributes reduces base attributes to 1 and you get 7 points to distribute freely.

[Lilith]

Interesting. Even with the ability to do so I dunno if I'd want to drop Endurance in the early game where every hit point counts, but specialised characters can at least afford to drop two of Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. (Non-Str-based characters will have trouble wearing much armour early on, but early-game armour isn't much good anyway.)

[Tgiiif_2004]

Yuppers, That's how I change the stats of the characters. I got a level 31 with 53 dexterity.... and other stats are one. Its really good to use... Plus you can buy skill points to add more bonuses after you reach 10 to the stats that have a maximum of 10. For instance, All of my characters got 12 Sharpshooter. GREAT FIND ALEX!!!! ! !

[Slawbug]

Plus you can buy skill points to add more bonuses after you reach 10 to the stats that have a maximum of 10. For instance, All of my characters got 12 Sharpshooter.

That's an intended part of the game and not an exploit.

[Tgiiif_2004]

Of course, I am giving him additional information about stats. He knows how to turn skill points to 1 and switch between them. I think he knows how to do it.

[Alex]

I haven't actually tried it at later level-ups (I was thinking of re-starting and tried different starting builds without exiting the character creation screen; it's fairly easy to stumble upon it that way). If it works the same way there, it might cost up to 2 skill points in order to unlock the "Impoved Intelligence" and "Improved Strength" traits, in the case of pumping only Dexterity. A rather low price for old-school freedom, perhaps.

[Tgiiif_2004]

I restarted my old game and made a new groups of characters with the character creation exploit made them primarily based with Bows and had dexterity. Later I changed them from pure Bow/Throwingwep characters to a melee, priest, mage and a character with dexterity (nearly pure dexterity).

[Squiggymonster69]

Your not gaining anything really doing this. I'm sure you wouldn't want to,go,around with one in any of your stats, maybe a fighter with one int can't see any advantage really.

[Jerakeen]

Uh yeah, a 1 endurance seems like a recipe for disaster really.

[Tgiiif_2004]

Uh yeah, a 1 endurance seems like a recipe for disaster really.

 

It's working for me. ON TORMENT MODE + I have 1 dexterity and level 31 has about 190 hp. and I have to say on torment mode, few places are really hard but you should be about to avoid damage with dexterity, wards, and strategy.

 

I finished TORMENT MODE Avernum 5 with 1 dexterify so its possible but this version is much much harder.

 

ALSO:

I really did wish avernum would have skribbane and Augmented health potions again. I also believe that avernum needs to have the wands, potions, and scrolls much much stronger, Its really useless junk on torment. Invurn. potion is the best imo.

[Slawbug]

Yeah, Endurance's impact on HP is additive, not multiplicative, and is equal to the impact your PC level has by itself. There's some padding on top of that, too. I know there's always someone claiming you need some Endurance on Torment, but IMO that has always been an inaccurate statement. It can be useful short-term early on, if you're getting one-shotted, but long-term it's sometimes not the best choice.

 

It's true that the game isn't really tormenting on Torment, though I suppose it's still harder than G3 on Torment (with Vlish). But Dexterity is not the reason why -- and getting an extra 20 Dex through an exploit is pretty clearly going outside the intended bounds of the game, so that's not really relevant for balance considerations.

[Randomizer]

Endurance is useful beyond not dying in a single highly damaging round for acid/poison resistance. Jeff usually fixes it before release but sometimes the acid damage can last enough rounds to make it the most significant continuing damage.

 

Geneforge 5 betas had acid going 30 or more rounds before it got fixed. You would win the fight and die from acid damage after you ran out of healing and curing pods.

[Slawbug]

I disagree. First, Endurance offers only 2%/point of poison and acid resistance. Even 10 extra points of Endurance (the most that's ever really suggested) will only reduce poison and acid damage by 20% (and that 20% is applied like a piece of armor, not additively with other resistances). There's no way that 20% is so critical to surviving, especially not when pumping your attacks instead can prevent you from being hit by that attack in the first place, because you've already killed the enemy.

 

Second, poison and acid do not deal very much damage to begin with. I tested this last week, actually. There is a simple formula for poison and acid damage (and other corrosive ancillary effects). It is completely unaffected by the power of the originating attack. Instead, the damage has a small base (15, I think, for poison) and adds a fairly tiny percentage of the victim's maximum HP. At the start of the game (when you're getting maybe 2-4% resist total from any points in Endurance, aka, no difference) the base can make this relevant, but even a few levels later, the damage is very, very small compared to the enemy attacks you face on Torment.

 

Third, there are no abilities in A2CS that deal X levels of poison or acid: it's always a set amount, and I don't think it's ever higher than 3 (before boosts, which again, are small, and also before resistance).

 

Fourth, unlike Geneforge, in A2CS you have four PC actions each round -- at least -- and easy access to curing abilities.

 

I'm not sure why a Geneforge beta, of all things, is being used to generate advice for A2CS builds, but it's about time that piece of advice got debunked.

[Slawbug]

Oh man. LOL. Something I just realized... that didn't occur to me before. Since Endurance increases your max HP, adding Endurance might actually cause you to take more damage from ancillary effects in the early game, when the poison addition rate times 5 HP is greater than 2% of the total damage you'd take from poison! Of course, we're talking like a fraction of an HP more per point of Endurance, but this does put the nail in the coffin I think. Lololol.