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Kelandon

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  1. I'm probably going to stop making comments to this effect soon, because I'm not sure that it's helpful, but I'm going to toss this in one more time. I understand that you're becoming frustrated at points, and part of it is that I probably overdid the difficulty of certain parts. If I ever were to make a kind of decade-later bug-and-continuity-and-balance fix version of Bahs (which I've toyed with from time to time), I'd tone down the Catacombs. I would tinker with one other part that you probably haven't gotten to yet, too. But part of it is how you're approaching things. For example, there was a moment in the most recent episode when you said, "I don't really care about the shades," and then you spent the entire next turn fighting shades instead of fighting the enemies that you cared about. I thought this was weird. Sometimes you're making things harder for yourself than they need to be.
  2. Blessing and hasting at least your warriors in basically every combat is going to be very useful in most BoA scenarios. Bahssikava and Exodus (and most of the rest of BoA scenarios) have the potential to be extremely frustrating if you don't bless and haste most of the time. It doesn't require much spell energy, given your level (8 to bless both warriors, 12 to haste both warriors). I don't think you rarely use the high-level (Arcane/Divine-branded) spells. You've used them in almost every combat that I've seen. I would recommend using them a lot less than that. Most of them are not worth it most of the time. For example, if you're fighting something that is stronger than what Arcane Summon summons, then Simulacrum is better than Arcane Summon (unless Simulacrum can't be used), and Simulacrum uses fewer spell points. Divine Host is almost always a bad idea, because it uses as many spell points as three Cloud of Blades spells or two Divine Fire spells (or 15 Healing spells), which are almost always better. Healing and Bolt of Fire are basically free; everything else should be rationed. And yes, I'd also recommend putting some other high-level scenario in between Bahssikava and Exodus so as to strengthen your party before you deal with the monstrosity that is Exodus. Maybe Canopy and/or Backwater Calls? They were both high-level scenarios released around the same time as Bahssikava (late 2004/early 2005), which might give a flavor of what BoA was like at the time.
  3. So I fell off watching for a bit, but I started getting curious because of all the, you know, rage. I have a few comments. * There's a walkthrough packaged with the scenario (HINTS.txt). You may want to look at it. * The current version of Bahssikava has a kind of raw, not totally polished feel to it. (For example, being able to rest in the Deeps but not being told anywhere in Ancient Bahs that you can rest in the Deeps.) The reason for this is the sort of odd creation history of the scenario; it was my first, and I didn't really know what I was doing, and I added a bunch of things after release to respond to various criticisms. Pushing on every corner, backtracking a lot just to check on things, and that kind of thing will definitely be a part of what you have to do. * This scenario wants you to be pretty darn sneaky and not accept much of anything at face value. That thing you did where you just ran past the slith avatars to get to the Catacombs? Do more of that kind of thing. Try to figure out what you actually must do (e.g., get to the Catacombs) and what you can skip past (e.g., fighting the slith avatars). This will become much, much more important as you work your way through the Catacombs. * Put another way, the usual signals from Spiderweb games don't work here. If you find that as you walk a particular way, you encounter something that kills you, that doesn't mean you shouldn't walk that way (as it ordinarily would in a Spidweb game). Instead, it means that you need to be sneakier about how you walk that way. A few reloads will inevitably be necessary, especially in the Catacombs. * You're going to encounter more slith avatars very soon. Remember how you dealt with them the first time you encountered them. * The scenario is a lot easier at level 45 or even level 50. You don't have to do the same kind of sneaking. (To be honest, at this point, my favorite way to play Bahs is with a god party.) But you will be able to finish it at level 35. * Your tactics are getting better, but they're still sub-optimal. Acid doesn't really do anything for high-level parties and high-level monsters. Summoning is of limited use; I would rarely recommend it. Buffs are critical; you need to be blessed and hasted basically every moment of every combat. Invulnerability is incredibly powerful for high-level parties; you can get it from your potions and from Arcane Shield (albeit very temporarily). Where they can be used, Capture Mind and Simulacrum are very powerful for high-level parties. (You should be using Simulacrum way, way more.) Cloud of Blades, as you're finding, also does pretty well for long combats at high levels. * At the beginning of fighting new types of enemies (e.g., your first encounter with slith ghosts), take a minute to experiment with spells to figure out the enemies' immunities. If I remember correctly, the slith ghosts are almost entirely immune to magic and poison/acid, but they're pretty vulnerable to fire. So, right now, spells like Divine Fire and Fireblast will do much more for you than, say, Lightning Spray or Divine Retribution. (They're also vulnerable to melee, as nearly everything in this scenario is, so Cloud of Blades is pretty much always a good first offensive spell.) But this will change as you encounter new types of enemies later on. * As you found in the fight at the entrance to the library in Ancient Bahssikava, taking advantage of the shape of the room is important. If you are fighting monsters that are very strong in melee but not strong at range — as is generally true of nearly everything in this scenario — then getting them trapped in a cramped corridor will prevent them from doing tons of damage to you. Even better if you have bows or slings or something — then I might actually summon some stuff to get bodies in the way while I snipe at them from a distance. But generally tight corridors are going to be your friend here. You don't have to fight monsters where they are; see if you can lure them into a corner where they can't attack you as easily. * I was just so accustomed to head-bashing on every possible wall at the time that I made Bahssikava that it didn't even occur to me that a person wouldn't find the tunnel from the Deeps to Ancient Bahssikava. I don't think there is anything else like that in this scenario, but you'd probably do well to step into every nook and cranny you find, just in case.
  4. This topic does scream out to me that it needs to be moved. Unless someone can give a cogent explanation as to what it's doing here in General, I'm going to move it to BoE.
  5. I finally watched an episode because you got to something that I made. Man, the last time I released an update to the HLPM was almost ten years ago (and the last time I did something significant to it was a couple years before that). This is a blast from the past. A few idle thoughts: 1) I stopped updating the Library after a while, so it's missing a ton of later scenarios. But it has early scenarios, up through roughly 2007. 2) Apparently I tinkered with Machrone's dialogue after I last uploaded a version of the HLPM, because the version I have sitting on my computer has a bit more to it than what you saw. Interesting. (And yes, you did see Machrone before. He appears in Buzzard in A Small Rebellion and in Seleucia in Diplomacy With the Dead. You will see him again in nearly all of my scenarios.) 3) Lol at the "easy" combat in the Arena. It's easy in the sense that the monsters are a good deal below your level, although by the time you're level 36, they're still relatively high-level creatures. (Level 30, I believe.)
  6. I had all six of the scenarios that you listed as still missing in the original post. I just sent them to you. I can't swear that they work, but they were all on the Archive before it went down ages ago, so they were all on my computer.
  7. No one has ever mentioned doing so, no.
  8. Right now, the Avernum Saga is listed on GOG at $11.99. I don't remember exactly what Avernum 3 sold for when it was sold by itself, but I think it was $15 or $25. So even if you could buy Avernum 3 by itself now, it would probably be cheaper to buy the bundle. Bear in mind that you're getting the old Avernum 3, though, so it won't look like Avernum: Escape from the Pit, and it may sputter a little on modern computers. As Randomizer said, the re-remake that will look like Avernum: Escape from the Pit is being made now and will be released sometime next year, probably.
  9. To be clear, Krugman is pointing to Augustus, not Julius Caesar, as the leader who ended the Republic. (This is fairly standard in classical scholarship; Rome transitioned from the Republic to the Principate at this time.) Many similar points could be made about Augustus, but we may as well get the person right.
  10. I think it's the three candidates with the most Electoral College votes, so Johnson isn't necessarily the third. They could pick whoever they want to come in third place.
  11. It's the same. I added a variation, but it's otherwise almost identical.
  12. As far as my scenarios go: * Bahssikava and Exodus are intended to be played with the same party, Bahssikava first and Exodus second. I originally intended for Bahssikava to be played after the four main scenarios, but some people like putting a TM scenario (Canopy, I think) in between. * Lord Putidus, Nobody's Heroes, and The Magic are all intended to be played with new parties that are pretty close to the default new party. Nine Variations on Point B isn't really a utility scenario, but it isn't really a real scenario either.
  13. This would probably be a good idea. If you're level 20 now, you will have 19 points to put in the core attributes in the upper-left (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Endurance), 2 points to put in the specializations in the lower-left (Battle, Utility, Efficiency), and 38 points to put in the skills on the right. You can always put points into the same thing over and over again, or you can put points into different things. So, just as you can raise Dexterity over and over again or you can raise Dexterity and Intelligence, so too can you raise the Battle Specialization twice or Battle once and Utility once (for example). But you can see this process if you retrain.
  14. You've said this before, but I think I just disagree. I didn't even have to reload. This was a pretty easy fight for me.
  15. Jill Stein did support a GMO ban.
  16. Yeah, in Avadon 3 I beat Redbeard on the first try (on Hard, with the poison and the hair). It seemed a lot easier than earlier Redbeard fights.
  17. Generally, you can't not learn about them. Typically, a companion will disappear and you have to track them down.
  18. They're generally color and background. Generally, your responses don't affect events later in the games (except in clear character sidequests — if you refuse to help your companions in these, there can be consequences later). You don't necessarily have to pay attention to these, but they can be helpful in understanding the choices you face in the endgame. There's no need to re-read them.
  19. I had the same thought. This totally works if the game is just about open-ended exploration not focused on any particular character. But Redbeard is so central to Avadon 3 — to the whole Avadon series, really, but especially Avadon 3 — that it's problematic not to do anything with his character. He changes from Avadon 1 to Avadon 3, but in changing, he loses depth, and I have trouble being interested in him unless there's something else giving him depth (such as a backstory). Again, I think it's the GF3 problem: war has now broken out and what was interesting subtext has now become text, so your options narrow and characters are more directly forced to choose sides and take simpler paths. But at the same time, that sort of game has to be handled a little differently so as to keep everyone from becoming a caricature of themselves. I wonder how different it would have been if the player had been given a background in one of these countries (i.e., in Avadon 3, you're from Dharam and actually have a family, a past, etc.). To some extent, the companion Hands are supposed to simulate that, but I felt really distant from the other Hands in Avadon 3 (more so than in Avadon 1). Maybe because they travel with Redbeard without you? I'm not sure. But in Avadon 1, I might have cared more about the Free Roads if I had actually been from the Wyldrylm (or whatever — insert your favorite conflict here), and if some of the plot had revolved around that (going back to family and friends and having to choose between carrying out Avadon's orders and doing what my people wanted). I don't think it was as badly needed there, but it might have helped in Avadon 2, and I think it would have helped in Avadon 3.
  20. I think that's true and significant. I felt a sense of progression and movement in Avadon 3 that I had not felt in the previous two games as we moved from home base to home base. This could have created a really cool effect if where we were progressing and moving to was somewhere new or startlingly different. But because it was just hopping around to tie up loose ends in places we'd already been, it lost a bit of its effect. I think this is also true. Redbeard seemed far more out of control in Avadon 3 than in Avadon 1. In Avadon 1, when you tell him that you think the reason that he is telling you one of his long-winded stories is that he is advanced in years and that leads to rambling stories, he laughs uproariously. In Avadon 3, when you say anything even a little bit doubting him, he flies into a rage and thinks less of you. But I wish we delved a bit more into that in Avadon 3. Redbeard is such a mysterious figure: where did he come from? Why does he care so much about preserving Avadon and the Pact? Who is this guy, really? We don't get quite enough of that to make the plot really work, I think.
  21. In the vein of this topic for Avadon 2, I thought I'd look into which dialogue options make a difference for the Avadon 3 ending. Here's what I found: FINAL JOB You can become a Hand or an Eye in the endgame regardless of what you say or do throughout the rest of the game. In order to become a Heart, you need to get a flag set over 100. (The flag is (100,6), for anyone who wants to edit scripts.) In general, only what you say directly to Redbeard appears to affect the flag. You can say anything you want to anyone else, and it generally makes no difference. Also, in general, telling Redbeard what he wants to hear increases the flag, and defying him decreases it. For example: Another example: There are tons of these, so I can't list all of them. However, basically everything that you can say or do that acknowledges Redbeard's authority, calls him strong, provides him the backing that he wants in any given situation (staying silent when Redbeard argues with Deniz at the Green Refuge, backing him up verbally or by being ready to fight when he confronts Callan), or suggests that you will be harsh with Farlanders and rebels adds between 3 and 5 to this flag. Any equivocal answer ("I'm just following orders") does nothing. (Anything said to anyone other than Redbeard, as long as Redbeard isn't present, also does nothing, as far as I can tell.) Anything that isn't what Redbeard wants to hear — telling him he's weak, he should show mercy, etc. — subtracts from the flag. There are a few moments that you might expect to impact the flag that don't. For example, your advice on Callan's final fate doesn't impact the flag in any way. KILLING PEOPLE As far as I can tell, you can kill just about everyone with impunity. * In Fort Foresight, you have the opportunity to attack Envoy Dirran. The text around doing so gets pretty dark, but all that happens is that Dirran is replaced by a different person — Envoy Vega — who says the same things in the endgame. * I can't find any consequences at all of killing Hand Taroe in Fort Foresight. * I can't find any consequences at all of killing Zhethron. * Obviously, killing Velusa has consequences in the Temple of Velusa, but as far as I can tell, there is no additional benefit to killing Velusa that you don't get from challenging and then asking for forgiveness from Velusa (other than dropped items). Hand Hahn rewards you the same way. OTHER Obviously, giving Redbeard poison and giving Dirran hair from Redbeard make the final battle easier if you choose to fight Redbeard. I don't see that they significantly impact the ending otherwise, though. It's not clear to me that anything else matters, in terms of restricting your endgame options. Questions? Corrections? Post them here!
  22. I was hoping for something out in Svorgald, really, for this very reason. But I guess part of the issue here, as Slarty sort of pointed out, is that the world was complicated but not deep; it consisted of a ton of things, but they each could be described in a few sentences — or even just a few words — and once you had met everyone and seen everything the first time, there was nothing more to them. I'm struggling to think of anything that I learned about a major character that I didn't already know from a previous game. If Avadon 3 was going to be so much about Redbeard — as it ended up being — then we needed to hear more of his backstory than we did. How did he get to be so harsh? Who was he before he was Keeper? We get bits of answers, but he mostly avoids the questions, and I think there is essentially nothing new. This should have been Star Wars Episode 3, but it wasn't even that. And I want to emphasize again that this is all mostly nitpicks of a generally enjoyable game. I thought it was good. I just thought it didn't live up to its potential.
  23. Following on topics like this for Avadon 1 and Avadon 2, I'm posting spoilerific thoughts about Avadon 3 based on my first playthrough. WHAT I DID I played on Hard with a Tinkermage main character. I followed a path similar to what I did in my second playthrough of Avadon 2 (detailed in the link above): Tinkermage primarily relying on Shaman and Tinkermage companion support, heavily using turrets and summons to distract enemies while the Tinkermages and Shaman took them out at range. For most characters, I boosted Dexterity, but for the Shaman and Sorceress, I boosted Intelligence. I always focused on range attacks and Efficiency Skills, but I avoided Turret Craft for the Tinkermages. For most of the rest of the characters, I boosted the Utility Skills to get summoning and buffs, but for the Sorceress, I boosted Battle Skills to get direct-damage spells. In general, this played pretty well; it's probably not optimal, but it was close enough to optimal that I had very few difficulties with all but the very hardest combats, even on Hard. For the most part, I told people to their faces what they wanted to hear. I told Redbeard that he was the true Keeper and should be harsh to everyone, but I also helped all my companions, gave Dirran the hair, etc. It was a little bit of a weird path, because it was overtly two-faced, but no one ever called me on it. Eventually, I decided to fight Redbeard and become Keeper. OVERALL IMPRESSIONS Everything good that can be said about most Spiderweb games can be said about this game. The writing is engaging throughout. The engine adjustments — being able to see where you're going to walk and how many steps that is — are welcome, as always. It's a good game. That being said, it's not a great game, and I was expecting a great game. I think it suffers from the weight of the earlier games. There isn't enough in the plot or characters of this story that is genuinely new. At times, it feels like a rehash — a good rehash, but nonetheless a rehash, without anything that we haven't seen before. PLOT/CHARACTERS If you had asked me to list the most memorable characters from Avadon 1 and Avadon 2, I would list nearly all the repeated characters in Avadon 3: Nathalie, the Corruption, Gryfyn, Dheless, etc. But all we do is tie up loose ends with respect to each one. None actually does anything new or interesting. Consider the Corruption, which I think is probably the most interesting part of Avadon 2. Compare what happens in Avadon 2 to what happens in Avadon 3. In Avadon 2, we see (for the first time) the collapsing Monitor Bases. We see the monsters inside the Corruption. We chase Miranda there and see her descend into madness. We wander through the Core and see multiple origin stories. In Avadon 3, the Corruption barely does anything. It asks for you to finish off Miranda, and maybe Miranda's sequence in Monitor Base C would be interesting if we hadn't heard nearly all of it before. The only new moment is when Redbeard gets infected with the Corruption. It seems like almost every repeated element has the same problem. I loved Nathalie in Avadon 1, but her presence in Avadon 3 is just confusing. Why did she revert to level 1? Also, she lacks the spunk and humor that made her so engaging in Avadon 1. Instead, she just seems to seek power and hate everyone. I was interested to see how the Gryfyn story finally plays out, but it becomes just one boss battle after a dialogue that basically doesn't reveal anything new. I wanted to know why Dheless could come back to life in Avadon 2, and I wanted to get more of his character, but his role became essentially the same as the Wayfarer's role in Avadon 1 — which was fine in Avadon 1, but we've seen that before by Avadon 3. The non-repeated characters (e.g., most of the companion Hands) were not terribly interesting. It didn't seem as though we had a Nathalie or Alcander this time — which was weird, because we had Nathalie again, but without any of the interesting aspects from Avadon 1. But Rudow, Silena, and Botan didn't do much for me. Velusa was probably the most interesting new character, but that was such a brief interaction that it hardly counts. Maybe that was part of the issue: the most extended interactions were with repeat characters (Redbeard and Dheless, mostly), and there weren't very many of them anyway. Avadon 2 felt like a different game from Avadon 1: the scout romance, the Corruption, the direct interactions with Dheless and the Tawon Empire, etc. were all different from Avadon 1. Avadon 3 just feels like a repeat of Avadon 1 and Avadon 2. COMBATS Everything seemed pretty reasonably balanced. A few fights were easier than I was expecting, most notably fighting Redbeard. Redbeard was so tough in Avadon 1 and Avadon 2 that I thought that I would have to reload a bunch of times to figure out the best way through the fight in Avadon 3, but I managed to get through on the first try. On the other hand, I had some issues with the High Lord Golath fight. Maybe it would have been easier if I had known that it was coming, or if I had fled and changed out characters and restocked consumables — I don't know. I never actually hit the level cap. My party was level 29 (except the companion Tinkermage, who was level 30) at the endgame. That's the first time in Avadon that I haven't hit the level cap, which was surprising to me. I was planning my skills for what would happen when I hit level 30, so I never got to see the full payoff. Just like the rest of the game, the combats seemed competent but not truly memorable. I'm not sure that there is a fight that struck me as particularly exciting, like the final circling dungeon in Avernum 1, the Ornotha Ziggurat in Avernum 2, the final Solberg sequence in Avernum 6, etc. Maybe the crystal-placing sequence? FINAL THOUGHTS Unfortunately, I think this game suffers from the same basic problems that made Geneforge 3 not as popular as the preceding Geneforge games. You can get away with the novelty of the setting and series concepts for a game or two, but by the third game, you have to do more to make the game feel fresh. Avernum 3 worked because it introduced a new mystery (who's behind the monster plagues?) and a new setting (the surface), and almost none of the characters repeated from the previous two games. Geneforge 3 suffered from being too similar to the preceding games, and I think that Avadon 3 has the same problem. Don't get me wrong: I liked the game. I just thought it was going to be better. I liked Avadon 1 and Avadon 2 more, I think. But maybe I'll feel differently on a replay — I've always liked Avadon games better the second time than the first.
  24. I just hit this point on my (very slow) first time through the game. I figured out the dialogue options to get what I want without a fight, but then I decided to try the fight. It was a little strange — I managed to whittle down his guards, killing one, before two of my party members died and the third ran out of view, ended combat, revived the other two, and we retreated to the other area. Only two guards followed, so I killed them individually and then went back to deal with Gryfyn. He ran out of one wand and I killed him before he could run out of the other wand. On the dialogue rather than the fight: Gryfyn seems delusional. He's taking credit for the accidental benefits of the war. He intended to destroy the Pact and accidentally made it stronger, and now he's lamenting that he will never get credit for making the Pact stronger. I wanted to shout at him, "That's because you didn't try to make the Pact stronger! It was totally unintentional!" But killing him for betraying the Pact was satisfying enough, even if I couldn't shout at him in the game.
  25. There are Heroes of Might and Magic maps that could be more or less along these lines, if you put the game on auto-combat. I guess there's only a little in the way of skill allocation, but allocating troops is sort of similar.
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