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Lucidus

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About Lucidus

  • Birthday 06/06/1952

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Burgeoning Battle Gamma

Burgeoning Battle Gamma (7/17)

  1. An item has to be equipped in order for its bonuses to apply. Since bones cannot be equipped, there is no way to take advantage of their bonus. (Likewise for the augmented trash, rope, and toadstools.)
  2. I know I'm very late to this conversation, but I tried making a potion with the toadstools(+), and did *not* get a potion(+). (I tried it with every potion containing toadstools.) Another commenter has said the same thing in another thread. I don't know whether Brock was mistaken or the game has changed, but this doesn't work now. By the way, if you give the augmented toadstools to someone already carrying toadstools, they are added to the stack and their distinctiveness is lost.
  3. Usually I just discard the various cursed scrolls and potions that I come across, but on a whim I tried using a Bitter Loss scroll to see exactly what would happen. My character was hit with acid (easily cured) and lost some health (easily healed). He also lost 3200 experience points and gained 10 skill points. For most of the game this would be a terrible trade-off, since that much experience would be enough to add 2 - 3 levels (depending on character traits) and therefore 12 - 18 skill points. It seems to me, however, at the end of the game, when you no longer expect to level up any further, the loss of experience wouldn't make any practical difference, and the skill points could come in handy. Now I'm wishing I had held on to the Bitter Loss scrolls I discarded earlier, just so I could play around with this idea. Has anybody actually tried this? Is there a down side I am overlooking?
  4. Someone double check me (because I am also currently playing the original versions), but one effect of luck for an individual character is that occasionally, even though your hit points may drop to zero, if you're lucky you might not die. Good luck also seems to reduce the odds of being petrified, but I have no idea how the math works.
  5. Thank you, TriRodent. For completeness, I have added that to my list.
  6. This is a minor topic, but I haven't seen it addressed in these forums. If you pay Geoffery in Lorelei 500 coins, he will tell you of someone who had a habit of hiding items in stables, so it's worth searching any stables that you come across. (Just walk around in the enclosed area.) Here is what I have found: Inn of Blades empty box Kriszan 300 coins Lost Isle 225 coins + Dragonskin Gloves Bengaro Bolts of Life Dorngas Heroic Brew Moon wand (sorry; I didn't record what kind) Point Contemplation Shield Ring Several stables contained nothing, including: Porter's Retreat Gidrik Lorelei Fenris Port Spineridge Colchis Bremerton Generally, stables containing horses never seemed to have hidden loot, but empty ones and those with cows and chickens sometimes did.
  7. Counterpoint: I enjoyed the beam/mirror puzzles. The golem spires are by far the most challenging and frustrating puzzle in the game, but solvable with patience and careful attention. The rewards are commensurate, both in game goodies (including some that are 'hidden'), and in satisfaction.
  8. I had no problem getting the reward for replacing the third Crystal Soul, so that issue has not repeated. I divided my treasure stash between two towns and started keeping scrupulous records, and since then I haven't had any further problems with items disappearing. I will chalk this up to a learning experience. Thanks again for your help and support.
  9. Well, if my goal was to trigger an interesting conversation and to learn a few things along the way, I would say I have succeeded. Thank you all for your responses. I have learned a lot, and I appreciate your expressions of sympathy. I did not count all the items that were left in the Ziggurat, but it took me many dozens of trips to Olgai to sell them all, interspersed with visits to the Tower of the Magi and thence to Silverlocke to spend my gold. I know that the Knowledge Brews were actually on the ground in the Tower, because at one point I had picked them up, intending to do some training, and then changed my mind and dropped them again. Likewise, with the Resistance Elixirs: I actually counted my potions and wrote down the quantities. After I travelled to Silverlocke and returned, the Resistance Elixirs were gone. Ess-Eschas, there are still items in the chests in the council chamber, so it doesn't seem that I have encountered the particular bug you mentioned. I am going to dive back in to the game, and I will let you know if I encounter any further problems.
  10. The manual actually says that "each town can only contain a few hundred items. More than that, and Avernum 2 will have to make the less important items (trash, rocks, sticks, etc.) disappear to make room for others." The 200 item limit is, I think, a rough guideline from other experienced players who answer questions on these boards. I'm pretty sure I have seen the number 200 mentioned in this context a couple of times before, but I never understood it to be a hard and fast rule. I included it in my original post just to make it clear that I knew there was a limit. As a counterexample, there were hundreds and hundreds of weapons and pieces of armor strewn around the ziggurat at the exact same time. It took many trips to haul them back to Olgai for sale. The strangest part of this from my perspective is that it was my most valuable items that disappeared. And in response to Thaeris, yes, I will probably invoke the editor.
  11. Thank you. I was really just hoping for someone to commiserate with me. I went back and counted, and there are 163 items remaining on the floor of the Tower of the Magi, in 6 widely-separated piles. (Some of them are stacks of up to 100 arrows, etc.) So there shouldn't have been any problem. I am going to blame it on Windows. I have one day a week when I can play games. I hope that I will be over my frustration by next Thursday.
  12. Last year I installed a Windows partition on my iMac just so I could replay the original Avernum games. I am nearing the end of Avernum 2, and have been thoroughly enjoying myself despite some well-known roughness in the game design and the Windows port. Until today, that is. I had retrieved the Crystal Soul from the Ornotha Ziggurat, and was slogging back and forth repeatedly to sell the huge piles of loot from that dungeon. Along the way I made several visits to Silverlocke to purchase potions, and dropped those potions in the Tower of the Magi with my other loot. After one of those shopping expeditions, I was horrified to discover that all my Knowledge Brews had evaporated! I rushed back to the Ziggurat to see whether I might have dropped them there - Alas, no such luck! - and this time, when I got back to the tower, all my Resistance Elixirs were also gone, along with a few other less crucial items. I am actually quite careful about leaving my valuables in towns. I only keep the best items, I don't stack them all in one spot, and I usually divide them between different towns, but this time, since I was already doing so much running back and forth, I had left everything in the tower. I don't think I had anywhere near two hundred items total (if you don't count the individual units in stacks). I was so discouraged I did not even want to keep playing, and it will probably be some time before I will be interested in returning to the game to finish the final few quests. To add to my joy, after I took the Crystal Soul to the Shrine and reported my deed to the council, the second container in the treasure room was empty, so I didn't even get my reward. All in all, a sad day in Avernum.
  13. I am posting late to this thread, but I hope I can still be helpful. Lperkins, I must say that I am impressed that you remember game play details from almost 20 years ago. While I agree that the spellcaster positioning behavior is a problem, it was something that I quickly developed a 'sense' for. After I had played for a short time, while I did not know exactly how a spellcaster would move, I was certainly able to avoid the disastrous mistakes that are interfering with your game. (This of course only applies to targeted spells; the area-of-effect spells do show a grid of the potential affected area, allowing you to cancel the casting, move to a better location, and cast again.) So I agree with the Paladin: give the games a chance.
  14. Randomizer, I still have my old PowerPC G5, which doubled as a space heater, and the Sony monitor I used with it. They haven't been turned on in many years, but they probably still work. I will have to find a keyboard and mouse to use with them; periphals tend not to last as long as computers (at least, when you are talking about Apple computers). The hardest thing about resurrecting older gear is the software. I used to know someone who was an expert in older versions of MacOS, but he is now thousands of miles away (and I don't know how to reach him online). In the meantime, I will just continue to enjoy the Windows ports of A1 through A6, and then - ta da - Blades! But it has always been my intention to get the older stuff working again. If only I had infinite space and time. (ETA: I also like some games that were never available for MacOS. I suppose I will keep my current iMac as my Windows gaming machine.)
  15. Last year I installed Windows 10 under Boot Camp on my iMac, specifically so that I could play some older games that I love: the original Avernum trilogies, Heroes of Might and Magic III, and a few others. Now Apple has announced that they will be transitioning to ARM processors, and at some future date it will no longer be possible to install Windows on a Mac. I am currently approaching the endgame in Avernum (I have completed all the minor quests, but still have a few things to do, like Bahssikava, before going after the Demon Lord.), and despite the clumsiness of the navigation, I am thoroughly enjoying myself. A few years ago, when the revised trilogy was just coming out, I delayed updating my OS just so I could play through the original games one more time. I was not happy to lose the ability to enjoy these games, and once again I am saddened by the prospect. I don't even want to imagine the headaches it will cause Jeff.
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