Prince of Kitties

- HP and SP never regenerate on their own - Potions, spells, etc. restore twice as much HP or SP as usual It might be interesting to see how this affects game balance.

Because it would be nice to make the game a little friendlier to non-scumbag adventurers. (Taking some hints from Sil...) - Successfully applying any magical effect to a monster or NPC - charm, sleep, curse, etc. - gets you 5 XP. - Identifying an unknown item yourself (without help from a sage) gets you 10 XP. - Encountering any creature or NPC for the first time in a scenario gets you 15 XP. - Entering a new dungeon, town, or wilderness square gets you 20 XP. Also: add an option to require an extra keystroke (probably 'a' while in combat mode) for melee attacks. tl;dr you usually have to kill at least one person/critter to finish a scenario, but it would be nice to not have to kill *every* hostile thing you encounter just to gain experience. Sound cool?

Ah okay. Not sure yet what you're missing, but you can't get anything new done at the mage school unless Astervis comes along with you.

Hmm. Have you talked to Astervis yet? BTW I'm starting an AtG run like right now, so I'll be at that part at some point... Maybe this weekend? Not sure, it's a huge scenario.

Ugh... I would try to help you but I can't quite remember this one. I think it has something to do with disks and rope and a robot? I don't remember a Colbin... I do remember another guy you had to talk to, and having to wait 10+ days for him because of brokenness in the original BoE engine (which can be fixed by unchecking a compatibility option in CBoE, thankfully). Let me see if I can remember. - Have you talked to the hermit wizard guy yet, and gotten him to analyze the cuiniform tablets? - Have you tried to talk to him again when he was supposed to be finished? - Have you gone back to the old magery school and fought an escaped Efreet? (I forget if that's in the right order.) And darn, I really need to get out that scenario and actually finish the thing some time. I promised myself I'd do that at some point, when I had the time... But I seem incapable of maintaining my motivation past the Troglo part. Grr.

Pretty good actually. You can find alchemical stuff strewn about the caverns in various places. Not sure there's enough of it to play without magic though. ... Hmm. Actually now that you mention it, this is an interesting idea. The skill points freed by avoiding magic could be dumped into Luck. The main problems are a) You won't be able to hit anything reliably, and everything will be able to hit you reliably. If somehow (a) does not apply, spellcasters can slow and curse you until it does. Basically, the way the game is designed, I'm not sure it's possible to play most scenarios without a reliable source of Bless. (Though if Strength potions are available one could stock up...)

Gemini never joins the party AFAIK. There are a few other NPCs: - Byrn will join you if you have a really really good reputation. - There's a legendary archer who you can recruit - There's a Slith priest who you can recruit in the final chapter I think that's it for "permanent" NPCs.

... Giving up, this guy is not even remotely challenging. If I want to have any fun I'll need a build that doesn't make mincemeat of everything. (Yawn.) Maybe magic-only? That could be interesting, too bad spell points are capped at 150.

Finished off the Slith bandits. 10 Str 3 Dex 4 Int 10 Edged 3 Defense 3 Mage 3 Priest 2 Assassination 4 Luck 98 HP, 34 SP On to the actual plot.

Mushroom cavern mostly cleaned out... 10 Str 3 Dex 4 Int 10 Edged 2 Defense 3 Mage 3 Priest 3 Luck 65 HP, 19 SP

Finished the cave, now level 8 with 10 Str 3 Dex 4 Int 10 Edged 3 Mage 3 Priest 40 HP, 18 SP Next up, the mushroom cavern.

A few minutes in, he's survived two Goblin ambushes in passages north of Fort Silver and is now level 3. His stats are 6 Str 2 Dex 2 Int 8 edged 3 Mage 3 Priest 15 HP, 18 SP Next up, the Goblin cave itself...

Meet Matthias: Matthias is a wimp. He's a bit sickly, not very good at magic, and potions don't work for him. He's a got a little training with a sword, and that's basically it. (He has no advantages, and all disadantages except Chronic Disease. Originally he had that too, but I had to remove it because it kept killing him during overland travel. ) The Imperial Military figured they could send him down to Avernum to get him out of everyone's hair, and maybe shut up the Avernum officials who kept wanting more soldiers. Unfortunately he landed right in a BoE scenario... His starting stats are: 6 Strength 6 Edged weapons 3 Mage spells 3 Priest spells 6 HP, 18 SP Let's see where this goes.

Talk to the Slith researcher at the operations center about mushrooms, that will get you started on finding Konax Minoc. It's a bit involved (and may cost you some NPCs if you're not careful).

To beat this dead horse just a little more: My earlier analysis of skills was actually pretty flawed, because it doesn't take into account how hugely important it is to gain levels. Especially because more levels means you can raise strength, luck, and weapons specialties. Also, weapons skills do in fact boost hit chance (and apparently damage). It's just not visible in the stats for some reason. Not that this matters; I have almost no spare time now, and will probably never make it to the end of ATG. Ah well. Edit: anyway, upshot is: if you want no challenge at all, start a singleton like so... Race: Human Abilities: Cave Lore, Woodsman, Highly Alert 10 Strength 3 Mage Spells 3 Priest Spells From there, raise a weapons specialty first up to 6 or so, putting the spare points into SP. Then Intelligence to 4, then Dexterity to 3; then just specialize however you want, because nothing will be able to stop you.