steelytan

Originally Posted By: madrigan I'm sure all of this is the case, but A4 was my first Spiderweb game and I love it to death. I played through it at least 3-4 times. I know that if you have played A3, A4 can seem repetitive and predictable, but if you are new to the series you are like WHOA WHO IS THIS RENTAR GUY I MUST STOP HIS VERY ORIGINAL AND EVIL PLOT. Yeah, I loved A4 too, and I felt much the way you did about the plot. I was hooked so much that I slept 4 hours and consumed all of 2 glasses of water (no food) in the first 24 hours after downloading the game. And that just got me most of the way through the demo area. Thinking about this topic after my post, I found myself feeling nostalgic for that plot. But even though A1 isn't as smooth, even though the plot's a bit thin, it has this coolness factor that A4 doesn't have. Kind of like LPs versus CDs. So I'm looking forward to A2 and A3.

Sure it's been covered before here, but I just have to say that I now understand why some of the old Avernum fans were complaining about A4. A1 is just plain cool. Bigger, more varied world--cool Lots of secret doors--cool Light doesn't work in some areas--cool Spell Points all drained before Adze-Hakaai--cool Creatures you can't just mindlessly target and blow to bits (black shades and guardians)--cool Walking on Lava--cool Dumbfounding--cool Random arrangement of party at beginning of combat--cool Dungeon puzzles (teleporters, wheels, runes)--cool Goblin puzzle ("pierce them both")--way cool Bailisks that ACTUALLY TURN YOU TO STONE--cool Dykes--cool I miss anything?

Duh. That was it. Thanks!

Playing A1 one day, in the Slith areas near Fort Dranlon, I recall that I found a cave near a slith village I had cleared out. I tried to enter and was told there was a carving of a slith warrior on the door, but that my party wasn't strong enough to move the door. Now that we have more strength, I'm looking around for that cave, but I can't find it. Anyone know where it is and what you do to get in? (I can't find the cave on the A1 annotated map either.)

Actually, I think I've discovered an easier way to kill Nashazzar. If you wait to attack him and instead work your way around the edge of the room, you can kill all of the imps without provoking Nash. It's important, for some reason, not to cluster your party up around one imp, because then Nash will attack. I had a slith warrior, nephil warrior, human mage, human priest. (I can't remember the levels they were at, but I'm pretty sure around 26). I started by leaving the mage and priest back in the stairwell and having my fighters provoke 5 imps with range weapons. When the imps came in, I hit them with the fighters, lightning bolt, and smite. Once they were dead, I brought the mage and priest into the room and moved the fighters further down. Repeated the technique, one warrior on each side of the room. After I attacked the last imp, Nash finally decided he'd had enough and attacked. I was able to focus fire on him and take him out without too much difficulty, though I constantly worried about losing the heat shielding. I did lose the mage to the hot room in the last round, so she must not have gotten enough protection from the dispelled imps, but everyone else was fine. I don't remember Nash agreeing to pay tribute to me; I just took him down, collected the jade halberd (great weapon), and left. I still got Melanchion's reward after completing the fourth tribute quest.

By the way, thanks to all for the advice. This is my third time playing through the demo area, and everything's running much more smoothly. Cheers,

Originally Posted By: Iudexter Also keep in mind that the high accuracy reduction armor pieces are often worthless. Armor damage reduction is all multiplied together. When your reduction before adding heavier armor is already 50-60%, upgrading a 3% helmet to a 5% helmet will make almost no visible difference, etc. Right. Actually, when I glanced through the instructions that come with the game, I realized that tin helmets are worth even less than I thought, since the 5% damage reduction isn't a flat reduction off 100% but comes out of whatever percentage is left after other pieces of armor have been applied.

Thanks for the crunchy stuff; I couldn't find it looking at other threads. I'm just going to go with the Synergy party pack: 1) Melee (nephil or human) EW/DT 2) Pole/thief (slith) EW/DT 3) Priest/archer (nephil) DT/PS 4) Mage/minor archer (nephil or human) DT/NM But I do have a question about how far to drive the archer traits for the warriors. In my A4 games, once my melee fighter picked up a lot of armor, he couldn't hit with his ranged attacks (toward the end of the Eastern Gallery). I was always reluctant to spend SP on Dex because I didn't think I'd get as much return on that investment as I would pushing for Parry and Riposte. (I also found that a high gymnastics score was worthless in the last third of the game.) How far do people push archery for melee fighters? Is it worth spending SP on Dex? Cheers,

I'm gearing up for a leisurely trip through A5, and I'm wondering if anyone could share some advice on traits for my Nephil Archer. My A4 party had a FoF Mage; I liked being able to cast 2 spells a round once I had the mercuric leather. In that campaign, I regretted not giving my Nephil Archer FoF since all he did was shoot off one arrow each round. However, from what I've read, it seems for my A5 party, I'd do well to give everyone EW or DT (including magic users) because of the fatigue reduction that blademaster gives. So I'm left choosing two of three traits for the Nephil: DT, FoF, and Deadeye. I hear people saying FoF isn't as good with the new movement rules, but it seems to me that it would still give the archer the advantage of being able to shoot twice each round once he picks up something mercuric. Question is, would I be better off with Deadeye and DT, waiting for the double shot until more AP bonusing items show up? Anyone try running a FoF archer through to the endgame? The rest of the party: Slith Soldier EW Nephil Mage DT Nephil Priest DT Planning to play on hard. Actually, I just read the Death of the Hybrid thread, and it sounds like a pure archer (plus tool use) isn't such a hot idea. But I'm interested in people's thoughts.

I have a question about reducing the damage my Nephil Archer is taking on Torment mode. I started out ramping up Dex, Bow, and then sharpshooter. By the end of the intro (Motrax Caves) I was pretty happy with the damage he was dealing out; what hits he took I could heal without difficulty. I knew that life was going to get tougher in the Chitrach warrens, so I started investing SP in strength and then gymnastics in the hopes that I would be able to somehow dodge Chitrach attacks. The idea was to be able to use light armor--the Mercuric Leather at one point, the sniper's vest later on. The problem was that I didn't seem to be able to do much to keep Chitrachs from hitting me (I know, it's torment mode, they'll hit more often), and then I was taking huge amounts of damage from poison. More than a couple of Chitrachs could get me into trouble. And while I invested SP in Gymnastics (and a few in hardness), I wasn't boosting sharpshooter, so he was becoming less effective as a fighter. (Meanwhile, my mage was dealing out huge amounts of damage with firebolt and lightning, and my priest was dealing huge damage with smite). Once I got to the great cave, I put on the sniper's vest. This came in handy for the battle with the vahatani in the basalt caverns: I was doing good damage to the crawlers in the basement, and I think that Gymnasics might have kept me alive when the vahatani mage delivered a lightning bolt spell that took out my elite warrior (who had plenty of parry ranks). But again, when I started fighting the wyrmkin in the Scree caves, my archer was getting hit every time and taking upwards of 50 pts of magical damage with each shot. Yes, he was wearing the sniper's vest, so I'm not that surprised, but I was hoping that with 5 or 6 ranks in gymnastics that he would have a chance of dodging at least some of those attacks. (My 4 points in hardness didn't seem to make a difference with the magical damage; I've read some posts that council against investing too much in this area, though). I was looking for a way of buffing his defensive capabilities that didn't require swords and shields because I like having him be able to use the Chronos spear. With fast on feet, he usually gets another action point, and 2-3 arrows per round are nice to have. I'm going to try starting again from the end of the intro section and instead boost dex and luck in the hopes of increasing my dodge chances. I wonder how two points of SP in luck plus Bragg's clover boots will help out versus the Chitrachs. I'm hoping that a smaller investment (compared to investing in gymnastics) in dex and luck will allow me to put more SP than before into bows and sharpshooter. Sure, I know that I probably can't get away from having a glass canon, especially if I'm eschewing shields, but I was wondering if people had any thoughts on whether gymnastics was more useful than dex + luck. I've seen people recommend gymnastics over parry, but I'm pretty happy with what parry has done for my elite warrior who, with his 90+ armor rating, only faces threats from magical attacks. Maybe I'll just have to reconcile myself to balancing out the character a bit by dropping the sniper's vest and equipping a massive breastplate once I get to the great cave. But--did anyone do some concrete tests comparing gymnastics with high dex? Cheers,

I have a question about reducing the damage my Nephil Archer is taking on Torment mode. I started out ramping up Dex, Bow, and then sharpshooter. By the end of the intro (Motrax Caves) I was pretty happy with the damage he was dealing out; what hits he took I could heal without difficulty. I knew that life was going to get tougher in the Chitrach warrens, so I started investing SP in strength and then gymnastics in the hopes that I would be able to somehow dodge Chitrach attacks. The idea was to be able to use light armor--the Mercuric Leather at one point, the sniper's vest later on. The problem was that I didn't seem to be able to do much to keep Chitrachs from hitting me (I know, it's torment mode, they'll hit more often), and then I was taking huge amounts of damage from poison. More than a couple of Chitrachs could get me into trouble. And while I invested SP in Gymnastics (and a few in hardness), I wasn't boosting sharpshooter, so he was becoming less effective as a fighter. (Meanwhile, my mage was dealing out huge amounts of damage with firebolt and lightning, and my priest was dealing huge damage with smite). Once I got to the great cave, I put on the sniper's vest. This came in handy for the battle with the vahatani in the basalt caverns: I was doing good damage to the crawlers in the basement, and I think that Gymnasics might have kept me alive when the vahatani mage delivered a lightning bolt spell that took out my elite warrior (who had plenty of parry ranks). But again, when I started fighting the wyrmkin in the Scree caves, my archer was getting hit every time and taking upwards of 50 pts of magical damage with each shot. Yes, he was wearing the sniper's vest, so I'm not that surprised, but I was hoping that with 5 or 6 ranks in gymnastics that he would have a chance of dodging at least some of those attacks. (My 4 points in hardness didn't seem to make a difference with the magical damage; I've read some posts that council against investing too much in this area, though). I was looking for a way of buffing his defensive capabilities that didn't require swords and shields because I like having him be able to use the Chronos spear. With fast on feet, he usually gets another action point, and 2-3 arrows per round are nice to have. I'm going to try starting again from the end of the intro section and instead boost dex and luck in the hopes of increasing my dodge chances. I wonder how two points of SP in luck plus Bragg's clover boots will help out versus the Chitrachs. I'm hoping that a smaller investment (compared to investing in gymnastics) in dex and luck will allow me to put more SP than before into bows and sharpshooter. Sure, I know that I probably can't get away from having a glass canon, especially if I'm eschewing shields, but I was wondering if people had any thoughts on whether gymnastics was more useful than dex + luck. I've seen people recommend gymnastics over parry, but I'm pretty happy with what parry has done for my elite warrior who, with his 90+ armor rating, only faces threats from magical attacks. Maybe I'll just have to reconcile myself to balancing out the character a bit by dropping the sniper's vest and equipping a massive breastplate once I get to the great cave. But--did anyone do some concrete tests comparing gymnastics with high dex? Cheers,