Trouble loading avernum 3 party into blades of exile

[DOT.COMmunist]

Hey. I redownloaded avernum 3 and boa to give them a replay after like 5 years and i'm about half way through avernum 3. i just tried loading my avernum 3 party into boa and it says the save isnt a valid avernum save. I remember being able to play boa with avernum parties back when i last played through these games, am i doing something wrong or am i misremembering?

 

Thanks, sorry if this is the wrong place for this, it looks like its mostly scenario reviews in here now, but i wasnt sure where else to ask

[DOT.COMmunist]

just noticed the typo in the topic name, it should say blades of avernum, im not actually trying to load my avernum party into blades of exile as that would be dumb as hell

[Niemand]

Quote:

i just tried loading my avernum 3 party into boa and it says the save isnt a valid avernum save. I remember being able to play boa with avernum parties back when i last played through these games, am i doing something wrong or am i misremembering?

I think that you are misremembering; it has never been possible to do this.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Though, I wouldn't be surprised if Ishad Nha has (or could whip up fairly quickly) a spreadsheet to convert them.

[Handyman]

Maybe you could recreate your party using the Blades of Avernum editor? If I recall, all of Avernum 3's artifacts are present in the default Blades of Avernum items. Although honestly, Blades of Avernum scenarios seem to have so many ridiculous items that they may be unusably weak. Is there a way to quickly get the right sort of artifacts for one's party level?

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Handyman

Maybe you could recreate your party using the Blades of Avernum editor? If I recall, all of Avernum 3's artifacts are present in the default Blades of Avernum items. Although honestly, Blades of Avernum scenarios seem to have so many ridiculous items that they may be unusably weak. Is there a way to quickly get the right sort of artifacts for one's party level?

Yes, Terror's Marty created a scenario called Artifacts Hall. It contains all the artifacts from all the different scenarios charted by level range. Quite useful for when you want to generate a party for a high-level scenario but don't want to play through a half dozen scenarios to get all the good loot.

[Niemand]

Quote:

Is there a way to quickly get the right sort of artifacts for one's party level?

The HLPM will sell rare standard items which appear in the four SW scenarios, I think. There's also the Artifacts Hall scenario which had roughly this purpose (although I never got around to trying it out), but it may be fairly out of date now.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Handyman

If I recall, all of Avernum 3's artifacts are present in the default Blades of Avernum items.

Not quite all; Fury Crossbow and Pachtar's Plate, for example, are not present in Blades of Avernum.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Handyman

If I recall, all of Avernum 3's artifacts are present in the default Blades of Avernum items.

Not quite all; Fury Crossbow and Pachtar's Plate, for example, are not present in Blades of Avernum.

None of the epic artifacts from A3 were present in BoA, including the Knowledge Brew recipe. I guess Jeff just figured they would be too ripe for exploitation.

[Niemand]

Of course they can, in general, simply be replicated (with the exception of the Knowledge Brew recipe).

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Niemand

Of course they can, in general, simply be replicated (with the exception of the Knowledge Brew recipe).

It's probably possible to replicate the Knowledge Brew recipe along the lines of the G2 crafting system. Have an NPC say that if you bring him the herbs, he'll make the knowledge brew; then just script he encounter to remove the herbs and give the knowledge brew. Simple really.

[Niemand]

Right, but it will be local to a scenario. There should be no problem making duplicates of Pachtar's Plate, the Fury Crossbow, Black Halbard, and Ring of Endless Magery which the party can carry from scenario to scenario.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Niemand

Right, but it will be local to a scenario. There should be no problem making duplicates of Pachtar's Plate, the Fury Crossbow, Black Halbard, and Ring of Endless Magery which the party can carry from scenario to scenario.

Wouldn't the RoEM be impossible to duplicate because the "restore SP" effect is scripted in that scenario, or am I just not aware that BoA can, in fact, handle that sort of thing?

[Niemand]

Item ability 204: Restores 5 points spell energy for each level of [item ability] strength.

 

This is usually used by items which consume a charge when used, but as far as I know it's perfectly applicable to lasting items, since this is basically what the Eye of Khoth in The Za-Khazi Run does.

[Ishad Nha]

If you only want the stats from being high level, just use Kelandon's High Level Party Maker.

I have never looked at the save files much but, even a slight difference in the formats of A3 and BoA save files would make it impossible to use A3 saves in BoA. You would generate one impossible variable somewhere and the game would crash/refuse to accept the save file.

[Celtic Minstrel]

For clarification, Ishad Nha in his post is (presumably) assuming that you managed to fool Blades of Avernum into believing that an Avernum 3 save file is in fact a BoA save file.

[Ishad Nha]

It is likely that there is an identifying group of digits in the file header that would stop the A3 save file being accepted by the BoA game. Even if it were accepted, it is likely to crash horribly.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

It is likely

Not just likely; it's quite certain that this is the case.

[Grail Shadowblade]

Originally Posted By: Niemand

There's also the Artifacts Hall scenario which had roughly this purpose (although I never got around to trying it out), but it may be fairly out of date now.

 

Actually I know of a version of Artifacts Hall that is up to date, I've been updating mine and I should probably poke TM for his permission to post an updated version and take over maintaining the scenario. Been doing the same with the library in HLPM for the sake of it as well, I had to do something while I rebuilt my laptop >.>

[Kelandon]

If you'd like to contribute your version of the HLPM library, send me a PM or email. I've wanted to update it, but I know nothing about scenarios from the last year or two.

[Grail Shadowblade]

Funnily enough TM said the same thing about Artifact's Hall, I have his blessing to upload it once I tidy it up.

 

I'll need to change a bunch of my book dialogs as they're only relevant to me first, still I can probably do that in the next few days.

 

EDIT: Oh, if you log into AIM with the account in your profile I already have you on AIM. So we can converse there if that's the case.

[Kelandon]

I'm virtually never on AIM. You want tomwatts5 (at) gmail ((dot)) com.