A3 - Strange quirks/details (non-plot related, some spoilers included))

[ogot]

Hi, new here. Been lurking (is that still even a thing?) for a few months while rediscovering and rerunning this awesome game with a regular party and then a singleton until I came across some weird stuff and couldn't help but ask/share.

 

1. Toadstools (+) -> (+2 Strength, picked them up in my full-party game while running through the three walls that someone blasts through. I read somewhere, not sure if in the archives or in here, that if you make a potion using them you would get the stated bonus permanently. Tried it, but it didn't work. Did anyone get to find out if/how these stools make you stronger? Pretty sure just having them in your inventory doesn't help. At least with carrying capacity.)

 

2. Unusable stuff like Rope (+) etc -> (Easter egg?)

 

3. Trash (+) -> (+1 Magery! It weighs 8.0 pounds and is worth 0 coins, but would be priceless if it somehow worked. Unfortunately, I totally forgot where I picked them up, I just remember there being a LOT of other trash near it, and for some reason Erika's Tower's rear comes into mind. I'm starting to think random items in the game get generated with a + somehow and am curious to get the non-programmer's version of things.)

 

4. Unlock Doors level 3 works on a certain puzzle-door in the Remote Caverns (the one with crates and runes) -> (Curious if it's by design since quite a few other doors can't be opened by the same spell)

 

5. The pop-up text you get after killing the Dark Wyrms guarding the Jade Halberd at a cave a bit north of our favorite flying lizards, says I get a cold feeling even while near the lava. Is there an invisible debuff I'm not seeing? I'd have thought invisible Dread Curse, lowered resist elements, Resistance or Luck or something but haven't seen/noticed any difference.

 

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6. How come you can't attack the Rakshasa innkeeper in human form at the Erox inn without getting a Reputation penalty?

What if you were in a first run-through, no-reload game and saw the skulls littered everywhere and just decided to do the smart thing: kill the only guy in town who's telling you to eat and drink his wine and is saying he can't smell whatever you're smelling. (Is that weird smell defined in any place?)

 

7. Is there a site where you can read all the text in the books of the game? (the thought of Xian tome spammage makes me want to drop dead)

 

8. Is there a way to have 100% avoidance? Sometimes with lower level monsters the numbers appear to be 0% to hit, but for average to high level monsters the numbers are at 5%. Does anyone know if 5% is the best we can get? At 20 Dex, 15 Defense and 12 Gymnastics, and level 64, summoned Giants are still hitting me with rocks. Noone likes rocks. Being thrown at them.

 

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My current game is going to test

 

9. what happens with the Vahnatai group in Upper Avernum who asks you to help them out with the Chitrachs if you come across them after the gig is up. Besides, why do they need help with those insects anyway? I seem to remember the two races being a couple of levels apart (Vahnatai summoned an Elder Aranea/Demon who summoned Chitrachs).

 

10. Also going to find out if we're still allowed to kill that wandering Empire regiment in Northwest Valorim after

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striking a deal with Empress Prazac

.

 

11. BORING TEXT FOLLOWS:

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Also, for my singleton game I'm trying to find out if it's possible to become a Feisty Slap of Pain kind of guy without cheating gold, rough estimation in progress. Maxed out Barter at 20 (read it in one of the posts here, but it was for A1. I just assumed the soft cap would be the same for A3), so I assumed ALL items in the game to be sold to ideal buyers to get the full 0.6 of their value. To take care of the gold cap I just added how much gold I saved in the file name (my current save file is entitled 5parrynoboon210k XD). Gold saved is going to buy the ingredients for Knowledge Brew at 352 gold per potion from our favorite guy Levy (no Unicorn Horn/Healing Herb spam for massive riches though). At 2/3 done, I can say it's helped a ton with remembering all those tricks for mental math back in school, though the game is taking positively AGES to finish. According to a rough calculation a couple of months ago, I seem to remember needing almost 1 Million gold, around 850kish worth of Knowledge Brews to cap out Strength and Blademaster. They are currently at 34 and 5 respectively but only have 222k saved up, though I've brought almost all useful stats up.

 

Current stats are:

 

STR 34

DEX/INT/END 20

MELEE/BOW/DEF 15

HRD 10

MAGE/PRIEST/ARC 18 -> (ARC might still be needing a boost if needed, although I can get Hsska from his hotel room for the additional Rune Reading)

POT 21 -> (for 94% successful Knowledge Brew brewing since there's a necklace that gives +2 to POT to reach and exceed a 100%)

TOOL 25 -> (for the city treasure rooms rife with traps that make them angry at you, IIRC 29 is needed for the one in Lorelei, so Nimble Gloves was a friend)

NATURE 20 -> (might still need a couple of levels boost as well)

LCK 19

BARTER 20

FIND HERBS 1

BLADEMASTER 5

ANATOMY 1

GYM 12 -> (no Mind Crystal used yet)

PATH 20

MAGERY 8

RESISTANCE 2

V.LORE 8

FIRST AID 5 -> (not upgraded)

 

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Anyway, I hope I wasted enough of your time to warrant a comment/reply. Hoping for a couple of ideas or other quirks in the game you may have noticed which I then need to see for myself XD

[Randomizer]

2) Lots of worthless items, like unsellable trowels, are just there for scenery to fill in the blank spaces. Otherwise you would grab everything that's not nailed down.

 

5) Having a cold feeling is flavor text to warn you that something really nasty is waiting up ahead. It helps to scare the lower level parties away before they die.

 

6) Some places even if it's obvious that the monster is hostile, Jeff makes you not be able to attack first without a penalty.

 

8) I think you can get 100% avoidance, but I'll leave it to someone who can tell you how.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Since you've been lurking you should know to leave your sanity at the door.

[Thoukydides]

Barter does not work exactly the same in A3, though it is quite close. After some limited testing I found that item sellback starts at ~25-37% (possibly more or less?) of an item's value and caps at 45%. Unless you have found someone who gives better or worse deals, Barter will cap at the 45% at as little as level 6 or as high as level 20, depending on which store you sell at. Really bad stores may require more than 20 barter to cap the sellback. In A1, this happens when selling to the armor/weapon merchant in Spire.

 

Have you found anyone who will buy items at about 60% of their value? I hope for your sake that you have, a 15% drop in sellback is going to hurt. Good luck reaching your goal. If you do end up taking advantage of infinite unicorn horns I wouldn't think less of you.

 

Sadly I completely neglected different shop modifiers when testing Barter in A1. Apparently different merchants will not give you the same amount of money for the same item; who could have guessed?

[nikki.]

It may be worthwhile checking out the documentation for Blades of Avernum: there's a bit in those that explain how stores work. I don't have it in front of me, but there were, IIRC, 6 different prices a store could buy/sell at. Figures Jeff used a similar, if not identical, system in the earlier games..

[Thoukydides]

Thanks Terribly Ernest, I had seen that a few months ago while reading about how armor works in Blades, but I completely forgot about it. It turns out that shops have two different adjustments, one for buying and one for selling items, which A1-A3 appear to have as well. However, since Blades lacks the Barter skill, I'd bet the A3 shops don't use the same sellback levels that Blades does.

[nikki.]

I dunno. It's possible that they do, and there's a simple check that reads the party's Barter score, and sets to a better sellback level? That'd have to be tested, of course.

[ogot]

Ouch, I was actually working with 45% all the way up to clearing Troglos, then found the post containing ~60%. So I converted total gold accumulated without buying anything (at the time it was around 190k), *0.6/.45, then subtracted gold spent from the number that came out. Shouldn't have assumed 60% would be maintained, darn those pesky surface dwellers. I got too excited with the 15% increase that I completely disregarded my own test and ran with the one that benefits me more XD Feels like high school Chemistry Lab Reports all over again.

 

WALL OF TEXT:

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I guess the rough estimate is going to get quite a bit rougher (major expenses atm are Knowledge Brew ingredients, going to have to estimate A LOT with how many potions/ingredients found etc, not to mention 5 levels of Magery/Parry at 5600 each, entrance fees for libraries or knowledge of legendary items). At least some lessons have been learned in preparation for the next time this run is attempted, going to try to make it a bit more accurate. In the meantime, 230k saved down to 135k (I really hope that's a conservative enough estimate since it would take an entire run through the game to remember non-item-sale gold like quest rewards and gold picked up, as well as total expenses from entrance fees/legendary item fees).

 

Did a quick check of the vendors at the major cities, Bolton (Voster), and New Cotra's Elspeth (the latter two being places I seem to remember giving good initial prices for your goods pre-Barter) and they're all only buying at 45% at Barter 20.

 

I seem to remember reading a walkthrough mentioning a specific vendor who gives the best prices for our goods pre-barter, but can't find it.

 

BTW thanks a lot for the Trait/Stat effects threads, Thoukydides, helped a ton with the initial concept of the run, and of course, is still a great reference I keep falling back on. I wonder if we can gear around increasing fist damage after prioritizing the usual AP and defense, augmenting +1 melee damage to gear with + melee damage. Also curious what happens if you wear +Strength items at the cap (I'm thinking nothing, but hoping otherwise).

 

Randomizer, I think I get your point about flavor text being a deterrent for our favorite activity (rounding a corner and dying to massively overpowered monsters for your level), but shouldn't the warning appear before the fight itself? Instead the text appears after the fight, so I just assumed something bad happened and went crazy trying to find out what consequences there were for wiping out 6 30-foot Wyrms who were busy taking their lava baths and taking their precious halberd. I guess sometimes we're able to get away with just a verbal reprimand when we interrupt bathing nymphs, or in this case, members of what would have been an awesome 6th plague.

[Yuna Corne]

Does anyone have any light to shed on the seemingly useless (+) items? I've been curious about such myself.

[Trenton.]

Ogot, It is sort of hard to highlight all that text. When you go to type something, click on full reply screen. Then click on the S with a / through it.

 

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This

will happen

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Yuna Corne

Does anyone have any light to shed on the seemingly useless (+) items? I've been curious about such myself.

Jeff got really bored one night?

[ogot]

Edited, thanks. I actually tried using it before posting but thought it looked cluttered and limited the flow of the text. I didn't want to make vague references, but all that literary eye-winking and toe-poking was fun too XD

 

Small update on item 10:

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Loaded my main group's save file, the one where they're right beside Rentar and are about to finish the game with a few clicks. Went back all the way to Northwest Valorim and wiped out that group of Empire soldiers running around, pop-up text before fighting them says it's doubtful anyone finds out. Made sure by going back to Blackcrag and talking to everyone there, noone noticed.

 

So there MIGHT not be any repercussions for killing that specific group. Going to find out with my singleton game for sure by killing them off BEFORE going to Blackcrag.

 

Also, I'm curious if anyone tried to find out

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how much damage Rentar's shield could absorb?

[Yuna Corne]

Almost all of it. I whittled her down a couple points at a time, took out all her spell energy, too, but it's impossible to kill her. I used the character editor to make everyone hyper-powered and it was still only taking a couple points off of her health per hit, and then she would heal herself! So I gave up on it.

[ogot]

Oh darn, I thought it was a limited amount. Something like absorb X damage until it runs out, then keep hitting until she runs out of spell points.

 

Out of curiosity, what damage source were you using? And how were you draining her spell points? (All I can think of is to summon Gazers but haven't tried if it works on her)

[Yuna Corne]

Well, by letting her cast spells on me.

[Earth]

some have killed rentar but can't remember how they did it.

[nikki.]

IIRC, plinking. Just plinking for hours and hours.

 

It's like the Redbeard fight, but with even less incentive, since the game doesn't recognise what you've done.

[Yuna Corne]

I did it for hours and hours. She would always heal and negate all the damage I did. :\ Even when all her spell points were gone, they'd eventually charge up the two points needed to re-heal.

[ogot]

Ernest, what is plinking? (A quick google search resulted in a few links to SF4 videos and "Plinking is a term used for informal target practice with a firearm" as well as

 

"1. Emit a short, sharp, metallic or ringing sound.

2. Play a musical instrument in such a way as to produce such sounds.")

 

Is there a way to find out how many spell points she has left? (Would be awesome if we could also see a mana bar aside from health bar in future iterations of the game XD)

[nikki.]

Plinking is a combat style that focuses on avoiding damage while slowly wearing away at a target. I guess I haven't really heard it used much outside of KoL players, but there you go.

 

And no. You can't tell how many spell points she has left.

[Yuna Corne]

I don't think there's any other way to take her on, actually. And generally by the end of A3 I had buffed up to a point where it was almost impossible to damage me.

[nikki.]

Yeah, sorry I meant I hadn't heard the term "plinking". The actual combat style it describes is pretty common/well-known.

 

This is why I should get proof-readers for any posts I make after 1am.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Terribly Ernest

This is why I should get proof-readers for any posts I make after 1am.

Good luck finding one after 1AM; odds are they're all asleep.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Originally Posted By: Terribly Ernest

This is why I should get proof-readers for any posts I make after 1am.

Good luck finding one after 1AM; odds are they're all asleep.

Well, it's 2:36am now, and my AIM list still has people online.

[ogot]

Update on number 9:

 

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Help Vahnatai versus Chitrachs outdoor encounter in Upper Avernum, South of Ghikra:

 

If you go there after finding out the Vahnatai are the culprits, the outdoor encounter just disappears. That was disappointing I had hoped that we would ally with the Chitrachs or something XD

 

Also read about how you can kill Erika and tried it for myself:

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Cooling Amulets from the Bunker (say that she's responsible for the plagues), otherwise you're killed instantly after dealing the killing blow. She drops a Freedom Charm, Nimble Band, Robe of the Magi and a Diamond Dagger (hope that info is useful to someone).

 

Quickfire + Doomguards was just sad though, also Doomguards + Erika Mass Healing/Healing. This should've been the endgame fight XD

 

Can you just imagine an outdoor encounter where your opponents were spellcasters that could summon or just actually have a single Doomguard, supporting them by Mass Healing/Heal and dealing damage to them through Cloud of Blades and whatnot. And no bridges/window type battlefield, just empty grass all over.

[Yuna Corne]

If only there was a program where you could code your own scenarios and battles...

[ogot]

No I will not be turned into a BOA convert! A3 loyalists hurrah!

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: ogot

Click to reveal..

Help Vahnatai versus Chitrachs outdoor encounter in Upper Avernum, South of Ghikra:

If you go there after finding out the Vahnatai are the culprits, the outdoor encounter just disappears. That was disappointing I had hoped that we would ally with the Chitrachs or something XD

those are quite mindless so that would been quite difficult to make.

[ogot]

Insects are our friends!

 

Finished golem quest, only have Zkal, Footracer and Blackcrag to clear, Strength is now 70, Blademaster 60. Punches going for 275-310 unbuffed, 330 with Divine Aid.

 

Another thing I'm going to try to find out is how big of an effect +1 Melee Damage augments to items is to punches, if it even helps at all. (I hope it doesn't add just 1 damage to punches )

 

Also found 2 friendly troglodytes (1 Warrior, 1 Khazi) wandering the streets of Aminro after it was destroyed. They were fighting their brother troglos XD (Day 154 now)

 

Found Masok wandering the streets of Softport after Angel's Rest is just populated by guards (Day 154). Can't find Shahpur anywhere though, can't turn quest in

 

Encountered another sad item today, Rope (+) (+0 to Pathfinder) at the Tower of the Magi post 160.

[Earth]

you need to talk to prazac to finish shahpur's quest.

[ogot]

Yep, already did. Shahpur herself is missing. Read somewhere that she spawns every 3 days, but only guards exist in Angel's Rest now (also read somewhere in these forums that after Angel's Rest is gone, so is she, but we must not lose hope!). Looked in the surrounding cities (Gidrik, Sharimik, Lorelei, Softport) but couldn't find her. I seem to remember her saying that she was a member of the Anama, so I'll look in the Isle of Bigail towns later (doubtful though).

 

Strength at 80 and Blademaster 70, according to some rough calculations, to max it all out would take around 300k more gold (so around 670k worth of sellable materials x0.45).

 

Loaded my other party to have another crack at RI, Erika summoned 4 Gazers and they proceeded to have fun. Unfortunately, haven't found anything that can deal any sort of damage to her with a maxed out non-edited party. Hope that's changed by this monk in progress.

[Earth]

she might appear to a's rest on days divided by 3 but if a's rest is gone then she's gone too most likely (according to alorael).

 

there's 2 threads about her.

[ogot]

Regarding number 1, found the Toadstools (+) (+2 strength) again with my singleton game in the three walls part, past the third wall and near the secret passage to the boats (for anyone who wants to fiddle around with it).

 

It's also a bit weird that we can store enemy Soul Crystals and summon them as Simulacra, and they can move too! They also seem to LOVE casting Control Foes. For future reference, I found a few at

Click to reveal..

Under the Keep of Tinraya, if you didn't get the anti-Vahnatai secret weapon from the Bunker you'll be able to fight 4 of them.

 

Update on monk singleton:

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Level 80

Strength 93

Blademaster 80

Current gold left 13k

Just entered Vahnatai Lands after 3 walls part.

Punches hitting for 380 unbuffed on Vahnatai, hitting 420 with Divine Aid.

Projected gold still needed to max out both is somewhere around 53k (aside from the 13k on hand).

[ogot]

At last the journey is at an end (except for the wiping out towns/dragons and whatnot part, of which Erika was the first).

 

Level 84 104838/105000 XP

Strength 98 (+4 to get to cap of 102 with Gauntlets of Might)

Blademaster 98 (+2 to get to cap of 100 with War Charm)

 

120-140 damage unbuffed on town Guards, 390-440 unbuffed on Townspeople/Cats/Dervishes. With Divine Aid it's 140-170 on Guards and 460-500 on Townspeople/Cats/Dervishes. Krizsan Guards are 4 XP a piece at the moment. On Sulfras fists were only hitting for 350-420 unbuffed and 440-500 (with the occasional 425), and she was worth 293 XP (wiping out all the creatures in their caves was only worth 478 XP total, Sulfras' XP was almost 60% of the total).

 

Strange how a Cat takes the same amount of damage from a fist as a fully armor-plated and battle-hardened Empire Dervish XD

 

The only fight left is RI herself (already have a Gazer's Captured Soul ready, even had to go all the way to her in hopes of her summoning a few Demons so I could collect their corpses for gold).

 

Only things left to test are if Strength and Blademaster can exceed their caps (through items) and if/by how much damage is affected by +1 Melee Damage augments (it's +6 currently, +17 if all 11 items augmented that way, and +18 if Pachtar's Plate is replaced with Red Scale armor. +19 if War Charm is replaced by Rentar Charm but only if the +2 to Blademaster doesn't work if it's at the cap already).

 

Another lesson I learned by playing through this singleton is if anyone is going to really minmax a singleton, it'd be better to just stockpile Research Books and Ink/Papyrus (or keep a count on a Notepad file), and only turn them in once you've wiped out everything. 1 XP Alien Beasts are just sad, at such a late point in the game each writing material would be 5 of most monsters and each Research Book would be 40 of them. IIRC a conservative estimate of the total XP of all those books and writing materials would reach 5k minimum, that's a good 5 levels (minimum) at the end of the game.

 

I'll just update this post with whatever results I have for the remaining tests to be done so this post isn't bumped up anymore.

 

It's been fun!

[Venatrix Avia]

Very cool.

 

Just a note, though: you can't level up more than once by selling writing supplies to Alzon. (I think that was the Spineridge jobs dispatcher's name?) If you try to sell her a sufficient quantity of parchment that it would push any of your characters over a single level gained, you wind up getting no XP at all -- although you do still get the cash. Ask me how I know.

 

I think the same may apply to Walner, but unlike Alzon, he's an ungluttable market, so you can just keep on going back to the well to get XP from him if you want. ("Psst. Levy! Forge me smmore of them research tomes, will ya?")

 

I could never find a way to make those augmented toadstools do anything for me either. I'm pretty sure that, like all of the augmented ropes, stone blocks and other non-equippable items, they're just flaky flavor, probably the result of some caffeine-fueled late-night coding.

 

I've enjoyed following your saga. You have far more patience than I have, to be sure!

[ogot]

Oh no, I didn't bother to stock up on the writing materials, as I mentioned above I just took note of how many I would have picked up in Notepad and converted them to books (4 writing materials to 1 research book), then bought them from Levy and "refunded" myself the proper amount (15 gold per book, since they are 55 each from Levy and give 40 back).

 

I'll bite on the apple, how'd you find out about that tidbit with Alzon? XD

[Venatrix Avia]

Parchment stacks and isn't very heavy, and by that point in the game I had a lot of money to burn, so I just loaded all four characters up with as much as they could carry to sell to her. Also, there's that weird 140-count inkwell you can find somewhere in western Krizsan, I think in one of the barracks in Delis. Between those two factors, I had a *lot* of writing materials for Alzon by the time I got around to her.

 

I received my money, but no XP. The text box *claimed* I'd earned XP, but my character info said otherwise. I was puzzled. Then I played around with save-and-restore, dropping pieces of parchment on the floor until I figured out what the problem was. It seems that the programming can't handle a character leaping two levels up at once, so if you earn enough XP in a single discrete action that this would happen, then the game copes by just not registering any gain at all.

 

I ended up leaving the hundreds and hundreds of excess parchment sheets that I had dropped on the floor for Alzon as a gift. I always have had a soft spot for bureaucrats. And sure, she *said* she didn't need any more, but I know how much paper *I* can burn through, even in a relatively short period of time, and even living in the computer age. I figured she'd be wanting it sooner or later.

 

She's out of luck if she needs more inkwells, though. 'Cause those don't stack.

[ogot]

Something similar happened to me, there's also a limit to the Research Books turn ins. I think I had like 50 at one point but I can't remember the exact number, and I didn't receive proper experience but received proper gold. Instead I just lowered the stack amount and dropped a little more than half, turned in the 20 and received experience, and rinsed and repeated.

 

Maybe something similar happened, did you try turning in only a couple of stacks at a time?

 

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Now I have to look for that 140 inkwell place, this is an example of one of the things I was looking for in the first place, weird thingamajigs XD

 

Edit: Found it, it's in Delis in the Southwest corner building but it's "Not Yours".

 

Edit 2: Tried turning in 71 research books in one go, it was a little xp shy of levelling up twice, the turn in was successful, I recieved the correct XP and gold. I tried turning in 72, 80 and 92 books and I only received experience until 1 shy of levelling up a second time, even though the game text says I received the proper amount the character didn't receive the proper XP.

 

In summary, I just confirmed for myself that you were right! XD