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Exile: what, if anything, would you change?


Prince of Kitties

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I've been thinking about game balance and character/party diversity in the Exile series and BoE, and I've realized there's a lot of stuff that I would change if I could. I think my changes would look something like this.

 

Magic

I've never found magic to be that useful in combat, aside from as an adjunct to melee. A fighter-mage who blesses and hastes himself is much more effective (in my experience) than a pure mage who slings fireballs around. The player's party is not all that powerful in the Exile universe, so I think this is okay at high levels, but at low levels NPC spells are much more damaging than PC spells. So I would change the damage calculations for PC spells like Fireball to make them more useful at low levels.

 

(Actually NPC spells are more damaging than PC spells at high levels too, but I consider that okay - wizard NPCs may simply be more powerful casters than PCs!)

 

Magical Effects

 

Magic resistant monsters cannot be slowed or cursed. PCs can always be slowed or cursed. My solution would be to make the Magic Resistance spell act as a shield against magical effects: every time the game attempted to apply some evil magic to a PC, there would be a check for Magic Resistance being in effect on them. If the spell was in effect, one level of it would be removed instead of the relevant effect actually being applied; otherwise the effect would be applied as usual. So, the party would get a way of resisting slow/curse, but nothing too too powerful.

 

Gameplay

 

Here comes the most controversial part!

 

Exile and BoE favor the player pretty heavily, with both a "grace hitpoint" at 0 HP and the Luck skill. Having made the party more powerful in some ways, I would remove both of those!

 

I do think I'd keep temporary invulnerability, but I would make it apply only to melee and projectile damage, not spells. Maybe high-level monsters would get that effect from Avatar as well as PCs.

 

 

... Okay, that's it for my list of might-have-beens. What would you guys/gals do, if anything? I'm curious to know...

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Magic being weak at low levels is a holdover from tabletop role playing games. It's compensated by being overwhelmingly powerful at higher levels if you survive.

 

See Jeff's Blog for the recent posts on his life through Dungeons & Dragons. Part 1 mentions some of this and it was the basis for most early CRPGs.

 

Some of the other game play choices were probably made so player characters didn't die off so quickly. It's continued into Avernum where the later games had them only go unconcious until you reach town.

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That's the thing though, offensive magic in Exile is not overwhelmingly powerful at higher levels. Many creatures resist fire, magic, or both, and poison resistance is pretty common too. Magic is very effective (and ultimately necessary) as an adjunct to melee, but for offense it's really not that powerful except against much weaker monsters. Divine Thud is nice against packs of weak breathers or spellcasters (Ruby Skeletons and Imps come to mind) but that's pretty much it; for most heavy-duty fights, it seems to boil down to bless, haste, and antimagic.

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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Shockwave when cast four times clears almost the entire screen into neat piles of loot.
Been there. I've had a few combats where I faced (I think) the maximum number of (admittedly rather weak) opponents. Two or three Shockwaves later, I had to wait a full five minutes for all the dying sounds to play.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Divine warrior, major haste, and mass blessing combine to make invulnerable killing machines.
Hasted tanks with 10+ luck apiece work just as good. I don't seem to recall Divine Warrior in Exile/BoE, though.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer
High level magic when used properly reduces most combats to only the first two PCs attacking in the first round.
FYT wink

Originally Posted By: Miramor
I've never found magic to be that useful in combat, aside from as an adjunct to melee. A fighter-mage who blesses and hastes himself is much more effective (in my experience) than a pure mage who slings fireballs around.
Everyone has a different playing style. I'm pretty much an exclusive magic user, so I have little to no trouble taking on monsters that are resistant or immune to magic--and winning every time.
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A sorta wacky idea. I've never been fussed on haste/slow spells affecting action points. I mean, it's a nice simple mechanic and all, which is a great reason for it, but not very realistic.

 

IMHO, if you are slowed, you might only lose one or two action points a round, but you'd find it much harder to hit things and it'd be much easier for the enemy to hit you. IIRC, Avernum (or at least Nethergate) has you have less chance of hitting when encumnbered, maybe haste/slow could affect that as well?

 

Possibly over complicated and I'd note like to muck everything up just for that though.

 

Also, I like how there's no "right" lot of armour. The more you wear, the more encumbrance, you are alowed down and can't cast spells.

 

Unfortunately, weapons don't work the same way. The broadsword (waveblade if you can get it) is the best single handed weapon type, end of. No reason to use anything else if you've got a broadsword of the same quality. Only reason to have bashing weapons is for when you get odd magic weapons, edged weapons are just better. For double handed weapons, pole is just better, halberd is the best (or was it slith spear?).

 

I'd like to see benefits for using less powerful weapons same as there are for lighter armour (and in reality, the rapier replaced the broadsword). Not quite sure how to do this, maybe some weapons are faster than others, or are easier to use in conjunction with another, though you'd expect this to come into play with shields as well. Maybe strenght restrictions for more powerful weapons?

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Hmmm. I can think of a number of ways to deal with that, and I don't think any would work in BoE/Exile. They'd require a more complicated system; probably something like what Angband has, where PCs a number of blows per attack.

 

BTW, am I the only one who thinks that stealth-related stuff was underutilized in BoE?

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As far as I know, the "Pacifist" detriment does not exist in BoE or any of the Exile games. That suggestion would be kind of cool though.

 

(Although it might be abusable without some workarounds - you could have a PC damage himself, heal him, and keep going until your pacifist/healer PC had gained several levels.)

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open source seconded,. Maybe I am just weird or old fashioned but I prefer Exile's 2D tiles and icons system over the isometric 3D system. This after playing NWN and BG2 and not liking either so much and now going back to the original series. Simple is better. I'd like to see an open source Exile go the route and graphics style of Battle for Wesnoth which is also open source.

 

Add more weapons, items, attacks, spells. Make the game window much bigger, we're not on 640X480 anymore.

 

Make archery MUCH more effective so that they are on par with fighters. In Exile it was annoying that enemy archers even at a low level could do more archery damage than my level 50 Nephil. I don't mean just give them more damage per attack but make them more effective overall so their role is as strong as the fighters, priests and mages. Unless you used them as thieves, which became irrelevant after the mage spell unlock, archers were not much use on the battlefield.

 

Another dream if it did go open source, make the troglodytes a playable race with bonuses for bashing weapons and a whole new set of 2D icons for the trogs. I always wanted to see their side of the story.

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Having the troglodytes as a playable race wouldn't be so story savvy. As far as we know there's only one tribe of them on the surface, and they haven't been around for too long. Since E3, the Empire hasn't been doing it's usual kill all monsters thing, so there isn't really much need or want for the troglos to side with humans.

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Originally Posted By: Cairo Jim
Having the troglodytes as a playable race wouldn't be so story savvy. As far as we know there's only one tribe of them on the surface, and they haven't been around for too long. Since E3, the Empire hasn't been doing it's usual kill all monsters thing, so there isn't really much need or want for the troglos to side with humans.


More than that, like the Hill Giants, they are stuck in a fairly small isolated area, hemmed in by Imperial towns, presumably large numbers of soldiers who aren't too happy to see them continue to exist.
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Originally Posted By: Miramor
where PCs a number of blows per attack.
This might be less of a stretch than it seems, since a) monsters do get up to three blows per attack and B) PCs can get a second blow per attack with Assassination skill.

Originally Posted By: Miramor
As far as I know, the "Pacifist" detriment does not exist in BoE or any of the Exile games. That suggestion would be kind of cool though.
I kinda wanted to bring back the Pacifist trait for OBoE.
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