Does War Blessing Stack?

[Peter Principle]

Do multiple castings of war blessing stack in any way? What about any of the other buffing type spells?

[Alorael at Large]

Multiple copies of the same buff don't stack in effect and I don't think they stack in duration.

 

—Alorael, who is less sure about the latter than the former. Gone are the days Exile when three or four blessings could turn a wimp into a wonder.

[Randomizer]

Avernum 4 is the first game that doesn't give you stacking benefits. I think you might get longer duration, but I doubt it's worth it. There are plenty of potions available if you are worried about APs being used to get all the buffing spells cast.

[Sir Chauncy]

One of the things that I noticed when playing was that multiple castings made it harder, much harder, for debuffing monsters to remove your buff.

 

That said, some of the early monsters could have been beaten off with a stick of rancid celery and strong language and I only really noticed it against the beasties later on that curse you when blows are exchanged.

[Peter Principle]

Quote:

Gone are the days Exile when three or four blessings could turn a wimp into a wonder.

I remember that! It was one of the major points that sold me on Exile. Imagine a bless spell that's actually worth casting! A total computer RPG departure.

(It's an odd phenomenon, but game designers just don't seem to feel right about the world if their spell list doesn't include some options that you would never ever in a million years spend the time in combat to cast.)

[Slawbug]

It's hard to balance a set of things where each thing has a unique effect. It's also usually better for a game to have some underpowered stuff than some broken stuff. Most designers of computer RPGs don't have the time to focus on perfectly balancing every spell, since so many things demand a designer's attention. So, some spells will always tend to be useless.

 

I can think of a few games where this isn't the case, but they are all games that had a small number of spells (Dragon Warrior had 10, for example, only 6 of which were combat spells).

[Fort]

I think blessings work in a very good and balanced way in Avernum 4. The buffs are powerful enough to provide an obvious benefit, and yet the fact that they do not stack prevents them from being overpowered.