GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman

@Akahari Blaze any chance you could make a mod like this for A2:CS? I tried starting that game a while ago but realized I couldn't go back to the default version, even if there have been a couple improvements.

I only played the original and the second remakes and I could go either way, I tried some of the original Avernum games but it didn't go so well...

I voted for Exile because of the shear variety and freedom that originally brought me into spiderweb games, even though I only finished BoE due to my child self's attention span it was hard to get all the way though the full sized games. I also cant go back to exile 1&2, the item UI is just too rough in those two, I remember 3&blades cleaned it up a little, but that's OK because I can just buy and play the new versions!

Frankly there is no clear winner in the end, each iteration has something exceptional and something lacking

If only we could combine all the pro's into some sort of highly modable "blades" game... oh well.

If you haven't yet bought it, Avernum 2: Crystal Souls has just been discounted further to 70% off for the next 48 hours.

the fact that Av2 is showing up on my wishlist at 70% off when its only the bundle that's 70% off is really making me mad

Does anybody else miss your characters actually dying in older spiderweb games? And I mean no save scumming; either you power on missing a guy or start the game all over.

What you do? I don't believe you, really? Well OK then, but don't say I didn't warn you.

I think with how the games are relatively easier now than they were back in exile (assuming your not playing on torment) that permadeath would actually be more "fun"... if it weren't for the 0hp safety-net being removed, but that was pretty abusable anyway.

Introducing permadeath: "everybody gets one"

Each character has 1 "free life", after they lose that by being KO'd you have to use a scroll of life to revive them on the spot (within 3 of your turns), or else they are actually dead.

"But what about return life spell?"

If your aren't using a mod, then I say return life is only usable once you buy level 3. I simply allow it because, (if I remember correctly), it is possible to run out of return life scrolls in the entire game and it would be lame if these rules just abruptly stopped working. Besides its often inefficient to build a priest with high enough int to revive more than 2 people in a fight easily... unless you spend a LOT of time farming mana potion ingredients.

Notice: I haven't tested this that far but if return life is too abusable we could add "you need to consume 1 ______ item in order to use it" much like in the Exile games. This also applies if you are using a mod that makes return life better in some way.

Effects of a permadeath run:

I imagine you would want to play with higher defence, this would probably break the dual wielder / mage / shields suck mold that has plagued this game for people that have to min-max but want to have options. Also those merchants that sell 1 scroll of return life will actually be cared about AND the player will have to dump gold into that instead of trainers.

I am currently doing a verrrry slow permadeath run in my current lets play-

search: A:EftP Lets play (Super Best Friends role-play)

but I'm using horribly inefficient builds in that run so its probably not a good test run.

If anybody wants to try this please post your results and feedback in this thread, good luck out there and remember:

Due to a request, I've started taking screen-caps in a narrower resolution(starting from chapter 5) and cropped previous ones, hopefully you wont need to click to zoom on each image to read it anymore.

PS: Chapter 4 is 80% done

Notice: now on Reddit: https://www.reddit.c...g_the_zaibatsu/

Edit: Now with permadeath! http://spiderwebforu...or-the-un-sane/

I've been hankerin for replaying this game and this way I can make it more interesting.

In this let's play I'll be making characters and decisions based on the popular youtube let's-players the "SuperBestFriends"@ https://www.youtube....ser/TheSw1tcher as such this will not be an optimal play-through and I'll be forced to optimize my characters in new ways; also I will be using the ReRemix mod by Akhari Blaze ,This will be my first time using his mod so it will also be new to me. For these reasons (and the fact I wont be doing many side quests) I'm playing on normal difficulty.

Note: The first two chapters are a little slow paced because I left in a lot of NPC dialogue in to help explain the games lore for newcomers.

Warning: If you are not familiar with the SuperBestFriends you will be confused at some points

Intro:

Chapter 1: Tutorials - http://imgur.com/a/We4kH

Chapter 2: Welfare bumbling - http://imgur.com/a/mkHQ2

Chapter 3: Bug hunt - http://imgur.com/a/dg7hV

Chapter 4: Put another shroom on the barbie - http://imgur.com/a/I14aW

Chapter 5: Vanishing act - http://imgur.com/a/wTG0J

Chapter 6: nuna-nuna-nuna-nuna BAT CAVE! - http://imgur.com/a/FWFxZ

Chapter 7: "Cave lore doesn't cover dragons" - coming soon...

Finally just got around to trying this mod and have to say I'm liking it waaay more than the Slartibus mod (not intended to sound insulting)

still early on into it though, hope this works for avernum 2&3 or that you come back and add support for those.

PS: not sure how you got two-handed swords & one-handed spears to work, they do scale properly right? (do two handed swords don't scale with polearm skill?)

even more confused on the arcane weapons but the sound cool and the first time a mage-warrior may actually be viable in a spiderweb game

Glad you all are enjoying it!

 

I don't know about the lost buyers part... but it might surprise you to hear that Spiderweb generally prefers free-assignment systems to class systems, too. Jeff wrote a bit about it when he first started publishing games. Personally, I'm the opposite: I think classes and class-like restrictions make for more interesting mechanics. Doesn't stop me from appreciating quality games that take a different approach, though.

Free-assighnment is the first of two things that brought me into this serise back when I was 13 or so, 1 of those things has become more common in games in this decade but what brought me back to spiderweb games was remembering how I liked just making characters in exile 3. My youthful thought process was:

"so you make your characters in this game, so like you pick a class or... what the, what are all these stats? wait I just put the points where I want them without any restrictions? no way, I can make a guy who uses a sword in 1 hand, a hammer in the other and casts magic if I want too? this is so cool"

I died a lot early on and restarted each time, started making my characters smarter and got farther each restart until I made it a fair ways into the game and I ended up quitting because I got tired of the characters I was using I came back to spider web games after I got a longer attention span.

Every body gets one.

Pretty sure you can't drop the orb normally, but then again I'm playing on the mysterious version where spells/skills cost the same price for the first and second purchase in stores.

Did u check your quick use item slots? I put the orb in there and forgot about it once...

I hope he included some things from the re-remix. haven't played it much but I like the idea of armor weight actually mattering.

(Though if he didn't some one could about as easily mod those values in the next game too; that's what I like about this remake )

Sounds fair, I can chop up what I noticed to coincidence; or possibly that certain monsters AI's don't instantly override challengers effect and one of those mobs was where I noticed it.

I found a few scripted over world battles in A:EftP to simply have to many enemies for the party to deal with properly. Even if your a high level there is a high likelihood that 5 monsters will run past your entirely surrounded fighters and murder your mage/archer causing you to head back to town after. In the Exile games of old these were my favorite kind of battles, I would make barriers and walls of flame to funnel my enemies and feel like a cool guy, now I just feel like a dummy who let his mage get killed by low level creaps.

My suggestion is to have more battles like this but be able to hire mercenaries to follow you outdoors only (like the scripted fights at the Slith slave camps).

The mercenaries don't follow you in dungeons of course and probably expire every time your wards/cloaks would expire.

I finished my first play through of the game, and just started my second using the remix mod and was upset to see the tooltip was changed to saying challenger does nothing? Is this confirmed by Jeff or something, because on my first play through I noticed a difference when I used challenger. I'm righting this because I found challenger very rewarding considering I played with 2 tanks and a melee range glass cannon.

I'll try and test this a bit more thoroughly somehow, but how I think it works so far and why is:

1. challenger only has a chance of working.

Before I put a point in challenger ranged monsters would attack the most fragile target in their current range 100% of the time. after putting a point in challenger on my tank the same monsters attacked the tank and the fragile character equally. (I never tried rushing early points in challenger as of yet).

2. enemy level effects challengers effectiveness.

This could have been my imagination honestly, but this is why I thought upgrading challenger wasn't making a noticeable difference over time.

3. enemies rarely move to attack a target with challenger.

I only ever noticed challenger make a difference when multiple characters were in the monsters attack range at the start of the turn.

4. level of challenger makes a difference

all throughout my run I had 2 characters with challenger, one at rank 3 the other at rank 2. The character at rank 3 was often prioritized but I admit the difference was easily arguable.