Fyora Toast With Roamer Butter

It gives you access to the rogue shaper who you pay 6000 coins to shape you in different skills.

I am playing a purist rebel-- no canisters. Basically focusing on creating all of the items. I have a lot of stat boosting items. I was wondering about turning off the summoning platform-- 20 points of mechanics is a lot of mechanics. I have cleared the level. Just have to kill the alpha creator. Any ideas on getting more mechanics skills. Have made the infiltrators ring, have tinkers bauble-- necklace (not sure if this is right), and tinkers gloves. Would like to kill the alpha creator without being pestered by the summoned critters.

Have played with a fyora level 35, level acidic roamer 28, maxed out Greta, and my character.

Hello,

There is no indication that shapers ever die of old age or disease. The humans do, but the shapers don't age. I think of the council as ancient. Once you become more powerful you age a lot less. If you use the geneforge you live a long long time.

I bet the shaper council has been around for a long long time. They would prefer you get your power slowly because you are less likely to be rash and youthful with it. Also it allows them to keep tabs on everybody. Think of a level 80 character in an unaging body... Thus they could make super powerful creations by boosting the stats of their critters to insane levels. There would be no need for drakes, etc.

I bet a single council member could match three or four geneforged ur-drakons in a stand up fight. Having 500 years of experience under your belt heps.

Another thought on how there could be a balanced outcome would be the introduction of a world changing character. A backstory idea. About 25 years ago, a shaper did something absolutely forbidden. She shaped a human being from essence, then fell in love. The shaper council found out. They caught her and executed her, but her husband the essence creation escaped with the perfect child they had shaped.

The created one sought out a reclusive rogue shaper on the isles where he was raised in a hidden community. He has decided to go out into the world.

Basically you have the ultimate shaper a combination of creation/shaper.

Please give the location of shaped items for items-- this will make it much easier to finish artifacts-- belt, shield, plate, etc.

I prefer to break in and go through his traps. This way, you just take everything without having to bother looking for his quest items. There is a back entrance.

The game has scripting calls for having different races in your party. Thus your party will have different reactions based on scripting calls for what races are in your party. You cannot do all the actions in the game, nor can you get all the reactions unless you have a mixed group of critters and humans.

I would like to have some unique things about each species of character. Unique weapons, buildings, armor, clothes, weapons, statues, food for each type of character. Background stuff. Slith, Nephilim, and Human should be developed more. Put together a history for each character type -- 3-4 pages in the manual.

Kilts, yes we need kilts and tartans.

Here goes further questions about singletons.

1) Tool use strategy-- I don't buy much tool use and instead put it into strength-- for doorbusting. To open chests that are trapped I cast Enduring barrier beforehand then heal. What strategy do you use for trap busting.

2) One of the weaknesses of a singleton is the need to get open doors as a spellcaster. I am working towards putting 6 levels of spellcaster then open doors. I probably won't go beyond that because I can use piercing crytals to dispel barriers.

3) The other weakness is a lot of cleric spells are useless like mass healing, mass curing, raise dead. I think I may stop buying spell levels after level 12 in cleric. I am thinking 6 levels mage, 12 levels cleric, then upping my potion making until I get invulnerability elixir. Strategies anyone.

I am interested in your strategies of using a singleton versus spellcasters. How do you build up spell resistance, fight multiple spell casters at once. I find it is fairly easy to handle melee combat as a singleton. I am running up against problems versus spell casters.

1) More spells both priest and mage.

2) An improved alchemy system.

3) A crafting skill where you get to make items.

4) An option to do large scale strategic combat--

when a group of NPCs join your party for example in battle you can command portions of them to do certain things. Possibly, a strategy element added.

5) Greater flexibility in combat. The ability to pull special moves when you advance in skill level to certain points. Charging, all out attacks, total defense, etc.

6) At high levels -- leadership points. After level 50. The ability to persuade NPCs to do things.

7) An improved system for dealing with traps-- tool use simply does not cut it very well.

8) An improved inventory control system with more slots.

9) An improved dialog editor.

Don't forget strength increases your chances to bash down doors.

Dexterity increases your tool use-- not sure the bonus percentage.

If your characters are very fast, they can take out Galthrax quickly. Speed and initiative are often more important than defense.

Which noncombat skills do you try to focus on getting quickly.

I rather like pathfinder.

I also like magical efficiency.

Alchemy has been hardly mentioned. Getting enough points in alchemy and the recipe for energy potion, energy elixir, and protection brew can make the game very easy.

My priest character is basically a potion factory. No mage skill. You can carry up to 100 potions of any variety per slot. Also up to 100 ingredients per slot. Basically she carries all the ingredients the party finds, plus a bunch of potions. As the character progresses I up the strength, melee, defense, potion making, priest, arcane lore, nature lore slots. Eventually move to pathfinder, magical efficieny.

It is very easy to completely imbalance the game with an all spellcaster party. For example a party with four characters with cloud of blades pretty much autokills anything out there. The same effect happens versus undead -- 4 casters with dispel spirit at high level wipes out undead.

Even 3 casters can do this.

I try not to overdo it with spellcasters. Just to make things interesting... I keep one of my melee fighter at intelligence level 2 and give him no spells.

Also large groups of monsters with spell immunities can tear up an all spellcaster party.

A few things about parties and party building strategy.

1) I try to get the maximum experience penalties for the parties I am creating. This extends the useful life of the parties I create. I am not interested in leveling up quickly. -60% to -70% experience penalty.

2) This increases the number of scenarios a party will go through. Allows for better item accumulation, and knowledge brew use. Less level gains means more scenarios to send a party through. Also, a character does not get as much experience for killing lower level monsters than the character.

3) There is a maximum level of 100 for monsters in BOA. The characters ability to gain experience slows way down at about lvl 70. Monsters don't generate that much experience.

4) I change the name of my save file after I finish a scenario. This creates a bunch of different saves with different level parties. No need to create a new party for every scenario.

5) The general pattern I follow is a four party group.

1) Slith-- Divinely Touched Strong back-- Rebel-- Focus on Polearms-- Tool Use-- Defense.

2) Human-- Elite Warrior-- Fast On Feet -- Melee-- Bows-- Defense

3) Human-- Cleric-- Natural Mage-- Scholar

Focus on Missile Weapons-- Alchemy-- Arcane Knowledge-- Cleric Spells.

4) Nephil-- Hedge Wizard-- Fast On Feet-- Natural Mage-- Focus on Mage and Cleric Spells.

You can start with a character that can use both effectively. Hedge Wizard does this as a choice of character. Buying natural mage on a hedge wizard eliminates the armor problem-- and gives your starting character with both mage and priest spells.

Dispel Barrier, Open Locks, Light, Far sight are all good spells. Arcane Shield at high levels gives you invulnerability. Fire Blast and Arcane Blow allow you to target multiple enemies. Slow is useful against tough monsters. Acid resistance is the least common resistance so Spray Acid has its uses. I haven't used simulacrum at all.

Priest spells which are useful are War Blessing Level 4-- possibly the best spell in the game, Move Mountains, Radiant Shield, Dispel Spirit, and others. War blessing Lvl 4 and Radiant Shield Lvl 3 in combination make parties very tough.

To effectively finish most high level dungeons-- it is often necessary to use Move Mountains, Open Locks, and Dispel Barrier to move through the dungeons. It is good to have both priest and mage spells available.

I think there is a percentage chance to triple damage with an attack. I think it is 3% per level of lethal blow. To get lethal blow you have to have 8 points of anatomy and 8 points of blademaster. By the time you get it about 60th level, triple damage will often be thousands of points of damage. Also with multiple attacks at high level 2-3 it is pretty likely it will happen.

Checked this out in the HLPM dragon fight. Did no lethal blow versus dragons with lvl 80 fighter 8 points lethal blow. Did lethal blow versus vengeful shade--

regular hit did 834 damage.

lethal blow did 3620. The higher the level you are against an opposing creature the greater the damage multiple it does. I think it divides your level by the creatures level to determine the damage multiple. For example -- level 80 fighter versus level 20 vengeful shade= 4X damage for lethal blow. I think there is a maximum multiple -- it might be 5 x damage.

I also tried out a fight against some ghouls -- my percentage of hits that were lethal blows went way up. You get a higher chance to land the lethal blow the higher level you are versus a critter.

If you want magic to not work at all in certain places, you can always put in antimagic fields at certain points. One or two dead spots might make sense.

This party ran through all of the scenarios-- starting with valley of the dying things. It ran through every scenario in Blades of Avernum. The items which are shown are from-- Archmagi Michaels Scenario (at least five times) never released, betatested A Perfect Forest, Canopy, Lost Basshikava-- chopped through the unedited Catacombs easily, Backwater Calls, etc. They betatested through all of the high level scenarios at least three times-- the party is 82nd level. With the various knowledge brews and bonuses skills and abilities to be bought in the scenarios-- they are probably scarier than what someone would cook up in the editor on the first try.

Scenarios completed are listed as 31. Plus went through one or two test areas that are not listed-- Battle Arena. The aim is to see if I can build a party up to God Level without using the HLPM or editor to raise levels.

I think they will be strong enough to beat up a god party in a couple more scenarios. The items which Ssamson is carrying are Finely Crafted Shield (DWTD), Polished Platemail (yes I bought this from the HLPM), Hidden City Spear (Undead Valley), Miracle Helmet (Canopy), Miracle Boots (Canopy), Magical Greaves (Canopy), Blademasters Bracelet ( Basshikava), Khoths Charm, Ring of Vahkohs (DWTD), Giantish Gauntlets (Backwater Calls), Blessed Vahnati Bow (Undead Valley cheesy), 63 steel arrows, the other stuff is the most powerful items from the scenarios.-- Invulnerability Bracelet from Backwater calls, protection brews, rod of illusion canopy, defensive dagger (DWTD). Carrying Hidden City Cloak (Undead Valley). The hit points are the result of having Divinely Touched. The party has all the nastiest stuff from the scenarios in various combinations.

(The party is Power Gamed-- trying to make the nastiest possible party without using the editor.

You could also increase the monsters magic and other resistances considerably so spells simply are not as effective. Not as much damage or effect.

Back to the update: What is currently in development. This is a summary. It is all up in the clouds and I am waiting for another scenario to pop out of the toaster. Can't wait.

Since I last checked Lost Bahssikava, Canopy, and Backwater Calls came out.

There were others in development:

Dahak-- Longshanks

Retr-O-- Saint Brevity and the Oochie squad

Supanik-- The Yedda Prophecy and Hope

Overwhelming-- Roussa

Solodric-- Archmage Ascension

Hawk King- The Way of the Guild

Poit, Venom, Jade Wolf and Killercrono were working on unspecified works. Spineraker might be working on something-- guessing on this one.

Jonah Zolohahni-- might be starting another one. (corrected)

Terrors Martyr-- requesting graphics for new scenario.

Lynkfox-- mentioned was working on mob graphics for a new scenario with his girlfriend.

Replay value is a cure for boredom. It creates greater immersion. I am guessing that some beta testers quit or stop going through a scenario if there aren't things to search for. They simple get bored at too much repetition.

Part of this game is exploration. Finding things which are hidden or new is one of the fun points of the game.

Also, there is a decent time between releases of new scenarios. It extends the life of a particular scenario if it can be played more than once.

Think of the words "replay value". A scenario without any choices, without details to look for, and without optional sidequests loses a lot of replay value.

Having more than one ending creates a situation where the player is more likely to play through more than once. Thus it gets tested more and is more likely to have a better scenario when released.

Also the sidequests and options create an atmosphere which asks a few questions What if? Did I miss? What would have happened if I did? I happen to like this.

It is not the linearity of the scenario that bothers me so much. It is when you do not get to make small choices that affect the final outcome as you go along in the quest. All scenarios should have some variety of endings even if they are linear. It makes it more interesting.

Also small decisions keep you immersed in the scenario. Both Bahssikava and Canopy were linear. I liked both of them. I did not like having my characters stating opinions. It would have been better if leader stated the opinions and the bad guys expressed the opposite.

The thing which Bahssikava did was add in a few elements like choosing to learn the ancient slith language or end the scenario early at the gates which made it somewhat more varied.

Canopy was better in that it had a few optional side quests. Specifically, the tigers lair which is one of my favorite dungeons ever. I also liked the goblins lair.

I find the addition of optional detail can make a scenario much better. Things like petting a dog, curing a mans sickness, or delivering a package. Optional small detail quests are often missing from a linear scenario.

If a linear scenario has choices which affect the ending, minor details that add spice, and open ended sidequests it would be just as good as any non-linear scenario in my opinion.

Maybe a better way to say it is-- Jeff is one person. He needs to have a certain amount of focus to move from one game to the next. If he had made the character races open ended-- it would have turned into too great a variety to move from one game to the next and be manageable by one person.

Open endedness in world building works when you have a huge design team who can work out tons of little details, or an obsessive person who locks himself in a room for weeks at a time (but that is another story).

This was a major problem with Runesword.

I think it is better that he did not create a world construction kit. To put it mildly, Runesword II is garbage compared to Blades of Avernum. The Runesword world is nowhere as good as Blades of Avernum.

Putting some limits on the game makes it more focused... I do not want a million classes and races. That would be stupid.

Your player characters may not be dwarves, elves, faeries and other such nonsense, but you can certainly have a scenario built in a tolkienesque world.

The characters can travel to any world imaginable through the various portals in Avernum. There is no reason you cannot design power armor, etc... You would just call it "Golem armor", or guns-- wand of steel bolts.