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A4 - Editing the Game files
Fenix Wulfheart replied to Peter Principle's topic in Second Avernum Trilogy
This thread provided me with the answer to my issues. It has just enough scripting know how in it for me to have figured out how to make bread into Wisdom Crystals. Now I can quickly add the necessary skill points to continue my singleton-playing-through-all-games run. I thank you all, and especially @Peter Principle and @Lilith for the clear explanation of how to change the effect type level of items. May this thread's necro be useful to someone else who also wants to play this old game. -
That sounds...less complex. The basic tactics would be dumbed down in that case. No offense intended to anyone with that. I did start up the remake of the original Avernum at one point, and was pleasantly surprised to find traits earned over the course of leveling. That's a neat idea and all, which would fit well as feats if I went with a Pathfinder interpretation. I would want to focus my tabletop efforts at the Original Trilogy era, and also at the original Exile era. Basically, I want to take the variety and choice that was present in Exile 3 and couple it with the IMO superior system of the Avernum Trilogy as well as the special effects of the Avernum games - like the Abilities, such as Go Berzerk - and make a game that allows for the breadth of choices and multiple paths to success that those games had. I like the concept of gradually increasing skill costs, but what I don't always like is the concept of a level cap and limited skill points for growth. I prefer for my games to allow continuous leveling with the cap set on each skill, not on overall number of skills. Sometimes I prefer no cap at all, allowing increasing costs serve as the cap instead. I've actually started writing it already. I intend to at least play it at home with my usual gang. This forum topic was moooostly to see if others would want me to share it, and to ask the more sociable community members who would know whether these efforts are worth expanding. If there is a lot of interest I'd bring it up to the core team and see if they would be interested in giving tabletop a go. Since I can't exactly fund print costs myself, though, I know that it would be a dicey proposition.
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I haven't played enough of the new ones to know. Is that the case? Branching out is a bad idea in the new ones?
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I am looking for a true classless game with multiple skill paths to the same result (RE: You could learn Pole Weapons to 30 and be amazing, or you could learn Pole Weapons 22 and Blademaster 8 and be just as good, etc), which includes the superiority of some (rare) skills over others, and uses the Avernum setting AND the Avernum mechanical "feel". If the game doesn't "feel" like playing Avernum, I will have failed. Also noting that the Pole Weapons 30 guy used many more skill points for overall less versatility, that is definitely an important part. I considered Pathfinder, but found it problematic for a number of reasons. Classes are too limiting. The Spell Level system with Vancian style magic is nothing like Avernum. Spells are well defined in Pathfinder but ultimately too inflexible (eventually, at a high enough level the spell "caps out" on most variables and all mages are exactly alike unless they use Metamagic). Eventually, what differentiates mages is their spell selection, not their spell power. Indeed, Avernum is the opposite in a lot of respects - what sets mages apart is their power moreso than their spell selection. They need to know stronger spells - mass haste instead of haste, Greater Fireblast (L3) instead of Fireblast (L1), and they also need a higher Spell Bonus. That Spell bonus does not cap out in Avernum. That's part of the feel I am going for. The unbalanced nature of some character archetypes make less sense in Pathfinder - for example, the Hedge Wizard that mixes mage and priest spells will suck in Pathfinder but is amazing in Avernum. In both games they will be bad at HtH, but Avernum encourages Generalization AND Specialization. That's part of its charm for me. Many paths, one love. As you say, Randomizer, my biggest worry is DEFINITELY the party becoming too powerful too quickly. That's the rub. To that end, I want to use the scaling Skill Point costs of the Avernum games, but I am thinking of making the scales steeper. Slow the power creep curve down, because we aren't trying to fit reaching that awesome level of power into a short span of time. In no particular order, I definitely want the following goals to be met: -Multiple skill paths to the same result -Social skills and abilities. Martial and Magical might or general sneakiness are not the only paths to power. Economic and political power matter too. -Some skills are blatantly superior to others, but are commensurately rarer. A new skill you may train in is thus an actual quest award, which lends a sense of "being special" to the PC. Especially if I do what later Avernum titles did, and say that a skill is locked until you meet certain requirements. Then the skill is like a Prestige Skill, if you will, and when the skill becomes available the characters who leveled in certain ways may not have the opportunity to learn it. -Character Traits exist and very much matter. Their bonus continues to be useful or detrimental for a long time, and so does the Exp adjustment. -Skill levels can be directly awarded via quest rewards, MAYBE paid for with gold and in-game time to some defined limits if the GM is willing (and can maintain control of balance...), learned from crystals, etc. This is not a character level yet is a marked power increase, which I always felt *feels* much more like a reward than just Exp. -Opened up magic rules, allowing for spells to be developed and for many kinds of spell to be cast. Spell point costs proportionate to the effect and effort involved. Begin with mapping all spells that we have seen in the game to the system, probably using the Avernum 3 spells as my first base and expanding from there. -Characters can continue to train if they can get enough skill points, but getting skill points gets harder and harder as they gain them. The truly exceptional characters of the Avernum world with their awesome power can be modeled without recourse to arbitrarily saying "well they are just this many levels higher than you, so advantage". Enemy skill levels and traits matter, too. Some characters really are almost invincible, given favorable circumstances. Think Garzahd when you do not have Demon-slaying stuff. -Buffs matter. I know a lot of Avernum players say that the buffs are too strong. I'm in the camp that thinks that buffs are part of the soul of the system, part of what makes it great. But what the game has always lacked IMO is intelligent enemy use of buffs. In tabletop? The GM makes that call. Think about it. -Import the later Avernum games combat disciplines, probably. -More realistic health rules. In Pathfinder and in Avernum, there is this artificial Health inflation that makes high level characters so much better than low level ones. I want skill levels in Dexterity, Defense, Hardiness, etc...to take the place of this inflation. I want that Empire Dervish to have 120 Health, not 400. I want my Level 50 mage to have 60 Health, not 320. Skill based Health rather than Level-based Health is the way to go. As far as I can see, all the purposes Level serves in Avernum can be replicated with skill levels too. The levels just add extra bonuses. So I could feasibly make the system NOT need Levels at all, to determine things. In short, I want equipment and training to matter more than number of monsters killed when it comes to how hard you are to kill.
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Av4 Character Editor... will one ever be made
Fenix Wulfheart replied to Horus's topic in Second Avernum Trilogy
No harm in trying. I'll learn how to edit my character's skill points in my save file if I have to. One way or another, the singleton will save Avernum again and again! -
I've been kicking around some ideas of a way to convert the delicious Avernum rules into the tabletop format. I'd really like to see the ability to expand the stories we can tell beyond the limitations of a CRPG. I've already got some basic ideas for how I want to do this, most likely with a D100 system sort of like Dark Heresy to start. The biggest thing I want to see is the idea of "levels" in various skills adjusting the chances for success in 5% increments, with additional levels taking more skill points to attain...so I could also go with a simple D20 variant. Each 5% is akin to +1 on a D20, so we could take things like Element Resist levels and use them directly instead of converting to %. Skill levels could be used directly too. Another major design goal would be to expand the magic system of the world to allow for things we have seen all the way back in Exile. I'd like to see characters that can mass-haste and mass-bless whole armies with the right spell. It really brings home the difference in power level between different characters in the world. Some talented Blademasters could fully expect to stride into a horde of 20 men at arms, and walk out the other side only mildly fatigued and totally uninjured. I want my system to have this kind of robust scaling, where level in your trained-up skills *really* matters. One thing I don't care for in the games is the idea of "Character level" so strongly determining hit points. The difference between an Endurance 14 Level 3 character and an Endurance 6 Level 35 character is astonishing. I'd rather see Endurance, Hardiness, and maybe something else affecting Health in the same manner that Spell Skill and Intelligence affect Spell Points. Maybe have level, but make Level a static bonus health amount and not a multiplicative increaser. Were I to craft a system for the game, ideally Level would be important but not overpowering instead of the other way around. Or Level wouldn't be in it at all, instead favoring other ways to increase various chances to succeed, and then skill levels matter more (not to mention easier formulas, since as far as I can tell in the CRPGs Level affects like EVERYthing). Spell Bonus is a hidden stat in the game that would be not-so-hidden in the tabletop game. You would have similar entries for melee and ranged to-hit and power indicators, which are written in advance in order to reduce in-session math. It's sort of necessary to make a game like this any kind of fast-paced to have these chances and modifiers pre-recorded, especially as multiple skills affect them. This would also mean that having accuracy over 95% affect damage would be easily possible. If you have Avoid chance 35% and I have To-Hit 150%, its easy to see my To-Hit becomes 115%. That difference means +4 Damage, if I included that as part of the system. Its overly granular, so I am on the fence about it, but it is certainly possible. On the bright side, this means that it is a simple matter to determine just how much difference there is between hitting an Aranea with your sword and hitting a heavily armored Level 30 Blademaster with an Enchanted Shield of Parrying. Even if you DO hit, the damage difference would make you sit up and take notice! Anyway. I can ramble about specifics later. This is just a general idea post, to start. What I'd like to know is: -What level of interest can I expect from the community - if I post this up, could I count on playtesters? -What legal issues would be involved in this? Do you think I should contact SWS directly before pursuing this idea? Do you think that this becoming an actual product for distribution under their umbrella could be a realistic goal?
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Av4 Character Editor... will one ever be made
Fenix Wulfheart replied to Horus's topic in Second Avernum Trilogy
I shall second that request. I got a long running singleton who is playing through all Avernum games. Hard to keep him consistent in A4 if his skills all drop to bottom of the barrel. And the cheats only give skill points through leveling, which means a huge unexplained drop in power from A3 to A4. -
Yeah, I tried E. I didn't try any other keys beside E and F, and the button did not work. None of the toolbar buttons were working at all, I had to play with hotkeys. The mouse could be used for anything above the button-toolbar, but not for the toolbar itself.
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I also would like to know what happened to this game. I have a minor bug in it to report. When attempting to save a customized party before entering a scenario with it, the game crashes instead of saving.
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Clarification: The bug is not so minor. I also cannot end combat once I have started it in town mode!
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Is there where I put this? I tried out your BoE build, the newest one posted "2016-10-16 15:55" for Windows and encountered a minor bug. I cannot click the buttons to open any menus are interfaces, I can only use them with kotkeys. I had to press M to cast mage spells, had to press t to talk, etc. I really like the conversation mechanism, by the way. The text that can be clicked is highlighted in different color and it eases the worries I always had a bit of, worry that I was missing important things. I also had a bit of a curiosity. Would it be possible at some point to load up the other Exile games into the Scenario format in order to make the unified game engine for the use in all official Exile works? I'd like to have characters from one Exile game go straight into another XD. In particular I always felt that the heroes of Crystal Souls would probably be given the honor of being the Surface Explorers. Of course, since Exile 1 uses different spells and stuff that would be harder to do, and all of them had a bunch of little tweaks and stuff. Still, its a thought! I'm also curious if the engine will allow for the addition of spells, abilities, items, etc. I got the impression it won't, but you never know.
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Ahhh never mind I have verified that it works from old-games. There are some minor glitches when you alt-tab out of the game while playing, so other users beware!
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FYI: the Exile series has gone freeware!
Fenix Wulfheart replied to ixfd64's topic in The Exile Trilogy
I do not know why that is, sorry that I cannot help. I have a question of my own. I intend to play through Exile again if I can get it to work - are there any sites still up that have BoE scenarios available? Is that even still a thing any more? If not I can always just buy BoA. I have been meaning to for awhile, but haven't bc it isn't sold separately and I already own the trilogy set. -
Then I must be too Anyway, back on topic. I actually also would like to replay the original Exile games myself. I have a serious nostalgia kick right now. Does the Old-games package work for everyone? Or do I actually need to run an emulated OS to fulfill this wish? Has anyone gotten it to work on Win8.1?