waterstrider

Yeah I was thinking about the mechanics recently when completing Garzahd's fortress. He has all of these magic barriers. The one he puts up that Rentar-Ihrno cuts through, and the ones that I pass with the Blessed Athame. But I would have been completely foiled by an ordinary metal gate.

I'm remembering now in the original Exile II, the options were lockpick, using an unlock door spell, or attempting to bash it down. That kind of makes sense to me, it's not just skilled rogues who can make it past a locked door, but also at some level of being a high-level warrior or mage it makes sense that they would become passable, by magic or by brute force.

On 2/12/2022 at 7:54 AM, Edgwyn said:

They are really just a bunch of bureaucrats so the best that you will find are empire records and papers for Fort Remote

The mixing of bureaucracy and dark magic is something I've never seen anywhere but these games.

I guess it reaches a peak when you meet the Eternal Archivist in Garzahd's fortress. Some powerful undead wizard, with a book on summoning demons, and stacks of boring logistics details that you bring back to the Castle.

But in general, that the Empire is both obsessed with recordkeeping, uniformity, and "legibility", as well as having the upper ranks filled with undead and the part-demon Garzahd... it's a pretty unique depiction of evil.

After rescuing the crystal soul without fighting anyone but the lich Midori I went back, figuring I'd find some mage spells, since these were supposed to be such powerful mages. But there weren't any, although I did find some wine to sell to the Fort Dranlon quartermaster, which explains what the Ten do instead of studying. Maybe they wouldn't have to rip knowledge out of mage's heads if they would just read a book. Or maybe they do that so other people have to read books for them.

That directly contradicts the sage lore tooltip!

It says:

Quote

Each level of this counts as three levels of Arcane Lore when trying to learn new spells.

No it doesn't!

OK I now think the point in OP was a bit silly (yes Vahnatai have influences from Asian cultures, no the 80s attitude of catching up to Japan was probably not a factor), but this discussion of sliths is interesting! A two-tined spear for spearfishing makes a lot of sense for an amphibious race.

(I've tried to make this post three times, here's hoping three posts don't show up...)

13 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

There are several scripted fights where you think you can do it differently, but you aren't able to do it. Some occur because Jeff altered them in beta testing so you can't kill a monster or others where the script read unkillable until you are at a certain point in the game like in Avernum 4.

 

Enjoy trying to find a different way to do things and have extra saves from before when they don't work out.  

Huh, that makes me wondering if killing the vanishing mage in Erika's tower is actually possible.

Oh that's what's going on? I have +12 from three characters with Sage Lore, I was really surprised to find something I couldn't read. This is obnoxious, the in-game tooltips never would have led me to expect this...

oh I guess it does say that Sage Lore counts as arcane lore for learning spells--I guess it didn't occur to me that there were uses of Arcane Lore besides learning spells.

• In the serpent cult, I had the bright idea that if I sanctified the altar, I wouldn't have to fight worms when I got upstairs, since after all the altar controls the worms. Nope.
• In Fort Haledon, I figured if I get through to the commander without killing any vahnatai, they'll stop attacking me. So I used daze adrenaline rush to run past everyone and get to the office and show the commander my orders. He's very embarrassed, but the vahnatai keep attacking me. So I run and escape town--in the end, no casualties .But when I talk to the commander, he still says he's responsible for their deaths. I kind of feel like this should have gotten me an extra eight or so vahnatai when we attack the ziggurat but I guess that's overcomplicated.

Anyway, I guess there's a limit to how complicated the game's scripting can be, there can only be so many conditionals. Wondering if anyone else has had experiences like this.

6 hours ago, Thaeris said:

hat said, I kind of like your thoughts on the matter, waterstrider. Shoot - the Vahnatai throw shurikens (razordisks) for Pete's sake! Intentional or not, I'd say that the Vahnatai certainly have something in common with contemporary thoughts on Japanese culture from way-back-when (NOT including your grandfather's bad experiences in the war... more like samurai movie stuff). It's a neat connection I never thought to make before!

I totally forgot about the razordisks. The only connection to Asian culture that I had been able to remember is that Crystal Souls are sort of like if Asian-style ancestor worship actually worked (now I'm seeing a resemblance between the Shrine of Crystals and all the spritis arguing with each other in Mulan's family shrine...). Also I sort of remember a description that they sit at low tables but I could be misremembering that. These were not exactly striking coincidences, which is why I didn't bother mentioning them in OP.

But really I think Edgwyn is right that Jeff was drawing on a very large variety of sources to create a feeling of foreign-ness and contrast to the medieval fantasy setting.

I guess I mainly just think it's interesting how many Avernites are interested in studying and imitating the Vahnatai. It's not something you see in, for example, Lord of the Rings: nobody's trying to dress in Elvish styles, or reverse-engineer lembas-bread. I have to admit, that's probably just because magic in the Avernum setting is much more scientific than in Lord of the Rings. But it's also interesting that the original game was written at a time when Americans were very open to learning lessons from a very foreign culture, namely Japan. (unlike today when American anxiety about China expresses itself with dismissal and condemnation, and it doesn't occur to them they might have something to learn)

Playing Avernum 2, one thing I notice is that the moment you contact the Vahnatai, a horde of Vahnatai weebs appear. Patrick and the Totem Tunnel dervish redecorate in Vahnatai style, and they're not the only ones I think. And there's two quests bringing people Vahnatai cloaks.

And, maybe I'm just making insane connections, but the Exile games are from the 90s. And in the 80s, Japan became established in the American imagination as an exotic place with superior technology. People were interested at the time in understanding how they were able to achieve what they did in the automobile and electronics industries. And the Vahnatai are also from an exotic place with superior magic.

Do you think there's anything to this resemblance, intentional or not? I mean there are more obvious influences on the Vahnatai: they're like elves, but also greys. Anyway, just something that occurred to me.

Great, thanks.

Wondering if Elemental Focus helps Divine Retribution.

Yeah, they're not supposed to be easy, but I wish the difficulty was ordinary combat, rather than gaming the mechanisms for the conversion from "friendly townsfolk" to hostiles. In any case, those ideas sound better than what I was doing, thanks.

I played Exile as a little kid, and the huge variety of spells was just fun. Now it's 20 years later and I guess I'm more practical, since I like having a smaller selection of spells that are actually useful.

I do have a complaint about the named bosses though. Which is that some of them, you can't attack them until you've talked to them. Like, in Avernum 2, the bandit leader under Fort Draco. I want to line up three characters outside her door, so the bandits in the room have to fight me one at a time. But if I do that, they won't move, and I can't hit them with ranged weapons. I have to forget everything I know about tactics, walk in and introduce myself, and instantly be surrounded by enemies. It was the same with the Faang clan chief. Very annoying to have to throw away tactics precisely in the hardest battles. Unless there's some way to activate the event at a distance?