ex post slarto

I have to wonder if this is necessary in Avernum -- it seems like the spells not happening would be a consequence of the real-time factor in Geneforge, and I would expect it to be easily avoidable in Avernum.

Hold on... I want to treasure this moment. It's so rare.

 

Somebody is requesting a feature that was in (and was actually functional in) Realmz!

Because neither the mechanics nor the setting of Geneforge lend themselves well to a scenario-based engine, and because Blades of Avernum took a huge amount of effort on Spiderweb's part without leading to a commensurate return.

 

More practically, Spidweb has stated very clearly that there will be no Blades of Geneforge. (And no Geneforge MMORPG either, while we're at it.)

 

I am increasingly tempted to put this in the forum header.

 

Advance warning, because threads about BoG usually go bad: please don't spam the topic with whining, complaining, and/or insults.

In fact Divinely Touched is so good that it boosts EACH type of attack damage more than any other trait boosts any individual variety -- and it provides 20% protection from physical damage on top of that.

 

If you want a powergaming build -- an optimal build -- there is almost no reasonable argument to be made for any character not having DT. The one possible exception would be Elite Warrior + Natural Mage, to get an armored and armorable mage with all spells and all disciplines without blowing lots of skill potions.

Actually, I'm surprised it's taken... what, seven years? for the first such pun.

The Nine-Headed Cave Cow frowns upon this topic.

Here's my old Magical Efficiency workup . It is possible to very occasionally spend no SP on a Minor Heal even with 5 or 6 ME. Most of the time, though, you won't see any SP reduction whatsoever.

 

Anyway, I fail to see the amazingness of this. If I'm doing the math right, at level 15 you'd have +2 ME from NM and +4 ME from PS; at level 30, +4 from NM and +7 from PS. That's a score of 6 ME at level 15, or 11 ME at level 30, for SP savings of about 10% and 20% respectively. Better than nothing, but again, insignificant compared to First Aid or 2 points of Int.

 

The slith resistance bonus definitely isn't 30%. It might be 20%, but I thought it was 10% in A4 and got bumped up to 20% in A5. I remember being surprised when I saw how worthless it was. Could be wrong though.

It sounds like you have a high level PC with the Elite Warrior trait. It's very easy to get 10 or 11 Blademaster and Parry without training, a couple of items equipped will get you there. So yes, the requirements list is still accurate.

Don't forget that every character starts with 2 Dex (and 2 Str, 2 Int, 2 End). Those points don't count.

Hardiness is quite good, but Sliths only get a minor bonus to fire resistance (IIRC, it's 10%) and the resistance cap of 90% applies to both, so that's not really any different.

You're vastly overestimating ME. First Aid is what's keeping you from running out of spell points; it's completely disgusting in A4. Even with 20 ME you conserve something like 25% of spent SP on average -- and 20 ME requires investing a buttload of skill points that would be better used elsewhere. With 5 or 10, the bonus is barely noticeable. It doesn't hurt, but compared to First Aid or even pumping Int the effects are negligible.

Five brooches.

 

And about half the population of Exile went aboveground, according to A4.

There are *loads* of towns in E2 and E3 with characters taken from TV shows. Absolutely Fabulous (Blosk), The Kids in the Hall (New Formello), and Babylon 5 (Golddale) come to mind.

 

Then there's Lennus and Squiggus, about which the less said the better.

You're right about Angband. I went to look for examples and I found... not much. Most of the rating scales or systems I can find through a quick google search that use bad or poor, do not use both. This is accomplished in various ways -- having only one negative rating, having a more clearly horrendous word for the worse option, "very bad", etc.

ASR isn't controversial though.

 

Great chart. One comment: isn't 'poor' typically a worse gradation than 'bad'? I always remember excellent, good, fair, bad, poor from school (and Angband pseudo-ID).

Xel, one of the main reasons this forum is here is so that new players can ask questions about the game.

 

Try to be a little friendlier, eh?

The following people appeared in each of the first four games:

- Solberg (in A5 as well)

- 'X'

- Kelner

- Captain Johnson

- Tor Gunston

- Carol Hamer

- Walner

- Crisper

- Julio

- Elspeth (probably; the A4 appearance could be a different Elspeth, though)

 

As far as I know, this is a complete list.

It's the Slith Pole Weapons bonus that's clouding your numbers. You need to buy 2 more points of Pole Weapons before you have 10 bought levels.

You may need 6 points of bought Int, not just 6 Int. You start with 2 free, so that would be 8 Int.

Shaper Markis, I'm sorry the topic got derailed. But it wasn't likely to bear fruit, anyway. You could certainly make a new topic and post your own character & creations, though.

 

Time to lock the topic before Thuryl finds a new way to min-max his statistics...

Dikiyoba and I also need to work on the Main Page, the Help pages, and so on. But that stuff can wait. What we probably should get done before article writing commences is:

 

1) Formalize the scope policy: what can go in SA? We seem to have a pretty good consensus with the version I threshed out earlier in this thread, but it needs to be written up more clearly.

 

2) Write up a style policy. Important parts to get done before we start on articles:

 

* 2a) Naming conventions for articles. EE should provide a good model here but some changes may make sense. I'd like to use singular rather than plural for countable generics such as races, to simplify markup links.

 

* 2b) What is significant enough to warrant an article? As Goldenking's post implies make an article for every zone would be confusing and not useful, but obviously some zones deserve articles. We aren't Supreme Court judges so this is easier than defining "pornography", but it needs to be defined.

 

* 2c) List standard article sections (such as those related to #1)

 

* 2d) Neutral Point of View, Encyclopedia Tone and Style, etc.

 

3) Because there are so many entries where our last canonical information is years out of date and has probably all changed -- pretty much anything that was in G1-3, but not G4 -- we should specify how this will be discussed. Probably we should just give the information we have available and not comment on possibilities beyond that, to avoid having a trite and uninteresting fortune telling section in every article. Either way, we should formalize this too.

 

4) Have a working draft of a category system. I've borrowed from EE on my list, and I think that will be enough to get us off the ground.

Aran: is it possible to restrict all new accounts from editing until they have been individually approved?

 

I'm willing to invest the time to do that, and it seems a lot more productive than the amount of time you've had to waste dealing with the spam on EE.

Scale in general, including the indoor/outdoor issue, might be related. But that's definitely not the main source of the lack of epicness (except perhaps in A4, where the world was literally, physically, compacted from the epic scale as previously experienced).

 

Exile 1 had a whole new world to explore. Because the standards of the world were so rudimentary -- stone weapons and crappy food -- doing serious things with dragons and wizards seemed rather remarkable. Exile 2 had a strange new race of beings, and a terrible invading army -- and a war you could seriously impact in multiple, independent ways. Exile 3 had the novelty, and huge size, of the surface.

 

I think the EE article on the Exile 2 heroes conjures up the sense of 'epic' better than an analysis is going to, though.

The Asp Gloves make poison worse whenever you are poisoned, but they don't spontaneously do anything to you. I'm pretty sure they just affect poison and not disease.

 

The Pyrrhic Necklace diseases the party spontaneously just like the uranium bars.

I move for no run-off. I deliberately structured this poll to avoid the need for a run-off, as the poll isn't about choosing your favorite, but gathering information on the appeal of different choices. barred received 11 positive votes and 4 negatives. geneforge received 9 positive votes and 6 negatives. sucia received 6 and 4. Clearly, barred elicited the most positive reaction overall, while sucia elicited the most subdued reaction.

 

Aran, I know that _you_ dislike barred. It is after all your domain, and your generosity that is providing the site, so if you simply don't want barred I don't think anyone will object to your vetoing it. But let's not drag this on forever.

14 votes is what the last poll got, I believe. So it looks like the winner is

 

Sucia Archives

 

at

 

barred.ermarian.net

 

I voted against Sucia Archives, but I'm slowly being sold on it, and I think it'll be a good name. The barred subdomain is clever and gives the site some character, even if it's more obscure than geneforge would be.

 

Aran, make it so.