Mea Tulpa

There are definitely some engine pieces that go straight from A4 to A5, but others that went from G4 to A5. In particular, G4 introduced the greatly improved encumbrance system, and A5 used the G4 encumbrance system and not the A4 one. So it's done piecewise, somehow.

If you think that's bad, Avernum 3 for Mac actually has some window resources in it that are clearly labelled as Exile 2. It's also possible that the dialog is displayed, and just doesn't use the default text.

Yeah, unfortunately you're wrong about that Randomizer. If you look at Geneforge 1 and Avernum 4, both games that started a new engine for the series, a lot of trait/stat/spell descriptions were copied directly from earlier games.

Full disclosure: Dantius runs the Wikispaces site, so he might be a little biased.

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. Personally, I would be happy if the little one sentence descriptions of traits and skills and abilities in the game were all ACCURATE -- there have been a few misleading errors in almost every game after Nethergate. OTOH, there are hardly any CRPGs that actually have the "full game mechanic transparency" you're asking for. In fact, outside of Angband and a handful of other open source games, I'm not sure I can think of any. I guess games that draw 100% of their mechanics from D&D would be an exception, but I think that's a different category entirely.

The natural devolution from Blades of Rogue.

Yeah. That was annoying. That was by far the single biggest reason I started playing singletons, and I never looked back. I still have a hard time running a party in any of the Exiles.

And unfortunately, in Exile, the experience is spread very unevenly. The character who strikes the death blow will get a lot more experience than other characters, even she is at a higher level. This tends to lead to strangely balanced parties if you have a handful of melee fighters and then people casting Bless on them... especially considering how often the games force you to fight goblins or spiders or whatever in 1 square wide corridors where you front character is likely to make all the kills.

I believe it's just +/- 5% per bonus point. I could be misremembering.

This is probably a good time to mention that the post Randomizer linked to was a regurgitation of a big chunk of information, not a primer or a guide. If it doesn't mention something, it does not mention that thing doesn't happen or exist. So the hit chance section, for example, just gives the base hit chance that is derived from weapon skill. It does not mention any modifiers, including from Dex, monster defensive ability, spells like bless, etc. But those things all affect hit chance.

That is just the progression for the main bonus from Str, Dex, and Int. IF I am remembering correctly, then reaching 20 has no impact on that bonus. 20 Str will give you an extra 15 lbs carrying capacity in E3 and BoE. Other than that I don't think there is any impact from getting to 20 in those three stats.

The progressions for Str, Dex and Int bonuses are all identical. From memory, it's something like: 1: -3 2: -2 3: -1 4: 0 6: +1 9: +2 12: +3 16: +4 19: +5 Or maybe the +4 is at 15? This is a little fuzzy, but it should be ballpark close to what I've outlined here. The potential additional +1 from Micah's Gloves or other such bonuses is ON TOP OF the regular progression, which is what makes them so valuable. You can reach a higher bonus than is otherwise possible. Enemies do have varying ability to "dodge" that is subtracted from your accuracy, I forget what goes into that. Your accuracy is not capped at 100 beforehand. Originally Posted By: SLARTIES Ambidextrous: - Negates -25% penalties for dual-wielding

I already had this argument over on the Basilisk forums, and it wasn't productive, so I'm just going to say that I disagree, that I think there is a meaningful distinction, and leave it at that.

Eh, I don't think so. I think there's a continuum of cheating that ranges from "avoids sandwich time and does not affect the game" (like "exitzone") to "makes something that could theoretically happen, happen without waiting for a 1 in whatever chance" (like abusing save-and-reload on the lower end, or like the item-shop-restock trick in the middle, to generating pokemon with perfect genes on the higher end) to "makes something happen that cannot or is not supposed to happen in the game" (like the free money trick or abusing the Tower of Magi donation box). There is, I suppose, a perpendicular continuum ranging from "exploiting unintended poor balance" to "exploiting bugs" to "using developer-made cheat codes" to "editing the game files".

Facepalm Hecatonchire Hecatomb The Nine-Headed Cave Cow Facepalming Hecatombchire!

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha All these shops are based upon the Exile magic item shops, I don't see them as being game-breaking. Clearly, you did not exploit the random item shops in E2 and E3 to supply everyone in your party with Rings and Boots of Speed, Rings of Resistance, Mithral Chain, Runed Helms, twin Magic Wave Blades, etc etc.

*nod* I agree with both of you. My point was that IF you're going to make changes to address balance or realism, weapons-not-as-good-as-wave-blades was really not the #1 issue.

For reals. Random item shops are game-breaking.

Let's be honest: although we know and love the mechanics in Exile, there is very little about them that is balanced or realistic. For starters you'd need to dramatically weaken Bless, Haste, dual wielding, damage reduction, antimagic fields, Simulacrum, and Luck. But that's just the tip of the iceberg...

Also, encumbrance. What's your encumbrance limit and how much weight are you carrying? Also, back in G1-3, everything could cause stunning with enough hits. Glaahks were just extra bad. Also, in any game, AVOID BEING SWARMED. Use terrain to your advantage, or use disabling magic, or just take out enemies one by one as quickly as possible. I assume you are a Guardian. Why no creations to help you out?

To be fair, you get diminished returns the entire time; the diminishing just increases drastically at 10, 20, etc when 10-capped. A regular skill of cost 3, you get an increase after investing: 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 11, 12, 12... A 10-capped skill of cost 3, you get increases after investing: 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 40, 44, 49, 72, 80...

IIRC, the 10-cap mostly does not exist as of G5. It definitely doesn't apply to Creation skills (that was new as of G4 or G5, forget which) or to any offensive bonuses from skills (Strength, Dexterity, weapon skills, magic skills). I believe it still applies to Parry and Quick Action. It MAY apply to evasion bonuses from Dexterity, Luck, and the like -- I'm not sure.

*facepalm facepalm facepalm*

Ah yes, I forgot about Darts of Ice. IIRC, the higher level spells were mostly nerfed less, which does make things hard on Roman druids (who never had it easy anyway).

They are? Huh. I seem to remember Synergy doing ridiculous amounts of damage with his magic-oriented singleton's spells in N:R. I know some of them have been changed or gimped (Hero of Old, HELLO!) but not all of them.