Mea Tulpa

Don't waste points in Defense, use the buy-unbuy exploit when you want to get Parry. Note that you can (and should) train in Parry before buying points manually. Other than that (and Dexterity -- ditto!), your choices look pretty smart. Maybe I should pick my own Torment singleton Slith DT EW back up? ...nahh, that would require having free time again.

Or just get rid of that obnoxious giant font. That had to be my least favourite change introduced in E3.

Ooh, if that's true it's neat. Thanks for the research. Mind sharing how you came to that conclusion?

Pretty cool. One small problem: You can't even compare Str/Blademaster/Melee/Pole as you have done in the last section due to the fact that base weapon damage is not affected by those skills, but IS affected by Quick Action and Quick Strike and (I assume) Anatomy and Lethal Blow. Since S/B/M/P do not affect the base damage, the actual amount they increase your damage is basically subject to a reduction dependent on the base damage and multiplier of your weapon. For comparison with, e.g., Quick Action increases, you need to multiply the S/B/M/P contribution by: (SBMP * 0.75 * Multiplier) / ( (SBMP * 0.75 * Multiplier) + (Avg Base Damage) ) where Multiplier is 2 for halberds, 1.5 for broadswords, 3 for dual-wielded broadswords, etc. In practice, this reduction will vary. With 33 in attack skills, wielding the Jade Halberd will give 0.5. With dual-wielded broadswords or early game weapons, it is likely to be higher and with lower skills, it is likely to be lower.

I think the risk was zero if the wand was out of charges, too. That gave them serious utility, although this was somewhat counterbalanced by E1's very limited inventory.

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel Originally Posted By: Nioca ...Except you don't know what the range of that spell is to begin with, and it's always centered on your caster anyway so you have to get them right in the fray of things just to have the spell take effect. Um, what? Doesn't the manual tell you these things? No, it doesn't. Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel Okay, I can't argue about this not being a problem. I haven't even played the game yet. (Actually, I haven't even tried A5 yet.)... Without knowing what enemies and how much the game mechanics have changed from earlier games... I can only guess... I guess? I dunno really... I'd assume... My guess... But again, I haven't played the game so I could be way off. Okay, so let me get this straight. Somebody plays A6, posts a long list of critiques, and you tell him to read the manual. Yet you haven't read the manual or even played the game? Sounds like a bit of a double standard there...

YOU SALTY BANANA

The final one is actually AMAZING in A5 where it grants not only the speed bonus, but a big damage bonus as well. It's just A6 where it blows.

D'oh!

I've made a poll based on everybody's comments in this topic -- cast your votes here.

A poll based on the comments in this topic. Share your opinion here, in quantifiable form! Yargh!

boggle_scorpius

I thought the reason not to display floors, was in case unusual juxtapositions of terrain height would lead to a few tiles of high floor blocking your view entirely of a lower floor tile.

TARRED AND FEATHER FALLED GRAAAAAARGHHHH

Yeah, Adrenaline Rush is really the most important battle discipline now. The later ones aren't so important.

Three and a half years ago. Few of the really old members are around. The only ones who post regularly are Alorael and Thuryl; there are others who are around every so often, like Stareye. But the vast majority of everyone who was here before 2006 or 2007 is gone.

Also note that stunning, slowing, and loss of AP will not affect any scripted attacks a boss might use. Even in the situation Other mentioned, Stunning Blow isn't that useful since you can get a similar amount of damage advantage out of having everyone use Adrenaline Rush.

BattleChess FTW

Originally Posted By: boggle What is your problem with real time? Do you have the reactions of a geriatric slug? No, I like to think before I act. I'm not going to throw an insult back about your cognitive ability, but I will suggest that you read the code of conduct before you throw any more tough talk around.

Astoundingly, UBB seems to number posts pretty accurately. The oldest post I can find that's still around, Drakefyre's original CoC in the Announcements board, is from late 2001 and is something like post 17,000, which is perhaps slightly higher than I'd have guessed but is in the right ballpark. About 200,000 posts over about 9 years equals about 61 posts per day, which sounds about right as well.

The issues moving multiple characters long distances I can understand. What's harder to understand are the problems moving a single PC 3 spaces away during combat. When the algorithm chooses a route that results in incomplete travel due to being "slowed down" by an enemy, rather than an equally accessible route that does not border any enemies and would result in complete travel, I can only assume it is because the algorithm either does not check for adjacent enemies, does not check correctly, or has some problem seeing the alternate but equally simple route. Right?

Nope, it doesn't. And that annoying occurance isn't intentional. Apparently pathfinding is harder to implement than it seems like it would be.

It isn't horrible, but its effects are pretty negligible comapared to other special skills -- and, importantly, compared to Hardiness and Luck. Since it has become standard in A6 (particularly on Torment) to put a good chunk of points into those skills, Poison and Acid resistances get up to a reasonable level on their own. Bonuses from Pathfinder aren't useless, to be sure, but they just aren't critical.

I wonder if it's possible that the GamersGate build has problems the standard SW build doesn't have. Ugh... that sounds all too possible.

Well, that wins my award for the smartest post on these forums in a couple of months. And it would do so even without comparing Crono to Jesus Actually, I think the post also answers ES's question, in a roundabout way. Sure, CT was great on a number of fronts: it had great graphics and sound for its time, an engaging story, likable and differentiated characters, and so on. But the thing that truly makes CT the gold standard for RPGs is that it is never unfun. You never lose because of the mechanics or the controls; you never get irritated because of the mechanics or the controls; there isn't a single menu or dialogue option in the game that is clunky, awkward, confusing, or laggy. The game is easy, but that isn't an issue because it is so incredibly well-paced, both in terms of balance and storyboarding, and there is so much _meaningful_ variety in terms of who, what, where, when, why, and how that it never gets old. Chrono Trigger, much like Queen Latifah's taxi, is simply immune to traffic.