Mea Tulpa

Is that true? Man, I didn't realize it was that much higher. A singleton is really tempting now. You should be able to skribbane your way to level 61 before finishing Southeastern Avernum! That's crazy. That's 380 skill points to play with, plus crazy skills from traits... say hello to +25 Blademaster for free... plus trainers... wowzers.

New thought: is it possible that Lethal Blow depends on XP level? That's how Assassination worked in Exile, and it would explain its craptacular value. I don't think this has much relevance for a regular game, but for when you are at level 61 from skribbane trafficking, it becomes quite relevant.

Since that's a change from all previous SW games with this item engine (G3, A4, G4, A5, G5) I imagine it was intentional. It's a helpful change if you are just picking up a pile of different loot items to sell, and you want to do it with the mouse (often easier than the keyboard if there is junk mixed in that you don't want to pick up). I agree that in general it's a hassle, but that's probably why it was changed.

Jeff really needs to put in more than two Vulcan PC graphics sets. I'm getting tired of having a party of two Spocks and two Obamas.

The level cap is 61. I don't think you will reach it naturally as a singleton, although there should be WAY more than enough gold available to reach it (after buying all skills from trainers) for a singleton, by using the skribbane method (which is four times as efficient for a singleton). In fact you can probably reach it halfway through the game -- something that makes a singleton game kind of appealing. Remember that XP is adjusted for level, so you will be at a higher level than a group of 4 at any given point, but not anywhere near 4 times as high.

The Heartstriker has a damage die of 1-4, other bows have 1-2 or 1-3. So with very high Dexterity, Bows and Sharpshooter skills, the Heartstriker can do a bunch more damage. Some objects, though, really are overpriced.

Okay, I tried to test Luck's impact on item drops, and my results are... inconclusive! Hooray. I made a new party full of 15 Luck PCs (at creation) and ran around killing goblins. I made sure to only count vanilla goblins and goblin warriors, who have a variety of item drops. They are identical, except that the warriors drop a sword instead of a dagger, at the same rate though. Also, I didn't count any goblins that had custom item drops, like the one that drops an energy potion. I killed 40, and got the following results. Code: Item Actual Dec Exp Exp * 1.3---- ------ ---- --- ---------Coins 12 0.30 0.25 0.33 Daggers 10 0.25 0.15 0.20 Sticks 10 0.25 0.15 0.20 Crystal 4 0.10 0.08 0.10 Belts 3 0.08 0.08 0.10 Actual is the number of drops I got, Dec is the corresponding decimal probability, Exp is the expected propability from the v1.01 scripts, and Exp * 1.3 shows one possible "better fit" result for the potential impact of Luck. The fact that the actual drop rates were all mildly higher than the expected rates suggests that Luck *might* affect item drops. However, the rates aren't that far off either, so it's still possible it doesn't affect them. Bleh. Randomizer, do you wanna email Jeff again and ask what exactly he did to Luck? Edit: Oh yeah. I did confirm that item drops are determined at load-up and not on-the-fly, which means that individual Luck scores aren't used -- either it's the party total, the party average, or potentially the highest score among the party.

That's a good point. For a 20% ward, you'd have to already be at what, 88 or 89% to hit the 90% cap? Fair enough.

I'm an editor, Jim, not a genetic engineer.

Interesting. The thing that's weird is that the primary target won't necessarily be the first target to be hit (and therefore impacted with battle disciplines), so it's not as if it actually has to refract off that enemy. Weird.

Zero is not in fact nothing. By definition. It is the quantity zero, it is not a null quantity.

Wards apply to PC sheet resistances? That's disappointing, I had assumed they were a separate calculation like Prismatic Shield used to be, and like Protection (I assume) still is.

I don't think the Lightning Spray targets have to be at the right angle from the caster, only the target you actually click on. The other two can be out of sight, it just chooses two at random from within 2 squares (Icy Rain range) of the target.

Mostly, except that Hardiness starts out costing 1 instead of 2. This helps a bit in hardcore damage reduction: 70 skill points split between them will reduce all your damage by 36%. Achieving that with just Hardiness would cost 90 skill points. 240 skill points split between them will reduce all your damage by 75%.

Well, I haven't tested items yet, but Luck now costs 2 instead of 4 and raises Armor AND all resistances by 2% per point instead of 1% per point. If it also increases item drops on top of that, it would seem to be overpowered, but I'll still try to test for it.

Huh. I wonder if it really does? I'll have to test that... I'm somewhat skeptical only because that would presumably require a bit more recoding than Jeff prefers to do, as opposed to giving Luck more of an impact on resistances or dodging or somesuch. Let's see...

Unfortunately, it isn't.

Oh, the irony.

Dahak -- what do you mean?

Since three of those spells are the three best damage-dealing spells in the game, it definitely makes ME less useful.

An irritating UI is not the same thing as an unusable UI. But everyone values different things in a UI... I don't see why there are so many extreme statements here. Tamagosan is not stupid for realizing right away that the UI really gets to him. But by the same token, it doesn't seem to be "essentially unplayable" for most people.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl It's a pity the game mechanics are set up so as to make none of the other shields worth using over the Quicksilver Bulwark in the late game, because some of them are pretty neat. Yes. Avernum 6 has, I think, the most balanced game mechanics of any game Jeff has ever released. There are no broken skills, almost every skill is useful, and specialization and generalization can both be useful. But there are still some weak links. Equipment is one -- most is useless, with a small trickle of minor upgrades going through the whole game. *sighs and goes back to fantastizing about a Gladius sequel*

I agree with your preferences tamagosan, but I find that those problems don't really interfere with gameplay much. What has been most helpful for me is a habit I picked up in the Geneforge series -- I use the arrow keys HEAVILY to scroll the screen around, which makes it much easier to deal with the limited (and, thanks to those windows, oddly shaped) playing view.

For a very long time, the paradigm in most computer RPGs was that spell energy, MP, or whatever you want to call it wouldn't regenerate at all unless you slept at an inn. This has begun to shift a little starting with real-time MMORPGs, but is still far from universal. So what you're missing, is that automatic MP regen isn't any kind of universal default in RPGs.

See answer here. For future reference, the Tech Support forum is for technical support problems and questions about game mechanics are better directed to the game forum itself.