Mea Tulpa

1. The Undead Spiral has not reactivated every Avernum game. It wasn't cleansed in X1, so it only reactivated in A4 and A6. 2. Fort Dranlon is in the middle of the Caves, but it is on the side of the Kingdom. Although its original purpose of defending agianst the Sliths and later the Empire died out, the lands west of Dranlon were never settled or tamed to any degree. Although the undead of the Scree Pits and the Abyss and the giants were not quite as close by as the sliths/Empire, without Dranlon they would have easy access to the Eastern Gallery. Likewise it is a strategic position relative to the Northern Waters, which even in A5 didn't seem to be completely tame. And remember that during A4 the sea monsters were a threat, so holding on to strategic sea positions would seem quite useful. 3. Fort Ganrick was built specifically to deal with a goblin threat (which a party of six novice soldiers handily defeated).

The toning down is unfortunate. Keeping Heartstriker at 1-5 instead of 1-4 would have made it more viable to have one hardcore archer.

Do not insult Mothra.

The obvious reason comes from the history & descent of Jeff's game engines. At some point he began to assign different weights to damage levels from stats and damage levels from the weapon/spell itself. The value of .75 is obtained from empirical tests, all of which adhere to it very strongly.

Yeah, "outdoors" in this discussion really means "walkabout mode both on zoomed out world map and zoomed in zone locations, which do not all have to be adjacent to each other"

Student of Trinity spins the thread, Ephesos measures it, And I--

Oozing Blade may not mention it explicitly, but it does describe its attack differently than a regular sword does. Unfortunately, in A4, there are -no- weapons that are more than their descriptions, looked at this way. The Flaming Sword in A4 is just a regular sword with good power and a slight bonus to-hit. Nope, no "complete set" bonuses either I'm afraid.

Not possible in Geneforge, I'm afraid.

Your rabbit is not particularly masculine.

Originally Posted By: Dantius What was the last game you played that posed any philosophical or ethical questions that it didn't simultaneously answer? Game designers don't usually leave you hanging, which is what makes Jeff special. That's one word for it. I imagine you'd love Chrono Cross then, which is about as morally frustrating as any game I can imagine. For more JRPGs, look at Live-a-Live and Treasure of the Rudras, both on the SNES. That said, let's not overrate the philosophical genius of the Geneforge series. The ethical questions mostly end up boiling down to very broad stroke ideas like "do you have a responsibility to help others" or "how much control is ideal in a society" or "when is violence justified" and occasionally statements like "doesn't it suck how life is miserable for the majority of the population no matter what happens."

Originally Posted By: Dantius Geneforge is a much deeper and more complex game than Avernum. A lot of people want their games to be a mindless diversion, not a philosophical exercise. Not particularly. The plot definitely presents a lot more ethical questions than Avernum's does, and it does so in a more serious way. However, this has essentially nothing to do with the actual "game" part of them. But anyway, other than the issue of ethical quandaries, I fail to see how Geneforge's story is "much deeper" or "more complex" than the story of Avernum. And there is a wide continuum between "mindless diversion" and "philosophical exercise" -- and a large chunk of SW players are somewhere in the middle, perhaps around "thought-provoking diversion."

The only question left is whether to call it AIMband or Aingband!

If your original comment was a joke, it was a lot stupider than I expected from you. That's one backhanded... backpalmed?... compliment for the day.

Really? I'm skeptical. Not an expert on Old Norse, but I typically see Hel, not Hal, as the origin of hell, and I thought 'breed' had a different origin. Care to citate?

Didn't think it was all of them for some reason. Fixed!

For weapons, Base Damage is listed in the weapon descriptions in-game. For spells, it is listed in the spell descriptions in the PDF manual only. The multipliers -- well, here's a list for weapons: 1.5 -- Short swords, regular bows 2.0 -- Broad swords, longbows, spears, a few unique halberds 2.5 -- Slith spears, halberds, javelins, the Heartstriker bow 3.0 -- Razordisks For spells, it is listed in the spell descriptions in the same place. From memory, 1.5 -- Bolt of Fire, Icy Rain 2.0 -- Lightning Spray, Divine Retribution 2.5 -- Smite, Divine Fire, Fireblast 3.0 -- Arcane Blow Edit: Dantius -- you are not using the word "multiplier" to mean the same thing I was above. Since my formula is for averages, "multiplier" just refers to the die size, where for XdY multiplier = (Y+1)/2.

Yeah, I don't get how facebook encourages segregated cliques either. If anything it seems to encourage a certain fluidity of group boundaries. Edit: On reading your link, it looks like clique in the graph theory sense is essentially the same thing, and it seems clear that one of the two meanings of "clique" derives from the other one.

*nod nod*

Those can also be scripted in without too much effort. I just found the location of the cheat box codes inside the Avernum 6 package. All the codes listed are: gsdf %d %d fps editor ouchouchouch leetbuffz owmybrains imdrained backtostart pleaselikeme iwanttobestronger iampoor location

How unexpected. Welcome back. I'm sure Alcritas will have an interesting perspective on what has happened to Blades in the last five years.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl One extra spell level has exactly the same effect as one extra point of Spellcraft, but only for that specific spell. Actually, this isn't true. One spell level has the same effect as 1 and a third points of Spellcraft... Spellcraft and M/P Spells skills receive the same 75% reduction that Str/MW/PW/Blademaster do. It's just how the game calculates the attack bonus for any attack.

A6 also does something else unlike every recent Avernum game -- it allows you to turn gold directly into experience, via the Skribbane dealers. That is far, far, FAR more valuable than an overpriced spell level. Yes, pumping spells that you know you'll use constantly, and which are very cheap to train, that's a different story.

That is not true. The PC in the first three Geneforge games is not yet a Full Shaper, and is definitely and without a doubt considered by everyone in the games to be essentially a Shaper.

*nod nod*

I don't think it can give items. Scripts can, yes.