Mea Tulpa

At the highest levels though, that's pretty good XP. 5 XP means you need 200 skribbane for 1000 XP, which is... 7000 gold. 7000 gold for a level-up isn't unreasonable if you've bought everything you care about already.

Whew! The weight restriction is 7.0 or under. That bans the nonmagical broadswords and waveblades as well as the Blessed Broadsword, the Venomous Blade, and Demonslayer. However, all the other good swords are available for off-hand use, including the Flaming, Oozing, and Frozen Blades, the Radiant Soulblade, the Ghostly Blade, the Stunning Blade, and the Discipline Blade. So it's essentially irrelevant.

Thuryl -- Even then, if we go with the above numbers, MB + Poles = 3.25 * 2.0 = 6.50 MB + Blades = (3.0 * 2.0) + 3.0 = 9.00 WAB + Poles = 3.25 * 1.5 = 4.88 WAB + Blades = (3.0 * 1.5) + 3.0 = 7.5 Gah, there's a weight requirement?!? That potentially changes things. If the off-hand weapons are limited to very weak ones, the formulae ain't égal.

Pleasantly, most of the skills we'd normally like to train early either have early trainers (Melee Weapons, Pole Weapons, Spellcraft, the Lore skills) or no trainers at all (Str, Dex, Int, End, Priest Spells, Bows, Quick Action, Tool Use). The only real exception is Mage Spells... an SP-expensive skill that will provide great savings in skill points if you can wait for it. I don't know how far in Duvno is, but I think that might be doable. A Natural Mage will start with Daze anyway. I'm starting to wonder if a mainly-melee party is the way to go. 4 dual wielders, or maybe 3 and 1 slith, 1 each with some extra defensive skills, Tool Use, Mage Spells and Priest Spells. The plethora of readily available (and relatively cheap) training in the various advanced combat skills helps this, and what really makes it attractive is Cloak of Blades -- which can't be combined with Cloak of the Arcane.

UPDATE: Prices in parentheses are GP spent per skill point saved for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trainings. Also, Gnass prices are corrected. Gnass Seleeass 700 - Arcane Lore (700, 770, 420) 500 - Nature Lore (500, 550, 300) Fissure Post Reginaldo 1700 - Spellcraft (TOM is cheaper) 2040 - Magical Efficiency (TOM is cheaper) Fort Remote Sergeant Kaye 1700 - Dual Wielding (850, 935, 680) 1530 - Pole Weapons (383, 421, 367) 1360 - Parry (453, 499, 408) 2040 - Lethal Blow (510, 561, 490) Eastern Great Cave Taddeo 900 - Melee Weapons (225, 248, 216) 700 - Anatomy (175, 193, 168) 700 - Gymnastics (Duvno is cheaper) 700 - Sharpshooter (175, 193, 168) Tower of Magi Agass-Ess 840 - Arcane Lore (Gnass is cheaper) 1200 - Spellcraft (400, 440, 360) 1440 - Magical Efficiency (480, 528, 432) Fort Duvno Stuart 900 - Mage Spells (180, 198, 180) 420 - Gymnastics (105, 116, 101) 600 - Resistance (120, 132, 120)

Wiki link It isn't quite that simple, CM -- AE was a vowel in its own right in Old English.

Update on the last issue. After some more (paltry) tests, it looks like Strength and Melee Weapons do have identical effects (haven't tested Blademaster). I also have a guess on the actual damage formula. Again, this could be off -- paltry data -- but it fits the data I have very well: Damage before armor = Weapon damage + Skill damage Weapon damage = Weapon multiplier * Weapon bonus Skill damage = Weapon multiplier * Sum of all relevant skills * 0.75 This also fits the pattern we noticed with Unlock Doors in A5, which makes me suspect it applies to spells as well. Neat!

Tests are in! And as usual, our theories are not quite right. And as usual, more testing is probably warranted. I ran two tests. Both involved attacking the first NPC in the game with the first weapons in the game -- those "3-6" daggers. [i recorded damage BEFORE armor, that is, I added together the damage done with the damage blocked.] Each run, 7 in all, involved 20 successful attacks. I know that's not enough to be statistically bulletproof (hi, Thuryl) but it should give us a vague idea of what direction to look in. I am suspicious that the daggers were a limiting factor; see below. DUAL WIELDING AND TO-HIT To-hit scores with 2 points of Strength and no Melee Weapons or Blademaster were expectedly low. For single wielding they were 28%, but for dual wielding they fluctuated between 13%, 18%, 23%, and 28%. With 0 DW they were often 13% and never 28%; with 20 DW they seemed to always be 28%. Given that this range of 15% is far off from the estimates of others (Randomizer's 50%) and that the weapon I was using had a bonus level of 3, I am suspicious that what dual wielding really does is remove the weapon to-hit bonus, then give a chance -- greatly increaed by DW skill -- to regain some or all of that bonus. DUAL WIELDING AND DAMAGE Let's begin with my data: Test 1: Level 1, 6 Strength, 9 Melee Weapons. 00 SW: Avg 22.50, Range 16-28 00 DW: Avg 18.14, Range 10-26 02 DW: Avg 19.00, Range 11-26 00 DW / 00 SW = 0.80 Test 2: Level 61, 2 Strength, 20 Melee Weapons. 00 SW: Avg 27.35, Range 21-36 00 DW: Avg 21.55, Range 15-30 10 DW: Avg 27.00, Range 19-33 20 DW: Avg 29.30, Range 21-37 00 DW / 00 SW = 0.79 The good news is that, however paltry the data set, it is at least well-behaved, particularly the single-wielding to unskilled dual-wielding damage ratio. A penalty of 20% to damage seems pretty likely. This changes our formula above: Poles Avg / Lvl = 2.5 * 1.0 * 1.0 = 2.5 Melee Avg / Lvl = 2.0 * 2.0 * 0.8 = 3.2 This makes swords more attractive. The other thing of note is that Dual Wielding skill did increase damage significantly. At least in this trial, 10 points was enough to counteract most of the penalty. N.B.: there could well be other factors this test did not account for, such as weapon type -- I am suspicious of that one. So, we can hazard guesses based on this data but not ironclad conclusions. That said -- given that the Dual Wielding skill is relatively cheap and easy to access, and that there doesn't *seem* to be much advantage to maxing it out, EW and DT still probably beat Ambidextrous. However, dual wielded blades now compete with and possibly outshine magic in terms of damage output, when you take Quick Action into account: 2.0 * 2.0 * 1.0 * 1.5 = 6.0 (rough estimate with 10 DW and 10 QA) Compare to about 3.25 for Poles with QA, and 3 or 3.5 for spells. Admittedly Pole users can get the Slith bonus and save skill points on DW, but that simply won't make up the difference between 3.25 and nearly 6.0. BUT ALSO The SW numbers were not what we would expect. Given the assumption we've made since A4 about the damage formulae being simple, we would expect a maximum range of 1-2 * (2 + 6 + 9) or 17-34, with an average of 25.5, for the first test, and a max range of 1-2 * (2 + 2 + 20) or 24-48, with an average of 36, for the second test. But the averages were lower: 22.5 and 27.4... it appears that Strength and Melee Weapons do not add to damage as simply as we thought they did. It may be more like Nethergate: Resurrection where they add at differing proportions. More testing is required -- this would be very advantageous to figure out!

Whoops, my bad. Not sure how I missde this -- Ambidextrous just gives you Dual Wielding growth (Good).

My impression, coming mainly from different graduate departments at my alma mater and from professionals in the fields I have worked in, is that in the US the master's degree has really fallen off a cliff as far as academic relevance goes, and that it is only really relevant in non-academic settings that use it specifically as professional qualifications. In effect this restricts it to fields that have professionally-oriented mid-level degrees. MA's and MS's seem to be largely useless.

Yes, it's clearly ego, ego, ego... However, science isn't based on accepting scientists' conclusions when they are really cool, admirable, ethically sound individuals. It's based on accepting their conclusions when they are reproducable and verifiable. I'm not entirely convinced that standard academic ego means data should be thrown out, but even supposing it does in this case, unless the data in question was actually part of the case for climate change, it doesn't really have any impact on the status of climate change theory itself.

Here are lists of the bonuses of each race and each advantage. For an explanation of the four rates at which stats can grow, see below. RACES Human: Nothing. Nephil: - Bows (Fair) - Thrown Weapons (Fair) - Gymnastics (Slow) Slithzerikai: - Pole Weapons (Fair) - 20% Fire/Poison/Acid Resistance (Never Grows) - 10% Bonus to HP (Grows with HP) ADVANTAGES: Good Constitution: - 4% Armor (Never Grows) - 4% Hostile Effect Resistance (Never Grows) - 30% Poison/Acid Resistance (Never Grows) Thick Skin: - 10% Armor (Never Grows) Fast on Feet: - 50% chance every round of getting +1 bonus AP (Never Grows) - 10% bonus evasion (haven't tested, was true in A4-5, need to confirm) Ambidextrous: - Dual Wielding (Good) Nimble Fingers: - Tool Use (Good) - First Aid (Slow) Deadeye: - Sharpshooter (Good) Natural Mage: - Mage Spells (Good) - Magical Efficiency (Slow) - Can cast mage spells in encumbering armor (more details needed) Pure Spirit: - Priest Spells (Good) - Magical Efficiency (Good) Elite Warrior: - Blademaster (Fair) - Parry (Fair) - Encumbrance bonus equal to (5 + Level) Divinely Touched: - Blademaster (Best) - Sharpshooter (Best) - Spellcraft (Best) - 20% Armor (Never Grows) GROWTH RATES Slow: +1, and an additional +1 at levels 10, 20, 30, ... Fair: +2, and an additional +1 at levels 8, 16, 24, ... Good: +2, and an additional +1 at levels 6, 12, 18, ... Best: +1, and an additional +1 at levels 4, 8, 12, ... To be honest, there is not a whole lot of distinction between Fair, Good, and Best until you reach middle to high levels. Slow provides a noticeably weaker bonus at most levels. To demonstrate: Code: LEVEL SLOW FAIR GOOD BEST 1 +1 +2 +2 +1 8 +1 +3 +3 +3 16 +2 +4 +4 +5 24 +3 +5 +6 +7 32 +4 +6 +7 +9 40 +5 +7 +8 +11 48 +5 +8 +10 +13 56 +6 +9 +11 +15 max +7 +9 +12 +!6

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A4 didn't have any respawning, did it?

I'm assuming you meant -50%. Actually, I think that's what the penalty was in Exile, too. Does the Dual Wielding skill do anything other than increase your to-hit chance by 1%? Because if not, it would seem to be dramatically less useful than just putting more points in Melee Weapons. If you take for granted that the damage penalty is in fact 1/3, we end up with comparable damage of 2 * 2 * 2/3 = 2.66 for dual-wielded melee weapons, versus 2.5 for pole weapons. This is in line with SoT's observations that dual-wielding isn't all that different from just using a spear. However, it doesn't take any special investment to dual-wield either, and you do get access to the ancillary-effect swords. So if the damage reduction is indeed 1/3, it sounds like one pole fighter and one Drizzt clone is indeed the way to go.

That is an incredibly welcome change. The quest paths, I mean.

Exile 3 has this: "Years ago, we finally banished the demon lord Grah-Hoth from our caves. Now, she has made it possible for him to return!" Although Exile 1 does say that you have actually destroyed Grah-Hoth, it not hard to believe that it just looked like you destroyed him, when really you banished him, and a group of outcast adventurers with no formal demonological training wouldn't know the difference.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Most collection quests don't decrease in experience as you gain levels. They just don't give you that much for each item. Really? Ugh. Since everything else decreases in XP as you gain levels, that means the best thing to do is hold onto all those items for the entire game, then use them at the end. Sigh

SoT, you mentioned that dual wielding has "a serious penalty in hit chance and damage." It really has a damage penalty? Presumably it can't be too high. After all, there can't be much point to trading a shield for a second sword if it won't increase your damage noticeably.

Yeah, that's a gigantic waste of skill points if you don't plan to use evasion past the beginning. GIGANTIC.

INFINITE CHITRACHS? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I assume you are talking about strikes per round while under some kind of hasting effect, like that battle discipline? Otherwise QA has gotten an order of magnitude better. How does DT boost spell damage w/o Magery?

Not having played the game yet -- the changes to Blademaster and Magical Efficiency are huge. Blademaster makes offensively focused melee characters more viable, assuming it still provides fatigue reduction. In combination with the minor spell damage reduction the removal of Spellcraft causes, I wonder if this may make them a good option for damage output. On the other hand, being able to access Magical Efficiency essentially for free means that, assuming it is as strong as it was in A5, you can build a character centered around that skill that can cast essentially unlimited spells.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer I decided to follow Slarty's advice for a character build in Avernum 4 that emphasizes evaision to avoid taking damage in the first place. Uh oh. Perhaps things have changed since A4, but the end result of my great idea (it was a great idea) was failure. The build was viable on Easy and semi-viable, but not great, on Normal. On Torment it was literally mathematically impossible to obtain reasonable evasion ability. Even with all available skill points, knowledge brews, and optimal evasion equipment, it was impossible to keep up with ever-increasing enemy accuracy. Dodge rate started out OK then dropped precipitously and never quite recovered beyond 20% or so.

Interesting. I sense research to be done.