Mea Tulpa

The OP sounded to me like it was suggesting actual differences in the mechanics behind different types of armor -- not characters choosing types of armor to be more proficient with.

Isn't the issue that some factions want them to *not* be released?

I'm fuzzy on A1-3, but A4 and A5 definitely go the absorption route and not the deflection route as far as armor goes. I don't think it's so uncommon for heavy armor to lower to-hit chance. It's standard in roguelikes and it's even made it into console titles like Final Fantasies.

DV is definitely not a cameo. As answered earlier in this thread: Originally Posted By: Thuryl Vlish have canonically tasted terrible ever since G1, in order to discourage predators from eating them. That's where DV's name came from in the first place.

Many of the creations have been slightly retooled since G2, and almost all the battle creations have been retooled since G4.

I'll go one step further: definitely not. Jeff has never put forum members in his games.

It does sound like you are playing more with freshly made creations than long-kept, levelled-up ones -- G5 favors the latter category pretty drastically.

That's correct. Note that although level-ups are the same in every game, the rate at which creations gain experience relative to the PC is drastically different in G4, and very different again in G5, so good strategy is not quite the same for each game.

This is G3 we're talking about here. Even on Torment, if you make a full team of creations early, nothing will ever touch you.

I disagree. G3 is the game with messed-up creation level-ups. Vlish are broken, and cheap. There is very little need for expensive creations or large essence reserves, so you are better off with something like the Girdle of Strength, to increase your creations' power as well as your own carrying capacity.

1) None of the ending texts are canonical. This is well-established. It is common for the next game in the series to start from a point that is similar to one particular ending, but it is never identical. 2) We know from Litalia's autobiographical spiels that Ghaldring emerged before the end of the Shapers' razing of Drypeak. He obviously didn't die there, so that's already one exception. It's not hard to imagine that Rhakkus happened to be on a mission outside the valley when the razing began, and didn't return. He's been an unprincipled and self-centered character from his first appearance, so this is quite plausible. I agree that it makes no sense for him to disappear entirely for two games and then have a dialogueless cameo in G5. However, it's possible -- if he stayed in Western Terrestia and just didn't happen to cross the PC's path until the end. I agree it seems unlikely, and I would still assume that Ghaldring shaped an assistant and named him in honor of one of his forebears. But we can't know for sure.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba (Either way, Dikiyoba thinks it was an odd choice to give that pair of generic minions names at all, let alone names that have been used before.) I agree, but let's not forget that JV brought back two characters of comparable or greater relevance -- Anastasia and Garzahd -- as plot-irrelevant liches in A4. Bleh. Ackrovan / UBS - where does it state that Rhakkus was killed post G2? I can't find it anywhere.

Ackrovan is right about Rhakkus: the game says specifically he is halfway between the two, but at other times just says is "one of the first drakons." It only refers to him as a drayk before his transformation. If those 2 charcaters in G5 are both drakons, presumably they were just named in honor of two famous drayks.

Rhakkus is in G5? Crazy, huh. Amena Blade was in 1-4, but not 5. Issss-Ta was in 2-5, though at least one of those appearances (5) had no dialogue. A number of characters were in 3-5, and a number were in 1-2.

Interesting picture. What program did you use to make it?

Are these all relevant? I just notice that the first twenty articles, with one or two exceptions, were either written by Jeff, or by people who have only designed for BoE.

Um, yes.

Look at the ATTACK TYPES. Don't make assumptions about resistances as they are sometimes a bit odd.

That's definitely wrong. 0 is physical resistance aka armor, there is no hostile effect resistance for innate resistance, and some of the others look off as well.

Very interesting. That means that armor and resistances are quite devalued on Torment, while Endurance and maybe even Parry are more useful.

You need that regardless of whether you are running it on a Mac or not. When it refers to MacOS and a Macintosh ROM, it is talking about the OLD copies of those for the system you are emulating.

Wait, he never receives any damage reduction at all on Torment? Assuming you mean he doesn't receive the expected damage reduction, one possibility is that part of the damage is added after resistance. I don't think that's likely, but Jeff has implemented things like that before -- see blessing and shield effects in Nethergate: Resurrection, for example.

Does Torment *actually* reduce the effect of resistances? I'm inclined to trust you since you were right and I was wrong before, but I'm surprised nobody has noticed that before if it's the case. Make sure you aren't confusing it with the method of damage reduction (extremely chancy, according to Thuryl's theory) or the calculation of stat bonuses to resistance (add-then-multiply, often disappointing),

Litalia is certainly the most morally complex. There are other characters that have a similarly nuanced moral view, like Greta, but they mostly pick one way of dealing with the world around them and stick with it, even if they look uneasy from time to time. Her successful attempt to quit canisters is also one of the series's few intensely personal moments and I wish more attention had been paid to it.

WOWZERS