Mea Tulpa

Right. Game mechanics trump real world mechanics, in this arena. Real world mechanics also don't apply to nonexistant things such as arrows that cause anything they hit to freeze.

No -- too unpredictable and reliant on chance factors -- but I did consider that originally. Quote: —Alorael, who is miffed about PK freeze apparently having higher priority than ice arrows. Ice arrows can be dodged, don't do tremendous damage on their own, and Poo's equipment prevents their ancillary effect. PK Freeze can't be dodged, and its primary effect is to do tremendous damage (only Starstorm and Ness's Special can do more).

There were a few such anachronisms in the last chapter.

Aaaaaaand we're done here.

EXCITING MATCH-UPS AND SECRETS AWAIT. Round Two of the Video Game Character Stunt Double Tourney has been completed! Thanks to everyone who participated. Congratulations to the 10 stunt doubles who have advanced: BlackWarGreymon (The Ratt) Delita (Nemesis) Magus (*i) Princess Peach (Nikki) Pikachu (Rowen) Poo (Lenar) Rune (Thuryl) Samus (Iffy) Soma Cruz (Bloodmoon) The Naughty Sorceress (Salmon) Round three will take place in ONE segment of five battles. As in previous rounds, participants and spectators alike are encouraged to give their opinion on the battles, which will be taken into account when the ruling is issued. Without further adue: ROUND THREE... FIGHT!!! 3.1. Rune (Thuryl) vs. the Naughty Sorceress (Salmon) 3.2. Samus (Iffy) vs. Soma Cruz (Angelic) 3.3. Delita (Nemesis) vs. Poo (Lenar) 3.4. BlackWarGreymon (The Ratt) vs. Pikachu (Rowen) 3.5. Princess Peach (Nikki) vs. Magus (*i) By the way... expect something very special to happen in Round Four! The surviving stunt doubles will have to deal with a most unexpected format for the round... try to guess the format if you dare.

I wasn't going to comment, but the sound of a cowspell always arouses my interest.

Dessmarestia is correct that the phonological rules applied on the addition of an affix for the most part do not apply to the creation of compound words. However, there is a problem with the previous argument. No, it is not immediately obvious that the word "gene" is used in the Geneforge world (although that is revealed late in the first game). However, the analogy to genes and to genetic engineering *is* immediately obvious. Here are the first two paragraphs on the SW Geneforge page. I've bolded the stuff that makes the connection to genes quite hard to avoid: Originally Posted By: Geneforge Home Page on SW Geneforge is our newest fantasy role-playing game with a science fiction twist. In Geneforge, you are free to choose what your overall goal is, and you can seek after it with your own horde of deadly, mutant monsters. You are a Shaper, a member of the most powerful and secretive of the magical guilds. You have the power to create life and mold it to serve your own needs. For millennia, your world feared and respected the Shapers above all others. Their creations could go everywhere, do anything, all according to the wishes of the Shapers and no others.

The Summary is an excellent and much-needed addition.

Not quite. In A4, the Stick was the best _non-Pole_ weapon if (and only if) you had extremely high levels of battle skills (Strength, Melee Weapons, and Blademaster) to make up for the lost weapon levels of damage and to-hit. Even then, its complete lack of special abilities makes it an unlikely best choice, even if it could sometimes outdamage Demonslayer.

Its loss is one of the reasons it's a legend. I don't know if it directly inspired PPP, but the loss of threads like Xian Skull was one of the reasons PPP began.

Yeah, it's totally lost. The Wayback Machine has snapshots of forum lists that list Xian Skull as a topic (with many, many pages) but unfortunately, despite an exhaustive number of queries I made, there don't seem to be any records on any archival date of a single page of that topic.

I remember finding Scrioth too, and being befuddled and disappointed at the lame stats of an apparently legendary magical item. It was worse in combat than a steel sword, and it had a finite number of charges of a second-level mage spell. Whoop-de-doo...

The English language as popularly spoken really has the definitive say on it. If Jeff wanted it to be pronounced atypically and specified an alternate pronounciation, that would be one thing. But without such specification, most people will inevitably pronounce it in a certain way. The rules Alorael cites is unconsciously followed by the vast majority of English-speakers, even if they don't realize it. (Actually, I suspect that rule holds across most languages. Not sure about that though.)

Shock Tralls stack up really well against freshly made Gazers and Drakons, as well as War Tralls, of course. Their downfall is that you can't (remotely reasonably) level them up; if you get War Tralls or Wingbolts early they can advance quite a bit by the end of the game, but Shock Tralls don't get that benefit. However, since you can't afford to make 7 Tralls or whatever when you first get access to them, you won't have 7 that are really at such a high level. I think there is a good case to be made for using 2 or 3 fresh Shock Tralls in difficult battles.

Poorly formatted surveys are okay, if they actually get results. Similarly, multiple content-free posts bumping a thread are okay, if there's a good reason for them. Spammy, pointless banter between two members is okay, too, if it's actually funny. However, all three in one thread when there's nothing going on? Just call me killjoy. You are not cute.

That's true, but if Quick Action activated, they affected both blows, didn't they? So they could cover two hits to one target.

Ah. Well, of course, then. The Mac version of the game includes files that run on a Mac. It does not include files that run on Windows. Installing it on another computer and copying it should work -- I don't think Spiderweb programs ever install any computer-specific extensions. However, if something basic enough to make the installer refuse to run is broken, it's entirely possible that will affect other programs as well, such as G5.

I notice that you already posted this problem last month from another account, and Spidweb said "The problem is very very likely to be, sadly, something broken on your end." Having the installer produce data file folders but not the EXE itself is very, very strange. Are you absolutely sure there is no EXE file -- is it possible it's somehow covered up in the icon display, but it's there if you go to list view?

Yes, that's from the confusingly named Quick Strike skill.

Personally, I've always preferred the less "crisp", but easier-to-distinguish BoE automap to the Avernum style.

That's true about Exile, though not Exile 1 itself, which had no traits. I thought the quickslot bug was fixed in A5?

Dual-wielding _did_ come with a penalty in Exile. It was easy to overcome the penalty at high levels, but it did effectively prevent dual-wielding warriors in the early game.

So, as Elohi-Bok said, competition for resources in the caves leads to some kind of ultimate power struggle. IIRC that was the only apocalyptic lead given in Exile 2, that wasn't given in Exile 1. The Olgai tribe is supposedly asleep, so either we have more Rentar followers (NO.) or another Vahnatai tribe. (Presumably the Darkside Loyalists get in on the fun as well.) Demons, mages, dragons, sliths, nephils, and the Empire are all out -- I don't think there were any real additions on those fronts, as far as apocalyptics go, in Exile 2.

Well, most of them are in college or high school, aren't they?

It's not every 100 experience points, skill points are issued individually in much smaller intervals -- something like every 8 experience points IIRC. What's unique about this compared to other SW games is that you do not have a "level" and therefore the amount of credit you get for killing a particular type of enemy does not decrease as the game goes on. In addition, there is no limit to the skill points you can gain.