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Without knowing much about Avernumscript, it seems like it would be easier to have a second character who is hidden and then joins (or appears and offers to join, or whatever) on a cue triggered by the first (hostile) character's death state. That also allows you to make their stats different if appropriate.

ah. what about summoning the Palin eidolon, do I get bonus points for that?

...I'm confused. Why did he even bring lesbians into the argument? Was it solely for the purpose of a slur and a bizarre analogy, or what?

Originally Posted By: Rupert That said, in terms of how Jeff structured the series, I have to wonder if it was intentional that in both second games of the two trilogies, it ended up with a far more linear plot-line than the rest (A2 less so-much, but still involving a fairly linear path down some rapids. >.>). A4 was just about as linear as A5, really, and it was definitely more linear than A2. So, arguably, was A6.

pattern recognition, nothing. I play characters who have precognition and clairvoyance

The problem is it isn't bottom for "most players" -- it is bottom for all half-decent optimizers, which is a small chunk of the playing audience. Jeff doesn't have to cater to optimizers who want balanced gameplay because they (we) will play his games regardless, as nobody caters to us anymore and he is as close as it gets.

That just makes the skill point system stupid. Granularity does not enhance strategy, but on the contrary adds an element of mindless logistics.

I believe Rita Cskany explicitly says in-game that the wand heals its target. I did try it and that seemed to be the case.

Even if the stock rotated, it would still be the same stuff you don't want to buy. This is because the existence of trainers break merchants. If there were no trainers, and hence there was no incentive to be a pinchpenny, there are plenty of items that -would- be worth buying, even though the power boost you get from them might only last a few areas.

Originally Posted By: Dantius Also, Learned Pinner in G2 was pretty strong. Originally Posted By: Triumph Wasn't Gnorrel (sp?) the leader of the Takers in G1, female? Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES ...servile leaders, whose gender-aspects are downplayed anyway... Danette I suppose was a leader, but she was mainly a researcher: a shaper, yes, but essentially an academic magic-user. Quite parallel to Linda, but with less screen time and a less interesting character, but similar failings. And there is a long, long list of female researcher-magic-users in SW games. In fact I think librarians are more often female than male. Clearly that occupation is OK.

Ooh, I did forget Prazac. Prazac in E3 is a real exception, but yeah, she is weak and ineffective in the rest of the series. That mayor -- Evelyn I think? -- was possibly the least competent of any Avernum mayor ever: concerned solely, it would seem, with the magical jewelry that had enchanted her.

They were probably squished to force them to fit the equipment box placement. This is unfortunate, but there you go.

Originally Posted By: Heindrich1988 Speaking of gender, have you noticed that females in this game are very powerful (Erika, Carol, Rentar-Irhno etc), and often in physical roles (Miranda and several empire dervish characters). If I didn't know the game was made by Jeff, I might've thought it was designed by a feminist. I don't know about the "often in physical roles" part. Sometimes, yeah, but the powerful women who come to mind are mostly wizards, as you yourself mention with Erika and Rentar-Ihrno. Miranda is an exception, really. And look at Geneforge, where every melee-strong Guardian is male (save the one embarrassingly written exception) and every magic-strong Agent is female. And Kings and Emperors and Chiefs and Mayors and military leaders are overwhelmingly male. The rare, major exceptions are Vicky of Blosk, who is depicted as a crackpot in A4 and A6, Yong-Mi, who is depicted as an incompetent traitor in A4, Prossis-Bok, who shares power with TWO men, servile leaders, whose gender-aspects are downplayed anyway, Greta, who is of the stereotypically-female class, and Litalia, who in 2 out of 3 games is subserviant to men. And there is the Spider Queen, who eats men, and the Crones who are so warped by hate and age, and the Rose Lady, whose name I think speaks for its own femininity. The seriously strong females mostly seem to fall prey to emotional imbalances and greed for power or revenge, much as Vicky and Yong-Mi do: certainly this covers Erika and Linda and Rentar-Ihrno. The strongest ones all originate from the very early years, Exile 1 or Exile 2. Coincidentally, this is also the same time frame when Jeff made a point of inserting positively portrayed gay characters into his games: Exile 1 through Exile 3 have a slew of them, but every last gay reference was dropped when many of those characters made it into Avernum 4, and there have been no new gay characters since Exile 3. I dunno. Thoughts?

The HP loss to adrenaline rush is proportional to your max HP, and also quite small. The bonus you get from it is enormous. The above comment that battle disciplines are less useful than other skills might be true if not for the extreme diminishing returns placed on those skills (see the skill info thread and the numerical analysis of attack skills threads). As it is battle disciplines are incredibly strong.

The Resistance skill has never applied to armor. I know in A4 it was 4%, and A6 is 3%. Not sure about A5.

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan EDIT: I want to see more of the Goblin Goblins one day. I can't give you more, but I can give you this, which was one of my most inspired moments here if I do say so myself: Click to reveal.. (The Life and Death of Gobubary) Gobubary was born as a cripple, and it was for that defect that he was given his name. Goblin names don't mean anything, but the sound of 'Gobubary' was said to resemble the sight of the infant goblin trying to move about. For Gobubary had been born with only one leg. It wasn't simply that he had a missing leg; rather, where other goblins would have two legs, he simply had one big leg. In most days he would have been killed, but under Glogroth's enlightened rule, his life had been spared. Despite his defect, or perhaps because of it, Gobubary was driven to learn more than the other goblins, and to be better than them, even with a sword. And due to his unusual perseverence, he had succeeded. Of course, he still couldn't walk. He had a pair of crutches, and his leg only grew less useful with age and disuse, until eventually he began to drag it behind him when he walked, propelling himself forward with the crutches and then -- schllloompf, up swings the leg. Propel, schllloompf. So he was a horror on the field of war. He couldn't move fast enough to keep up with troops, he couldn't ride a worg, and while he could fence as well as any living statue, that still made him a less than effective fieldmarshall. Nonetheless, he was smart, and tactically astute, and he had a vitality and stubbornness to him that endeared him to most anyone he worked with. So Glogroth reluctantly agreed to put him in charge of one of their armies: though not any in the first wave. His leadership was a comical sight, one that both he and his men took many laughs from, and it kept them in good cheer. For in order to keep up with the army, Gobubary had to be carried in a litter. One fateful day, when Gobubary's army was about halfway down the isthmus, his scouts reported seeing a ship anchored near the coast. At that news, Gobubary has hissed gleefully; for humans were practically the only creatures who ever used ships. But the scouts had not seen anyone by the ship. So Gobubary ordered his men to spread out, to try and form a great semicircle around the ship; that way, if they found the passengers on the isthmus, they would have them surrounded. With the several hundred goblins in the army, this was relatively easily done; but their forces would be spread thin, and if the humans were discovered, the rest of the army would have to close in quickly, to prevent the humans from gaining any advantage. The goblins ran off to follow Gobubary's orders. His litter took him to the center of their lines. And sure enough, about an hour later, cries rang out to his right; the goblins had encountered someone. Quickly, Gobubary shouted out orders for all goblins to close in on the fighting. "All of us?" asked Pako, one of his lieutenants and his chief litter-bearer. "No, none of you!" snapped Gobubary, sarcastically. Go kill the humans this second!" "All right," said Pako. And at once all the litter-bearers dropped the litter and began to race towards the shrieks and cries. "You gobbing gobtards!" shrieked Gobubary. Pako turned around, and what she saw replayed itself again and again in her mind, in slow motion. The litter had struck the ground at an angle, and Gobubary's useless leg bounced off of it, and propelled him several feet in the air. He landed head-first on a rock outcropping. There was blood everywhere. His head was smashed. Gobubary was dead. Pako steeled herself and turned to follow her fellow litter-bearers, who hadn't even turned around and were already on their way to the skirmish. She hoped there weren't very many humans, or that they were poorly armed. She really wasn't in a mood to fight. She had been terribly shaken by the image of Gobubary's giant leg, which, cushioned by his head and torso, had survived the impact quite nicely.

The Riddle of Steel tabletop RPG has an interesting magic system where any magic-user can shape whatever effect he desires, but there are various dimensions involved and increases the flexibility/power on each increases the difficulty/cost of the spell. You might want to look at that

I was almost tempted to roll up a goblin myself. Something in the mold of Glogroth von Oobula. Goblin farmer is inspired, though...

Originally Posted By: Lilith Aw, thanks. I'm actually pretty proud of the premise, yeah. Even if you're not playing, feel free to hang around in the chatroom and/or read session logs if you need something to do. Only if I get to make snarky and/or indecipherable comments.

Well, it already has a better premise than Avadon! I'm not in, but good luck.

A few things have changed but for questions like the above, the A6 skill reference I made will usually be accurate: http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=191192&page=1

No, fixing AoE/ME could have been done either on the AoE end or the ME end. If it was done on the ME end, it wouldn't fix AoE/Haste. Fixing it on the ME end would make more sense to me -- presumably if there's something different about how the action is defined, it's different for a reason.

Objectively, Divinely Touched provides bonuses that far, far outstrip the levels you give up for it. Subjectively, you may or may not experience it as better.

The intro text, early locations and descriptions, etc. look exactly like I remember them.

Did they always stack? I don't remember that from my first exposure circa 2004...