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Is Gladwell actually on par with Erika? Erika and Garzahd seem to have been leagues more powerful than everybody else, with the possible exception of Rentar-Ihrno. I haven't finished A6 yet, but from his roles in A4 and A5 it doesn't really seem plausible that he could rise to that level so quickly.

That isn't quite true. I assume this is true of Avernum as well, but in Exile and Exile 2, you only got the final victory message after completing ALL three victory conditions. The initial victory message said something like "Congratulations! You have completed one of the conditions for winning Exile..." while the final victory message was glowing, well-written, and the clear endpoint for the game. While you could certainly choose not to complete one of those main quests, you would never see the final victory dialogue -- and unlike in Geneforge or A5, there was no alternate victory condition to pursue. Moreover, unlike Geneforge, the sequels leave no ambiguity as to whether or not the victory conditions were completed as described. In each case, they definitely were.

Exception: the handful of cheap points you can get in Hardiness and Luck are useful. Also, Endurance is definitely good in A6, if that counts as a defensive trait.

If my math holds, it should be about 800 gp per level, for a singleton. My full party at the same point has more than 20,000 coins and spent more than 10,000 already, so there should be more than enough if you save and don't buy skills right away. Worthwhile I think, as the levels are worth a lot more, with traits. I'm starting a singleton armed with this info. Slith DT EW. That last part took some thought, but after carefully comparing some items, really the only argument for needing NM is the Mercuric Plate, and there are two ways around it -- one is to use the Mercuric Chain instead, and the other is to just equip elemental blades or rat items. The saved SP for EW and NM are similar. EW however gives the encumbrance bonus as well, which effectively saves points of Strength. I want to see if I can get by on 2 Strength, to mitigate the penalty from the Q Sandals + M Armor.

Originally Posted By: Jeff Vogel all significant item drops are fixed anyway. Also note this part. Unlike in A5, no more random Eyestalks to worry about! You can confirm this by looking in the defs file -- no enemy is set to drop item 438 randomly.

In before the lok. Oh, wait--

Is that true? Man, I didn't realize it was that much higher. A singleton is really tempting now. You should be able to skribbane your way to level 61 before finishing Southeastern Avernum! That's crazy. That's 380 skill points to play with, plus crazy skills from traits... say hello to +25 Blademaster for free... plus trainers... wowzers.

New thought: is it possible that Lethal Blow depends on XP level? That's how Assassination worked in Exile, and it would explain its craptacular value. I don't think this has much relevance for a regular game, but for when you are at level 61 from skribbane trafficking, it becomes quite relevant.

Since that's a change from all previous SW games with this item engine (G3, A4, G4, A5, G5) I imagine it was intentional. It's a helpful change if you are just picking up a pile of different loot items to sell, and you want to do it with the mouse (often easier than the keyboard if there is junk mixed in that you don't want to pick up). I agree that in general it's a hassle, but that's probably why it was changed.

Jeff really needs to put in more than two Vulcan PC graphics sets. I'm getting tired of having a party of two Spocks and two Obamas.

The level cap is 61. I don't think you will reach it naturally as a singleton, although there should be WAY more than enough gold available to reach it (after buying all skills from trainers) for a singleton, by using the skribbane method (which is four times as efficient for a singleton). In fact you can probably reach it halfway through the game -- something that makes a singleton game kind of appealing. Remember that XP is adjusted for level, so you will be at a higher level than a group of 4 at any given point, but not anywhere near 4 times as high.

The Heartstriker has a damage die of 1-4, other bows have 1-2 or 1-3. So with very high Dexterity, Bows and Sharpshooter skills, the Heartstriker can do a bunch more damage. Some objects, though, really are overpriced.

Okay, I tried to test Luck's impact on item drops, and my results are... inconclusive! Hooray. I made a new party full of 15 Luck PCs (at creation) and ran around killing goblins. I made sure to only count vanilla goblins and goblin warriors, who have a variety of item drops. They are identical, except that the warriors drop a sword instead of a dagger, at the same rate though. Also, I didn't count any goblins that had custom item drops, like the one that drops an energy potion. I killed 40, and got the following results. Code: Item Actual Dec Exp Exp * 1.3---- ------ ---- --- ---------Coins 12 0.30 0.25 0.33 Daggers 10 0.25 0.15 0.20 Sticks 10 0.25 0.15 0.20 Crystal 4 0.10 0.08 0.10 Belts 3 0.08 0.08 0.10 Actual is the number of drops I got, Dec is the corresponding decimal probability, Exp is the expected propability from the v1.01 scripts, and Exp * 1.3 shows one possible "better fit" result for the potential impact of Luck. The fact that the actual drop rates were all mildly higher than the expected rates suggests that Luck *might* affect item drops. However, the rates aren't that far off either, so it's still possible it doesn't affect them. Bleh. Randomizer, do you wanna email Jeff again and ask what exactly he did to Luck? Edit: Oh yeah. I did confirm that item drops are determined at load-up and not on-the-fly, which means that individual Luck scores aren't used -- either it's the party total, the party average, or potentially the highest score among the party.

That's a good point. For a 20% ward, you'd have to already be at what, 88 or 89% to hit the 90% cap? Fair enough.

I'm an editor, Jim, not a genetic engineer.

Interesting. The thing that's weird is that the primary target won't necessarily be the first target to be hit (and therefore impacted with battle disciplines), so it's not as if it actually has to refract off that enemy. Weird.

Zero is not in fact nothing. By definition. It is the quantity zero, it is not a null quantity.

Wards apply to PC sheet resistances? That's disappointing, I had assumed they were a separate calculation like Prismatic Shield used to be, and like Protection (I assume) still is.

I don't think the Lightning Spray targets have to be at the right angle from the caster, only the target you actually click on. The other two can be out of sight, it just chooses two at random from within 2 squares (Icy Rain range) of the target.

Mostly, except that Hardiness starts out costing 1 instead of 2. This helps a bit in hardcore damage reduction: 70 skill points split between them will reduce all your damage by 36%. Achieving that with just Hardiness would cost 90 skill points. 240 skill points split between them will reduce all your damage by 75%.

Well, I haven't tested items yet, but Luck now costs 2 instead of 4 and raises Armor AND all resistances by 2% per point instead of 1% per point. If it also increases item drops on top of that, it would seem to be overpowered, but I'll still try to test for it.

Huh. I wonder if it really does? I'll have to test that... I'm somewhat skeptical only because that would presumably require a bit more recoding than Jeff prefers to do, as opposed to giving Luck more of an impact on resistances or dodging or somesuch. Let's see...

Unfortunately, it isn't.

Oh, the irony.

Dahak -- what do you mean?