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Believe it or not, I had briefly forgotten about your refusal to play OG1 alhoon. Ahaha 😄

OK, I went and looked at the code and a few things jump out. First and most importantly, the snippet CM pasted above (do_shockwave) appears to be a modified cut-and-paste -- or vice versa -- of radius_damage. Identical lines with a few different parameters. It seems entirely possible that radius_damage was updated, and it was pasted into do_shockwave with some changes made, but forgetting to remove the visibility requirement that had not previously been present. In other words, the function above is particular to Shockwave, but the code isn't. This could easily be a mistake. Second, the same visibility check does apply to Slow Group and the other status spells in BoE. Third, can_see has three modes. Comments and usage elsewhere in the code line up here: Mode 0 - normal Mode 1 - counts pits and lava as fully blocked; used for party placement when combat begins Mode 2 - normal but ignores the requirement for light Notably, AoE spells use mode 2, so I guess they require line of sight, but light is optional. Missiles require light, which makes sense. Shockwave also requires light, which makes absolutely no sense. Since it affects friendly creatures too, it's clearly not something the caster is manually controlling. Slow Group, with its nearly identical code, requires light, but it only affects hostile creatures, so that is less confusing. This, again, leads me to hypothesize: mistake.

Unless I'm completely mistaken, this is a size discrepancy that didn't exist for OG1, so the mod wouldn't make sense there, even if the graphics file format is identical. (Which I wouldn't have guessed, but I assume it is since you're saying that alhoon?) OG1 didn't even have the same fyora images as the whole series did -- I forget when that changed. Also, there isn't a mod list for G:M yet, so hold your horses I'm sure we'll end up with a Strategy Central sooner or later, once there's actual strategy content to put there.

Interesting! Well that's a good piece of evidence. Out of curiosity, what does can_see actually return? Since it needs to be less than 5 to count as seen for purposes of the spell. I also note that other PCs get damaged even if they aren't visible to the caster... it seems a little weird for it to work that way for PCs but not enemies. Though maybe that's standard for BoE? I haven't looked at that code in a decade.

The time does add up. Whether or not it's viable, it's a worthy idea.

I'm not sure that change was intentional. It might have been an accidental side effect of E3 refining line-of-sight rules for an environment with far more trees, open skies, etc., particularly given the observation that it follows the same obstruction rules as those do. I suspect this because Shockwave was transparently modeled after Ultima's Tremor spell, which ignored obstacles entirely. It seems pretty unlikely that this was a bug for all of the first two games Jeff made, when he was programming all the spells from scratch.

It may or may not affect them equally, though,as we've recently learned in threads on other games...

This isn't the first time this has come up. Unfortunately, I'm guessing this also means testers have raised it with Jeff, and for one reason or anyone he found it unfeasible. The real issue is the travel time when walking across a zone, not speed during combat, at least IMO.

"Modern Mother and Daughter" wasn't a book, it was a piece of sketch comedy, but otherwise yes -- drab being more or less the opposite of fab, just as the "modern" relationship was extremely non-traditonal.

Intelligence didn't actually contribute to magic effectiveness at all in the original game, did it? Besides the mental resistance, all this is really doing is renaming old Intelligence and adding an Int stat that works the way it does in other SW games... right? Agents never really had to build Intelligence in the original game, and they presumably won't need to pump Essence Mastery here. Definitely a shift that the Essence formula does not have a class multiplier, though. Hmm.

519. Errorball -- Work about aging QA analysts (EDGWYN) "Moneyball was a movie with some aging baseball players (some of whom had better stats then the new stars) and how analysis became a driving force in baseball. Quality Assurance people are supposed to find or prevent errors." Slarty adds: I was actually thinking more directly of Mirrorball, which really didn't take off, but of course that title is itself a reference to Moneyball.

Why would stacking maximize their value? Is it just about rounding, and so we're talking about a maximum gain of just under 1 gp per item?

YESSSSSSSS YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS OK, now I'm actually excited for this thing. (Whether I will have time to actually play it, different question...)

Creations don't level? It is truly, finally a Geneforge game where you can use disposable creations without being at a massive disadvantage? ...Neat!

524. Ptooitary Gland -- Could explain what happened to World 4 (EDGWYN) "they are both Mario references" Slarty adds: Indeed, a pituitary gland could explain World 4 of SMB3, where all the enemies are giant-sized, including the Ptooies.

Hmmm... that's odd -- I have been receiving messages somewhat recently, at least. Either way, I see no problem going back to answers in the thread. And here's a nice one to start us off! 536. Bring it Off -- Cheerleader Burlesque (EDGWYN) I went through and collected as many PDNs as I could from the last few years. I have a few gaps, unfortunately, due to IPB cutting the number of old PDNs it preserves when I wasn't paying attention. But for this numbering of recorded PDNs, I believe I'm now on #712.

Looks like we never finished this one! Time for a bump. And a question: preferences on sending guesses by PM versus posting them in the thread? I liked the PM concept, which prevented people from feeling excluded because they weren't online early on. But I wonder if that was part of why this one stalled out...

Ah, I see. Well it sounds like one of them is completely melee oriented and one of them is more general with a lean towards shaping, so I guess that should be an easy choice for nearly every build.

you stick your hand in, or your gloves? if this is in the demo, it's presumably discussable now.

"dipping them more than once" geneforge has blessing pools now?

It's a pretty significant event for Avernum lore.

Given that you are (I think?) saying that you liked Fallout and Arcanum more than Baldur's Gate or Skyrim, Geneforge is definitely the obvious place to point you in terms of story and setting. Avernum is also quite different from classic fantasy in terms of, again, just story and setting.

That's not really a trope. Actually, I think that's completely inaccurate. Game faction leaders, where there are quests to fight them, sure -- but local faction leaders being buff, that is not really a thing, let alone a consistent one. It is extremely common for local leaders, whether they are shapers, military, or civilians, to just be a completely regular creature of whatever type. For serviles in particular, that is often just "servile". But yes, "that's the way it is" applies to all of this. It's not a bug, it's a tiny detail that is irrelevant to the vast majority of players.

It's also just a normal trope in classic RPGs for town guards to be hugely OP.

Interesting! On the plus side, I guess line of sight does make it slightly more plausible to use Shockwave without making a friendly town angry...