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They do take them into battle, but where does it say they are flat out more powerful? In X2, Rentar and one of the crystal souls (I forget which one... Vyvnas maybe?) work together to pierce Garzahd's barrier. Certainly, in X3 and X4, Rentar is significantly more powerful in terms of game mechanics than any of the crystal souls you meet.

Originally Posted By: ixfd64 Hmm, this is very interesting. Does anyone think any of the supposedly more powerful Vahnatai mages will show up in future SS games? No. As for the handcuffs example, it isn't that simple. Exile 2 goes into some detail about the (apparently much weaker) curses -- wards -- whatever you want to call them -- that Elderan places on his victims, and they don't seem to come off easily, even with outside help. Presumably, if there was any way to get rid of the curse, Erika would have gotten somebody to do it. She consorted with all the most powerful mages and dragons in Exile, so I think it's fair to say it just wasn't possible.

Not really, and certainly not by definition. An ihrno is an honored mage, presumably one of great wisdom; I believe someone (Iglit? Bon-Ihrno?) translates it as "speaker". A bok is a greater honor, presumably, but the honor is given to great leaders, who may or may not be great mages. As for crystal souls, there are clearly both strengths and limitations to their magical powers. If mediocre mages can fly and teleport, why are crystal souls unable to do those things?

No. We mean exactly what we said. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_your_own_adventure

It's worth pointing out that, in Exile 2 at least, it is implied that Rentar is _not_ the strongest of the Vahnatai mages. She is stated to be the strongest of the ihrnos "currently awake," which implies there are others, not yet awake, who are stronger.

The most reasonable sounding answer, to me, is that they each had different strengths, so a simple head-to-head comparison would be hard to do (the Erika-Rentar duel is as close as you'll come to that). This makes particular sense, given that there are weaker mages who appear to be more accomplished than any of the three in certain specialties: Aimee in divination and Solberg in minddueling, for example. Rentar is particularly accomplished in the magic of transforming and transmuting: she created the Barriers and mastered Quickfire in 2, made numerous species modifications in 3, and in 4 she created the Black Shades, sea monsters, and she made some powerful liches _and_ turned herself into some kind of demonic Crystal Soul. Garzahd we know less of, but it is clear in 2 that he is a master of wards and enchantments (like Erika's curse, the guardian runes, and the enhancements on Limoncelli and on Garzahd himself). I think we can also consider him a master demonologist, given that he is the _only_ mage in the series who has successfully mastered demonic forces on a large scale. As for Erika, there are references to her involvement and innovation in practically every field of magic. Her success in transformations (cavewood, fast-growing mushrooms, and possibly glowing fungus (in-game evidence is contradictory on that one)) is notable since the only other mages shown meddling in that field are Rentar and X. Based on her success fighting Rentar and her apparent fondness for extensive fire traps, it might be fair to label her a master of the evocation of elemental forces as well.

Scorpius posted a choose-your-own-adventure book on the forums once. IIRC it was about Super Mario.

I never really saw E2 as an attempt followed by a surrender. To me at least it seems clear that E2 was always planned as it was. Really, what was Prossis-Bok going to say, "okay, we know Exile didn't do it, but we're only dissolving the barriers in the Eastern Gallery"? The game flows fine. The islands of G3 were the first real implementation of forced chapters, though I would trace the idea back to E3, with its provinces each with its own unique enemy type and major quest. Regardless, G1 and G2 did not have anything remotely resembling chapters, unless you count the demo area as a chapter.

Some of Avernum's closest cousins are game-novel pairs, though. The Pool of Radiance series (and I think the Dark Queen of Krynn series as well, and maybe a few others) were novels and games. IIRC some of the novels predated the corresponding games, while some of the games predated the corresponding novels. The novels actually sold quite well. The games weren't any more novelish than Avernum, really; the novels just included characters and details not in the games, and left out other game elements.

Originally Posted By: Feo Takahari While I can play both earlier and later Avernum games, I've certainly been rendered incapable of liking most RPGs not by Spiderweb. ''Two Worlds'', ''Mass Effect'', and other hybrids are good, and the ''Final Fantasy'' series can get me to hang on to the end based on storyline... If you like FF storylines and Spiderweb style mechanics, it sounds like you really need to download an SNES emulator. There's a huge trove of SNES RPGs that lie between those two poles.

No. In most games at least, not sure they all worked this way, Sluggish permanently reduced AP while Fast on Feet only provided a chance of it increasing, so the net effect is negative.

Cursed items were an import from Wizardry, I'd imagine -- the other major influence Jeff has cited, besides Ultima -- in which they made somewhat more sense, due to longer and more dangerous dungeon treks, vastly more expensive or risky identification, and more limited inventory slots.

It is probably possible to do this by changing one of the values in the weapon definition. I'm not sure about that, though.

The key point to remember is that the special skills do not unlock based on your actual score in Spellcraft (or whatever). They unlocked based on HOW MANY POINTS YOU HAVE BOUGHT in Spellcraft (or whatever). Bonuses from items, races, and advantages do not contribute, and neither do the initial 2 points you get in each basic stat. This topic has been discussed a million times before, and the answer is always the same. No, you have not discovered some special new bug; you are either overlooking something or you are using a list of special skill prerequisites that is erroneous.

You need to find a trainer in a town. Talk to the trainer, and you can get the option to buy training. (You really do need to talk to people in Exile.) Most of the towns in the starting area should have trainers. Silvar definitely does, in the upper right hand corner IIRC.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl Or to add OS X compatibility for people who can't use Classic and don't want to use emulators. Because this has worked so well for BoE. Not to bash on the OBoE people -- I think what they're doing is awesome. But it's been two years now and I have yet to see any mostly stable, public OBoE release that people can download-decompress-and-run as could be done with BoE back in the day (and as can still be done with BoE if you have Basilisk ][ set up already).

Other than not having to register, what would be the point of open-sourcing it?

The trilogy has been available as a bundle for over a decade. The price of the bundle has been lowered at least once in that time. Blades of Exile, meanwhile, has been released in open source.

20 days has definitely been done with no editor use. I think that was Drakey's record, which I misremembered at some point as one week (that may be what you are thinking of, Alo).

The custom save dialog is extremely irritating. Personally, I don't understand how it's a good thing to force people to hit "delete" individually for every letter they want to delete, particularly when you CAN'T start out with a blank, ever.

The 4 AP system was added into Exile 1 pretty shortly after its original release, and long before Exile 2. Play Exile 1 with 1 AP, and you begin to realize just how much it owes to Ultima III...

I doubt Jeff would give permission. If you really want to play the Exile games (like me) there are much easier ways to accomplish that, than remaking them in BoE.

Also because the BoE source code, as released, would not compile for most people (or possibly all people, I can't remember). Even now finding a stable release of OBoE is not easy if you aren't already part of the Blades community.

The gazer has weak physical resist, it's true, but the War Trall's attack is stultifyingly low damage in G4 against any enemy. Just make wingbolts.

War Tralls are pretty bad in G4. Just make Wingbolts.