Archaeolagent

Huzzah for replays of Exile III.

At least this time, the creative trick doesn't involve the end of combat placement bug.

It has nothing to do with their territory. I believe A5 runs 9 zone scripts at a time, for the zone you are in and the 8 zones surrounding it; so if you come within 1 zone of the village zone, you'll lose the items. As it is the NW-most zone, that only quarantines you from 3 other zones, which are mostly empty anyway.

Right, but there are unintended errors that give characters an advantage that it is widely considered not-cheating to capitalize on. A good example is in the original Final Fantasy game for the NES. The Silver Swords sold in ElfLand are drastically better than any other weapons you find until halfway through the game. They also make the Fighter and Red Mage classes fairly unbalanced in the first half of the game. And the rest of the Silver items aren't sold until Crescent Lake, while the Silver Sword is the last item sold in ElfLand. It is widely assumed that selling it there was some kind of data error and not intended. But it's also widely assumed that one should take advantage of that error.

There are other such 'features' in Spidweb games as well. In A5, the Flaming Sword increases the amount of armor a mage can wear. Intentional? Doubtful, since the sword's ability is a carry-over from Geneforge 3, which had no such armor limitation.

Perhaps the best example though would be the random item shops in E2 and E3, which allowed you to obtain infinite copies of (almost) any item in the game. Is it cheating to buy six Rings of Speed early in the game? That's a more drastic power increase than what the ceremonial gear supplies.

That's true. Also, it's unclear that the surface portal just goes to Upper Exile. Since the original Exiling portal went from the surface down, presumably there's at least a possibility the the new surface portal actually goes to the surface.

The take them away thing does stop working because it's only in the script for that one zone. If that script isn't running, they don't get taken away.

The dead character thing is really smart, however. Now the question is whether that counts as cheating, since it obviously wasn't intended to be possible...

They will only disappear from your pack in that zone, and you can get them over the runes as Bryce said; the real issue is the stairs going up, as you can't change levels in combat mode.

Inevitably, impatient me answered my own question. The results of my test:

Average damage (no armor or defense whatsoever) from the tested physical attack: 48.0

For the same character with 10 Parry (counting only hits that are not parried): 38.2

Same thing vs Lightning Spray: 56.8

10 Parry vs Lightning Spray: 39.7

So indeed, Parry is quite good, and seems to compare to Hardiness in value. That settles the EW question solidly, as even a flat 10% reduction from 5 Parry beats the better armor you might use with NM. The skill points you save on Mage Spells compare at least partially to the skill points you save on Strength. And finally, the extra Blademaster (for fatigue reduction) is an excellent bonus.

I'm converting Groul now, using the editor. I don't count this as a cheat, particularly, since both traits have the same xp penalty and I didn't get any advantage out of using NM for the first bit.

Hey Random -- does Parry reduce all sorts of damage, or just physical damage? If it reduces all sorts, then I think EW is a better deal after all (and I may have to end up switching my traits).

The money values are arbitry, not calculated based on any formula, and they definitely don't always line up with usefulness of equipment. The Bloodspear is far better than the other two.

Look for buttons in the black wight area.

You can, alternately, access the skeleton/blade via boat in chapter 2.

From my testing:

+20% Shield Breaker

+25% War Blessing

+33% Battle Fury

+50% Well-Aimed Blow

+50% 10 Anatomy vs. humanoids

+100% Mighty Blow

Luck appears again to have no impact on damage.

The problem with Parry is that you can't even get it to 50% effectiveness against melee. You could, in theory, but even getting 20 Parry just grants you 45% effectiveness. 10 gives you 30%. Not so hot.

NM also gives 40+ skill pts worth of mage skill if you plan to use all spells. Less otherwise. Parry costs even more I suppose, and the Blademaster is another nice bonus for fatigue reduction.

Why EW?

Luck -- alas.

I just ran a test which, unlike previous tests, accounted for Randomizer's area loading theory. And the test still suggests Luck has no impact on item drops. I loaded, teleported into Gladwell's Keep from the portal fort and killed the three townspeople there. Each has, according to the script, a 40% chance of dropping 20 coins and the same chance to drop a dagger. Those chances were well represented, but Luck did not appear to affect the chances. Here's the data:

00 Luck: 7/20 coins, 9/20 daggers

10 Luck: 8/20 coins, 6/20 daggers

40 Luck: 7/20 coins, 9/20 daggers

Total: 23/60 coins, 24/60 daggers

Expected: 24/60 coins, 24/60 daggers

I did notice that my attacks did slightly more damage with very high Luck, although this was somewhat inconsistent.

Presumably Newsom is a base Soldier type. That creature has six random item drops, two of which are the items you mention, with a base chance of 10 each.

Yes, Hssrotis was a real pain. Lightning Spray + Firebolt (or Lightning + a summoned creature attack) would take out the three weaker sets of bats, but I did use Daze (often twice in the same turn) on the fiery bats.

Not much new to report. One thing I did do is switch to the Bonding Knife, which I should have had equipped from the beginning. The Dex is totally irrelevant, and the Int is not a big loss. The real problem is the Strength loss which reduces the amount of armor I can wear. However, for an extra 4 points of Endurance, it's worth it. I dumped my shield, and added a few pounds of armor elsewhere. This change was mostly unnecessary but it was helpful against Hssrotis in the Fang Clan test, with those fire-breathing bats of his.

I didn't realize before that there were zero required encounters between Shanker and Harkin's Landing, so you can actually train Hardiness quite early.

It also doesn't count skills you may be getting from items. The numbers listed are the number of points you must TRAIN in to access the special skill.

Is Pathfinder untrainable via skills?

Hmm, yes. Gypsy was a "woman" by 817, but at least A5 calls her an "old woman". It's a little strange to think she spent more than 50 years as a wandering minstrel, but if she's about Prazac's age, it's at least plausible.

The to-hit bonus is irrelevant and on higher difficulty (and even on Normal for many PCs) the dodge bonus is also irrelevant. The resistance bonus is small enough that Hardiness will usually be a better value.

I'm not sure if/how Luck affects item drops in A5. Randomizer seemed to have an idea that, for item drops, Luck was counted when an area is loaded, which is usually 1 area before you actually enter it; that would explain a lot of our weird testing results from A4. There are so many good things to spend money on for a party of four that early investment in Luck might be worthwhile just for the extra cash -- assuming it does affect item drops.

I've been grepping A5 and looking for relative measurements of time, to try and fit A5 into the Timeline of Ermarian .

I've found three important statements. First, the game says twice that "a century ago" Avernites never would have dared to disrespect the Empire. That establishes possible dates for A5 of between 867 (a century after the first people are exiled) and 917 (a century after Hawthorne's assassination).

The second comment is Portmaster Pirro's. He says he's worked with portals for "maybe fifty years" beginning with his work on the Tower of Magi portal. The most likely times for that work would be in the 822 - 830 range, but any year from 817 through 833 is possible. "Maybe" is not a precise descriptor of time but it isn't a hugely vague one either, so let's assume a (liberal) range of 45-55 years. That gives us possible dates for A5 of between 862 and 888, with a most likely date around 872 - 880.

Those dates fit with the century comment. They also fit with all the (quite vague) references to A2, A3, and A4. A2 (823) is "all those years ago," A3 (833) is "a few decades ago," and A4 (855) is "some years back." Even 872 leaves plenty of time for the necessary post-A4 events to happen (the expansion of the Northern Waters, settlement of the Northern Frontier, beginnings of sleep for the Olgai tribe, travels of Shanker and Gladwell, and so on), which requires ten years at minimum and probably at least 12, realistically.

The final statement is Dorikas's: he fought in the Empire-Avernum war when he was young. We know he was at Ornotha Ziggurat in 823. Presumably this means he was born no later than 805 -- only six years after Prazac. Prazac is described as "not young" but Dorikas certainly isn't depicted as being elderly. A date of 872 for A5 makes him at least 67. So I'm inclined to put the date as early as possible.

I'll suggest for a final date 870: a comfortable 103 years after the first Exiles, 65 after Dorikas's birth, 15 after the Time of Shades.

I'm posting here rather than on EE because I may well have missed a detail (seeing as I haven't read the entire script, just searched it). Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

This isn't such a bad suggestion, or at least, it wasn't prior to G4. I remember suggesting the ability to create an auxiliary, noncombat animal comparable to a bag of holding, with more in common with a living tool or thorn baton than a fyora.

That was back when encumbrance applied to carried items, though. Jeff listened to us about encumbrance, and now everything is happy; so we don't need to sing about being married and holding each other close.

Brian Wilson is reeling.