Aoslare

I can't help with quest specifics but I can answer some general mechanics questions: You answered your own question here, but let's expand on it. There are actually multiple points in damage calculation where randomness is involved. First, damage is usually generated as XdY + Z, i.e., roll X dice with results of 1-Y on them, and add to a base damage of Z. Z is usually pretty tiny. So if you have an ice spell with dice that do 1-5 damage each, and you have 20 dice, you could do anywhere from 20-100 damage. The vast majority of the results are going to cluster around the middle, maybe 45-55, because you're adding so many independent random rolls. But once in a blue moon you can get something close to 20 or close to 100. So you could easily have a 2x damage difference, or even more, before applying armor. Armor/resistance is also applied randomly. We don't know the exact mechanics, but we suspect it's something like, with 79% resist, each point of damage has a 79% chance to be blocked. Again, this will usually be very close to the expected block % but once in a blue moon, it can vary a lot. Now, if your priest is consistently taking twice as much damage, then we should look for another effect. But if only see this happen once, might be just random, as you said. Luck does increase resists by +2% per point, but this is already factored into your displayed total resist %. Gymnastics and Anatomy aren't really hyper-powered skills in A6, though without knowing the rest of your build it's hard to comment on how much sense they make. Although the game was balanced to play well on multiple difficulties, it wasn't really balanced around smaller parties specifically. So that could be part of it. I'm wondering if there's a gimmick required to kill him? (It's been such a long time...)

ZKR is the Za-Khazi Run, the bundled (and canonical) Blades scenario. It's the only one of the bundled scenarios that has much connection to Avernum or its timeline. For the others (and certainly non-Spiderweb scenarios) I think you're right, it just depends.

Yeah, definitely Mage Lore. I think some of the level 7 spells go up a little above 20 required -- it counts the party's Mage Lore in total.

I can't believe you got through this post without mentioning you-know-who.

Yeah, the player learns sort of the default mode for shaping, but there are other modes that allow other shapers to shape either more rapidly (doing it on-the-fly in combat) or more sustainably (slowly forming creations that are not tied to the shaper in the same way and do not permanently restrict the shaper's personal essence). Also, I thought most creations, besides serviles, were specifically engineered to be unable to reproduce on their own? Maybe I'm misremembering here...

This topic was about the original Geneforge 1, not the remake. So it's possible some of these things have changed. Might have better luck making a new topic than with a 17-year-old one anyway.

The point I'm trying to make is that both systems do this. The math is different, the numbers are different, but the actual result in terms of level-ups is identical every step of the way.

Yes. Question for you: Most RPGs have a system where XP isn't adjusted for level. Instead, the amount of XP you need to get a level up changes dramatically as your levels go higher. In practice, these systems end up having almost the same effect. It's true that 10 experience doesn't get rounded down to 0 if you now need 50,000 experience to get a level up, but getting 1/5,000 of a level up is never going to be meaningful anyway. Do you have just as much of a problem with this more common system? In which case you're essentially arguing for something like "every complete zone gets you the equivalent of 1 level up, regardless of what level you're at"? Or are you objecting more to the feeling of getting 0 experience, even though in practice it might not be any different from getting the full amount, but having massively scaled up XP total requirements?

That's actually already linked above, so GMTA I guess!

I guess you've found a way to apply the corporate approach to billable hours, to playing RPGs...

Please don't necro 2 year old threads to advertise another game (yes, even for a giveaway). Thanks.

This has been brought up a few times (though with much less eloquent quoting in the past). It's interesting, but probably not an intended connection -- Jeff has said that he just liked the sound of the name Avadon.

Linking to those is definitely fine. I would suggest just making a new thread for that.

If you're going to pull up an ancient thread, presumably it's because the previous posts are relevant... so, did you try the solution that several people suggested above, asking Spiderweb directly?

I think there's a fine line here. Ignoring cultural context wholesale is, indeed, ridiculous. But art can (and, many creators would say, should) be viewed from perspectives different from that of the author. Sometimes new perspectives make us appreciate the work on new levels and in new ways. Other times, they don't -- or they might expose gaps in its applicability, or make its insights feel shallower, or etc. When something like that happens, it doesn't ruin or delete other perspectives on the work at all. But at the same time, it is a data point. Because there are amazing works of art where you just end up with more and more connections, more and more meaning, every time you look at it differently. And then there are works of art that might be beautiful from one perspective, but don't have that expansive, transcendent aspect -- or have less of it.

What people hate about the boats isn't the progression, or the dividing up into chapters. G4 did the exact same thing, it just didn't use boats. What people hate about the boats is the massive waste of time and of the user's attention -- it takes like 3+ minutes to go back to ANY previous island zone for any reason -- that's time where the player has to be paying attention to click on different things -- and then another 3+ minutes to return. And if you want to go back two or more islands -- ugh, forget it. It was especially weird because Jeff had previously written blog posts criticizing this kind of thing -- "sandwich time" he called it. Conceptually, the boats are fine. In terms of organizing content, they are fine. It's as a user experience that they were a gaping debacle.

Well, turns out Tolkien gave us an actual answer: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Samwise_Gamgee Tolkienists regard Sam as Frodo's batman. In the British Army, a batman was an orderly who acted as the personal servant of an officer. It was a role with which Tolkien (who served as an Army officer in the First World War) would have been extremely familiar. Sam undertakes all of the typical roles of a batman — he runs errands for Frodo, cooks, transports him (or at least carries him), and carries his luggage. Tolkien confirmed this interpretation when he wrote in a private letter that:

To me it reads less like "master/servant" and more like a pretty positive version of "knight/squire" or -- to take a reference more relevant to Tolkien -- "corporal/private." There's a layer of very unequal decision making, but it seems pretty separate from the way they treat each other as persons. The age difference (50 vs 38, with coming-of-age at 33) also seems relevant -- easy to imagine an organic power dynamic just from differences in real-world experience. Imagine a 21yo and a 28yo. You can read it as Sam being unfairly submissive -- but Sam seems to have pretty sharp instincts about who it is and isn't wise to defer to; Frodo never treats him poorly; and he has no problem acting on his own when forced to. The level of humility isn't for everyone, I guess, but in Tolkien's world at least the positive practical impact is clear -- both on those Sam helps, and on what he ultimately receives (less Ring-temptation than literally anyone else who encounters it in its whole history; and set of personal relationships back in the Shire that is both extensive and deep).

On top of Randomizer's point that this isn't a spoiler to begin with, it was also this way in Exile I, way back in 1994. I don't think you can really spoil something that's 29 years old...

The person is definitely sitting. It's extremely clear. You can see the side of the robe going horizontally across the seat and then dropping off where their knees are. There's nothing about this image that is specific to Alwan, and numerous things that conflict with his portrayal in G5. Yes, it's always possible the artist was inspired by something that final image bears no resemblance to. Yes, every discrepancy could be artistic license. There's simply nothing to suggest that happened here.

It's not Alwan. First off, let's look at the FULL image, not a cropped version: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/geneforge/images/a/a2/GF5splash.jpg https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/geneforge/images/a/a2/GF5splash.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20110223111244 That's not Alwan's support frame, that's a fancy throne. There are no shaped conduits going into the thighs or arm of the person sitting there. G5 clearly states Alwan has those. It also states: "He can never sit." G5 also has multiple pictures of Alwan in his support frame, and those differ from this chair in numerous ways, even just looking at the device itself. Many of the points raised above apply as well (attack timing, robes vs armor, the hand magic swirl sure looks like battle magic and not shaping, etc etc).

This thread hasn't been posted in in 7 years. MC Tugger, friendly mod request since this has come up a few times now. For ancient threads like these, it's OK to post in them if you have something new to add, but please let them remain inactive if it's just "me too" or "the links that were dead 7 years ago are still dead". Thanks! 🙂

I mean, see alhoon's post above, this is explicitly spelled out in said lore. Anyway, non-shapers do "have" essence, they just aren't typically trained in how to tap into it (and/or have inherent obstacles to doing so, in the case of most creation types).

Some spells literally do require essence, though.

Shaper magic does tend to use essence but I don't think it's ever stated (or suggested) that all magic does. Essence is pretty clearly its own thing.