Aoslare

As usual, the Quick Strike description is incorrect.

 

You get TWO INDEPENDENT chances to get +1 AP, each equal to 5% per point of Quick Strike. So with 5 Quick Strike you have two 25% chances, which means you have about a 43.5% chance of getting at least +1 AP. With 10 Quick Strike you have two 50% chances, or about a 75% chance of getting at least +1, but still only a 25% chance of getting +2. And so on.

The possibility of a zombie muffin brings a whole new, disgusting meaning to juju zombie.

Also, the two Ornks in charge of everything are named Benjy and Frankie.

ResEdit won't work on newer systems. You need a newer application, such as ResFool.

Thanks for advocating the harrassment, belittlement, humiliation, threatening, and embarassment of everyone who isn't a member of these boards.

 

Seriously, though, personal invective has no place here. I don't care who you're targetting. It's contagious, it threatens to turn these boards into the same cesspit of flames that most internet message boards eventually collapse into, and on my watch, I'll swat it down faster than you can say "Feisty Slap of Pain!"

 

And that, as they say, is that.

Suspicious Vlish, please don't make personal attacks.

Indeed, copy the save files.

One important thing to note is that mage spells and priest spells are equally effective on the offense. Mages have a little more versatility, but a priest doesn't really need a melee backup any more than a mage does, particularly given the strength and ease of using archery as a backup.

 

It is useful to have at least one strong hand-to-hand fighter to deal with highly resistant enemies like pylons. You can either make him a tank who attracts all the melee attacks (using nephil for the dodge bonus, and edged weapons to use shields) or a focused attacker (using slith for the pole bonus). A slith pole fighter will do upwards of 30% more damage than a nephil fencer (formulaically). Normally that doesn't matter much, but against pylons et al it's quite useful. Either way his role is to protect the spellcasters.

This simply is not the case. Although creations do not level up at the overly advantageous rate they did in G3, there are very few levels of Create X skill available -- particularly for a second-level creation like a cryoa, where you already need three to make it -- and equipment that boosts shaping skill is rare. And if you're going to keep your creations around you need to spend skill points on shaping skill BEFORE making them, obviously.

What constitutes the 'shoulder on the curve' for me, anyway, is mental resistance. All the fourth and fifth tier creations have it and the others don't, and it becomes very annoying not to have it later in the game. The problem is that drayks remain the best value for your essence, except for that one flaw.

Being better than others is not the same thing as being good. Vlish are good, but in G4, they are no longer spectacular and amazing. They are probably the best option through chapter 2 IFF you are running disposable creations. If you build your creation levels, a vlish might be useful but cryoa will be better and artila nearly as good but cheaper.

 

As for this 'mysterious intrinsic dodging' I've heard that before and I don't buy it. I've never seen any evidence of such a thing. Give me the results of a test where the exact same enemy entity uses the same attack against a vlish of level X with dexterity Y and against some other creation with identical dexterity and level. If those are different, I'll listen.

I'll third the quicksave/quickload keys bit.

Right, so presumably you don't start with 8 AP under such a system, because then everyone would get two attacks per round unhasted.

...hmmm. Batons that don't need ammo.

 

The simplest edit yet, and I can't believe I never tried it. For somebody like me, who goes crazy if he has to conserve his primary offense, that would make playing a missile-based character fun again.

One of the things Avernum 4 was tremendously successful at was making missile weapons more viable. Actually, I was really impressed with that -- the hassle of using them was gone, they were strong enough to be worth using, but still weaker than melee enough to compensate for their range.

 

I notice that the screenshot has Aldous with 8 AP. I thought I remembered reading in a previous thread that A5 would go back to the older E/A AP system. Did I make that up?

Sometimes, less is more. To use an extreme example: if there were an ability that let you destroy every enemy instantly and you could use it every turn, that would quickly take the fun out of the game.

The problem with this is that spell points don't actually pace casters in Avernum. Energy potions are easy to come by, and don't even take a whole action to quaff. If the more useful spells used fatigue in addition to SP, and so could only be cast every so often, it would balance things a lot.

Dungeon Master was the first game I know of to use some kind of fatigue stat (it used stamina). Wizardry 6 and up used it as well.

 

I am skeptical Jeff would put this in Avernum 5, though, as it would significantly change the logistics of combat. (Well, either that or it would be the kind of meaningless fluff Jeff always crusades against.) My guess would be that it's somehow parallel to spell points, but is used for battle disciplines, and perhaps has different rules for replenishment over time. (Essence and spell energy, anyone?)

I realize this isn't your fault, it's the fault of the games you've played; but for crying out loud, go look up dexterity in a dictionary!

I look forward to a legion of Vahkohs-related jokes in betatesting and early release.

I have to admit, after all the talk about not bringing back Rentar-Ihrno, I really didn't expect another twice-recycled villain. Meh. Otherwise it sounds cool. Battle disciplines sound like the biggest change in the Avernum skill system yet -- could be quite neat.

Super Mario RPG was, indeed, a brilliant game. But even its system could be analyzed and powergamed. The possible point gains at each level up are 100% predestined but different for each choice; thus, there is a pattern to follow alternating between all three choices that will get you the highest total statistics. Even then there are further considerations when you consider how meaningless some of the HP bonuses are (particularly for Bowser). There are also hard caps on all four attack and defense stats which are high but very easy to run into if you use the Quartz Charm, Troopa Pin, Ghost Medal, Geno Boost, or the various stat-increasing items; meaning that raising your base offense above 255 before those boosts is not quite so useful, and given some of the weapon powers (Lazy Shell) it's quite easy to get to the point where this is relevant. Similarly, if you know you plan on giving someone (Toadstool) the Lazy Shell Armor, you can completely ignore the HP and physical stats, as they will be useless for her, and just pump her magic to make it less wimpy with the armor on.

1. The Geneforge forums do not need more pointless polls.

2. They definitely don't need polls with descriptive titles like "geneforge votes".

3. You brought this up in at least three different topics now, in one case reviving a dead topic to do so, and creating two new topics. That's called spam.

4. You are shouting at other people to order them around.

5. You are making disingenuous statements about the next game to be made. While this is mostly harmless, it could be confusing for new visitors.

6. For the last time -- well, probably not -- Blades of Geneforge is not going to happen in the foreseeable future, and neither is a Spiderweb MMORPG.

 

Any of these things individually would be excusable. All of them together constitutes a hideous mango.

 

Unless my memory has completely failed me, Luck provided 2% to hit and to dodge in G1, too. I think it was subject to the 10-cap rule though, so you need 12 Luck for the 11th effective level, 14 for the 12th, etc.

 

And where are you getting these item drop numbers? 0.01% is a bit more precise than can reasonably be arrived at without having access to the source code. It sounds like you may have combined different, slightly inaccurate statements from different FAQs...

Perhaps this is a silly question, but what does your cheat script do that the built-in character editor can't?

On Torment, the healing they get under that strategy is prohibitive. "OCD" does not even begin to describe what is needed to take down all of them on Torment...