Aoslare

Honestly, it might be worth the investment for someone (presumably other than Jeff) to spend 20 minutes putting up some new screenshots.

They're grrreat! ...I'm shhhiverrring.

-- Frosted Cryodrayks

Just for clarity's sake: Encumbrance is determined by what you wear (not what you carry), and it has two effects, which can be partially mitigated by Defense skill: lowering your to-hit chance, and making your mage spells fail.

I seem to recall finding a plethora of superb 0 and 1 encumbrance armor pieces in all three Exiles. Maybe not enough for a party of six mages, but if you have six mages then how is anything making it to melee range anyway? Make one mage a tank for when you're in a narrow maze and you should be fine.

What's the BIG change?

Are there any other creations that somebody wrote an entire tract about the overpoweredness of?

No, I didn't think so.

Vlish aren't really overpowered in G1, although they are still extremely useful there. And in G2, they are slightly overpowered, but not head and shoulders above every other creation as in G3.

It's definitely not going to be General Greiner's Chicken. Although that would be appropriate.

I'm not sure Item Lore will ever work with 100% effectiveness. It certainly doesn't at party skill of 10, which is the highest I ever tried.

The problem is that Item Lore is so expensive, in gold but mainly in skill points. At FOUR skill points per point of Item Lore, it's easily the game's worst value. (Well, maybe it's better than buying Health directly.) Item Lore is a relatively small convenience, for which you are willing to give up 2 points of Edged Weapons, or 1 1/3 points of Intelligence? Or most of a point in Luck or Priest Spells? Absurd.

I have sometimes edited 10 points into my singleton games, just to make monster drops less than totally useless.

Yes... what Alorael said.

I think I might as well be Red Mage himself.

BTW, the reason X isn't listed as a major character is that he is 100% insignificant to the plot and backstory of every game in the series. He has nothing to do with any major events or major quests, or for that matter any minor events.

The criteria for being a major character was mainly having major relevance to plot and story, and also having a large chunk of dialogue either spoken by or spoken about the character. Honestly, Anastasia's a lot closer to a major character than X is, and she's not either.

Actually, it's easy to play bowless even with dedicated archers. Divinely Touched Nephils will get more than adequate skill in Bows and Sharpshooter naturally, with zero investment.

I don't remember how E1 handles monster movement, but I don't think the gazer will sit there totally unmoving -- I imagine every so often it will move a square away. Moving to one of those other ledges should certainly get him to move.

Maybe it's impossible, but I bet if you fool with it you can manage to escape.

"Geneforge, Episode 5: Attack of the Vlish." Oh, wait...

Neither was challoth. Go stuff yourself

On a hot summer day, when you want to feel like you're safely in the shade -- drink Thahd Lemonade.

It's been stated that it doesn't apply to item use (missiles), but I would assume ranged attacks (Fyora breath, Firebolt) are treated the same way as melee attacks -- they always have been.

I'm still excited about getting a Melee/Magic PC.

I've always liked Formello. In E1 it seemed less boring than all the other Six Cities, possibly because it wasn't just plunked down in the middle of a big cave. (Except Dharmon; Dharmon was interesting and had that great description.) All those little windy tunnels were fun to explore. It's the main city in Chapter one of E2, which remains one of the best-balanced and (imho) most fun parts of any Spiderweb game. It's also near Motrax, who appears to be very popular among people who took this poll, and Solberg's Tower as well. And it must get some cachet from being the first contact with Bon-Ihrno.

In A4, Formello and Silvar seem to have way more sane residents than the other cities, though that could just be because they had a kinder Shade.

Also, see Formello .

Four questions about favorite characters and places.

Scratch that. You're right, Thuryl, it's in E3 as well. He is just so deranged there that he mangles his own name, so my quick search didn't find it.

Elohi in E/A2: "Vyvnas-Bok has told us how the foul Empire tormented him, trying to elicit secrets of Vahnatai magical powers. If you had not arrived, soon he may have had to dissolve himself to keep from aiding them"

on the other hand, Vyvnas himself seems quite put together:

You stand in the presence of a Crystal Soul you returned. "Welcome, humans! I am glad at your presence. I am Vyvnas-Bok." Its voice is very friendly. It soothes you. The Crystal Soul sits there, waiting patiently for you to speak. You feel the warmth of its gratitude.

Jekknol on the other hand:

Glantris: "We thank you for returning the Crystal Soul of Jekknol-Bok to us."I2{He quivers with anger. "They tormented our ancestor's spirit! They told stories of invasions of our lands, of the death of our people! They nearly drove Jekknol mad!"

And this: "The book describes the experiments performed on the Crystal Soul Jekknol-Bok by the wizards here. They have been exploring its beliefs, its magical properties, and its ability to feel pain.They have also been trying to break the creature and bend it to their will, through a combination of magic and subterfuge. The journal writer is growing nervous, however. The Crystal Soul seems to be going mad"

and:

You replace Jekknol on its pedestal and wait for it to awaken. For a long while, nothing happens. Then you hear in your mind "Here? Where am I? What

is this place?"L2"Home? ... Who says that? ... You say I'm home? ... No, home is gone. Crushed and scattered. That is what ... no, this is another trick, my people are gone ... this is a trick. Another trick. I will not listen anymore."2And with that, there is silence. Sadly, though you have returned Jekknol-Bok to its people, its suffering seems to have not yet ended."

In A3, but *not* E3, Vyvnas seems to already have gone mad.

The best comparison may be the item descriptions in A2. Caffren projects "angry whispering of this being" and Jekknol projects "angry, vicious muttering of this tormented creature" while Vyvnas projects "soft, gentle whisper of the being". Honestly, Vyvnas could have been tortured enough to make him go crazy, but I think it's more likely they got mixed up at some point.

Scout creations?

Has the engine changed enough to make those -- well -- existant, let alone useful?

Nothing.

To steal without being seen, you can't have anyone in your line of sight.

Edit: You can obstruct lines of sight using the Fire Barrier spell, but you won't get that for a very long time. Alternately you can fool around with opening and closing doors and trying to get mobile characters out of the room, but if an immobile character is there, you're out of luck.

For the Shaper who has everything -- or at least servile taste-testers.

-- Rotdhizon Calzone

On the other hand, some of the Vahnatai mages and Crystal Souls are among the most thoughtful, reasonable characters we see in the games. Eos-Bok and Aichael-Bok, then there's Bon-Ihrno and Bohen-Ihrno, Ublis-Ihrno, Bentis-Ka, and Prossis-Bok was a magic-user as well.

What human magic-users of rank are so reasonable? Rone and Aimee, and maybe Patrick and Solberg. Mairwen. I can't think of many, yet we have encountered many more human magi!

There is some contradiction in the games about age. The approximate dates that exiling began and Avernum was founded are pretty consistently adhered to, but age is not handled well in A4. It takes place about 38 years (a conservative answer!) after A1 and about 80 years after the Kingdom of Avernum was founded. Some lines in the game suggest it's even longer after A1... yet people are alive who shouldn't be, and are younger than they should be.

It's as if for much of the game's creation Jeff planned on a date only 25 years from A1...

Two good clarifying questions:

Is base AP still 8?

Is there still the very odd discrepancy that you can use an item and then attack, but can't attack and then use an item, because attacking ends your turn if you have less than 5 AP left afterwards?