Dastal

If I recall, a review of the Notary Public's Handbook once began something along the lines of 'I am about to review the Notary Public's Handbook. This review would have been much easier had I actually read the book I am reviewing, but that doesn't seem to have stoppped anyone else, so with that in mind, here we go...' This review is clearly in the same vein, I'm not sure there is anything factually acurate about this review.

Specifically, "Shaping" refers to crystals.

Where's the Heartstriker?

I'm a big fan of the Rentar, Erika, Garzhad announcement. Incidentally, what is translated as a phylactery is more accurately refered to as tefillin. They don't contain the entire Torah, only Exodus 13:1-10, Exodus 13:11-16, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Deuteronomy 11:13-21. Those are the commandments to wear tefilin and the central prayer (creed, if you will) of Judaism. That just got me waay off topic, so, let me just close by saying that I'm in the camp which wants something totally new.

Humm...I think I return to my previous problem. I got those doors in X's tower open. (There's a spell book behind one, and nothing behind the other two.) Is this a bug?

Well, I dun know how I did it, but I managed it. Maybe I had high enough pick locks? (31ish)

Well...I did it. Unlock L3.

If it must be used, it should pop your tool use to like a bajillion, and have an infinte number of charges of unlock doors at level a million. Canon, hell, D&D, standard mythology, and Harry Potter, tells us that the holy anthame can break through any lock. Here's the problem, though. As it is, with my tool use and level three unlock doors, I can get to any door or chest in the game including the ones I need a key for or need to complete a quest to unlock. Not exactly plot helping, especially since I don't always know what is a plot related door or chest that I'm breaking though. For example, I broke into the royal suite and talked with Starrus before the advisor was dead... Incidentally, I really wish we had both the Anthame and the Orb. It would make the game a lot more interesting in several ways. I mean, we have all the supposedly dead NPC's, why not the lewt?

Well, cannon says that Demons where what were found in Exile/Avernum when everyone came down, so I'm accepting cannon.

What about "good" undead? I'm having a pretty tough time creating friendly towns, so undead and demons are playing roles as NPC's. I figure I can finagle one human settlement (miners who got lost, and are making the best of it), but much more than that, other than the people you come down with, is really pushing it. That means I need to use Sliths, Demons, Nephs, Drakes, Undead, and damn near everyone I can think of as friendlies. Few of them are "absolute" friendlies. Most are only willing to let you into their town because you can help them. And yes, this scenario is way over ambititious, especially since I only have the first outdoor section finished. (It's a biggie though. It has 17 towns since most of the towns go through three or four versions throughout the game.)

Okay, so I'm using demons as my major enemy. My plot is set before the founding of Avernum (possibly before the First Expedition: remember the "increadibly ancient" armor you find on the soldiers in the Spiral Crypt? I take that to mean there were people here before the First Expedition, especially since the First Expedition starts getting pretty big, at that point.) Here's the thing, the big baddie, we are repeatedly told, before Miccah, Mages, & Co. cleaned them out were demons. The way I have it set up, the Demons have a pretty political situation set up, and have found a ballance of power. Then you and assorted Bobs come down, and pull a Dorothy, and kill one of the Demon Kings unballancing the whole thing... Too cliche, or no? (And yeah, it may never be released. Let's get beyond that, please.)

Quote: Originally written by Hassium: How about you are hired as part of an exploration/settlement mission to new lands. So, you could have tasks such as saving a group of settlers under attack/subduing hostile enemies, exploring and charting new territory (including reporting back on mysterious events) perhaps making first contact and negotiating trade/property treaties. You could even incorporate some timed missions ala ZKR. But, here I would run the mission so that if you took time to explore an area you might find a powerful weapon or a different explore might uncover a new spell that would aid you on your timed mission. The consequence would be that negative events would be advanced by the time taken to explore (i.e. you must relieve an outpost, part of the outpost is decimated if you choose a sidequest). the side quest might make the mission easier but you would then suffer an experience loss (would not get as much as if you managed to save the whole outpost). After the mission you would be free to retrace your steps and do all the side explores/quests. You could be required to discover the source of herbs or other medicines. I think a lot of things could be done with this. Thoughts? I think it's an excelent idea. In fact, I thought it was such an excelent idea that I'm working off and on on a scenario that is more or less exactly what you said, with a fairly significant twist.

I'm on 14.1" TFT LCD monitor (running next to a 17" ViewSonic CRT with other stuff), and have no problemos. I'm only at 720x1024pix resolution.

Well, A5 could always be A0, you know, the First Party. In fact, I'm working on a little something along those lines, though I do change the history around a bit, well, if it's ever finished, you'll see.

Interesting concept, but very ambitious. I'm working on something similar called Academy Arcana, but not nearly as huge as what you describe. Good luck with it, but I'd lower m expectations. Even in A3, my singleton never achieved level 150 (I think he hit level 75 or so).