Skippy the bush kangaroo

By the time it mattered I had no encumbrance problems equipping as many fine lances as I wanted because of Elite warrior. (The time it mattered for me was while X was casting his spell - until then I'd just been collecting them for the hell of it.)

During testing I upgraded from 10.4 to 10.6 on my C2D 2.4GHZ Macbook Pro - that made an appreciable difference to framerates. Went from ~15fps to ~20+ in complex area. What OS are you running on your MBP?

Originally Posted By: Dantius X finishes his spell? Can a PC cast it? That would be AWESOME!!!1!!1!@!1!1 Yes. No. (It is a lifetime's work for one of the greatest mages Avernum has ever known.)

The usage is 'normal'. 50% means that it is maxing out one core. It will take whatever processing it can get and give you the highest framerate it can manage - at least for the main thread. If Jeff starts taking advantage of Grand Central Station in 10.6 it might just get multithread aware and breakout from that one core limit!

Originally Posted By: Earth2025 We will see when beta-testers get their hands on A6. I doubt shield will get abandoned since extra-protection helps against boss-monsters. We will also see how long it takes for it to be redone when the beta-testers abuse it for all it's worth. I predict at least two iterations of the system between whatever it is now and whatever it is when the game is finally released. One thing Jeff can rely on beta-testers to do is work the system for all it's worth - that's what he 'pays' them for.

It's your game - you do what you like. But I think there is a line - Thuryl's approach crosses it to my mind but yours is merely grey. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl Wow. I can confirm what everyone's been saying about War Tralls: they're pretty sweet. Roughly twice the HP of a Wingbolt and almost as much damage for a comparable essence cost. They've got fairly balanced resistances: nothing bounces off them the way wingbolts can ignore magic or drakons can ignore fire, but they can survive a round or two of punishment from almost anything. I've got four tralls now and I honestly see very little reason to use anything else. Shock Tralls (with Regeneration Aura) are even better for the really difficult areas (the final battle and the challenge dungeon for example) The greatest thing about the Tralls for me were that they were almost set and forget - you didn't need to waste AP healing them nearly as much as you need to with other creations that need to be babied along. And that translated to dishing out a whole lot more damage.

This game is different - Regeneration Aura makes them "stable". A Shock Trall (with Regeneration Aura) is a very useful creation - 12AP every round and significant missile damage.

Mental doesn't scale?! Mass Madness in the middle of any large camp just rocks. You have yet to live unless you have Charmed an Unbound.

Apparently I liked the Ring of Eye's Purity: +6% armour, +3 Battle magic and 3% energy preservation. Sorcerer's don't lack for damage dealing ability - but damage taking was forever the problem. Battle creations helped soak it up and I felt they were ultimately more useful than creations with any sort of fire power. (Until the War Traal when it all comes together.) And it all becomes worth it when you walk solo into a big camp, cast Mass Madness and then sit back and watch mayhem ensue. The larger the swarm the better. A charmed Drakon is pure gold. But just watching 20 or more creations fighting among themselves is pretty funny.

I was just about to add that. Strength is a core skill for all characters I think - just to wear enough armour. But that mitigates the extent to which a Sorceress can be 'optimised' - I believe that a combat spell-caster will be better than a shaping spell-caster for that reason. That is part of the reason for my view that the Sorceress if fragile in the early and mid-game. If you invest in strength early you aren't really playing to the strengths of the character, but if you don't she is fragile. (And there are better rings to wear if you are a spell-caster than strength boosters.)

The Sorceress is Fragile. That is fragile with a capital F. She needs battle creation shields but chews up essence at a prodigious rate so you can't have too many. She just can't dish out enough before running out of essence in the early to mid game. And her weak combat skills mean that if an enemy attacks her instead of her shield she takes it rather poorly. When she gets to the endgame she is practically invincible, Mass Madness is sweet - but the mid-game can be quite dicey.

Quote: Originally written by Thoughts in Chaos: The other fighter (significantly weaker) takes all of the Tool Use, Nature Lore, First Aid, etc. for the party. Why would you concentrate all the Nature Lore and First Aid in one character? That makes it much more expensive. You only need to use a few points to get level 2 or 3 for every character which is significantly less than getting to level 12 for one character.

I won the battle by making rather extensive use of Group Heal - on the sentinels. Just struck me as an entirely apposite way of dealing with the battle. Sing it with me... "Everything you know is wrong Black is white, up is down and short is long And everything you thought was just so Important doesn't matter"

Quote: Originally written by Everett Goldner: ...except that you don't need his rewards if you decide to turn the character editor on. Indeed, if you turn the character editor there is no need to take any quests, kill any monsters, collect any loot, or even play the game. Think of the time you can save and the hassle you can avoid!!