Hume

Of course it is very easy to replenish SP after battle, that is why First Aid is useless. But during tough battles, magical efficacy allows you casting more powerful spells for longer duration of battle. Of course one level of spellcraft is better than one level of magical efficacy. Please take the cost into consideration. If 0.4% damage better than 5% more SP? No way.

You are willing to spend 3200 for a level in spellcraft rather than 960 for magical efficacy? Costing less means you can cast more powerful spells more often. There is no way that spellcraft is 3 times as good as magical efficacy.

1 Fighters are better off getting all the levels in Melee Weapon required by battle discipline instead of training bow/throw/pole with money. 2 Lethal blow is worse than we first thought. Without this skill, we have a critical chance near 25% at the end of game, so another 3% increases total damage by 3%/1.25 *0.5 = 1.2%, this is worse than Dual Wield, maybe on par if you have Spectral Falchion. Get this skill from trainer only. 3 Luck gives 1% resist all, 1% damage, bonus chance to hit and dodge, and possibly increase initiative. It is better than skills give 2% bonus, like Dual Wield or Spellcraft. I would suggest max it at 5, for everyone. 4 At the end of game, they players have attack strength between 80 and 90, so each additional point in basic attack skill gives 1.1% to 1.25% bonus to final damage. Attack multiplier should be near 150%, so a 2% damage increase should give 1.33% final damage. The latter is better but not by a large margin. 5 Spellcasters need to invest in Mage/Priest spells, spellcraft, resistance, melee/pole, hardiness, and luck, that is at least 58 skill points for mages, a point or two more for priests. the rest can be spent on parry or mage/priest spells, or party skills. 6 For fighters, they invest in melee, Blademaster, Hardiness, Parry, and Luck. Quick Action, Lethal Blow are disappointing, therefore fighter will have about 10 more skill points for party skills. 7 I think 960 coins for magical efficacy is a good deal.

You mean a 30 level character has a hidden critical chance of 20% that can be unlocked by Lethal blow skill or items giving critical attack chance? So lethal blow does have 3% critical chance. It is great to have 1 level, so you have over 20% critical chance late in game but more than that is not particularly worthy? If luck also gives 1% damage, it is not bad. When you have surplus points near the end of game, luck is quite handy that it works for everyone and does not need require other skills to invest.

Well, they are the bats in Blosk guarding the iron cache.

Just tested Avernum 6, seems you are right about it is a display bug. Armor does help even when it is low. But you are wrong about doubling damage without another 1/3. My number suggest it may be greater than 8/3 multiplier Normal Armor Damage 33% 11.7 50% 10 68% 6.8 Torment Armor Damage 33% 46.3 50% 35.7 68% 23.5

Sorry my wording is not clear, and you misunderstood me. I was describing what is happening in A5 and A6, and arguing that in A5 and CS, the difference is NOT important, since they work the same once you have over 50% armor.

Armor penalty does never mean linear subtraction in any Avernum game. The armor penalty in A5, A6 means you take double damage if your armor resist more than half of the damage, or take the full damage if otherwise. The only difference between how it is in Avernum 2, is that armor penalty treat you as 50% armor resistance when you actually have less. Armor is not therefore a lot more important - you will pass 50% armor soon anyway. Then they will be identical. Slartibus is right that the importance of an armor piece has nothing to do with your existing armor level. A 10% armor piece will reduce damage taken by 10%, no matter you already have 50% or 85%.

For avernum: escape from the pit, there is a soft level cap. You gain a lot less from leveling beyond level 30. Of course there will be music.

Your understanding is incorrect. Double damage and armor penalty do not exist at the same time in any single game.

I tested parry on the first worm in the academy. A parry of 4 takes the same damage as parry at 14 on average. I think it does not reduce damage taken in G3.

This is the first post suggesting that armor penalty in torment is multiplicative. Mivayan is right except about the number. It is (-50), or 2* damage in torment. I have not tested, but the (-25), or 1.43* can be what is in Hard difficulty.

For agents and shapers, it is possible fully heal with a healing spell. But never for guardians, who has high HP and low effective healing spell level. Also do not forget regeneration spell, vampiric touch, and potions/ spores are also part of healing. They cannot fully heal you.

First question, did you test whether parry reduce damage received or not? If yes, by what percentage? Or do you simply assume that there is no such effect? Second, do you take account that each additional Parry is more powerful if your parry skill is higher, but the reverse is true for End? There are a lot of items will boosting your parry and Endurance for your melee character. Third, you have not taken healing into account, right? Doubling your HP and halving damage taken is similar is healing is impossible, but the latter is way better otherwise.

There is no diminishing return for resistances. If you have two source of resistance each will reduce damage taken by half, they will reduce damage by 75%. The second piece only increase your resistance by 25%, but an improvement from 50% to 75% is exactly the same as from 0 to 50: reduce damage taken by half. There is synergy for resistance from the same source. If a skill reduce damage by 10% each level, the second level will reduce damage by 10% of the remaining 90%, which is 11.1%

In GF1, luck gives 1% to hit, 1% dodge, and 1/2 (If I remember correctly) armor. It also affects some scripted event. I always put enough points to trigger these event, and then train the rest with money In GF2, luck is twice as powerful. Definitely worth to get it to 2. Maybe 4. In GF3 and later, luck gives 1% resist all, as well as the 2% hit chance and 2% dodge chance. I usually get it at 6.

I mean, if you have 3 pieces of 50% resistance equipment, you takes 50%*50%*50% = 12.5% of damage. The second piece does not add another 50% to the existing 50%. So the penalty should work the same way. Otherwise, if you already have high resistance, the importance of any marginal change will be much more amplified. If you reach 90% resistance, a -30 penalty to the sum of resistance will mean you take 4 times as much damage. This means the game will get disproportionately harder and harder on torment than on normal as the game advances. Any feature like that should be avoided in game design.

Not that different. I believe that since each armor piece works independently, there is no armor that can add its face value directly to the sum of resistance, so should the penalty be. Otherwise, it will make the late game overly difficult on torment. You alternative hypothesis is clearly wrong if you also consider the physical damage. My PC has 82%, but it works like 64%.

Randomizer said PC suffers a 30% damage resistance penalty in torment difficulty in Avernum 5. I tested, he has underestimated the penalty. it is a 50% penalty. I.E. the damage you take is doubled up to when you are unarmoured. Here is my character with 61% fire resistance against Captain Dixon's fire bats. On normal, bats does an average of 37.54 pre armor damage, and my PC takes 14, this is consistent with the 61% resistance. (11 times average) On torment, bats does 49.75 damage, and my PC takes 40.75, my PC takes twice he should. (12 times average) I also tested my 82% physical resistance. The spiders does an average of 54.57 damage and my character takes 20.43, which is again quite twice what should be. Conclusion: foes does a third more damage on torment than normal (49.75 vs 37.54), then again doubled because of PC resistance penalty.

Torment. I do not believe this is the reason, because my characters are able to resist a significant portion of fire damage, and their fire and energy resistance are similar. Both are significantly above 30%.

My characters have near 50% in energy resistance, yet I take magical damage in full. Luckily, there are not many foes that does magical damage so far. One is the Unstable Mass in Harston lowlands, the other is Bladewarded Horror in Fang Clan Island. They are able to kill my toughest character in one hit when I first meet them. My Avernum is Gog.com, PC version.

1d20 averages a 10.5 and 4d5 averages a 12.

My best guess is that 51 armor means reduce damage by 1 to 51 points.

I just have done very similar tests, each was an average of 20 results. Normal difficulty: Naked: 7.5 2 +1 armor items: 6.1 1 +5 armor item: 4.6 Torment: Naked: 13.9 1 +5 armor item: 11.25 Conclusion: armor does not reduce more damage at higher difficulty level in G1, which means less useful. IMHO, +5 armor item may mean reduce damage by 1 to 5, like in early avernums.

Ignore battle magic, which is really a bad idea. You will not do it well even with moderate skill points investment. Instead, attacking youself will put your shaper into danger, which is the last thing you want to see in torment. Invest in magic shaping or fire shaping, but not both. Aim at 20 or so. I think magic shaping is the better choice, vlishes are clearly the most cost effective creations, and magic shaping is cheaper, and you can get vlishes early. Drayks are in a sense slightly more powerful but cost much more. Damage types means little in GF1 and GF2.