BenS

I could have sworn the canister name, where you choose whether to use it or not, was actually Missile Weapons. But I don't have a save close to that point, so I can't prove it. I'll remember to double-check for my 2nd game, likely a few weeks away. Thanks.

Interesting. Assuming my Shaper started w/ Agility 2, he now has 3. But now I believe the problem is that the game still told me the canister was Missile Weapons; likely a holdover text from the original game. I'll report that elsewhere. Thanks much.

Unless there's a hidden mechanism I am unaware of (say, you can only use so many # of canisters per level), there is a bug w/ the Missile Weapons canister in the Ruined School, as I used it but did not see any change to Missile Weapons (which remained at zero) when I looked at my character screen shortly thereafter. This was last night, and I checked my character's stats this morning as well, just in case there was some weird lag; still shows zero points in Missile Weapons. The other 2 canisters in there not only worked, but are reflected in my character screen.

You could well be right. I guess I had assumed it was blocking, rather than evading, physical dmg. But evasion seems better so...great.

Well 1 out of 2 isn't bad. I look forward to hunting down that Warping Box in my next game, now that 1.0.2 has dropped.

My Prince has the Dyne's Palisade; no one has the Ruby Pendant. I checked the former's alleged abilities, and they don't reference evasion. But it sounds like you know something I don't 🙂

What, if anything, does one do w/ "An Acorn"? It seems to serve no purpose compared to other special items. Unless it's just a memento. Same question for the "Warping Box"? [I never found this, but see it in a comprehensive list elsewhere on these boards...]

Of course, of my 5 scenarios, the only one that really "counts" is the battle scenario. And I should have had a 6th scenario where I was in-battle, as well as clustered up; i.e., the most pertinent scenario (d'oh!). But ok. Thanks for the responses.

I've done some testing...and am more confused. My 4 characters are: 1) Royal PC; 2) Ukatish PC; 3) Vol PC [w/ 3 ranks in Tower of Might]; and 4) Ahriel PC. I checked their evasion stats in 5 scenarios, and this is what I get: [inside a Fort] 1) 40/25 2) 15/10 3) 30/30 4) 35/25 [walk outside the gates of a Fort]--the magical evasion goes up uniformly by 15%, but physical evasion is up either 15% or 25% 1) 55/40 2) 40/25 3) 55/45 4) 60/40 [other lands, outdoors, non-combat]--same as above (2nd scenario) [battle, w/ more than 6 spaces between all 4 PCs]--w/ the exception of the Vol PC, same as inside a Fort 1) 40/25 2) 15/10 3) 45/45 4) 35/25 [indoor location, not a Fort; e.g., Refuge of the X; grouped up, no battle] 1) 55/40 2) 40/25 3) 45/45 4) 50/40

I didn't pick up on this until late in the game, but when I walked outside of Fort Haven, my physical & magical evasion stats increased by 15%. Does anyone know why? What I didn't check, and should have, was whether that +15% remained outside of Haven lands.

To clarify, I ran my 1st game w/ 2 melee types and 2 magic types (support & magic technically). The latter 2 had a staff & wand. My reasoning was that a constant mix of physical dmg and magical dmg always meant I could be ready for any foe. Perhaps that was a little too simplistic, IDK. If I get too frustrated w/ a Veteran run doing all this, thankfully the game will let me respec my characters. No doubt the bigger challenge will be keeping the pole-weapon user alive 😉

Hmm. You might have sold me on wands v. staves for my 2nd playthough. I did miss the defensive stats, including augments, when using the 2-h. staff. That said, my high evasion/Support character wielded the staff, so perhaps I didn't miss those defensive stats as much. For the plus side of staves, even a 50% chance against a single target foe has the benefit of costing no Energy. And that target may or may not be the next to die; could be a useful tactic to (hope to) Slow them while you focus-fire down annoying minions. Final decision: I think I'll try the 2nd game, now on Veteran instead of Regular, w/ 2 wands v. 1 wand and 1 staff. That extra defense should help out, as I'm going to try a 2-h. melee weapon wielder this game, knowing full well s/he's going to get spanked a lot in melee...just to try something different.

Slarty, can you explain why Staves are so terrible? I think they do more raw damage than Wands, and you get up to 50% Slow effects possible, which can be more helpful than pure magical damage, right? I get that you're giving up defensive abilities (including augments) for carrying a shield or orb.

Jeff posted over in the Steam forums that Lifedrain was bugged, and would be fixed in 1.0.2. Which I believe is coming out this week.

I thought this was a Mac issue, as F3 & F4 are dedicated to something already. I actually played through the game 2x w/out ever getting around to asking how I could get the quick save and load features to work. Talk about lazy!

Nicely said.

It is not true that you need to complete a plague quest! You just need to go to the surface, wander out a little bit until you get a couple of text pop-ups, and then go back and talk w/ him and he will remove the magic barrier to 2 different pedestals: Move Mountains & Spray Acid. To be fair, at the beginning of the game you won't have either the Arcane Lore to decipher the pedestals or Priest spells high enough to cast MM. But that's a separate issue.

D'oh! 23. Solved. Sadly for me, I'm already 32nd level, and would have been much better off had I had this earlier. It's funny the things you miss, even on a 2nd playthrough.

13. Got it! 23. There's no way to get to level 3 w/ Capture Soul & Simulacrum, is there? So when the game tells you that you need to cast it at a higher level...that just means the level differential between you and the target needs to be smaller. I think.

I played my 1st game w/ a sword/shield fighter; a Nephil archer; a priest; and a mage. Normal difficulty. Good balanced game, and so I didn't pay attn to the effectiveness overall of melee dmg. In my 2nd game, on Hard, I have an all-human party: sword/shield guy who became a dual-wielder; pole weapon user; archer; priest/mage. I was worried that having only 1 offensive spell caster would gimp me, especially on a more difficult setting. Not so much! Having the 2 front-liners (w/ Backstab of course) side by side, or coming to the rescue if something's threatening the spell caster (good luck hitting my high Dex archer!)...this game has been an absolute blast w/ this set up. So, no, theory-crafting aside, I do not find that physical dmg is underpowered in the slightest. Keep in mind that w/ 1.0.1 Jeff lowered the resistances of enemies to physical dmg, too.

There's a fair amount in the far NW of the world map. The 2nd half of the Remote Cave(rn) as well.

Jeff made physical damage resistance lower as of 1.0.1 I believe, so everything is viable. People will argue what's optimal, but really, as long as you have a balanced party, you should be fine. I would note in your list above that your potential dual wield fighter needs to start out life as a sword & board if s/he wants to actually land a hit...

To avoid the drake eating all your edibles, drop most all of it at the entrance of his cave; he only needs about 6-10 items to sate his hunger and talk to you meaningfully. I then picked up the rest of the edibles while walking out of his lair.

20. Got it! Thanks. 13. Still didn't find anywhere new on the 1st level, and now I have to return a 3rd time b/c 1 of the magic barriers on the 2nd floor requires DB 3. Sigh.

17. He has no quest of his own, and I long ago turned in the Roach-related quests. The text near his name mentions there's a discount for those sporting Anama rings. That must be the difference; currently I'm neither a real nor fake Anama member.