Prince of Kitties

I'm playing DM2 and am in the Cave of Silver (under the Frozen Cavern or whatever it's called, the one with the ice drakes). And... I don't know what to do. There's a secret door which according to Magic Map leads to a treasure room, but I can't get to the door without setting off a trap that closes it and summons hostiles. There's a hallway around the secret door, but it's walled off (and there are no secret doors in the walls). There's a lever... Which doesn't seem to do anything. What am I supposed to do to get to the treasure and whatever else there is in this place? (FWIW, the Cave of Silver isn't covered in Luz's hints.)

Okay, bug #1... Special nodes that place monsters do not work. Ever. At all. For instance, in At the Gallows, when Zane appears and summons up a golem for you in Prador Cave, the golem never shows up. I would consider this a major bug.

Yeah that's the bug I was talking about... I'll report anything odd I find.

Ooh, thanks. Is the bug with the Kill Party special fixed in this one?

Sorry to ask this, but is there anywhere that current OBoE binaries, or at least sources, are available? Ormus' version of OpenBoE works, but it's very buggy and getting rather dated...

Seeing as Geocities is closing down later this year, are there any plans to move the Truesite somewhere else? It doesn't seem to me like a good idea to just let it die...

When you've fixed the talking and the crashes, can you upload it somewhere? I run Linux, so I can be your first beta tester.

Just FWIW, the Will/Mindduel bug (Will items protect from dumbfounding but don't help minddueling) still seems to be unfixed. AFAIK, this should be an easy fix, since it's just the code referring to the wrong ability number... See here. (Apologies for the formatting problems.) The code in party.cpp should use ability 53 (Will) not ability 75 (add/lose magic resistance). Edit: Nope, what I wrote there doesn't seem to apply any more, as ability 75 doesn't affect mindduel either in Ormus' OpenBoE (and the mindduel code is no longer in party.cpp). Whatever the case, Will should affect minddueling ability... Edit again: ah, I see the issue... No matter what the ability level of the Ring of Will, it will always make the mindduel work as if the PC has 20 Intelligence, so my 20-Int test singleton doesn't benefit. D'oh. Carry on.

Interesting, that contradicts the description in the game's help files IIRC.

Mindduels work, you just need lots of smokey crystals. You can also use summoned undead or demons, due to a certain bug. Quickghasts are best by far, but ghouls and ghasts will work. Also, assassinating hits will go through the Guardian's invulnerability...

Okay, thanks. FWIW, can anyone tell me what the chance is per turn of Occasional Bless, Occasional Haste, etc. activating?

Is it possible to adjust the frequency of occasional effects, such as occasional bless, haste, curse, etc.? Could, for instance, I have an item that has a 1/10 chance per turn of blessing the party, or something really nasty that curses the wielder every single turn? The ability strength only seems to affect the strength of the effect, as opposed to the frequency. (If there's no way in the current BoE editor, maybe it should be added to OBoE...)

Alright, I'd like to report what I think may be the first regression in OBoE... Giant Strength doesn't work. In BoE, it increases both damage and chance of hitting - Giant Strength at 10 produces a noticable advantage, and at 127 (the Super Editor maximum) it increases damage by a factor of about 4 or 5. In OBoE though, Giant Strength produces no advantage whatsoever. No matter how high the ability level for an item is, there is no increase in damage, and in fact seems to be a slightly lower chance of hitting.

Some of those are good ideas, but I think it might be hard to implement all of them while still maintaining compatibility with old BOE scenarios and savefiles.

Oh. Thanks anyway. Any idea when the next version of OBoE will be out? Or has it been abandoned?

The link to the full version is now broken... Could you re-upload it? Until the arbitrary limits are removed from the open editor, it's needed for using the Super Editor...

Probably Tomorrow, for the awesome atmosphere, frenetic combat, and the super cool final cutscene... Falling Stars and Redemption are also high on my list though.

Originally Posted By: Jewelz Originally Posted By: Miramor A better one (Undoomvahgaz Armor) Used to be available, but only by email request and its creator disappeared. Did he really disappear? If he's not answering e-mails anymore I can upload my copy. (Actually I think I already have it uploaded just not linked.) Yeah, last I checkd (some time last year) he wasn't responding to emails.

There's a note in Andrus' room about it, IIRC.

Yes. As for the full version of BoE, I'm not sure exactly where to get it... I know some of the people on this forum do though.

Or the full version, which is now (IIRC) legal.

Are you using BoE or OpenBoE?

You'd have to edit the source code. Note also that there are caps on spell damage. (In particular, the Kill and Firestorm damage caps are reversed for monsters and players.) As for a God-party scenario... Try Thuryl's Demon Armor. A better one (Undoomvahgaz Armor) Used to be available, but only by email request and its creator disappeared. Alternatively, you could create your own using the Super Editor. Meanwhile some advice on beating tough scenarios... - In magical terms, you party is not very powerful. At low levels you can sling fireballs around, but at high levels you have to be more efficient. Bless and haste yourself at the beginning of combat. If you have invuln spells, use them. Get good (preferably flaming or frightening) weapons. Avoid stinking clouds if possible, they can be deadly. Be warned that the Magic Resistant status does not completely protect from slowing and cursing. - On a similar note, frightening weapons are severely underrated. Frightened monsters will run, giving you free hits, and seem less likely to attack or cast spells (always a good thing). Vampiric is also nice, since it heals you. - It's tempting to just cast Avatar at the beginning of combat, but the spell is actually not very powerful - its invulnerability doesn't last long and it gives a rather low level of blessing instead. At least follow it up with a Bless spell if you intend to do serious damage. A better combo is Major Blessing and Protection, which will make you invulnerable, magic resistant, blessed, and hasted for a long time. - Luck is your friend. It gives you a plus to hit, makes you more likely to dodge attacks, and most importantly increases your chances not dying when taking a hit at 0 HP. A lot makes your PC tougher to kill than Superman, but even a little helps. - On a related note, Dexterity is almost useless. Blessing does the same thing better. - Using New Market City between scenarios can help, if you feel cheaty; it has cool items like +2 AP Boots of Speed. - Finally: alchemy is helpful, as potions only take a few AP to quaff. Also, you can do some really cool things with the scenario editor. Projectile weapons of all kinds, for instance. Want Thor's Hammer? Just make an ammo-less projectile weapon with max stats and the Lightning ability at 10. You could also make a vampiric war yoyo, an exploding boomerang, whatever.

New one... The random number generator seems to need some work. Here's a scenario of the sort I commonly see: - You save the game and walk up to a monster. The monster casts a spell at you. - You open the save file and walk up to the monster again, retracing your steps. It will cast the same spell at you. As long as the same path is followed, the same spell will be cast. - The pattern is only broken if the party members walk a different path to the monster. Basically some of the game's randomness seems to depend on how the party moves, and I don't think this should be the case.

BoE works fine in Wine, but sound may be a problem. Prior to recentish (1.1.8 or so) versions of Wine, BoE/OBoE would crash on playing certain sounds in ALSA mode, necessitating the use of OSS (and as a result monopolizing the sound card). If OpenSuSE uses PulseAudio, you should be able to play without sound mixing problems, but expect occasional crashes. The best solution seems to be using a recent version of Wine. (Also, Ubuntu's version of Wine seems to be patched to fix some problems, which incidentally fixes the issue with BoE and ALSA. Not sure if SuSE uses the same patches. My advice is, if in doubt, just use OSS or turn the sound off.)