Robsta

As a devout Exile player, I’m surprised at the quality Jeff got in making Avernum V. After playing the demos for Avernum 1 and 2, I decided Avernum was just a cheep rip-off of the quality Exile series, dropping many of the things that made Exile good, area effect spells, food shortage, six player parties. Avernum V's demo shows me how far its come. Area effect back in (when that happen? IV), new storylines as opposed to copies of Exile's. It also has new ingenuities, combat disciplines and resistances for example. I also like the new talking system, and the character class system. There are still numerous changes I don't like though, unlimited pack for one - nice to have, but unrealistic. Perhaps this should be something given to easy and normal difficulties. Food - since when did people not need to eat? More to the point, why is the middle of a battle the best time to pull out a sandwich? Resurrection - Gee I wish I would come back to life whenever a friend walks into town. Duel wielding - how am I supposed to make a ninja without 2 swords? Axes - do they still exist? How am I supposed to make a berserker without a great axe? Slings, maces, flails, where did the variety go? Still, by about Avernum VII, I'm sure it'll catch up to Exile in quality.

As far as I can tell, the Stinking Cloud ability works on PC.

As a game designer this is something I’ve dreamed of, but as a student, I’ll leave this land of wonder to when I’m older and wiser. And when I’ve created a full, single player, RPG on a machine.

Roger, Exile II does have the best story (I don’t think I or III come close), but Exile III has the best game system, (except for the lack of the pacifist trait), and the world was developed the best. Jobs really added a lot, (and did it also add weapon improvement? That’s another neat function). It’s hard to decide which is better.

Hi again. Now I’m playing the Amazonian Saga and I’ve run into a new dead end. (The walkthrough of this one on TrueSite doesn’t seem to work either, and the sight provided in the read me doesn’t help much.) Here’s my situation, I’ve killed Nancy and Samantha, (I think I sold Nancy’s spear, I hope it isn’t needed.), but I’m having trouble getting to Kekri (I’m presuming she’s in Kokoriko). In this town there is a novel orb that I presume must be destroyed, but the weapon that I have to do it with is not powerful enough. Of course, it’s magical and can’t be “improved”, and none of the other blacksmiths want to help me. How do I progress from here? PS. I haven’t been able to find any of the missing people, should I have been able to by now?

Wow, After all that it's a pity I couldn't beat the last battle without cheating. (I had played it through with only 31 spell points until the battle, for this battle I took 29 more and the spell protection, although I'll discard them again.) A final Thanx for all your help.

Thanks, but the last one (I hope) still has me stumped “Name it, so break it” (it’s possible I haven’t tried as many guesses for this as the others, since I get attacked each time I try something new)

Now a riddle has me stumped. "Water on sand not under water." Any clues? (I know I need to note that the message comes by way of faint letters appearing) PS. I got the riddle about voices.

Thanks, I would have really gotten hung up on the combo lock puzzle. The log puzzle was easy, I'd found a guy who told me he could translate things when I was looking for Aeschere.

I've run up against another tought spot, (King) Scyld tells me "Go to Sweon and alert the guards. Then see if you can investigate the outpost." When I go to Sweon and talk to Ongen (the commander), I can't alert the guards. What do I do?

Just for verification, could someone post the site with these changes up on this forum, (So I know which version of OBoE has them)

Thanks, I'd tried most of the words on that sign, but not that one.

As a newish member of BoE, I'm playing through some of the scenarios. In River and Leaf, I've run up against a wall that I can't seem to pass, and the walkthrough on TrueSite for Blades doesn't seem to be working. In Ingusi Lv2, there is a conversation with a barrier in front of the door, and you’re told to find a good place to listen. I’ve searched the entire area, and the only thing I’ve found is a bookshelf with a password I don’t know. What do I do?

Another minor change I'd like to see if it isn't too difficult. Add more free text space into the scenario texts. I have a tendency to like to write a lot, and if a town runs out of texts or special nodes, I use the scenario texts. Now I have to decide which nodes to leave text off when I want to add a new one. (one or two hundred more texts would be nice.)

Quote: Originally written by Celtic Minstrel: I'm pretty sure I've gotten that feature to work. What exactly did you do? Maybe you missed something important. Sorry, after more testing I discovered that it will call the special (perhaps I had tested with a party already saved in the scenario or something), but it still displays the small message "nothing to use". I tried adding a small message to the chain to see if it overrode it, but it showed both my message and nothing to use.

Another error that I have encountered, in reference to editing terrain, the call special when used option doesn't seem to work, when I tried to use it, I got a small message telling me that there is nothing to use.

Another suggestion, this one concerning the item with class? Equip item with class? Item with calls (+take)? etc. special nodes. Currently they only check for if you have one character with one such item, it would increase flexability if the 2a and/or 2b fields were used to check either how many items or how many characters with items. (the first is probably more pratical and easier to program)

I don't know how many scenarios use these restrictions, but if there currently is a restriction on the rainge of ritual sanctify and on talking to the screen area, if the playing screen is expanded, the rainge of these things would have to still be restricted, or else a scanario might be ruined because you can sanctify or talk to something you arn't supposed to yet, just see. (Say, through a window or gate)

Another bug I found. In the original BoE, custom item graphics have transparent backgrounds when on the ground and in the get items screen, but not when it is in your inventory. It should be transparent all the time.

Quote: Originally written by Ron BoE: Thank you for the link. I second that. Prior I've been using the archive in the Motrax's lair, which is also big, but smaller and worse organized.

It was probably meant to be a cursed Item. Sir Fitzgiven: Hey look - a sword-like mace! Trisha: Looks cool, lets get it identified. Maple: No need, it tells you the name is the Mace of Augvah. Sir Fitzgiven: Sounds neat, I want it. It's probably better than the demonslayer I'm using right now Trisha: Could be dangerous, identify it first. Maple: Why, it's the Mace of Augvah. How can an item with that cool a name be dangerous? Trisha: Remember what happened with the scroll of shockwave? Maple: nonsense, this isn't shockwave, this is Augvah! Sir Fitzgiven: I like the look of this mace, I'm equipping it. (characters taken from my E1 party)

About capturing guards (based on E2, the Exile game I played when using the soul crystal), it's possible(and even easy), but they arn't very powerful unless you first anger them (and this can be dangerous) and even then, they're best for defence. (with an HP of 270(E2), as opposed to 90 when unangered).

In E2 I defeated Garzahd with blades as opposed to mindduel, which is how you're told to. It seemed to me alot easier, even though he has (probably) max HP and armor, he also has alot of spell points.

Here's another suggestion, this time about modifying the stairway node - make it that if extra 1a and 1b are set to -1, than place the party in the new town with the same x and y coordinates(it currently puts them at (-1,-1)). This could be useful in 2 cases I can think of; if there are 2(or more) levels in a town/dungeon one on top of the other with staircases connecting them, or if a scenario has day/night versions of towns, it can switch between them when the party is in town.

Quote: Originally written by *i: While tempting now we have the source, I'm leary of changing the limits of PC advancement. One of the major tentents of this project is to ensure backward compatability in both functionality and balance. The problem is large scenarios that assume a level 50 party throughout might become too easy near the end. While most of my suggestions of limits pushed the limits a bit. Quote: Origionally written by Robsta: To this end I propose a the following limits: - SP limit of 5 x Int - this would allow races with bonuses to intelegance a bonus to spell points as well - Max HP limit of 300, with slowed advancement each level and no buyable(with Skill points) HP allowed after 240 depending on STR - STR 1-3 -> 0HP, STR 4-9 -> 1HP, STR 10-17 -> 2HP, STR 18-20 -> 3HP, STR >20 -> 4HP (The last is only possible with a race with str bonus, and really good str stat) - Instead of having a maximum level of 50, have a maximum XP of 5500 (this should be level 50 for a PC with a 10% bonus) - could raise this max to 1100 for a 1 PC party, since more boneses are taken, and for the lack of the support of other PCs. My idea of changing the level limit to an XP limit was not one that should make parties stronger than expected, at any point in a scenario. The main reason for this suggestion was actually the opposite - so that parties will be at the same level of ability in higher level scenarios. Currently a party with every Pc either Neph or Slith and with all the good traits and none of the bad traits will have an easy time at a long 50th level scenario while a party of all humans, none of the good traits and all the bad traits, would have a nearly impossible time of beating. Thus this suggestion is not so a high level party can slowly become too powerful for such scenarios, but to turn good/bad traits from a decider of how powerful a party is when their levels are maxed out, into what they were meant to be (I hope), distinctive traits to make each character unique, without changing their power too much. If you feel the extra levels will unbalance the abilities of the traits, it’s easy to fix, combine the max of levels and XP. e.g. (in pseudo code) if(Character.XP + 5*Character.Level > 6000) {GiveNoXP = true;}