Celtic Minstrel

According to the editor documentation, the "Skill" ability just increases her chance to hit in combat (probably works for missiles too, but not 100% sure on that). The "Thieving" ability should be helping her with traps though.

The editor documentation (and game manual) can be found here (I think this is linked in the forum header too but not sure). The editor appendices are probably the most useful place to look if you're wondering what a particular item/monster ability does (though I think the names used there may not always be identical to the names used in the game, particularly for items that cast a spell).

So whether you disarm a trap is based on the trap's difficulty, your disarm traps skill (including from items if that's possible, I forget), your dexterity (including from items), items with the thieving ability, your luck skill, the nimble fingers trait, and the town's difficulty; so it's a pretty complicated formula.

I'll try to explain the formula in words, but you can also view the calculation in the source code here.

First, a bonus is calculated. This is your dexterity stat adjustment (which is different from your dexterity skill level, more on that in a moment) plus half the total level of thieving skill obtained from items, all times two. (This differs slightly from "twice dex stat adj plus total thieving" in that the division by two is rounded down.)

Then the game calculates your skill level, which is the disarm traps skill plus half the luck skill plus 1. Add on the bonus, subtract the town's difficulty as a penalty, and clamp between 0 and 20. This is then used to look up the odds of the trap being disarmed in the following table:

0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20
5    30   35   42   48   55   63   69   75   77   78   80   82   84   86   88   90   92   94   96   98

So. that's the odds of disarming. Next is the dice roll - roll d100, add the trap's difficulty, and subtract 6 if the character disarming has the nimble fingers trait. If the resulting number is less than the odds calculated above, then the trap is disarmed.

About "stat adjustment" vs "skill level": rather than using your intelligence, strength, or dexterity skills directly, the game normally uses them as an index into the following table, taking that value as the skill bonus:

 0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20
-3   -3   -2   -1    0    0    1    1    1    2    2    2    3    3    3    3    4    4    4    5    5

Stat-boosting equipment adds a +1 flat bonus (non-stacking!) on top of this, and various traits add an additional +1 bonus (though there are only relevant traits for strength and intelligence). In other words, the maximum dexterity stat adjustment you can have is 6.

-----

In short, as far as I can tell your character should be doing pretty well on traps, unless the traps they're attempting have an unusually high difficulty or are in towns with an unusually high difficulty.

The original version from Spiderweb's site probably requires a 32-bit machine, so if it's possible to set Parallels to emulate 32-bit, that might allow it to run. Otherwise I'd just recommend using a DOSBox-based Windows 3.1 install instead of Parallels for the original version (same as the Exile trilogy).

The messed up animations might be an actual bug in the open source copy, I can't remember.

Not really liking the ordering there (they appear to be ordered alphabetically rather than thematically), but this does seem like an interesting idea… if and when you finish it, I might consider using a few of these for something.

I believe it reduces your experience points (but never your level). Don't quote me on this though...

You can add scenarios to that version, sure. I don't know about a list of scenario passwords though...

My understanding is that the people who worked on the version known as "CBoE" didn't bother with the character editor… though I'm pretty sure they did work on the scenario editor, which is also missing in that package for some reason. If the "BoE-1.2.0a-win32.exe" installer doesn't work for you, then there's probably nothing to be done about it. :(

There are experimental versions somewhere, which do include the character editor; however, the save files in those versions are not compatible with those in CBoE, and the game itself may not be entirely stable.

Since you can't use the character editor, it might be possible to heal your party using debug mode, which enables a number of cheats. I think CBoE might require you to enter the scenario's password to activate that, though. Still... it could be worth a try. Debug mode is activated with Shift+D, after which you can press / to see a list of additional cheat codes.

I just double-checked, but it looks like my wild theory was incorrect - the file "BoE-1.2.0awin32.exe" is an installer, not a program file. On the other hand, if you were using the file "CBoE_x86_64", it looks like it did indeed omit the resources for some reason, so I've copied the resources from the installer into that archive. Try redownloading; if they're still missing, try again after clearing your browser cache. (Something like that really shouldn't be in your browser cache, but I was having problems with it in Firefox, so maybe something's misconfigured somwhere.) I tested that the game runs properly with those graphics as far as the title screen; I didn't verify they work correctly in the actual game, though. Let me know how it goes.

So, if that .exe download really is the game executable and not an installer, what I would recommend trying is to download the free version from Spiderweb's website, then just replace the executable.

1 hour ago, Randomizer said:

Some encounters are meant to be avoided and there is a brief warning the first time you encounter them that maybe you shouldn't fight them.

...could it be that the Gannel ambush at the second crossing is one of these?

Yeah, I noticed that too, and thought it was a really nice touch.

...wait, you're posting two videos in a row? :O

If you don't use Steam, then you don't need the Steam code for anything. That code just proves to Steam that you own the game, allowing you to download it from them. If you don't use Steam, all you need to remember for possible future downloads is the Humble Bundle link.

There are four difficulty levels. If you mostly just want to follow the story, you can play through on Casual. You'll still need to engage in some fighting, however.

1 hour ago, supercow said:

Sure, there are a few people who backed at higher tiers and basically gave him money in exchange for perks like beta access, but that's probably a small fraction of his backers.

Indeed, only 71 out of 2,151 backers, or about 3.3%.

1 hour ago, supercow said:

the writing is the real reason I play Jeff's games.

Isn't that the case for most people?

Nice! I've added it to my torrent program for indefinite seeding. Also just for the record, it's openboe.com, not .net.

EDIT: Speaking of which, I also added a link to the torrent right there on openboe.com.

EDIT2: I also noticed there doesn't seem to be a link to openboe.com in the forum header? Anyone want to add that for me? I'd do it myself but I'm not sure where to fit it in... also, the documentation links should probably be updated to point to openboe.com too (you can find that link from the openboe.com front page).

Vahnatai maybe? >_>

In the unstable OBoE version, yes it should function now. But that version isn't really playable yet.

I think I have one or two scenarios that I might want to dust off one day and finish, so who knows, maybe they'll be released in 2025 or something! And that's not counting the epic, which sadly will probably never be done, but we can hope.

GoG aside, I too would be interested in obtaining the original Nethergate. I purchased the remake, but was too late to purchase the original. I'd think it would be okay to release it for free like the Exile trilogy? But I dunno, maybe he has his reasons not to...

Mac doesn't have an equivalent of that wizard. In fact, on the Mac you basically just can't run older programs at all no matter what. I'm not sure what the cut-off point is though; I know PowerPC or Classic apps won't run on newer Macs, but I'm not sure if there's an additional compatibility line that was crossed.

Anyway, like I was saying, if there are problems specifically related to the filesystem, then I would think you could just use the older filesystem to solve those problems.

For the record, if APFS is the issue and it's not (yet?) fixed, wouldn't it work to create an HFS+ partition (or even just a writable disk image) and do your BoA work on there?

I wouldn't think so? That would be really weird.

I've uploaded the four BoE files to OpenBoe.com.

3 hours ago, Randomizer said:

You can poison all weapons,

If I recall correctly, no you can't. You can't poison thrown weapons such as darts, stones, etc. Guessing you can't poison a sling, either.