madrigan

Originally Posted By: Soul of Wit It's grayed out for me, too. It also works. This happens for me also.

Originally Posted By: Rowen ...and I have no intention of being aggressive and making them defensive. I think ES is requesting advice on how to prepare for an actual attack. We've all been suggesting avoidance as an option, and avoidance is certainly part of self-defense, but so is knowing what to do when you are actually attacked.

Not sure if this is useful to know, but I played through the game on Casual with the following arrangement: My character, a Blademaster, put all three specializations into the middle column, and only added points to the left and right columns when necessary for middle column skills or when there was nowhere else to spend points. Maxed out Challenge and the basic melee attack. Jenell, same approach but with the right hand column. Nathalie, same approach but with the left hand column. I used the same two companions exclusively and did not put points into the two top level skills for any character. This worked quite well, better than the more balanced approach I tried to take in my first playthrough. Most notably, this approach made the Blademaster REALLY tough in terms of absorbing damage.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: madrigan Also, if you are male, do not become involved with a woman who thinks violent men are attractive. this seems like good advice even if you are not male Good point, I could have phrased that better.

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires Originally Posted By: madrigan WHOA WHO IS THIS RENTAR GUY I MUST STOP HIS VERY ORIGINAL AND EVIL PLOT. chick/gal/woman/femme/female not guy. Yeah but when you are first contacted by her, as I recall, you have no idea who or what she is.

Ninety percent of self-defense consists of the following: Live in the safest neighborhood you can, don't walk around strange neighborhoods at night, don't get drunk in public, and don't hang around with belligerent morons. Learn to keep your mouth shut and don't be afraid to run away. Also, if you are male, do not become involved with a woman who thinks violent men are attractive. If you do the above things, you will avoid most self-defense situations. If you want to do something about the other ten percent of self-defense, getting a gun is an option under the following conditions: you are comfortable with the idea of shooting somebody if necessary, you are willing to learn how to use the gun properly and to practice with it regularly, and you are willing to go through whatever legal process is required to obtain and carry the gun. If you're not willing to satisfy all of these conditions, the gun will get you killed or arrested. As for learning to fight hand-to-hand, the single most important factor is the way you train. You have to train as realistically as possible. This means you practice against another person who is actually trying to beat you while wearing as little protective gear as possible. You don't have to practice in an alley and stab each other with broken bottles, but if you want to learn to box, for example, you have to box against somebody. In the martial arts community, this is called "aliveness." Hitting bags and pads and mimicking technique can be valuable, but if you want to learn the skill, you have to actually practice the actual skill, not just parts of it against inanimate objects or in the air. Just remember, there are no secret techniques, there are no unstoppable techniques, and you can't get good at fighting in six weeks. There is no chi, and if there was it would take a really long time to learn to use it in a fight. Look for a martial arts school that trains in an alive manner, which will probably be a school that teaches a martial art with a tradition of doing so -- judo, boxing, muay thai, brazilian jiu-jitsu, and wrestling are examples. If you want to supplement that training with something like krav maga or civilian combatives, fine. But keep in mind that if you can't practice gouging somebody's eyes out or punching them in the throat, then you can't rely on those techniques in a real fight. But you can practice a left hook and an Osoto Gari every day if you want. Just remember, it's the school and the instructor, not the style that is most important.

I'm sure all of this is the case, but A4 was my first Spiderweb game and I love it to death. I played through it at least 3-4 times. I know that if you have played A3, A4 can seem repetitive and predictable, but if you are new to the series you are like WHOA WHO IS THIS RENTAR GUY I MUST STOP HIS VERY ORIGINAL AND EVIL PLOT.

Originally Posted By: FnordCola Stick figures, or does he do other art as well? Do you mean Rich Burlew? He does do other art, but I meant the stick figures.

Originally Posted By: Urthdigger As far as I know, Phil as only responsible for the line art in the skills/training menu, which is what I was talking about. With the change to the geneforge style system, these were completely removed. As far as the more realistic art the series has had lately, that's good for the sprites and backgrounds and splat screens and such... just saying I loved those little images while I was working on my skills. That is what I thought you meant, but I like the more realistic transition screens also. I like realism in my RPG art I guess. At the same time, if Jeff could get Rich Burlew to do any of the art that would be awesome.

Originally Posted By: Urthdigger Well, seems I may have some hope for my wish. Met up with Kaja Foglio at Sakuracon and expressed my desire for Phil's art to return, getting into a brief discussion about the series (She's actually the one who brought up the rewrite after I mentioned liking the art they did for the series). Apparently they're good friends of Jeff Vogel, fancy that. Personally I like the more realistic art that the more recent games have featured, but I do remember Mr. Foglio's work very fondly from my days as a subscriber to Dragon magazine.

I think that your first idea would diminish the player's motivation to explore. You get more quests by going everywhere and talking to everyone. Also, such a list would inevitably give away part of the story. Your second suggestions would be helpful. Sometimes I forget where someone is too. It helps to use the journal feature to record the quest-granting dialogue.

Originally Posted By: FnordCola As a random thug put it in Hellblazer, "There's a face you'd never get tired of kicking." I have maybe two issues of that comic, plus one TPB, but I have that scene. Brutal.

I haven't tried this editor, but cheat games are a lot of fun. It's fun to beat the low-level enemies playing "straight," but it's also fun to dominate and disintegrate them like Mason Storm taking out a bunch of corrupt cops. Or Wong Fei Hung breaking up a streetfight. Or whatever.

Originally Posted By: FnordCola The stick is also nice in that one can equip a shield with it, unlike the Jade Halberd. It's too bad Jeff didn't throw the Radiant Leaf or something into that game so you could attack with the stick while defending with the leaf. "Tha trees be attackin'!"

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES A4 does not have a damage cap -- you are thinking of one or more of the original Avernum trilogy games (not sure which as I haven't played those much). A4 does have the difference in damage dice -- short swords were 1-2, broadswords were 1-3, and the stick was the only melee weapon with a 1-4. Its base level was very low, but if your melee skills were high enough it could outdamage the best swords. However, halberds were also 1-4 and had much better bonuses, to say nothing of the Heartstriker Bow which I believe was 1-7 in A4. Therefore, the statement that the stick did the most damage of any single-target attack in the game is patently false. Yes, that's true, I suppose the Jade Halberd and Heartstriker were the best weapons in A4. Then again the stick was lighter and you could pick one up real cheap. I mentioned it as a strong example of how it was very important to pay attention to multipliers in A4-6.

There are one or two places I can think of where enemies respawn, but they are very minor and if you have just started the game you are nowhere near them.

Now I get it. Thanks!

So in summary, does that mean that when I am deciding which weapon to use for a particular character, I do not have to calculate the multiplier?

Do I need to be concerned with multipliers in Avadon the way I did in Avernum? Like the way a stick was the best weapon in Avernum 4? Or can I just look at the minimum and maximum damage?

Originally Posted By: VCH Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Originally Posted By: madrigan The issue is that the middle class struggles while a few people control a ridiculous amount of wealth. Whatever definition of "struggle" pertains to something that the American middle class does these days, it is a very different definition of "struggle" than how I know the word! What is middle class any way? I don't think that people in general have any problem understanding that the word "struggle" covers a wide range of problems. Many middle class Americans struggle financially. Is their struggle as difficult as that of, say, a homeless person with brain cancer in a third world country? No. But again, that is not the issue. People have a right to expect that they will be treated fairly. The fact of vast inequality among nations does not alter the fact of vast inequality within nations. "Middle class" is another term that only needs to be strictly defined when you are writing a journal article or trying to change the subject.

Originally Posted By: PhuQ ...happy as a squirrel at the rollercoaster... Do you have this phrase copyrighted or anything? I'd like to start using it.

Originally Posted By: Self-Inverter ...even so the middle class today has it good compared to most people in most places at most times. But the resources available, in the United States right now, are probably greater than those available in any other nation at any time. Relative quality of life counts. The issue isn't whether a middle class person in 2011 is better off than a really rich person in 1611. The issue is that the middle class struggles while a few people control a ridiculous amount of wealth. People can't pay their mortgage, and Ralph Lauren owns a castle. Meanwhile there are actual poor people who are much worse off. I know much less about other countries, but relative quality of life is important to just about everyone. Absolute quality of life is interesting in terms of the ways societies have changed over time, but fairness is perceived in terms of current conditions, not historical change.

I say just play with four characters. The companionship really helps on those long journeys across hostile wildernesses infested with freakish truck-sized monsters. It's a pain to have to summon a creature every time you need to complain to somebody.

When I was an undergrad 1000 years ago, I'm not sure stats was required for the PoliSci major. Even in grad school you could get a Ph.D. with just a year of stats. It depended A LOT on the program. I tell young people not to leave college without taking stats and logic. It teaches you how to think and helps you to detect lies. I was really not good at either one but they still helped me a lot. Also, for the zero of you who are interested, my other college advice is to take at least one course in something you know nothing about and which appears to be completely useless. College may be your last chance to learn something just for its own sake.

Yeah, this is a great set piece.