Thaluikhain

Was that a function of the rubble, or was it just (and I have completely forgetten the BoE terminology) selecting the places where there is rubble as places where a thing to slow the party (or change a timer) would be triggered?

Not to mention, that "Cleopatra" usually refers to the Cleopatra the 9th, but could also refer to any of the previous ones. I would add "The Shareware Demon". And also ask if these are listed from best to worst or the other way around.

Seconding playing BoE, with the caveat that some scenarios are better than others, and it's not easy to keep a consistent difficulty curve between scenarios.

Detect Life was one of those cool spells that wasn't really that useful (like "Scare", say). The idea is nice, in practice no real reason to cast it. Always wondered if it'd be possible to make a BoE scenario and try to recreate that scene from Aliens where they are counting down the range of the movement and it gets inside the room. Never saw a particular problems with sliths. Any monster (or monster type) is going to be too tough is you are too low level, but at some point you'll reach the point where you can defeat them, and later when more or less always will. Those Ruby Skeletons, though. Gah. Never really got into any of the games later than BoE. The earlier ones just seemed more user friendly, I liked the aesthetics more and the later ones seemed more of a grind. Also, graphics harder to mod myself.

I'd recommend checking out the BoE or BoA scenario creators. Not having gotten into Avernum, I've always stuck with BoE myself, apparently it's more limited than BoA, but there's still been some great scenarios made.

Oh, right, yeah, had forgotten that.

Hmmm...one thing about Erika's motivations. Ok, yeah, it seems that she went in for heroic reasons, and when you talk to her she says she opposes destroying the surface in revenge for what was done to her (but then she is under suspicion of monster plaguing, which is a good reason to say that. Even if she is innocent). However, IIRC, she only teleports in if you have her amulet, and you only get her amulet if you go talk to her, and you only do that if you've found her rune and gone around telling people that Erika's rune was in the slime pit. And she was not happy with being framed. She has a purely personal reason for getting involved. Though, personally, I think she was going for a heroic intervention, but I could see an argument made that way. In retrospect, framing Erika wasn't a bright move. Not sure who would be better, though. Stick a few demons in there and frame Linda?

Hmmm, true, not really familiar with E2, and didn't think much of the cloak, though I vaguely remember it. But if they kept it for A3, I guess it's a clue. I thought it was just random loot, like the magic waveblade in Hawke's Manse which, AFAIK, has no explanation for being there.

So, E3 is about monster plagues, and when you defeat a plague you can find something there pointing to one of 3 suspects/factions behind them. And you can go get a relevant magic thingy made if you guess correctly which of them it is. My question is, if you didn't already know, how obvious would it be which of the 3 was behind it all? All 3 have the motive and presumably the means to create monster plagues. I guess you could say that crystal magic was used in both the golems and trog/giant one, whereas the rune and the scales were just left behind for the slimes and the roaches (and there is a wave blade in the Filth Factory). But it still seems very vague to me. (Also, can you go to the bunker and give an answer you've not found evidence for?)

I was going to say I didn't think it mattered, but arrows are more plentiful than bolts, yeah. Though, slings avoid that problem. OTOH, bows, crossbows and slings don't seem terribly useful anyway.

E3, got the demo from a CD that came with a gaming magazine, was popular at my high school. Never actually played any Avernum games all the way through.

Towns are of varying size, though. And always unrealistic, for a better gameplay anyway.

The Boltblade comes to mind. You can use it like wand to zap enemies, but you can also equip it like any other edged weapon and hit people with it. Though, use the last charge and presumably it's gone and no longer works as a sword. Really, you'd be better off with a normal/magic sword, and maybe a separate wand if you want.

Looking into this...oh, the giants are in BoE twice. Monsters 54-57 are Cave Giant, Giant Shaman, Giant Chief and Mutant Giant, while monsters 155-158 are Hill Giant, Hill Giant Fighter, Hill Giant Shaman and Hill Giant Chief. The normal/cave giants are generally tougher than the Hill Giants, but the Hill Giant Chief has more health than the Giant Chief. I should totally start, lose interest in and abandon a BoE scenario about Cave Giants fighting Hill Giants. There was a Giant Chief unconnected to the Hill Giants in E3, SW (ish) of Fort Emergence on the surface. Always seemed a bit odd, especially as scrying him had him separate to Hill Giants, but I guess it makes sense.

Well, BoE's monster list is almost the same as E3's. Some slight differences, the hill giants are cave giants, IIRC, also BoE added some new monsters (hydras come to mind), and doesn't have the special characters, of course. As an aside, BoE uses different cave floor graphics to E3 for some reason, but the monster pictures still use the E3 statue of green cave floor not the BoE statue on white cave floor. Personally, I find scrying every monster to be a big part of the game.

Yeah, only played E3 and BoE, but still love them. Never really got into the other Spiderweb games, though I've bought a few.

A lot of friendly towns have monsters in them, and a fair few monster filled dungeons have friendlies in them. Something I've tried doing (normally without much success) is to box in friendly creatures to drive them towards where I know the monsters are, so I'll have help when I fight them (if the friendly is aware of the monster and trying to kill it already, don't need to do this of course). For example, trying to herd a guard towards a doorway which has a special encounter with a monster when I open it. Is this something other people try doing, and if so, with any success?

A secret code you put in to change the game for your benefit seems a lot like a cheat code. Mind you, I use the editors a lot.

It might help if you were to say what you tried and didn't work. The first thing I would try is to put a "one time do nothing" in there before the item is placed. I've not even looked at the nodes in ages, and can't claim to have mastered them at any time, though.

Well, most of the influential creators, at least. Not sure about most overall, now that you mention it, not many creators specify their species for some reason.

Off the top of my head, I don't know if you could drop random items as such, but you can have a thing that drops a pre-selected item at a pre-selected location. You could have a few of those, and select one at random each time you enter the town. Limited, and fiddly, but could sorta work.

Not that I recall, most scenarios are definitely human centered, probably because most creators are human. Even "Nephil's Gambit", which had Slith culture as a major part was still mostly human.

Hawke's Manse is a lot bigger than the tiny corner of Lorelai it occupies as well. What about the trees? A single tree can take up an entire tile. Actually, that'd be kinda cool if you had forests with trees that big.

Yeah, hard pressed to think of many...or even any, really, good movie adaptations of games. I sorta liked Doom, but that had nothing to do with the games, and the first Tomb Raider and early Resident Evil films, but not played those games. I'd not say books adaptations generally fail terribly, though. Sure, they often do, but then they often don't, the Harry Potter and LotR/Hobbit films did pretty well.

Yeah, don't hold your breath on another Blades, IIRC they didn't work too well and he's gone off those. A good game benefits from a good editor (and a good modding community, that's not a given), but I don't know how it helps sales of the game, rather than replayability (which isn't quite the word).