Untamed Banana Slug

From what I have seen, you appear to inflict an additional 50% damage. So it's the equivalent of a landing a well-aimed blow.

Obviously investing in the skill increases you probability of landing a lethal blow, but it's unclear as to how much. 3% per point seems plausible, and is a common interval increase (the chance of getting a second strike with quick action also increases by 3%).

I tested four values for lethal blow (5, 10, 15, 20) against Solberg on Torment, with a Lvl 13 character.

 

Lethal blow = 5; 3/20 (15%) of blows were lethal.

 

Lethal blow = 10; 10/20 (50%) of blows were lethal.

 

Lethal blow = 15; 13/20 (65%) of blows were lethal.

 

Lethal blow = 20; 12/20 (60%) of blows were lethal!?

 

I retested lethal blow = 20, 11/20 (55%) of blows were lethal.

 

From this we can conclude that:

 

1. Lethal blow doesn't just apply to weak enemies.

 

2. There may be a plateau around the 20 skill point mark.

 

Edit: Wait, scratch that. LB = 30 gives a 80% chance of a lethal blow. Blah.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y188/Red_Wizard/parry0.jpg

 

How can I parry an attack with a 0% chance? Note that I don't have any points in parry, but I do have a single point in riposte.

Do the calculations in Excel.

Edit: Never mind, it takes me about 2 minutes to do myself.





Heartstriker overtake's Elavari's when you have 29 combat levels of damage for bows.

Edit: What's wrong with the format? It looks fine when I edit it, but it gets all compacted after I post it.

Meat shields are dead weight. Replace them with spellcasters.

The threads I linked to have our forum veterans/nerds discussing the respective advantages and disadvantages of melee/pole/bows, which relates to your build and the discussion I'm having with fractal.

As to your build, haste, quick strike and fast on feet* would all benefit bows as well. Quick action is the only skill which gives swords the edge. But this is counteracted by the ability to strike an enemy from anywhere on the screen with a bow, the decreased chance to parry, the ability to stay outside the range of aura attacks, and being able to completely avoid all those harmful effects you receive when you strike an opponent in combat.

* Fast on feet is a relatively lousy trait, by the way.

There is discussion at:

http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=109988&page=1

and

http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=111925&page=1

regarding this issue. Apparently the jury is still out, despite all that discussion!

Fair enough. What I'm saying is that I think you'd have a plausible case if you said poles > bows, but I just can't see how swords > bows.

And I stand by my claim that a Blessed Longbow + Farsight band > Waveblade.

Yeah, I knew that, I just had a mental lapse. Brain not detected: Retry, fail, ignore?

Anyway, all of the advantages you ascribe to melee weapons *also* apply to pole weapons, except pole weapons receive an extra 0.5 die of damage per combat level. So you should be arguing in favour of pole weapons, not meleee.

I'm skeptical. You could make a good case for polearms, but melee weapons are just bows which you can't use at a range.



Polearms have better weapon numbers than melee, as well as more stat boosts available throughout the game.



Being able to wear slightly heavier armour isn't a big deal.



Which means that you should be arguing in favour of polearms, not melee.

Do you think a party of 4 swordsmen would have fared any better?

Shields provide negligible damage protection, especially on Torment where your PC's receive a hidden -25% (?) deduction to all resistances and armour. If the shield has stat bonuses such as +2 to QA, they are worth a bit of inconvenience (eg. pumping up strength so that you aren't encumbered), but not trading away that extra 0.5 avg damage per combat level if you are choosing between melee and pole.



Yes. And the bonuses offered by traits and races far outstrips the 10-15 skill points lost.



Seconded. You'd have to be crazy *not* to take Divinely Touched.



Why would a swordsman be any more effective than an archer? Longbows use the *same* damage multiplier as swords, except the enemy is less likely to parry them and you don't need to be next to an enemy to connect. Furthermore, you can get the Blessed Longbow and Farsight Band real early in the game. Waveblade vs Blessed Longbow and +3 to Sharpshooter = No contest!

I tested magical efficiency to determine how efficient it actually is. Oooh, graph!

 

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y188/Red_Wizard/magefficiency.jpg

 

Any thoughts?

That's a tautology right there.

A damage level is the range of values by which your damage output increases when you invest a point in a relevant skill (eg. magery for mage spell damage).

To calculate your damage level, look at your weapon's base damage value range. Divide the maximum value by the minimum value to get the multiplier value (let's call it x). A damage level is therefore 1 to x points of damage.

For spells, the damage level is listed in the documentation, and is not related to the base damage.

Let's use Randomiser's broadsword as an example. The base damage is 11-55. Divide 55 (max base damage) by 11 (min base damage) to get 5 (the damage multiplier). The damage level is 1 to 5. So increasing your damage by two damage levels would result in your minimum damage increasing by 2, your maximum damage increasing by 10, and your average damage increasing by 6.

Note that melee weapons in A5 never have a multiplier as high as 5! Randomiser is using values from Geneforge, where the damage multipliers are much higher.

Randomiser also mentioned die values, which you may find confusing, as it's a throwback to Dungeons and Dragons system and you don't see any dice rolled on the computer screen. The damage levels employed in A5 could be considered similar to the die rolling system using in D&D, where the range of damage for a damage level constitute the numbers (or sides) on a die, and the increase in the number of damage levels is the number of die rolls.

Having four damage levels with a multiplier of 5 translates to 4d5, which means rolling a die with five sides (ergo. the numbers 1 to 5) four times. Therefore your minimum damage is 4, your maximum damage is 4*5 = 20, and your average is (4+20)/2 = 12.

Isn't it possible that characters can change their specialities (ie. classes)? From memory, Barzhal was originally a Guardian. Yet when you meet him in GF2, he resembles a Shaper.

My gaming experience supports this statement. The armour difference between my priest with an encumbrance of 65 pounds and a mage with an encumbrance of 40 pounds was negligible. The ideal armour for a mage isn't the one with the highest defensive rating, anyway.

They don't increase with level, and are far inferior to many other traits that are available.

From memory, Natural Mage equated to a bonus +4 to spell level.

No. I didn't run back to town any more frequently than I would with a 'generic' party, and I *very* rarely used energy potions.

BTW, my computer bombed and I lost all my A5 save games. *sigh* But I was doing very well in Vahnatai lands.

Wouldn't it be awesome if the Vahnatai did it?

LOL!!! Oh, the potential. It would be hilarious if there were cannabilistic tribes in A6. Soylent green is people!

The cake is a lie!

I always found E1/A1 the most difficult, simply because you were given the least direction. You were just thrown into an alien world with no clear objectives.

Unlike the other disciplines, Battle Frenzy is the only one which applies the damage boost to ALL enemies hit by a multi-target spell.

And yeah, I made my lead character a priest.

From a cursory reading of the script:

1. Allow Tholmen to escape

OR

2. Give Solberg's papers

OR

3. Kill Solberg

Although I still can't figure out exactly what you need to do to be given the option to join the Darkside Loyalists in the first place.