Dantius

What? A d8? I thought all physical attacks were a d4 or d5! *runs of to replay g5 with a pack of tralls*

Incorrect. War Tralls have a d5 physical die, Gazers have a d10 kill spell. Even with the 40% damage reduction, that's still more. However, Hei is partially right, as some NPC war Trall's do, in fact, have zero Magic resistance.

No loss. Yes, I'll spring for the Symbiotic cloak until I get the Spirit Cloak in the Dark River.

So 5x6 is the same as 6x5. Or, more practially: You have a 50% piece of armor and a 10% piece. If you take the 50 first, you are left with 50 remaining. 10% of 50 is 5, and 5+50 = 55. If, however, you take the 10 first, you are left with 90,half of which is 45. 45+10 = 55 as well. Basically, just the more complex way of saying what Thuryl said.

The Mech/LT aspect of the games has steadily declined throughout the game. In G1, doors had a set "level" of mechanics needed to open them. Each Living Tool counted as two levels. Thus, to open a level 16 door with 10 mechanics would ALWAYS cost three Living Tools. Unlock lev. 1 had the effect of picking the lock with 1 LT, lv. 2 would pick with 2 LT, and so on. In G2 and 3, it was the same, only you had to choose whether to cast Unlock or expend all the living tools required. G4 and 5 were the worst, where mech had little to no boost to the amount of tools required. Picking one of the doors in Gazaki Uss with 12 mech cost 5 LT, yet with the full +7 mech from infiltrator items, the cost only dropped to 4, still to little to use a unlock spell.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Have you seen many Shapers in Avernum lately? Dikiyoba. Yes, yes, I have. I'm playing as one right now. Most major characters in Avernum (or at least most mages) are, in fact, Shapers.

There are tons of LT in G1, because the lock system was awesome, and you could use some LT and then switch to casting unlock, saving you large quantities of said tools. I't a pity Jeff changed it.

I thought PS, MS, Spellcraft and INT all increased Energy, but Magery didn't.

6 BC is probably the correct answer, calculated by finding the lunar eclipses mentioned in the Bible and then working backwards. Herod died in 4 BC, so he obviously lived before that. I believe that the calender starting 6 years after was because of the switch to the Gregorian calender, and too much effort required to change it after the precise date was discovered.

There is no zero- it skips from 1 BC to 1 AD. The real question is... when was Jesus born then???

Right- first impressions: I started out with stats as detailed above, and boldly entered Avernum. I looted the portal chamber and the supply room, equipped some low-quality equipment, and headed south. I was shocked when that traitor Newsom betrayed me! How dare he! Anyways, some Bolts of Flame and one Repel Spirit foiled his assassination attempt. I headed east. I took out all but one undead, but I ran out of energy, and, with too weak of a physical attack, invariably fell. Abuse of save/reload did not remedy this; I simply did not have enough energy. On the fourth try, I ran past and grabbed the Energy potion on the workbench. Worked like a charm, and he was blasted into oblivion. I headed through the tunnel to the zombie, which a Repel Spirit took care of. Heading into the gallery with the Stone Servants, I grabbed my prise- the second of two Energy potions downstairs, and a couple Healing potions. I killed the zombies and the worms in quick succession. I quaffed my last energy potion, and went to face Newsom. You can hit him with a Spray Acid before engaging in conversation, which is helpful for getting in an extra attack, always good. His summoned zombies were a problem, I had to use Haste to be able to kill them fast enough to not get ripped to shreds. Newsom, being constantly softened up by the Spray Acid I cast earlier, was still difficult. I ran out of energy when he still had a decent amount of health left. Whoops, mistake. I equipped my trusty rusty Shortsword, and we dueled it out until he fell, which was awhile, as we both had about a 50% hit chance. I had blown my last Healing potion, and was down to 7 HP when he fell. I attribute this to luck. I leveled twice, once just before and once just after beating Newsom. Points went into SC for energy and End for health. I dropped my spare point into AL, just for the hell of it. So, my feelings about this: Okay. The first level is the only point in the game where your resources are severely limited, with about two Energy potions and about six Healing potion, plus no way to restore either (not counting Minor Heal here). I felt better when I got into the fortress proper. Not only did I have some nice stuff Newsom dropped, but I also could now buy some spells and energy potions. I picked up two levels in Bolt of Fire, cleared out the Nephil's bedroom, grabbed the Fiery Wand(should be useful) and am going to head off into New Harston tomorrow.

Dark red it is. Here we go; I'll post again when I finish up Under Blackcrag Fortress.

Originally Posted By: Iffy Did you just call Magus evil? More to achieve a bookend effect than anything else, methinks. Poetic licence.

Who gets a bye next round? There are five winners, so unless there will be a three-way death match (awesome), there might be some problems.

Alright. I've finished off Dorkias in my Normal singleton, so I'm ready to launch. Only one question remains- my sprite. Obviously I'm going to pick the Shaper one, but should my robe be dark blue, dark red, or dark green? This is the most important decision to be made in my playthrough, since I'll be stuck with it, so the answer better be good.

Originally Posted By: meAzuma The secret ornk ending FTW! What madness is this?!!?!!

I don't really consider Gorash-Kel and the Secret Lab to be really in the Mera Tev, since they are so difficult. It is also far more difficult to sneak around in that, say, the back halls of Gazaki Uss. But yeah, you're right.

Re avatar: Lystak is going to be a major pain. He is not going to make the game unwinnable by any means short of scripting. I am looking for a challenge, remember? It would be like trying to run a nocanister nocreations nomagic Shaper in an Geneforge game, and then saying "Here, if you edit in this SDF, you can have ten Eyebeasts that follow you around, attacking anything that moves!" It sort of defeats the purpose. Re Thuryl: It's just that the ability to never invest in Strength ever is so incredibly useful that it will make the game much more difficult with out it. Since I am already making the game as difficult as possible only by editing factors that come up on the Character Creation screen, I see no reason why I should limit my choices inside the game as well.

Strike me down, and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete! I'm sorry, I had to say that.

Moderate to intense topic necromancy. That said: You only start to reach non-fragile Magic creations when you are nearing the end of the Mera-Tev. I think the first Glahhk canister is in the Storm Plains, so you can't get any halfway tough creation to keep until you are past the midpoint, and by then, you'll want Drayks from Shaper Alexie. Wingbolts and Gazers are great, but you will be well past the 2/3 mark when you get them, and they are so powerful already that what stat boosts that you can give will be negligible, at best. Stick with Battle shaping and the leveled Cryoas for the beginning is my advice.

Invulnerability potions, and lots of them.

No, it was just a moment's weakness. I thought DT provided a flat bonus, instead of incrementing with levels. I've never played with Nimble Fingers as a trait, so I had no idea what it did. Nevermind. So, DT and NM it is. What about the skill point spread? I thought it was fairly balanced, but I've been wrong before (obviously).

Hmm. Now, for some crazy reason, I'm actually considering dropping DT in exchange for Nimble Fingers. Not only would I lose less levels, but I would also save skill points that I could put into Magery manually, and also permit me to legitimately use First Aid as my primary means of healing. This merits experimentation.

Try a torment glass cannon infiltrator, then come back and we'll see if you sing the same tune.

I'm using natural Mage, since I thought that you couldn't cast mage spells while wearing armor otherwise, and since a singleton would be attacked in melee combat, the armor is pretty much necessary. But what is the actual difference between DT and PS? Is it just the damage bonus?. I won't be using swords or polearms, so I don't think EW is necessary, and I could always drop a point or so into STR if encumbrance is a problem.