The Almighty Doer of Stuff

I am a longtime fan of mastodons. He's frontheavy and would fall over if his legs weren't extended forward a bit or given a bigger tail, but otherwise that's a really, really cool design. I love it. Like Alhoon, I'd rather see more options for lower tiers, instead of an extra higher tier. I'd like a slime to be added as a tier 1 creation. I love slimes. I created a lot of slime graphics for BoE. EDIT: Or maybe he walks on his knuckles like a gorilla, and is just standing up momentarily?

Come to think of it, are we allowed to discuss this here? The rules forbid "unauthorized solicitation of other products". I'm not sure Spidweb CDs of freeware games are technically "other products" but I hope we're not infringing. TriRodent, since you say you have the CD, I'm wondering, are you aware of there ever being a CD with all four Exile games? I don't want to sell Nepharim Mage something they don't want.

I wonder what you mean by "didn't take off"? There are over 300 BoE scenarios and for many years the community was very active. As I understand it made Spiderweb Software quite a bit of money too, both from sales and from establishing a loyal fan community. I have an Exile Trilogy CD, and I can probably sell it. I don't remember BoE ever being on the same CD as the Trilogy, someone who knows could correct me on that, but I have the BoE CD and hintbook too. Both discs are in excellent condition, with clamshell cases, and the BoE hintbook is in good condition. I've been trying to make a point of not getting emotionally attached to knick knacks. I guess if I do sell it I'd want the money through PayPal, if that works. DM me how I'd get it to you and how much you're willing to pay, and when it's not first thing in the morning and I'm awake and not cranky, we can try to figure something out. :)

BenS, irreversible reputation tracker aside, your Shaper character seems like a lying, sycophantic hypocrite. If I was a Taker, I would steer clear of them too.

Just a note: As I've been crawling through the game text to fix errors and improve helpfulness, I found that, if you actually read the Dumbfound spell description, it tells you plainly that it causes curse symptoms and doesn't mention Dumbfounded status at all.

Further reading indicates that a buckler, by definition, must be held in a fist grip. A targe may be strapped to the forearm, however. It's larger than a buckler, typically large enough to cover the elbow and knuckles. Smaller than that provides dangerously inadequate coverage to be used as a shield, and larger than that is unwieldy and encumbering for such a purpose and must be held in the hand.

Oh, so it is. I don't remember where I heard that. Maybe I didn't hear it at all, or misheard it. But I just looked it up; it was often used as a bashing weapon, being small and held in the fist. The weilder would use it as a small shield, or to strengthen a punch. Either way, as a regular shield in BoE, it seems like it could be better utilized.

The mage spell, Scry Monster. It'd put the monster type in a sort of bestiary, and also provide up-to-date HP, SP, and Morale for the specific character you're scrying. It uses up 6 AP though, and you usually start with 4. And you have to recast it every time you want up to date stats. Same deal back then about no minimum AP at least. I usually try to fill the Monsters bestiary menu as much as possible.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the forum header. Thanks for considering it anyway. I'll try to keep working as fast as I can. EDIT: One good thing about working too slowly is I can go back over my help summary dialog rewrites and improve their style after sleeping on it a few times...

For those wondering about why I'm not updating credits and such, I have been working on converting my crude notes to proper changelogs. It's just taking a long time. I presume this thread won't be pinned to the top of the forum until the requested changes are made to the website, though, and I guess that's OK. I'm working as fast as I can, which turns out to be not remotely as fast as I predicted...

Overstated Ur-Drakon, then?

Exiles have no legal standing in the Empire and many surfacer worlders are afraid of them - especially if they're traveling with Slithzerikai and Nephilim. That acolyte may not be evil. He may simply be defending himself and his shop against intruders who he believes might murder him. Killing him is still murder, even if he attacked first. He's a citizen of the Empire and you're not. For all you know, he's a traumatized veteran of the Exile-Empire War.

...so it would appear. >_>

http://truesite.openboe.com/SWArchive/Geocities/blyceum/DForum/023.html It was Alcritas's non-scientific estimate. Yes, CM did say that, but his comment didn't come up in my results. Picking effective search terms has always been a struggle for me.

I got it from Alcritas's estimate on the Designer's Forum. You can enter 101 for Affect Statistic %, but not item drop %. Hopefully it's an easy fix, then. Thanks a lot!

Basically, any time there's a dice roll for % chance, whether in combat, during an Affect PC node (to raise a PC's stats or whatever), making a mob drop a particular item when killed, etc., it's capped at 95%, even if you tell the scenario editor to make it 100%. You can't guarantee a boss will drop a key artifact, or have an NPC train a particular stat. The party might fork over their money and not get the skill increase they paid for, and there's no way for the scenario designer to tell when that happens.

There's plenty of reason to change it. If you want to guarantee something, you can't. That's not good. I guess the thing to figure out is whether any scenarios actually DID rely on 100% being actually 95%, and I would think the bug would almost certainly be far more often accidental than intentional. I guess for potential compatibilty's sake it should be left as-is though. Analyzing every scenario, or even every major scenario, would be problematic and difficult.

It's also worth considering that some people play no-mage parties, either by preference or as a challenge. Lockpicking and Poison skills are valuable in such parties. It may be that they're not meant to be superior to spells. IIRC Jeff suggested in documentation somewhere that nothing essential should be placed behind a magically locked door. And here's a couple I DMed to Motardo, hoping he can fix them:

https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/19634-rebalancing-boe/ Just found this. Is it also true that Edged/Bash/Pole don't do anything? Do I understand correctly? If so, that should be fixed too. I'd like to know in what specific ways they're broken too so maybe they can be corrected in BladesOfExile.Com.

You can assign a Protection value to any equipable item. See the Shield Mace for an example. In legacy BLADBASE.EXE its item type Shield and not a weapon, but that was Jeff's mistake, not the way it's meant to be. And I see nothing physiologically wrong with weilding a shield and a buckler on one arm. It's wierd but it's possible. Also worth noting is there are two Shield item types. You can have a character wield two shields and no weapons that way, but you have to have a specifically-offhand shield and a regular shield to do so. Also, a scenario doesn't have to pile on numerous powerful weapons early on in the game like the Exile Trilogy and most scenarios typically do. That's a design flaw that the engine allows a designer to correct, especially in an epic-sized scenario.

How do you convince a good, upstanding, moral person to willingly commit an atrocity? Many conflicts, real and fictional, can be better understood this way. I wonder if anyone has thought about Geneforge through this lens. Much of this discussion is leading me to wonder how the participants would consider this statement. It seems to be leading indirectly but clearly into this territory.

There is a terrain type in BoE for a terrain to be unlockable but not bashable. I'm pretty sure item spells are treated as magic just as much as SP spells regarding antimagic clouds, but I'd have to test it. But that's a good idea, if it'd work. I'll test it... ...Ugh. Antimagic clouds don't block the Unlock spell. Also, there's no special node to place antimagic clouds. If you want antimagic clouds on exactly one tile, you need to place a mob either on or next to that tile which radiates antimagic clouds, and use nodes to clear the cloud from undesired tiles. Interestingly though, even if a terrain is type Clear, you still can't enter it if it's locked. Good to know. Also of note is that from bottom to top, where "top" means "most visible layer", graphics go Terrain, Decor (blood, bones, etc.), Items, Fields, Mobs, and PCs. I don't know which Fields take precedent over which others though. But you can hide an antimagic cloud by putting a full-tile mob on top of it. The only statistic you can check for in legacy BoE, also, is Mage Lore. It's annoying. Celtic Minstrel fixed that in OBoE but it doesn't do me any good. This is an item balance issue, not an engine balance issue. Hypothetically, edged weapons are the most common. Bashing weapons are common and cheap to buy. Polearms are rare and expensive but very powerful. For a given scenario, the designer can adjust distribution, cost, handedness, and stats to make weapons more balanced. Few if any scenarios adhere to Jeff's prescribed scheme or readjust item stats, but they could. I plan to, if I ever design the epic I've dreamed of for twenty years. This is also a scenario balance issue. Jeff's item designs aren't ideal, but a careful redesign could improve it significantly. One thing I want to do is make bucklers Tools instead of Shields. The point of a buckler is you strap it to your arm, allowing you to block without taking up your hand. But shields often have high encumbrance and not enough protection to make them worth it. This could be addressed within a scenario. Few spells are useless, but many are very niche. Part of the fun of Exile is having all sorts of weird spells to experiment with, where few other games have so many and so varied spells.

Question: How does the Envenom spell work? I know Major Blessing puts full-strength poison on all the party's weapons, but at what strength does Envenom work, and does it increase with intelligence and/or mage spells level?

You can shape a levitating, bulbous lump with tentacles, intelligence, and telepathic powers. I think you could hypothetically give any creation speech abilities if you really felt like it. 😛

Archery and Thrown Missiles aren't the only more or less useless skills, if significantly rebalancing the game is your goal. Disarm Traps, Lockpicking, and Poison are basically useless too. Disarm Traps and Lockpicking are easily replaced with Dexterity, and Envenom is a level 2 mage spell so there's not really any excuse not to have access to it.