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Fearstung

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Everything posted by Fearstung

  1. Vladimir and Estragon, a beggar and the sergeant in Dharmon in A6. Main characters of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".
  2. I often try to spread the word of these: Dresden Codak is invariably witty and has fantastic artwork. Downsides are obscure jokes and sometimes obtuse storytelling, and the fact that it hardly ever updates. But few comics are able to do things like this. Speaking of completed comics: the improvised no-fourth-wall 1/0 was amazing once it got going and has a satisfying ending. I usually recommend Goats with the caveat that there's a ridiculous amount of archive you have to slog through to know what's going on. But fortunately, Rosenberg just started the spinoff Scenes from a Multiverse, which is quite accessible and has a cool concept. And Wondermark and Dinosaur Comics are probably my favorites. Note that the author of Dinosaur Comics is having a guest week right now; click what the T-Rex is saying underneath the webpage header to get random archive comics. I'll second Questionable Content and Rice Boy (and OotS!)
  3. Not the deepest topic, but it popped into my head and refuses to leave. We get many obvious references to all the previous full-length Avernums in A6 - to Hawthorne, to the Empire-Avernum war, to Rentar Ihrno, to the Time of Shades, and to Loyalists. I noticed that we also get passing references to Jeff's BoA scenarios, and I assume he went for one each. Off the top of my head, Sage Asta (or maybe another wizard) mentions that waste can be dangerous when left to rot, as seen in a certain school on the surface. (Valley of Dying Things) Nichol (or maybe another grizzled sergeant) says he fought in the Za-Khazi Campaign. (Za-Khazi Run) I vaguely remember a reference to civil strife on the surface that used the words "small rebellion". (A Small Rebellion) Anyone else remember that last one? And anyone catch a Diplomacy with the Dead reference?
  4. It's probably a safe generalization to make that hate crimes are deplorable whenever and to whomever they happen.
  5. After you do some of his quests, Redbeard sews an extra arm on you.
  6. Originally Posted By: Dantius An interesting thing to think about would be doing a sort of Oblivion leveled armor type of thing, but just have two levels: armor you buy/steal/diplomatize yourself into [better/normal], and then armor you take off of dead bodies[normal/worse, maybe a 5% armor penalty and if it's magic, -1 for all effects]. While we're at it, if you take too many hits to kill the baddie their armor is unwearable. But if you hit it with the right combination of spells, it acquires special powers! Also characters have body sizes and get penalties for wearing the wrong size! And some merchants are better than others at giving you the right size armor. Soon we will create the perfect armor/merchant system and then Jeff can use it for Avadon. Free of charge!
  7. Originally Posted By: Dantius But then people would carefully weigh the risks vs. benefits, and then either not by it and hold out for a better sword later, or only go to that shop to buy the Venomblade, or whatever it was called, and ignore the rest of the merchandise there. Well, isn't this already a more interesting decision procedure going on at the shop than "buy their entire stock of invulnerable potions and leave"? And there would be many such risk vs. benefit items to consider of course. But I think the emotional lift of wearing the possessions of your murder-victims more than outweighs the dubiousness of actual protection afforded. Yes my armor is dented. I dented it. With a Mighty Blow.
  8. Quote: Wouldn't have to be the best items. Just have to be items that aren't substitutable by random loot. If there were a particular category of item--e.g. armbands--that enemies never dropped and that was never given as a mission reward, stores could sell items in that category and they'd be worth buying. Even if the items in question were fairly weak, overall. You wouldn't have to have a special equip category to have items that aren't substitutable by random loot. What if you could only get the poisonous sword at the shop? No perceived obligation to buy it, but a good use of gold for someone who likes poisoning things.
  9. So I finished my game with over 200 skill points left each (after eating my saved-up knowledge potions/crystals). I let myself buy two mage skills points for the wizard and one point of an important ability for each other character, otherwise I hadn't spent points since the great portal quest. (Stats). Anyway, I would recommend this sort of thing to new players looking for a challenge. I certainly found it a lot of fun. But I imagine if you had already played through, the fact that even simple battles like against monsters north of Refuge became multiple reload/trip-to-the-healer affairs would be pretty awful. I played through most of the side quests. There was a interesting range of difficulty. The lich in the Eastern Caves was difficult but not particularly so. And the final battle was average difficulty (though nicely designed). But the wizard in the Honeycomb was very difficult even though I fought him near the end. And the firecalling demon was near-impossible (he was the reason I broke down and spent some points). I just gave up on the slith blademaster east of Formello after a few tries. Again, it was challenging and rewarding, so I imagine a no-point runthrough would be even more so. I don't know when I'll try it if ever, since I think if I play again at some point, I will want to kill a certain wizard and dragon of dubious moral uprightness, and this was not very likely to happen for this set of characters. If I sound braggy here that isn't my intention. I just wanted to propose a potentially fun way to play the game. Which is an excellent game. Thanks, Jeff Vogel etc. Looking forward to Avadon!
  10. Originally Posted By: Dantius I'm pretty sure Aloreal didn't actually do that, and was just poking fun at all the minmaxers on the boards who try... Oh, my bad. His brag seemed so plausible, so I was inspired to attempt something slightly more difficult but still entirely plausible.
  11. Originally Posted By: Øther In my opinion, that would be obsenely difficult Don't get me wrong, it has been for me! In the battle with the Impaler, I healed up after the throne room guards and after the general, but when I rang the gong again a ridiculous battle ensued with the Impaler and two guards who had snuck in from the neighboring room. I ended up using two hits of skribanne, three invulnerability potions, two battle crystals, a complete wand of Kill, and more, and after a long while of people being thrown around the arena, only my fighter was left standing to kill him. She foolishly rang the gong again to taunt the sliths, then had to use an invulnerability elixir, a strong daze wand, a regeneration scroll and a haste elixir to escape the mob. She hit the pylon just in time and appeared in the portal keep with three unconscious teammates and 15 hit points left. This was on my fourth or fifth try. This is what I call a good game! (Though I don't think I'll be trying the Formello quest again any time soon...) I'll see how far I can get on this playthrough without spending any more points. Then I'll try to match Alorael's feat on Torment, except I'll allow myself to attack anyone who tries to give me a quest.
  12. I've been playing Spiderweb demos since Exile, and I bought Blades of Avernum. I finally decided to play a full game when I found out that A6 is the last of the series. I've found it extremely rewarding, both in gameplay and writing (even not having already met people like Solberg and X when they were younger). Anyway, I've always been more into tactics than character-building in RPGs, so at some point soon after the destruction of the Great Portal I stopped spending my skill points. I decided to keep this up, and I've just killed the Impaler with my characters looking like this afterwards. This is at Hard difficulty. From skimming the forums, my characters are poorly designed (I have three humans and the archer has those extra levels because he's Frail and Brittle Bones). And I'm a relatively inexperienced player. And I hoard collectables. So this implies to me that for a powergamer the game is finishable on Hard or even Torment without spending a single skill point after creation. Has someone tried this? Sorry if this has been asked before. As for my current game, I might reward myself with using some skill points after I kill the Manburner, assuming she shows up soon now that her colleagues are lizard meat. Kudos to Jeff Vogel and company for a great game!
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