Death Knight

I think that I stopped playing Blades when I realized that most beginning scenarios were too ridiculously hard to make it past level 5. Most of the scenarios that were made I could play, but usually would never be able to make it to the finish. The only real scenarios I completed was a few of them made by jeff. I doubt this will be remade, but if it was, I'd be interested.

-The hobbit-9/10. Really a good movie. The characters were solid and I liked it much more than lotr. Bilbo was in my opinion a better protagonist than frodo.

-Dark Knight Rises-10/10, excellent. I always like it when the main bad guy is just a brutish bully that beats the heck out of people. The only thing that made this awkward was that I couldnt let my guard down when in theatre due to the shooting that had happened a week prior.

-Total Recall, 9/10, What do I like about action movies that move from fight scene to fight scene, ones that I can follow and understand. The characters were great too.

I hear there's a party going on in Formello. I can't get there until later as I've got to pick up Lagran from the Abyss.

I picked up the experience bonus traits from lvl 4 and 6 on one of my fighters and he is currently 3 levels higher than the rest of the party. Im still lvl 23, but I think that by the time I get to max level 30, he will be at least 4 or 5 levels higher than the other party. I think that that is a decent amount of bonuses if you count 4 or 5 levels. Thats a +1 strength, dexterity, intelligence, endurance bonus, plus 4 or 5 levels of health and maybe if I reach 35, an extra skill level of 2 points.

Basically, its not that powerful, but I just wanted to try that idea out as in your faq, it stated that those traits weren't that good. I don't think its a game changer, but still was far from useless. Thats all.

My party of 3 is currently lvl 23, hows your party doing RaustBlackDragon?

Edit-Oh and I have something we might want to add to your faq when Im done.

Dear Potato,

You can make your character any way you want to. The only key here is specialize. If you want to make a shaper with a few creations and focus more on offensive magic, you can..if you specialize in magic. Remember the key ingredient to spells is spellcraft. Each point in spellcraft gives 1 level of bonuses to every spell in the game, even healing magic (which you dont specialize in). Dont forget intelligence either, that is your bread and butter.

Its best to place points in intelligence and spell levels (blessing, mental, battle) early on if you go with an agent. If you are going with a shaper that is magic user, you'd best spread a few points into blessing magic for creations and put the rest into spellcraft and battle magic. I havent used mental magic in that game so I cant recommend that. Though mental magic got better in g3.

Edit-Oh and late in game means agents are generally good at taking down enemies by a small scale early on. Late in almost all geneforge games, agents are powerful and not to be trifled with if specialized.

I used to hate spiders, but whatever jeff says is cool is cool.

The gifts were pretty funny too.

Agents arent as powerful in the 1st game (that was the class I used when beating the game). It was very frustrating. However, now that I know how they play, I would say agents arent the hardest class. Guardians are the hardest class to use in all games except 2nd so yes the agent is more than doable it just depends on you specializing in magic type. Late in game, agents are powerful even alone, something the shapers dont have as they rely more on creations.

I would say if you want to make a character that is a tactical commander that leads an army or even a small army of creations, take the shaper. If you want to use a character that is a lone wanderer that uses magic and an ocassional creation as an ally or assistant, then an agent.

Merry Christmas everyone!

If you cant find me for the next 3 days, you might find me at the tavern.

Is it possible to get someone like this help from a doctor through family guidance? I have a few family members that got help through a doctor with medication and are able to live mostly-fully functional lives.

So Randomizer, jeff is most likely going to expect us to use dexterity for melee, ranged, etc., but more emphasis on endurance?

Your definitely going to face a few challenges but I think you'll make it out alright. Critical hits seem to boost damage moreso then anything else, save backstab for certain ranged abilities. When Avadon's sequel comes out Im going for an all middle column shadowwalker, all specializations in middle to get a deadly ranged fighter. Its only too bad I didnt do that for my blademaster who specialized in the left column. Its not bad, but just not as many perks.

Anyone who thinks guns do not take skill to use has never tried to hit a target with a gun.

I dont believe it to be as hard as you say. I was in Rotc and shot a rifle and never had any problems. Then later in senior year, we had archery training, and I couldnt get anywhere.

The main reason I cant stand Fallout is because melee doesnt work and the game is more focused on guns. While the game has a decent premise, guns cross the line for me as I much prefer fantasy with bows and crossbows. Guns dont take skill to use, look at the real world and you will see. You dont need skill to use a firearm, only thing that factors in is who shoots first and at what range. With fantasy there are many more factors to put in and bows actually take skill to use.

I am trying to get into Nethergate and Blades ,but it's a struggle really, I can't even click on things!!!

I know what you mean. Thats like me and the Geneforge series. The original Avernum games would get boring because moving around was more grinding. The good thing is that we have Avernum-Eftp.

Here's what I got so far for games that are unplayable-

Fallout 1, 2-terrible

Inquisitor-The name of the game speaks for itself

Betrayal at Krondor/All krondor games-OLD!!!!

Divine Divinity

Arx Fatalis-Buggy

Neverwinter Nights-Wont play game on 4 pcs Ive owned, crashes constantly

I think that a lot of games have great concepts but what happens is they just don't know how to make the game balanced and or workable. Neverwinter Nights took the cake. I still have the receipt from best buy, the employee told me it would work on the computer (which I bought from them).

I was replaying some old games over the past weeks to see if I can get into them after these years. Baldurs Gate 1 was my target and even though I soloed the game years back, it was tough. Now after playing it again I can't say that I even managed to get into it.

The horribly slow movement, the almost too ridiculously confusing real time combat and abhorrent toughness. I guess there's a lesson here, old games aren't exactly better than new games. In fact, I would say that Ive struggled ten times over on an old game rather than a new one and enjoyed the experience more.

There's got to be other old games I haven't filled in but all the infinity engine games are on there, especially ice wind dale 1 and 2 and baldurs gate 1. Baldurs Gate 2 was more linear and wasn't as tough as the 1st, but had a better story and was playable.

Has anyone had any trouble with older games?

Thanks for that tip. I just found the right priest. I got mixed up with the ancient crypt.

I just got a dread curse in formello. It didn't list it under my statistic sheet. I went to the only place I knew it might remove it, the place where you get the clover boots. After you go there it might be removed when I got out, but I can't check if its removed. Id ask if there was a way I could check but I doubt it as I checked every stat sheet. Does anyone know if its listed or am I good?

Back 500 years ago, this happened on a regular basis and the people that did it were either made example of or escaped and moved to a new country, usually the 1st. Now, in this day and age, it still happens in the middle east. The rest of us in all other countries cringe when we see this as we are not used to this ridiculously evil behavior. I myself have found that I refuse to read through each of these articles as they are infectious to my brain.

Edit-To Jeff, We need at least 2-3 of your positive readings from your blog. That might be the only thing that I can read through right now.

I got a mac from my aunt last year. When she asked me whether a mac or windows to replace my pc, I said a mac because of a few things.

1-Macs are much more secure and have less of a chance to get viruses

and

2-because jeff always puts out his games on mac first. Since I needed a new computer anyway, it was a good idea to make it a mac

This is the one time I read a news flash where even I couldnt quite fathom what happened. I had a tough time reading the Aurora shooting but this one was with children. Not saying that it made a difference but its still kind of hard to figure out why someone would do such a thing. Somebody at my job just mentioned the same thing. Its almost becoming where you cant go somewhere with friends or family without somebody doing such a thing.

That shouldn't be right. Shima (my melee guy) could kill some enemies with 1 shot, and those enemies weren't rats. Oh and the skill tree has usually a few paths you can go on. You can go all out with the left and a little down the middle, or the middle and the right. Or you can do what I do-I usually take a character, find an area of effect spell/ability that I can get early, and put the rest of the points in utility skills/the right side of the tree. You will get other abilities/scarabs early on, Its worked for 2 characters I made. The reason that utility skills/right side are awesome in avadon is because they usually help the group and can be had early on. Sorceress has an arcane blessing and other useful right side abilities like daze that help the group, shaman has group heal and melee blessings.

There are not as many paths you can take in this game particularly, but there still are a few you can choose from.

Edit-Oh and Ive never gotten to the abilities at the top, but from what I can gather, doubt I would ever want to.

Yeah I kinda figured that would be that way. Usually when I use melee as a meat shield on sevelin or shima, I always put my points into dexterity and endurance. From there, I enchant their equipment with strength enhancing items. That way they still can hit hard with melee, and dodge most attacks and are fast as well. Its not the best way to make melee for companions but the only way that makes sense to me.

I just finished Avadon with my (ranger) shaman build that I used. It was a lot of fun and I didn't really have many troubles with any of the fights. I was lvl 24 when all was said and done. I finished the game very quick this time and I think that with Dexterity and Endurance, the shaman is extremely deadly with ranged weapons.

What i have come to conclusion about ranged weapons is that in the beginning, it matters to put many points into dexterity, but in reality, critical chance is more important in increasing your ranged weapons damage later on. With that said, I also was heavily reliant on aoe scarabs. Especially the fire ones and the magic scarab which gives war curse. Those are great as they can be had early on.

Im definitely going to take a little break from the game, but someday I would like to try a melee build with some ranged weapons thrown in. I think that melee can really be done so long as I realize that unlike Avernum, you can't always get it setup on every fight.

Looking forward to Avadon 2....