Brocktree

Originally Posted By: Master1 Originally Posted By: karry stuff Um, this topic has had been dead for about 8 months. DV is no longer on these boards. When he was here, he was a well established and highly respected member of the community. He was also an excellent min-maxer. Being unable to mimic his results doesn't make him a liar or cheater, it just makes him very good at what he did. To be honest, my own gameplay doesn't support DV's claims. Plated Bugs don't come even close to having the power he claims. Perhaps he was playing on Normal.

Harehunter, do you have your point allocation for each character mid-end game available?

Ahh, so I would be correct in assuming that I was wrong to assume that you were assuming that I was making assumptions? Cool.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Brocktree In what sense has my final conclusion been assumed? In the sense that the standard advice on Resistance has been "Resistance is overpriced and a pain to unlock; don't use it". Oh, whew. I thought I'd made some sort of basic error which invalidated all that number crunching.

Originally Posted By: Death Knight I have been almost finished with the demo and am awaiting my order. The only thing that puzzles me is that i have been sinking points into skills like dex and defense for my rogue character and i have to report they do nothing. My rogue character gets hit just as much as my other characters which doesnt make sense as i have been sinking points into those skills. Is there something i am missing about defensive characters cause it is kind of annoying. I figured that i should have at least one character that doesnt get hit all the time. Makes no sense. The dodge skills are like the goggles... they do nothing. Your dodge skill will never exceed your enemies bonus to hit.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Interesting analysis, although I think your final conclusion has been generally assumed, it is nice to see it done out. In what sense has my final conclusion been assumed? It arose out of a lot of number crunching in Excel, where I allocated 200 skill points to Luck/Resistance/Hardiness to reach the highest damage resistance value. The tables I generated are an attempt to explain the mechanics of why you won't come out ahead if you unlock resistance. Granted, some of my premises are a little shaky. You could argue that you spend more than 51 skill points unlocking resistance, although this would further support my conclusion that it is not bothering with resistance. Likewise, nobody in their right mind would drop 200 skill points on damage reduction skills. But again, if anything, this supports my conclusion. Then there is the little problem that when you open up resistance, you are highly likely to have several layers of armour, further mitigating the skill's benefit. Ergo: I gave the Resistance skill the benefit of the doubt by: 1. Assuming you only need to waste 51 skill points to unlock it. 2. Assuming that you only had 20% in damage reduction before investing in it. 3. Assuming that you had 200 skills points to invest in damage reduction and even with such generosity in my thought experiment, you don't even break even by unlocking the skill. Quote: What game are you talking about? I assume not A6, Avernum 5, sorry. Although you can apply similiar principles to Avernum 6. Quote: I'm guessing A5, but you should specify, since these things are different in different games. Yeah, that's a good idea Quote: Also, I tried to help with the formatting. if you truncate your repeating and irrational decimals, your tables will look much nicer. Thanks for that. I'll fix that up tonight.

I've always wondered whether it was worth unlocking Resistance. I suspected that it was probably wasn't. To confirm my suspicions, I calculated the damage reduction per skill point invested for each level of luck, hardiness, and resistance up to 20 points. This (should) help guide us on where to invest a PC's skill points to obtain the best return in damage resistance. Note that the following is a table, simply copy and paste it into Excel to fix up the formatting. Code: Level Luck Hardiness Resistance 1 0.25 2 0.62 0.25 2 0.63 0.2 1 0.54 0.2 1 0.55 0.17 0.67 0.436 0.17 0.67 0.437 0.14 0.5 0.388 0.14 0.5 0.389 0.13 0.4 0.3310 0.13 0.4 0.3311 0.11 0.33 0.312 0.11 0.33 0.313 0.1 0.29 0.2714 0.1 0.29 0.2715 0.09 0.25 0.2516 0.09 0.25 0.2517 0.08 0.22 0.2318 0.08 0.22 0.2319 0.08 0.2 0.2120 0.08 0.2 0.21 According to the values above, you would receive the greatest damage reduction for the least amount of skill points if you begin to invest in resistance once you have 6 levels of hardiness. Likewise, you should start investing in luck once you have obtained 14 levels of hardiness and resistance. You would then proceed by increasing the level of the skill which has the highest damage reduction per skill point value at the time. Sounds simple, right? No, it's not. Indeed, those values are misleading, because: 1. You need to sink a lot of skill points into Dexterity to open up Resistance. I'm ignoring the skills points pumped into endurance, since you'd expect that investment for any sort of meat shield, independent of damage reduction. I'll also ignore it for the sake of simplicity, as it alters acid and poison resistance. 2. More importantly, armour resistance is multiplicative instead of additive. This detracts from the damage bonus provided by successive layers of armour. For example, let's say you have 10 points of hardiness (20% damage reduction). You then invest in 5 points of resistance. A casual glance would have you think that you would gain a 15% damage reduction from this investment. But in practice, you only receive 80 * 15% = 12% damage reduction. That really complicates predictions! In case you don't follow, here is the table for damage reduction per skill point for resistance and luck, where the values have been modified to take the 20% damage reduction from hardiness into consideration (note: copy/paste these values in Excel): % damage reduction per skill point Level Hardiness Resistance (modified for 80% damage remaining) Luck (modified for 80% damage remaining) Code: 1 2 0.48 0.22 2 0.48 0.23 1 0.4 0.164 1 0.4 0.165 0.67 0.34 0.136 0.67 0.34 0.137 0.5 0.3 0.118 0.5 0.3 0.119 0.4 0.27 0.110 0.4 0.27 0.111 0.33 0.24 0.0912 0.33 0.24 0.0913 0.29 0.22 0.0814 0.29 0.22 0.0815 0.25 0.2 0.0716 0.25 0.2 0.0717 0.22 0.18 0.0718 0.22 0.18 0.0719 0.2 0.17 0.0620 0.2 0.17 0.06 As you can see, we have a paradox of sorts. As you continue investing in hardiness, you get diminishing returns on it. This should be a driving force for you to unlock resistance, so that you can gain damage resistance at a lower skill point cost. However, due to the multiplicate nature of Avernum 5's armour system, you also get diminishing returns on *resistance* and *luck* as you increase hardiness (and vice versa). This is directly related to the observation that many players have made, regarding the fact that it is better to have one thick layer of armour, rather than several layers of moderate strength armour, due to the multiplicative mathematics. It's almost as if you are railroaded into blowing all your points in hardiness (or resistance) to obtain appreciable damage reduction! By dividing your points between the two, you actually aren't optomising your skill point allocation! Furthermore, you will *never break even* with luck in a normal game, where you are limited to 200 skill points. It will always be better for you to add another point in hardiness/resistance, rather than luck, no matter how high your hardiness value is. Finally, let's answer the original question: When should you start investing in Resistance. Let's assume you have 200 points to invest in damage reduction (I'm being generous). By investing solely in hardiness, you obtain a 54% damage reduction. If you choose to open up resistance, you are left with 149 points left to distribute between hardiness, resistance and luck. With optimal distribution between hardiness and resistance (6 in hardiness, 16 in resistance), you obtain... 54.24% damage reduction. That's a difference of 0.24%. Wow. So if you decide to open up resistance, you may end up with an extra +0.24% resistance to cold/energy/fire (debatable, as you will likely have many other layers of armour). But then remember that hardiness provides a bonus to armour, whereas resistance does not. So the answer to the question "When should I unlock Resistance" is NEVER!

Originally Posted By: Harehunter Now you have me totally confused. Here is what I understand of your last post. Specialization is not rewarded, ergo generalization, at least to some degree, is encouraged. However, generalization is punished, ergo specialization is promoted. Battle Disciplines are useful for everyone, yet they require some skill with weapons; something I have always advocated, and yet been criticized for. The philosophy isn't so much to specialise in a certain skill, but to specialise in a *role*. For example, a mage who is a bombadier. At a certain point, the skill point cost to increase spell damage by investing in mage spells/magery/spellcraft becomes prohibitive. For a (far) smaller investment in weapon skills, you can unlock battle disciplines. Adrenaline rush will give you a 100% damage increase when activated (due to gaining approx. double AP.)Battle Fury will give you an extra attack (equates to an extra 33% damage) + a flat 40% damage bonus on top of that. That's *huge*. The added perk is that these bonuses also apply to ranged and melee attacks, if you are ever forced to resort to them. However, at the end of the day, the battle disciplines are being unlocked for the purpose of increasing spell damage. So essentially, the mage is remaining specialised. Quote: Elite Warrior for spell casters sounds out of place as well. Mind you I don't argue the benefits; it just sounds dichotomous. Personally, I don't agree with Elite Warrior on mages. You could make a good argument for priests though, since you'll want them robust enough to survive a few hits and cast 'Raise Dead', and additional Blademaster is good for anyone because of the fatigue reduction. Quote: Pure Spirit for priests and Natural Mage for mages sound more appropriate. Pure Spirit is OK for priests. However, Priest spell skill is relatively cheap, and magical efficiency is gravy. If you select Divine Blood + Elite Warrior, you'll have enough Blademaster by the end of the game to guarantee an extra point of fatigue reduction each round. Mages are a different story. Mage spells are just too expensive, and the negation of encumbrance allows for more flexibility when it comes to armour selection. Quote: Divinely Touched is indeed a good trait to have, but is it really worth the XP penalty? Yes. Divinely Touched is indeed worth the penalty. I'd argue that Divinely Touched is so overpowered, it shouldn't be in the game. Quote: gaining levels increases so many stats and is a factor in so many algorithms. Gaining levels increases spell points, health points, and the bonus you obtain from endurance (the last is probably the most significant!), that's it. Quote: One additional note about why I chose my style; much of my experience comes from the Exile series including Blades. Apples and oranges. Quote: On the other hand, the strategy I have always used proved adequate for the first pass. You can't argue with success. To paraphrase a particular Vahnatai from Exile 2. You can kill a monster with a rock if you throw it hard enough. That doesn't mean rock throwing is the best solution.

I don't think anyone would call such a team abnormal. It's normal for players new to Spiderweb games to create diverse characters. Like you pointed out, the game even has prefab characters with a mixed skill set. That doesn't change the fact that they aren't best optimized for powering your way through Avernum 5.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter I have always found my strength in unorthodoxy. First off, don't worry if some posters sound a little abrasive. Some of these topics have been discussed to death in the past. It's certainly not a reflection on you if people get a little snippy. Secondly, I understand how unorthodoxy and 'multi-classing' can sound appealing, but it led to my own downfall numerous times in Avernum 5. I have no doubt you can get by quite well in Normal-Hard difficulty, but a party where PCs don't focus on particular skill sets will really struggle. Avernum 5 is an example of the old saying 'In for a penny, in for a pound'. If you're going to drop a few skill points into a skill, you might as well go all out and get it to a level where it functions reliably.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES By subtraction, do you actually mean subtraction (50% total resistance blocks 14% damage) or damage increase (50% total resistance blocks 32% damage). Because if you actually mean subtraction, another 36% in resistance wouldn't enable you to reach 90%. I strongly suspect the former explanation. In order to actually start blocking damage on Torment, you need to go over a resistance threshold of 36% (multiplicative). That's why a Divinely Touched PC doesn't block any physical damage at the start of the game, despite having 20% armour off the bat. However, interestingly enough, you can still resist 90% physical damage if you pump resistance stats. Indeed, I was protected against *96%* magical damage when I had high resistance stats. So the game must apply the 90% (?) damage cap after all the bonuses/penalties are accounted for. This is what happens to resistance bonuses that don't show up on the character sheet (Protection, Battle Rage, Steel Skin) Quote: Also, are you sure this is Torment-specific, and not just variation in the routine that decides how much damage to block with resistance? I'm sure it's Torment specific, and not due to variation. If your resistance to damage is under 36%, you never block damage on Torment. This is not true on other difficulties. Quote: Alternately, are you sure this isn't just a damage bonus for enemies on Torment? Enemies on Torment get a damage bonus. However, the amount of damage your characters block (as shown on the readout screen) also changes. Quote: Edit: Not doubting you, just trying to plumb this out. No, I understand. I've made observations. But what matters is the interpretation.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Subtracted? What do you mean by this? PCs gain an invisible penalty of approximately 36% to all resistances on Torment. For example, even when under Steel Skin and Protection, they will take full damage from physical attacks if they have no other sources of damage reduction. Tormented PCs can still reach 90% damage reduction, but require an additional 36% damage reduction to do so.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES No idea. A5 was 4 years ago. I know that Protection has been either 20% or 25% in every game I've tested. Arcane/Prismatic Shield I want to say 20% too. Not sure about the others. The fact that Avernum 5 has been out for 4 years made me think that somebody (most likely you!) had already determined the values. Here's what I got: Steel skin = 20% to resist physical and magical/elemental damage Protection = 20% to resist physical and magical/elemental damage Prismatic shield = Ranges from 10 to 50% bonus to resist magic/elemental damage Bladeshield (also a component of Arcane Shield) = 20% resist magic/elements, 40% resist physical Battle fury = 30% resist magic + elements + physical All the resistances granted by spell protections are nice and flat. Ergo. The 20% armour from Protection always amounts to 20% damage reduction on each individual strike, with little variation between damage blocked for each strike. This is the opposite of physical protection provided by armour/hardiness, where there is an enormous amount of variation between damage blocked for each strike. While the *average* damage reduction is 20%, the damage blocked each strike is scattered widely around the mean. The exception to this is prismatic shield, which has huge variation (10-50%!) Also note that the resistances provided from spells/battle disciplines are *multiplicative* with each other, *and* with resistances provided by armour/skills. They are also subtracted from in Torment. Ergo. The resistances provided by spells/disciplines are an invisible resistance bonus added to your character sheet.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Hmm, you appear to be correct. How did you add Resistance to PC with 0 Hardiness? You can get a point from Lark's quests. BTW, did you ever deduce the resistances Protection/Steel Skin/Prismatic Shield/Arcane Shield provide?

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Bzzzt! Nope, Resistance definitely adds 4% per point. Not in my version. Resistance definitely adds only 3% per point. On an unarmoured PC with no hardiness, a single point of resistance raises fire/ice/energy res. from 0% to 3%. 20 Resistance and the preq hardiness also results in significantly less than 80% resistance. As an aside, resistance and hardiness *definitely* increase one's chance of resisting curse/slow/weaken, although even when both stats are maxed out, it doesn't kick in for more than 1/3rd of the time.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Resistance - 4%/pt fire/cold/elec/pois/acid resists Minor correction. Resistance adds 3% per point.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter l. Sure they get bonus points in pole and bows respectively, but I always considered their XP penalty to be more of a liability later in the game. If you do the math, you end up saving far more skill points by being a slith/nephil. Quote: As I rise through the levels, reaching for strength and melee above level 15 seems to be less important than reaching for a high skill level. That and the use of all the special arms and armor are what I find works for me. ??? How are 'reaching a high skill level' and investing in melee and strength mutually exclusive? Not that I would necessarily recommend you aim for above level 15 in either of those skills. Quote: ... Adding priest skills to my mage will increase his spell points as much as mage skills, I'm pretty sure priest/mage skill doesn't effect spell points. Quote: and also affects the freebie points in spellcaster, magery and magical efficiency the same way. The same goes for adding mage skill to my priest. Yes, priest and mage spells do share the bonuses from magery and spellcraft. The problem is that you won't be able to invest enough in the alternative school of spells to unlock anything worth having.

Early in Avernum 5, you rely on terror, charm foe, and daze, as you don't yet have the nuke spells to output decent damage with your spellcasters. As you acquire the heavy artillery spells, terror, daze and charm foe get neglected. You try using them once or twice against tough opponents, fail, and think "Surely these spells no longer have any use?" Wrong. If it breaths, your priests can charm it (mages terrify it, etc etc). That includes, strangely enough, turrets and shrubs. Or perhaps not strangely enough. Shrubs and turrets *do* respire. Better yet, you can daze, terrify and charm Dorikas/Redmark. That's right, you can wipe the floor with Redmark. The almost impossible endgame battle is made much easier if you hit him with a charm foe spell. He then attacks the nearby defense pylon, resulting in the lowering of his shield. You can also Charm Melanchanawhadda. Now I know how Garzhad tricked Sulfras into her chains. I strongly suspect that in enemies, there is no such thing as 'mental resistance' per se. Unlike your PCs, each monster is not designated a set mental resistance. Instead, chance to resist mental effects is determined by NPC level and the spell level. The exception to this is that some enemy classes are hardcoded to be immune to mental effects (undead and pylons). Ergo. Crank up your spellcraft/magery if you want to charm/terrify anything reliably.

Originally Posted By: Cynara Grr, real life got in the way of my maths time! Okay, so I've come up with a new Archer-less party that I think'd be fun to play: Since you're playing on Normal, I wouldn't be *too* worried about optimising your party. It's only important to optimise on Torment, where enemies have 6000 HP and hit for 200 damage a round with AoE attacks. Just have fun. However, I will make some comments for purely academic reasons. Quote: But he may be too generalized to be effective as built. Thoughts? Again, I'd like to reinforce the fact that diversifying weakens your party, and your character. You need to invest a significant number of points to get Smite, and even then, due to its miniscule base damage, it will do *less damage than firebolt* Yes, a warrior which can cast priest spells does sound wonderful in theory. In practice, what you get is the ability to cast a Smite spell that causes 30 damage. Quote: Shaman, a priest with access to some mage spells If you want to diversify, the most sensible thing is a priest/mage, since at least they share some stats (magery and priest). However, investing a few points in mage spells gets you next to nowhere. At best, you open up firebolt (which is outclassed by Divine Fire), and icy rain (which is outclassed by Smite). Haste is cast before battles, and Slow is purely a situational spell. At the end of the day, you want a Priest to Raise Dead, Heal, spam Divine Fire (or Divine Ret. if you're feeling particularly brave), and Charm Foe (situational). You want a Mage to spam Arcane Blow (equivalent to a nuke) and terrify/slow (situational). Quote: There will probably be equipment around that boosts mage and priest spells Yes, you can probably scrape up a point or two. You can probably sacrifice the last priest spell as well. The Divine Host summon is lousy. Otherwise, your builds seem fine. I wouldn't invest in hardiness, though. Once your warrior is fully suited up, a hardiness score of 10 might decrease damage by 3% Quote: Looked into building a Fighter(/Mage) 'Spellblade', love that concept, but the armor penalty for mage spells kinda nixes it! Being able to cast a 20 damage firebolt isn't that great, especially when you have a flaming sword. Quote: maybe unlock Magical Efficiency? Nahh, it doesn't work for the spells you would like it to (ergo. ARCANE BLOW)

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES I don't think I've heard Thrown Weapons suggested as a boosting mechanism before. Are you absolutely sure about this, Brocktree? If I test it, will I find this is accurate? I'm 100% sure about my results. I boosted thrown weapons to 30 with the editor, and received a very pronounced damage increase when using jeweled wands. Dex and SS did not have the same effect.

Originally Posted By: Randomiser Subject says it all really. Do wands do the same damage whoever uses them or do the user's stats contribute? If so how? (Some of the wands say BASE damage ... ) Thanks Yes, it matters. Thrown weapons increases wand damage. Sharpshooter, dexterity, and bows do not.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter And that is why I cross train my party. Having all four PC's being able to contribute at least to some degree shortens the battles against these single-vulnerability monsters. For example: Sure the Smite attacks of my fighters may be weak, but if that is the only way to affect damage against a particular monster then it is way better than just standing around flailing uselessly at its complete resistance to physical damage. If you need to rely on a fighter's exceptionally weak Smite spell, then you need to: 1. Train better fighters and/or 2. Train better spell casters Giving a fighter points in Priest Spells to access Smite is a very poor remedy to mitigate their inability to deal cold damage. Even if the enemy does have high physical resistance (which is a rare occurrence), you are still far more likely to deal greater damage with a pole weapon (in which you have invested a significant number of skill points), than a weak Smite spell. Ergo. You are diluting your fighter's strengths in a failed attempt to compensate for their weaknesses. A fighter shouldn't *need* to deal cold damage, because you have a priest/mage to do that. Just like your mage shouldn't *need* to raise the dead, because you have a priest to do that. You mentioned that you train your mages to wield weapons. I'd respond by telling you to train better fighters. Cross-training is completely unnecessary in a party of four, and serves only to weaken individual PC's, and the party as a whole.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter And I don't seriously consider this training until I have maxed out my mage/priests in their primary skill, and have gotten to the point that it takes two or three levels to acquire enough skill points to add more Int, Spellcraft, etc. I find it interesting that the relatively simple skill system in Avernum 5 (and later Spiderweb software games) presents a conundrum of sorts. In order to succeed, you need to invest in certain skills, instead of scattering skill points. For example, dropping a few points into parry will simply create a character who is unreliable at parrying. In order to create a decent meatshield, you really need to push parry to 50% (at least). In order to get an extra AP with quick strike, you need to bump it up to at least 18. However, as you increase a skill, you get diminishing returns for every point invested! So it's quite easy to see why on the surface, there is a compulsion to spread points around on different skills. This makes bought training and stat boosts from items much more valuable. Quote: Brocktree is correct that in order to achieve the highest access to special skills you have to specialize. However, I think I can plow through a tough encounter more quickly with a party that has a fair amount of cross-training. I specialize to a degree, but not to exclusion. The whole point of a party is that each member complements each others weaknesses.

Originally Posted By: Cynara Not sure how to fit in Tool Use with a melee or a spellcaster, they're so points-hungry! An archer seemed the perfect fit with their less expensive skills. I'll have to be honest here, and say I've never played a devoted archer. However, I can see *theoretical* advantages to having one. The fact that Heartstriker has the same multiplier as a halberd, and that Quick Action isn't what it once was, implies that an archer may be more useful than a sword wielder (although that's not saying much!). Bows vs. halberds is far more contentious. Anyway, I usually just attribute tool use to one random character. However, looking at your math has made me realize something glaringly obvious. Making a good priest is pretty cheap skill point wise. I'd argue that you don't even need to reach 17 in Priest skill, since the last two spells are cack. So maybe it is most appropriate to have them train in Tool Use.

Originally Posted By: Master1 Originally Posted By: madrigan Knowing how to deal with a dangerous situation includes knowing how to fight. That is indeed one way of dealing with a dangerous situation, but it is not the only way. There are countless examples throughout the animal kingdom of creatures that survive dangerous situations without fighting. Just look at the possum. Wait, what? You're using the *possum* as an example of an animal that survives dangerous situations without fighting? Have you ever cornered one? Almost every animal I know of, from an elephant to an ant, will strike back when cornered. Possums are particularly vicious if you upset them. Defenseless people have been beaten and killed for doing absolutely nothing to antagonise their attackers, so the notion that one should never attack is pretty stupid. Fighting isn't always the ideal response to a threat, but knowing *how* to fight can't hurt for situations where running/giving the thug your wallet isn't a choice. Note that I said 'fight', not 'do karate'. A gun would be your best bet, but unfortunately most countries deprive law abiding citizens of the right to bear arms.