Ichthyic

"Her missile attack is nearly as good as her magical attack if you pump Dex" no, it isn't. not even close for equivalent stat boosts int vs dex. why? there is no skill to train up the javelin with. while your primary magic attack gets more powerful as you train it. what's more, your primary magic attack is energy, which does more damage to most things than physical, and also has a nice cleave feature. so don't go by that for deciding to go dex based shaman. second, earthshatter... leveled dex up to 40, the talent to 8, and it does about 110-540 damage. that's great damage, but at a cost: 14 on the timer, which means you aren't going to be able to do it very often in combat without quaffing a lot of pots. The shaman does not have an absorb ability like the sorc does. Call storm does about 90-300 damage, but ALSO has a huge wait. so, I can't really recommend the shaman dex build too much, unless you really do it for defense (since they are so weak to physical), and primarily use them as a drake summoner and weak ranged attacker. now Drakes actually do decent damage. their fire breath only has a 2 turn wait on it, so you can do it quite often, and it does about 90-140 damage and will hit major bosses, even Redbeard (unlike the hellhound). Plus, even bosses have a tough time putting a drake down quick; they have a ton of hitpoints. cast spines on your pet and it becomes another way for your pet to deal damage. so, since it doesn't rely on int, you can indeed build a decent summoner using mostly dex, and toss out the occasional low level earthquake (you get the skill from a hat) or storm (you get enough points with equipment bonuses to get this and still have drake) to keep the baddies away from you. combined, the damage of your drake and your javelin is decent, if not overwhelming, and you can play war of attrition with all the healing abilities. all that said though, it would be a tough class to solo with I think. Or at least very slow and irritating. Shadowalker dex build is most definitely the hands down winner for solo build. good up close, good at range, good defense, good specials (even 3 points in shadowstep is very useful). the only downside is limited damage types (acid basically being the only elemental damage), but then there are the scarabs to make up for that... put that cone of cold one on your SW, and you're set. You only need about 20 strength, total, including boosts from gear, for the times you want to hit something melee, which means you should be able to get your dex with gear over 36 by the time you hit lvl 30. use the bonecleaver shield when you get it, and watch the razordisk crits pile up. blademaster dex build solo would actually surpass SW in damage output, but only when maxed out and only when not facing magic/mental based attackers. another note: backstab works for ranged specials too! so get in there and toss that lightning pot from point blank range if there is an ally standing next to your target. you'll double the damage most likely on the backstab bonus. even works for magic missile scarabs, so long as they are single target ranged. does not work for razordisk attacks, of course.

a bit late, but having finished my hard run: "I tried a shoot-and-scoot razordisk shadowwalker, and I found it to be difficult and not that much fun. More the latter than the former, really. You could probably make it work, but being able to meat shield effectively is also worthwhile." actually, a dex build SW works great in this game. there are a lot of bosses with riposte or thorns, or just nasty melee attacks, and you can do a ton of damage with razordisks on a dex build. what's more, building dex makes ALL your ranged attacks more powerful, and that includes whirling blade and steel tornado. Strength does not affect these at all. so, not sure what problems you had with your razordisk build, but I find that with dex on SW equal to ST on blademaster, SW does the same damage with razordisks as BM does with melee attack; specials excluded, and they both have cleave as a bonus so... seriously, build a dex based (put just enough strength in to get to 18, and enough fort to get to 15) and with gear you can get your dex to about 36 to 38. use evade or dex runes on everything but your weapon, and you are near unhittable, even on torment, for everything except the major bosses. the backstab on the SW more than makes up for the lower strength when you need to do melee, and the poison damage is icing. use your dex based build to aggro everything, and have your other guys lend support. I used my dex SW to attack Antje, on torment, while the others looked for the "sprit wolf" and distracted her pets. she never hit me. not. once. soloed the entire bandit road hideout, including the drake, and all the guys in the middle, on torment. no problem.

I'd add that this is one of the better developed rpgs I've played over the years; takes me back to the old Baldur's Gate days. one minor quibble at the very end: the riposte on Redbeard's soul statues makes it so that you can't have melee warriors attack them. even half the amount of riposte would still be devastating, but as it is, ONE riposte kills a warrior with 400hps. It's just too much. if you want to have overpowered riposte on redbeard when he's fully powered up, ok, but on the statues seems ridiculous. also, while acid/poison based damage seems to do decent damage to me and mine, it seems to do very little damage to most enemies, given that it is typically the high-level tier damage for elemental range attackers (shadow, shaman, sorc). I found cold to typically do much more damage than acid; even fire when enemies aren't simply immune to it? *shrug*

Hi, my name's Gavin. I've been disillusioned by life and betrayed by all. I know! let's go fight an entire castle full of defenders! Here, let me show you this secret door... The End.

actually, there IS a better razordisk. It's the equivalent to the lightning javelin, which is the upgrade to the titansteel javelin, but is called the searing razordisk. I see it there in the itemlist file, but I guess it never actually made it into the game. oh well.

OK, so all my peeps have lightning-level missile items (or heavy magic bows), but where is the ultimate razordisk? have not run across a searing razordisk yet, and have finished wiping out Ogrham keep and have done all 4 companion quests. is there one in the game? oh, and since I finally beat zeph in torment mode, does she actually drop anything on death? I ask only because the only way i beat her was on a glitch: -my blademaster got a lucky stun blow in on the very first hit after a hamstring (which also slowed her), and she basically stayed stunned. for 10 turns. while I continuously beat on her. She never got the chance to animate any of her golems. *shrug* must be a bug, since I've never been able to stun her before, and of course the stun is only supposed to last 2 turns.

I'm quite curious to see where he takes the Avadon storyline.

I found Beloch to be much easier than Zeph! Still haven't beat Zeph on Torment yet. key to Beloch: before talking to him: 1. go into combat mode 2. summon a pet (if no shaman, use a wand) and put it right in front of him. 3. buff each character with battle pots, frenzy pots, and shield buff (add resist spell if you have a sorc) 4. position your characters so that each is attacking from a different direction (spread them apart) and put the pet in the space directly in front of Beloch. NOW talk to him and initiate combat. pay close attention to the text marking that the portal has "thinned", and ONLY ONLY ONLY use your skill abilities on him that have timers on them at that point (otherwise, they are pretty much entirely wasted). Otherwise, either attack one of his summons, cast another buff, use a potion, reposition yourself, etc. On my attempts, the first round he was always protected, so wait to attack at least until the second round. If that is the same with yours, you might use the first round to try casting some curses on him instead of damage attacks. He is slightly susceptible to slow and weaken. you should be able to do major damage to him even before he summons the dead mage.

Quote: Some of the things i found distasteful were that he pardoned cahil but, he pardoned Cahil because he provided valuable intelligence information. In fact, the judicial systems in most countries do this, every day, and have for hundreds of years. it's not uncommon for the FBI in the US to pardon a snitch, even if the local authorities want that person for murder. sometimes the bigger fish are what's important. How do you know that Redbeard wasn't on to someone who was causing far more trouble than Cahil ever dreamed of doing, and that Cahil's info was helping track down who that was? I rather thought Jeff played that dialogue feature quite well; I'm still conflicted about helping the Wayfarer.

FWIW, I tried out giving the papers to Miralda instead. result: very pleased, she opens the vault gate near the entrance to the dungeon (she does not do this UNLESS you bring her the papers). In that vault, you get: Sleetcaller's staff: level 16 20% cold resistance Lightning shortsword: level 16 (18?) +5% melee damage +5% magic damage I don't know what the repercussions are for later dialogue. so, your choice at least changes what equipment you will get; you get a nice bow with mental resist on it from wayfarer as the other option.

It's the classic dilemma; Do you pardon the little fish to hook the bigger one? Is it right for the FBI to pardon an informant that local cops have nailed for murder, because he ratted out his bosses? happens all the time. greater good, and all. that said, I'd still make the choice to whack Cahil (being Severin), and here's why: JUST before you go on this mission, if you go upstairs and talk to Redbeard, he makes a big speech about how things are clear; there are enemies of Avadon, and Avadon (in context of asking you if he should accept a farlander tribe as an ally). And Avadon is family and look out for its own. If confronted by Redbeard about killing Cahil, I'd simply toss those words right back in his face. "We were just lookin' out for family, boss." Besides, Redbeard may have even known exactly what you were planning to do, which is why he made that little speech. He ain't stupid. That said... revenge is petty. personally, it seemed to me that Cahil was doing more good than harm where he was, and I probably would have let him go all things being equal. but that's just me.

kk. There's an idea for Jeff to mod up then. It should be adjustable which stats affect which attack types, imo. cheers

well, in that section, you can change the damage done by level, and the probability of specials proccing, but I don't see which values affect the stats used to determine damage. here 'tis, from avobjsmisc.txt: Quote: begindefineability 118; ab_name = "Blade Sweep"; ab_ability_sound = 78; ab_range = 2; ab_base_cooldown = 10; ab_fatigue_cost = 2; ab_uses_weapon = 1; ab_skill_ability_linked_to = 19; ab_node_type 0 = 70; ab_node_effect_type 0 = 77; ab_node_hold_abil 0 = 1; ab_node_type 1 = 60; ab_node_base_amount 1 = 20; ab_node_amount_per_level 1 = 5; ab_node_type 2 = 61; ab_node_effect_type 2 = 6; ab_node_base_amount 2 = 3; ab_node_min_training 2 = 3; which values control stat dependencies there? I figure there must be a larger version of this file tucked away in avscen.dat maybe? Do I need to extract all the files from there, or is there another ability section controlling this? cheers

hmm. Is it even possible to change the stats that damage calculations for each ability rely on? example; building a blade warrior early needs some strength to hit with single target attacks. Later, NON ranged melee AOE attacks use all dex?? I mean, you build it up to do a powerful blade sweep, only to find strength doesn't affect the damage of a blade sweep, dex does. I'm trying to figure out what values need to be changed in avobjsmisc.txt to change the stats for melee attacks to solely rely on strength for the damage calculation, instead of dex, but can't seem to figure out which values apply. It looks like it might even be hardcoded? Anyone know? thanks muchly

I've seen multiple discussions about overall "best" party arrangement, so thought I'd toss out my thoughts. The tougher battles suggested to me that different setups were best used for each to truly maximize potential. I've now experimented with as many combos as possible starting with a shadow as primary. All on hard difficulty (you can skate by with just about any group on normal IMO). comments: -shadows can complement each other quite well, especially if you gear one as a tank (boost the middle and add some points into the right side until you get focus (it's like having a constant battle potion on) and even bladeshield; spend only points on the lowest melee attack on the left, and put everything else in the middle. Have the other shadow focus on offense on the left (and boosts in the middle too); gives a ton of flexibility and they can backstab off of each other as well. I found this combo to be a better tank/dps combo than the blademaster/shadow duo in most situations unless I had a ton of parry boosting stuff for my blademaster; then it was situational. -likewise, I found shamans and sorcs to complement each other nicely; the shaman setting up for massive damage by the sorc, and their damage types complement each other too. Set the shaman up to be a summoner/curser and only go up to acid on the left (then you don't have to worry about dex); once you get that summoning staff, you can summon some quite potent meat shields that do decent damage too. I found this combo worked especially well with a shadow rigged for DPS/ranged (my primary). just having that 4th critter there really helps, and casting thorns, haste, and shield on your summon makes it quite worthwhile. Still, this combo seems very situational; where it really shines is in fighting things like nasty blue dragons, where you can send out 3 nice meat shields one after the other, while everyone pounds away at range, or your shadow sneaks in for some backstabs. Also, that sorc primary weapon attack is brutal once you get the crit boost up a bit; at around level 16-18 I recall it hitting for between 150-200 damage regularly. That's pretty decent single target damage from range. This combo also requires a good amount of open space to work in, and few (or just one) powerful targets. Groups of medium power targets, that can easily still survive a couple of firestorms, is bad news. the pet isn't a sufficient distraction for a group of targets, and even bladeshield won't save your sorc from getting pounded. which, leads to blade/shadow/sorc, which most people I think prefer. I think this combo works well for any situation where there are more than a few targets, or mixed weak/strong targets. With this, using the blade as the tank, using as many items that boost parry as possible works well; use the dodge/ripost items on your shadow. all in all, I think just about any combo is workable, if one takes the time to make sure their abilities are set up to complement the rest of the group, though I think the hardest would be all casters, simply because of the timers on abilities running out, and in situations where the critters are immune to fire (the shaman's weapon attack is half the strength of the sorcs, so if the sorc can't use their primary weapon attack, you run out of abilities too soon - unless you use a ton of pots.). Overall, I think the classes balance out quite nicely, with lots of fun variations to try. I highly recommend getting the advanced editor so you can experiment with different stats/builds, then just go sit by a warp pylon and practice. oh, one last thing I noticed was the order in combat; I wish there was a way to control this outside of dex, as I'd always rather have the guys that cast curses go first, but they also typically have the lowest dex. example: in the dps rigged shadow/sorc/shaman trio, I'd always want my shaman to start off with spirit claw so a group of targets is then setup for attacks from the sorc, but I typically have the dex much higher on the shadow (for damage and protection) and the sorc (protection) than the shaman, so it's like free damage going to waste. dex already affects ranged damages and defense, maybe something else could affect attack order; maybe even just being able to manually assign attack order, say simply by using like a ctl+click on your characters to assign the combat order or something.

^^

Is there any other crafter that uses drake skins, or only Belda?

thanks. ah well, it's probably something I would add as an alternative myself, just for spice. shouldn't be hard to program it in, but since I've already done that quest, might wait till next playthrough. cheers.

I just did this quest, and all of a sudden thought... Wait, when I first met her, she had a nice looking bow, such a nice bow I felt the need to comment on it for some reason. Yet, she hits things with her sword. made me wonder if there isn't an "alternative" reward for this quest? anyone try letting her croak to the last spider to see if she drops that bow?