RaustBlackDragon

Originally Posted By: Death Knight -For your ninja character, I noticed that you have 5 points into quick action and only 3 in hardiness. I would recommend since your dexterity is high, to pump those 5 points of quick action into hardiness via the editor. It will really make a difference when you do get hit. Thanks, but 5 points are all I can spare. Orpheus's eventual build path will involve maxing out dual-wielding and lethal blow (the rules demand my builds are consistent with theoretically having every skill maxed by level 61). But I've decided to give Diana hardiness instead of Blademaster though, since Orpheus already covers the "maxing blademaster" requirement, then going for parry and riposte.

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires you'll miss lvl 3 haste which can bring battle frenzy but that can be done via potions, I use alot cloak of curses due magic resistant monsters (dunno how much weakness curse helps but every help is welcome). Weakness Curse on your enemies plus war blessing on your party makes a significant difference if you're having trouble hitting your opponents, which happens a LOT if you don't go all out on one stat. The increase to damage your enemies take is generally not as valuable as the increase to your chance to hit your enemies. Same goes for the chance to avoid granted to you by shield chant.

Intense specialization also limits the variety of character types you can make, which is why I'm ignoring that and playing this way, which I consider more fun. Also, I don't like my characters being able to one-shot eachother the very instant they get charmed. Yes, it is from a practical standpoint rather stupid, but I'm having much more fun this way, and since this is a game, I really think that's all that matters. Does anybody have any advice for me going by the rules I set up for myself?

Originally Posted By: Hume From a power gamer's prospective, your party is simply awful. Your bow-brandishing sorceress will be MUCH more deadly if she give up the bow-brandishing thing. So is everone else in your party. I am surprised you managed to go this far in torment with this crappy party. I'll take that as a compliment Basically, I view the loading of everything into one stat as a sort of exploit that is not how the game was intended to be played. Clearly Jeff did not plan on characters doing this, as he recommends a bit of dexterity for warriors in the stat description, as well as other examples in the game tips.

I know that, it's a theoretical level I'm talking about, like I have to allocate my skill points so that I could meet those qualifications if I were to reach level 61.

3: Orpheus the Ninja I predicted he'd be a ton of fun, and I believe I was correct. As my only character to invest 100% of their skill points in the combat tab, he is by far the best physical damage-dealer for the party. This is not just because he can dual-wield however; his gymnastics frequently endow him with 2 extra action points, which is a guaranteed two actions normally, and when battle-frenzied and hasted, it's a good chance of THREE actions. He rarely has to stand back and use his throwing weapons, though he's quite decent in those situations, but enough about that, the main benefit of this guy's dexterity is how easily he can dodge physical attacks. Who would have thought that the NINJA would be my party's physical tank? Between his evasion rate and bladeshield (He has access to every battle discipline in the game), he's unkillable by physical mooks (yes, I am playing on torment), and even physical minibosses/bosses have some difficulty hitting him. 4: Lucille, the SpellSlinger This bow-brandishing sorceress is utterly DEADLY. Her gymnastics, combined with the mercuric leather she's wearing, regularly grant her two bonus action points, and when hasted and frenzied, this allows her to unload some SERIOUS hurt, in the form of three fireblasts without the aid of adrenaline rush. Evildoers are in some serious trouble once she gets around to learning that particular technique, because then her foes will have to face down an onslaught of FIVE consecutive AOE spells in a single turn. And thanks to her magical efficiency, she totally has the stamina to keep that barrage coming. Granted, this immense damage output comes at the price of being exceedingly vulnerable to magical attacks, but against physical attacks she does quite well thanks to her dexterity. Any thoughts on my party? Any advice? Keep in mind I'm going by the following rules: 1: You can never put more than half of your allotted stat points into any one stat 2: By the time you reach level 30, for every skill there must be a character with at least one point invested in it, and by the time you reach level 61, for every skill there must be a character with at least 10 points invested in it (unless the limit is lower). 3: Every weapon type/style must be used by at least one character. So no advice that involves breaking these rules please

Hey, so I've gotten reasonably far in the game on Torment, and I thought I'd share how my party's progressed if anybody's interested: 1: Albus the Paladin My predictions with this guy turned out to be correct: he's by far the weakest on my team in terms of damage output, but he's indispensable as a healer, and his resistance to magical attacks is by far the strongest on the team, with his physical survivability being quite good as well. Once I get the tome for return life (I've been told that getting it above level 1 is worthless), this survivability will be especially important, as I'll be able to continue battles after characters die (I like keeping experience roughly even). 2: Diana the Amazon Her endurance makes her great for handling ghosts and slimes, but in a great number of situations, she's not much help, and she's ironically often the most likely to die in many situations involving physical attacks, despite her excellent equipment. Of course, I did load tool use, cave lore AND first aid on her (I decided to use every skill in the game, no matter what the guides say, just for the heck of it), and the skill points this saves my other party members is immense. They owe a lot of their power to her, and her cave lore has been far, FAR more useful than the guides would suggest. (Continued in the next post)

Right, well that's rather disappointing. Thanks for the info, that really helped!

So I notice that some armor gives, say, a 5% bonus to evading attacks. Is that a flat number subtracted from the final calculated hit chance of your enemies, or is your evasion ability multiplied by 105%, or is the final calculated hit rate of your opponents multiplied by 95% for each such piece of armor you have on? I'm debating whether or not I should take that evasion bonus into account when deciding what armor my ninja warrior should wear, and considering his high base evade, the answer to this question will make all the difference. If it's a percentage multiplier to his base evade, it's highly useful, but if it's a flat bonus, it's not even remotely worth considering.

Has anybody made a texture hack of this game to make certain other character models playable, such as the generic soldier, the generic mage, or the blue-shirted tan-skinned black-haired guy that was used by some ghosts (the same one used in avadon for the guy who kept giving you messages from your comrades)?

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity The Torment difficulty setting does generally make Jeff's games pretty hard. But it's not usually that it makes them hard in any interesting, tactically challenging way. It just forces you to be quite fussy in building your character(s), and to use a lot of tedious delay-and-avoidance tactics in fights. So it adds some replay value for people who have played a lot of his games — I've had a lot of fun playing Torment singletons in a couple of the second Avernum series — but it's not really a sensible achievement to aim for, to be able to beat his games on Torment. It's just something you'll eventually get around to if you keep on playing Spiderweb games enough. Yeah, you should be pretty careful about saying stuff like that, because if it isn't true, then you're needlessly depressing people who may be excited to play torment for a real challenge, and if it IS true, then that's not something that we should be resigned to, but should rather bring to Jeff's attention. At any rate, I've been playing Avernum: Escape from the Pit on torment while completely ignoring the advice of strategy central, and it's by no means impossible. I'll be sure to let anybody know when and if that changes, but my paladin/ninja/amazon/spellslinger party has been doing fine so far, though it has been a bit annoying at times

Sorry to be a total cop-out, but the various fungi in Avernum are clearly established as magically engineered by some of the greatest magical minds ever, and it is mentioned repeatedly that survival would be impossible without the fungal creations of the tower of Magi, so I'm guessing they were made to feed off of some plentiful energy source that is otherwise useless to other living things. Though the question still remains of what exactly that would be, it wouldn't have to specifically generate oxygen through chemical means Again, sorry for bringing up the "It's magic" excuse, but as long as magic is consistent and has rules, I think it's fun to examine it as science

Right, so, I'm playing the first Geneforge on torment as a shaper, and every single enemy in the entire game has been able to one-shot me so far, and the few points I put into endurance haven't changed this. How much endurance will I need to be able to survive a single hit from standard mooks? How many levels should I gain between each instance of pumping up endurance? Or should I just be resigned to not being able to take a hit ever, and just play the game as such, as I've been doing so far? My general strategy has been to gun down every enemy in view before they get a chance to reach my shaper and end him with one of their attacks, or maybe a very stiff wind. It's worked for me so far, kinda, but I'm concerned that if I cant take a single hit, eventually I'll be stopped dead by even one battle where I can't effectively implement this strategy. Any advice?

Originally Posted By: Lilith They're totally usable, but they'll do noticeably less damage than a dual-wielder. EVERYBODY does noticeably less damage than a dual wielder, with the exception of magic, and even then only in terms of total damage across several targets.

Generally, if you're not relying on strength, there are other methods of keeping yourself from taking weapon damage aside from armor, so if you're not putting everything into strength and thus aren't undermining the penalty to oblivion, you can survive with other means: Say you go half strength and half dexterity. You can afford to have slightly lighter armor on because you'll be dodging a significant number of attacks that your armor would defend against. If you're going strength and endurance, you can forego the armor somewhat because your endurance keeps you from dying quite effectively as well. And if you're using intelligence, you've got magic you can rely on. I mention this because I strongly discourage the practice of putting everything into one stat. I pretty much consider it to be an exploit, and it also makes "charm" the single most utterly ragequit-inducing status ailment in video game history. Trust me, you do not want a party of characters who can one-hit-kill eachother

Oh! Thanks for the info. But that still does add more meaning to their lighter weight advantage.

Shortswords and daggers can be held in your off-hand.

If I were to try playing the second trilogy before playing the first, would I be lost, or would any interesting plot points be spoiled for me?

I'm just a little baffled as to why creations, which when killed are gone forever, take some of the finite XP in the game with them. Why? From a balance perspective, why should somebody suffer in the long term from making use of shaping skills, especially if they're a shaper and have little else to rely on?

Anybody know how enemy evasion chance is calculated?

Hey, just wondering, there's this whole quest for demonslayer, which I'm guessing is required to kill the demon I'm guessing I'm going to have to fight later. So... So does that mean that only one of my physical fighters will be able to hurt the beast, and that it has to be one of my sword users? I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention any plot elements, just gameplay-wise whether or not my archer and spearman (and mages) will be able to harm this guy, or at the very least whether or not they'll be able to make themselves useful during the battle.

Well then, I'm glad I chose my light-armor archer-mage to be the mage spell user

...Oh. Is there any particular reason for that from a balance perspective?

So I'm playing a file with a paladin type character who uses a sword and shield as well as priest magic, but I've discovered that I seem to have somehow broken that restriction without any points in swordmage, because I have on equipment in excess of -40% to-hit penalty with all hit bonus equipment removed, and I can STILL cast spells. Does anybody know of any reason why this might have happened? Is there a known cause of this sort of thing?

I beat the incubi in moritz' kri's library at level 21 or so, on torment, using a strategy I came up with on my own And, I may add, none of my characters had more than half of their stat points allocated into any one stat, and only my main character went for dexterity, the rest went for endurance