carbon_dragon

The problem is that it's hard to know what my hit rate is. In the console it's always 95% but some characters have a LOT more of a problem. The whole thing is opaque. Also some people here on the boards say that you should avoid all armor that lowers to hit percentage and others say it's ok.

I'm late in the game but still can't figure out whether my fighters should wear plate or not. The horrible hit chance seems to make it useless. Or am I wrong? Should I be wearing that Crystalline plate or should I sell it.

I tried it again and this time the damage bar went down slowly but consistently without the resetting. Thanks everyone.

I can understand a long fight, but i damage him and reduce his life bar and a second later it restores itself to what it was before i attacked. I'm not seeing progress. I do damage, but it seems not to stick.

Must have done 40 rounds but he seemed to be regenerating, i couldn't make any progress. What am i missing. My hits would so damage but would then be undone.

I did walk out the gate a little it was open. Then I went back inside and looted the place. So I'm still Ok for finishing the game. I didn't mess myself up by not getting the circlet and septre quests?

Ok, I have a question. I guess I got in the habit of killing dragons and when I got here, I buffed up, went in and explored the talk options, and then thought I couldn't kill him/her but I thought I'd try just to see how the fight went. Well I won so now I'm not sure if this is going to break the game. Do I have to reload and make the deal with it, or is the Dragon harmless and I should leave it? I feel like giving it the septre is a bad idea in general. The loot was OK, but I can do without if it's important to leave him/her alive. Thanks.

When do you start getting extra attacks. I tried going dual wield with my fighter just to see. I have 1 level of dual wield and ambidexterity. But I still only get 1 attack as far as I can tell. What do I need to start attacking twice?

This is not the white back window on top of the row of buttons, but a different window? In the console window that is up by default I've seen percentages when the character hits but I thought that was a roll rather than a percentage that they could hit? Or is this a different window that I activate? Or do you review the log at the end?

Thanks for the help. How do you know what your hit chance is? Is there some place to look to see? I'm flying blind at the moment.

Because I have 60 year old eyes, and it impresses me that a chest is easier to see on the ground. But I'm afraid they will reset at some point.

Suppose I picked a chest somewhere, in fort Avernum or some other city, and used it to store objects I might need later. Would that be safe?

I'm doing OK so far. I am rounding level 8 now. I just rescued the prisoners and had some horrific battles with some demons in two rooms. I suspect I wasn't supposed to go after the pommel of Demonslayer yet. No bragging rights though because I added some attribute points in the character editor before starting so my characters are a little better and also better at tool use than they should be. Even so, I lost 3 of 4 characters in the battle. Used up most of my charged magic items too. I'm following the advice above, but I'm a little worried because my characters are failing to hit a little bit, especially with the demons. I wonder if that is me wearing armor that reduces my to hit, or just that those enemies were more powerful? I probably need to switch to dual wield. I'm starting to get the idea that the wands and scrolls are a way for characters to do 2 things and thus very valuable, even if the effects aren't great. What the heck do all the lanterns do? There doesn't seem to be any DARK places.

I'm playing Escape from the Pit on a Mac. It's going well so far. I actually tried it before and kind of lost interest when I was wiped out by the Escaped experiment, but this time I'm using a walkthrough to direct my adventure a bit so I'm doing better. 1. Is there a way to highlight any secret room switches, things to click on, containers, etc. around you? 2. Is there a list of key shortcuts (looked in the rules and couldn't find one) 3. I don't *think* I found a bag of sugar in Fort Avernum. Is there a bag of sugar later in the game? 4. I reloaded, but I noticed in one of the towns, after you dispel a rune, you can open a chest and get a pair of gloves, but if you do you get a dread curse. What does that do to you? I assume it's bad. The spectres that show up with the other chest indeed zapped me quickly. 5. I'm just rounding level 8. My fighter (Aldus) is using the Nephil Warblade and has just scored the Radiant shortblade. He's been using a shield but I guess it's time to go dual weapon. I assume I should put my second skill point into dual weapon and my perk into ambidexterity? Or should I put both skill points into dual wield? Should I switch to 2 weapons now or once I achieve some skill level? 6. My "rebel" is using a Nephil war spear (good weapon but non magical) and thus no shield. He has his points in pole weapons on the theory that she can take advantage of any big pole weapons in the game. Was this wise, or should I use the character editor to move those points to swords and go dual wield for her too. Note that using the character editor doesn't bother me. 7. The walkthrough recommends spending very little in the stores and using money to buy skills which I'm mostly doing. But I just had a horrible knock down drag out battle that consumed a lot of my stuff (it was the battle for the pommel of Demonslayer). Now I could use a group heal scroll or two and some more healing potions and some more wands. Any recommendations on the best place to get them in the first part of the game? That last fight killed 3 of 4 characters! Those demons were vicious.

Hello. I started with the standard characters. I currently have only a few levels. I'm playing on lowest difficulty and even added some character points to the characters though the character editor. I lack patience (these days) to try an encounter 8000 times before succeeding, so I'm looking to optimize the characters a bit. I upgraded my Skyrim weapons so much that hitting a dragon with my sword is approximately the same as a thermonuclear explosion Ok, so the fighter at about level 4'ish is using sword and shield trying to mostly raise his strength with occasional blips in endurance and dexterity. He's trying to raise his sword attack with second point to hardiness and parry alternately. Not sure if this is good or not. I don't have access to a lot of good weapons yet, should I be fighting with sword and shield and/or when should I transition to dual wield swords? The second character is the "rebel" which is a jack of all trades. So far I have her throwing javelins (occasionally) and mostly using a decent pole weapon because that is where her points were originally. Is that OK, or should I try to boost her swords? My skill increases are more eclectic as well including a point in cave lore and some tool use points. For the two spellcasters, I'm boosting their intelligence, with an occasional point elsewhere, and also to their particular spell skill along with some points spread out on the above skills (arcane lore, spellcraft, and so on). So what am I doing wrong? Nothing is bad so far but if I'm not doing it right probably good to find out before I'm too far in. I could use the character editor to rearrange the skill points if I'm doing it wrong so hopefully I won't end up behind the power curve. So far, the difficulty is OK. I'm handling most things OK. The only white knuckle encounter so far was the Lizard creatures in the little island west of the starting area. There were 2 spellcasters and a boss and LOTS of decent warriors and I barely survived. I played a lot of these years ago, including all the Realmz scenarios (if you guys remember those). I used to love that game. Thanks

Should you buy as much spellcraft as you can? How should you distribute your points between mage spells, spell craft, and magical efficiency?

As is true in D&D (God I wish this didn't get imported into every computer game), players are having to spend all the money they collect paying for training. It's like running for Congress and raising money. What happens when trainers accumulate huge masses of money just training my party? Anyway, I kind of wish I had a "house" that I could store all the stuff I want to keep at least temporarily but don't want to carry. If I pick an abandoned house and store stuff in the chest does it stay there?

I'm not clear on whether the Shockwave Bow is better for it's supposed stunning (not sure what that does) or if it's better to fire say a composite longbow for more damage. Also I'm not quite sure when a new sword is an upgrade and when it's not. Is a "jinx blade" good? I have a wave blade but it doesn't seem that overwhelming next to some others. I'm about mid game. Any advice generally on evaluating the various magic (or non magic) swords?

Avernum 6 is the most complex RPG I've seen on the iPad, even though the port isn't entirely satisfactory (touching the screen doesn't really work as a replacement for a mouse in all cases like mousing over the map because your fat finger blocks what is being displayed). Anyway, the graphics are not bad for an old fashioned game -- in effect it's a highly refined but old-fashioned game. Like I said that's not necessarily a bad thing, I have a hard time with a lot of modern real-time semi RPGs because I just don't have the reflexes. I like turn based games that use strategy. For me the more information there is on the game (there is usually a LOT on Bethesda games including very good book guides) the better I like it. Thats because with these non scaled opponents, you really need a sequence of events -- an idea of what order to hit things so that you will be good enough to fight the opposition when you get there. With a really good game guide (Fallout 3's thick book length guide is the best I've seen) you can plot all of that out, and that is what I like. I don't want to arrive in the late game finding out that the best weapon in the game requires you have 12 points of polearm skill when I took swords. I want to know what is coming. With that foreknowledge (even if the book was 10 times the cost of the game) the lack of scaling would be no problem. And good maps that give you annotations on where everything is, especially in places like the Labyrinth would be especially welcome. The Avernum maps don't show you anything really. You can't see where the stairs up and down are, you seldom have annotations of important things, you can't record where there is an encounter of a magic wall or a locked door you want to come back to later, nyet. See that's not an issue with Skyrim because you seldom have to come back. If you're going to make them come back, don't make them record on paper trying to remember where to come back to. Let them drop markers with notes on the map or something. This isn't the old days. Some of the modern innovations are worthwhile -- better maps, quest arrows, map markers, and so on. Sorry I tend to rant.

Scaling doesn't really keep the battles even because the player has choices while leveling. If you level with average skill, you end up finding the whole game a challenge with the boss monsters very fear inducing. If you level the wrong things you can find the whole game practically unplayable, but Skyrim for instance you have to be REALLY a bad leveller. Or if you level in a min/max fashion, very very carefully, you can get ahead of the power curve and outclass most monsters (or all of them). I'm a planner so I like to work at the levelling so my encounter are less stressful. Different strokes I guess. I absolutely hate going through a dungeon where everything is under control and then you go from 5 on the 1-10 difficulty scale to 26 between one encounter and the next. Really I'm not a very hand-eye dextrous gamer so I really need the planning/tactical game to not require that. Any old RPG fits that category and Bethesda's RPGs mostly do too (except for Dead Money). But modern games amaze you with their immersion. Realmz or Wizardry or Avernum will never do that, they just don't have the horsepower or the millions behind them, but I still like the way they scale these days. It's always a controversy and I understand some people don't like it. Skyrim is kind of sneaky because they don't just make weak monsters more powerful (or vice versa) they change the monster to be a weaker or stronger monster on a continuum depending on where you are at present. After all, when's the last time you were watching an action hero movie where the hero kept dying and reloading his saves? Scaling helps to prevent that (though not entirely)

No, other games are open world (Avernum 6 isn't THAT open world anyway). The issue is scaling vs. non scaling. Are the monsters what they are, or do they scale with the player? Neither is necessarily the "right" way to do it. I think I prefer scaling, but that doesn't make it right. About Dead Money. I dealt with a lot of the holograms before I got into the vault. But there in the vault, no matter what I did or tried, I couldn't get past them. I read all the online information I could find, I actually tried the scenario twice, the second time with the slow time implant, but I just couldn't get past that spot in the fault. VERY frustrating. The thing is that a good game gives you options. Maybe you're a twitch gamer who can run and strafe and dodge and weave. Or maybe you're a thinker who can go around trouble. A good game should give you more than one choice. When it doesn't you get frustration in at least some of the players. I've found very few bugs in Avernum 6 so far. The only one has been that I couldn't find a character to give me the secret passageway to rescue the hostages so I had to just go down there and hit the kidnappers really hard, making sure none of them got away and they were all DEAD. Not a big issue. But perhaps after playing scaling games for years, I've lost some measure of patience for the write something down and come back later approach that used to not bother me.

Yes, but people are different. I like to work hard at a RPG, bulding up my forces, getting ahead of the power curve, trying to stay ahead of the monsters and trying to be a badass. But in this game(s) you can't do that because no matter how powerful you get, there always seems to be an unstoppable roadblock ready to rip you to pieces. Also it interrupts the adventure. When I get killed because surprise that's one of the super-roadblock encounters, getting killed and having to reload damages the suspension of disbelief and the immersion of the game. Granted the inertion is not the equal of Skyrim, but still you get involved and suddenly you get a bucket of cold water poured on you. No big deal, but it kills some of the fun -- for me. I used to play games just like this all the time, and I've romanticized them while outside the bubble, game design has moved on to different gaming paradigms. Not too many RPGs left, but those that are (Fallout 3, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas) generally try (for good or ill, depending on your opinion) to avoid crushing reverses that sour the players on the fun of playing the game. That's all these games are for, fun right? You don't get extra credit in Heaven for beating these games before you die. I stopped playing Fallout New Vegas Dead Money and never went back because that scenario (and only that one in Bethesda) was ultimately impossible for me to win because the bad guys (the holograms) were totally invulnerable to any weapon. I just couldn't get past them and every time I died trying, it killed a little of my fun in playing. Finally it was all gone. There's probably a lesson there, or maybe it's just me.

It's not really a criticism of the game because we all grew up playing these sorts of games. Still it kind of kills part of the fun of playing for me. I'm playing and I'm feeling like I actually know something and I'm beating all the troops easily and then suddenly I hit a brick wall -- an unbeatable enemy who kills everyone in a round and is totally and completely invulnerable to all my attacks (can you say darkside loyalists). It's all the more surprising when my guys are actually pretty powerful. I was watching a lets play with someone who finally kind of gave up and boosted his folks to the maximum the game would allow and he still had some trouble with some of the parts of the game. I'm not giving up, but I think there is a reason why modern games have gone to a scaled system.

Impact isn't necessarily the same thing as powerful. Lots of human beings in our world make a gigantic impact -- perhaps they cure a terrible disease or lead the American revolution. But they're not necessarily individually powerful. But I take your point. However the spells in the game that a player can gain access to, while useful, don't compare to the ludicrous levels of power available in say 2nd edition AD&D. It compares very well against the current D&D though. Really to make the game playable, you need useful magic but not out of control magic and that's why they all try to thread that needle -- give the players enough power to succeed without so much power they just walk through the opposition.

To do those things you have to have magic coexisting with technology (like Harry Potter-verse or Shadowrun). Otherwise that kind of cross pollination wouldn't happen. In RuneQuest, everyone knew a little magic. In Stormbringer, very few did and the really powerful mages were rare -- ditto in Lord of the Rings. In D&D you need years of training but Mages are fairly common (but not typically super powerful the way they were in 2nd edition AD&D). It does differ by universe. Our own "City Beyond the Gate" adventure was 2nd edition so our mages were 10th level or so and were VERY powerful. But still when you have a large group of bad buys with automatic weapons, it's nothing to take lightly. Our mage DID use time stop. Note too that in some universes like Shadowrun, it's difficult to combine magic and tech because they somehow work against each other. The more cyberwear you have the less magic you can do (aggravating). My impression is that Avernum is similar to a weak version of D&D (modern edition). Some of the spells are powerful but not world conquering. On the other hand you can generate an army with a lot of mages and clerics which is a force to be reckoned with. And sometimes, the weakest spells could have a huge effect on a society like ours. Consider healing spells!