Archery; and races

[Aoslare]

Hiya folks. Nice to see so many familiar helpful faces in the new game's forum yet again!

 

So I read most of the forum posts while waiting for A4 to download, and I've been playing just for a few hours now. A few things struck me almost immediately (especially after reading tasty vlish et al.) and I'm wondering what you guys think, before I restart with a new party, as I probably will soon.

 

1. Archery. Archery is really, really good. This is not so much because of the unlimited arrows and better skill/trait support -- though that helps -- but because of the new combat system. Ranged attacks become a tactical JEWEL when attacking reduces the amount you can move by more than half (give or take a haste). The fact that archery is strong, and never runs out, makes my archer feel (and play) rather like an Agent. Except better, because unlike Firebolt, archery seems to work when you are one square away from the enemy -- no need to train an archer in any melee weapons at all.

 

So then I read about how there are four super duper special bows, and I ask myself: is there -any- reason not to give EVERY pc points in archery? I haven't played on Torment yet, so perhaps the damage is less impressive there.

 

2. Races. Since experience is gained relative to level, as it has always been in the Spidwebverse, and the races and advantages give bonuses that are greater than the equivalent of a few levels of skill points (especially at very high levels) there is very little reason to avoid expensive traits, or races. (That's sort of annoying -- while humans have no advantages, they have 8 icons to the sliths' and nephils' 2.) I can't see any str/dex/int bonuses -- perhaps they are hidden or only show up at higher levels? -- but given the visible or implied bonuses of polearms + resist fire for sliths, and of bows + throws + traps + gymnastics for nephils... I am finding it very hard not make all of my pcs nephils. Bows are wonderful, and I have seen no reason to doubt the utility of gymnastics, either. Certainly it seems better than resist fire, and the polearm bonus, while good, seems less useful than the bows bonus, given that polearms seem to have, once again, just barely failed to be competitive with swords.

 

Will I be running an all-cat party, rrrrrrr?

 

Thanks for your thoughts. --slartucker

[Delicious Vlish]

I can't see any problem with an all kitty party.

 

Except there are only two Nephil graphics.

 

Archery is even better on Torment because it allows you to conserve much needed spell points for entrenched battles. A mage or a priest can fire a few pot shots, maybe make a kill, and get some good returns from first aid.

 

You are going to want some melee skill though. If only to get quick action.

[Lattan]

I haven't seen much use for a slith so far, but I have to tell you that as far as I've gotten polearms rock, and I'm not having any trouble keeping my main fighter alive even without a shield.

[Ephesos]

Okay, answers...

 

1. Well, a few points can't hurt. And after all, you can buy them somewhere along the line. But don't try and make their bows their primary weapons, except on a designated archer. After all, pole weapons are insane in this game, and it's a shame to miss out on the absolutely unbelievable amounts of damage they deal, just so you can ping stuff from afar. The special bows aren't focused on damage, after all... it just matters that they hit the target.

 

2. Well, humans don't get an xp penalty. That's the main difference. And again, don't forget that nephil are designed to be rather frail, so a slith (for massive damage-dealing and some fire resistance) and a human (for quick leveling-up) wouldprobably balance out the party a bit.

 

EDIT: This is what I get for trying to think through a reply... I get pre-empted by two other people.

[Aoslare]

Hmm. So pole weapons are good. I'm a little reluctant to make one of my fighters a halberdier, though, if it involves giving up a shield AND the nephil gymnastics bonus. I smell a slith priest...

 

Vlish: Do you mean Quick Strike? What's the difference between that and Quick Action anyway?

 

I have to say, I love the new First Aid implementation. It brings back the idea of strategizing in order to survive attrition over the course of an entire dungeon, something that Ex/Av never really had, and something I have rarely seen in rpgs since, oh, the late 80's.

[Alorael at Large]

I'm still not convinced. Polearms rock, but the swords I've found tend to rock almost as much, and combined with shields they rock more. It's not just that shields provide a helpful boost to defense, it's that many also make you better at dealing damage.

 

At the end of the game I think the two are probably about equal. For the vast majority of the middle, swords are better. In the beginning, because it's easy to get an iron spear, spears are probably better.

 

Archery is very nice, but it's simply less damaging than melee. You can't hit twice with one missile attack, and you can't benefit from a large number of other little bonuses that add up. That said, I agree that an all-archer party is probably feasible, although I'm not so sure about torment. For slightly less damage you can hit more often and completely avoid the mess of parry/riposte and all the enemies who do bad things when you touch them.

 

Ephesos, nephils aren't frail. Actually, as far as defense goes, they're the same as humans and sliths except against fire, where sliths apparently shine (I noticed no difference).

 

I agree that piling on experience penalties is actually a pretty good idea. I'm not keen on sliths because I'm not crazy about polearms. They're okay, but not really any better than swords. Getting free points in some kind of melee attack is always good for fighters, but casters benefit far more from getting free archery. You don't have to waste precious skill points or have them get into the thick of battle to spray arrows.

 

—Alorael, who thinks that perhaps he should try a party of a nephil fighter and a slith fighter with swords and spears respectively and a pair of nephil mage/priests. He'll them something along the lines of Elite Warrior/whatever and Natural Mage/Pure Spirit. Maybe if he's feeling like gambling he'll toss Divinely Touched around.

[Delicious Vlish]

Quick action, quick strike, I had a brain fart.

 

The one that gives you extra action points in a round.

[Ephesos]

Quote:

Originally written by Periodic Emotion:
Ephesos, nephils aren't frail. Actually, as far as defense goes, they're the same as humans and sliths except against fire, where sliths apparently shine (I noticed no difference).

Perhaps I should rephrase what I meant:

Nephil PCs tend towards being frail characters, in that players are encouraged to develop characters low on defense. After all, Nephils make the best archers and thieves, neither of which are renowned for defensive ability.

[Aoslare]

There's a skill that gives you extre action points? Yow. Yes, that -does- sound useful...

[Delicious Vlish]

Quote:

Originally written by Slartucker:
There's a skill that gives you extre action points? Yow. Yes, that -does- sound useful...

Yes. Look in the Hidden Skills thread for more details. With Fast on Feet, two attacks per round. Makes for a NASTY archer.

[Aoslare]

2 attacks consistently? I assumed that Fast on Feet was as inconsistent as ever. I remember it providing an extra AP maybe 1 in 3 or 4 rounds -- is it better now? Quick Strike, I guess, is fairly consistent with enough investment?

[Kelandon]

Hey, it's Slartucker. How's it going?

 

Between Quick Action, Quick Strike, Fast on Feet, and a couple of Mercuric items with AP bonuses, it should be possible to hit about six or seven times per round (counting each of the Quick Action doublings as two hits). This is good, because creatures' armor is beefed up quite a bit — I found myself doing thirty or forty damage to things with a thousand AP.

 

In fact, on my second play-through, I might actually get Fast on Feet and try to get 20 AP consistently. I had 18 in my first play-through without it. Four attacks per turn with enough Quick Action to double each attack comes out to eight hits per turn, which sounds tempting.

[Delicious Vlish]

Still a crap shoot, but is more reliable than in previous Avernum games.

[Aoslare]

Hiya Kel. *tips hat* Life is good.

 

Edit: on second thought, this deserves a new thread.

[Lilith]

By the way, at what levels of Quick Action and Quick Strike do you stop getting significant increases in your chance to get extra attacks/extra AP? I ask because the chance of parrying a melee attack seems to be capped at 50%, making raising Parry above 10 somewhat pointless, and I was wondering if there's a similar cap on QA or QS.

[Igor]

I'm not convinced that archery rocks to the degree advertised. My nephil (specializing in archery & tool use) does a bit over 20 dmg with arrows to enemies my slith fighter does 40+ dmg to.

 

Of course, I'm still under lvl 7, and the slith has a iron spear whereas the nephil has a yew bow.

[Delicious Vlish]

Quote:

Originally written by Deaf- Will work for MP3s:
I'm not convinced that archery rocks to the degree advertised. My nephil (specializing in archery & tool use) does a bit over 20 dmg with arrows to enemies my slith fighter does 40+ dmg to.

Of course, I'm still under lvl 7, and the slith has a iron spear whereas the nephil has a yew bow.

Sharpshooter and dexterity is what makes archery rock. It's more important to pump Sharpshooter and dexterity than it is to pump the bow skill.

My nephil has a the longbow you can buy in Formello from Oliver and he does on average 50 to 65 damage with the 5 to 15 damage bow. When blessed, this number boosts considerably.

The trick is getting your archer to at least 2 attacks a round most of the time. There is no need to rush forward and engage the enemy in toe to toe like your front line fighter... An archer can just start dishing out the pain in the first round, and this can end a battle before it starts. Two well placed shots can take an enemy mage to critical status, which allows the front line fighter which has rushed forward to take them out on the next round.

[Kelandon]

Also, you'll be glad to have some archery when everything starts riposting in your face.

[Delicious Vlish]

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
Also, you'll be glad to have some archery when everything starts riposting in your face.

Yeah! Or squirts hot goo. Or farts out an odd smell and charms your fighter.

Bah.

[Skippy the bush kangaroo]

In my second game I had a deadeye nephil archer and he was great early on but by the time I got to the Great Cave I was switching him to polearms.

 

Sure he was guaranteed to hit, but the damage he could do was capped at around 30. If you find monsters that are below average in an area he would do more, but by and large his damage maxed out at 30 odd. Melee damage per strike was generally a bit more than that and with Quick Action it wasn't even close.

 

From then on in I only used archery as a secondary option for monsters I couldn't get at otherwise - there was only one monster that required archery to dispose of and its been toned down in the release version as best I know.

 

So having some archery skill is useful, but concentrating on archery wasn't very beneficial for me and I wouldn't recommend it.

 

YMMV.

[Aoslare]

Melee gets quick action and archery doesn't. However, bonus AP (quick strike) will always help archery and will help melee more in focused battles, not so much against regular foes. (Perhaps that's different in Torment, with higher foe hp = more rounds of engagement?)

 

Melee base damage tends to be higher. OTOH, dex (for sharpshooter) has more benefits than strength (for blademaster), and you don't have to pump an unwanted weapon skill either.

 

But the targetting advantage of a bow is huge.

 

I dunno, I'll wait and see how it goes. But I keep thinking of the G3 agent, how putting every last point into battle magic and spellcraft made a monster, whereas simply putting most points there was a lot less effective.

[Lilith]

Another important consideration is that Parry doesn't reduce damage from missile attacks, and only has a small chance to block them. Since some monsters have very high Parry, this is a big deal and makes an archer very useful in some situations. I wouldn't recommend making a pure archer, but IMHO as a secondary attack form for a spellcaster it makes more sense than melee.

[the horned slayer]

I haven't seen much use for a slith so far, but I have to tell you that as far as I've gotten polearms rock, and I'm not having any trouble keeping my main fighter alive even without a shield.

Quote:

my only slith is a archer