A4 - Irritating gremlin

[Hobson]

Hello

 

On my way through Eastern Gallery I found a dead body with a letter to some G***** guy near Formello (I can't remember his name exactly, I can hardly remember any name ;]) I went to talk with him and he told me about a gremlin in his storage room. So I had a little chat with rude, big-mouthed gremlin and he told me about gremlin wine somewhere around. I went upstairs, found two bottles. Brought them to gremlin, but he said he wants more. Looked around, found nothing. Searched in merchant's house, in kitchen, private rooms, treasure chest (was empty, no treasure, but trap was active) and some closet upstairs (also emty). Found no gremlin wine, and this creature does not like tasty Bordeaux. So, questions are:

 

- Where are remaining bottles supposed to be?

- Has merchant drunk the rest of gremlin wine, tho it is not tasty?

- Have I already been there, looted the wine, drank it, and forgot about it?

- Can I buy gremlin wine somewhere, or trick him with cheap/tasty/almarian beaujolais?

 

This big-mouthed creature really annoys me, showing no respect to my party. He says 'I want more' one more time, and I will unleash my summons

 

Cheers

 

[Zummi]

Quote:

- Can I buy gremlin wine somewhere

Yesh, you can buy another jug of gremlin wine. I think the vendor is near Formello East.

The gremlin needs four jugs, if my A4 lore memory serves me correct. And I'm pretty sure that Giscard's storage area can suffice the wanton wine lust of the gremlin.

[Randomizer]

There are supposed to be 2 bottles of gremlin wine upstairs in Giscards' home in a box or barrel that you can reach without setting off a trap.

 

You can always just kill the gremlin and sell the wine, since the fight isn't that hard and Giscard doesn't care how you do it. There is a slight difference in experience, but not enough to make a difference in the overall game.

[Hobson]

So it seems that I have already been there, looted the house, drank wine during one of the night stops while travelling, got drunk, and totally forgot about this.

Happens.

 

I got one more bottle from the shop mentioned by Azuma. Only one more to go. I think I am not going to talk to gremlin anytime soon, because he really pisses me off and my blade could just slip out of my hand, unintentionally.

 

Anyway, this raises some questions:

- will shopkeeper restock and get another bootle soon? When? More generally, how do shops restock in Exile 4?

- trap in Giscard's house was active, but treasure chest was empty. I probably deactivated/set off this trap when looting his house (and, of course, gremlin wine erased all my memories about that happening). Did he fix this trap and set it up again? Are other traps in game activated again after some time? Why does he guard an empty chest?

 

Cheers folks, thanks for help. It's time for me, to finish all unfinished business in Eastern Gallery and move on further, to Mertis! See you there, let's have some tasty mushrom ale in a cosy inn, I hope!

[Randomizer]

Shopkeepers don't restock.

 

Traps reset when you leave an area and return if you set them off instead of successfully remove them.

 

There is no Exile 4.

[Hobson]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Shopkeepers don't restock.

Got it. A little pity, tho.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Traps reset when you leave an area and return if you set them off instead of successfully remove them.

Understood, thanks.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

There is no Exile 4.

And should be! "Exile", the only correct title! No, seriously, I really liked that series, much more than Avernum, and I am realy used to that title. Anyway, Avernum series is great too, the best RPG I've ever played. I miss some exiled features, I like some new ones. But this topic is not a place for such discussion

Cheers!

[Evnissyen]

I preferred to kill Giscard. I liked the gremlin better. I like gremlins in general, actually. But I hate snobby landowners. Especially if they're living in Avernum, of all places.

 

The only thing I was sorry about was that innocent girl who got killed in the explosion. I looked around and she was gone... vaporized. I was sad.

 

Anyhow... it does, actually, seem odd that I can simply go upstairs in the gremlin's home, steal a couple bottles and then come back down and quest his own wine back to him. I suppose not all gremlins are as clever as they think they are. Granted that alcohol dulls the senses, but... aren't gremlins generally habitual drinkers?

 

Anyhow... I like Hobson's sense of sarcasm and righteousness. And he's from Poland, as well! One of my favorite authors is from Poland. Can anyone guess?

 

I'm almost sure nobody can.

[Upon Mars.]

Is it Kallimach or Conrad Celtis.

[Sleeping Dragon]

Originally Posted By: Evnissyen

Anyhow... it does, actually, seem odd that I can simply go upstairs in the gremlin's home, steal a couple bottles and then come back down and quest his own wine back to him. I suppose not all gremlins are as clever as they think they are. Granted that alcohol dulls the senses, but... aren't gremlins generally habitual drinkers?

It is entirely possible that the gremlin is particularly lazy and he was in fact very thankful that you brought his wine to him so he wouldn't have to get up and grab it himself.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Evnissyen

One of my favorite authors is from Poland. Can anyone guess?

I'm almost sure nobody can.

The only one I've read is Stanislav Lem (and it's been years).

Edit - I forgot about Joseph Conrad, even though he is classified as a British author, he was born in Poland.

[Evnissyen]

Upon Mars is quite a joker... as well as admirably obscure.

 

Randomizer:

Lem... I have not read, though I've been meaning to for the longest time. The fact(?) that he was offended by Andrei Tarkovsky's film interpretation of his book makes me suspicious of his intellectual depth... but I cannot form an honest and fair opinion on him until I've read some of his stuff. Any comments to alleviate my ignorance in the meantime? Any suggestions on which books of his I might read to get a good idea? (I suppose I'll have to read Solaris, just to get the perspective.)

 

I heard that the notably shallower Soderbergh remake did meet his approval... but again, this is only hearsay.

 

And as for Joseph Conrad... I did not realize he was Polish-born, probably because I haven't read any of his stuff [yet]. But... now I know; thanks.

 

The answer is Witold Gombrowicz.

 

 

And Sleeping Dragon:

Yes, I suppose that's a possibility. I hadn't thought of that.

[Randomizer]

It's been decades since I've read Lem and Solaris was one I didn't read. It was mostly his short stories so I didn't have much of an opinion except it was fairly readable enough to make me read a few books.

[Hobson]

Finally, gremlin is gone. I managed to find one more bottle of wine in some dungeon where my party encountered one of these mean creatures a bit earlier. I wonder how comes that my archer, the biggest drunkard of my whole party, missed this bottle when looting dungeon.

I had a little chat with Nocidaus too. Actually, it was really boring chat. He died with loud "HOOCUUSS - POOOAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH" on his mouth.

The most challenging quest was to find mayor of Silvar. Really. No town hall, no office, no nothing. I'd never think that I can meet him in an inn.

 

Now I am on my way to Mertis. I already encountered those cauldron bones, creatures that scare poo out of me because of their scary look and toughness. Killed two of them, and I fear that there is much much more.

 

I have some general questions now:

- I have constant feeling that my characters just... suck. I did not tell them that, I do not want to end up fireblasted by my team mage a second after my slith warrior makes my insides go outside with his fork-shaped stick. Anyway, in Mertis, they are ~17lvl, with medium stats, medicore hits, at least their stuff is quite OK. Maybe the cause is that I play on medium difficulty level? would my characters get more xp when fighting on harder difficulty level?

- Is it possible to make a character wait until end of round and perform his action as last one? Or the only possibility is to skip a turn completely?

- why cave fish taste so bad, and smell even worse?

 

So... adventure continues. Crypt of evil lich, honeycomb... My least favourite places in whole Exile/Avernum series. I hope no gazers in honeycomb nowadays, my priest has read about them in some book and does not want to meet them.

 

Cheers!

[Randomizer]

Experience doesn't change with difficulty level.

 

Avernum 4 was the first of the Avernum series to not let a character wait to the end of the round to act.

[Evnissyen]

On the subject of experience: It has always annoyed me, with the SW games, that the amount of XP you get for killing people/creatures changes with your level, and that if you're too high a level then you get 0 XP. It's nice and all to have a set 1000 XP separating each level, but personally, in CRPGs, I prefer the system where XP gains never change but each level-gain progressively demands more XP.

 

The SW system is at its worst in the games where the character is allowed to wander freely anywhere.

[Sudanna]

Definitely. Nalyd always likes to see some progress being made. Otherwise he has no justification for being a bloodthirsty maniac.

[Brock The Archmage]

That is most annoying indeed. I find that it is much better to use a system similar to D and D, although maybe a little less extreme at high levels.

 

D and D XP is equal to the current xp had plus (current level multiplied by 1000). So maybe a little downsizing in the number of points area, but the scaling is what we are looking for here.

[Evnissyen]

Maybe somebody should convince Jeff to change the system? I'm sure he's got it well codified within his code, and all... but I'm not sure it should take all that much effort to change that calculation system?

 

Of course, now with the more linear system, it's not as much of a problem.

[Alorael at Large]

Is it actually a problem, though? The difference between 1 experience for a pathetic monster and 0 experience is negligible unless you are setting out to unbalance the game by slaughtering everything, in which case 0 experience is appropriate.

 

—Alorael, who notes that D&D did not, as of the previous edition, encourage giving out any experience for enemies that aren't a threat or a challenge. What D&D-based games do is another matter entirely.

[Randomizer]

It depends which edition of D and D you are playing. 1st and 2nd editions had fixed experience and increasing amounts needed to go up each level. 3rd and I haven't looked at 4th editions had a modifier based upon the difference between player level and monster level.

 

Jeff's earlier games used the older system and Geneforge and Avernum 4 and 5 used the modern system. I suppose no longer getting the message that the monster was too weak to give experience is an improvement.

[Lilith]

As far as your characters sucking goes: you're currently in the hardest part of the game. So yes, they'll suck in comparison to what you're up against. Nociduas is generally considered the most difficult fight (at least on higher difficulty levels), so if he didn't give you any trouble, you're probably doing OK. I hope you got the special armour in that area: it's good enough to last one character for the rest of the game.

[Evnissyen]

Leaving AD&D out of it, because honestly, D&D rules ar irrelevant: It's important because if you're originally awarded 25 XP for a measly goblin at level 1 then you should get 25 XP for a measly goblin at level 20.

 

As I said: It would be more important in scenarios like G1 & G2 and a A1-3 and Nethergate, where you were allowed to do more wandering around. I do not like going through an area and not getting any XP simply because I hadn't realized it was an area I should've hit at an earlier point.

 

Going linear has its advantages.

[Alorael at Large]

But why? If the amount of experience needed goes up as it would have to, the 25 experience out of 250,000 would be as insignificant as 0 is now. The only difference would be feeling slightly better about rewards and inflated experience values to wrap your head around.

 

—Alorael, who could see a path-independent experience solution. You get 25 experience for a goblin no matter what your level when you kill it. You also get 25 experience for the end-games black hell übergoblins no matter what your level. 1000 experience always gains you a level. The only benefit to playing the game in the appropriate order is making things easier for yourself. And this game would require definite control over total number of experience sources.

[Evnissyen]

Exactly: If I get 25 XP per kill trying to clear an area I should've cleared 4 levels prior, then it's better than getting 0 XP per kill which makes clearing the area a chore. Line up a whole bunch of those areas, and you've got a boring several hours. At least if you gained some XP for your trouble, then it might be not quite worthless, and a little less of a chore. So, yes: It'd make me feel better.

[Toby-Linn]

Sorry to interrupt the xp discussion, but Crenshaw (the wine seller besides Camp Samuels) also has a bottle of gremlin wine in his bedroom trunk.

 

And the bandits in the Honeycomb (led by Hosharr) have a bottle of gremlin wine as well.

 

That is all.