Avernum 6 - Dual Weapons - Return of the Buzzsaw

[Randomizer]

With the return of dual weapons from the old Exile games, we now have the return of the hasted dual weapon fighter as a buzzsaw cutting down his foes with 4 or more attacks per round.

 

Sadly we no longer have hasted divine warriors getting 3 attacks with 2 weapons per round. But we still will abuse the systems as much as possible. Haste has been weaken to Geneforge 5 where there is only a chance of a second attack per round unless you use a speed potion/elixir. This will give 2 attacks with 2 weapons.

 

So buying and crafting speed potions will become more important for those fights where a fighter is needed. There will be a tradeoff between crafting speed potions versus energy potions for the most damage in a combat.

 

Then there are the bonus action point (AP) items to get AP level up to a guaranteed second attack. Mecuric armor is more valuable for fighters with the Fast on Feet trait for a chance at another attack. Now there is a tradeoff with which two traits do you want to raise damage. Elite Warrior, Divine Touch, and Fast on Feet all become useful for a pure fighter.

 

Battle disciplines become really significant in order to unlock the last battle discipline where you get bonus AP. You could get them all by level 20 in Avernum 5 without using many skill points, but now you want to get it earlier for the chance at extra attacks.

 

After all the best defense is dead enemies. Who needs a shield when there isn't anything left to hurt you?

 

Any other abuses before Jeff changes his mind?

[Jawaj]

We don't know for sure how dual weapons will work, don't assume it's the same as Exile yet...it might come with some sort of penalty in addition to loss of a shield.

[Slawbug]

Dual-wielding _did_ come with a penalty in Exile. It was easy to overcome the penalty at high levels, but it did effectively prevent dual-wielding warriors in the early game.

[Alorael at Large]

Two weapons with each weapon doing half damage or even less might balance right. The benefit would be mostly the chance to get stat bonuses from two weapons rather than one.

 

—Alorael, who of course acknowledges that getting bonuses from quickslots would also have to be fixed.

[Randomizer]

There were ways to fix the penalties at the start with high dexterity and weapon skills. You just have to decide where to min/max to take advantage of the system.

 

At least this fixes the problem of too many weapons and no one to use them.

[Jawaj]

I know it had a penalty in Exile, but didn't the ambidextrous trait (which had a pretty light XP reduction iirc) remove it?

 

And quickslots give bonuses? I didn't know that...what is the bonus, and does it apply to Geneforge too?

[Randomizer]

Avernum 4 had weapons in quickslots giving their bonuses as if they were equiped. So you could get weapon bonuses from 4 weapons placed in quickslots.

 

So you could use a sword and shield, but still get the AP bonus from the Cryos Spear (two handed weapon) in the quickslot.

 

I think Jeff removed it for Avernum 5, but I never checked.

[Slawbug]

That's true about Exile, though not Exile 1 itself, which had no traits.

 

I thought the quickslot bug was fixed in A5?

[Alorael at Large]

Maybe it was. I haven't ever used it with particular intensity, although I suppose it could go very well with the weapons that have nice bonuses and terrible damage, or just many weapons with small bonuses.

 

—Alorael, who really didn't see anything worth abusing in A5. A4 had Demonslayer, which had a permanent quickslot home for good reason.

[Øther]

I remember that in A5, I had gone through a runthrough using the editor, and once I got everything maxed (tht means around forty), my characters started to get extra AP per round.

[Slawbug]

Yes, that's from the confusingly named Quick Strike skill.

[Zummi]

Darn it. Jeff's always bringing the good stuffs at the end of a series. First one was the Battle Creations buff in G5 and now this? I will not play this game!

 

...

 

Ok, I went overboard there but still.

[The Mystic]

I'll just be glad to have dual wielding again. It'll be nice to mow down anything I can't blast away.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Who needs a shield when there isn't anything left to hurt you?

Exactly; shields make great novelty items, don't they? Just don't try to use one as a frisbee.

[Dark.Fenix]

woot, dual wield back is good, i remember when i abused it in E2 with assassination skill

 

but... shields will now fall in the shadows as they will become rather useless enless they are "stats sticks".

 

im curious if we can abuse the system so that dual becomes better than poles, or if in the end we can abused poles to get same effect.

 

hope the creator doesnt remember to make the second weapon ekiped to do half dmg to compensate for all the "abuseness" that we will certainly do.

 

still, was good to actualy have fighters using poles as i discarded them in all exile games.

[Lilith]

I'm kind of hoping that dual-wielding will be limited to sword+dagger/shortsword rather than two swords. It seems like it'd force players to make more interesting choices.

[Dark.Fenix]

hmm this jsut crossec my mind:

how will the batle disciples work with dual wield? like well-aimed blow and mighty blow wich say ur next atack will cause more dmg, will this only afect ur first hit with sword or will be changed to afect both swings in that attack?

[Randomizer]

Mighty blow and well aimed blow affected only the first target hit in A5. You could see this with haste and magic spells.

 

This makes wrack and battle frenzy more important.

[Slawbug]

That's true, but if Quick Action activated, they affected both blows, didn't they? So they could cover two hits to one target.

[Randomizer]

Having all the battle disciplines in the demo or unlocking your inner buzzsaw.

 

While I can't test whether this is a viable character build, if you use an non-human custom character and put all skill points to weapon skills you can get the 20 levels in weapon skills to unlock all the battle disciplines.

 

If you waste 30 skill points for pole weapons, then you can do it by level 4 with:

 

nephil build

melee weapons - 8

pole weapons - 6

missle weapons - 6

thrown weapons - 6

 

slith build

melee weapons - 8

pole weapons - 8

missle weapons - 4

thrown weapons - 4

 

If you don't waste skill points for pole weapons then it will take more levels. Picking the lowest cost per combat level between melee, missle, and thrown weapons.

 

It will probably take until level 8 to do it for a workable character since you want some strength for armor.

[Dark.Fenix]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Mighty blow and well aimed blow affected only the first target hit in A5. You could see this with haste and magic spells.

This makes wrack and battle frenzy more important.

my doubt was if the blows aftect both weapons on the attack. like ur right hand sword hits and get bonus and then ur left hand sword and get bonus also or not.

[Jawaj]

Yeah, there are a lot of things we don't know. I'm not saying dual wielding will definitely not be overpowered, but we shouldn't assume yet that it'll work just like Exile and that it will be absolutely the best option for fighters and will be gamebreaking.

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: Jawaj

Yeah, there are a lot of things we don't know. I'm not saying dual wielding will definitely not be overpowered, but we shouldn't assume yet that it'll work just like Exile and that it will be absolutely the best option for fighters.

We will see when beta-testers get their hands on A6. I doubt shield will get abandoned since extra-protection helps against boss-monsters.

[Skippy the bush kangaroo]

Originally Posted By: Earth2025

We will see when beta-testers get their hands on A6. I doubt shield will get abandoned since extra-protection helps against boss-monsters.

We will also see how long it takes for it to be redone when the beta-testers abuse it for all it's worth. I predict at least two iterations of the system between whatever it is now and whatever it is when the game is finally released.

One thing Jeff can rely on beta-testers to do is work the system for all it's worth - that's what he 'pays' them for.

[Earth]

i bet it won't take long, 2-3 days.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Dark.Fenix

dual wield back is good, i remember when i abused it in E2 with assassination skill

And let's not forget having two weapons enchanted to do an extra bit of fire/cold/whatever damage, and you can really kill stuff.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Skippy the bush kangaroo

One thing Jeff can rely on beta-testers to do is work the system for all it's worth - that's what he 'pays' them for.

That isn't necessarily a good thing though - what percentage of Jeff's customers are going to play the game like a beta-tester, exploiting the system in every way they can?

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: teh best of teh edge

Originally Posted By: Skippy the bush kangaroo

One thing Jeff can rely on beta-testers to do is work the system for all it's worth - that's what he 'pays' them for.

That isn't necessarily a good thing though - what percentage of Jeff's customers are going to play the game like a beta-tester, exploiting the system in every way they can?

Very few, but beta-testers are good at showing which fights are too hard for normal people. We are mostly there to find errors and find ways to make those tough boss fights into cakewalks. You people missed seeing Lysstakk the Beast cowering in the corner from a simple terror wand.

I predict system abuse will be within hours of the testing start when Jeff finds out my fighter is starting with almost all the battle disciplines. Too bad daggers don't do much damage.

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Very few, but beta-testers are good at showing which fights are too hard for normal people. We are mostly there to find errors and find ways to make those tough boss fights into cakewalks. You people missed seeing Lysstakk the Beast cowering in the corner from a simple terror wand.

I predict system abuse will be within hours of the testing start when Jeff finds out my fighter is starting with almost all the battle disciplines. Too bad daggers don't do much damage.

LMAO @ Lysstak comment.

yeah with all battle disciplines but very unlikely that normal player gets all discips.

like who would use dagger instead of sword?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

In one of the Avernum games (A3? I forget) the lowly Stick was the best weapon in the game, so you never know.

[Slawbug]

Not quite. In A4, the Stick was the best _non-Pole_ weapon if (and only if) you had extremely high levels of battle skills (Strength, Melee Weapons, and Blademaster) to make up for the lost weapon levels of damage and to-hit. Even then, its complete lack of special abilities makes it an unlikely best choice, even if it could sometimes outdamage Demonslayer.

[Alorael at Large]

In A3 punching played the same role. Fists had no 200 damage cap. They were also unlikely to reach the cap at all.

 

—Alorael, who wonders if A4's adventurers were inspired by Miyamoto Musashi and missed the part about turning wood into a sword.

[Abhishek]

And do someone know the mathematical cap of A5?

It cant be acheived practically i think.

My mage with 15spellcraft,12magery 4 arcane blow did 231 damage at maximum.

307 with everything maxed by editor=10 arcane blow+41 spellcraft+41 magery+41 mage spell.

(clearly damage is not actually increased,what you expect from mathematics)

And 473 was highest with 10 arcane blow+41 spellcraft+41 magery+41 mage spell+mighty blow.

Eh the observations are not leding to any result at all at all

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: fall and recovery

—Alorael, who wonders if A4's adventurers were inspired by Miyamoto Musashi and missed the part about turning wood into a sword.

hey look what i found

Originally Posted By: Abhishek

And do someone know the mathematical cap of A5?
It cant be acheived practically i think.

32767 damage.

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: Thuryl

32767 damage.

if reaches that then all enemies are 1 hit kill (all are 1 hit kill way before that).

[Dark.Fenix]

Originally Posted By: Thuryl

hey look what i found

LOL!!!!

[Zalatar]

What makes you so sure it's 2^15-1 (32767)?

That would imply a 16-bit variable. I suppose it's possible. Are you sure it isn't a 32-bit?

Does anyone even know what language it's written in?

That would be significant. Because if it is C++ (a language I'm familiar with), there would be a conflict between notational convenience and memory consumption.

Either an 'int', 32 bits in which case the maximum is either 2^31-1=2147483647 or a program-set limit.

Or a 'short int', 16 bits which produces the 32767.

That is if the integers are signed. If they're unsigned, they're 2^32-1=4294967295 and 2^16-1=65355 respectively.

 

For those who don't know much about the details of computers or programming, look it up on the internet or on wikipedia how integers are traditionally handled.

 

Either ways, unless you have the source code, because damages of 473 have been seen it will be almost impossible to prove the true limit. Only a record maximum. The health may be a 16 bit integer since nobody really needs more than 60000 health, or even 1000 health. Unless you fail.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Zalatar

What makes you so sure it's 2^15-1 (32767)?
That would imply a 16-bit variable. I suppose it's possible. Are you sure it isn't a 32-bit?
Does anyone even know what language it's written in?
That would be significant. Because if it is C++ (a language I'm familiar with), there would be a conflict between notational convenience and memory consumption.

It's written in C++, and I'm sure the limit is 32767 because if you hit for more than that amount of damage in Blades of Avernum (using custom weapons) you end up doing no damage. Jeff reuses a lot of code, so I don't see why it would have changed between the games.

[Zalatar]

I suppose. If/when Avernum is open sourced (see May Avernum 6 update, page 5 I think) the max should be a 32-bit just to be cool. After all, doing 2000000000+ damage obviously isn't over-doing it.

There could be another penalty for dual wielding that I haven't seen anybody mention. What if dual wielding took extra ap? It does take a bit longer to swing two weapons. Even if it's a simultaneous swing, like the popular but really stupid 'scissors' cut attack thing which you merely have to duck and stab to parry, you still unbalance yourself greatly. The effect of dual wielding should be very small for daggers/knives/other very small and light-weight weapons because they can be moved so quickly. Maybe the weight value for the item can be factored. It's an already existing system.

[SacredPath_82]

can we have graphics for characters wielding a shield again like in the older games?

That way, dual wielding might own everything from a powergaming perspective, but at least not artistically speaking

[Earth]

by looking on screenshots i doubt that.