Couple of questions on game mechanics, money, etc.

[Horn of Ammon]

Hello, from a first time poster. I've been a very long time fan of Spiderweb games, from Exile 3 back in 1997 through Avernum 4. I'm about finished with the demo for this game, and I do have some questions I couldn't find the answers for in previous posts.

 

1) Your party can only start with the first five spells for mage/priest, not the first seven mentioned in the instructions, right?

 

2) Do the negative to-hit modifiers from armor go directly into the same formula with the positive to-hit modifiers, or do they apply afterward? I assume that the max TH is 95%, so in the first case if you have more than 100% from skills/items, the -TH will subtract directly and can still result in 95% TH. Whereas n the second case, any -TH armor would effectively make it impossible to reach 95%. From playing it seems like it's the first case since my skilled fighters almost never miss despite heavy armor, but I just want to make sure.

 

3) Same question as above but for enemy dexterity, parry, and other -TH modifiers. Once again it appears that they apply in the same formula, since my fighters seldom miss.

 

4) Without too much spoiling, how tight is gold later throughout the game? In the GamesFAQ walkthrough it says it's very tight and needs to be conserved for later constructed items and training. So will I regret it later if I ever buy an item or improve an early spell level now, or is there some room for spending?

 

Thanks!

[Txgangsta]

1) I have never been able to start with anything but the first 5 spells for mage/priest; I do not think it is possible to get more.

 

2) I too would assume the first case.

 

3) I would believe so.

 

4) Its tight. Spend lightly. Unless you want completely decked out characters, spending a little isn't huge deal, but definitely don't over spend.

 

If you want to know whats good to buy, click the spoiler below. (barely a spoiler)

 

Click to reveal..

Buy wisdom crystals, knowledge brews, and mandrake root

 

If you want to know what not to buy: (barely a spoiler)

 

Click to reveal..

Most things you'll find sooner or later.

 

If you want to know about spells: (more like advice)

 

Click to reveal..

Learning them is ok, upgrading them beyond that is not worth it imo

 

If you want to know whats good to sell:

 

Click to reveal..

Most things, except of course whats good to buy.

 

This next one is a big spoiler compared to the others (which were tiny), and I can't word it so its not a spoiler, so click it if your kinda worried about your money situation, or not if you'd rather not have a potential spoiler:

 

Click to reveal..

Don't sell mined crystals

 

Further info on the spoiler above if you want to know more about what was said:

 

Click to reveal..

They're a quest item, and someone later in the game pays more than the person earlier

 

P.S. If one of the mods could come fill in where I could not, that'd help HoA. Thanks.

[Alorael at Large]

Money isn't available in endless amounts, but it's not exactly tight. You can use it in endless quantities to improve your party, but the game is quite playable if you don't. Really, there's no cutoff: the more you spend on other things earlier, the less you can optimize for the endgame.

 

—Alorael, who is a light min-maxer. He tries not to waste money, and he doesn't get upset when he decides to spend it.

[Øther]

About the spell thing, it is helpful to have levels in most spells, but there are always going to be spells you don't really tend to use. If there is a spell that you really like and use very often, then it would be alright to buy more levels.

Click to reveal..

but if its a spell you don't really think you will use, it might not even be worth it to buy a single level of it, since you will probably discover some book teaching it somewhere.

[Horn of Ammon]

Thanks for the responses guys! Bought the full version and am in the Drake Pillars area now. Armor % is still confusing though - after hitting 60% armor for most characters, I've just noticed the +Armor % for each piece of equipment is not strictly additive. There seems to be an upper limit which becomes harder and harder to reach as the values go higher.

 

For example, my level 9 slith, endurance 6, with Divinely Touched, has 24% armor naked. I then add:

iron helmet (4%)

plated vambraces (+6%)

coated cloak (+4%)

iron bracers (+8%)

nimble sandals (+2%)

blessed belt (+5%)

ring shield (+4%)

(total = 33%)

 

and reach 48% (not 57% as expected). Then, if I add an iron breastplate (+22%), I hit 62%; with a blessed breastplate (+34%), I only get to 68%. Adding a blessed shield (+12%) only improves it to 71%. So it seems there's a limit that I'm coming to quickly.

 

But interestingly enough, it seems I can still make marginal gains of 1% by making small improvements on the other slots. E.g., by switching the iron helmet (+4%) for a steel helmet (+5%), I can raise the 71% to 72%; then to 73% by switching the sandals (+2%) to boots (+4%). Distributing weight/+armor across different slots rather than in one slot may have strategic implications, then.

 

SO - could someone let me know how this all works? Is the upper limit based on my stats / level, or some arbitrary number? I'm a nit when it comes to mechanics in RPG's (and also playing on Torment for the first time), so help is appreciated

 

Addendum:

Interesting enough, the increases in resistances (1/2 * +Armor for worn armor) are strictly additive. E.g. my slith's cold resistance went from 4% to 37% after adding 67% worth of armor (sum of item info +armor).

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Horn of Ammon

For example, my level 9 slith, endurance 6, with Divinely Touched, has 24% armor naked. I then add:
iron helmet (4%)
plated vambraces (+6%)
coated cloak (+4%)
iron bracers (+8%)
nimble sandals (+2%)
blessed belt (+5%)
ring shield (+4%)
(total = 33%)

and reach 48% (not 57% as expected). Then, if I add an iron breastplate (+22%), I hit 62%; with a blessed breastplate (+34%), I only get to 68%. Adding a blessed shield (+12%) only improves it to 71%. So it seems there's a limit that I'm coming to quickly.

Multiply armor %'s as decimals- don't add them. To makethe matt easier, just subtract the armor % from 100 and then multiply that instead. So you'd get:
base (.76)
iron helmet (.96)
plated vambraces (.94)
coated cloak (.96)
iron bracers (.92)
nimble sandals (.98)
blessed belt (.95)
ring shield (.96)

Multiplying this out gets about .54, which corresponds to what, about 46%? Attribute the difference to rounding errors or a math mistake on my part.

The limit you speak of is mathematical. You're multiplying together numbers that are smaller that 1 and larger than 0. In order for you to reach 0 (100% armor), you'd have to multiply an infinite amount of numbers together, which means that you'd need to be wearing infinite pieces of armor. It's impossible to actually hit 0, but I think you can reach about .1 with all the best armor, corresponding to 90% protection.

EDIT: Not counting luck/hardiness/resistance/race bonuses/trait bonuses, the best most protective armor in the game gets you 0.175753, which is about 82% armor. But I think you could get it up higher with Good Constitution and a ton of skill points.

[Quiconque]

There actually is a hard limit of 90% for armor and resistances. It is, as Dantius says, quite hard to reach. Armor protection is multiplied together. Because of this, it is actually MORE beneficial to have lots of protection in one piece of armor, rather than a little protection in many.

 

Certain traits also contribute to armor, as do certain skills. In your case, Divinely Touched gives you 20%, and you probably have a few points of Hardiness that you didn't mention -- those provide armor at 2% per point, calculated altogether as if they were one piece of equipment. Luck does the same thing at 1% per point.

 

WHAT THIS MEANS IN PRACTICE: Don't stress over armor. I mean, optimize what you have, for sure, but a difference of a couple percentage points in the strength of your gloves or boots or whatever is not going to make any noticeable difference in the damage you take.

[Earth]

also change plated vambraces, nimble sandals, iron bracers and iron helmets to better things soon.

[Horn of Ammon]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Horn of Ammon

For example, my level 9 slith, endurance 6, with Divinely Touched, has 24% armor naked. I then add:
iron helmet (4%)
plated vambraces (+6%)
coated cloak (+4%)
iron bracers (+8%)
nimble sandals (+2%)
blessed belt (+5%)
ring shield (+4%)
(total = 33%)

and reach 48% (not 57% as expected). Then, if I add an iron breastplate (+22%), I hit 62%; with a blessed breastplate (+34%), I only get to 68%. Adding a blessed shield (+12%) only improves it to 71%. So it seems there's a limit that I'm coming to quickly.

Multiply armor %'s as decimals- don't add them. To makethe matt easier, just subtract the armor % from 100 and then multiply that instead. So you'd get:
base (.76)
iron helmet (.96)
plated vambraces (.94)
coated cloak (.96)
iron bracers (.92)
nimble sandals (.98)
blessed belt (.95)
ring shield (.96)

Multiplying this out gets about .54, which corresponds to what, about 46%? Attribute the difference to rounding errors or a math mistake on my part.

The limit you speak of is mathematical. You're multiplying together numbers that are smaller that 1 and larger than 0. In order for you to reach 0 (100% armor), you'd have to multiply an infinite amount of numbers together, which means that you'd need to be wearing infinite pieces of armor. It's impossible to actually hit 0, but I think you can reach about .1 with all the best armor, corresponding to 90% protection.

EDIT: Not counting luck/hardiness/resistance/race bonuses/trait bonuses, the best most protective armor in the game gets you 0.175753, which is about 82% armor. But I think you could get it up higher with Good Constitution and a ton of skill points.

Fantastic! I originally considered that it was some sort of multiplicative formula, but I didn't consider subtracting each % from 100% to find each of the multipliers (was instead trying to add the products of each each armor value multiplied by the original, which was way off ). And yes, under this system it would be better to have one slot have very high armor % rather than several slots with moderate armor %, assuming the same sum of armor values. I suppose the marginal 1% gains I was getting by switching from 3% to 4% in some slots was just due to rounding.

Perhaps someone should link this post to the Strategy Central sticky - I did a number of searches looking for armor % values and could not find a similar discussion as done here.

One more question on weapons follows.

Thanks.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Horn of Ammon

Fantastic! I originally considered that it was some sort of multiplicative formula, but I didn't consider subtracting each % from 100% to find each of the multipliers (was instead trying to add the products of each each armor value multiplied by the original, which was way off ).

It's not something Jeff does. That's called, IIRC, DeMorgan's Law (Or is it deMoivre's Theorem? One is complex exponents, and one is logic. I forget which is which >.>). It would still be possible to find it without using the subtracting from one method, but then you'd need to go through a longer process that's much more complicated in order to get the same result.

[Horn of Ammon]

Next question, on when to switch my Nephil Archer/Priest from a shortbow to a longbow. So oddly enough, the best shortbow I currently have is a Blessed Bow (11-22 dmg) while the best longbow is just a Cavewood Longbow (2-6 dmg). Please check these proposed calculations:

 

For damage ONLY, I assume the number of dice rolls = base dice (11 blessed SB, 2 for cavewood LB) + X (bonus dice from PC), where X = Dex + Bow Skill + Sharpshooter. So I believe the equation for when the average damage output of the cavewood LB will equal the blessed SB is:

 

[(x+11)+2(x+11)]/2 = [(x+2)+3(x+2)]/2

Solve to x = 25

 

Currently, my archer has Dex 6, Bow, 11, and Sharpshooter 5 (x=22), so the Blessed Bow will be better for pure damage output until I gain 3 levels of these, assuming the Cavewood LB is still my only LB (no spoilers please).

 

Now, for to-hit %, I found a post from Slarties earlier saying that the weapon's base dice is also added to the PC's bonus dice for the purposes of adding to-hit bonuses of 5% each (which is mentioned nowhere in the instructions ). Let's assume I reach 25 bonus dice (x=25), and that I have -20% TH from armor items. So if Slarties is right, then I would would have the following to-hit's for each bow :

 

Blessed SB = 50 + 11*5 + 25*5 - 20 = 210% TH

Cavewood LB = 50 + 2*5 + 25*5 - 20 = 165% TH

 

I'd clearly want every shot to hit, though I suspect there is a 95% TH max. For the longbow, then, I would drop below 95% TH if my target had "evasion defense stat" > 14. I don't know how the latter stat is calculated - I know each level of enemy Dex adds 1, but not any other bonuses (defense? parry?). So guessestimates on average monsters' evasion stats would be helpful, at least in Chapter 3 on Torment where I am.

 

If you guys can help me with the specifics, I think we can make the above into a useful generic formula for deciding when to switch from a weapon with higher base dice but a lower multiplier and an alternative with vice versa, which I think is a common situation. (So no need to tell me that there's longbows better than the cavewood around ).

 

Thanks, from an old-school dice RPGer.

[Txgangsta]

Cavewood longbow is 2-6, but otherwise I think your correct.