A:EftP - Information on Many Abilities

[Slawbug]

1. Divine Retribution does physical damage. That may be intentional. What is probably not intentional is that the spell is increased by DEXTERITY instead of INTELLIGENCE. This really sucks and makes the best and most unique priest attack much, much less useful.

 

2. As in Avadon, healing does not increase from having high INT, only from points in Priest Spells skill. This means it is quite possible to have secondary Mass Healers -- it's only 8 skill points for Mass Healing and that will also get you the very useful Unshackle Mind spell. You'll miss out on the Spellcraft bonus and the bonus for the extra priest levels, but that's it, and you'll have more than adequate SP to use for healing without putting any points in INT.

 

3. Adrenaline Rush is better than Battle Frenzy. Battle Frenzy gives a total of 5 extra attacks, but costs 1 attack to use. Adrenaline Rush gives 2 extra attacks and does not cost an attack to use. Thus AR gives you an extra 2 attacks every 8 turns, but the extra attacks come early; while BF gives you an extra 4 attacks every 12 turns, but your first attack is delayed and it takes 3 turns for you to actually get ahead of where you'd be if you didn't use any discipline. Additionally, you can often get the BF effect with a level 3 Haste spell, so the discipline is just not necessary.

 

4. There are 11 points in basic weapon skills available from items. Most of these items are good enough to equip through the entire game and some are available early on. Since there are also trainers for all the basic weapon skills, this means that magic-users can get to 15 weapon skills for Adrenaline Rush with little to no skill point investment. Needless to say AR on spellcasters is pretty gross as casting 3 Fireblasts and 3 Divine Fires in one turn will kill almost anything that's not a boss -- and it will kill some bosses too.

 

5. Based on my testing, it seems like percentile damage bonuses are added and then applied; they are not applied one at a time the way armor is. Thus, +20% to damage and +50% to damage will give you 170% damage, not 180% damage. I am not 100% sure about this (no pun intended) but that is the better fit for the data.

 

6. The penalty for dual wielding is EXACTLY -20% to-hit, and -20% to damage. This damage penalty is applied as above, which means that it effectively shrinks once you start to stack up other damage bonuses from Blademaster, traits, and the like. For example, a character with 10 Blademaster who dual wields will do 110% damage, not 104% damage. (Another way of looking at this is that Blademaster is better for dual-wielders since it will increase their damage by 3/80 rather than by 3/100.)

 

7. Dual Wielding skill appears to add +2% to-hit and +2% to damage per point. Training it above 10 will definitely give you more than +20% to-hit, and I believe it increases damage as well. Thus, the skill not only counteracts the penalty, but allows you to become more accurate and more damaging than a single-wielder is capable of!

 

8. Critical hits do extra damage. In A6 they did around 140% damage. In Avadon the manual said they did 150% damage. The actual amount is somewhere in that range. It may be 150% exactly or 140% exactly, not sure.

 

9. Lethal Blow just increases your chance of getting critical hits. I'm not sure what the base chance is, but I think it is nonzero. Also, contrary to what the tooltip says, I am pretty sure that Lethal Blow increases this chance for spells as well as for weapons. Finally, I am moderately suspicious that the increase is more than 3% per point (maybe 5% per point), but this is very hard to test for. If it is actually 5%, this makes Lethal Blow a reasonable skill to invest in (your actual increase in damage output will be the equivalent of about +3% bonus damage), although it is still not BETTER than Blademaster.

 

10. Blademaster does NOT help fatigue recovery if you have no other fatigue recovery bonuses. When you do have other bonuses, I have been unable to observe any bonus from Blademaster either, although it is possible there is a very small one. I wouldn't count on it, though.

 

11. Sniper gives you a chance of having a bow attack use 5 AP instead of 9 AP. It can only activate once per turn, however, if it does not activate on your first attack and you are making mutliple attacks, it can still activate on a later attack. What this means is that Sniper is only helpful if you start the turn with 6-9, 15-18, or 24-27 AP. The two later ranges are fairly unusual. Unfortunately this means that Sniper is almost completely useless if you plan on giving your archer two +AP items, or a +AP item and Gymnastics (which is one of the skills below Sniper!), or if you use Adrenaline Rush, or Battle Frenzy...

 

12. PLUS, it seems that Sniper's extra shot will NOT activate if the Haste bonus has already activated this turn, and vice versa. Eww, gross. What a crappy skill!

 

13. 10 Magical Efficiency reduces the average cost of spells (or at least, expensive spells) by 50%. The reduction varies somewhat, but for Ward of Elements (cost 75) the observed range in 20 trials was 26-48, and 75% of trials were between 33-41. So the variation seems to be less extreme than in the past.

[Spidweb]

"Divine Retribution does physical damage."

 

This is a bug. It will do magical damage in v1.0.1.

 

Damage bonuses are added, not multiplied. It does indeed work differently than armor.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Randomizer]

Thanks Slarty

 

I was wondering why Divine Retribution had such a low to hit chance compared to other spells.

[Slawbug]

Ooh, cool. Thanks Jeff!

[Jerakeen]

This is awesome, Slarty! Thank you. Though Sniper came in quite handy in the early game, so I guess I won't regret the few points I put into it.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Also keep in mind the cloak of curses-style effect, which adds some utility throughout the game. Even so, the skill is far from amazing, but it's a bit better than the above description suggests.

[Slawbug]

Some utility, yes. Randomly and infrequently attempting to give a single foe a random status which isn't even likely to be a useful one, and which could be resisted anyway...

 

I guess the litmus test I'm using is "would I rather add a point in this skill, or in one of the basic skills that are not capped at 10?" In this case I would almost certainly prefer a point in bows, or even a point in priest spells to give the archer some healing ability, to a point in Sniper. I'd also definitely prefer a point in Lethal Blow.

[Triumph]

What skills are "capped at 10," and what does that "cap" mean in this game?

[Randomizer]

Capped means that you can't raise a skill above that point using skill points and/or the editor. However after reaching the cap you can raise it more using a trainer and items.

 

Luck is capped at 5.

 

All other abilities above the lowest tier and cave lore are capped at 10.

[Death Knight]

Does anyone have any info on quick action with regards to fatigue restoring? Im not sure how much fatigue is removed as it seems that blademaster doesnt add to removal of fatigue.

[Jerakeen]

To expand a bit on point #3:

 

Even passive Battle Disciplines are now considered to be an action, and will use up to 9 AP when activated. This is a change from A5 and A6, and it's why Battle Frenzy sucks compared to Adrenaline Rush.

 

Because of this, it's essential that your character be where you want it before you activate AR; it will not even be able to take one step afterwards, since you can't move in combat after doing an action. So ranged fighters should have a clear line of sight to their target, and melee warriors should be right next to enough targets to use up all their hits. Fortunately, you have nothing to lose by using up your characters' AP (up to 9 of them, anyway) to place them where you want them before activating the discipline.

[Slawbug]

Death Knight: It works just like all fatigue removal. If you wear a 30% fatigue removal item, each round you have a 30% chance of removing an extra point of fatigue. Fatigue removal is always separate so if you also wear a 10% item, you will have a separate 10% chance to remove an extra point of fatigue; thus, you may remove 1, 2, or 3 points of fatigue. Quick Action is like an extra piece of equipment with a chance equal to 5% per point in Quick Action.

[Slawbug]

New Info:

 

14. CLOAKS provide varying benefits. I don't think the benefit has anything to do with the power level of the wizard (or item) casting the cloak, just whether it is a level 1, 2, or 3 cloak. And I haven't tested the level 3 cloaks as I don't have any of them yet. The numbers I got were:

 

+16% Blades level 1

+28% Blades level 2

 

+32% Bows level 1

+44% Bows level 2

 

+20% Arcane level 1

+30% Arcane level 2

 

I did not do tons of trials, but the data was consistent (yay for narrower damage ranges in this game!) so these should be pretty close to the actual numbers.

 

These are pretty great bonuses, and presumably the level 3 versions are better yet. This really lends credence to the concept of having most of your party use 1 attack type (e.g., 3 magic-users). Although admittedly, Cloak of the Arcane is not obtainable very early.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

I recall reading that Cloak of Bolts affected the damage from items (wands, scrolls, etc.) in A6. Do we know if that's the case in AEftP?

[Slawbug]

Good question. I have no idea. That could still be the case, but it could also be different, as it is evident that the primary ability chassis for AEFTP comes from Avadon.

 

I am also unlikely to test that because direct damage items suck pretty universally, but maybe somebody else will... the boost from Cloak of Bolts is huge, so this should be easy to check for.

[Randomizer]

There are two places where you can get level 1 Cloak of the Arcane without learning the spell. A pool southeast of Formello by boat and using the crystal at Fort Emerald if you are careful to avoid towns that remove it.

[Death Knight]

Slarty Said-"Critical hits do extra damage. In A6 they did around 140% damage. In Avadon the manual said they did 150% damage. The actual amount is somewhere in that range. It may be 150% exactly or 140% exactly, not sure."

 

Really? I dont remember avernum 6 having critical hits in the game. I only played the demo a bit so i probably wouldnt know. Interesting.

[Slawbug]

In A6, they were called lethal blows and only occured if you had the Lethal Blow skill. Other than that they seem to be functionally identical to critical hits in Avadon and AEFTP.