Curious Artila Gon Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Played Ruined World back in the day on my PowerMac until the OS itself died, then I was away from the Exile scene for over 10 years only recently to play AEFTP which, unlike the first Avernum remake brought all the old feelings back, except for the spell system which I thought was overly nerfed. I didn't follow the discussions over the years on these boards though I can somewhat gather that the old E3 system was considered too over powered. It could make sense within the plot though, if these were still the early, pre Vahnatai days in Exile and magic tech was a lot less developed at the time, it may have only been after Exile II with the Empire beaten back and humans getting Vahnatai magic tech that Exile magic really began to flourish. Other than all the enormous library of items, ranging form tremendously powerful to completely worthless, what I miss most is the whole also enormous E3 spell library of odd, quirky, useless, useful, cool, madly wonderful spells that made the whole spell system so fun. capture soul was useless, but going around the world capturing these powerful monsters and then setting them up against each other just for kicks was just incredible rpg. Some spells were just way ridiculously overpow3ered by the end, like Major haste and major blessing combined which made for a completely unstoppable force. Only problem was the enemies weren't equally ridiculously powerful by the time you got to that level. You could mix different spells, e.g : Stealth and Mass (or was it Major?) Pestilience, steal right into the middle of the enemy castle completely invisible and undetected casting Mass Pestilience repeatedly behind the walls as you walked. By the time you stepped out into the hall, you'd have piles of loot and dead monsters everywhere without ever being seen, getting into a single fight or drawing a blade. Incredible. If Jeff ever gets around to remaking E3 on the new engine, I hope he brings all this stuff back and more, it's the kind of thing that for me made Ruined World so unbelievably awesome, there was just so much stuff in a sandbox in which you could do nearly whatever you liked or thought of with totally unexpected effects. GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk S M Adventurer Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I like and miss Exile's spell library and system too. It is very fun to experiment with combos of certain spells. Sure, some spells weren't really useful much, but others are used liberally. The spell system is overpowered in the Exile engine. Casting Major Blessing a few times makes you practically immune to physical attacks by monsters because they will never hit you. Not to mention it will boost up your own warriors' damage output. Another spell that can be somewhat overpowered is Slow Group. While monsters with magic resistance/immunity will resist the Slowing effect, it will make all the other enemies (mainly enemy warriors and archers) unable to attack for a round. Then you get a whole bunch of free hits, especially if you combine it with Major Blessing. Some spells like Curse All and Pestilence can penetrate walls. I actually had a good time in the BoE Scenario Doom Moon by casting Pestilence in the main temple. Very effective to weaken some monsters before you even get to them. Another good and very useful spell is Wound. As far as I know, nothing can resist the damage from this spell because it's considered physical. I could go on and on, but I'll wait for others to make their opinions known. Upon Mars. and GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Cairo Jim Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I loved the old Exile spell library, especially when it got slightly amended in E2, and maybe again in E3. I also found the spell system a lot more useful and a wee bit more dynamic than the Avernum library. I used quite a few spells in Exile, as to compared to 4 or 5 in Avernum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 More than slightly amended: I believe it more than doubled from 56 spells to 114 spells between E1 and E2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Cairo Jim Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I couldn't really remember that much. I haven't played it so long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Thaluikhain Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I loved all the different spells in Exile3...there were a bunch I never used, but that didn't matter, had lots of stuff to play with. Scare, for example, not very useful to me. Spray fields was just wacky, and quickfire was never a good idea to actually cast, but lots of fun. Built a barrier of force walls to seal teh entrance of the first floor of the tower of shifting floors and cast quickfire behind it...unfortunately you don't get XP for golems you kill that way...still reckon that should have counted as me destroying that plague though. Most of the others have their uses, though. Also good that there's underpowered, but still useful, spells for when you don't want have spell points to waste. Fireball instead of firestorm when the enemies are more tightly clustered, flame cloud is a good bet when you are in HtH and the enemy is going to sit on the same square for a while, spark and goo have their uses etc. But, really, it's major haste (or blessing) mass charm and pestilence which are the really useful ones...maybe mass paralysis sometimes. Casting those first instead of going straight for the firestorms can make such a big difference. Also, with the right magic items and low encumbrance armour you can get 6 AP, when ahsted that goes up to 18. Dual wielding weapons with that...not bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Trenton. Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Why the first floor? That wont kill the plauge. You need to use it on the third floor to kill whatever is up there. But make sure to use the tunnel first under to get to the fourth and last crystal. Quick fire doesn't travel up and down special encounters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Artila Gon Posted March 11, 2012 Author Share Posted March 11, 2012 What I missed so much was the sheer scale and depth of the original spell system and it's tactical flavour. Yes, it was overpowered but overpowered in an awesome, epic kind of way. The number of options gave you different ways to battle. For instance, fireball, firestorm and divine thud (never a more inspiring name for an attack!) are completely different in a battle. The problem is to make monsters and AI just as tough and powerful. Like as I said above with pestilence and stealth, neither were all that special, but combine the two... and you got to win a fight or take out a dungeon in an entirely new, original way. More favourite combos, mass paralysis and stealth (ends up with a castle of silent statues), or mass charm and stealth. Mass paralysis and mind duel all the enemy magic users until they all get drained of their spell points and keel over, IIRC there was no cap on spell points in E3... and then with high level priest spell summon host you got four shades and a diva that you could pin point their spawn location around enemies... whereas in AEFTP divine host was just one shade pops out lol. Don't get me wrong, AEFTP is just as great as Exile but in a different way. I'm waiting for the remakes of CS and RW but after AEFTP, I now feel Averum is more of a parallel universe to Exile rather than an update with its battle more of the hack and slash variety. Upon Mars. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Thaluikhain Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Originally Posted By: Trenton the Drake Lord Why the first floor? That wont kill the plauge. You need to use it on the third floor to kill whatever is up there. But make sure to use the tunnel first under to get to the fourth and last crystal. Quick fire doesn't travel up and down special encounters. Well, yeah, but I meant from an in-story PoV. Quickfire would make quite a mess of the tower of shifting floors...very over-powered spell in that respect, but not really useful for gameplay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Trenton. Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 If it was that easy, just throw quick fire in rentars keep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ineffable Wingbolt Arch-Mage Solberg Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Originally Posted By: Trenton the Drake Lord If it was that easy, just throw quick fire in rentars keep. Throwing Quickfire into the fortress of the person who created it in the first place... doesn't seem like it would do too much damage as she could probably disable it! Post #656 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Rentar-Ihrno did not create Quickfire. She knew how to create it, but the recipe was certainly not hers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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