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Let's Play Blades of Avernum!


Chessrook44

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I think some icon adjustments don't work if fast graphic settings are turned on in the game's preferences. I remember that being an issue for other SW games of around the same era as well.

 

I expect it it has to do with the way Windows BITBLT works, as opposed to how it handled on the MAc.

 

See also Lazurus post #27 in the "List of Bugs thread.

 

> Color swaps do work, there's no debate there, but tints certainly do not. So 128, 256, and 512 shifts don't work for windows users.

 

and note that Pithos and the other Slith warriors have an icon_adjust of 256.

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That still doesn't explain deduct_ap()

 

Yeah, that is still a puzzler.

 

CG - scratching head, (this head)

 

I go for what works' date=' and feels fun at the time.[/quote']

And yet, like the gambler following the sunk cost fallacy, your build and your tactics depend too much on "getting lucky" and not on paying enough attention to the actual payoff. Blademaster et al are nice as rewards, but way over-priced for the effect.

 

I could barely believe it when you sold the 12d11 Greatsword of Wootness because "I don't use two-handed weapons." OK, so I GET that you're hung up on the sword-and-board image, but what exactly do you think "plus [1-n] points per level of Strength and Melee Weapons skill" means? Unless you're planning to engrave "Elbereth" somewhere, there's no real point in Fawkes' carrying around a 4d5 athamé (which by the way is not pronounced "anthem"), much less using it as his main melee weapon. You could have SOLD that turd long ago, and at least put the money toward the 7d6 Master Longsword. Even Shiek's 5d5 Assassin's Dagger beats it, to say nothing of the several 5d6 Fine Waveblades you'd also sold previously.

 

Likewise having Draco cast Fireballs (which might as well be Spitballs against resitant monsters) rather then spending the same 2 SP on Heal (and you'd be surprised how effective it is even with "only" 6 PS, given his Intelligence and Magery bonus) is not going to help you fighters stay alive. Remember, you don't win if you're dead, no matter how many spell points you had left.

 

Not even to mention the SP you regularly throw away on Arcane Summon, which even you admit pretty worthless as an offensive tactic. But that's been mentioned, and dismissed by you, enough times already.

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The reason I stick by the sword-and-board is less for the image, more for the fact that Shields DO provide their own boosts and benefits of their own. Added protection, and other side bonuses, that is. Stat bonuses and the like also can factor in to my choices, and given a choice between a 5d6 waveblade with no extra stats, and a 5d5 dagger that gives me decent bonuses to two of my skills... the dagger seems like the better option, as those skill boosts may actually pay for the loss of 5 points of damage.

 

Draco casting fireballs may often be due to the fact that I often get bothered by the fact that I sometimes get bothered by characters standing around doing nothing, which Draco often does. Plus it CAN be useful if a target appears to have next to no health left, if I think it could kill him.

 

I freely admit, I am not one who does build optimization, and I never go into the details of numbers and the like too deep to figure out things (Like the whole equation given about how many layers of web I toss on someone, I don't look into that). I often base things on how I've experienced them in the past too. Bind Foe always seemed useless to be, because webs always did nothing but prevent someone from moving more than one step. It wasn't until this scenario that I learned they could prevent a foe from moving entirely. Which... is what this scenario has been doing, in a way. A lot of teaching.

 

Anyway, time for the next episode, where I use the plans and ideas I developed with Kelandon's help to try to get through.

 

 

 

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Which... is what this scenario has been doing, in a way. A lot of teaching.

In that vein... a Protection Brew (which Silthokh sells several of) actually gives as much Invulnerability as an Invulnerability Elixir. You said you didn't have Invulnerability Elixirs, but you had access to something just as good (better, even).

 

And apparently insects are vulnerable to Bind Foe? The documentation says that they shouldn't be, but it looked as though you were able to immobilize some Foul Larvae using that spell. How odd.

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And apparently insects are vulnerable to Bind Foe? The documentation says that they shouldn't be, but it looked as though you were able to immobilize some Foul Larvae using that spell. How odd.

 

Pretty much only spiders and other actual web shooters as far as I've seen. Makes sense that a creature would resist its own attack of course so I don't know why the BoA docs identify that as a racial trait. especially considering how often the Gifts talk about using web to catch "yummy bugs." Don't recall if I tried it on the Araneas but I had no trouble using it the Chitrachs either. Just another case of the docs not matching the actual mechanics. (Hope that's not a spoiler. ;))

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Pretty much only spiders and other actual web shooters as far as I've seen. Makes sense that a creature would resist its own attack of course so I don't know why the BoA docs identify that as a racial trait.

So maybe it's tied to cr_speci_abil rather than cr_species? Weird. I'll have to test that at some point.

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5 hours ago, Chessrook44 said:

So by that logic, no insects actually are immune, since spiders aren't insects.  :p

Unfortunately, in Blades of Avernum, spiders are insects.

 

Also, I try to avoid gratuitously saying "I told you so," but I kept telling you that Bind Foe is really powerful....

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The acid strike is 5d120, so that's why it's not a very consistent amount of damage.

 

And one Diseased Roach, one Acrid Slug, and one Poison Chitrach respawn on the west side. Honestly, at this point, I don't know if that was intentional or an oversight. Probably intentional? Every time I come across something in Exodus that seems like it was done for no reason, I try to fiddle with it and realize that it was done for a very specific purpose.

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And you (again) spent most of this episode killing the same respawning monster over and over again. I don't get it. And the respawning is the same in the west and the east; it's just that fewer monsters in the west respawn. The mechanics are the same. (It's literally the same code.)

 

Also, apparently there was a typo in Status Nearby, so I've (once again) uploaded another version, without changing the version number. If you downloaded recently, redownload.

 

And finally, those questions you have about the plot... those are good reasons to keep going. Exodus is not the last scenario in the series, and Homeland (the third scenario) was never released, so some things are not resolved. But....

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20 hours ago, Kelandon said:

And you (again) spent most of this episode killing the same respawning monster over and over again. I don't get it. And the respawning is the same in the west and the east; it's just that fewer monsters in the west respawn. The mechanics are the same. (It's literally the same code.)

 

And finally, those questions you have about the plot... those are good reasons to keep going. Exodus is not the last scenario in the series, and Homeland (the third scenario) was never released, so some things are not resolved. But....

The answer to the former is because I really didn't memorize the spawn locations of the creatures.  In fact, I often didn't notice the respawn unless they appeared in an area I had fully cleared.  This was why I never noticed on the east side, because I had no idea how many creatures there were or where they were for so long, I just thought that side was FILLED with creatures and never made the connections.

 

As for the third scenario never being released, well that's a bit saddening.  I hope the end of this scenario doesn't leave things TOO mysterious.

 

So close to completion... maybe we'll finally, finally be able to finish this.

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Lack of updating to v1.1.2 means that you missed the message that pops up when you walk out of Manikoss. Other bug-fixes and minor upgrades will become relevant very soon. So I strongly suggest that you update if you haven't already.

 

Also, in terms of total progress, you're nearing the end of Chapter 3 (out of 5). I've always taken Fort Alora (the next dungeon) to be part of the Strange Cave sequence (which is Chapter 3). It'll be interesting to see how Chapter 4 goes; my guess is that you'll be fine for most of it, although there may be a dungeon late in Chapter 4 that you find difficult.

 

I do love Chapter 4. That's the Peninsula Camp sequence that I've been talking about for a while. Looking forward to it!

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Aaaaand the combat slowdown is back in full effect. I had reduced the slowdown in Manikoss because the point of the area was to run through fairly quickly, but it's back here, and — if I remember correctly — it remains in effect for a while.

 

I've mostly been holding back comments on your build, but in this episode, you increased Resistance from 8 to 9 on a character with 0 Luck (and whose resistances were already through the roof). That makes no sense. The only thing you had any significant vulnerability to is Acid, but Resistance does not add to your protection from Acid. Luck would have been cheaper (4 skill points vs. 9 skill points) and each level of Luck adds the same amount to all of your immunities except Mental, and Luck also adds to your chance of surviving a fatal blow (which Resistance does not).

 

Also, you said you weren't sure why Sheik is not as good at hitting and doing damage, but that's probably because she's swinging a butter knife. ChowGuy is not wrong when he points out that your choice of weapons is less than ideal. Skill point boosts are great and all, but 4-20 damage is still 4-20 damage. You more than doubled your average damage done when you switched out Fawkes's weapon. Probably the same would be true if you were to switch out Sheik's weapon with the next high-end weapon you find.

 

I'm still totally mystified as to why you don't save after winning lengthy combats. You had to refight the Fire Golems (twice) because you didn't save after the first time you beat them.

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I do try to save after lengthy combats, but mainly at points that seem appropriate.  Such as after coming back from refreshing my health and energy, or before a big encounter.  Doing it after every encounter (Because honestly, most of your encounters are of fairly large size, it seems) seems a bit excessive to me.  As for Sheik?  The lower damage because of the Assassin's Dagger may be true, but it should not affect her chance to hit, which seems much lower than Fawkes.  Hell, later on I actually notice that even Draco when blessed has a higher chance to hit things than Sheik when blessed.  It doesn't make sense to me...

Oh yes, and the Resistance thing?  Blame it on my desire to get stats to 10 before stopping.  It's just a nice round number...

 

Pushing our way further through the darkness, to deal with the leader of this temple.

 

http://youtu.be/KNwRgiuECnY

 

Appologies, the forum appears to not be behaving and allowing me to insert the video into the post directly.  I don't know why.

Edited by Chessrook44
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The lower damage because of the Assassin's Dagger may be true, but it should not affect her chance to hit, which seems much lower than Fawkes.  Hell, later on I actually notice that even Draco when blessed has a higher chance to hit things than Sheik when blessed.  It doesn't make sense to me...

Fawkes is a CL 80+ Elite Warrior, which gives a bonus to-hit every 6 or 8 levels. Draco is a CL 80+ Slith, which give similar bonuses when using a pole weapon. Shiek... isn't. She's also carrying more encumbrance then Fawkes though that's a minor issue. I can't tell well enough to say what other items they have equipped, but there are quite of few which give "to-hit in melee" bonuses. Check those.
--

It's also worth pointing out that you keep saying "There aren't enough consumables!" and "I have to go out and run around to restore my energy, because it's the only way." Draco, as a Natural Mage, has the "Restore Energy" ability (usable once per day) that at his current CL should be good for 60-70 spellpoints - or about what he gets from an Energy Elxir. There's also a "Shard of Restoration" somewhere in the party, also usable once a day, that's good for up to 150 points. Sure, that's more then either his or Bonnie's maximum, but what's worse, not getting the maximum possible benefit from an item, or not getting any at all?

 

And while we're at it, Energy Potions may not as strong as Energy Elixirs, but they're cheaper and much easier to make; at PM 3 versus PM 8 Bonnie's success rate should be around, oh. 100%. A skosh more probably with adequate luck since there's a chance of making "an extra dose." They also use Energetic herbs versus the much rarer Graymold. You have plenty of those, and Silthokh sells more if you need them. Pop a Potion or two when you can and hang onto the Elixirs for when things are really desperate.

 

Remember too, that quaffing a potion takes only three AP. By default unless you're hasted anyway you start the turn with four AP, so you can generally use one before casting a spell, and still get it off.

Same with wands of slowing. Give those to your warriors to use at range before the enemy closes to attack, instead of running up to them and letting them get the first strike, and the subsequent fight will go much better for you. Giving them to your mage, who can just as easily cast a Slow spell, is relatively pointless.

 

And finally, and I know this has been mentioned to you before in-thread, but healing potions. Those too, can be used at the start of a turn, and still let your warrior smack the guy standing right next to him.

 

--

 

@Kelandon

Resistance does not add to your protection from Acid.


Not entirely correct, at least going by the "Protection From:" displays. Although those are admittedly wonky, since they shows "total" as a straight arithmetic sum rather then an asymptotic behavior, (LUCK+RESIST) does increase base Acid Resistance by 1 (5%) per level. The effect however does not seem to kick in until you reach a minimum of I believe 4 or 5 levels. I agree though that having passed that minimum anyway, LUCK, particularly as it's cheaper, would have been the better choice.

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7 hours ago, ChowGuy said:

(LUCK+RESIST) does increase base Acid Resistance by 1 (5%) per level. The effect however does not seem to kick in until you reach a minimum of I believe 4 or 5 levels. I agree though that having passed that minimum anyway, LUCK, particularly as it's cheaper, would have been the better choice.

Ah, true enough. Once Luck + Resistance is reaches 5, every level of either skill past that point improves protection from acid. Either way, though, Luck is superior when it's cheaper and you don't need any more mental protection.

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Sometimes the scouting part is easy, but the returning part is the hard part.

 

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/qLa-GimvQq8

 

Again, appologies, I can't figure out how to get YouTube to insert the video into the page now.  Used to be that copy-pasting the link would automatically put it in as a YouTube video, but now doing so automatically turns it into a hyperlink (As well as adding any further text I type into part of that link unless I start a new paragraph).  And I can't seem to fix it...

 

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Just to be clear, Major Haste costs exactly the same amount of spell energy and renders exactly as many levels of Haste as Haste, except that it acts on every member of the party, not just one target. So there's never a reason to cast Haste in Exodus; Major Haste is always better.

 

And as far as I know, there is no way to clean webs except by standing still (either in combat or outside of combat).

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23 hours ago, Lilith said:

Unfortunately, YouTube embedding has had to be disabled for now due to some issues with it in the new forum software.

A pity, but thank you for letting me know.  Due to this, I'll just have to leave the link in the posts.

 

Through Fort Alora we go, clearing out the beasts and puzzles we find within.  And there's a decent amount of both.

 

https://youtu.be/GDmXRm_bB1w

 

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Man, the deduct_ap() bug really makes these fights boring. Bind Foe had such a low energy cost in order to make it more enticing, but that was because you could only cast a couple of it per caster per turn. If you can cast it an unlimited number of times per turn, then you can immobilize everything all at once, which was not the intention. This is compounded by the other BoA bug that it appears to work on everything, not just the creatures it's supposed to work on.

 

I suppose I could throw in some code to reduce the fallout from these bugs (basically, unweb certain monsters partly or fully every turn). That would probably be for the best.

 

Also, you said you were frustrated about not getting enough loot per dungeon, but each dungeon has 1-2 artifacts pretty consistently throughout Exodus. So the loot rate is more or less constant throughout. The loot rate is relatively low — you don't find a lot of gold per encounter — but not inconsistent.

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Quote

Man, the deduct_ap() bug really makes these fights boring.

This!. I don't know what's the more boring though. Watching him chortle about exploiting a bug in the engine, or watching him fight the same encounter again because he doesn't believe in "save early and often."


@Chessrook44;
Just to let you know, you wondered in a previous episode where you can find "Major Healing?" It's in a hidden tunnel just North of Manikoss. You were standing right next it at the time, you just never bothered to look for it. You also missed a rather nice ring in a second tunnel East of the riverbank where you found the boat. Plus a spell from the altar under Manikoss itself. And that's just that one zone. There's lots of special items, if you bother to look for them. As for coins, even when you find something you could sell you tend to ignore it because it's "not Valuable enough." Like those iron bars for example, or the steel arrows you "don't need." Coins are coins, whether they come in multiples of tens or hundreds. This is what, your sixth scenario in this LP? By this point your biggest problem with coins should be finding something to spend them on before you hit the 30K limit.

 

I will say I was mildly surprised you let Draco wear the "heavy" (15 pounds, encumbrance 1) +OMG Armor of wisdom in place of the Mithral Chain (45 pounds, encumbrance 2), I'd have thought sure you'd jump on the chance for 6000 or so coins you can get for it. :rolleyes:

Edited by ChowGuy
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Yeah, it does appear that you've missed both opportunities to get Major Healing at this point (because presumably you've reached the Peninsula Camp by now). I don't think you've missed terribly many other special spells — you missed a level of Destruction, but you'll get a level of Destruction fairly shortly anyway, so it doesn't matter too much. You'll go through a bit of the scenario with Destruction L1 instead of Destruction L2, but if you find the right encounter a little farther down the line, you'll still be able to get Destruction L3.

 

(In general, you can get L3 of a spell as long as you know it at least at L1.)

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Disappointing that I'm missing so many hidden things.  Possible that there just aren't obvious enough clues for them.  Though frankly I'm not surprised at all that I missed the hidden thing UNDER Manikoss, considering it's a "Get through before you die from overwhelming hordes of endlessly respawning monsters or from the constant highly-damaging acid" kind of area.  Who WOULD stay in that kind of place longer than necessary?

 

Things are getting dramatic again, and people are starting to get very concerned about everything.  And then THIS happens...

 

https://youtu.be/2c_-ilHbBIs

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14 hours ago, Chessrook44 said:

Disappointing that I'm missing so many hidden things.  Possible that there just aren't obvious enough clues for them.

It's also possible — likely, even! — that you're not looking as hard as one would have to look if one wanted to find everything.

 

You... sold... the Crystal Wand? The weapon type was Thrown Weapons, but the item description said that it used Bows skill, and several of your characters have Bows skill. That was... not a good decision. (Although, given the bug exploits that you've found so far, it may not actually matter going forward. I am looking forward to Anthala's Mine, though, because the enemy there should be less vulnerable to Bind Foe/Cloudkill.)

 

I suppose I should've brought this up earlier, but the Liverpool accent for Machrone doesn't quite fit because Machrone isn't exactly from the Empire. He's... well, you'll see. Eventually.

 

And lol at the idea that this was the dramatic moment I was talking about! No, the biggest dramatic moments are still coming up. It's not for nothing that the Peninsula Camp sequence is tied with the Lava Ocean for my favorite part of the scenario.

 

EDIT: In light of the below, I'd like to emphasize that this was all intended with good humor. Maybe some gentle ribbing, but with a smile. :grin: I am enjoying these episodes — less so the combat where you use bug exploits constantly, but oh well — and am looking forward to the rest.

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5 hours ago, Kelandon said:

It's also possible — likely, even! — that you're not looking as hard as one would have to look if one wanted to find everything.

 Now be fair, Kel.  He did cast Far Sight a couple times in the Dragon cave. He just didn't

1) bother to check the first mini-map, because he knew the "tricky bastard" wouldn't put more than one hidden passage back there (so no Rakshasa Cloak)

or

2) go into the second because  he knew the spellbook he was told about "must be" in the room full of dangerous creatures, and not in the twisty path leading out of it.

 

 

Quote

The weapon type was Thrown Weapons, but the item description said that it used Bows skill, and several of your characters have Bows skill.

Bows and Dexterity. Meh. It would only have given his Nephil priest what, a free 28d10 ranged attack? That's a mere 150 points average damage, as opposed to a 25SP spell that will let him summon Fetid Zombies!

Why are you surprised? He's a newbie, playing a High Level scenario as if he was still in VoDT. I asked him before what exactly he thinks "1-10 points per level of <skill>" means, but he just ignored the question.

 

@ChessRrook

Quote

Who WOULD stay in that kind of place longer than necessary?


And yet you wasted how many episodes trying to "take care of them" even when you KNEW you could just walk past them? And don't tell me you you didn't read in Hints.txt

Quote


COMBAT: Under Manikoss east. Proceed the whole way in combat mode. No need to kill all the monsters; just get through.
COMBAT: Under Manikoss west. Same as above.

because you even quoted it, and then disparaged the author for not giving you a step by step guide to "Kill Them All" without havving to stay in combat mode. I suppose you could claim that that was when you still "knew" Bind Foe was useless, except you also mentioned that "someone even calculated" how powerful it was. Oh wait, that was me.

This is not your youtube channel, where your fanboiz are "glad to find someone  ... who actually knows how to play them and doesn't criticize the games for own mistakes."
 
we're trying to be helpful here without actually spoiling the game. No, really we are, but your dogmatic thinking is just making things harder on yourself then they ought to be. You reject sound advice because "it's been my experience that thus-and-such" even though you don't have enough experience to make such a pronouncement. What you experienced in Baldur's Gate, or Pathfinder, or some other class-based game need not apply to BoA in general, nor Exodus in particular. If you do decide to try more scenarios with a new party, keep that in mind.

 

Edited by ChowGuy
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Regarding deduct_ap(), as far as I can tell, it is working exactly the way it is supposed to (on Windows). From the BoA Editor Doc Appendix v1.2:

 

Quote

void deduct_ap(short num_ap) - This can only be called in a creature script and only has effect in combat. Removes num_ap action points from the character whose script is running.

 

Emphasis mine. So as far as Windows users are concerned, the fact that Mac users can apparently use the call anywhere is the bug.

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17 hours ago, Kelandon said:

You... sold... the Crystal Wand? The weapon type was Thrown Weapons, but the item description said that it used Bows skill, and several of your characters have Bows skill. That was... not a good decision.

Well I was assuming it was a bug or glitch.  i.e. the DESCRIPTION said it was bows, but the TYPE was thrown weapons, thus in my mind there was a disconnect, and that if I used it the weapon would actually use the Thrown Weapons skill to calculate damage and chance to hit, seeing as that was the type.  Description can say ANYTHING after all, and wouldn't necessarily have an impact on mechanics.

 

12 hours ago, ChowGuy said:

Why are you surprised? He's a newbie, playing a High Level scenario as if he was still in VoDT. I asked him before what exactly he thinks "1-10 points per level of <skill>" means, but he just ignored the question.

The answer to what I think it means is that I DON'T think of it at all.  Honestly I've never looked at the "Plus whatever per level" bit, as I figured that bit would be the same no matter what depending on type of weapon, and it's the base damage that depends just how good a weapon is.  So I ignored it and forgot about it.

 

What's the best way to defeat a horrible curse?  Beating it into submission, of course!

https://youtu.be/gsDjdiV0tss

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17 hours ago, Kelandon said:

It's also possible — likely, even! — that you're not looking as hard as one would have to look if one wanted to find everything.

 

7 minutes ago, Chessrook44 said:

Honestly I've never looked at the "Plus whatever per level" bit, as I figured that bit would be the same no matter what depending on type of weapon, and it's the base damage that depends just how good a weapon is.

 

This has been an interesting thread to follow.

 

By now it should be evident to everyone that there is a mismatch between what Chessrook wants (and, I think, expects) from a game, and what Kel's scenarios (and, to a lesser extent, BoA in general) are intended to deliver.

 

Chessrook wants a game where progress is straightforward, where you only have to look in one place to find a secret passage; only have to look at one number to determine how good a weapon is; only have to try one strategy to get past a tricky encounter.

 

But he's playing a game where progress requires integrating a complex of multiple paths: multiple possible locations for secret passages, multiple relevant numbers for weapon strength (that sometimes require crunching to find the best fit for a given PC), and multiple strategies that need to be combined to get through encounters.

 

I say this without any judgment to either party.  It's a mismatch.  It doesn't mean either side is broken.  It just means it's not going to be an easy fit.

 

I will admit, Chessrook, this makes me a little put off when you experience a moment of this "tough fit" and then express it as the game being poorly designed or needing to do something differently.

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7 hours ago, Smoo said:

Regarding deduct_ap(), as far as I can tell, it is working exactly the way it is supposed to (on Windows). From the BoA Editor Doc Appendix v1.2:

 

 

Emphasis mine. So as far as Windows users are concerned, the fact that Mac users can apparently use the call anywhere is the bug.

No, that's not quite right. This came up earlier in the thread. Check out the comment on deduct_ap() in the editor tech support page:

Quote

Limited Usefulness Of deduct_ap and end_combat_turn

The calls end_combat_turn and deduct_ap were originally designed to only be called in creature scripts. This is highly unfortunate, because these calls are very valuable for custom abilities, and because there is no way to reliably get them to work on PCs. If called in a scenario script, these calls affect PC 0 only.

In later versions of Blades of Avernum (after v1.1 Mac and v1.0.1 Windows), when these calls are used in a non-creature script, they will affect the currently selected character (when not in combat) or the currently active character (in combat).

I guess Jeff didn't update the docs when he did this, and apparently it broke again later, but this was the intended behavior.

4 hours ago, Chessrook44 said:

Description can say ANYTHING after all, and wouldn't necessarily have an impact on mechanics.

I don't know why you would assume this — it's not true. In BoA, the item description is automatically generated from the item's stats, so it's never wrong. (At least, I've never seen it be wrong, and it's safest to assume that it's not wrong unless you have really strong evidence that it is wrong.)

4 hours ago, Chessrook44 said:

The answer to what I think it means is that I DON'T think of it at all.  Honestly I've never looked at the "Plus whatever per level" bit, as I figured that bit would be the same no matter what depending on type of weapon, and it's the base damage that depends just how good a weapon is.  So I ignored it and forgot about it.

I don't know why you would assume this either. At high levels (and sometimes at low levels, depending on stats), the damage per level is the dominant part of the damage. Per the item description, the Crystal Wand does 12-120 points of damage plus 1-10 per level of Bows skill and 2 levels of Dexterity. Suppose your Dexterity is 24 and your Bows is 4 (that is, Bonnie). That means you get 12 + 4 = 16 additional levels of 1-10 damage. That's 16-160 from the damage per level on top of the 12-120 base — so the damage per level add-on is actually larger than the base. And if you trained up Bows a bit more, for example to 10, the damage per level add-on would be 22-220, which is almost double the base.

 

In case anyone cares:

Spoiler

The damage formula is actually (1 + skill + bonus)d(damage per level), but BoA expresses this in the item descriptions as (1 + bonus)d(damage per level) + 1-(damage per level) per skill. (That's 1 to damage per level, not 1 minus damage per level.) So the Crystal Wand, for example, has a damage per level of 10, a skill of Bows + Dexterity/2, and a bonus of 11. BoA expresses that as 12d10 + 1-10 per skill, which for a skill of 16 would come out to 28d10. So, in general, as long as your skill is higher than the item's bonus + 1, which usually will be true for high-level characters and sometimes for low-level characters, the damage per level is actually more significant than the base damage.

 

Also, as a matter of terminology, the extra damage based on skill looks like it should be called bonus damage (because it's tacked on to some base value), but the "bonus" damage (i.e., from the it_bonus statistic) is actually expressed as part of what I've been calling "base damage" (i.e., the 12-120 part). Because, you know, who wants to be able to refer to things easily?

 

And we're just about ready for the big reveal! Looking forward to the next episode.

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Occasionally, the text bubbles have been cut off because they go off the screen. (For whatever reason, when a text bubble would run off the screen, the text bubble doesn't display at all.) No text bubbles are cut off on my copy, but I've seen it I think two times on yours. Most recently, Ithik's question to the Goddess was cut off — he asks her whether she is the goddess of the Khalthanad.

 

"That was certainly a thing that happened." Lol! Probably my favorite cut scene in the whole series.

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Just a note to put down here: I just finished doing my recording session for today, and the last bit I recorded was the end of Exodus, so I have completed the scenario.  There will be 11 more episodes before I am done with it.

 

Unless you happen to have Homeland hidden somewhere for someone to play it, I'm planning on this weekend moving on to the next scenario I was going to do: Nobody's Heroes.

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Because Nobody's Heroes is a lot shorter, you'll presumably get to the next scenario (The Magic) fairly quickly. The one thing that I want to say, in light of what I've seen about your playing style so far, is that you should make sure at the end of The Magic to talk to the main characters again. Some of the dialogues change after the climax of the action, and it's worth seeing the additional things that people have to say.

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You're right, Kel. I did some testing and (at least in my Windows 10) deduct_ap can be called in town states and from special items. It worked fine.

 

I seem to recall that some years back when I played BoA on a Windows 7 the game didn't work right. Some scripts didn't work at all or something. I had to play the game in compatibility mode.

 

Which OS are you using, Chessrook?

 

Edit: or maybe your BoA isn't up to date. What version of the game do you have, Chessrook?

Edited by Smoo
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5 hours ago, Smoo said:

seem to recall that some years back when I played BoA on a Windows 7 the game didn't work right. Some scripts didn't work at all or something. I had to play the game in compatibility mode.


Works for me under Win7 X64, Win7 32, and WinXP (SP3) in VMWare. The only problems I ever have with BoA are that some scenarios hang when displaying their initial graphics, but I suspect that's because I run a severely reduced copy of the OS to save space, and the engine is likely using some "required" feature that I don't have installed. Save files will run fine.

 

I should probably note too that the actual game files reside on older machine used as an NAS server, but that should not matter. I'm retired now though and have better thing to spend a month's rent on then the latest I7-7700 laptop so I don't know what effect if any the latest Kaby Lake "optimizations" may had.

--

ChowGuy - the La Choy Dragon (Lurk Lurk) - who thinks every recipe should start with "A pinch of this, a pinch of that, a Dewey button and a french fried bat."

Sorry I can't leave my sanity at the door,  it's been lost for a long time now.

 

Edited by ChowGuy
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Now that you're getting to the other scenarios, too, I should also point out that your list of "play in order" is missing one (and possibly several) groupings of scenarios. Most (all?) of TM's scenarios (not just Mad Ambition and Echoes: Renegade) are in the same universe and generally should be played chronologically. I mean, in theory. I'm not sure that in practice it makes any real difference. Um, you'll see what I mean. Also, I'm not sure if Ephesos's scenarios are related in any way, or if Smoo's scenarios are, but I kind of vaguely thought that they were.

 

Either way, doing scenarios in level order is likely to be confusing and not of any benefit; you'd be much better served doing pretty much all scenarios in chronological order, grouped by designer if you feel like it (i.e., all Eph scenarios in chronological order, then all Smoo scenarios in chronological order, and so on).

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I DID consider doing the scenarios in creator order, I admit, but Chronological won't work as well as I have NO idea when scenarios were made, that information wasn't present where I found them, I think.  If it was, I didn't notice it.

 

We begin our following of Ethass through a fort of barbarians.  Well maybe she's in there somewhere...

 

https://youtu.be/xA7ZFVaj--4

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9 hours ago, Chessrook44 said:

I DID consider doing the scenarios in creator order, I admit, but Chronological won't work as well as I have NO idea when scenarios were made

Oh, if that's the only obstacle, I can pass along release dates. Let me know if you want them; I have all of them for the first few years of BoA and it wouldn't take much to work out at least release months (if not exact dates) for the later years.

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