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Effects of skills, esp. Magical Efficiency in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #2
Some new results:

To buy n levels of a skill that has a base cost b one has to invest

n*b+(n*n-2*n+n mod 2)/4

skill points, where (n mod 2) is 0 if n is even and 1 if it is odd. For example 6 ranks of melee weapons cost 6*3+(6*6-2*6+6 mod 2)/4=18+24/4=24 skill points, 17 ranks of mage spells cost 5*17+(17*17-2*17+17 mod 2)/4=85+256/4=149 skill points.

The base cost of the special skills are:

Quick Strike 3
Parry 3
Blademaster 5
Anatomy 4
Gymnastics 4
Pathfinder 1
Magery 4
Resistance 5
Magical Efficiency 4
Lethal Blow 4
Riposte 5
Sharpshooter 4

It is also possible to calculate the number of skill points that have to be invested to have access to the special skills:

Quick Strike 60
Parry 54
Blademaster 84
Anatomy 58
Pathfinder 48
Magery 78 / 72 (depending if mage or priest is at 6)
Resistance 116
Magical Efficiency 166 / 160 (as above)
Lethal Blow 214
Riposte 226
Sharpshooter 50

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
Effects of skills, esp. Magical Efficiency in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #0
I did some tests to find out the effect of certain skills on your character and I thought, I'd share my findings:

The hit points of a character are given by 7+[(4+L)*E/2], where L is the level of the character, E his endurance, and [x] denotes the largest integer less or equal x, i.e. rounding down. Only base and bought skill levels do affect the hit points.

The carry capacity of a character is given by max{50+40*S, 450}, where S is the strength of the character, including all external boni (items, divinely touched,..). The trait "Strong Back" increases the carry capacity by a factor of 4/3 so the maximum cc of a character with that trait is 600 (which makes strong back one of the best traits, imho)

To deduce the percentage that quick strike grants +2 AP, I went into combat mode and counted the number of turns the character got 6 AP over 100 turns.

Quick Strike level / number of turns with 6 AP
1 / 1
2 / 8
3 / 6
10 / 23
40 / 81
50 / 100 (and the ratio stayed at 100% many many turns more)

All the data nicely supports my claim that each level of quick strike gives a chance of 2% to get +2 AP.

I tried the same for magical efficiency. I casted Divine Host (normal casting cost 30) a number of times and noted the effective casting cost.

effective cost / number of occurences

ME 1
----

30 / 13
29 / 15
28 / 5
27 / 1
26 / 1

ME 2
----

30 / 4
29 / 10
28 / 9
27 / 7
26 / 2
25 / 2
24 / 1

ME 4
----

30 / 1
29 / 1
28 / 9
27 / 10
26 / 5
25 / 6
24 / 3
23 /2

ME 10
-----

30 / 0
29 / 0
28 / 0
27 / 2
26 / 4
25 / 2
24 / 3
23 / 5
22 / 7
21 / 6
20 / 8
19 / 1
18 / 1
17 / 1

While there is a definite trend in the data, I was unable to extract the formula due to the bad statistic (some kind of binomial distribution looks promising).

If you think that it would be interesting to know the formula (unless it is already known in which case I apologize for having bothered you with lots of numbers), it would be very nice if you could do some tests yourself and post the results to improve the statistic.

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
The Abominable Party-Building Topic in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #6
Has anyone tried to load up one character with items that grant "-xx% chance to be hit"? Is it possible to bring the chance to hit for the enemies down to 5% consistently? I imagine a tank with high defense, gymnastics, and resistance. Would this work in high-level scenarios?

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
ZKR: Where are the Vahnatai in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #0
Where are the Vahnatai that I should speak to for the Crystal Vahnatai? It said West of the Broken Fang Clan but the only thing I found was a cave full of Dark Wurms.

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
Article - Follow the Yellow Brick Road in Blades of Avernum Editor
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #1
What about giving the party a "Quest Tome", an item they can activate at any time and that tells them about the current quest states in some detail?

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
Article - Follow the Yellow Brick Road in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #1
What about giving the party a "Quest Tome", an item they can activate at any time and that tells them about the current quest states in some detail?

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
Message From Spiderweb - Brain Blocked in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #102
Right now, I roam the land with my level 55+ party in A3 and I am quite disappointed that there is no way to *really* improve their combat statistics. Their hit % sits at 95 an the monsters have a 5%-chance to hit them.
I would like it very much if the new abilities in BoA would give the characters something else besindes increasing the chance to hit or decrease the chance to be hit. Maybe a dual strike (like in geneforge), the ability to fire two arrows at two different targets (hey, Robin Hood could to that in the movie :D ), being able to turn your back on the monsters without being attacked for free, increase the damage cap (if there is one),...

Someone mentioned different AP costs for different weapons - maybe the designer of the weapon could decide that? For example a small dagger with AP cost 2 to attack but damage 1-3+1-3 and damage cap 50 or a troll hammer with AP cost 7, damage 1-10+1-10 and damage cap 250. That would offer new choices to the player!(I just made up these numbers very quickly so maybe the decision which one of these two weapons to take is actually a no-brainer)

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
Message From Spiderweb - Brain Blocked in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #82
You always have to keep in mind that the monsters could cast these new spells as well, so a fight against a spellcaster with "freeze time" and a few buddies would be disastrous even for a very high level party and "random teleport" would also be very annoying if cast by the enemy!

The Mad Scientist

[ Friday, November 15, 2002 07:30: Message edited by: MadScientist ]
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00
Message From Spiderweb - Brain Blocked in Blades of Avernum
Apprentice
Member # 1982
Profile #64
The nice thing with Capture Soul and Simulacrum is that you can choose the right monster for the situation - whether you needed a spellcaster or a melee powerhouse. What if these two spells were replaced by a summoning spell where you could choose between a few monsters to summon? With increasing level of the spell more and powerful monsters could be available. Of course that means that these monsters types would have to be provided by the engine or could even be changed by the scenario designer.

Maybe a spell that increases one statistic while decreasing another e.g. increase hardiness by 10 while decreasing defense by 10, meaning that you would get hit more often but take less damage.

I also like the cloud spells, the curse spells and the dispell-spell mentioned above!

The Mad Scientist
Posts: 23 | Registered: Tuesday, October 1 2002 07:00