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Things I learnt playing Avernum in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 8 2005 20:25 Profile Homepage #3
quote:
Originally written by Archmagus Micael:

4. The Empire owned more of Avernum than Avernum did during most of the trilogy.
Explain? Even in A2 Avernum controls more of the caves than the Empire, I think.

quote:
Originally written by chicho:

oh,and the caves have a permanent light coming from god knows were.
It comes from lichen, and it is a creation of the vahnatai or the Tower of Magi depending on which game you're playing.

—Alorael, who learned a very important lesson from Avernum: it's often absurdly easy to get where you're going by starting a fight and then changing your mind.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Remember when everyone celebrated the year 2000? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 8 2005 09:41 Profile Homepage #12
Ash, I hereby declaring you an honorary knight. Congratulations!

—Alorael, who should congratulate Ash for lifetime posting achievement as well.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Politics and Beliefs in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, October 7 2005 20:17 Profile Homepage #35
I'm fairly far along on the left side of the political axis. Beyond that I see no reason to assign a label to myself. I agree with a number of Socialist goals and beliefs.

I never believed that the war in Iraq was right, and I don't think it's being handled right now. On the other hand, leaving would only dump the mess on a state unprepared to deal with it. We need to come up with a better plan and one that does give us a chance to leave sometime within our lifetimes.

I see no reason to make abortion illegal. Once you discard the religion card, the decision is obvious until later in pregnancy, and even then I find the value of a single human pre-life to be small.

As Thuryl pointed out, "marriage" is a religious concept that has become mixed into secular legal processes. "Civil union" should be the only form of partnership of the kind recognized by the state. If churches want to allow marriages or don't, that's their business. The legal benefits, rights, and responsibilities should have nothing to do with it.

We don't teach religion in classes. We don't fund religious research with public money. The "theory" of evolution is a theory in the scientific sense of the word. It is testable, it describes reality as far as we can determine, and it makes predictions. Intelligent design is a theory in the common use of the word. It is, basically, a guess. It is not equal in scientific merit, and science, unlike religion, provides practical benefit in understanding the way the world works. (Sorry, Kel, but I have to disagree. There are fundamental differences between science and religions. Religion, including creationism and ID, should not be taught in schools as science. In a religion or philosophy class perhaps, but not in biology.

I don't know enough about economics to discuss the pros and cons of changing minimum wage. All I'll say is that everyone should be able to earn a living wage that supports decent life, not intolerable life.

Tax cuts should not go to those who need them least. They should go to those who ened them most: the poor. I would prefer a graduated income with the wealthier paying a higher percentage, not a lower percentage.

Companies clearly need more control and oversight after the obvious failures of Enron, WorldCom, and so on. In general, a company will not look out for the best interests of everybody, so it is up to everybody, via the government, to control them.

The environment needs to be cared for. We're failling at that right now. We need to do better.

—Alorael, who believes in peace, brotherhood, and the right to have a chicken in every backyard.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
How experience works in Avernum? in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, October 7 2005 09:32 Profile Homepage #5
The system works the same way for penalties and bonuses. If you have a bonus to experience you can get anywhere from the regular amount of experience to twice as much experience, with regular * bonus percentage being the most common result.

Avernums differ from Exiles in that experience is distributed evenly. A priest who never kills a single monster will be at the same level as the rest of your party (assuming equal penalties/bonuses to experience).

—Alorael, who tries to keep his party's penalties and bonuses more or less balanced to avoid having markedly different levels at the ends of the games.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
3 months in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, October 7 2005 09:25 Profile Homepage #26
Kamakaski is banned, and he was banned for good reason. He doesn't deserve 42.

—Alorael, who thinks Jeff could raise some money by auctioning off the prettily numbered accounts. 5¢ for 1337!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
I'M BAAAAAAAAAACK in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, October 6 2005 21:05 Profile Homepage #32
The Platonic ideal of the unicorn will always have a horn (and no more than one horn).

This brings up another interesting question. If unicorns are fertile with donkeys, is the offspring a mule, and if so, does it have a horn?

—Alorael, who wonders if the platonic ideal of a unicornimule always has a horn even if the actual unicornimules don't.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Help please. in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, October 6 2005 20:59 Profile Homepage #2
I can't remember if the Avernum editors can reveal town maps or if it's only the Exile editors. Have you checked?

—Alorael, who just verified that Avernum doesn't have the map options. He doesn't have any other bright ideas.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
How experience works in Avernum? in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, October 6 2005 11:27 Profile Homepage #1
Whenever you gain experience from any source, the experience is divided evenly among all characters in your party. It doesn't matter who strikes the last blow. (Summoned creatures and allies who kill enemies don't give you experience, though!)

In A1 and A2, experience penalties and bonuses for traits are applied to each experience point you gain. For example, if you have two characters in your party and kill a monster that gives you 100 experience, each character gains 50 experience. If one of those characters has a 20% experience penalty, he is most likely to gain 40 experience instead, but it is possible for him to gain all 50 points, or no points at all.

In A3 and BoA, this rather bizarre bell curve experience system was dropped for a much more logical system where the penalty or bonus is applied to the entire experience gain. In the above case, the character with a 20% penalty will gain 40 experience with no chance of variation.

Also, the calculation for how much experience a monster is worth is based on either the highest level in your party or the average level. A party with three level 1 characters and 1 level 40 character killing a level 20 monster would very likely gain only a tiny amount of experience divided among all characters, so having a significant level difference can make your party level up extremely slowly.

—Alorael, who hopes this explains everything reasonably. If there are more irregularities he isn't aware of them.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Terror's Martyr in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, October 6 2005 08:46 Profile Homepage #54
This is a demonstration of multiple intelligences. Some kinds make you get good grades, earn you Nobel prizes, get you lucrative patents for your work, and allow you to write the Great <insert state or nationality here> Novel.

Another critical kind of intelligence gets you lucrative patents and possibly good grades from others' work.

Yet another kind of intelligence keeps you from getting roughed up every now and then over the first or second kinds.

—Alorael, who has all three of these and more besides.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
RWG in Richard White Games
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, October 5 2005 19:03 Profile Homepage #3
No.

—Alorael, who incidentally doesn't see any decrease in synchronization among eyeball-rollers as t -> ?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
3 months in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, October 5 2005 18:59 Profile Homepage #11
quote:
Originally written by Icshi:

How about we just delete user accounts at random and hope for the best?
UBB has this feature built in, actually. Given how it works out, I think deleting accounts would be a very bad idea. Among other things, it woudl wreak havoc either on order (member #71 joined long after member #449?) or on numbers (You were #3020 yesterday, but 1039 deleted accounts have moved you to #2762 today).

No thanks. I think Spiderweb can spare some server space for our mental well-being.

—Alorael, who was going to say "for our sanity." He was trying to make a point, though, and not through irony.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Terror's Martyr in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, October 5 2005 11:38 Profile Homepage #29
RWG says otherwise, Icshi, unless you come to inflict violations beyond mortal ken upon others.

—Alorael, who isn't even sure what a ken is or why it should be beyond mortals. Do kens only exist in angles of certain degrees?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The First Monthly Conspiracy of the Month Contest in Richard White Games
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, October 4 2005 18:59 Profile Homepage #2
Option 3 is banned by intergalactic treaty. It is therefore the One and a Half True Ways of White.

—Alorael, who doesn't see why surgically trained needle/ferrets hidden inside Furbies can't run a children's show.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Avernum 4? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, October 4 2005 16:37 Profile Homepage #361
Perhaps he is commenting upon my lack of knowledge of Casser-Bok, although in point of fact I commented on my lack of knowledge on Delrin-Bok.

—Alorael, who feels no urge to replay ZKR in any case.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
E3: spiders and endless loop crashes in The Exile Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, October 4 2005 16:33 Profile Homepage #7
I prefer to make my entire party Highly Alert for just that reason.

—Alorael, who actually likes giving most of his party most positive traits. The experience penalties are for the most part outweighed by the benefits.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Proper behavior for raving cultists in Richard White Games
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, October 4 2005 10:03 Profile Homepage #0
RWG was going somewhere. We had plots, schemes, conspiracies, and needle/ferrets. We had only four locked topics left on the first page. Then someone felt the need to revive an old, honorable thread with spam, forcing Drakey's hand and putting a locked topic at the top of the list.

This isn't right, and it shames RW to be served by such as us. In punishment, all of you will explain in detail what would happen if a Vell-os, an ORiS, um, individual, and a disgruntled space marine got into a drunken brawl?

—Alorael, who expects all responses to be thoughtful, well-written, spell checked, and free of spam.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Avernum 4? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, October 4 2005 09:51 Profile Homepage #356
Rentar-Ihrno always gets feminine pronouns in Exile and Avernum.

All the other Crystal Souls are Boks, so Rentar-Ihrno isn't even in the proper category for crystallization. She's also not an isolated rogue like Delrin-Bok and Casser-Bok, and there's no insanity to her malevolence.

—Alorael, who can't remember now whether Casser was the only flawed Crystal Soul and Delrin was just lonely or if both of them weren't quite right in the upper pointy bit any more.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
how many levels... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, October 3 2005 15:21 Profile Homepage #30
endash and minus look the same in the font used in the text box in which I'm typing, but emdash is clearly different.

—Alorael, who is much more worried about the spelling of his name. A before E! Think ash (æ) if you like Old English or connected vowels if you are British or a scholar of Latin. Or just put them in alphabetical order.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Solo party recommendations in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, October 3 2005 15:18 Profile Homepage #6
Natural Mage is essential if you're going to use mage spells, but priest spells are more essential and fighting is pretty necessary too. Unless you want to spread everything out, a fighter-priest with no mage spells is probably the way to go, and Natural Mage isn't worth it.

Divinely Touched makes you slightly better at everything and gives you three once per day abilities, two of which are useless and one of which gives you Divine Aid, which is a very strong blessing, haste, and so much shielding you might as well be invulnerable.

—Alorael, who has nothing more to add except that Strong WIll is suppsedly very useful for not getting your singleton brain fried. It's crippling when there's no one else to heal it.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
how many levels... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Monday, October 3 2005 07:30 Profile Homepage #25
I'll have you know that senile circumlocution is a time-honored way of posting a great deal. Why, back in 2001 we used to have discussions so confused that even the first post was often off-topic and the second post readable only in L-space. Speaking of L-space, did you know that large forums warp the internet-time continuum? It's true! The extreme density (in more ways than one) has terrible effects (in more ways than one) on more than one thing.

Where was I?

—Alorael, who needs to be excused while he searches for his dentures and/or glasses.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
what the hell is this? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 2 2005 13:34 Profile Homepage #23
Just for the record, this site has been found and pointed out before. Also just for the record, since there is no commercial element to the site, it's more of a fan adaptation than an evil copyright infringement.

—Alorael, who isn't sure that the same can be said of the other products included. Lifting and reprinting rules straight from other games is usually considered bad.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
some rpg please in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 2 2005 09:27 Profile Homepage #2
Planeshift is a free MMORPG, as is Runescape.

—Alorael, who would rather not skirt any closer to advertisement on Spiderweb.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
[insert n00b karma post title here] in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Sunday, October 2 2005 09:15 Profile Homepage #9
Welcome to Spiderweb! Leave your sanity at the door!

Actually, that's what Alex said, but he used the equivalent of 991 words too many.

—Alorael, who thinks it's time to expose the secret of karma. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but if your account is eaten by the account deletion bug, it becomes crucial. Those with low karma are banned, those with medium karma allowed to reregister, and those with high karma freed forever from the endless cycle of deletion and registration.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
how many levels... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 1 2005 18:19 Profile Homepage #16
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
Originally written by SupaNik:

Even more so than saying something unsavoury about the practices a certain member's mother participates in? I ask only out of curiosity.
Oh, that's a perfectly good way to get a custom title. It's just that it'll get you a custom title you don't want.
Several members have already complained of getting titles they don't want after practicing acceptable and polite behavior. The real difference is that you won't be able to complain about it if you start bringing mothers into it.

—Alorael, who once again feels invulnerable. Drakey seems determined not to give him a title, which means even mothers and mangos are no danger.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
I am Hollywood. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, October 1 2005 13:40 Profile Homepage #44
Your Spanglish is excellent, then.

—Alorael, who can't think of any languages with O-A concordance.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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