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Maximizing Skill Point Investment in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Tuesday, May 9 2006 02:52 Profile #11
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

I don't like polearms; the Quicksilver Bulwark is just too good to pass up, and it works best on a fighter.
You can still get 10 AP with mercuric plate + boots of speed. The bonuses from that shield don't matter if your weapon is a 3 multiplier instead of 4, and only sliths get the polearm bonus.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Maximizing Skill Point Investment in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Tuesday, May 9 2006 02:24 Profile #9
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

Nephilim are useful even as melee fighters because they get free Gymnastics skill, which helps you act faster and dodge attacks.

As for why you should make a melee fighter at all, well, bows are only comparable in damage potential to melee weapons before you start routinely getting double attacks from Quick Action. It's also worth remembering that some of the better special skills have melee skills as prerequisites.
Gymnastics skill is what? 1 every 10 levels? Big deal.

The bonus to polearms for slith is 2 for start and 1 every 6 levels.

Since the post seemed to be about the best of the best, the best of the best for melee would be a slith poler with Divinely Touched and Elite Warrior.

[ Tuesday, May 09, 2006 02:24: Message edited by: EvilEye ]
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Maximizing Skill Point Investment in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Tuesday, May 9 2006 00:38 Profile #7
I play a similar party. Except I use a slith with elite warrior + DT for my melee'er because the best melee weapons are polearms.

Why you would use a nephil for melee is beyond me, you might as well use a bow since they get better bonuses and bows will do the same damage ( unless your using a stick?? ).
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
What do H.E.R. and P.F.W. do? in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Thursday, April 27 2006 16:45 Profile #0
Hostile Effect Resistance

Protection from Weapons

What do these do? Anyone know?
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Dex doesnt seem to increase bow damage.. in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Monday, April 24 2006 10:41 Profile #4
quote:
Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

Anatomy (and possibly lethal blow) may have something to do with this.
Noone had anatomy or lethal blow.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Dex doesnt seem to increase bow damage.. in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Sunday, April 23 2006 08:10 Profile #0
As much as the bow skill anyway. Seems only half as effective. I have been running around with a 10 dex nephil with 2 in bows and 3 in sharpshooter, and he regularly does half - 2 / 3 the damage of my 2 nephils with 2 dex and 10 in bows and 1 in sharpshooter ( all using cavewood bows ).

I was under the impression that dex, bow skill, and sharpshooter all increased the damage with bows by the same amount, but its clearly not the case in my experience.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Hardiness and Armor in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Friday, March 31 2006 13:26 Profile #14
Why don't you guys just test it yourselves instead of telling me I didn't get the results I got.

If armor really did reduce damage by the listed percent EVERY TIME then I would never have got hit for 11 damage when I was wearing leather armor. NEVER. Its simple math.

I don't see why you persist on your beliefs that "Jeff said this so it must be the way it is". Based on my results, which I trust, he was either wrong or you misunderstood what he said.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Hardiness and Armor in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Thursday, March 30 2006 16:05 Profile #11
Well, here is what I think is happening ( could be wrong of course ):

For every piece of armor damage is reduced by 0 - % listed on armor.

So if you had a 10% leather armor it would roll a number from 0 - 10. The number rolled would be the percent the damage is reduced by.

So if it rolled a 5 then the damage would be reduced by 5%. So 10 becomes 9.5, which should become 9 due to integers truncating the decimal value.

The reason I think it does this is because the previous avernum games reduced damage by a random number for every piece of armor. If you had a piece of armor that listed 1-16 then it would reduce damage by 1-16 every time you were hit by a physical attack.

For hardiness I am thinking it just adds 4% armor per level to its own specific armor check, which is why 20 hardiness could reduce 5 damage to 1 damage. Of course, the exact number is hard to tell without bigger numbers.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Hardiness and Armor in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Thursday, March 30 2006 14:40 Profile #9
quote:
Originally written by Dame Annals:

quote:
Originally written by EvilEye:

20 points in hardiness sometimes decreased 5 damage to 1 damage.
You're making a false assumption here. You cannot directly see the amount of decrease in damage hardiness causes. Why? Damage is rolled randomly EACH TIME an attack hits. So, unless you have more information than you are giving (for example, if the attack had a damage range of 5-10 against 0 hardiness and 1-2 against 20 hardiness, over many trials of each), you can't draw that conclusion.

I've never seen anything to discount the conclusion the damage is random, but armor % reduction is consistent. If you have new data I'd love to see it, though.
I already stated in my first post that the damage range for the first goblin is 5 - 11 on normal difficulty.

I tested this hundreds of times ( no armor, no traits ). Never got anything below 5, or above 11.

So what is unclear about that?
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Hardiness and Armor in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Wednesday, March 29 2006 08:54 Profile #7
quote:
Originally written by Randomizer:

Hardiness increases armor at 1 point equals 1% reduction. So Hardiness 20 means 20% less damage which is what you got.
No, its not what I got, read it again.

20 points in hardiness sometimes decreased 5 damage to 1 damage.

quote:
Originally written by Slartucker:

Armor (from Hardiness or equipped armor) DOES decrease by a % of the damage.
I never said it didn't.

BUT.

Its clearly random as to what % it decreases it by. I am guessing its from 0% - 10% for leather armor, instead of a straight 10%. So sometimes it will not decrease the damage by any, which is rather lame.

I am guessing hardiness works in the same way except I suspect the % for hardiness is around 4 a level instead of 1 a level based on my results.

[ Wednesday, March 29, 2006 08:59: Message edited by: EvilEye ]
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Hardiness and Armor in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Monday, March 27 2006 11:50 Profile #3
quote:
Originally written by Ephesos:

Impressive work. I never really liked Hardiness as an ability, though... needing 20 to make a significant difference seems overly steep.

What about different levels of Hardiness, say 5/10/15?
Haven't bothered testing that yet.

Since hardiness starts at 1 cost it only takes roughly 110 skill points to get to 20.

Thats a lot but I am thinking you could neglect all other defensive skills except maybe luck so you might actually come out ahead in points.

Kinda why I was testing it in the first place.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Hardiness and Armor in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Monday, March 27 2006 09:30 Profile #0
I've been running some tests to see if its worth it to increase hardiness, luck and use some of the damage decreasing traits.

All tests done with the human race and on normal mode, using the goblin in the beginning cellar as the damage doer. Tests done over many times ( over 50 each ). The goblin has a chance of 50% to hit.

------------------------------------------------

Normal ( no traits, no armor, no hardiness, no spells ): goblin does 5 - 11 damage per hit

Good Constitution at level 1: goblin does 4 - 11 damage per hit

Good Constitution at level 30: goblin does 4 - 11 damage per hit

Thick Skin at level 1: goblin does 4 - 11 damage per hit

Thick Skin at level 30: goblin does 4 - 11 damage per hit

Thick Skin AND Hardiness at level 30: goblin does 3 - 11 damage per hit

Wearing Leather armor ( 10 defense ): goblin does 4 - 11 damage per hit

20 Hardiness: goblin does 1 - 9 damage per hit

Protection spell ( skill 20 ): goblin does 4 - 8 damage per hit ( did not decrease chance to hit at all, the description is WRONG! )

------------------------------------------------

So in conclusion both thick skin and good constitution seem to have the effect of wearing around 10-15% armor for each and do NOT increase with level. Combined it seems they add 22-30% armor or 2 seperate 10-15% armor checks. Much more testing with higher numbers is needed to determine exactly.

Also armor does NOT decrease damage by a % per piece, instead it appears to have a chance to decrease damage %. What this chance is exactly only Jeff knows.

Hardiness seems much more impressive then armor, apparently sometimes decreasing damage by 4/5 at level 20!

The Protection spell did not decrease the goblins chance to hit at all as it stated, it was still 50%.

[ Monday, March 27, 2006 09:36: Message edited by: EvilEye ]
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Trick for more then 2 nephil / slith graphics in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Sunday, March 26 2006 17:59 Profile #0
If you don't mind human graphics for nephil or slith characters then....

This only works if you create a character in game not in the pre-game creation screen.

Choose a character space and select new character, then choose the race ( nephil or slith ) now go to type ( not shown but same place it always is in creation screen, just click there ) and make a selection ( i always choose custom ). Now the graphic is changed to a human graphic and you can choose the one you want. The experience penalty seems to stay so its not cheating as far as I can tell.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Pure Spirit way better then natural mage...? in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Sunday, March 26 2006 16:28 Profile #5
Wow, got it up to 25 and really doesn't do much :(

Well that sucks, when you get a skill to 25 you really expect some payback of some kind.

It even seems it never decreases the casting cost of spells like icy rain. I tried nummerous times and it always costed 8.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Pure Spirit way better then natural mage...? in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Sunday, March 26 2006 15:56 Profile #4
quote:
Originally written by PDN of the People:

[QB]Don't forget that Magical Efficiency is gravy, not a useful skill.QB]
Says who? Where do you get the basis for that statement?

Even with a +11 bonus?

This is why I am asking, does anyone know the formula for magical efficiency?
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00
Pure Spirit way better then natural mage...? in Avernum 4
EvilEye
Apprentice
Member # 4383
 written Sunday, March 26 2006 14:32 Profile #0
I have been doing some testing of traits and I found that natural mage gives the following:

+2 initial bonus to mage spells
+1 initial bonus to magical efficiency

+1 mage spell bonus per 6 levels
+1 magical efficiency bonus per 10 levels

Pure spirit gives the following:

+2 initial bonus to priest spells
+2 initial bonus to magical efficiency!!

+1 priest spell bonus per 6 levels
+1 magical efficiency per 6 levels!!!

So if i had to choose between the 2 its Pure spirit all the way, assuming I use non encumbering armor.

Also anyone know the formula for magical efficiency?? Everyone says that it sucks.... BUT you get a pretty hefty bonus by level 30 ( +11 ) if you had both natural mage and pure spirit, and thats before any training or items.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Thursday, May 13 2004 07:00