Monty Haul
| Author | Topic: Monty Haul |
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Guardian
Member # 6670
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written Wednesday, December 27 2006 12:53
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I'm finally getting around to finishing A4 (so much for working on BoA... I'm so weak). I'm wondering if any else has noticed the chronic ease that A4 suffers from. When playing the Avernum Trilogy, I got into the habit of not investing skill points until the game got so difficult that I had to. It kept the games challenging and sated my compulsive need to min-max. Usually, I invested when I had around 30 points kicking around. I just finished the Abyss this morning in A4, and I did a quick tally of my current situation. My party's level is in the mid-thirties (no traits on anyone), and if I remember correctly, I haven't invested skill points since the Eastern Gallery (other than a few exceptions: Mage and Priest, Tool Use, and occasionally bumping up my slith's Quick Action so it acts before my nephil). My mage has around twenty points kicking around, my priest, thirty. My slith pole-fighter has nearly sixty. My nephil archer has ninety-eight points left. Moreover, I have never once sold an emerald, ruby, or focusing crystal, nor have I used a Knowledge Brew or Crystal. So what gives (yes, I'm playing on Torment)? Does the game assume that you aren't a nook 'n' cranny player? Or does the game place much more emphasis on level and items than on skill levels? -------------------- The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus. - Edsger Dijkstra Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Wednesday, December 27 2006 15:10
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I think diminishing returns on skill points is definitely a part of it. Once your fighter is an unkillable tank with 10 points of Parry and your spellcasters have enough energy to not worry about running out, a couple of extra dice on your Fireblast damage isn't going to swing the outcome of a battle. [ Wednesday, December 27, 2006 15:11: Message edited by: Cryptozoology ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Wednesday, December 27 2006 18:51
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I used up skill points when I got them, but most went to spells, tool use, and strength so I could lug the loot back to town. After the Eastern Gallery you pretty much can hit anything so it becomes a matter of damage/round and how soon you go back to town to recharge. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 57
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written Thursday, December 28 2006 00:15
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I found in the Eastern Gallery most monster encounters they could hit you easily cos of parry and ripsote which results damaging you instead eg the bug infestion quite annoying indeed and having low strength skill doesn't help either :eek: Posts: 54 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 7830
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written Thursday, December 28 2006 20:01
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Message board? I didn't know Spiderweb had a message board. Amazing what actually reading a "readme" file can do ... I think the main easiness of the game was because many of the "rank and file" monsters' special abilities didn't grow as yours did. For example, the Chitrach was a perfect mid-level monster because mid-grade and upper level Chitratches had that extremely annoying parry/riposite skill. Giants, while big and damaging, did not have many special abilities. The blue ones didn't throw boulders at melee range, which made them easy to kill by running up to them and whacking away, and the only other ability was the orange mutated ones' "daze stomp", which they used very infrequently. The Vahnatai Myrmidon was an effective late game opponent because of magic resistance and Parry/Riposite, but I don't think you ever encountered another force like the 4 Myrmidons you fought in the Castle even at the end game. the average Vanhatai fighter is weak and too easily Dazed (don't even need Strong Daze; the average Daze will do just fine), and the Myrmidons were too few in number in Rentar-Ihrno's lairs. One other thing was that SP and HP were very level dependent and not so much attribute dependent, so that even my brain-dead fighters had half-decent spell points in the middle of the game. The one thing I found that was perfect in this game was the cash balance: the available spells and skills ate up your cash at the rate at which it became available. Anyways, there were several things I noticed about the game: 1. I couldn't seem to figure out what the difference was between difficulty levels; they all seemed roughly the same. Also, difficulty levels had a habit of switching from time to time when I loaded the game, or not displaying properly (options would show one thing, the game screen another). Perhaps there's a bug in the difficulty levels? 2. In previous games, there were only 14 levels of spells (7 priest, 7 mage), whereas now there are 34 (17 priest, 17 mage). If you start pumping up your levels, your spellcasters become VERY powerful. The 100-hp Minor Heal, 70-hp level 1 Fire spell, and 30-hp Poison spell got me through a lot of battles because of their very low spell point cost. If you take a look at previous games, you got something like 80 skill points at the start plus 6 points per level, decreasing by 1 every 10 levels. Here you got 5 points per level. 3. Even mass battles become easy if you use Daze/Mass Daze, sometimes even embarassingly so. 4. I don't know about you guys, but later on in the game I was trying to keep my spellcasting down to make sure I broke even on spell points every battle so I could dungeon crawl longer and have plenty of spell points for big battles. I think there's something wrong when the average encounter actually increases your current SP. For most encounters I just let the fighters wade in and kill everything in sight, and healed them a few times when necessary. As I said before, a 100hp minor heal goes a long way. 5. If you boost your spellcasters' Intelligence trait, after a while you get a phenomenal amount of spell points. 6. I don't know about you guys, but I found the Pylons more bothersome than challenging with a "bait and bow" strategy: sent one person about 5 squares away from the pylon to stop regeneration, and then whack it to death with everyone else hasted and blessed shooting from 1 square outside the pylon's range. Put Fire and Frost resistance and an Endurance Girdle on your baiter and he'll last a looooong time (assume Enduring Shield/Armor, Steel Skin, and Augmentation as available). Add a 100hp Minor Heal every 2 turns and he'll last forever. 7. One thing that I found strange: I couldn't seem to figure out if Demonslayer had any special properties against demons. Maybe enhanced critical hit probability? Also, did Heartstriker have any special powers other than doing huge damage? At the end of the game I had: 2 x Level 35 Custom Class: Human Paladin (level 4 priest + sword/bow fighter) Level 35 Custom Class: Human Mage/Priest (level 17 priest/mage, level 5 spellcraft). Level 35 Custom Class: Human Mage/Priest/Rogue (level 17 priest/mage, level 10 spellcraft, level 12 tool use, GREAT for Unlock). Gave her all of my Skill potions/gems and got something like 600 spell points at the end. If you want a great investment, think of a few levels of Priest for your fighters. They become a fountain of free pre-battle Bless/shield and post-battle healing. Are those undead or demons troubling you with their melee resistances? Have your fighters zap away with Repel Spirit. Anyways, have fun. Those of us who aren't playing on fruit will have to wait a while for Geneforge. Posts: 1 | Registered: Thursday, December 28 2006 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 7472
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written Thursday, December 28 2006 20:28
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quote:The Demonslayer just does extra damage to demons. It doesn't seem that noticeable at first, but have a fighter hack at a demon for a couple turns with the Demonslayer, and then switch to a different sword with similar attack power. The difference is a bit surprising. The Heartstriker bow just does ridiculous amounts of damage. However, it is easily one of the most powerful weapons in the game, and many have claimed it as their favorite. quote:I actually did sort of an opposite of this. I trained my spellcasters in the archery skills, so that if my spellcasters ran out of energy, they could pelt enemies with an indefinite number of arrows. Actually, come to think of it, all my party members had some level of skill in archery. -------------------- This post is sponsored by the Heartstriker for President group. Posts: 2686 | Registered: Friday, September 8 2006 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 5360
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written Friday, December 29 2006 13:51
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Yes, Nalyd loves the "Paladin" build. your priest saves valuable spell points and your fighters almost never run out. If you add haste, your priest becomes almost useless. Nalyd also tries to give all characters some skill in archery. It's just too useful to go without. After all, how else do you get the infinite supplies of food? -------------------- May the fires of Undeath burn in your soul, and consume it. Posts: 1636 | Registered: Wednesday, January 5 2005 08:00 |