xzar_monty

Oh, you're limited to placing just one trap at a time. I never knew that. I don't think I'll ever even try again; that just made the whole thing seem like a complete waste of time. Oh dear. But thanks for the info!

So, my rogue character had amassed a nice selection of traps into her inventory. I had never used any of them myself. But then I came across an encounter perfectly suited for that: in the catacombs, a room at the end of a corridor is full of mercenaries, and the door to that room is closed. I didn't deal with the baddies on my first attempt, so I decided to set the corridor full of traps, leave the rest of my guys behind, open the door with my fast monk and the run back to the rest of my group with the mercenaries behind me, setting off the traps. It was a good enough plan, I thought. There was only drawback: the traps didn't go off. I tried multiple saves, but no. The mercenaries just ran through them as if they weren't there. So, how does this part of the game work, if it does?

<delete this post, please. I cannot do it myself. It's a mistake.>

Ok, thanks again. Well, I have to say that this aspect of the game is a bit of a disappointment. I'm always interested in "personalities" and "surprises" in games like this. Well, I now have four NPCs in my party, and none of them seems to have anything even resembling a personality, they're just automatons that help me better deal with monsters and other encounters. Nothing I decide to do or not do matters to any of them in the slightest - as far as personality is concerned, it's as if they're not there at all. So, if everything is going to be exactly the same on replay (including encounters, the minutiae of the story line and everything related to the NPCs in my group), it doesn't look promising. But hey: there's also an awful lot of great stuff in the game. I have enjoyed it so far.

"Hit rolls are random" comes under the heading of "We're really, really reaching now", though. But thanks for the info so far. It seems there's not much in the game, in this respect. It does affect replay value quite a bit, especially because the story line seems so linear that you're likely to meet the same NPCs in the same locations in the same order no matter what.

So, I've played the game for a bit now, and I do like it a lot. But I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that absolutely everything in the game is scripted and pre-planned right down to the minutest detail. Like, which monsters you encounter, which character is where and when and what can possibly happen in a given situation. Now, I understand that the difficulty rating can affect the (amount of?) monsters you get in an encounter, which is fine as far as it goes, but that's not much. I do realise that a game of this size has to contain and awful lot of railroading and pre-written stuff, because otherwise everything simply becomes unmanageable. But still. Is there: 1) No random encounters? (Like, the last time you walked upon that road, it was empty. The next day, when you walk back, somebody or something may be on it.) 2) No random loot to be found anywhere, in anyone's possession? 3) Nothing that happens by chance? To specity #3 a bit: In Baldur's Gate 2, for instance, there was a number of things that could happen once you fulfilled the specifications, but when and where that stuff happened was not guaranteed. Like, you might wake up surrounded by a group of thieves and murderers, IF you had one specific NPC with you AND you were romancing her AND that romance had passed a certain point AND you had decided to sleep outdoors. This was excellent stuff. Is there any of it in this game?

Ok, thanks for that. If it really works as you said, it's a bit of a letdown, unless there are significant differences in the way the loot can be determined while loading a zone. For me, one of the most disappointing aspects in games like this is the way so much stuff is pre-determined. An element of chance is always nice. I know the hazards it can pose, but I don't think it's too difficult to avoid the pitfalls.

A very simple question for people "in the know": is the loot dropped by enemies in the game completely pre-determined (i.e. pre-set inventories for adversaries), or does it contain an element of randomness? It would be great to know this. Personally, I would love it if there was even a tiny random element in there.