Tigranes

Try being an Arsenal fan. And still wearing your Van Persie shirt...

Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason. I love how Germans get the license to write freely, but that means he takes 60 pages to say what should take 10, and regularly devolves into his own navel for some witticisms that are only clever to, well... to people like me, except more charitably minded. Next: Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (whose thesis was used splendidly in Sebastien Faulks' novel on mental illness, Human Traces - i.e. the only one where he's not harping on about WW1/2.)

It's a dangerous thing you are doing, Guard Dog. The world is not ready for such innovation. (See you soon, be safe)

I love critical misses. They happen in real combat, they add drama, they can happen to you or them. You just need to get their frequency right.

Pidesco now knows Stoneskin, so that's one point in his favour. Pid: I generally tend to favour Evocation/Conjuration/Abjuration over Illusion/Divination/etc, as is clearly shown, which may be why you're not very useful at the moment. Your spell selection is pretty much making you a backup to Tale - e.g. later, you'll be the one casting Greater Malison when Tale casts Chaos, things like that. Happy to take suggestions.

Depends on what AGX did with his skill points, but 50-60% in practice meant geckos were killing you. Very often. And you were running out of ammo. All the time. You couldn't realistically be a gunslinger shooting everything down for a while, and the gameplay was built to make sure you 'got by' on a mix of solutions while cobbling together resources and skills. My point is that it is more or less the same in Arcanum, and that gunslingers are disadvantaged early, but are by no means unplayable, and have their own pleasure once they get going. Whether that is worth it for you is your own decision of course.

I actually had to make you wield the Flail of Ages on one hand sometimes, Azure. It was getting tiring hearing you scream "MY WEAPON IS INEFFECTIVE" every six seconds. But yes, I picked up the prick. Umar Hills it is. If Azure can survive for another update or so he should be relatively caught up in XP to start being useful. Pidesco has caught up, but he's still useless.

Dafuq? I've only played the game through once but i never ever used melee or magic. Just guns, especially the sniper/scoped rifle and the elephant? gun. Even with above the standard perception and points invested in gun skill, i'm still getting around 37% hit chance with a flintlock (at point blank range, the combat system also makes it nigh-impossible to maintain distance from enemies,) bought from the starting merchant interface. I'm running out of ammo because of all the classic D&D era missfests. And the critical miss rate is ludicrously high. Everything I've read up on about the game on the internet says basically what I've experienced, that the gameplay balance is decidedly skewed in favor of melee and magic. It doesn't help that it's totally stacked against non-combat builds. You can't run from combat or random encounters, and sometimes your companions will be missing from random encounters so you're completely ****ed. I'm starting to understand why Chris Avellone doesn't want to play it. Magic is overpowered, but a well built gunslinger becomes more than adequate once you start getting medium-tier guns, and then extremely powerful in late game. You're complaining about 37% with a dusty old flintlock pistol from the very first merchant. Fallout, a game where you don't even have guns as an option - do you remember the Very First Pistol you'd find (e.g. at Vic's) after a couple of hours of running around? How useful was that? Guns are an investment that take a while, but go do a few quests or pick some pockets in Tarant, the first major city, to get yourself some nice guns and level up a bit, and you're already doing fine. You can run from random encounters, though I can't remember this exactly. Yes, they are quite difficult at early levels, and can be a pain. Always save before traveling on foot. (You don't have to travel on foot a lot of the time.) Magic is definitely more powerful than guns and there are many balance problems with the game, but it's flat-out false to claim that the game is unplayable for gunslingers or that they are not worth it. I wouldn't recommend them for your first playthrough precisely because that's how you will be feeling, but if you persevere and work things out a bit in terms of gear, or if you play a second time through, it's easy to see how guns players do more than fine, and have their own appeal - they have some fantastic schematics, and most players don't appreciate the use of the various explosives, potions and other consumables you can craft to up your chances, as well.

Exposition Time tells us that Raelis Shai, the leader of the troupe, actually caused all this trouble, and isn't sorry at all. That's what we get for 'rescuing' the bastards. There you are. The Planar Prison has been conquered, and the Playhouse is ours! We will return in a couple of updates with money, and will be able to begin the process of hosting our very own play. TrueNeutral: I have an idea! Maybe it could be about a teenage boy who is a loner, a social outcast, intelligent yet marginalised, devastatingly charming yet cold, who one day discovers he, he.... IS A WEREWOLF- No. Level up and shut up. And Pid-up. We cash in our latest batch of loot for these bracers, taking my AC down to 1; this should help improve my survivability. Pidesco can now cast 5th-level spells also, and we invest in a scroll of Sunfire, whose power we had just seen from the Warden. The experience of watching Pidesco memorise Sunfire provokes Azure into a level up. We finally have cash left over, moreover, for a Magic User License; we can now cast magic freely in the city! Gorth: God bless systemised corruption. While we are there, a Cowled Wizard named Tolgerias offers us a proposition, which we had to promise to agree to to get the full details: return the delinquent named Valygar to face 'justice'. His current hideout is in the Umar Hills. Outside in the Government District, however, we receive another proposition: a small squeaky-voiced boy looking for heroes to help the community at Umar Hills against a strange threat. I sense that we shall have a choice: to kill or appropriate this Valygar, earning our reward and keeping our word, or allow him to flee, while we focus on the troubles at Umar Hills. In either case, that shall be our next destination. The question: what will be our choice? Vote, Obsidianites!

I concentrate on using my wild magic to try and cast Nishruu, who, as you know, are excellent at fighting spellcasters and cause them to forget memorised spells. (It's 6th level and I cant' cast it legitimately yet, so I have to use Wild Surges - which is why success rate is even lower.) We do succeed here. Meanwhile, everyone else gangs up on the Warden, though Improved Mantle still protects him. The Warden has more high level spells, however. He mazes Nepenthe (8th level) - who will be taken out of action for something like ten turns, completely. We shift our attention to the Mordekainen's Sword, while I succeed with a second Nishruu. Unfortunately, Azure too is mazed. Fun fact: Nishruu can also cast a few spells. Fun fact 2: Magic missile is one of the few spells that the Sword is vulnerable to. The Warden's Improved Mantle finally wears off, but as soon as we land a hit, he responds with a second batch of contingencies: Protection from Magical Weapons immunises him to all the weapons we currently have I think, and lasts a while as well. At this point, though, the Warden too is out of high level spells. There is about ten turns of him attacking Werewolf-TrueNeutral, who quaffs potions to stay alive, as we hold out. (Potion Count: 9) Finally, the buffs wear off... (you also see the air elemental, courtesy of our new staff.) ...and Nepenthe returns from Maze. Quaffing a potion, he joins the fray. (Potion Count: 10) And finally, ten potions and about three dozen turns later, the Warden falls from the Fire Elemental, which somehow survived the entire fight. We are victorious! Our reward: a piece of the Wave, a legendary halberd. Anyone use halberds round here? No? Didn't think so.

:oic: I level up, but no sixth level spells yet. Another Pid-Up. We find the brazier, which we had passed earlier, and shatter the Mastery Orb; all around the map, text updates inform us that the remaining slaves, now clear-headed, are turning on their masters. Nepenthe: For Revolution! Of course, they will die very, very quickly, but I suppose they'll soften the enemies a little bit for us. The experience of glorious revolution causes Gorth to become even stronger. Gorth scouts ahead and finds the warden, wasting his seventh level spells on... his own thralls, as punishment for their failure. Azure: Guy's never heard of three strikes rule, huh. We stop at the corridor leading to the Warden and buff up. A Yuan-ti mage finds us, but that only makes it easier to kill in isolation; the Warden remains now our sole opponent. Nepenthe charges ahead to trigger conversation... ...which is good, because the guy starts a contingency of Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting and various spell protections. It's an 8th level spell doing damage to all in the area - at our level, we wouldn't make the save, and it might be enough for pretty much a one-hit party wipe. The Warden casts Power Word: Stun on me immediately. He is protected by Improved Mantle (immunity to +3? +4? weapons and below) and spell protections, making him practially invulnerable for the first few turns. We'll need to be careful, and- Oh, bugger. (From the graphic, I'm pretty sure it's a Power Word: Kill, since he gets us with a single, Casting Time=1 spell; clearly his SCS-augmented AI is targeting the mage with the low HP. It's a 9th level spell with no defence if your HP is too low - so we'll just have to keep out of his line of sight. Obviously, since our defeat was by no means guaranteed, we will reload.) Seems the Warden's contingency spells are a little different this time, adding a Mordekainen's Sword - an independent, floating sword that deals significant damage, and is immune to many spells. Nepenthe is caught on the fringes of Abi-Dalzim and also blinded. Now, we will- ...bugger. The Warden runs up to us, catches me on the edge of his LOS, and it's another reload. Solution: I stay back. Far back. The Warden responds by walking into the party's midst and casting Sunfire, a 5th level spell dealing high fire damage to all around him. Gorth is taken out- Azure: So much for the man with the million dollar crossbow, huh. -and the others are in bad shape too; everyone quaffs a potion. (Potion Count: 4)

Nepenthe: These are the collars that bind the proletariat to the will of the capitalist. But we cannot go on removing these, one by one; what we must do is find the source of the oppression. This is our task. Our revolutionary mission! I assume there is XP involved? SCS scripting goes a little weird in this area, since the thralls end up walking around firing all sorts of traps. Great for us. Nepenthe: I feel... obsolete. We continue carefully. There are gaping suction-holes in the ground that, should you step into them, will suck party members away into a mysterious location (re: a small room full of werewolves). We had bought Gorth two hundred +2 bolts with the rest of our money; he makes good by sharpshooting a series of enemies from distance. More suicide. Nepenthe: *sniff* clearly, they are choosing death over oppression, and in their martyrdom serve the Revolutionary Cause! The Master of Thralls is some kind of discoloured demon, I see. The demon brings two greater air elementals with him; while they occupy our fighters it Teleports Without Error and slices at Gorth. Smart of him to recognise his greatest threat. We quickly dispose of one elemental and set about bashing on the demon, Gorth at a safe distance... But the demon uses his Paralysis Gaze to disable Nepenthe and Azure. Not good. The remaining air elemental sneaks up on us and starts chewing on the Held members, but we're too busy having Gorth run away... The demon falls, but so does Nepenthe. The two now have one deaths each. Our reward is the Staff of Air +2, which can summon air elementals once a day, and... insta-kill air elementals. Azure: In KOTOR, you get strangely useful items before you need them. Pfah. We also find the Mastery Orb. This is what we were looking for.

23. On the Merits of Potions Click Here for Table of Contents Last we saw the brave Obsidianites, and their bravest leader, me, we were about to enter the Planar Prison in search of good loot, XP, and also our kidnapped employers, in that order. But first, we cash in from the De'Arnise Keep, expending 12,000 gold on this beauty. With +3 THAC0 and +5 damage Gorth goes from a formidable archer to a ridiculous one. Gorth: Did... did it say which hair of a frost giant it's using? I'm sure they are cleaned rigorously according to industry standards and regulations. Gorth: We live in a pre-industrial, pseudo-feudalist world and a guild-less market composed of eight shopkeepers. There's your answer, then. We buff up, and we jump in. This isn't going to be easy. The setup is simple: Yuan-ti oppressors, gnomish (?) proletariats, and us, the Revolutionaries. Nepenthe: We shall throw off the collars of oppression! Literally! As usual, the two yuan-ti mages are the dangerous ones. Gorth manages an arrow fast as lightning before the contingency fires, damaging one yuan-ti badly. TrueNeutral summons a fire elemental while my chaos spell does wonders, getting the other yuan-ti - a real coup. Things should be relatively easy from here. A finger of death is fired at Gorth... ...but he makes the save. Gorth: After the crossbow, I can save against anything. We make quick work of the welcoming party. We find the Wand of the Heavens, which is an excellent wand for priest classes dealing 8D6 damage each time - great for enemies difficult to damage by standard means. Of course, with the death of Calax, nobody in the party can use the bloody thing. We also find the Boots of Speed, which goes on me.

I would argue that the old mechanic of 'perfect misses' was already a good balance of choice and frustration in principle. That is, there is a very clear, very intuitive difference between hitting and missing; the qualitative difference (not being hit at all is different from being hit for 1 damage in terms of healing, attrition, spell interruption, etc) provided tactical variegation; the frustration of missing was well mitigated by the choices it opens up, and the possibility of your enemies missing also (and in Fallout, the reward of entertaining critical misses). The mathematical specifics sometimes didn't work out so well (e.g. some low level battles where everyone misses forever), but that doesn't invalidate a model that worked pretty well many other times. Again, I'm open to the no-miss system, but I have yet to hear from Josh what is the clear benefit.

Extending on my earlier post, I still struggle to understand exactly what is being solved or improved in a tactical sense. If in practice (e.g. after DT) miss damage is so low as to be undesirable, then there's not a big difference, you're still trying not to 'miss'. What does it matter that I do 2 damage every turn if this guy has HP of 100 and is attacking me at a much higher rate? If miss damage is significant enough, then that opens up, encourage, grinding miss-hits to take down a troublesome opponent; doesn't this devalue dodging, buffing, etc. as a way of improving your chances and giving combat tactical variety? Or is it simply a matter of mathematically finding a magic zone? What is the improvement - that combat is now less dependent on chance? Well, you still have a chance of missing, the same as before - it's just that the costs of the game of chance are now partially mitigated (difference between 3 & 10, as opposed to 0 & 10 damage). Is this really a tactical improvement? Isn't it just making two outcomes - miss and hit - less different (both qualitatively & quantitatively), so that your tactical choices and conditions are made more similar?

I like the idea that combat is always risky, and you can't get out of being damaged, because that introduces a desirable element of attrition into adventuring as a whole (you can steamroller 50 opponents but at the end they will have worn you out). But I think there are pitfalls in implementation that will have to be worked around: (1) Why the absolute figure of half damage on a perfect miss? Why not a sliding scale with a fixed minimum (say, 25%)? (2) Tactical poverty. The idea of monsters or PCs that hit very hard but not very reliably, or ones that hit very reliably but for not much, etc. become immediately only half as effective or striking. In this system, why do I want to invest in dodging? Why do I want to invest in greater to-hit chance? Wouldn't I be encouraged to just build all my characters to keep on hitting and have high stamina/health in order to survive a battle of short-term attrition? (3) There is excitement in missing, and your opponents missing; even better with critical misses. Times when you escape death and claim victory because of an opponent's critical miss, etc - those dramatic instances now become only half as likely to occur in the first place. Most importantly, from a player's point of view, I simply don't see much benefit in removing perfect misses. They never bothered me before. Sure, there have been cases in existing games where you miss far too much, say, in earlier levels (e.g. non-combat oriented character vs. the plants in FO2 starting area), or systems where far too much is due to chance and encourages reloaditis, but it has never been that big of a problem in well designed games... so why incur the above costs by messing with it?

You... talked about DA2 for over a hundred minutes?

Isn't it when you go off Oriental Bay and take the coastal road, not the tunnel, into Kilbirnie? (I remember the name of that bay.)

Fixed the images. Calax: Sure, if the timing is right I suppose we might have a ready source of magical scimitars for you...

Death Spell, which I'm still not confident our party members can make saves for. We do our best to keep Mekrath out of our line of sight, expending several Summon Monsters scrolls. (A little cheesy, yes.) Eventually, we run out of them, and Mekrath casts Dimension Door to find us - but by this time all of his initial buffs are down, as is his Stoneskin. We don't have a lot of time. Pidesco and Tale cast magic missiles in turns, ensuring that his spells are interrupted. He had a Protection against Magic Weapons contingency, but we end up taking him down almost purely with Magic Missiles every half-turn. (From memory, SCS gives Mekrath access to pretty high level spells, including a demon summoning. I was pretty convinced charging at him up front would result in a quick party wipe.) And after all that, we rescue an actor who can't rhyme. Marvellous. He tells us to recover their Planar Gem, and leaves. Nepenthe: But we don't know where Mekrath put it. Gorth: Well, there's several chests in this lair we can check. TrueNeutral: They're probably- Trapped? Yes. Yes they are. TrueNeutral: Here you go, Nepenthe. Them be the traps. Nepenthe: What's the point of Find Traps if I have to set them off anyway? And can't we make the new guy do it? Azure: I don't have enough HP, man. Azure: See? That would have killed me, that one. Look at all that green. Back at the playhouse, the extraplanar troupe works on opening the portal to return to their homes - well, to their planar wanderings. The portal lets in a series of monsters, first mephits... ...then elementals... ...then interplanar bounty hunters. They seize our clients and hop back into the portal. So there we are. To finish things, and to earn the playhouse, we must jump through ourselves, and hope that we will survive the challenges ahead. Can we do it? Can Azure, equipped with two +1 daggers alone, hit anything? Seriously, I don't know. I'm pretty sure we're all going to die.

The mage casts Stoneskin, but then is re-webbed. Another one we must kill quickly before it starts buffing itself to oblivion. Things go surprisingly well; I didn't expect them to be so easily susceptible to web and chaos. Luck of the draw, perhaps. Cloudkill & Ice Storm make mop-up painless... Except Gorth strays one step too far to try and shoot them down, and gets caught himself. We can't get to him to heal because whoever does so would be caught too... But web wears off a couple of turns before Gorth commits Assisted Suicide. Our haul from the one fight. Good times. We think about exploring the sewers, but find a rakshasa who throws a fireball in our face. We kill him quickly, then return to our task. Clearly, Athkatla's sewers are some kind of Premium Encounter Table. We do pick up, in addition to Orc Leather and Human Flesh, the Dirties Cloak in the Universe. Back to our task, we find the entrance to the Totally Not Secret Lair of the Evil Wizard holding the Best Actor hostage. Mekrath is alone, but taunts us with his Stoneskinned body. No doubt he has a wealth of spells and buffs, as he would be fully prepared in his own home. Even worse, the tiny room gives us no room to maneuvre, putting us at the mercy of AOE spells. We need to find some other way than direct confrontation. Of course, no peaceful solution is scripted, so we must resort to proxy combat. The Fire Elemental and several war dogs are ordered to attack indiscriminately, firing off his - whoa, Spell Shield is 7th level. This guy's packing heat.

Now he shows me as I eviscerate several ugly opponents. Perhaps I should pay more attention to what he is saying. A gift? For me? Oh, Jon. You shouldn't have. My dream ends as Jon fires a lightning bolt at Imoen. Yes, I understand. You don't want that skanky ho, you want me. I'll be there soon, Jon. Just you wait. Awake and refreshed, we decide to visit the playhouse beneath the tavern. I am struck by a strange lack of nudity. Even worse, they keep fluffing their lines. I guess the actor they had last time had the right dress code. They are boo'd off the stage by noblemen and peasants alike. Nepenthe: More emasculated petit-bourgeoisie. Speaking to the troupe, we learn that their star performer has been kidnapped, and lies at a specific location in the sewers that they hold the key to. These guys seem to have a thing ab out having all the tools and knowledge neessary to resolve a situation, and then not doing it. We pass the Order of the Radiant Heart in the Temple District. We will return to this area soon enough. For now, the sewers await. (Now, I know you guys wanted me to do the Bard Stronghold questline, so I am. But I'm pretty sure we are going to face a lot of death and suffering at the hands of SCS-powered enemies... hey, it's your(our) funeral.) TrueNeutral is now the lone member with priest spell access, and uses his lone 6th level slot to summon a Fire Elemental. Sorry to crash your party, guys. I'm sure you were having a lot of fun down here. Movie night, maybe. I fall back, then cast Chaos, backed up by Pidesco's Web. Their saves are surprisingly low and we have several webbed and confused, while the summons soak up the damage. We have to take out their powerful melee fighters quickly - the dwarf with the hammer, currently unconscious (Emotion spell), can probably kill any of our fighters in ~3 turns.

We clean up the mess, but the Tanner has already fled. We find a piece of the legendary Gesen bow amongst the cargo, but the permanent loss of Calax means it has hardly been a profitable venture. Listen, all I had to do was talk to the beggar and whore that you specifically told me to go talk to. I can see you live life the way a common earthworm might - squirming and pointless. With the loss of Calax we have no choice to recruit a new meatbag - an odd one that insists he is the premier Dagger Specialist in all of the Sword Coast. (I've given him 161,000 XP, which is the cap for Tales of the Sword Coast; that gives him less than half the XP of everyone else.) Azure: Indeed I am! I am more Proficient in the way of Daggers than any man I've met! Gorth: Well, nobody bothers to- Azure: Look, I pumped up my STR and DEX, so that means I'm strong AND fast, and I'm good with daggers, which are fast. I'll be like a whirling assassin, batman style doing tornado dagger attacks- Gorth: You do know STR and DEX bonuses don't stack in second edition rules, right? Azure: That's OK, I'll take the Weapon Finesse feat next level. Listen, you think you know all the rules and stuff you old codger with your books and stuff, but I played KOTOR, like, nine times! Gorth: But you don't- Azure: It sucks you don't get lightsabers in this one, you know? There I was like zam, bwooo, zoom, bam! http://cdn.hark.com/swfs/player_bar.swf?pid=nvzftzysrd Azure: Anyway, I'll be awesome in a few levels, you'll see. Nepenthe: Great. Maybe he can take over the trap duties. We visit the local inn and take a night's rest before proceeding. Tonight, too, I dream of Jon. His alabaster skin, his glowing eyes. Oh, Jon. I'll find you. I'll find you if it costs twenty thousand gold pieces. I hear not what he says, only his voice. Speak to me Jon. Jon shows me a vision of a demon destroying a copy of me. Could it be a roundabout way of showing his affection? I don't know if I want the world of flesh to be beneath me, Jon. I love the world of flesh.

The tanner flees to his basement, and we follow; the place is lined with corpses and traps. TrueNeutral casts Find Traps for us. You know what to do, Nepenthe. Good boy. We also find some Human Flesh. I told you Orc Leather isn't as bad as it gets. It needs to be made into proper armour to be worn, but we shall see if we get around to that. We resume our pursuit, but the tanner is nowhere to be seen, while his ally blocks our path. A rune assassin; in SCS they have several potions of invisibilty they can quaff to make full use of their aggressive backstab modifiers. Calax is nearly one-hitted as we set up battle stations. Another assassin is found with our Detect Invisibility spell. We must take them out quickly, while the mages' stoneskin lasts, and the rest of the party- Calax dies for I believe the first time, but the massive damage chunks his body into a million pieces. TrueNeutral: Amazing what they do with a single dagger, these days. Nepenthe: The Capitalist has arrayed his forces against us, but we shall persevere! Come, Calax! Gorth: You know he's about as persevering as a raw pork chop at the moment, right? Nepenthe: Well then. I really hope we replace him with a thief. Chunking means there is no revival for poor old Calax. He's gone. Forever.

22. Detective Work Click Here for Table of Contents Following our heroic pillaging of De'Arnise Keep, we decide upon our next job in our bid to raise 20,000 gold. Somehow, our paths seem to lead to the Bridge District. We have no particular reason to be here, but... it just feels like I was told to come this way. Gorth: Are you hearing voices, now? Well, it seems we've stumbled upon a murder mystery. Where there is crime, there is profit to be had. Perhaps we might find some kind of cartel we can leverage, a morally grey adventure where we must confront our lust for power and wealth, and its cost on humanity. A quest where we find that justice is not as easy as killing the bad guy- Oh, right. We find some commoners breaking wind about the murders. Nepenthe: These proletariat have no awareness of their own predicament. They are surely next in line for gratuitous murder, yet they merely chatter over the dead bodies of their comrades! Revolution is not possible when the people wallow in- Are you suggesting the murderer is a bourgeoisie? A beggar tells us more for a gift of gold. Perhaps it is true. Only a filthy capitalist deals in luxury goods like Exotic Hide. Nepenthe: I wager the poor labourer who worked on this hide shall never be able to afford one for himself. Our research extends to a merchant and a whore, between whom we confirm our suspicions: it is indeed a filthy bourgeois tanner that has murdered these people. Gorth: Uh... a tanner isn't exactly a white collar profession, you know. Nepenthe: Silence, capitalist dog! Finding the murderous tanner involves the arduous task of visiting a house labelled The Tanner, then aggressively accusing the man of his crimes. Yes, the NYPD method really does work.