Mask o' the Betrayer!

[Cantousent]

I think you can basically just beat it down also. It takes longer, but I don't think fire based spells did anything to it and it seemed to have some funky regen going.

[Gorth]

What's IGMS?

Indomitable Guided Missile System

 

 

 

 

Or was it Isaacs Greater Missile Storm?

 

The D&D version of cluster bombs

[Atreides]

Thanks guys. I stumbled into the cave, so I guess it's also part of a quest that I haven't discovered. Not that it'll stop me killing it first haha. There beast just didn't seem to take any damage at all.

 

I had Safiya grapple it (with Bigby's spells), 2 Summon 9's banging on it while my party's casting all it had (admittedly half-depleted) against it and that didn't work. When we ran out of spells we all melee'd it (still with the summons still beating down on it), hasted. That didn't do anything, and then the summons timed out, the grapple wore out and I called it a night.

[Volourn]

IGMS isn't all thnat over pwoered. I've seen tons of enemies take it and keep on coming. It's only over pwoered if you rest after every battle and can spam it non stop - something you can't do in MOTB after chapter 1.

 

P.S. I just entered Ashenwood so shhhhhh.

[Gromnir]

IGMS isn't all thnat over pwoered. I've seen tons of enemies take it and keep on coming. It's only over pwoered if you rest after every battle and can spam it non stop - something you can't do in MOTB after chapter 1.

 

P.S. I just entered Ashenwood so shhhhhh.

 

igms not need to be targeted. igms does magic damage. igms not subject to a saving throw. 'gainst stuff that has impossible saving throws, a maxed igms is gonna do big damage. is particularly effective when paired with avasculate.

 

ps you IS in the spoiler section... yutz.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Atreides]

Mark me down as another anti-fan of Suppress giving Good and Lawful points. At worst it's annoying for alignment if I want to be neutral/chaotic/evil. It's a cheap way to boost those alignments if that's where I want to go though.

 

Well to be fair, apparently there are other spirit feats that give you chaotic-evil points.

 

As it's my first playthrough I'm doing what feels normal to me and being conservative with the spirit counter which means not ramping up my craving too much...

Edited November 8, 2007 by Atreides

[Istima Loke]

I'm having a blast with my evil character. One of Many is (for me) the best of all the MotB NPCs.

[Tale]

I just want to go ahead and say thanks to Obsidian for the game. I don't think I have. Most specifically, the Spirit Eater mechanic. We see lots of people complain about games being dumbed down nowadays. Mask is not dumbed down, despite the fact that so many people seem to wish it was. The Spirit Eater mechanic requires attention and care, it adds strategy to gameplay outside of the encounters. And kudos for that.

[Volourn]

It's also rather illogical at times. It is a good idea as a game mechanics, and does add to the game play; but it *could* be handled much better.

[Gorth]

It's also rather illogical at times. It is a good idea as a game mechanics, and does add to the game play; but it *could* be handled much better.

How?

 

Ok, made my way to the Skein. I am desperate to finds a certain old hag, so I can slit her throat... anything to make her stop "singing" >_

 

Got a few good laughs on my way down there though, especially the genasi prince and his experiences with ogre brew (made of fermented rodents among others) and the battle where my pet lich decided to help me out. All for the glory of Imaskar of course

 

One thing left me puzzled, but I might revisit that if I make it back to the suface alive some day (with my sanity intact), and that is a girl in a cabin who seems trapped in a dream, hopelessly in love with Gann. I almost didn't believe my ears in the cabin btw. playing that music, like from an old vinyl record

[Pop]

The means to completing the crazy grrl storyline are given once you beat the Skein quest.

[Gorth]

I suspected as much. I noticed earlier in the game, that not everything is linear in this world... what a refreshing change

 

No big arrows that says "This way -->"

[Volourn]

"How?"

 

Some of the allignment changes. You shouldn't be getting good/lawful points by simply suppressing.

 

The drains of spirit nergy ar esoemtimes seemingly random espicially in regards to world map travel, and sleeping.

 

Still, overall, it's a good addition. I'd rate it around 80% effective in quality.

[Gromnir]

It's also rather illogical at times. It is a good idea as a game mechanics, and does add to the game play; but it *could* be handled much better.

How?

 

 

 

the mechanic is busted. wanna reduce craving to min levels? find one of the many spots with friendly or neutral spirits... and rest repeatedly. the point of the mechanic is to discourage rest, but if you wanna get craving minimized resting a half dozen times w/o doing any other actual gameplay is probably your quickest route. the first couple times you rest your spirit meter will drop, 'cause crave is too high, but eventually you end up with a net gain to spirit meter following rest. rinse and repeat... rinse and repeat. is mindless and stoopid and illogical.

 

other method for quick fill of spirit bar is to purposefully rest in dangerous places where undead respawn. use eternal rest a couple times and you is at 100. game encourages Gromnir to take advantage o' resting respawns? huh?

 

stoopid.

 

spirit meter took Gromnir out of the game world... most obvious and bestest ways to deal with spirit bar felt like loopholes and cheats. is bad design when obvious way to deal with a game mechanic is not furthering gameplay. mindless drudgery.

 

oh, and the amount of alignment points granted for use of spirit related feats were often perplexing. 2 points lawful for suppress? is FAR too extreme an award/penalty compared to other alignment point adjustments offered in game. weren't painful to Gromnir as alignment had no bearing on our character class choices, but am understanding why some druid or barbarian players were angered... particularly as there were no way for those players to know ahead o' time that their character concept might become much more difficult to maintain throughout motb.

 

oh, and the spirit meter also made ai of party spell casters that much more irksome. Gromnir knows how to be frugal with spell casting... but party members do not. yeah, some insanity such as red wizard casting greater magic weapon on an ENEMY is old news to Gromnir, but when in skein the bird girl unleashes a storm o' vengeance on a handful of spirit rats? forces us to babysit all spell caster npcs in those few limited rest areas.

 

for Gromnir, the only gameplay value o' the spirit meter were to make us less likely to rest in 2(possibly 3) areas of game. what a terrible waste of developer resources... spirit meter were far too complex (and easily circumvented) mechanic to achieve such a limited end.

 

'course for the evil players the spirit meter does offer a much different set of hurdles and benefits, and as such there is some added replay value... but Gromnir gots no urge to explore such opportunities, nevertheless we does concede that the motb spirit meter does afford additional gameplay avenues.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 10, 2007 by Gromnir

[Gorth]

@Volourn + Gromnir: Points taken. I can't say if I agree or not, since I haven't completed the game yet (suspect I still have quite a bit of way left to go)

 

Maybe I should have made it a more elaborate "how?". It was a question to Volourns "it *could* have been handled much better" part. Assuming it was to prevent players from sleeping and rebuffing I was just curious as to how to handle that much better.

 

The curse doesn't bother me YET, but then, my spell caster have so many spells at these levels, that running out of ammunition doesn't happen very often, hence less need for resting compared to low level play.

[Gromnir]

"Assuming it was to prevent players from sleeping and rebuffing I was just curious as to how to handle that much better."

 

am sure you can answer your own question. if goal is to prevent excessive resting in certain areas, what simple and direct method(s) would you use to preclude such resting?

 

...

 

no doubt you can come up with an obvious solution, eh?

 

the developers knew that simply preventing rest would bother some players... so they gots clever and made into a kewl mechanic. turn weakness into a strength? good idea... if not for poor execution. net gain from implementing spirit meter rather than limiting rest directly... and was it worth the development time to implement?

 

*shrug*

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Spider]

I hate to be the one to say this, but Gromnir you do know that if you just play the game instead of trying to find loopholes and cheats, the spirit meter actually works. If you want to spend time doing something so tedious as resting on the spot over and over again, all the power to you. But I found that managing the spirit meter in a more un-tedious fashion made it add a lot to the game play.

 

Hell, from the sound of it I probably rested fewer times through the entire game than you did in one sitting (world map travels not included).

[Gromnir]

"I hate to be the one to say this, but Gromnir you do know that if you just play the game..."

 

coming from the guy who didn't read the spirit meter feat descriptions we find this amusing. heck, given your self imposed ignorance you didn't have much choice but to simply "play the game," whatever the heck that means.

 

and yeah, Gromnir could bury head in the sand and simply try to avoid rest as long as possible, pretend that the spirit meter were discouraging us from resting, but that would not change the fact that the mechanic is busted. if only way for spirit meter to work is if Gromnir pretends to be foolish or to not bother to read in-game dialogs or descriptions, then the mechanic is still gonna be busted.

 

and again, as Gromnir has pointed out before, the obvious flaws in the system not change the gameplay at all... only real change were to save us some actual game time dealing with an otherwise annoying little feature.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorth]

no doubt you can come up with an obvious solution, eh?

 

the developers knew that simply preventing rest would bother some players... so they gots clever and made into a kewl mechanic. turn weakness into a strength? good idea... if not for poor execution. net gain from implementing spirit meter rather than limiting rest directly... and was it worth the development time to implement?

Come up with obvious solutions? Probably not. If I had a silverbullet that eliminated game balance issues and still kept players happy, I could probably end up a rich man. Or work for blizzard/bethesda/whoever makes games that appeal to a large demographic.

 

Worth the development time to implement? No idea, since I haven't followed the games development, i.e. no clue how much resources went into it. If I should hazard a guess, a simple compromise between PST and BG2 might have been more cost efficient (i.e. only rest in certain areas or constantly being ambushed in unsafe places or both).

 

Ah well, they had an idea, they implemented it. Odds are, I will find it more aggravating than fun, but not enough to ruin the overall experience. I wouldn't be surprised it there was a hack around somewhere already to disable the curse.

 

Speaking of which... help! I closed my spirit meter bar. How the heck to you open the thing again? I checked the manual, no help, options -> keyboard shortcuts, no help.

[Atreides]

There's a + maximize button on the top, and a - minimize button too.

[Gorth]

There's a + maximize button on the top, and a - minimize button too.

It was hiding behind the minimap

 

A keyboard shortcut like the other bars would have been nice though. Off to Ashenwood...

[Spider]

coming from the guy who didn't read the spirit meter feat descriptions we find this amusing. heck, given your self imposed ignorance you didn't have much choice but to simply "play the game," whatever the heck that means.

 

I know you'd try something like that. *shrugs*

 

I missed out on using Eternal Rest a few times. It didn't really affect my game experience in the slightest since I used Devour Spirit instead. Or supress. And I still managed to keep the hunger under control without resorting to tedious action like resting on the spot over and over again.

 

But whatever. You are certainly free to play the game any way you like. I was merely offering up the opinion that the mechanic is only broken if you actively try to break it.

[Gromnir]

no doubt you can come up with an obvious solution, eh?

 

the developers knew that simply preventing rest would bother some players... so they gots clever and made into a kewl mechanic. turn weakness into a strength? good idea... if not for poor execution. net gain from implementing spirit meter rather than limiting rest directly... and was it worth the development time to implement?

Come up with obvious solutions? Probably not. If I had a silverbullet that eliminated game balance issues and still kept players happy,

 

who says you gotta keep all players happy? you can never make all players happy. you asked vol and then Gromnir what other options did obsidian have available, no? "How?" simple. make no sleepy areas. same end result. sure, you end up with cheesed off players, but so what? balance always cheeses off players. the thing is, you spend virtually 0 resources to implement such a "feature" as 'posed to the broken spirit meter. same end result and probably less game frustration for most players and at what kinda man hour cost to developers?

 

oh, and for the high and mighty role-players: how did you replenish spirit meter after skein? is quite a number o' options. only one option does Gromnir preclude: no soul devouring. soul devour o' coven would indeed replenish, but such is clearly a foul and evil act... so no soul devour.

 

...

 

all options Gromnir conceive involve mindless abasement to spirit meter mechanic. go to place where you know undead is confined (those offering urns in dead god's vault are functionally the same as power up gems in some crappy console game.) go to area of world map where you know spirits respawn and devour a few following a "battle" with an inevitable conclusion? is evil, and is different from undead offering urns how? gameplay ends up same even if awards is slight different. fight some meaningless and tangential battle to gets your power up boost? great gameplay... works exactly as developers envisioned. *snort* maybe you use world map to do a quest, coupled with suppress?

 

step 1) suppress

 

2) use world map to travel to wells of lurre

 

3)complete dream lover quest

 

4) use suppress again.

 

5) return to town and suppress once more.

 

oh wait, that is taking advantage of crazy travel disparity vs. resting depletion. spirit bar depletes slower from 2 days travel than for resting 8 hours... and more than a day worth o' travel means you get refresh o' suppress. sadly this again is taking advantage o' the system.

 

now, if Gromnir simply avoids the above options and goes ahead with thaymount, we can then be secure in knowledge that we is not working the system... 'course as our spirit meter is in the 40's range post first play through of skein, and travel to thay is instantaneous, so no replenishment o' suppress or eternal rest occurs. leaves us in a precarious situation. am suspecting that this is exactly what the legion o' genuine role-players did... to maintain the integrity o' the spirit meter mechanic. HA! unlikely.

 

what a waste o' energy. can use any number of the above broken or mindless methods, or we can simply say "screw this," and rest and suppress a half dozen times in the span o' 30 seconds o' real time. is no less broken or stoopid, but has advantage of being less annoying and much faster.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps spider did open self up big time with that bit 'bout not having bothered to read the feat descriptions... fact that he chose some mod that would knowingly prevent him from being able to read info in a game he had never played before just tickles our funny bone. pretty much absolves the developers o' any sin as you really did ask for a handicapped game experience.

Edited November 10, 2007 by Gromnir

[Cantousent]

My take on the Spirit Eater curse is that it failed dismally at the one stated goal from pre-release. It does not prevent resting. I included this in my post mortem before I left Obsidz.

 

However, I do believe that it adds an extra layer for the player. No matter what, the player is forced to come up with methods to deal with the curse. There are some methods that certainly have a "cheesy" feel to them, and some of these methods essentially inoculate the PC from any harm from the curse. However, it is still an added layer to gameplay.

 

If that were all, I would say the Spirit Eater aspect of the game had failed. There's something else I liked about the curse, however, that made it a great addition to the gameplay. It has a lot of abilities. Some of the abilities are only there to help the player deal with the curse, that's true. Other abilities, however, like Eternal Rest, Spiritual Evisceration, and Bestow Life Force, allow players to experience the game in different ways. I don't think the concept is perfectly translated into the game. ...And, for a while, I thought Eric Fenstermaker, the fellow who designed the feature (at least as I understood it), was a complete yutz. In the end, though, I was impressed by Eric's work on the game. He's also the fellow who came up with the wonderful sign at the Academy. Overall, he did a great job and I expect he'll go on to some fine design work. Lest you think I'm kissing his ass, I have no doubt that the vast majority of Obsidianites don't visit this board and fewer visit this thread. I wouldn't be particularly gentle with them if they did.

 

So, I agree with some of the complaints about the Spirit Eater curse. I can even sympathize with some of the complaints with which I don't agree. That doesn't change the fact that I thought the curse added something to the story and the game.

[Gorth]

who says you gotta keep all players happy? you can never make all players happy. you asked vol and then Gromnir what other options did obsidian have available, no? "How?" simple. make no sleepy areas. same end result. sure, you end up with cheesed off players, but so what? balance always cheeses off players. the thing is, you spend virtually 0 resources to implement such a "feature" as 'posed to the broken spirit meter. same end result and probably less game frustration for most players and at what kinda man hour cost to developers?

Well, if you put it that way... can't say that I disagree, a simple "it is not safe to rest here" would do. To be honest, the no party member death unless entire party killed usually bugged me more than the endless resting thing. If I hadn't gotten the information from the forums here, as to the why the curse mechnism was implemented, I would just have thought it a gimmick to put the player under pressure to finish the game asap (which is my personal reason for disliking it). Of course, not having finished it yet, I have no idea if it sticks with you until the end.