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Happily, quickfire doesn't just stop at wiping towns. Quickfire is a thing of beauty. And at least a little use.
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Jan 14, 2014 13:25
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For anyone who plans to play along, bear in mind that blessing, hasting, cursing, and slowing are EXTREMELY powerful effects in battle, and that the efficiency of them increases massively the higher up you go in the spell trees, so you should just about always use bless instead of minor bless, haste instead of minor haste, stinking cloud instead of curse, curse all instead of stinking cloud, etc. Almost every fight in the game can be made more manageable through the use of bless all/haste all/curse all/slow all, and many of the fights expect you to do so and will still be quite difficult besides. Mage 3 is, to reiterate, an incredibly important breakpoint; Unlock Doors is literally required in a few places, and negates the need to spread points into lockpicking besides. Fireball is unbelievably good in terms of mana efficiency. Haste is fantastically good and you'll want pretty much everyone to be hasted as often as possible. Long Light is just a great utility spell that you'll be making use of throughout the game just to cut down on the headache of light management; it does have the downside of cluing the enemy AI into your presence in some places, but many of the most dangerous places are already lit anyways, so it's hard to say how much of a problem that is. The multi-target spells are, as people have pointed out, usually not very mana-efficient, but they still have a niche use; in large battle formations, it can sometimes be the most efficient spell for picking on spread-out archers and mages who need to die fast. Flame Arrow is especially weak, but Poison Arrow does alright in that poison can stack and is often the best choice for humanoid mages and archers of the more burly varieties (there are, in particular, a couple of Empire archer units later on that can soak unbelievable amounts of damage; the Empire loves its archers). Death Arrows is very powerful, but by the time you get it you'll be running into lots of enemies that either resist the effects or for whom more efficient tactics may be necessary. Web is an expensive niche utility spell, but bear in mind that webbing stacks on units to slow them further and enemies find them just as annoying as PC's do, and any source of slowing is a welcome one. One of the more interesting uses of web is as the poor man's barrier spell; webs more than two tiles deep will block line of sight, so a couple of web spells can close off corridors or break line of sight with mages who then have to tramp through the webs, slowing themselves, just to get back in sight of you. Web is, however, very expensive for what it does, and at least one class of enemies who you'd really WANT to use it on are immune to its effects outside of the LOS tampering, so you'll usually have better options. Summoning is rarely as helpful as you'd like, but bear in mind most summoning spells are affected by casting strength, so you can get some useful results from them; sticks to snakes in particular has the distinction of at least making an awful lot of chaff to confuse enemy formations with. Summon Demon and Summon Spirit can call up casters, I believe, so they can be quite potent...as long as the AI doesn't gently caress you over or waste its time doing stupid things. Anyone who does ANY casting AT ALL should get to at least level 2 of priest spells or level 3 of mage spells, due to the more efficient and powerful spells available at those points. A fighter who can bless and haste themselves is not to be scoffed at, and there will be some very good drat reasons to have fighters who can do that for themselves later on. I was going to add a rant about which effects stack and which don't and all that, but I assume that will get covered in the status effects post. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 13:47
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veekie posted:It's perfect for when you have a town you want to be rid of. Suddenly I find myself hoping for a return trip to the town of Spire.
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Jan 14, 2014 15:08
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A few interesting tidbits you didn't mention: >Wound is flagged as a non-magical attack, so it's far, far more useful than it seems. There are a ton of late-game enemies that are resistant or immune to all elements, including "magic" (which covers non-elemental casts like Kill). An enemy that's immune to Poison/Fire/Cold/Magic is functionally immune to all magical offense EXCEPT Wound and Wall of Blades. >Avatar is useful even for Priests without physical skill - A strong Bless effect, Haste, healing and Invulnerability. Just treat it as a panic button for your Priest. >The huge spiderwebs created by Web block line of sight. This works phenomenally well for stealing stuff from towns early on. The barrier spells later on do the same thing, but casting them in the middle of a store to rob the store ends up being a huge hassle if you actually want to shop there. >Flight is secretly useless. The duration is shorter than the Orb of Thralni, so if you need to fly to cross a pit, Flight typically won't last long enough to actually get you there. >Antimagic Cloud is the best spell in the game, bar none. Enemy casters are far and away the biggest threats in the game and this basically shuts them down for several turns. Very, very useful. Often enemies are too lazy/stupid to just walk out, so it's even better than it seems. >Ravage Enemy is just nasty - Slow All plus a very strong Curse All in one nice package. If you have two Mages, have one cast this and the other cast Major Blessing both on Turn 1 and you've instantly made any fight far, far easier. >Force Barrier - I'm pretty sure this spell just exists to justify the fact that other wizards have created them. For you, it's rarely useful since blocking a corridor with it just means you need to Dispel it to get to the other side anyways. Also, quite a few powerful enemies can just smash straight through them, so if you were thinking about using them to separate enemies into smaller groups, don't bother. >Arrow spells are pretty much identical to the normal spell they simulate (Death Arrows vs Kill, Flame Arrows vs Flame, etc), except multi-target and with a ~50% damage penalty. So the usefulness of an Arrow spell really depends on how much base damage you started with - Flame Arrows are absolutely killed by the 50% damage penalty since the raw damage sucks, but Death Arrows are still fairly handy since Kill's raw damage is very high. >Note that Quickfire counts as a fire spell (duh), so enemies with fire resistance will survive quite a long time and fire immune enemies won't care.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:37
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I remember once playing this game, getting holed up in a corner in a dungeon where the monster generation had gotten completely out of hand, and making myself a little cubbyhole out of Flame Barriers before casting Quickfire. It cleared up the dungeon gratifyingly well...only problem then being that, well, the entire dungeon was full of Quickfire and I was stuck in a corner. And yeah, there's no reason to cast Force Barrier as far as I'm aware; Flame Barrier has the same LOS-blocking effects but doesn't need to be dispelled since you can just walk through it instead (albeit while taking damage).
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Jan 15, 2014 02:45
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I'm just gratified to see a game where buffs and debuffs are worth a toss, frankly. So many games are all about nukes & heals, nukes & heals, blah blah blah. jon, I'm curious... what's your long-term plan in terms of developing casters? this group seems really thin on them, to me. Exile 1 you had an all-'rounder in Peregrine, a dedicated mage in Ember, and a dedicated priest of sorts in Art, though I don't remember if she had access to every spell/tier by game's end. In 6-PC games with the good old wizard/cleric dichotomy, I always have one sorcerer, one priest, and one other person that can do both a fair bit as backup/supplement. Caster-heavy parties are more fun, to me at least, and what you did in Exile 1 went well enough. With Art the leader/main tank, having her as the only cleric seems untenable at best, so I'd like to know where you're going with builds... maybe I missed it.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:27
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All posts up to this one have been edited in.JustJeff88 posted:jon, I'm curious... what's your long-term plan in terms of developing casters? this group seems really thin on them, to me. Exile 1 you had an all-'rounder in Peregrine, a dedicated mage in Ember, and a dedicated priest of sorts in Art, though I don't remember if she had access to every spell/tier by game's end. In 6-PC games with the good old wizard/cleric dichotomy, I always have one sorcerer, one priest, and one other person that can do both a fair bit as backup/supplement. Caster-heavy parties are more fun, to me at least, and what you did in Exile 1 went well enough. With Art the leader/main tank, having her as the only cleric seems untenable at best, so I'd like to know where you're going with builds... maybe I missed it. Art is going to Develop into a Tanky-Priest (she needs to have 50 SP before I end Chapter 1 for starters), and away from full on dervish for plot and character reasons. Kai-Lyss will maintain his majority Magic, but I may hand Chester a level or two of Priest, and Marianna a couple levels of Mage deeper into the game to supplement the two primaries.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:33
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berryjon posted:All posts up to this one have been edited in. Do you intend to have at least one person who can cast every spell? I'm a hellish completionist as I will freely admit, but some of those higher spells do look awfully useful. You used Group Bless or whatever it's called almost constantly near the end of Ex1, and it's just as good if not better this time around. I hope that spell wasn't a narcotic... Rook and the lot would have collapsed from withdrawal symptoms before they even got to that surface tunnel. 
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Jan 15, 2014 05:41
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JustJeff88 posted:Do you intend to have at least one person who can cast every spell? I'm a hellish completionist as I will freely admit, but some of those higher spells do look awfully useful. You used Group Bless or whatever it's called almost constantly near the end of Ex1, and it's just as good if not better this time around. Major Blessing is still the Best Spell. I will brook no arguments!  I will certainly show where to get every spell, but I don't think I'll officially collect them all for everyone. I avoided using the un-kill spells in E1 for the most part.
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Jan 15, 2014 06:08
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berryjon posted:Major Blessing is still the Best Spell. I will brook no arguments! I actually think he was just asking if you'd get all spells available by the end of the game. No need to officially collect everything for everyone  Really looking forward to seeing how this party develops. E2 has a much more detailed story than E1, so it'll be interesting to see how the newbies react. Also, a couple more random thoughts to add to my earlier ones (which I think I posted after your previous "add in"): >Dispel Fields is only really useful in some sort of timed scenario, since there's usually a way to dodge around them if you're willing to waste a few action points. Fields also dissipate if you wait a few turns, so out of combat, it's just a waste of spell points. >Pestilence sounds better than it actually is. Disease works slowly so it just doesn't work fast enough to really be viable in most combat situations. Disease also has semi-random effects (almost any negative status in the game can be added), so you can often end up inflicting irrelevant conditions (e.g., dumbfounding an enemy with no magic). >Dispel Undead does absurd amounts of damage. If the enemy is flagged as undead, this is probably your most damaging spell. >Ravage Spirit works the same way as Dispel Undead - huge damage against the specific enemy type. Demons tend to have all sorts of resistances (and be very beefy in general), so this gets a lot of use.
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Jan 16, 2014 00:56
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Casting Quickfire is like dropping a lit match on a world made of straw. You just can't go through the game without at least casting it once to see the beauty of it. 
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Jan 17, 2014 03:30
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Oh Fine. I'll cast Quickfire sooner rather than later. And don't say I don't do anything for you guys.
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Jan 17, 2014 07:18
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Funny enough, I did some nominal googling and can find plenty of descriptions of Quickfire's effects, but no real visual media of it. I'm looking forward to seeing it, hopefully in a non-canon way.
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Jan 17, 2014 07:57
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Oh no, it'll be cannon. At the very least, I should video the Test of Speed, although coming up with a legitimate target for Kai-Lyss to burn to the ground will be interesting.
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Jan 17, 2014 08:05
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berryjon posted:although coming up with a legitimate target for Kai-Lyss to burn to the ground will be interesting. Kai-Lyss meets the GIFTS?
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Jan 17, 2014 08:15
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The Lone Badger posted:Kai-Lyss meets the GIFTS? Hey I like those guys 
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Jan 17, 2014 08:19
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The Lone Badger posted:Kai-Lyss meets the GIFTS? You're a monster 
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Jan 17, 2014 10:23
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The Lone Badger posted:Kai-Lyss meets the GIFTS? I don't think this thread is for you 
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Jan 17, 2014 10:55
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Update 004 - The Nephilim Fortress “We sshould take a recovery period after that.” “Oh, I could use a hot bath!” “For once, I agree completely with you!” “Alright. Kai-Lyss, you're in charge of that. Make sure everyone is well-rested and recovered. I'm going to talk to someone and report in.” “Of courssse.” “Shall I come with you, Art?” “I'll come too, Sir Ma'am. There may be... retribution for our actions.” “Not necessary, but thank you both for your concern. I'll catch up with you at the inn.” “You sure, Sir Ma'am?” “I'll be alright! Now go!” “Yeesh, it's like they don't trust me, or something.”  “Art! Ye'r back!” “Yep. We took a look, and there was a small place under the storage silos. The brigands didn't offer, or accepted surrender.” “Messy business, that. drat girl, you sure know how to solve problems, don't you?” “I've had a lot of experience in stabbing the things in front of me while leading the people behind me.” “That you do, that you do! So, I suppose that's over and done with then. Aston will be glad to see that problem taken care of, though he won't admit to it.” “About that, apparently he was here back when we came through and fixed up Demonslayer. But I don't remember him at all.” “I know what you mean, but he wasn't head of the Fort 'till a couple years ago. Besides, I can't expect you to remember everyone you meet in passing, can I?” “No, you're a pretty unique man yourself. So, now that's over and done with, what's this about augmentation?” “Hand me something, and I'll show you....!”  A moment to talk about what's about to happen first. There are five grades of equipment in Exile that correspond to the type of material used as a descriptor, which in turn equates to the 'bonus' stat applied to said item. Stone and Leather are the base materials, and are +0, Bronze is +1, Iron at +2, Steel at +3. 'Magic' is a special descriptor that represents a +4 or higher bonus to the item, regardless of the material involved. In the above screenshot, the Stone Axe is a 7/+0 weapon, while the Bronze Broadsword is a 9/+1. What Boutell can do is take any non-Magic item, and increase the bonus by 1. For a hefty price. That's a 5% increase in to-hit, and a extra point of damage. Unaware of what is coming later in the update, I decided to upgrade the Bronze Broadsword. I should have done the smart thing, and applied it to Chester or Aaarth-Tsss' weapon, as there are less good Bashing and Pole weapons, so the improvement there is more commiserate with the effort. “Thanks!” “Anytime! Don't be a stranger!” “Sir Ma'am, why are we checking the walls?” “To find another exit, I suspect.” “Or rats.” “And who threw these out? They're still usable!” “At least I have enough things to throw and fire for now.” Interestingly enough, if you have a throwing weapon and a Archery weapon equipped, picking the 'Ranged Attack' option defaults to throwing, not archery. “Come on, let's go. Time to hit up that Fortress.” “How ssshal we reconnoitre the location?” “Indeed, a well laid groundwork is essential to any operation!” “I have no experiensse with ssuch thingsss, how are they done?” “Usually a good infiltration will require observation of the locale in advance, knowledge of patrols, residents, known means of ingress and egress.” “You're starting to sound like a thief, Ma'am.” “Why I nevah! I'm indignant that you would suggest such a thing!” “Well, you do, Ma'am. Not that I'm judging you for your past choices though.” “Sssay thosse wordz later. Nephil Banditsss.” I won't be showing off every random encounter, save to show off what's available in each area, or any interesting encounters. In this case, a small group of Nephil ambushed me as I left Fort Draco. Also in the area are bands of Giant Spiders. “Clear.” “But with your experiences, we could really use them to help make our job easier!” “Your accusations wound me!” “Please?” “Oh, your jesting kills me! What one man says, so does another!” “You're not helping either of our cases here, Mister Cat.” “Excuse ME???” “What?” “Dahling, Dmurr is female. Not male.” “What.” “I thought it was obvious.” “Not I.” “It didn't matter to mysself.” “But...! How? Why?” “A question then, young man.” “Yes?” “Can you tell the sexual differences between Aaarth-Tss and myself?” “Um... you're shorter. And your snout is smaller. You're also more scarred. And Artist” “Aaarth-Tss.” “Sorry. Aaarth-Tss' scales are smoother, so I think that you're male and female respectively.” “Right, but for the wrong reasons.” “What do you sssee?” “It is to your credit, human, that you ignored our voicess. But for the Slithzerizai and the Nephil, our speciesss sexual dimorphism is less overt than humans. Your females tend to be shorter while having secretion glands on the front of their torso, whereasss Sliths tend toward differences in the hipss and legsss.” “This conversation just went into uncomfortable places.” “Get used to it.” “But what does that mean?” “Environmental factorsss. That is all I will say, for you are to think on them, and come to me later for more wisdom.” “We leave the road here. We go east until we hit the fort.” “This looks like an abandoned mine.” I didn't draw attention to it before, but now there are multi-tile features like this in the game now. It's purely for flavour, as this rubble pile can still be walked upon. “At least there are no heads on pikes.” “I agree.” “You were saying?”   “Front door. The map indicated a side passage around to the north.” “Yet you advance on the front.” “Reconnaissance.” “It is dark though.” “Momma always told me that I would get eaten by a Grue in a dark place.”  “There! Better?” “Let's go west first.”  “How did you know?” “Having a bolt-hole out the front is a common thing.” “We call them Sally Holes.” “We placed ours under water.” “I don't think I can deal with this.” “Fine, let's turn back and go in the back.” It feels weird, knowing I have to turn back from these for now. “And here it is. Little more than a hole.” “It need not be... obviousss.” “I thought the whole thing behind being a secret entrance was that it was, well, you know, a secret?” “Which doesssn't explain the map.” “Maybe they changed the password?” “This rubble in the way certainly helps the deceit.” “So much for stealth.” “<What I wouldn't give to be able to cast Fireball again.>”  “I'm surprised, Sir Ma'am.” “About what?” “How did we do that?” “Do what?” “Be so... good at this.” “I agree.” “Indeed. I expect asss much of you and I, Art. But the othersss?” “She leads by example. Who are we to do not but follow?” “Yes, but why?” “There is a word for this form of leadership, but I do not know it.” “Really? We're doing this now?” “You encourage dissscusion...” “Yes, but on the trail! Not in the middle of something!” “You sound ssurprized.” “I am!” “There's some stuff in this box here.” “Not edible either.” “I don't know. This seems nice!” “Please don't eat in front of me. It makes me nauseous.” “Humph. No understanding at all.” “Gravessstoness.”  “Don't touch anything.” “Do not worry. It waz automatically triggered.” “How about some fighting now?”  “Why do our foes always seem to go after Kai?” “Kai-Lyss, Cat. <I do not know. Perhaps a lingering curse from that cave?>” “What cave?” “It doesn't matter. We protect Kai-Lyss if that's what it takes. Chester and I can do that, with Aaarth-Tss. Dmurr can be beside him, supporting with arrows, while Marianna is in the flex position.” “You only came up with a plan now?” “Yes. I had to see you all in action first.” “You're a crazy woman, you know that?” “So I've been told.” “Oh, I don't like the look of this.” “I agree.” “poo poo!” Meet the Baby Hydras! Three attacks per round, they are the new equivalent to the Giant Lizards back in Exile 1. Except of course where there are Babies, there will also be Adults. Not that we'll see them for a while, but for a low-level party like this one, they are a serious threat. “Here, Dmurr.”  Here, I am casting Envenom on Dmurr, causing the Bow and Arrows to start poisoning enemies when they hit. I cannot overstate how useful that is at low levels, especially for archers, who can start dishing out Damage-Over-Time at range. And it's far more cost-effective than directly poisoning the target.  “Poor bloke.” “There's a lot of them down here.” “Let us leave this charnel house.” “Webs. That's always a bad sign.” Meet webs! In Exile 1, they were a fixed terrain piece, but in Crystal Souls, they're far more insidious. You see, they can now be used to remove them, and if your PCs step in them – or worse yet, have them cast on you, they loose 1 AP. And the effects stack. They are horrific. As noted previously, if there are two or more Webs beside each other, they block LoS. You can see that in effect after I've cleared out one square there. I hate Spiders. Give me a horde of Haakai and Mung Demons any day. These guys will now throw web around, sticking someone into uselessness, aren't affected by Webs themselves, and in general are the worst 'status' foe in the game by far. “I HATE SPIDERS!” “I undersstand your rage, Art.” “Good. Anyways, this piece of rock looks fragile. Too bad we don't have the power to break it down, I think I see something back there.” This is an example of a tile that can be affected by the Move Mountains/Shatter spell. I'll come back to it later. “Finally!”   “Let's go.”  “No lights.” “Why not?” “We'll draw attention. Stick to the wall.” Serious advice here. If you come in with lights on, you'll just draw too much attention. I got overwhelmed at one point, and had to reload.  “<Who are you?>” “<No one!>” “Intruders!”  “That... hurt.” “And I wass not on the brink of collapsss thisss time.” “But now we're clear.” “Are these farms?” “Probably. Just mushroom cultivation though.” “The poolsss are too sssmall for fizh.” “Sleeping area to the south, Sir Ma'am.” “Now that we have some time, let's go over what we've got.” “Holy poo poo.” I fell out of my chair at this moment, having cheated up identifications of all the stuff in my inventory. The Electrum Ring is simply cash, but the Magic Axe was a random drop. It's only 3 points of damage short the Alien Blade, and lacks the Always Poisoned quality to it. Aside from that, this is a piece of end-game equipment. And it's going on Art, as Marianna is currently carrying the Alien Blade for training's sake. Art's stats with the Bronze Broadsword +1 and the Magic Axe. “I recognize the patternsss.” “Holy place.” “I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to desecrate these things.” “Yeah, that's just plain wrong.” “Let's be sneaky.”  “<DESECRATORS!>” “Or not.” Ah, the perils of stacking up. Here, a one-tile Flame Cloud is capable of damaging five party members. “Let's get out of here.” “These doors are far too locked.” “And I don't have the ssspelsss to open them.” That's it. I'm grinding Kai-Lyss to give him Mage 3. I NEED Unlock. “Actual scrolls?” “HELL YES!” “SSSsshhhh!”   “Excellent!”  “The bow is nothing special.” “But the Plate will fit me.” “After that detour?” “<A Great Hall>.” “What did she say?” “A great hall, for feasts.” “Oh, and Giants too. How delightful.” And here's where things started to go wrong. Fall back to the entrance! We can bottle them up there!”  “Alright, time to advance.” Screenshots cannot do my experiences justice, for you see, I am in WAY over my head here. The lack of Fireball is really felt here, as I am limited in my ability to actually hurt my foes. There are massive numbers of foes around the map, more are spawning in, and if I was smart, I would turn tail and flee to grind on random encounters until Kai-Lyss gets his third level. Notice a pattern yet? Mage 3 is a vital tier for spells, and I don't have it. “A couch? How silly.” “And a kitchen.” “I think we can risk a light here.” “I can still hear activity from the south.” “And where isss thisss cheiftan?” “Fight here!” “Oh hell! Falling back, he's HERE!”  “We need to leave. NOW.” Except I had spent too much time 'Long Wait'ing, and... well.. you'll see. “The Exit!” “AH!”  “There's no end to them!” This is my screw up. All my waiting allowed the re-spawns to hit stupid amounts. I have to slog through a good 30 enemies from both sides, trapped in this little 'L' here. I even had to cheat once to restore all my HP. Note, the cheater can't restore SP. You can add in an Energy Potion, but that's the closest you'll get.  “FREE!” “I can't believe that!” “How..!” “You doubt Art?” “To be fair, Aaarth-Tss, this was an assassination mission, not something more... complete.” “Come on, let's get out of here.” “DONE!” When you hand her the head she smiles, and gets a sack of gold coins from her desk. "Well done, adventurers! You've earned ten times this for the service you've done for this area. This ends your work here. Good luck to you." “You bitch!” “Now that I've read off the official response, get out!” “Now what?” Map time! Another small map, the back of the Nephil Fortress is mostly a transition map to the real dungeon. That's not to say it isn't dangerous, as you have three methods of getting to the actual back door. So, take your choice of poison. And here is an incomplete map of the Nephil Fortress. We're not done here, so this map will be finished sooner, rather than later. Here is the current map of the outside.
berryjon fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 00:53
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Ah yes, that special feeling of despair when you don't have any spell points. Even if you lock yourself in somewhere and long wait, you know you'll be paying that time back later. Webs are probably the number 1 cause of death for my parties. Particularly when you have to leave combat mode to trigger a special encounter or something and a mage webs the square you're standing on. There's pretty much no hope when that happens, since the entire party has to waste multiple turns to clean the webs and the enemy mages get free time to work all kinds of nastiness.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:50
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You have a duplicate image early on, and ironically you call Dmurr a "he" (when you cast Envenom). Good update though. It's interesting that the game directs you to the Nephil Fortress (oh, and you call it a Nephar fortress in the update title) right off the bat, because there are much easier dungeons to start with -- like the smuggler's den you cleared last time. Starting with the Fortress is possible, but you really want to have a more "tuned" team. And yeah, webs are assholes. Somehow they're always more of an issue for me than for my opponents.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:55
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Stuff fixed. And yes, I hate Webs.
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Jan 20, 2014 02:03
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A Magic WHAT? That early in the game anything Magical is incredible, but that's going to make your 1 handed weapon woes so much easier to deal with. The day I found out you can clean webs off of yourself with a button press was a fantastic day. It may waste a few turns, but it beats having someone so slow they're almost useless in combat.
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Jan 20, 2014 02:16
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What's even worse about webs than having someone slowed to the point that they have like 1 AP is that if they get nailed enough they can't move for a few turns and even then they have to spend a few more turns cleaning webs if the enemies don't come right to them. It can really knock someone out of a fight for a while. I think the only thing worse that I've encountered is getting your only decent priest dumbfounded to the point they can't cast the spell to cure dumbfounding when you're way far away from a town with a healer. Thankfully that's fairly easy to avoid though. Webs and creatures that can throw them are all over the drat place.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:39
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Woo! Kind of bummed you had to cheat already, but for the sake of a fun, flowing story it's no big deal. Great to see a new update!
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Jan 20, 2014 05:32
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Starting without mage 3 is a really huge handicap so I'm fairly OK with the cheating. On a normal playthrough you'd probably have multiple characters capable of throwing fireballs at the start.
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Jan 20, 2014 13:01
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RabidWeasel posted:Starting without mage 3 is a really huge handicap so I'm fairly OK with the cheating. On a normal playthrough you'd probably have multiple characters capable of throwing fireballs at the start. Makes me wonder if anyone ever took up with those guys in E3. I just can't imagine going through Exile without at least Mage 3
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Jan 20, 2014 19:46
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veekie posted:Makes me wonder if anyone ever took up with those guys in E3. I don't understand the sentence there.
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Jan 20, 2014 19:58
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berryjon posted:I don't understand the sentence there. I think veekie is talking about a particular movement in E3, based on an island.
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Jan 20, 2014 19:59
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I think veekie is talking about a particular movement in E3, based on an island. Oh. Them. They are going to be such a pain come E3.
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Jan 20, 2014 21:09
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Update 005 – Gunston Farm and the Lizard Cave “Well, I think it's time to take our newfound wealth and get you guys some trianing.” “There is a placcce in Fort Drako for that.” “We should also do something about all these small things we've been picking up.” “That sounds like a really good idea, Sir Ma'am.” “I have to agree.” “How much can a humman train usss?” “Much.” “Aren't you coming in, Art, dahling?” “No, thank you. I'm supposed to avoid this until I get checked out.” I pretty much have a narrative reason to avoid training Art, not to mention the fact that she doesn't really need it either, at least at this point in time. “Me first!” Here is the training screen. It is very similar to the Character Creation screen, except for two major differences. The first is that we have limited Skill Points to work with, and the second is that we have limited Gold to work with. And here is Chester after training. For the most part, everyone is continuing to specialize, as we'll be able to seriously start multi-tasking around Chapter 3 or 4. “I'm a little faster now, and I'm much better with my weapon! I'm probably better than Art, except she gets better weapons than I do.” “<More skill, and some physical training, like Chester. Save my offensive focus is different with Pole Arms.>” “<Mage Circle Three, though one point of Intelligence and one more SP will not help. I need to improve all of those sooner, rather than later.>” “I'm a better Archer now!” “I picked up a bit more in the way of support skills. With the Alien Blade in hand, I can make up for my lack of skill in combat. I got improved Disarm and Lockpicking over Dmurr as he needs to focus on his archery first.” “Oh, and here's where I stand, in comparison.” “So, to Formello, Sir Ma'am?” “Sure. Why not. Maybe we'll stop by Motrax's cave on the way there.” Welcome to hell. For some reason, I have four random encounters all in a row here, and no real chance to rest up. It was bloody annoying, I'll tell you that much. But something GLORIOUS can now happen.  I've never figured out why some enemies take only half-damage from magic attacks. There's no consistency to it. “Ahhhh. Nothhhing like the sssmell of Fireball in the morning.” “All we have to do is follow the road to get to Formello.” “It's a good thing to, as there used to be no path. You used to have to go south into the Eastern Gallery, east, then North again.” “gently caress the Aranea.” “No. Seriously.” “I begin to understand.” At this point, I realized I had forgotten to identify and sell my stuff back in Fort Draco. One quick trip later and... I swear by Lowtax, I didn't cheat that in! I swear! A Magic Breastplate is end-game gear, and the second magic item I've found as a random drop? Chester gets it. If this was Nethack, the RNG would spontaneously kill me right about now. If only I were so lucky. Also, the bow we found off that Nephil corpse behind the broken wall? Had a Lemonwood Bow, an upgrade over Dmurr's Cavewood bow by a simple bonus of 1. Also I picked up a set of Bronze Arrows, which are 9/+1, and will be saved for important fights. I pick up about a hundred new arrows for her as well, as I plan on hitting a couple dungeons before Formello. “Soldiers?!?” “No, bandits.” “Maybee they'll ignore usss.” “No, better us than these people.” “They appear to be following ussss though.” “This place looks fortified!” “Hello?” “Why does that sound familiar?” “No time to wassste. Enter!” “Huh. These guys look ornery. Could use some taming though.” “Like these guys!” “MOOOO!” “Ia! Ia! Algebra Fhtagn!” “Oh, don't tell me you don't know your numbers?” “To be fair, I think only you, I and Kai-Lyss would understand this.” I love this little thing. And I've been waiting to make that line ever since I knew I was going to do Exile 2. “That needs to be corrected! Immediately!” Sure, you take care of that.” “Thesss are numberssss?” “Human ones, yes. No better or worsse than oursss.” “Hello?” “Up here!” You meet a tall, striking woman with short, dark hair. She grinds something up with a mortar and pestle as she talks to you. "I'm Carol, of the Hamer clan. Welcome to our humble household." “Hello, Carol Hamer-Clan. I am Marianna. Forgive the intrusion, though. We sought shelter from some the less... savoury elements of the nearby caverns. If you don't mind my asking, what are your duties here?” "I and my husband watch out for our farm, and for the farms around here. I'm a healer, you see. I can help you too, if you like." “Although, two salamanders are holed up in our larder. Talk to Tor about it. He'll tell you how it happened."  A dour, well-worn man sits at the end of the table, pondering. A heavy blade hangs at his side. "My name's Tor. Welcome to the Gunston homestead." “Thank you for the hospitality. I recognize you...” I run this place with my lady. I also help the other farmers, when I can. I used to work at the fort, but haven't done any of that for a long time." “Fort Exile!”"I used to work at Fort Exile. I gave weapons and stuff to the new arrivals. Everyone who arrived from the surface world went by me. I gave 'em a knife, food, and directions. Without my stuff, nobody woulda' lived long. Course, the Empire stopped sending people down. Fort Exile shut down, and I left the army. Oh well. What can ya' do?" “Take up farming, apparently.” “Sir, Ma'am! There is nothing wrong with agriculture! It's an honourable profession!” “Anyways, your wife mentioned something about Salamanders?” He shakes his head. "Not long ago, a mated pair of salamanders broke in here. We tried to drive them out, but they hid in our larder, and we can't get them out. They're eatin' our stores. Kill em', and I'll reward you best I can." “Done, and done! We all owe you, so this is the least we can do to repay you.” “Sorry lady, I don't recognize you. I saw so many people come through, they all blur together.” “Don't worry about it then. Think of this as partial repayment.” “I do not undersstand.” “Neither do I. Who is this guy?” “Me three!” “And I assss well.” “Wow, only Marianna and I came in through the Exile Portal, huh?” “It appears so. That man, Tor, was the greeter at Fort Exile, where human Exiles first arrived. That is, until they closed off the portal.” “No, Andrew was the greeter. Tor was in the building at the bottom of the hill, with the supplies to keep people from starving.” “Perhaps, dahling.” “Oh! Hello! I didn't see you there.” A radiant, red-headed woman, maybe in her very early twenties, is running various farm errands. She has many small scars on her hands and arms, which show up well against the translucent white skin. “A relation of yours, Sir Ma'am?” “I don't think so.” “Oh, were are my manners? We don't get many visitors from far away! Welcome! My name is Jasmine." “Hey there! Name's Chester! How are you doing?” “Well, thank you for asking.” “You work the farms around here?” "Nicholas and I work for Tor and Carol. It's their farm. I watch the livestock, and he works the mushrooms." “This Nicholas guy sounds pretty swell!” "Nicholas looks after our mushroom patches. There's a bunch of them to the south. Growing mushrooms is a lot of work down here, even though there's no weeds!" “What about the livestock? We saw Lizards and a Cow by the entrance. Lucky the Salamanders didn't get their claws on them!” She looks sadly at the scars on her hands. "It's sad work. The cows are always sickly and sad. And they're better than those lizards! Those nasty cretins will take your hand off if you let them! But where else can we get meat?" “Hey! Don't worry about it! We all do the best we can. I'm a farmer too, so I can understand your difficulties. It is hard work, most definitely, but it is still work worth doing. You are a wonderful person, and I mean it. I appreciate everything that you do, because no matter what other people say, they don't matter. You're better than that.”  “Oh for... Come on!”  You meet a pale young man. He wears a studious, harried expression, and carries a basket of mushrooms. He nods, not setting down the mushrooms. "I'm Nicholas." “Chester, and these are my friends. You're the farmer?” "I look after the mushroom patches. I bet you think it's easy." “Easy? Not at all!” "I know! It's hard work! Bats fly down and munch on them. The fungus light is barely sufficient. Stray lizards eat them. And I have two patches to look after outside the farm. They're each a half mile long!" He sighs and looks embarrassed. "You probably think I'm being whiny." “No, never.” "Sorry about that. It's just that we're having a problem with some salamanders. Never had problems like that in Cotra.” “You should talk to Tor about it. He's looking to hire someone to get rid of them." “Already on it!” Yes, you can take that food. You monster. “Sssalamanderssss are not to be underessstimated.” “I have never fought one before.” This is an excellent opportunity to brush up on your ambush tactics. “I'll scout ahead.” “poo poo.” Meet the Salamanders. And their gimmick. It's a gimmick that other monsters will have in the future. Namely being able to surround themselves with with fields on their turn. In this case, they surround themselves with Fire, which damages anyone moving through them, or starts their turn in one. Fortunately, they're not that hard to kill, so I don't take too much damage. “phew. That should do it!” “Done, sir! Your larder is relatively intact!” "Thanks for your help. I got something for you. We in the Gunston house remembers those that help us." He disappears into the next room, and returns with a delicate necklace for you. "This'll turn many a blow away." “Thank you sir, again.” “Such a good deed.” “<Why did we not work together like that?>” “<What are you concerned about?>” “Nothing. Jussst.. thinking.” “Oh, is that what I smell buring? Too bad the Salamanders weren't really affected by your fire magic. If you had ice, that would have been a cool thing to take care of!” “I am ssstill more than you, Cat!” “Hey! Don't make me come over there!” “Yes, let us go to Formello now!” “Follow the road, or go visit a dragon...” “Easy choice.” “You're right!” “WRONG CHOICE!” “I have yet to meet a dragon. I am interesssted in this.” “I will follow Art.” “This is more interesting this way.” “FINE!” “Don't be so put out, Marianna. She leads, we follow.” “Weird, I don't think this is the way.” “Lost, Sir, Ma'am?” “I do NOT remember this being here last time I was through here.” And I don't think I can get here until Chapter 4. “Where the hell is Motrax?” “What isss the matter?” “I'm not lost!” “Yes you are!” “No! See! Motrax is over here!” “Ewww.”  “I could have sworn this was farther north.” “Thisss doesss not look like Dragon Sssign.” “Hey, Motrax is a friend to all humans! We should be nice to him!” “You sure?” “What is this place?” “Oh, me and my big mouth.” I shouldn't be here. The Fire Lizards can breathe fire for 25-30 damage, and there's four in close proximity. I had to reload several times over the course of this battle to avoid major party deaths.     “This place, isss it a nesst?” “I don't know.” “We should thin their numbers out a bit, keep them from spreading.” “I agree.” “Odd.” “Very odd.” “How odd?” “Very.”  “Something is wrong here. We need to figure out what.” “This is not good for my fur.” “Don't step on the magma. In fact, don't get too close to it.”  “Chester?” “Yes, Sir Ma'am?” “Can we take one? Safely?” “Sure. As long as its kept warm, and doesn't congeal, I would think.” “Yoink!” “But why?” “A pet?” Weak Summoning sucks. This Bat was more hindrance than help. “I thought thessse stonesss were reflecting the heat...” Alright! These are useful, if only for selling for cash!  “There'sss more?” “There's always more.” I quickly run out of the dungeon to rest up. “Let's be careful.” Oh god, I really shouldn't be here. But I am. And I'm paying the price for it. You, of course, don't get to see this.  “What'ssss thisss?” “A treasure trove? But that's draconic behavior, not drakish.” “I think these boots might be something special though.” “Indeed. Time to leave.” “Now, do we continue this futile search for a dragon, or do we finally go to Formello for our next assignment?” Marianna has called a vote! Do we keep looking for Motrax, or shall we go to Formello? Those of you in the thread who know what to expect, I've already got a plan to deal with that in a more timely fashion, so you don't have to worry. In the meanwhile, Maps!   
berryjon fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 22:37
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Hate to say it, but you have a number of typos in this update, especially in the first few lines...and hilariously, you keep getting Dmurr's gender wrong  Also, why on earth did you go to the lizard lair?  That's meant to be saved for later! As for the vote, Motrax. Put off Formello as long as possible!
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Jan 20, 2014 23:13
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Motrax! And yes, everyone keeps getting the kitty's name wrong
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Jan 20, 2014 23:26
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veekie posted:Motrax! And yes, everyone keeps getting the kitty's name wrong And gender. Either the LPer or me: quote:Also, the bow we found off that Nephil corpse behind the broken wall? Had a Lemonwood Bow, an upgrade over Dmurr's Cavewood bow by a simple bonus of 1. Also I picked up a set of Bronze Arrows, which are 9/+1, and will be saved for important fights. I pick up about a hundred new arrows for him as well, as I plan on hitting a couple dungeons before Formello.
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Jan 21, 2014 01:32
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Formello because that's where you're supposed to be going! No, I've never played this game before. Why do you ask?
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Jan 21, 2014 01:51
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Every time Chester calls Art "Sir Ma'am" half my brain thanks of Marcy & Peppermint Patty and the other half thinks of Radar from M.A.S.H. If you never saw the show, Radar constantly calls Major Margaret Houlihan "sir", which inevitably results in her telling him to call her "ma'am" and then him getting nervous and stuttering out some random combination of both. Are you ever going to give Dmurr some more hit points? He/she (I don't know anymore) is incredibly frail, even moreso than the party's dedicated spellcaster. At this point, you could kill him/her by flicking his/her ears.
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Jan 21, 2014 02:25
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Mortrax! Have him greet you warmly! Also, just how long is Chester going to call Art Sir Ma'am? After a while you would think he would either calm down, or get talked to about it. I know I would find it annoying in Art's place. Also, I get the feeling that Dmurr's gender is going to be a thing in this LP.
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Jan 21, 2014 02:31
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veekie posted:Makes me wonder if anyone ever took up with those guys in E3. I just can't imagine going through Exile without at least Mage 3 I tried it once. If you plan to do so from the beginning, it works out pretty well, although the start is a bit rougher and you have to rely more on blessing and cursing.
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Jan 21, 2014 03:14
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Alright, I've fixed a couple things, but please don't be afraid to call out my errors in the thread, guys. It helps! Honest! And Yes, Dmurr's gender is going to be a thing.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:32
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HisMajestyBOB posted:I tried it once. If you plan to do so from the beginning, it works out pretty well, although the start is a bit rougher and you have to rely more on blessing and cursing. Don't you need fireball several times to finish the first main questline? Or do you just skip it entirely?
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Jan 21, 2014 05:14
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