Tome 4: Overgrown poodles rasslin' with dragons

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Tome 4: Overgrown poodles rasslin' with dragons

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Jowy posted:

Yeah, it's a fair enough point. I still like AM quite a bit, but it's more a thing about wanting to take the time to remind everyone that Stone Wall is the poo poo.

It's fantastic, but getting it isn't guaranteed by a long shot, so you can't really build on the assumption that you'll get it, much less in a timely manner. Antimagic is guaranteed available as soon as you can handle the trial.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2014 02:06

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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 08:29

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Mariposa posted:

I just rescued a warrior with my alchemist, and he's offering to teach me some things. It seems like giving the golem exotic weapons mastery might be a good idea; on the other hand, there's Vitality: does that even work properly for golems?

Just as a footnote, the golem gets all the weapon mastery talents automatically as you increase whatever the talent that buffs its offense is called. This includes Exotic and Staff, and makes alchemists pretty much the only characters who can reliably make use of the exotic artifacts.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 06:20

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Dodge Charms posted:

Only some of them have a dialog at the start.

The alt zones are described in the zone-specific wiki pages but I don't see a general alt-zone guide anywhere.

Basically IIRC the alt zones are:
* Alt Norgos - you get ice-elementals in addition to bears, and Norgos is a bearsicle
* Alt Trollmire - the layout has a lot of water and you get some eels
* Alt Scintillating Caverns - 5 small "geometric" levels instead of 3 cave-like levels
* Alt Heart of Gloom - "dreaming" and "dozing" instead of "sick"
* Alt Murgol's Lair - naga who will kill your yeek even more quickly than usual, dialog about "sounds of battle"
* Alt Maze - the floor is broken and the usual humanoid suspects are joined by Horrors
* Alt Old Forest - crystals in addition to trees
* Alt Sandworm - 2 levels instead of 4, top level is long with supersized worms
* Alt Daikara - lava boulders and fire dragons, dialog about volcano

There's also Alt Kor'pul, with thieves added to the undead party.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2014 23:40

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

A Meat posted:

I have an open question to all you people, what's your least favorite enemy type to run into? I mean the base enemy, without any skills it might have as a rare or a boss.

Brecklorn on the rare occasion that I'm dumb enough to go somewhere that they live before I have some way of either distance-killing them or gap-closing to them.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 10:51

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

My thought on that front was a quest to save a "foreign weapons merchant" who, once rescued, sets up shop in one of the towns and will sell and teach how to use the strange weapons of his homeland.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 00:12

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

HenryEx posted:

Yea, AM shield is probably a bit much at 30 EQ. I only ever used it if i knew i was up against a magic barrage (say, Urkis) until pretty late game, where i could have all my 7 sustains up simultaneously and still be in the clear at 118 equilibrium.

I disagree with saving AM shield for mages - it works just fine for stuff that isn't magic, and I tend to leave it on at all times to avoid getting surprised with multiple drake breaths to the face or whatnot.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 23:23

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Magres posted:

Also, if you RNG the parts for it, I hear the Staff of Telos that you get from Secrets of Telos is absolutely nuts.

Telos Spire of Power is a fantastic staff if you're using one of the elements it boosts (arcane, cold, acid, blight, light, darkness unless I'm mistaken, which is possible). If not, it's got really good side benefits but you're going to miss the huge damage boost from using an appropriate staff.

Benly fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Apr 12, 2014

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 00:55

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Damagewise it's good but not overwhelming. The reason I say it's a great staff if you have one of its damage types is just because if you have the right elements it's offensively good/defensively amazing while if you don't it's offensively nothing/defensively amazing.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 01:39

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I'm just following the zone order guide. The wiki entry describes Slasul as a "Guardian." I have no idea what's plot-mandatory or not beyond the handful of locations it suggests skipping.

I think that entry just means he's the zone boss. The zone's worth doing if you can because the pearl is quite nice for a guaranteed item (I try to save a waterbreathing method for then) but that's really all, it's not necessary for winning.

# ¿ May 18, 2014 08:52

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Tsurupettan posted:

Thanks for this. What do you think of the Traps tree? At a glance it looks kind of gimmicky.

Also, I immediately got a Sun Paladin escort, which I betrayed for Mobility. I am trying to resist the temptation of foregoing stealth entirely to rely on Mobility/Misdirection/Dual Weapon Defense to dodge everything and then pick up AM to plug the spell side of things. I know that pretty much every good fixedart dagger is Arcane, though.

If you want to get moderate use out of traps at a low investment, drop in two points so you can use the bear trap to immobilize archers and such. You could float them if you're into that. This is actually pretty handy for the early dungeons to bear-trap melee bosses and pelt them to death with your sling.

Beyond that, traps can get really good but it takes a high investment. Disarming and nightshade traps deal a decent wad of damage along with status ailments, but until you reach the end of the tree and Throw Traps you can only use them in melee range, and at that range why aren't you Flurrying them into a red mist? Once you can throw, you can use them (possibly with Lure) to get an initial damage spike and debuff on bosses and other tough enemies you're not sure you can take down in one hit. This is also pretty helpful against dudes with Phantasmal Shield.

The fire burst trap and poison gas trap are both good (poison gas verges on being great), and it's not like a rogue has a ton of AoE otherwise. The problem is that, again, you kind of need throwing to use them well and not blow your face off. Gravity is fantastic but it's gonna take a while to get to.

What you should be taking away from all this is that traps are great once you have like ten points dropped into the tree, and that's a lot of points. You could probably be getting a lot of mileage out of those points somewhere else, but traps shape up eventually and are pretty fun to use.

# ¿ May 20, 2014 04:20

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Angry Diplomat posted:

Sounds like a perfect Golem weapon to me. The Alchemist talent for Golem weapons gives them a bonus with all weapons, so it should work... worth testing, maybe.

I think it just grants the Golem every mastery skill, so I suspect it won't work. At the least, if you inspect your golem you'll see each mastery talent individually instead of some Everything Mastery talent.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 14:28

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Razakai posted:

Here you go: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=258929733

Unfortunately when I start up with the Eternal Darkness mod trying to change the element on my staff farts out an error, and then when I load the save my staff is gone. Just... just thought you should know.

e: disregard this, I'm dumb

Benly fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jun 27, 2014

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 02:46

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Ah Pook posted:

I accidentally killed the merchant with a brawler punch blast, should I try to keep going or am I screwed in the long run?

You're not necessarily screwed, just more vulnerable to the whims of the RNG. There's plenty of fixed-artifact equipment out there that's good enough to win with; the key benefit of the merchant is that if you don't find that stuff, you have something to fall back on.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2014 06:24

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Tin Tim posted:

I didn't level riposte because I don't block too much. My style is more spamming my actives to kill ASAP. That's why I also didn't take eternal guard for my second prod. Yeah I know, block is basically the strongest thing about a bullwark, but I just like to play faster and more agressive.

Block is an offensive skill, though. You block, and then you Assault, and then your enemy explodes from multiple crits with counterattack bonus.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 20:43

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Razakai posted:

And my PC died with all my code and notes on it for Eternal Darkness might not be updated for a while

A few pages late on replying to this I guess, but I've been playing around with an ice-blasting necro in Eternal Darkness and while this probably isn't the best time to give feedback on Grave now's when I've got it.

My thought on Grave is that it's an interesting blasting school that really, really needs some way to be made ally-friendly. The necromancer's unique and fun mechanics are ally-based, and even if you're not playing a specialized "minion necro" as such you'll still probably end up with a few points in Create Minions (because it gives major, level-scaling returns for minimal investment) and maybe one in Animus Purge (because Animus Hoarder is great and you only need one point in Animus Purge for it to be amazing and a ton of fun). This means you have the choice between two more or less equally effective blasting categories (Nightfall and Grave) except that one of them doesn't interfere with your class's unique abilities and the other one regularly turns them into useless ice cubes.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 14:51

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Razakai posted:

Yeah, ED isn't dead, I'm just also in the process of moving house so real life has kinda messed up the time I have to code stuff.

Grave is the newest category in terms of design, so it's a little unpolished. Apart from fixing the 2nd talent and replacing the 3rd with a better, easier to use Frozen Orb, I'll change them all to be friendly fire off. Originally Meta was going to do that, but it was a bit tough to balance.

That's good to hear. It also struck me that Grave has the disadvantage of cold immunity being way more common than any kind of darkness resistance, especially early on - white wolves are everywhere, and woe betide the cold-caster who rolls alt Norgos. But if it plays well with allies, obviously that's less of an issue as your skeletons beat them to death regardless.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2014 22:45

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Vincent Valentine posted:

Is there any way to go back to the West after you leave? Poosh came up while I was doing the orc dungeon that brings you to the next area, and i'd never been before so I foolishly thought I'd be able to freely change between the two, now I think I missed out on the achievement

Yes, there is. The High Sun Paladin will suggest you go talk to the wizard who lives in the easternmost house in town; he can help you figure out a way back.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2014 10:12

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

NachtSieger posted:

Yup. The game helpfully labels weapons with masteries too. Basically any weapon besides tridents and whips are kosher for weapon mastery.

And daggers and staves and ranged weapons.

edit and mindstars.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2014 15:08

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Kubla Khan posted:

You mean the things you get right after? Those are fairly minor rewards, IMHO (esp. for beating the Ambush since it's a PITA with a lot of builds). I was hoping for something more real down the line.

On the other hand the Ambush has literally zero risk involved, since getting killed there just progresses the plot as normal. If anything I feel like it's the crypt that needs its reward improved, since it's both an optional zone and a complete meatgrinder.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2014 08:03

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Dodge Charms posted:

So hmm, now that Dairy Power is going to fix Doomed, maybe I should go fix Summoners.

The basic idea would be:
- Make the guy a melee fighter who gains powers from the current Summon.
- Add synergy between you and your Summon. Like, if he hits while adjacent to you, you heal for half the damage; if you crit while within 2 tiles of him, he gets a free attack.
- Reduce the number of different creatures you can summon. As a flavor thing, get rid of all the unnatural summoned creatures (blight-tainted Ritch, arcane Golem, curse-twisted Minotaur).

The main thing that jumps out at me is that while I do like the idea of being able to melee alongside your summons, it doesn't seem inherently bad to me to be able to do a "caster" summoner who relies on the summons for damage as the current summoner does. If it's being made entirely a hybrid, it seems less like fixing the class and more like replacing it with one that has a playstyle you like more.

(Also, the first thing that comes to mind for the Ritch and Golem is replacing them with fire and earth elementals, which suggests some kind of elemental-summoning tree - I don't remember if elementals are an explicitly arcane thing in TOME, though.)

# ¿ Dec 10, 2014 10:47

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

So is the temporal warden starting zone supposed to have a level 10 dredgling and a level 15 temporal stalker wandering around?

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 18:07

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Razakai posted:

For everyone that liked Eternal Darkness and complains about Rogues, I've done ~~an Assassin's Creed/Dishonored fanfic mod~~ a similar rework and could do with some feedback on it cause inevitably there will be a dozen brokenly overpowered things in it:

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=45361

I'll get it up on Steam when I've caught the most blatant bugs as to not embarrass myself.

Giving this a whirl. My character started with Explosion Trap despite 0 points in Trapping.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2015 00:28

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

Lprsti99 posted:

The throwing knives tree is really cool, well done. It'd be neat if we could incorporate dagger egos into them, maybe make a skill that 'eats' a dagger and transfers its mods to the knives, or something like that. No idea if that's even doable though.

Speaking of throwing knives: this isn't strictly speaking a bug since the talent does mention that it counts as melee for on-hit effects, but it seems weird that throwing a knife at poison ivy will poison you.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 10:20

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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 08:29

Benly: Aug 2, 2011; 20% of the time, it works every time.

I've started in on a poison knife-thrower and I've noticed that although Vile Poison says the poison applied will be randomly determined, I've seen enemies get hit with both poisons off one knife (each applying its damage).

Only up to level 13 so far (Halfling rogue) and while the build starts a little slow, Fan Of Knives + Toxic Death mows through swarms and piling on debuffs works nicely against bosses. Leeching Poison in particular seems to give a lot of survivability - in the aforementioned swarm situation healing pours in en masse, and even in regular fighting it brings in a pretty steady trickle of health. I've made it my standard poison, swapping off what I use in the other slot depending on the situation.

Benly fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Dec 31, 2015

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 12:00

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