|
It's been about 20 years since I tried to play this game, but from what I can recall... Well, I hope some intrepid person's made a fix patch for the game, because I have doubts you're going to be able to make it to the end without running into something that will render the game unwinnable. I certainly never finished it myself~ My favorite was leaving a required dungeon and loading the party in under a tent and getting inescapably stuck, and reloading and trying again would just dump me back under that tent. I imagine there's probably a workaround or two now, but in the mid-90s that was pretty much it. Unoriginal One fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jun 29, 2016 |
#
¿
Jun 29, 2016 22:42
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 20:59 |
|
|
One of the reasons why fighting types tear it up here is that good metal is rare in this setting, so ACs tend to be pretty abysmal all around without magic getting involved. I'd comment on casters, but it's been so long since I've played this game that I can't really recall much, other than that they're quite a bit different than, say, Baldur's Gate and other 2nd ed casters.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2016 23:27
|
|
|
Kill XP tends to be pretty anemic in 2nd ed., most of your big gains are going to come from quest rewards. And good heavens, Stone Prophet. I remember spending a lot of time with that one back in the day. Shame it had this thing where it hard crashed whenever it tried to play a required endgame cutscene. Come to think of it, I got both it and Ravager out of the same Building 19 $2 bargain bin; probably can't complain too much. I think the only non-Infinity Engine 2nd ed. AD&D game I played that didn't crash and burn horribly at some point was Gorgon's Alliance(which was hilariously broken in it's own way).
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2016 21:20
|
|
|
While it's usually rods, staves, and wands, there are some weapons that have a limited number of charges too. I forget if the game makes any note of the number of charges an item has remaining, but I wouldn't be all that surprised if it didn't. Fortunately only weapons with big effects like that flail will have them. As for the spellcaster not being able to cast, it may be because they got hit earlier in the combat round. I forget the exact details of spell disruption mechanics, but I do remember that they work differently in turn-based games like this and the more real-time games like Baldur's Gate. Just another obstacle 2nd ed. casters had to deal with, along with everything and it's uncle's collage roommate having massive saving throws across the board, and magic resistance being absolute and common on the more obnoxious monster types. As for bows kind of sucking, it's because they kind of suck. Regular bows don't receive much, if any, of a character's Str bonuses; and Dex is used purely for THAC0 purposes. This game might have some of the bows that do allow a character to use their Str bonuses, however, so you'll want to keep an eye out for those.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2016 02:47
|
|
|
Basically nothing can save 2nd ed. Rogue damage. Theoretically, there's backstabbing, but best as I can recall that can only be done from stealth, and once you drop stealth you can't get back in mid-combat. You can bump the dagger up to a shortsword if you want to keep backstab functionality, but if you're not using that at all then just toss her a bow or a longsword; it'll help a bit, but like I said, don't expect much. There's a reason why Rogues require very little XP to level. As for dual wielding, don't. If you're not a Ranger, then you'll eat huge penalties.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2016 16:18
|
|
|
Gabriel Pope posted:These games are generous enough that dual wielding is pretty much the way to go. Whatever penalties exist are tiny compared to the sheer amount of damage you can put out. True, I keep forgetting that most fighting types in this are going to have the kinds of absurd Str scores to render most penalties fairly negligible. The higher starting level doesn't hurt either.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2016 22:15
|
|
|
If it helps, the difference between 2 AC and 6 AC isn't that much, as you're getting to the point where anything that would treat a positive AC as anything other than a polite suggestion isn't going to be worth worrying about. Oh, and I can't recall, but did Dark Sun change anything about how Druids leveled, or do they still use the crazy base 2nd Ed Druid XP tables?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2016 03:44
|
|
|
Fish Noise posted:I'm following this, but I'm not following this, do you know what I mean? Like it already started with shoving you into the poo poo and now I haven't had any idea what's going on or why for at least several updates. I guess that dwarf dude who digs everywhere is pretty cool? That's not you, that's the game. It really is that jumbled.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2016 02:49
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:I call bullshit, NO ONE played Gorgon's Alliance without crashes. Unless you just mean it had no crashes that prevented you from actually completing the game once you'd restarted it after the CTD. Oh yes, CTDs were fine so long as they didn't render the game completely unwinnable, which.... was quite hard to do in Gorgon's Alliance, considering how easy it was to win even on the harder settings.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2016 22:08
|
|
|
I vaguely recall that there is a reward for saving the miners, but I imagine that might not be possible with all of the NPCs walking around at mach 3.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2016 21:53
|
|
|
Bit late, but if I recall correctly casting a spell off of a scroll can fail if the spell is of a higher level than the mage can normally cast. Still, I don't think the failure rate was all that high if you were fairly close, so that was likely a big streak of terrible luck right there. I'd comment on psionics, but I remember nothing about them. PurpleXVI posted:I think there are few engines ready to handle the mad bullshit that is 2nd ed AD&D psionics rules and powers. Because holy balls, the psionics are essentially their own subsystem and they barely even interact with other stuff. Usually they even completely bypass mechanics like saving throws in favour of concepts like "mental AC."(in the Player's Option version) Mages and clerics lose out a bit later on since everyone gets huge saving throws, psionics get to disintegrate enemies willy-nilly later on because no one gets a saving throw against their poo poo(except for other psionics) and all that matters is their stats/levels being good enough to ace their skill checks. Oh, and magic resistance! Can't forget about that. 2nd ed. casters get kind of shafted on the offensive front at higher levels; while they do get some hilariously obnoxious defenses, I'm not sure this game actually has any of those in it. Edit: Which reminds me; if you were having spell failure while casting on mind flayers? Best as I can recall they have a completely silly amount of MR, I want to say 90%. Might be a bit high, but it wouldn't be by much. Just be glad they can't just randomly one-shot your dudes out of the blue like they can do in Baldur's Gate. Unoriginal One fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jul 13, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2016 00:02
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Basically if they land enough blows in quick succession, they've latched on with all four tentacles and just yank your brain out for lunch in short order. Oh, I know about that bit, just saying it's kind of obnoxious to have Frontliner McMurdertrain -buffed to the gills, immune to CC, and converting hordes of umber hulks and mind flayers into so much chunky fog- take a hit or two of chip damage and drop dead. It's kind of hard to see a huge screaming barbarian man swinging around a equally huge slab of metal at the behest of his pet hamster as a "struggling victim":  But I digress; best as I can recall the game's done with mind flayers, and in the great scheme of things they're only a mild nuisance compared to most of what this poorly programmed mess can throw at you.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2016 00:51
|
|
|
Spermy Smurf posted:What the loving gently caress. I should probably clarify that I'm including the game's dizzying array of bugs in that. I mean, as bad as Underdark v.2 was, at least you could muscle your way through it.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2016 17:08
|
|
|
Creeping Doom is summoning 1000 mundane insects that all do a single point of damage apiece. As they're mundane insects, anything that requires magical weapons to hit -or have some other form of damage reduction- will no sell the entire thing. As for HP, only Fighter-type classes benefit from Constitutions of over 16, dual classing them with a squishier class type will reduce what they can get, and once you hit 9~10 you stop rolling for HP and get a small flat amount instead, which I believe doesn't get anything from Con either. That other guy likely had single class fighting sorts with high Cons on top of save scumming good HP rolls.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2016 22:35
|
|
|
Ramc posted:If you do do another one of these, do the Al-Qadim: Genie's Curse one. I played it as a kid, did manage to beat it eventually and it has some nice sprite work. Friend of my father worked on the art too(Edit: or it's the same guy, there's only one person mentioned in the art credit...); he even tried to give me a copy back in the day during a visit, but it turned out the box had been empty. Probably for the best, given how a lot of the other AD&D PCRPGs went for me at the time. Speaking of which, I never got this far into the game due to unavoidable bugs, but I have to say that's one wimpy looking Tarrasque. I'd comment, but I think the 3rd ed. stats are bleeding into what I can recall of the 2nd ed. version. As for the constant spell failures, those skeletons might have been Death Knights, which I believe had a good chunk of MR. If you're looking to do another one, there's the previously mentioned Birthright: Gorgon's Alliance. Quick(ish), easy, lots of stupid tricks, and, in a departure from this game, casters dominate everything. Just in case you got sick of everything bouncing off of sky-high MR scores. Unoriginal One fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Jul 19, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jul 19, 2016 05:09
|
|
|
Ramc posted:I'm not certain but there were at least two guys doing sprite work, because he told me he only did SOME of them, and I think there were two guys under his job title in the manual credits. I don't have the manual here though. Ah. I did a quick google to see if I was recalling his participation correctly, and his name was the only one listed as an art credit in the first list I found, but I'd hardly call it a comprehensive search, and the credit list was quite short so I image it wasn't the full list.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2016 03:30
|
|
|
Best as I can recall Reincarnation was meant for non-Cleric casters, who had access to the much superior Raise Dead/Resurrect series. Wizards could at least polymorph you back into your original race, but you had to hope that the dice were on your side if all you had was a Druid.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2016 22:54
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Well, Raise Dead and Resurrect A) had stat loss and B) had a chance of failure if the rezzed character had too low Constitution, at which point they could only be revived with a Limited Wish or Wish. I seem to recall that Reincarnation doesn't check for a resurrection roll. I want to say that Resurrect's advantage over Raise Dead was that it didn't have the stat loss and had a much larger window to use it in(which I think Reincarnate also had?), with the trade off of being a much higher level spell, but I might be mixing it up with the 3rd ed. versions. Casting time might have also been a factor too, thinking on it..
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2016 03:10
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 20:59 |
|
|
Yeah, I played entirely too much Baldur's Gate, so while I can remember minute such as Ruby Ray of Reversal and Glitterdust punching past most forms of anti-dispel protections due to their schools, stuff like the distinctions between res spells tended to fall by the wayside because you generally had to reload if a party member died due to -10 HP being a rather small threshold. I still kind of annoyed that they tied that to difficulty, so you couldn't get rid of it without turning the game into a cakewalk, but I've digressed enough already. Though I could have sworn that Druids got Reincarnate. Oh well.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2016 14:15
|
|