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The Joy of Star Trail!

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
There's a -bank- in this game? Can you make a screenshot please? I never saw a bank. Maybe they added this to the US version? RoA 1, in German, does not have a bank.

And yes, another nice touch: some healers are terrible, some are good. Just like in real life it's difficult to tell which are good. The one near the very good weapon shop should be okay though, in Thorwal.
 

Hazelnut

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Well I tried all the healers (three) I can find - none could fix my fighter. Until I got one to heal his LP - then he fixed the tetanus. This is proving rather amusing.

Nearly up to 2000xp now. Jeez noone can hit anything except the air. My main fighter has AT7 PA7 with swords, partly due to all the armour I stuck on him. Best is one of my elves with a quarterstaff, 8/7 and my dwarf with axes also 8/7. I'm heading back to town after each couple of battles as I'm out of AP by then after a few blinds. Most spells fail. hehe
 

Raapys

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Huh, only AT7 ? I'm sure my characters had at least something like 12-13 Attack with their main weapons after character creation.
 

Hazelnut

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Well I did the quick creation (novice) then modded the stats only, before starting in advanced. Wouldn't have made a jot of difference anyhow as I've only just seen the bit in the manual about trading off AT for PA - I assume that's how you get 12-13 AT from the off then? Oh well, thats why they can't hit anything. I also have the starting values of AP too. Hardy the overpowered party you thought eh Jasede?

Oh and I just cast a wand spell for the first time (no real details in the manual - it keeps referencing a section that I can't find) and it was charged with spell #2 apparently. Very fucking helpful that. I have no idea what it is or how to use it.
 

Raapys

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You probably have the same incomplete manual I used first. Anyway, here's about the wand spells.

Wand Spells
-----------

These powerful rituals allow a Magician to "charge" a wand with certain
spells. Although the effort takes immense amounts of astral points, the
charge is permanant. It's assumed that an appropriately charged wand is
used automati- cally if the situation calls for it. Further, the wand may
hold more than one spell at a time.

There are four different rituals, or charges, that wands may hold:

#1 Makes a magic wand unbreakable and prepares it to be
charged with further spells. Any Magician / Magicienne starts
the game with a wand already containing this charge

#2 After successful completion of this ritual (at a cost of 23 astral
points) the wand can be used at any time as an undousable
torch. Blade assumes any Magician with charge #2 uses it
automatically in dungeons and caves, so no other characters
need carry a light.

#3 This allows the caster to turn his wand into a rope 1O paces long
whenever he or she wants to. The rope will attach itself to any
protruding rock ledge, hook etc when thrown. The ritual has
a cost of 19 astral points. Blade assumes any Magician with
charge #3 will automatically use the wand as a rope when in
an appropriate situation, like climbing for example.

#4 This ritual allows the Magician / Magicienne to cast any spell
at a cost reduced by 2 AP (minimum cost for any spell: 1 AP).
This ritual costs 27 astral points.

Note that you can have all four enchantments on the same wand/staff, so just keep casting the wand spell thing until it's #4.

Here's the full manual, I believe. You'll even find a spell description about half-way through, something that was sorely lacking in my first manual.

http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php?id=1335
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Hazel (what a pretty name!), don't worry. You'll start hitting stuff at level 3 at least. But yeah, had you used expert mode, your party would already lay waste to everyone due to tweaked attack values. But hey, you'll get there. You'll just have to be a bit more patient. Just remember to always raise attack, never parry, on level-ups.
 

MisterStone

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Here's a general issue I've been having with this game...

What is the deal with all of the different domination spells? I mean, there's sleep, horribus, lightning (blind), great need, dance, meekness, master of animals, and evil eye.

Sleep and blind seem to be similar. Sleep makes the critter go to sleep and it won't do anything unless someone attacks it or it randomly decides to wake up. Blind makes things sit there and not attack until it wears off (?), and penalizes them in combat. Dance! does more or less the same thing, except I guess they can still move and try to attack? Great need and horribus seem to do the same thing, except the text message given when cast sucessfully differs. Master of animals and meekness seem to be pretty much the same thing too... I managed to "master" a lion, only to have it sit there for a few turns and then decide to start attacking us again. Then there is some kind of charm spell as well. Of all of these, it seems like only horribus, the great need spell, and evil eye are really very useful... actually lightning is OK too, since it works at a distance.

So, which of these spells are useless, and which are... less than useless? Also, if I keep using magic to make the monsters flee, am I depriving myself of loot?

I'm sure the manual explains this stuff in more detail. But I uh... lost the manual or something.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
You're not losing loot.

Horriphobus, Paralu (Petrify? The flesh to stone spell), Great Greed/Need, Salander Mutander (flesh to mushroom) are the spells you really want. The variety is there so wizards of different schools or even non-wizards like druids and witches and elves have at least one, two ways of crowd control. I like it, it adds variety.
 

Binary

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Jasede said:
Yes you can change your portraits at any time during DSA 2. Sometimes I changed them just because I wanted my wizard to try out a new hairstyle.

Is there any chance of changing portraits between classes? Say give a jester portrait to a fighter, etc?

Jasede said:
Having two elves is kinda redundant. But elves are so overpowered it doesn't hurt, of course. It's just... meh. I'd feel bad bringing two of those awesomely powerful guys.

Aren't there 3 different Elf classes? Icy, Silvan and something else? And aren't they different?

Jasede said:
2 x Mages with opposing specializations

Can you please give more details?

Andhaira said:
I suggest a thorwalain instead of dwaf..and the final slot for a druid or hunter...or heck the thorwalian. (assuming you took dwarf before).

So if you take the Fighter (well to fight) and the Dwarf (Fight + Thief skills) what will be the Thorwalian's role?
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
No, only portraits of your class/gender, sorry.

Yes, three. They're all very strong, but I consider the Icy Elf the best because they have good melee skills. But they're all very good. Having two is fine, or even three, but I don't like elves. I only recommend taking one because not only are they really powerful, no, you can also get some fine "roleplaying" with them in some of the games. I don't know the differences by heart, but I remember that the wood/silvan elf is the hardest to roll and that's he's the best for ranged combat. (The best kind of combat, especially in RoA 2, and even more so in 3)

Opposing Specializations? When you make a normal Mage you get to select what spell-school he is focused on. This selection allows you to allocate 3 skill-raises to that school instead of the usual 2, if it's a mage spell, and 2 points instead of 1 if it's a non-mage spell in that school. Very useful to get, say, Transversalis early.
Schools that are good: Combat, Demonology, Movement, Altertation (not in that order). Just pick two and make sure one of the wizards works on Transversalis. I recommend two wizards because there's just SO many spells to work on, and while an experienced player can manage with one wizard, I recommend two for someone who is new to this game.

Thorwalians are completely useless. Well, not completely, but a dwarf is better in every conceivable way. Yes, Thorwalians get a nice skill spread. This is good in P&P. In RoA, however, you will hardly ever benefit from the skills they do have and are better off just taking a dwarf who has the added bonus of being good at haggling and lock-picking, two skills that are actually good. Dwarves do have a problem compared to Thorwalians: they can't swim well. You have to raise their swim skill until they're level 8 or so, two raises each level, so they won't drown pitifully in RoA 2 and 3.

The role? Well. Fighters fight well. Dwarves fight pretty much just as well as fighters, and Thorwalians fight pretty much just as well as fighters too. However, non-Fighters can use the very deadly poisons, becoming about three times more powerful. The drawback? They hit a little less often, but really, just a little. Maybe 10% or so. So think of it this way:

Fighter - can take damage well, hits hard and often
Dwarf - hits hard, high HP, can use poison, can open locks
Thorwalian - hits hard, can use poison, can learn some thief skills

Fighters take the role of the tank and damage dealer. Dwarves and Thorwalians are damage dealers (but also, tanks, since they get awesome armor) too, just a tiny bit less good who instead get some extras in their skill-spread, like their fleeting thief-skills. But it's really not that much and you'll see that both your fighter and your dwarf/thorwalian kick ass pretty hard.

And since they all three can wear the best armor, the "can take damage well" advantage of the fighter is a bit moot... But I still recommend having one, just to have another fellow in melee and to use the best weapons other classes can't use, like the Ox Herd.
 

Hazelnut

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That's great info Jasede - thanks. I think one of the biggest issues I have is the spells. There are no descriptions of what they do, and often the names are not much of a clue either. Makes it hard to know how to play the game when a n00b. Is there a list anywhere, or is that gonna spoil the game somewhat?

I think I may be dropping one of my Elves (probably the green) for another mage. They don't have enough AP to be useful. Or maybe I'll create the whole party from scratch now I know what the hell I'm doing.... :D

@Raypys - I think I must have an incomplete manual because that was very helpful, and not in my PDF. Can you give me a link to the complete one?


EDIT:
Anyone played the Amiga version of RoA1? I wonder if it's possible to import the save game into the PC version of RoA2? I might give it a go, but I'd love to hear if anyone has tried it. My god I loved my Amiga, shame I was at Uni when this (and Battle Isle is seems) came out, I was paying attention to beer & girls (with a bit of studying thrown in) and not to games.

Anyway the Amiga manual I got from lemon amiga has short spell descriptions! Yay.

Gonna create a new party tonight.
 
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AlaCarcuss said:
undead dolphin hacker said:
Anyone know where to download Shadows over Riva? I can't find it anywhere.

Try here: http://www.squakenet.com/abandonwarerin ... dogs.info/

See - even lurkers can be useful :D
You weren't useful, dumbfuck. Of course Underdogs is the first place I'd look, and if you had actually done so also, you'd see Shadows over Riva is not available for download. They just point you at a $20 copy off CD-Access.
 
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I just started Blade of Destiny tonite using DOSBox. As it stands, I can use the sbpro2 emulation and get decent music/sound, though the music starts to "pop" and fade in/out at high notes.

I tried using Roland MT-32, port 330, and it sounds great up until the song starts again five seconds later with the first instance still running... then again... then again... til there's this deafening cacophany. A shame, because the Roland music sounds great. Any ideas on how to set itup to get Roland going, or perhaps just to be rid of the popping/distortion in the music with sbpro2?
 

sheek

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undead dolphin hacker said:
I just started Blade of Destiny tonite using DOSBox. As it stands, I can use the sbpro2 emulation and get decent music/sound, though the music starts to "pop" and fade in/out at high notes.

I tried using Roland MT-32, port 330, and it sounds great up until the song starts again five seconds later with the first instance still running... then again... then again... til there's this deafening cacophany. A shame, because the Roland music sounds great. Any ideas on how to set itup to get Roland going, or perhaps just to be rid of the popping/distortion in the music with sbpro2?
Skip the intro maybe

I think I always had issues with the starting intro thing, I always started the game using "bladem.bat/exe" and it was fine.
 

Raapys

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There's different music? O_O

I've been going insane over that horrrrrible midi thingy.

Bah, I can't get the either of the Roland thingies to work correctly either.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Yes. Most soundcards are GM, and there's some that are FM. I have no idea what that means, but GM sounds way better and that's why I like using Dosbox - it emulates those GM cards, like, I think, that Roland, very well, so in games that support it you heard much better music than with an FM device, like the Sound Blaster.

This is most noticable in Daggerfall: Daggerfall with a Soundblaster sounds halfway decent. Daggerfall with a GM card is a milestone in gaming music and has beautiful tunes.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Eh? I am sure they carry over to your next level... might be wrong of course, but still. Try cheating yourself 100 XP to try it out. Err, wait, English version; 5000 XP.
 
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I already remade them all. lawl.

My party (based on previous advice, I would have had a totally retarded party if I hadn't read up):

-Warrior
-Dwarf
-Silvan Elf
-Magician (Demonology)
-Magician (Movement)

Thought about a sixth but couldn't think of any other roles that really needed to be filled.
 

Hazelnut

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I spent three hours last night re-creating my party, same as your's UDH except for a green elf and one of the mages is combat school. I think that creating and then upping stats with editor looses you some starting skill/spell levels. So what I did was trade off the stats for negatives and then reduce those to 5-6 from 8 with the editor. I also boosted 2 chars with awful rolls to 13 ST, saves on the rolling time considerably. Most of my time was spent getting a nice spread of spell proficiencies (as well as getting familiar with the spells) between my four casters. I've no idea why I'd not thought of doing this before, but instead of doing one at a time and trying to juggle the numbers in my senile old head, I simply started 6 DosBox's running the game (plus one to compare with el shito team) - so I could do all characters at the same time. Works fine since they're saved to CHR files and then imported into actual games. :D

The other thing I did was to rush straight to the encounter with 6 bandits so everyone got >1500xp for their first bandit encounter... :lol: Bit of an exploit that, they should have had (# * mob_xp) + (10 * mob_xp) instead of # * mob_xp * 10 but I'm not complaining. I am still a little confused about the 'present' AT/PA values. They seem to be 1 or 2 lower than they should be, but at least everyone can hit now I upped the ATs in creation. The warriors are worst simplt because of all the armour I bought them. Combat is really cumbersome if you use the mouse, switched to keyboard and it's much nicer. I wish there was a shortcut for 'wait' since I often have the mages waiting around in small encounters. If I let the computer take over it does retarded things like switching my elves to unarmed and sending them and my mages into melee... wtf!

Lastly, sheek, when the hell are you going to tell us all about this bank? Stop ignoring Jasede's question! (oh and is there anywhere you can store stuff so you don't have to carry it about - not sure if hammer, crowbar, quill are useful or not)
 

JoKa

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on 'present' AT/PA:
those values change according to the weapons you use, normally: the heavier the weapon, the bigger the losses on those values.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
There's some storehouses in RoA 2 but they're buggy as hell. I don't think there's any in RoA 1. In 3 you can just dump your stuff in an abandoned house. Endure.
 

Claw

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Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
You are all terrible munchkins. You don't need ridiculously overpowered characters if you choose enough overpowered classes! I love elves. I wonder if I could win the trilogy with a party of elves.

Heck, I even forgot about increasing positive and negative stats while creating half my characters.

Oh, and why don't you send your mages into melee?


PS:

Jasede said:
Eh? I am sure they carry over to your next level... might be wrong of course, but still. Try cheating yourself 100 XP to try it out. Err, wait, English version; 5000 XP.
Hehehe.
 

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