Exult Forum

It has always bothered me how ill-equipped the party is when they first arrived on Serpent Isle.

Specifically, I think the companions should have better starting equipment (you can easily balance the game by teleporting most of them to post-Gorlab areas anyways).

Ideas:

* Dupre gets a full set of plate armor (actually, is 22 strength enough to wear full-plate?)
* Iolo gets a full set of leather armor, and a triple crossbow (I know they don't naturally occure in SI, can Exult easily mod it in?), and maybe 100 (instead of 20) magic bolts.
* Shamino mix-matches between chain and leather armor, but has his entire body covered.

(ps, if Lord British were to buy all those additional items in BG, how much would it cost?)

(ps, if Lord British were to buy all those additional items in BG, how much would it cost?)

Given the amount of magical gear you can collect in BG (without even trying too hard to find it), the entire party could easily have full suits of magical armor and three or four choices of weapon, as well as more magical arrows and bolts than they could carry, for zero cost: they would all be covered by the avatar's adventures. In fact, the above would be true even if the avatar donated half of everything he found to the Royal Treasury (but was sufficiently thorough in his search). But the SI devs had to draw *some* line; not everyone would have played BG, nor would they have been as thorough as I usually am, and having everyone in full magical gear at the start would have been too much.

I agree that he could have afforded to be less skimpy with the equipment he gave to the guys that saved his realm over and over, though

Considering you get hit by the teleport storm, I don't see how this is really that relevant. Would you seriously be motivated to find the missing pieces of leather armor that Iolo started with instead of just getting a different set?
All you need to do is buy all the crap after [s]killing[/s] finding the bodies of Monitor guards and returning them to the crematorium.

Two revelations:
1. Each body you "find" is worth 100 monetari.
2. Strikethrough apparently doesn't work on this version of phorum.

The destruction of the Black Gate made hude gashes in the ether-fabric. The Avatar and his companions beeing fully exposed to the first shock waves, almost all their magic items where sucked off all their magical properties. Only the magebane sword (being immune to magic) and the Shade Blade (being powered by the demon within) survived the magical onslaught.

This is what truly happened. And this is why you start SI with crappy armour and items.

But does that explain why they couldn't use some of the nifty stuff the Avatar picks up while wandering around in the worlds through the Gem in UW2?

Replace the "The destruction of the Black Gate ..." with "The destruction of the blackrock dome..."

Maybe Lord British needs to keep that stuff so he can afford all those expensive trips he goes on, like the one into space.

When I saw the subject heading, I thought this might be about having LB offering to sell you HP, like in the first 2 games. Of course, wouldn't this require changing how the current and max values are stored, since the original limit is 255?
Of course, those stupid liches would still be able to kill you with one hit.

>Of course, those stupid liches would still be able to kill you with one hit.

Oh yeah, that sucks so bad... I think it was the Lich in the maze of the Silver Seed expansion. I was so concentrated on playing that I hadn't saved in a couple of hours... death bolt! *WHACK* dead!

That was sooooo yay!

Is there any way to defend from an incoming death bolt? Or is it more like "abandon all hope, all ye who see violet sperm on screen..."

My technique in Black Gate was to be ready with energy mist. After saving of course. I could usually get it off fast enough to nail the liche before he got me with death bolts. I'm not sure what I did with Aram Dol in Silver Seed. I remember him being a tough melee fight, but I don't recall being death bolted by him either.

I remember him being a pain in the butt to kill, er... to put to peace.
He was constantly invisible and spitting fire and brimstone and death bolts all over the place.
In the end I resorted to bleeding him to death (who would have thought...heh!) by repeatedly using the bloodletting device on him... and then finishing him off.

No, I'm not proud...

Maybe that's something for the SI-fixes thread... "do not allow use of bloodletting device on the undead".

More appropriate would be "Do not allow use of party affecting objects on non-party members". It's all well and good to put dragons to sleep by dropping a sleep potion down their throat while there's a gump open, or to ritual-blooding-device them to death, but it is a cheesy tactic.

Maybe that should be a case of don't allow it while there's a gump open, and treat it as an attack for the success probability if the game isn't paused. I can see it being a really nifty move as someone dashes close to the dragon to toss the potion down its throat before it can toast them. More imagination than the graphics can display, but it's a nifty thought I think.

Range, target limitations, forcing the item to be equiped, only allowing it to be used with gumps closed, and causing it to closing gumps can be done through usecode. You could also make them used as a weapon on non party members which seems good because using these items doesn't trigger hostility.

In the case of the ritual blooding device, walking up and starting to draw blood from an NPC or monster without their permission ought to trigger hostility.

The design choice of sending the team of "world saviors" to another land equipped with leather armour and a few sticks and stones always puzzled me *exactly because of* the magical storms.

I mean: they could have just designed SI to start with all the characters equipped in full magical plate, legendary weapons and so on (as would be logic), and then strip them of everything immediately after the arrival with the excuse of the storms.

One of the things people forget is the fact that the lost magical items are all found. Scattering around a whole lot of extra equipment would have taken a whole lot more time. Leaving them around would have been unbalancing and also downplay the amount of magic that the Isle is supposed to have. All Ultimas I know of start you with crap anyway. It is part 2 and uses the same engine, but it really is a separate game.

(not that people are really taking this seriously)

Andrea sez:
>>The design choice of sending the team of "world saviors" to another land >>equipped with leather armour and a few sticks and stones always puzzled >>me *exactly because of* the magical storms.

But they aren't equipped with sticks and leather armor:

Avatar: Full magic armor, full spell book, Daemon Sword
Dupre: Plate armor, unique magical shield, Magebane
Shamino: chain or leather (I forget which) and Magic bow
Iolo: Leather armor, crossbow, magic bolts.

Now Shamino and Iolo do start out light, but remember: they're a ranger, and a bard, respectively. They don't have the strength for heavy armor, even though Magic armor is fairly light. Their weapons, however, are nothing to sneeze at.
And our heroes start off far better equipped than they ever have been at the start of any of the other games.

Dupre has chain armour. Iolo and Shamino between them has a mix of chain and leather. None of the three have any upper body armour tho, it is only boots, leggings, gauntlets and helms.

Well, they did want to show their muscular body to all the females of this strange new island

>Well, they did want to show their muscular body to all the females of this strange new island

Self deceiving, wishfull thinking on their part. If you're going to travel with the Avatar, you might as well take an oath of celibacy. The Avatar get's all the chicks.

Being an Avatar companion sucks. I wonder why they're all so eager to join...

Being an Avatar companion sucks. I wonder why they're all so eager to join...

That would make a funny mod.
A: Join
Companion: No! It's always the same going on an adventure with you. You get all the chicks and I have to carry the loot. Well, sometimes I get a fancy magic shield but that is necessary since you give another friend the firedoom staff. The fireDOOM staff. What happens? I have to cower behind the shiled until the damn thing lost all its charges. So, no, go away!
A:Join, please.
C: And what is it with you? Can't you speak in normal sentences? You always command but you never really speak to me. You never ask how I am doing or if I need something or ...
A: Join, please. I give you gold!
C: Okay, then!

Even better, companions could randomly make disparaging comments. Like:

"Good thing the Avatar can't see his/her own ass...it's like two pit bulls fighting in a gunny sack."

"Guess who had Indian again for supper."

"Who taught you how to handle a sword? Ginger Rogers?"

"This quest is like passing a kidney stone."

"Have you noticed how much time the champion of virtue spends breaking into people's homes to ransack their belongings? And my wife wonders why I refuse to go into the post office any more."

"Hey, Iolo, remember that time you shot the Avatar in the back? Why can't you always aim like that?"

"Stop getting upwind of me."

> Maybe that should be a case of don't allow it while there's a gump open, and treat it as an attack for the success probability if the game isn't paused. I can see it being a really nifty move as someone dashes close to the dragon to toss the potion down its throat before it can toast them. More imagination than the graphics can display, but it's a nifty thought I think.

Paulon, and what do you think of throwing potions, like, for instance, in second part of Diablo? Let's say that sleeping potion or poison might be equipped as weapon, or (which I think would be better) might be used as it is now, but create sleep/poison field appear in the place selected and trigger hostility at the same time?