Thanks for the added tips. I ended up with time to download and install it (wifi was super slow last night), but had to sleep at least 4 hours so no playtime yet. But playing HOMM lately has awakened my RPG itch so I'm looking forward to starting it tonight.

Did I mention....

SAVE OFTEN ! ! !

AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Dammit, I just got bit BIG TIME because I didn't save for a ten minute time period.

Looted a chest and found the BEST ITEM, by far, I've found since being in game. It was heavy armor gloves that added +5 to hit and +2 to damage. Nothing I've found yet comes close to that (My current gloves added 1 to each) and I have an amulet that adds 3 to hit chance.

But immediately after that I was lockpicking another door, got caught, so immediately reloaded and.... of course in the same chest that contained those gloves now resides a pair of plain old heavy armor pants and some gold pieces.

AAAAARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!

Just firing it up tonight, planning to play until the sun comes up :D I have a feeling I'm about to die...a lot xD BUT, I'll remember to save very often! :)

Loot is randomized and set when you open the container. If it wouldn't drive you completely mad with boredom, you could save and reload until you get a better item. But that could take hours, and it wouldn't be much fun.

Oh, I forgot to ask. Are any of the other "books"/ games in the series good? Would love to own them all when their bundle pops up again, if so. :)

The reason that feels like a "cheat"... is because you are cheating. (Cheating yourself more than cheating the game.)

If you don't want to cheat, don't save scum like that. Accept your losses (lost potion ingredients and lost HP in this case), or don't do the experiments. Accepting the consequences of your actions is a fairly core part of role playing. Same with the acid grubs you mentioned -- I lost 3 pieces of armor to them, 2 of which were pretty good and not easily replaced -- I of course played through that rather than reloading. Reloading is only for recovering from otherwise completely unrecoverable situations (such as death), and even that should be minimized -- i.e., you shouldn't be repeatedly taking outrageous risks just because you know you can reload.

LOL
That's what you get for not being willing to 1) refrain from actions whose consequences you don't want to live with (thieving in this case), and 2) save scumming to avoid those consequences when they arise.

(If you're going to save scum you could at least do it 'right' -- save immediately before doing any "stupid action I know I really shouldn't be doing".) Yes, I do. But I wouldn't describe Eschalon as a "really good" game. It's (mostly) functional, though, and simple/easy/short enough that most people can probably actually finish it (if they don't get tripped up on it's character system).

That's not true in all skills. Some take multiple points to get to the next level that actually makes any difference -- for example, in Book 1 raising the alchemy skill above 5 only has any affect at all at 10, 15, and 20. And it's definitely not true of the abilities (strength, dexterity, etc.) -- most of those take 5 points to make a noticeable difference (and 10 points for some effects). It seems a lot of the people who get stuck in the game are not understanding this mechanic and are ending up with many points spread out across multiple abilities (and skills) that aren't doing them any good, making their character relatively weak and combat relatively difficult for them. And the fault for this falls flatly on the game as it does not come with documentation that provides the player with the information needed to make good decisions.

Also, IIRC you can't actually put skill points directly into your armor armor rating. There are light/heavy armor skills where you need one point to get rid of the "I don't have this skill" penalty, but any points beyond that are pretty much a waste as points put into the 'dodge' skill are twice as effective (which is a failure in the game design for making a skill worthless, and again a failure of the docs which don't explain this), and frankly even dodge is of highly questionable value. You can increase armor by increasing dexterity, but it takes 5 points of dexterity to get 1 point in armor. Ditto for speed -- each 5 points of speed provides 1 point in armor. And again, the game documentation doesn't explain this. And nothing in the game or docs indicates how many points in alchemy you need to get the armor-buffing potions, which is another failure as you then can't make informed choices about putting points into alchemy. Ditto with the lack of info on magic skills (divination/elemental). If it weren't for a 3rd party wiki providing the information the game/docs should have provided, there would be no way to play Eschalon intelligently on a first run (and the game really isn't worth a second run). Note that some of the info on that wiki is spoilerish, so avert your eyes when you hit those parts.

(Technically the entire previous paragraph applies for "hit chance" and damage as well -- you can't put "a point or two" directly into either of these. However, it can come close if you stick to one weapon type, as weapon skills are pretty effective with every skill point alternately providing either a damage +1 or 'to hit' +1 for that weapon type.)

I will, however, corroborate that once you (by one means or another) manage to raise armor, 'to hit' or damage by a point it does tend to have a noticeable impact (which is why combat in the game pretty much completely changes once you can buff all your armor with alchemy -- a +3 buff on 6 pieces of armor gives +18 to armor, that's the same amount of armor boost you would get from dumping an entire 30 level-ups worth of skill points into dexterity {my character was only level 17 at the end of the game}, and it just overwhelms the game's combat mechanics, effectively breaking combat in the game. Dexterity+haste+stoneskin spells have a similar effect, and putting them together pushes combat well beyond being broken and into the realm of being silly -- not sure what else to call it when the odds of you hitting one of the toughest units in the game is 30 times larger than the odds of them hitting you).

Before I get to the main point of my response, I have a question for anyone:

I just replaced the Crux of Ages, and spoke to the Chancellor. Afterwards, a screen appeared saying I was held for a few days and questioned etc. etc. etc. and then the game quit and I was back on the desktop.

Was that the end of the game or a bug that is crashing my machine? It doesn't seem like it should have been the end since it leveled me up after replacing the Crux of Ages. Why do that if that's basically the end of the game? I mean why award experience points at all for that if it's the end of the game?

If that was the end, then this is a pretty short game. My last save (which I made after defeating Gramuk and before going to the Bastion and replacing the Crux of Ages (which takes like one minute, maybe less) said 44.8 hours of gameplay. Not that I'm complaining, at this point I'd rather a good RPG err on the short side instead of the Elder Scrolls like thousands of hours required. But 44.8 is rather short I would think compared to most, isn't it? Also, I know of at least one segment of the game I missed, as I found a boat that highlighted, but a message popped up saying now wasn't a good time to take the trip. I never made that trip. This is another thought making me wonder if the game really ended or if I've got a bug that is crashing at that point every time (I've reloaded and tried three or four times now, with the same result).

Now, to my reply to this particular post;

I'm sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear in my first post, but regarding the experimenting, I did play it "ignorant" meaning I made no potions I didn't know the recipe for. However, the first time I experimented, the damage killed me. I had no choice but to reload, and that was when my decision had to be made and I mentioned that it could be a "cheat" (I use cheat in quotes because while it may be a cheat, you're not breaking any game rules like say a hack of a file does).

Also, regarding the acid grubs, I did in fact lose a weapon, a mithral sword, and lived with that loss. However, changing my strategy from that point on was no cheat at all. I learned from my mistake, and changed my strategy. If it were "real life" for example, one would be considered a fool to continue standing there toe to toe with the grubs after learning such a lesson, and one would change strategies.

Regarding the issue of raising attributes, I understand some major enhancements only occur every 5 levels, but I'm pretty sure you get some benefit for each gain. For example, strength may only increase damage done every 5 levels, but I believe carrying capacity increases with each point spent. Similarly, with endurance, while the HP gained per level may only increase every 5 levels, I'm pretty sure you get benefit in terms of resistances with each point gained. Perception, for example, is the attribute checked regarding curses. I'm pretty sure you have a better chance of avoiding a curse at perception level 12 than perception level 10.

Skills, I do know for a fact that every point spent in the weapons skills, cartography skill, dodge skill, and I believe others makes a difference. Also, alchemy makes a diffierence with every point up to I think 5. After that, it may be true that no benefit in terms of strength of potions, but are you sure there is no benefit gained in terms of potions allowed to be made?? For example, I believe Devil's Oil requires Level 4. Is it not possible that some other potions (say Haste?) requires some level between 5-10???

Anyway, mainly I wanted to point out that I have role played before, and am aware that accepting the consequences of one's actions is part of the game. However, when one dies as a result of the consequence, it especially opens up a "cheat" because there really is "no penalty." You must reload. And that's where I was pointing out I decided not to experiment. And I didn't, up until my hit points got above 120. Then I did, and accepted all consequences.

ADDED: Also, I'm not sure we played the same game. Regarding your comment that adding +3 to all your armor "breaks the combat mechanics" boy I didn't see that. I did in fact have every piece of my armor with the +3 added, and right at the end I was still taking significant damage from the Tauruses, acid grubs, and raptors, significant to the point of still constantly being in danger of dying. In fact, I wonder just how bad off I would've been had I not done all the added +3's. My experience must have been very different from yours, the game has been patched in some way, or we're talking about different games (I'm talking about Book I).

And that's a wrap. Game over.

Because game developers use experience points as a "pat on the head"? Besides, you talked to the chancellor -- that's only one possible ending. If you go for a different ending the extra experience points might be of use. (And there's no reason once you finish the game the "good way" you don't go back to a save game right before the end and try seeing how "bad ass" you can be, not that it's really "bad ass" considering how easy the combat is. To see my character "executing" an alternate ending, see attachment to this post.)

My understanding is that there was going to be another part to the game (side quest kind of thing) that you got to with that boat, but it was never implemented.

"some benefit" (which you may or may not actually make use of) != "SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE"

Absolutely useless. A tiny incremental amount of carrying capacity is not going to win you any fights, and winning fights is pretty much all this game is about (with the odd puzzle thrown in). Over the long haul all of that added capacity will make the game less of a nuisance to play (in terms of reduced backtracking to sell loot), but especially over the short term that's a very far cry from the "SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE" you claimed (unless you want to argue that the nuisance of backtracking/walking around in this game can be significant, which I would agree with, but that tiny incremental carrying capacity unfortunately will not put a big dent in that nuisance).

It's a maximum of 1% improvement. The difference between 30% resistance and 31% resistance is not a "SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE" (or even between 5% and 6% -- even though 1% "looks" big relative to 5%, it's still only 1% chance of doing anything). For most monsters in the game (which are physical damage only) it provides zero difference.

Let's try applying some back-of-the-envelope calculations: A 1% improvement against (say) 10% of monsters (where resistance even matters) and you are looking at a 0.1% overall combat (defensive) improvement. 1 part in a thousand is really difficult to even notice. But wait! It's even worse than that as this does nothing to stop any physical part of their attack, only the "special" part. (I don't think creatures with magic attack have any physical attack, but I think the rest do and the non-physical part is just extra on top of the physical damage they do.) So even for creatures where resistance does matter, it only matters for a fraction of their damage (usually only a small fraction), so that 0.1% may actually be more like 0.03%. (Resistance is probably more useful for its "after combat" benefits than for its "during combat" benefits, as it may mean no need for a detox/cure potion, though a 1% decrease in need for potions is really not significant, especially as your need for them trends towards zero over time regardless of resistance.)

I played as an atheist so I was immune to curses. (And again, how many monsters actually have curse ability, and how useful is a 1% (?) improvement in that context? Plus, despite how "sure" you are, you got it wrong -- it's wisdom that protects against curses. And there's no way a non-magic-using character is going to blow points in wisdom just to get curse protection.)

However, note that with respect to abilities I stated "most of those take 5 points to make a noticeable difference", and perception is the one (and only for most character types) ability that actually does provide some noticeable benefit from each point added, at least if your character likes to dabble in magic, because every single point bumps MP by 2 and increases your mana regen rate. (For those who are full on "wizards" relying on spells for most their damage, non-camping MP regen won't be very useful until you get it pretty high, but for "dabblers" who use magic less frequently it can at least sometimes be enough to avoid needing potions/rest just to get MP back.) Also every point of perception improves ability to spot hidden objects/traps, and every point bumps magic resist (the only damage type with no physical component AFAIK). Perception is almost completely a "smooth" skill (every point treated the same), with the only exceptions being MP at start/level-up requiring increments of 2/5 points respectively.

I already described weapons skills as being beneficial every single point (but only if you actually use that weapon type). You're just wrong on cartography -- there's no benefit at all at 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15 or anything above 16. (And for my take on the game's cartography skill, see here.) Dodge skill I already wrote off as being of "highly questionable value" -- again you have to do some calculation but the end result is that skill points spent on dodge are simply not nearly as effective as skill points spent elsewhere. (Dumping 11 points into dodge will reduce enemies chance-to-hit by 11%. Dumping 11 points into alchemy and getting a couple of brewer's rings to bump that to 15 and buffing your armor by +18 will do a lot more than 11%. To a point weapon skills will also reduce damage more than dodge, just because if you kill your enemies 5% faster they are going to have 5% less chances at hitting you.)

Anyways, all I said was "That's not true in all skills. Some take multiple points to get to the next level that actually makes any difference", which is a perfectly true statement. Here's the breakdown (with '?' indicating I don't know for a fact the given skill is "smooth" but I'm guessing it is):

smooth (every point does something): dodge, hide in shadows?, survival, meditation, mercantile, move silently?, pick locks, skullduggery, spot hidden?, weapons skills (swords/bows/piercing/bludgeoning/thrown/unarmed)

not smooth: alchemy, divination, elemental, cartography, light armor, heavy armor, lore, shields (armor + shields in this list because apparently only the 1st point does anything)

It looks like about 15 smooth and 8 not smooth. Of course, it's a total waste to spend level-up points on more than one or two weapons skills so it's more like 11 and 8 for any given character. Many of the remaining "smooth" ones are for "thief types", so if you're not playing that type of character you'll likely have less smooth than non-smooth skills.

Which is 100% consistent with what I said ("alchemy skill above 5 only has any affect at all at 10, 15, and 20").

No, it's not.

It doesn't open up anything. What you seem to be thinking is that this "reload on death" is some kind of "loophole" that suddenly makes save scumming not ruin the game -- it's not. "Reload after intentionally reckless death done to gain 'illicit' info" is just as much save scumming (and game wrecking) as is "reload because I got caught thieving" or "reload because I want better loot from that last chest" or "reload because that last battle didn't go as well as I would have liked". In other words, the valid form of "reload on death" is really "reload on death which I was trying to avoid by all due means".

Book 1, version 1.06

If you look at the screenshot attached to this post, you'll see that I've got a 60% 'to hit' against the spire guards, while they've got only 2% 'to hit' against me (the minimum 'to hit' in book 1), making fighting them a joke. And that's without even using the stone skin spell I had (which would provide another +9 armor).

I was never in any danger from acid grubs (only my gear was). Tauruses were tough when I first ran into them (even with fighting them in the dark to drop their 'to hit'), but once I added the +18 to my armor it became easy to fight them during the day (and I only got stronger after that -- I didn't have anything in the way of spell buffs at that time, those came later). After that I guess perhaps I too was "constantly being in danger of dying" -- of boredom from the combat. :-P

(Book 2 was even easier, despite me limiting myself to light armor, crappy short swords, no shield, and dumping a huge amount of points into mercantile. That's because when I started playing Book 1 I had no idea what I was doing, but Book 2 is almost the same rules as Book 1 so I got off to a cleaner start and didn't have to recover from character development mistakes like I did in Book 1.)

Thank you very much, you are very helpful. But regarding the different ending, I just reloaded again to double check my memory, and there was no other option at the end, unless I held down shift and forced the attack maybe??? In dialogue, there was only one option to pick, so it couldn't have been in dialogue. Or was it from an earlier decision somewhere???

Well it was pretty short then. I mean isn't 44.8 short for an RPG??? I can't remember a lot of details from the actual "old school" RPG's I played years ago, but I seem to remember almost every one of them taking longer than that.

I'm going to start Book II tonight then. I'm looking forward to it. I very much enjoyed Book I. There was one area that made me cringe though. I mean it seemed completely pointless. There was this trap that I stepped on that caused IIRC 350 damage points. And no way for my Spot Hidden to find it, or to disarm it. (The key to disarming it was to switch a nearby lever). With that many damage points, it would kill any character (I think) and thus what's the point??? Just a test to see if you're saving often??? I rather liked the other traps in the game that dealt damage that you had to live with if you set them off (poison, disease, etc. as well as physical damage) but just killing you, especially with no way of stopping it (how many people would know to switch a lever to disarm a trap??) just seemed..... bizarre.

But I really liked it a lot and am very much looking forward to the second one. In fact, since Book I was so short, I may give it another go and try a different approach (more of a mage this time). But for now I'm gonna go ahead and delve into II.

Really seemed like a strange ending though. That last cut scene read like there was more coming.

ADDED: Heh, Level 17. LOL, that's the exact same level I was at the end too.

You can kill the chancellor. (I can't remember if I had to do shift or not to do that.) Then be prepared to 'greet' the spire guards...

I think there was another option in the game (unless I'm confusing it with book 2) where you can give the crux to someone else. (I never tried that one.)

That was a part of my original impetus for posting in this thread, because Eschalon really isn't "old school". It's neither challenging enough, large enough, nor long enough to qualify. It's also missing out on certain intangibles, like the actual sense of exploration I have had in many RPGs that is just lacking here -- spending craploads of time weaving in and out of trees (in Eschalon) because you can't see the paths through them so you have to wander around like a blind man is not my idea of an "exploration experience", nor is running grid patterns on large mostly empty spaces (Book 2 is even worse). Any sense of wonder is also just not here (though I would say that Book 2 at least comes closer to achieving that at times than Book 1 ever does).

I think I know exactly the portcullis you're talking about -- its switch is right under it so it slams down on your head unless you just happen to have pulled the correct lever before hand. And your perception skill is worthless because the game engine doesn't consider it to be a "trap" -- just another switch.

In a sense I think you're both under and over thinking it. Overthinking it because you're assuming there should be some gameplay sense here, whereas I don't know that the developer gave it that much thought. Underthinking because this kind of trap is exactly the perfect kind of trap for a place to actually have -- one where you can't even see it's a trap until it's making your insides squirt out (and what would be the point of non-lethal traps? non-lethal is non-effective!), but if the dev were on top of things there would also be some way in the game to find out about it in advance (doing actual recon and intel work rather than the game just being about jumping straight into strange unknown dungeons and killing everything just the same way as far too many other games already work). Part of the problem is the switch-operated portcullis -- who has these? Is this the Starship Enterprise or something? A real portcullis requires someone cranking a chain that lifts/lowers it -- they're not freaking spring loaded! (See, for example, the game Avadon for a proper portcullis.) Now if every portcullis in the place was "normal" (chain connected to sprocket/crank) and you ran into this strange one that was spring loaded, you'd be very wary of it. But since in this game world they are all spring loaded, it doesn't look any different than any other portcullis and you walk right into it.

I could go on and on though. I've been working on designing an RPG for a while (and even said adiós to my day job so I can focus on RPG development), and one of the big issues I have been working on solving is how to make a properly consistent game world. Where did all of those dungeons come from? How come normal NPCs who have been around for decades haven't gotten past level 2 while your character has reached level 20 in a few weeks? Why doesn't everyone use magic? Where do all of those monsters come from? If all of those higher level monsters that kill-on-sight are running around near town -- and my character knows this because he's seen them there, how come they haven't come in and killed all of these weakling NPCs yet? Why aren't they doing that while my character is dinking around on stupid side quests? Why when the world is in such danger do they have me wasting time on such side quests? Once you start pulling on the "why doesn't this part make sense" string, most (all?) existing RPGs completely unravel. (In this respect Eschalon is actually a smaller offender compared to many other RPGs - the game at least does tend to explain the dungeon areas - though that's easier since there's so few of them, and even your rapid leveling can be explained by the fact that your character is just "re-remembering" skills they already knew but forgot when their mind was wiped.)

Well, that's kind of to be expected -- Eschalon is a small "explore/kill everything" kind of game, there's only a fixed number of pre-set creatures and quests to get XP off of, and there's no "double classing" or anything else that would cause characters to level at different XP rates, so basically anyone who doesn't skip a lot of material (and doesn't do a bunch of camping to grind) is going to end up being level 17 (maybe give or take one level) at the end of Book 1.

I realized that there is an effective non-lethal trap -- one that actually traps you! Sadly I don't know if I've ever seen such a thing in an RPG! Of course, how could I possibly expect RPG developers to think of something so diabolically complex as a trap that actual traps you? (To be clear, I've seen "puzzle traps" that kind of trap you until you solve a puzzle or kill all the baddies -- but those aren't real traps.) So, I'll have to consider having real traps used to actually catch would-be thieves and other undesirables, with periodic checks by guards, and a hauling off (or at least attempted hauling off) to whomever's in charge once they find you. Or maybe they'll just execute you on the spot, depending on their standing orders. It also presents the opportunity for a "trap escape" skill. There could also be a "gnaw your own arm off" option. So many possibilities...