Nahlakh and Natuk

[octavius]

So, weapons whose names are in green, what does it mean excactly?
I can buy a 2H Sword for 1066 gold (nearly all I have), but it only does 6 damage, while an Orc Mace does 5 damage, so it doesn't sound much like an upgrade.

 

[Desktop Commander]

That's weird - I have definitely seen quite a few enemies sling spells at me (it's how I learned the area poison spell, for instance).

So, weapons whose names are in green, what does it mean excactly?
I can buy a 2H Sword for 1066 gold (nearly all I have), but it only does 5 damage, while an Orc Mace does 5 damage, so it doesn't sound much like an upgrade.

I don't think it has anything to do with item quality (that's determined by prefixes). It seems to simply be a quick way to determine somewhat valuable items (4 dollar signs and above when using the (E)xamine command) in your inventory.

 

[mondblut]

Yeah, color-coding means "worth above certain amount". In Natuk upwards, you can specify the threshold worth for highlighting in options, not sure about Nahlakh.

 

[octavius]

Do staves and other items casting spells have a limited amount of charges?

And are there way to get those little numbers to increase? Lack of Strength is beginning to be a problem...

 

[mondblut]

And are there way to get those little numbers to increase? Lack of Strength is beginning to be a problem...

I think there are stat trainers in some towns.

 

[octavius]

Damned, those Kobold caves are large! But nice too see dungeon of variable and unpredictable sizes.
And filled with nasty critters they are too, especially those that cause Disease and Poison. For some reason my best Priest can cure Poison while camping, but not disease, and I still haven't found the syllable for disease. It's fun putting all those syllables together, though; nice magic system.

But I finally found the exit on the other side of the mountain, and thought I'd try to find the Elven city to get some R&R before exploring more of the caves, but encountered a pack of Skeletonies Skeletal Wolves. If I hadn't been for that Scroll of Mass Turning I found in the crypts under the first city I would have been toast (still had to resurrect three characters).

So a fun game so far, but the combat is a bit too slow, partly due to the sheer numbers you face.

 

[octavius]

There are some nerve wracking fights in this game - vs the thieves guild leaders early in the game, Kobold king and his cronies, Spiders, and most of all a Lich supported by Skeletons. It seems the AI is pretty good too; the Lich started by casting Mass Armour, making only my Konjad with a Silver Axe able to hurt the Lich's Skeleton meat shield. What saved my bacon in this fight was a Staff of Mass Healing that I bought.
I had to actually make a video of the fight to be able to see which spells the lich cast; that's how bloody fast those message disappear. But it's worth it to learn new spells if you don't "cheat".

So far I love the magic system (I like how the fire bolt spells can cause fires (that even can spread), and the ice spells can cause monsters to slip and accidentally attack each other!), the loot system, and the combat keeps getting more tactical with more spells and items becoming available.

 

[octavius]

Do staves and other items casting spells have a limited amount of charges?

Turned out they have limited charges before being depleted. Item is still in possessions, though, so maybe it's possible to recharge them?

 

[mondblut]

In Natuk, the common exploit was to sell an item (maybe when it is down to 1 charge, not completely exhausted) then buy it back. I am sure there were actual rechargers somewhere. Dunno about Nahlakh, it's been about 20 years since I played it, wouldn't be surprised if it has a few rechargers too.

 

[octavius]

I sold an [Empty] staff to one of the vendors and later bought it back. He wanted the same price as when I first bought it, but it was still [Empty] when it was back in inventory.

Other things I've discovered:
There is a guy in the Griswald - the second town - who can increas characters' ST for money, 1 point at a time. Quite costly: 500+ gold for each session.

Kobold Shamans for some reason never cast spells, but their Goblin colleagues do.

Most annoying critter so far is probably the Vurmitar (or whatever it was called) that can teleport itself, and teleports your characters when hitting them. Also resistant to magic, and with only one decent archer it takes time to snipe them. Only met them once so far, though.


All in all I think it's a great game so far. But I think it would have been more popular if just starting the game wasn't such a drag. Creating eight characters from scratch when you are unfamiliar with the system, and then fighting armies of kobolds and small wildlife is not a good way to get a player hooked.

 

[octavius]

One thing is starting to piss me off in this game, and that is repeatedly failing to cast simple spells. 2/3 times spells like Armor and Strength fail, even when my bard is playing, and I can only dream of casting the Mass versions of these spells.
Meanwhile Frogman Shamans spam spells like they were Elminster, hardly ever failing despite me casting Light Magic (using an item, since I don't really know the spell yet) three rounds in a row.

I met a whole party of Frogman Shamans, supported by Giant Frogs and Poisonous Frogs in a cave and had to give up.
Just to make these enemies extra annoying they Teleport at random, making it hard to keep a line, and using area spells like Web and Ice is not very effective against them.
Any suggestions on tactics against these annoyances? And no, casting powerful spells is not the answer when my spell casters constantly fail despite having around 100 (Passable to Competent) magic skills.

 

[octavius]

Hmm...my main mage had a Fireproof Leather Armour, but now he only has a Leather Armour. Does the protection wear off? I've had one fight against dragons, but I don't recall if he was bit by dragon fire.

Also, has Rope any practical use?

 

[Fowyr]

I must have killed more kobolds than I did in Pool of Radiance now, but I have yet to see a Kobold Shaman cast a spell, even when turning CPU cycles down to 500.
It's a pity every combat so far is nearly the same, with huge numbers of weak enemies. Usually I enjoy massacring hordes of weaklings, but not when it takes so bloody long time. There should have been a Sweep attack like in the Gold Box games. Lack of crowd control spells like a simple Sleep does not help either.

Wait for SA-MA-VEL and you will be kobold killer in no time.

 

[octavius]

I assume you're thinking of the Quickness spell and not Haste?
Haste is nice for my "mule" so he can move more than 1 square in combat.
I haven't learnt Quickness yet, but earlier in the game one of the five Skeletal Knight in a battle used an Elixir of Quickness. The results were brutal... and swift.

 

[mondblut]

One thing is starting to piss me off in this game, and that is repeatedly failing to cast simple spells. 2/3 times spells like Armor and Strength fail, even when my bard is playing, and I can only dream of casting the Mass versions of these spells.
Meanwhile Frogman Shamans spam spells like they were Elminster, hardly ever failing despite me casting Light Magic (using an item, since I don't really know the spell yet) three rounds in a row.

I met a whole party of Frogman Shamans, supported by Giant Frogs and Poisonous Frogs in a cave and had to give up.
Just to make these enemies extra annoying they Teleport at random, making it hard to keep a line, and using area spells like Web and Ice is not very effective against them.
Any suggestions on tactics against these annoyances? And no, casting powerful spells is not the answer when my spell casters constantly fail despite having around 100 (Passable to Competent) magic skills.

If Natuk is to judge by, high level spells can have upwards to 200+ skill penalty to use, i.e. you'd need 300 to cast them reliably. Even the most basic spells come with -15, -25 and so on penalty, so 100 is really nothing to write home about. I guess enemies either have unreasonably high skill, or stick to the cantrips they can cast without issue.

Quickness is uber, yea. 1 attack per each movement point,

Fireproof - again, if Natuk is to judge by, temporary protections from spells are in square brackets, i.e. [fireproof] leather armor. permanent enchantments are without.

Don't remember shit about the rope. Perhaps it used to descend somewhere. Perhaps I am pulling this outta my arse :D

 

[SkeleTony]

In Natuk, the common exploit was to sell an item (maybe when it is down to 1 charge, not completely exhausted) then buy it back. I am sure there were actual rechargers somewhere. Dunno about Nahlakh, it's been about 20 years since I played it, wouldn't be surprised if it has a few rechargers too.

You mean STEAL IT BACK (in Natuk). Not much should be bought. And yes the item recharger is an enchanter in (IIRC) the left-most city in the bottom row of cities (That city where you can get a quest to attack the temple of "Zentrix" or whatever that death god's name is and there is also a blunt weapons shot and a helmet shop).

 

[TigerKnee]

Started this up to have a little look see.

Apparently I never played it, the one I played was Natuk.

Anyway, what sort of crack was Tommy smoking when he decided on his "your skills are decided by the picture you choose" character creation system?

 

[octavius]

Anyway, what sort of crack was Tommy smoking when he decided on his "your skills are decided by the picture you choose" character creation system?

Longbottom Leaf, the choice of the monocled gentlehobbit. 9 out of 10 Proudfoots Proudfeet smoke it.

 

[Fowyr]

I assume you're thinking of the Quickness spell and not Haste?

Quickness is uber, yea. 1 attack per each movement point,

Yup, essential spell. I vaguely remember knockouting some little shits left right with this spell and that repeating crossbow. BTW, prepare for major percent of demon enemies in encounters. They are really pain in the ass.

 

[mondblut]

Anyway, what sort of crack was Tommy smoking when he decided on his "your skills are decided by the picture you choose" character creation system?

How is it that much different from selecting character class, then selecting from a pool of class-specific pictures? He just cut the redundancy :D

 

[SkeleTony]

How is it that much different from selecting character class, then selecting from a pool of class-specific pictures? He just cut the redundancy :D

It was a (perhaps the only?) glaring weakness of his game to be honest. He did not cut out any redundancy. He just replaced (perhaps due to memory concerns?) the easy-to-use race and class selection with a "Take a guess based on the 8x8 pixel icons. If you get it wrong then create 8 more PCs and if any of them don't have the skills you want...start over again!". It was a confusing mess, especially when the elves are figured into the matter.

 

[mondblut]

It was a (perhaps the only?) glaring weakness of his game to be honest. He did not cut out any redundancy.

I was being ironic. But really there is nothing wrong with "select your class by choosing an appropriate character icon". If only that was communicated a little bit better. I mean, priests and wizards were pretty fucking obvious. "a little green alien guy", on the other hand...

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

You can change the player icons to whichever after the game has started.

You can also roll new characters after the game has started. So if you got something you didn't like, you don't have to remake the whole party. And if you do it in the first town you don't even lose on any xp.

 

[octavius]

Damned, those whipbats are nasty!
If they hit they both Poison, Web and reduce Dex, making meleeing them very hard. But Stinking Clouds and Fireballs saved the day (barely).
After spending days taking lunch money from Orcs, Hobgoblins and Ogres it was nice to fight something a bit tougher again.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

I started playing this again (at hobgoblin caves now) and some things I noticed:

- It's weird, but this game actually looks quite good. Part of it is the minimal UI; no useless data or silly frames wasting space and cluttering the view. But also the tile graphics that for large part stay on some kind of abstract or symbolic level. Ground tile for example is a black box with five or so scattered brown pixels. In a grass tile the five pixels are green.

- Full keyboard UI can be really good. Like it is here. One of the major hurdles for me when trying to play early 90s games often is the terrible mouse-driven UIs, or some poorly thought out mish mash of mouse and keyboard driven.

- Simple graphics, but when my character hits a mook with a big stick I see a spatter of blood come out from the foe. And harder he hits the bigger the blood spatter. Compared to more modern approach where you hit a foe and some numbers pop out.

- Enemy AI is horrible. They just seem to randomly wander in the general direction of the party and also use items and cast spells mostly randomly. Funny thing is, it still gets the job done. It only gets annoying when you have an enemy, who has a clear path to the party, but still wastes his whole turn trying to walk through unconscious friends.