Moiraine, I've been into other worlds since I was a kid, reading Narnia, then Lord of the Rings, followed by a torrent of others in a similar vein. There was something about reading of kings, castles and snow when I was surrounded by dry riverbeds and red dust in the North-West Australian outback. We moved there for four years when I was a child, and because I was from 'somewhere else' (Sydney) and totally didn't fit in, took my thinking internal.
This ended up fostering both the escapist and the entertainer. Roleplaying became an extension of the books that also had begun to include historical non-fiction and books about other countries.
Then computer roleplaying meant I could game to my hearts content without having to rely on the ever diminishing circle of people who played.

Thus that's what I mainly play in computer game terms. Roleplay and historical strategic games. I'm not into hack & slash adventure games, or reflex speed clicks. 'Thief - the metal age' looked great for an adventure game when I played it on a friends computer. (I don't own a 3d card though, any computer improvements I buy are generally sound related.) You had to think a lot and take time. Immersion seemed possible.
I'm going to hit the sack I think.
Merry Christmas if I don't talk before.
Nice chatting with you

I'm busy with the windspear quest - I killed Firkraag's liitle mage, rescued the girl, and then decided to have a go at the big dragon himself. I used Yoshimo's traps, and after a hefty liitle fight, in which I lost 2 npc's, he died..... and here's the funny - i got no experience points, and counldn't find any treasure, swords etc anywhere around the body - I only used arrows, swords and magic arrows during the fight ???? do i need to go at it again ???

I think it is the snare thing : I have killed the same Lich twice
(I play 2 games, one in solo, one in multi with my husband),
once with snares only, and one "a la mano",
and I didn't get any XP with the snares.
Hope it helps !

Sounds weird. If you have some reflection spell going and a beholder petrifies themself and then you smash them with a hit I don't think you get any exp. Could it be similar? I'm totally hypothesising though. Who knows?

You still get EP if you get a beholder to petrify itself. You get the experience when it becomes petrified, not when you smash it into pebbles.

Re the snares I once played four PC thieves. An Assassin, Bounty Hunter, Swashbuckler and Dwarven Fighter/thief, each specialising in one or two fields. The Assassin - stealth, The Swashbuckler - Pickpockets (200 pts - could steal almost everything from stores, including the Copper Coronet!! Sold them in the Docks) The Dwarf was named 'The Locksmith', and the Bounty Hunter had heaps of points in set traps and detect illusion.

Anyhow a particular ambush was about to eventuate which I knew about in advance, so I set every trap the Bounty Hunter had, and they went off when the ambushers turned red. It totally stunned me when every single foe died almost instantaneously - and, to the point of this reply, the Bounty Hunter got the kills registered as hers in the information window and the party got the experience for each person that died.

I never noticed any exp when the Beholders petrified but I'll take your word for it Armisael.

Bloody hell. I've never really used snares a lot. What kind of damage were they doing?
That party sounds like a damn lot of fun, too. Heh.

Hi everybody.

By the way, Yorick, what is a 'Vocalist' ? A kind of opera singer ? Or what ?

It certainly was Armisael. Had NO cash flow problems - only ever bought stuff from the Adventurers Mart (can't steal from Ribald). The Assassin would take out any opposite wizard with one blow. I had Edwin and Korgan and intended to Dual class the Bounty Hunter to a Cleric. After that effect I reconsidered though.

A fancy name for a singer Moiraine. One who uses their voice. A chanteur if you like.

I have heard of people taking out Big Red with tons of snares and several said they didn't get the XP's. Some also said that the reason they didn't get their XP's was because Kraagy was in dialogue mode when he got Blitzkrieg'd and that was the reason. Tis hard to say.
Special snares work very well on most foes, but are worthless on others, it just depends. I had Yoshi spend a full week snaring the entire hallway to the Illithid/mindflayer lair and they walked right through all of them when my summoned drew them out. All I kept hearing were snares going off and messages stating, "Illithid or mindflayer immune to magic". Oh well, we whomped em anyway.


Sorry I forgot. I have also notice that in some cases when flooding occurs in the message area that some messages don't seem to get displayed. I have had dialogue choices made for me that I never even saw on a couple of occasions and I had to restart.
I have also had XP points not show up in the message window, but I know that I got them because a character leveled up at the same time.
Another less frequent cause for this that I have heard of is if you take a foe out with the Disintigrate spell, it will often destroy any items the target has on them.

It's normally a word used for professional singers, as it implies mastery of the vocal instrument ("birds can sing but can't play instruments" as the saying goes).

What kind of music do you play ?
You must be SOOOO happy that all these BGII NPCs talk all the time but never sing !

How long is a piece of string? As an Artist - a singer/songwriter - I have songs that range from a U2 rock/pop sound to a George Micheal smooth groove and from a Travis dreamy folk sound to Rembrandts Jangle pop. I've even created "Boy Band" sounds along the N-Sync line.

As a recording artist it's quite detrimental to be that eclectic, but as a Session Vocalist where I'm hired to sing TV commercials etc, and small time Record Producer (mainly independent artists rather than big budget record companies) it helps a lot as I can lock into various musical styles and change my voice or production sound to fit the clients desires.

Asking a seemingly harmless question like that is like opening a can of worms for me. Sorry about the length of the reply. It's 2:30am in Australia and I had a gig tonight where I played my own material with a band in a jangle pop meets folk style and it left me deep in thought. Got on the web for a bit of distraction and here I am talking about my music! Aah the self employed. We never leave work.....

Sorry if the question bothered you ... I am just the curious sort, and it is refreshing to talk to someone who loves RPGs and does not work with computers ! (almost as rare as women).
In France, it is now 16H45 PM and I am at work (I am currently updating some boring user documentation, and I have the forum in background, and I refresh the page every few minutes between two paragraphs).
Merry Christmas by the way - I do not know if I will be able to connect to Internet during my holidays, my modem at home seems to be wanting to have holidays too ...

Very funny, good material. Hope it comes back replenished and ready for speed when it goes.
No prob about the question of course.
And though I don't work in the computer industry I use them to record music now. Much like you are using computers for your work they can't be escaped! The bummer is when recording for a 12 to 18 hour day it used to be just your ears and hearing that got 'fried' or REALLY tired. Now the eyes get hammered as well. Programs like Protools sound great, work well and make the process so much easier, but man they make the writing small! There are a few of us who now complain of 'Protools strain' - neck cramps with eye strain thrown in.

Anyhow how is France today? I've been to Paris, what a town. I cried as I got on the plane to come back to Oz - not that there's anything wrong with Australia I love it here in Sydney - but because I knew I wouldn't be back to such an inspiring, visually fascinating and culturally intoxicating city in quite a while. This was about seven years ago, and I've resolved to hit Europe again in early feb 2001. Get back to Suul-Yinns beloved Scotland, see some friends in Deutschland and Switzerland, as well as Ireland, England and France. I'll come back a penniless pauper but rich in spirit.
Cest la vie.

(blinks)
Never realised you were such a bleeding heart, Yorick.

You know, Yorick, France is not only Paris !
Paris is a marvellous town to go in holiday, but a hell of a town to work in. The noise, the cars, all stuff really expensive, people yelling at each others, ...
All the friends I've got who live in Paris are generally too tired in the evening to go out after their day's work. More so if they have kids.
I live in the mountains above Grenoble, I see big white mountains all around my house, now it is getting colder and the snow is for very soon I think.
I've always wanted to go visit Australia (the first expensive book I bought when I was a broke student was a book of pictures of Australia), but I think probably I have a rather stereotyped picture of your country in my mind ...Huge countries with a LOT of empty space are always fascinating for us living in tiny countries like France ! And I guess the 'Crocodile Dundee' movie didn't help either ('Ca flotte', as Paul Hogan said !)

No offense Moiraine, Paris was just the main place I stayed when I was there. My main impression if you like. Of course, I understand the difference between the window and the heart and soul of a country.
In regard to Australia, it helps if you percieve it as a small continent (which it is). We have snow capped mountains in the south, places where it always rains - places where it never does. We have lakes of salt (no water), Asian-like rainforest/jungle up north near Cairns. Plenty of beaches, some desolate, others crowded - one is ninety miles long.

Melbourne with its trams and culture has been likened to certain Euro cities, while Sydney with its beaches and car-reliance to certain American ones. I think if you came here you'd find them quite unique. Sydney harbour is a sight. (I often catch ferrys over to the studio.)

In the north west I saw huge canyons or gorges as we called them, a lake with marble instead of sand as it's base, mountains of red rock/dirt, huge farms that take days to cross.

In NSW I've seen lakes that would make Suul-Yinn feel at home, huge huge forests in the south, which are evergreen - (no NATIVE Australian tree loses their leaves in winter.)
Here bushfires make the forest grow back thicker and greener and are necessary for gum trees continued propogation.

Like any country we have problems, but on the upper, the multicultural element of Australia means we have great variety of food. (YUM) I found when coming back into Australia from being O/seas there was a more relaxed easygoing vibe that pervaded everywhere.

Mind you the number of killer 'things' is incredible. Blue ringed octopus, great white shark, redback spider, funnelweb spider, scorpion, snakes, crocodiles. On the radio I heard about one northern town where there were more crocs than people. "Where do they go?" the DJ asked. "Oh, the main street" was the casual reply. "What do you do?" the DJ shot back. "Stay indoors" the local drawled "Call the ranger".

There are no crocs or kangaroos hopping where I live though.
See ya.