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Post by beowuuf on Feb 25, 2011 18:37:00 GMT
CS gives you attack and defense - hence why a shield gives CS and not damage reduction. You can attack better due to blocking counter attacks, aswell as receiving less damage.
A damage bonus means the Sommerswerd helps you not one bit against the skill of your opponent. You are just waving it around like a pig sticker and hoping its radiance does more damage than a normal weapon?
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Post by huanchoo on Feb 25, 2011 19:02:46 GMT
Having heard all the discussion on the SS, I couldn't help it but chip in.
It seems that the SS giving +8 CS conveys the message that the SS can actually increase LW's skill in wielding a sword. If it really can make a novice like LW become so skillful in the way of the sword instantly then it is indeed a godlike weapon. I thought skill with weapons need to be honed & trained at the monastery through rigorous training regimes... & not by just holding a sword (even if it is from the God Kai Himself... ;D)
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Post by Zipp on Feb 25, 2011 19:20:23 GMT
This is why I thought all 0 END on the chart should have been replaced with the word "miss."
And yeah, Beo, it basically does mean that. Because if the Sommerswerd somehow gives you the ability to be a better fighter, the CS bonus should be permanent. Also, a CS 10 Kai Lord is basically a terrible fighter. He WOULD be swinging the Sommerswerd around and hoping that the blade catches his enemies on fire. And a CS 19 Kai Lord with Weaponskill in swords has no trouble impaling an enemy on the Sommerswerd (and catching them on fire). How good a fighter you are is already built into the system, so making it the Sommerswerd's place to change that is odd.
But let's return to the reasons WHY we would use this system. We would do this because its much easier to stat out a LW gamebook with damage increase rather than CS increase. With +8 CS, you are now looking at a potential range of 18 CS difference between players. There is no way, NO WAY, to create a balanced book with that kind of range, unless you have specific options for different levels of CS or a way to change CS in battle (see the Legendary Fights). With damage increase there is no problem.
I've been using the damage plus system for the female Lone Wolf games and I've used it myself in my own run through the books. Aside from the ridiculously broken fights, it really makes things much more balanced and fun. Had it been in place from the start, there would have been no need to inflate CS.
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Post by huanchoo on Feb 26, 2011 4:22:48 GMT
I agree with Zipp... but it seems that when JD incorporated the idea of the SS in Book 2 he was still in the early stages of writing LW & he might not have foreseen the CS inflation caused by the SS. He wanted to make a powerful weapon but might have not thought about what the weapon will bring in the future.
At least JD justified the use of the SS with fights like Kimah & the Chaos Master... ;D
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Post by egleris on Feb 26, 2011 23:32:34 GMT
I always side with Zipp on this particular situation; using the Sommerswerd for added damage works a lot better in the book, you just have to try and you realize is true. I treat the 0 inflicted damage as miss, and give the sommerswerd the effect of +5 added damage on normal fights - chalk it up to a blade capable of denting stone, it surely would be more effective than normal steel - and +10 added damage against undead - this is actually a depowered version of the double damage; instead of doubling the whole damage, I only double the bonus. And obviously no CS increase. Just to test it, I altered the Haakon fight by giving him a CS 40 and considering him undead (or considering the Sommerswerd doing more damage to both undeads and darklords, its just the same). This mean fighting with -11 Combar Ratio but +10 damage, and it makes for a surprisingly balanced fight; the victory ratio is slightly lower than 50%, and every other fight in the Kai series is more challenging with the +5 damage in stead of the +8 CS; the battles are just as short, but you get damaged more and that means you feel the risk more. In the end it's up to how one want to play it, but I really feel that the added damage is an house rule worth trying, at least for the sake of a different playtrough. When did this turned into another Sommerswerd thread?
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Post by dickturpin on Aug 23, 2011 5:34:00 GMT
I will go a bit of a different route here and vote for Chasm of Doom. In my opinion this is the book where Lone Wolf came into his own. I'll go ahead and agree with you. The story line and clues are top shelf, and there's plenty of randomness to keep you guessing when it comes to taking a direction. The battle scene is epic and unequaled in the series until Torgar. And maybe it's just my ego, but I always like the parts in the stories when other characters in the book admire and openly admit what a bad@ss Lone Wolf is. My only gripe, and it's minor, is that everything after the battle scene seems a little anti-climactic. I remember after I read the Kai and Magnakai series and finally checked out things on the Internet, I was truly surprised at how many people love Shadows on the Sand. Great book - as most of them are - but it's never been one of my favorites. It probably rubbed me the wrong way off the start when, if you try to fight back at the beginning rather than run away, the bad guys "overpower" you and throw you in jail. Don't get me wrong at all, though - great book. If I had to rank the Kai series from best to worst, I'd probably say: 1. Chasm of Doom 2. Shadows on the Sand 3. Fire on the Lake 4. Caverns of Kalte 5. Flight from the Dark
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Post by primefalcon on Aug 23, 2011 22:44:03 GMT
Honestly I kinda like the travelling aspect an ineracting with the world at large, so I'd say FOTW for me
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Post by kamikaze1900666 on Aug 26, 2011 1:09:27 GMT
Fire on the Water for me. I can agree that it's very linear, but that's it's only real drawback. I can run the gamut from Lawful-Good (alms to the poor and giving my best weapon so a comrade can fight a losing battle more efficiently) to as close to Chaotic-Evil as JD permits (about, what, 15 dead innocents possible? Oh and I can pawn my only hope of completing the quest, and the only hope for my homeland and the world, without a second thought about it). The fights range from pushovers to the "Why are you doing this to me" kind of painful, and there's no shortage of them with only 3 being mandatory, none of which hurt even at low stats. I also find that having a third of my options being almost entirely luck-based and the gambling methods add to the fun. With so many solid pluses, the linearity is hardly noticeable.
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Post by primefalcon on Aug 26, 2011 3:37:15 GMT
I was going to list all m favs, but.... the list started getting very long.... be far easier to list my least favorite! and that'd be hard because they're all so cool.... I just wish we had a choice to throw the damn dagger even if we have the sommerswerd along (you all know what I am complaining about I assume).
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Post by thisisbill on Sept 9, 2011 20:50:03 GMT
Thinking of the books strictly as gamebooks, FFTD & CoK are so non-linear it's insane and that makes them incredibly fun to play through. In that sense I would say they are the best. On the other hand, the Chasm of Doom gets my vote as I am enamored with the overall feel, pacing, and story of the book.
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