SHORTSTAR'S PROFILE

post=210833
Honestly, I haven't played many games with engaging characters. Commercial games aside, I haven't found a game which gave me a reason to care (by which I mean, I actually care if the guys die or not) about the main characters.

No one really does care about the main characters in old school RPGs. What people care about is their perceptions of how the game will end. Twist away from how people think the game will end and you'll get a bigger reaction. Such as have the bad guy win. Have the good guy become the bad guy. Have the main character die after you've grinded for 30 hours. Almost kill the player, with a death blow and the final boss only to be saved.

Yep I could probably make FFL1 in half a week.

I revamped the original dialog I posted:
Its now shorter for 80% of it :-)

Clergy

Oh look at that... a pilgrim! Members of the clergy react better toward parties with pilgrims.

Pilgrims are trained to use staves, clubs and white magic. They are meant to travel the world and cleanse the evil from it.

It is hard to mute a pilgrim, because of their divine power comes from the gods themselves.

Pilgrims have a high spirit from the gods themselves. They do have a certain weakness, but I'll never tell!

The heal spell uses holy magic to recover lost HP.

White magic consists of healing spells, recovery magic and benefices that can increase your attack, defense, spirit and agility. There are even remedies to relieve yourself of status effects.

Holy is an attack spell that will damage zombies, demons, and other such foul beasts.

You can buy several holy artifacts from the church. You can also have certain weapons and equipment blessed to make them do greater damage to undead monsters.

A healing staff is one of the many weapons that come with skills when they are equipped. The staff will not only teach its user the spell of heal, but it will increase the user's attack power, defense and spirit.

Patrons

A kiss from a mistress always seems to cure my aches and heal my wounds.

Small blue potions are quite common in towns and villages. You can find red potions in most magic shops. Those are the ones that will restore your mana power (MP).

Consume things such as herbs, small blue potions and jellies will make you feel better in no time.

Mages

A mage with a strong spirit would do more damage with a spell than a warrior with low spirit.

To increase a caster's spirit, you should equip weapons and other things that benefit spirit.

Blast a snowman with fire and it will melt. However, if you cast an ice spell at the snowman, its health will actually regenerate.

The heal spell gains strength when the caster is holding staves or anything else that increases the caster's spirit.

Oh hello fellow mage! It should be obvious that members of the guild will react better toward parties with a mage. Great minds think alike.

Staves are more expensive, because of their high attack, spirit and defense power. Not to mention the skills that you can learn with them.

Most staves come with the sweep skill. With sweep you can stun an enemy.

Fighters

You'll need to use jump attacks or upward thrusts to get at flying enemies like birds, but it is probably best just to have a member of your party shoot them down using a bow.

You may not be able to be an impenetrable knight in shining armor, but keep leveling up and you will increase how much you can equip (EP).

Even barbarians need to use intelligence to outsmart their foes. Enemies have strengths and weaknesses and some of them may not fall by weapons.

Some magical entities cannot be harmed by brute force and they can only be defeated by magic. If you don't have any spells, you should stop by a magic shop to pick up some scrolls.

Many weapons will give you the ability to jump attack enemies. This will give you an extra edge against tall or flying enemies. Imagine if an ogre could fit into a suit of armor and chose to not wear a helmet, you would only be able to jump and slash at the ogre's head.

Thieves

There are certain useful battle items around in pawn shops and other dealers. Things like venom to poison an enemy with an attack.

Cobwebs will slow down a quick enemy. They might be useful. If not, you can always sell them.

Shops and homeowners lock their doors at night. It doesn't mean you're locked out. There are lock picks that will get you in, but it all depends on the complexity of the lock.

When you pick the lock of an exterior door... er... When you open an exterior door, it will be locked once you exit. Don't ask me how I know that, I just do.

When you "open" an interior door, it will stay unlocked for you!

Those merchant bastards increase the price of daggers knowing that in a pair of skilled hands, they can do almost the damage of a short sword.

When you take things from people's homes, they will notice. I did that myself! Other towns had no problem with me stealing right in front of them, but not this place.

If you steal enough from the people, the guards will consider it an obligation to stop you.

When you can't pay the fine for your crimes, the guards will take you to the nearest dungeon and keep you in there until you've served your time. Its like a people zoo, but they treat you like animals in there!

Going to the dungeon might not sound that bad, but not using your skills for months or years and you will get rusty.

Townies

In order to get the jump attack skill, you will need to equip a weapon like a sword, dagger, staff, axe and so on.

There's a rustic pond to the north. Folks call it Forgemane. Beautiful place with clutterflies.

Careful of gushers at Forgemane. The place is infested with them, but looking at your... youthful body, you should have no problem with them. They can gang up on you though, but again, I have a feeling with your figure that you won't be going there alone will you?

You can get to Forgemane pond by crossing the east river and just follow the mountains.

About half a day's journey to the west is a desolate swamp. People call it Wandscratch. My mom told me stories of how she lost my older brother in that swamp. I am only telling you this so you can steer clear of it. As if the dead trees that surround it weren't enough warning.

Heed my warning traveler, Wandscratch swamp is crawling with wolves, orcs and dangerous plants.

North of Wandscratch swamp is a small village in the forest. They are farmers for the most part and live off the land in their log cabins. One day I think I'd like to retire there, but in the meantime, my family needs money and there's more jobs here.

Merchants will raise and lower their prices based on their mood and who is in your party. Keep that in mind the next time you try to buy something and get price gouged or get an unexpected discount.

Hello, I'm the town greeter and welcome to \n \n! Our bustling little town is a few generations old now. The weapons in our humble armory are built with lightweight material and are easy to carry. Who needs big fancy weapons and armor when you live in the grasslands of Saranoa? If you want to take in a drink, you should visit our local pub at the center of town, but if your more of a quiet soul, you can sit by our streaming river that rolls down the hills.

We're protected by these sturdy stone walls that my grand father helped put up himself.

Outside the walls the wildlife isn't too fierce. There are gushers, cardinals, sword stings, fairies and snappers. All generally weak, but you should know the stronger wildlife comes out to hunt at night. I'm talking about howlers, squeakers and slinks. They're all considerably more dangerous.

I'm one of the few guards needed to uphold the law here in town. Most threats actually come from within these walls. People get a little rowdy at the local pub and we need to break it up. Other times, we get traveling thieves that mistake our friendly nature for weakness. Do not fear though, the other guards and I chase down those criminals that steal and let that be a subtle warning to you if you were thinking about it yourself.

We get quite a few travelers here in town. A lot of people come to escape the high stress life in the other regions of Sladaria.

Let me warn you that if something goes missing, the first person they blame is the new stranger in town. We are men of the people, we defend and serve them, so we work for them and if they think you're a thief, we will too.

Most travelers are used to item shops selling all of the potions and drinks. Around here though, our pub is the one that sells the drinks.

Sure you can buy some potions at other shops like the magery, but for the widest selection of drinks, try the pub.

You might like the wenches at the pub. They've always served me quite well, maybe one day I will have the money to tip them more than a smile and a wink.

It is safer outside of these walls if you have a party. Not that it is all that dangerous, I adventured out there in my younger years to Wandscratch swamp. The truth is that wildlife hunts in packs and may tend to gang up on you if you are out there alone.

You can recruit certain people to your party. Sure you can't recruit everyone you meet, but there are unique looking people here in town and elsewhere that would be eager to join you. Now get out of my house!

Just this morning, I saw a hunter leave town and head to the east. He only comes back to town to sell the pelts to the local pawn shop. The man always stinks of mud and squeaker blood. I try to keep my grand children away from him as well as my lusty daughter in law. My son would spin in his grave if he knew what she had become after his death. Her two boys aren't even his!

Hey if you're looking for me to join your party, I'm sorry. I'm not much of a traveler. I've been to Forgemane pond with my husband for some fishing and um other activities, but that's it.

If you really want someone to join your party, you should try the pub or inn. Chances are there are travelers passing through that would enjoy companionship. You can speak with the guild master at the pub.

Having a merry band of travelers is wonderful. In my youth, I traveled all across Sladaria with my wife and our friends only to end up settling down here in our retirement. You are only allowed a traveling party of four though, any more than four and the guards would get suspicious that you are amassing an army and the king wouldn't like that.

The king is paranoid, but who could blame him with all the attempts on his life from assassins sent by his brother? While you can only have four members in your party, you can have reserve members waiting for you at the local pub.

Just speak with the guild master to rearrange your party.

Excuse the mess please... but I don't get much cleaning done. Either does my mom. She's off during the day and I ... well I like to ponder the mysteries of life during the day. I'm far too busy to clean, besides that, its woman's work. If the pubs had some life in them in the daytime, I would hang out there, but the pub really only picks up at night. That's when I go there. If I went in the daytime, everyone would know I'm jobless. For now at least.

Wretched barbarian stomped through my flowerbed this morning! The hulking powerhouse insisted on climbing over the town's wall instead of leaving out the gate like a normal person! What's wrong with him? He went throug my flowers! Its like he did it on purpose! Well, he's probably off killing things as he cuts a trail of destruction to the west.

I used to hunt to feed my family. I was excellent with a bow, but then I was attacked by a pack of hungry howlers. After that, my wife made me promise that I'd give up hunting. I'll tell you this though, avian enemies such as cardinals have a weakness to bow and arrows. You can take them out pretty easy, even if you need to keep buying arrows at the shops.

If you are here to steal something from me, go ahead. Take it. I'm too old to stop you. Just know this though... when the guards find out that you're a thief and a burglar, they'll be after you. Soon you'll have every man in armor chasing you down when they see you. Then I'll have my pacifist revenge. Of course, when that happens, it will probably be the day that I die, seeing as the gods have never given me too much joy in life.

Orcs are hideous pig men that hunt and kill in swamps. I've seen a few of them in Wandscratch swamp. They can smell your blood and your scent is perfumed to them. They hunt alone because they're anti social man beasts, but I have heard tales of warlords that amass orc armies to terrorize villages and nearby kingdoms.

Foes that you can see have different movement patterns. Weak and frail gushers tend to move away from anyone big enough to kill them. Carnivorous flowers will wander randomly and Orcs will charge toward you as fast as you can move.

I go fishing at Forgemane a lot and I've noticed something. You can run around the creatures and totally avoid them! Sure there is the occasional wildlife that sneaks up on you, but if you keep moving they shouldn't be a problem. Unless of course you're a berserk barbarian that just wants to plow through them and kill them all. Or if you're stupid.

Ah after a hard day of selling, its good to just sit here and relax. I can only have one drink though... I need to go back to my shop and hide in the bushes, so I can figure out who has burglarized my shop. Twice now I've gone in the morning, unlocked the door and found things missing. Maybe I'll have another and then get going.

They don't work. You always need someone to talk to or save.

I wouldn't say challenging, UNLESS you have a bunch of weapon characters fighting spooks or elementals, because you can't hurt them with weapons. Only magic. Then I'll hear WTF!!!! Game 2 harddz!

Actually, speaking of that... what if your party is all weapon users and no magic users. I should make some items to buy that will actually damage spooks. Technically there is and its holy water, but now I need skill scrolls.

Good thing I posted this blog. Done! Thanks to copy and paste from Epiquest 1. Well with some tweaks to make them use the magic system of Epiquest. Basically someone with low spirit using a scroll won't have the same effect as someone with high spirit. Unlike the last game where everything would damage TOO GOOD.

Now to add them to stores :-) Done. As if the magic shops needed MORE. There's probably too much variety due to the 14 classes. Each class can use at least 3 different types of weapons.

Maybe I should put extra shops in the wilderness. Just in the middle of no where.

Oh wait, now that I did this, the hero character you will always have can use any spell.