Summoning

The Powers that Be wanted to show that they could kill off some of the iconic main-series characters on screen, but they didn't want to do it to anyone with a speaking part.

Bastards. They could have at least gotten rid of someone who was damaging the series, like say...Luke.

 

I must apologize for momentarily departing this thread's current topic of criminal furicide (or is that shagicide? What do you call the killing of a lovable walking shag carpet?) to it's prehistoric origins dealing with annoying familiars. Namely, I am aghast that although Neverwinter Nights was brought up sufficiently, nobody has mentioned its horrifying marriage of familiars who can pick locks with ungodly sound-effect loops.

A few months past, I had thought it would be clever to start my latest foray into the game as a wizard for one level and then devote the rest of the levels to fighter, which theoretically would allow me to get a familiar that circumvented having to take Tomi Undergallows for the thousandth time while not missing any loot from locked chests (which have random loot which actually is not set when you first enter the map, but rather is generated every time you load the game, causing me to reload endlessly until I was sufficiently satisfied with the quality of my loot. Perhaps you have heard of my foibles? Well they are quite painful some times). Unfortunately, both the Pixie (which I believe was included in the original game), and the Dragon Sprite (which I think came with a later expansion) have a certain magical "tinkling" sound effect that has been known to cause instant madness in anyone with the ability to register sound waves.

However, this was somewhat moot, as the familiar's thieving skills apparently do not increase when you level in a class other than the one you took to receive the floating balloon of misery in the first place. Of course, I was not empirically satisfied with signs that pointed to this until I realized that I was hearing the godforsaken sound loop even when not in audible range of the game. I... have not had the... testicular fortitude to run the executable since...

Unfortunately, am sometimes reminded of this horrible experience at the worst possible times, such as when I recently decided to play my first magick-using character in Arcanum and found that the spells which I desired to be constantly maintained were also the spells which continually pulsed waves of pure hatred out of my headphones. Wizards are often eccentric characters in typical fantasy lore, and I always thought that it was due to the twisting of the mind to house arcane knowledge and the constant burden of knowledge far more powerful than a human can accept without sacrificing a piece of their sanity. However, thanks to Arcanum, I now know that it is simply because a 3 second loop of a person blowing in their ear, a person eating cookies in their ear, a person urinating into a cup in their ear, or a person setting off tiny fireworks in their ear assault them continually whenever they desire to augment their pathetic, neglected body. And may the gods take pity on the mage who needs more than one boost at a time!

Perhaps that is why "Silence" spells are such a staple in today's fantasy RPGs...

 

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... 256#192256

 

By the gods! You are my saviour once again, Carl SnaggleTooth, errr, I mean Drog Black Tooth!

Sorry, that was bound to happen. I used to know a gentleman by the name of Carl and... well, he confirmed my suspicions that hobos do not have good dental coverage.

Maybe they should start a Hobo's Union....

 

Bless you, Drog, bless you.

OiNutter, I too know the pain of NWN's familiar sound effects. My pure-class Sorceress had a pixie in Hordes of the Underdark, so that I could see the Deekin-Valen interaction. The Kobold and the Tief' were great. The familiar... less so.

 

Water magic. The dripping! The HORRIBLE DRIPPING! ARGHGHGHGHGHGHG!!!! It goes on and on and on and when you PC gets his arse handed to him(most likely to stop the dripping,)It continues to play through the death sequence! Echoing over and over and over sending shockwaves of irritation and blind rage down the dark recesses of being.
Drip, drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip. Mocking me! Ha! ha! Your a wimpy water mage! Look where its got you! Now suffer! Suffer for you incompetence! Makes me want to, to, relax.

Makes me want to relax. Just take a few short breaths and tell myself that I am a powerful water mage and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

Fail. You need a hellhound, a nice crossbow, and LOTS of fireballs. I love my Red Queen.

Fun Fact: My online true online alias references R.A in it: Salvatore A. Arjunza. I adopted "Silvio" because it's shorter, can be abbreviated to "Silv" and because my dyslexia occasionally makes typing long words/names difficult.

 

A powerful, SEXY LOOKING MOTHERFUCKER water mage. Oh yeah, your hot ass gets a beauty-related discount at shops. And is also apparently constantly peeing himself.

 

A high-level water mage can be very effective. Of course, I have long since taken to playing CDs quite loudly on my CD player when on an Arcanum kick, so I only need the headphones on very rare occasions. The sound effects no longer hurt me.

DarkFool: I acknowledged IN THE POST YOU QUOTED that the pixie sucked. And I like my Faerie Dragon and my cat. *sulks*

 

I know, I was just clarifying that Hellhounds reign supreme, imo. Hell, mayhaps I'll take a faerie dragon my next time around. All of the NWN2 summons were meek... I think I used a cat for that reason, actually. Or maybe it was a pig.

 

I took a cat because I was going Arcane Trickster. Having said which, ATM me and a couple of friends are playtesting Pathfinder, and my Rogue/Wizard heading for Arcane Trickster has an item familiar in the shape of a ring. It's pretty cool.

 

I started hating NWN2 the day I finished it. Talk about lame-ass ending.

 

this post is solely created to thank the powers that be for http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... 256#192256
and the patch there disclosed

 

Wolfsbane: NWN2 sucks, yes. Mask of the Betrayer, the first expansion? Fucking EPIC WIN AWESOME.

 

I liked NWN2, but thought that MoB was stupid.

 

Proving once and for all that our tastes must be diametrically opposed.

 

I... I never finished MoB. Tried a SPARTAN-build, using Monkey Grip so I could wield spear and shield as Stormlord. Too bad that the animations for single handed spear sucks balls.

Weren't anyone else disappointed by the abilities of the Genesai? First level spells and exp. penalties ain't the most exciting things to get when you playing as a half human/half element.

 

Genasi aren't half-and-half, what they are is humans with an elemental waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay way back in their bloodline somewhere. Although yes, Genasi abilities do suck. Except maybe Water. Nothing sayd 'MWAHAHAHA!!!! FUCK YOU!!!' like a Druid casting Drown at you only for you to kick them in the balls.

 

That just gives room for great make-up sex.

I played with the Genasi a little. I found that the downsides to their abilities usually outweighed the pro's.

 

Genasi are far, far better in PnP than in NWN2. Ditto for Tieflings and Aasimar at that.