I know a secret...and I've got a question

Both of these were on previous threads of other people but have gone down near the bottom of the list so I'm creating a new one to get them a little attention.

First the question. Does anybody know if Melee Mastery (which prevents critical failure on a melee weapon) save a battlemage from critical failure when wielding a pyrotechnic axe, which due to it's tech complexity, has a rather high chance of critical failure due to my tech/magic balance. It is a melee weapon, but would I still critically fail anyways?

Next, a revelation in the world of Arcanum. We all know that to an extent, contents in magical/arcane chests and the like are randomized. With the exception of those that contain hexed items and such. But I would contend that they are not as randomized as they seem. My challenge is this. Start any character you like. Say a human female only child. Go to the magic chest at the crash site and see what's in it. Quit. Start a new character. Say a half-elf male barbarian. Go to the magic chest at the crash site and see what's in it. Quit. The two characters should have found different stuff. Now, recreate the first character, the human female only child. Go to the magic chest and see what's in it. It is the exact same as the first human female only child, is it not. Repeat for the half-elf male barbarian. I have come to the conclusion that the distribution of items in magic chests and their ilk is not random at all but is determined at the start of the game based on what the gender, race, and background of the character you created was, and that if you create two characters who are alike in gender, race, and background, they will get the same things out the same chests each time through the game. Unless I am proven wrong, this could have quite an impact, as someone with the determination, time, and otherwise lack of a life could go through and map out what is in each chest for each specific character. It would be quite the resource, though it would most likely never happen.

See what you find on these and report back to me...

 

pdsullivan, i asked you this in another but anyway...

is that line in your sig from the end of HL? The G-Man? :smile:

 

If any doubt remains, check "where I'm from". The borderworld, Xen, is in our control, for the time being. Quite a piece of work you've managed there, I am impressed...
Half-Life will probably always be my favorite game of all time. Looked even better once they released that graphics patch with Blue Shift. Not that I expect many RPGers to care...

 

HL is very good and would be even better if it didn't crash all the time with Matrox G400. Sitll the add-ons were much worse than the original.

As for that secrest you found it would have to be a person with no life indeed :smile:

 

It is a cool secret though :smile:.

Alternatively, everyone -in theory- could start a character and note the gender/race/background and keep track of what (s)he finds. And ultimately report back here :smile:.

This would server 2 purposes:
1) We'd get a nice database of stuff distributed in the game, and
2) we can check Sullivan's assumption in the case 2 people accidentally start the same character.

Then again, you'd still need a lot of time and little to no life :smile:.

 

when i had to restart the game, i made the exact same character, right down to the background, and things in the chests were different...

 

Hmmnn....I tried that and I think that every starting point,backgroung,race,gender and even a picture(portrait) of your character have influence on that.