Game rules and mechanics

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:28 am

I have a few questions about the mechanics of the game, mostly combat. There are spells and effects that cause fear, hex, pain, knockdown, stun and others, yet I'm not sure how these things work.
Knockdown and stun make a creature vulnerable to a coup de grace, but is there a difference between the two? And more importantly, how is the success of a knockdown/stun attack calculated? There are effects adding "+25% Knockdown" but without some basis for calculation I don't know what that means. Do creatures have a percentage resistance, so that the total chance of a knockdown is (Base percentage - resistance percentage)? Is it simply your base chance of success calculated without the need for any stats from the bad guy? I know some people may think this sort of analysis takes the fun out of a game, but before I invest talents in these abilities I want to know if they're going to be useless when I need them most.
Next, what does pain do? Presumably it makes it harder for them to hit and/or dodge/parry, but how much so? And again, what does "+25% pain" mean?
And how about hex and fear, and anything else anyone can think of?
I don't know how anyone else will know these things, but I thought it was worth asking

Thanks

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:58 pm

I don't know many of these questions and I'm just at the beginning (again after playing through chapter 1). Anyhow I was experimenting fighting the opening (prologue) salamandra agents and I noticed with the quick ones when I used fast style that they burst out in pain. I only noticed this because I was messing around if I had just hit the orange sword every time I wouldn't notice. But I hit them with one flury and just waited. Instead of attacking me they were wincing and visually looked in pain. I am not sure how helpful this would be if you were focusing fire but if you were switching targets it prevents your last target from acting. I would bet that either I noticed because I was experimenting (and didn't continuously attack) or because these salamandra agents are very unresistant to pain?

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:44 pm

Thankyou, it's not much, but that is the sort of information I'm looking for

I can confirm that I'm not too much further on than you, but later on against a boss-ish bady I experienced alot of pain and was rendered completely helpless for short periods, so that seems to be one of its effects.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:27 am

Some (most) of the effects are described in the manual, but you'll not find the raw numbers you are looking for.
Unless somebody refactor them from the game code- or CDProject publish them - they are hidden behind the mechanics.

Ulfang · Post by **Ulfang** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:01 am

Jurosementalistile wrote:Thankyou, it's not much, but that is the sort of information I'm looking for
I can confirm that I'm not too much further on than you, but later on against a boss-ish bady I experienced alot of pain and was rendered completely helpless for short periods, so that seems to be one of its effects.

Yea pain can be very annoying especially if you're being attacked from all sides! You're basically paralyzed with no chance of recovery. I believe you can develop resistance as you increase your characters development.

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:19 pm

Yeah, I guess I was hoping someone had cracked the game open and examined its brains. But falling short of that, people's inferences based on their own obervations are useful, such as those that have already been given.
I'm one of those people who always wants to know how the game works, but I'm also at a point where I'm trying to decide what skills to invest in. One of the big questions is Aard. I like the skill, and I like being able to knock things down and kill 'em with a single blow, but I'm worried all the big beasties are gonna be immune. Which raises the question of what they're not gonna be immune to, and what spells and effects can be employed against them.

Very minor SPOILER following from the first chapter: (If there's a way to change the colour of text on this board, I don't know what it is sorry)

When I fought the Beast at the end of the first chapter, I actually knocked him down with my second or third Aard (having upgraded it as far as I could with bronze talents) and got the coup de grace. I was very surprised that that could be done. I wonder how lucky I got?

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 3:49 pm

As for the color, you have both the color marker when you write the text with a similar icon as word has (or most other text editors) - so just mark text and select black.
Otherwise use the "S" icon to make "spoiler text" - mark the text and press the button.

As for your experience it is a "common" way to defeat enemies, and unlike so many other games, "bosses" aren't immune to everything you have to make them artificially difficult, so you can get lucky.
I always hated how games let you select various abilities, only to make bosses immune to almost everything (NwN I'm looking at you).

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:24 pm

Xandax wrote: I always hated how games let you select various abilities, only to make bosses immune to almost everything (NwN I'm looking at you).

Totally, this is exactly what I'm talking about. What good is the ability to blast away enemies with fireballs and lightning bolts and stuff if it won't work against the most powerful opponents? I always try to build characters to be boss-killers; I'd much rather be able to take on super-tough enemies effectively and be relatively weaker against weak opponents (as compared to other kinds of characters against weak opponents) than vice versa. So I get annoyed when games don't let you do that, and have the most important battles come down to the most basic abilities your character has, over which you have little to no control. Kinda takes the customisation out of the game.

That being said, I'm not necessarily saying The Witcher is one of those games. There are signs that it may be and others that it may not be, I'll have to suspend judgement until I've played more.

I've actually found the D&D games (including NWN) to be among the best on this issue, but then I always play fighter-mages. Though now that I think of it, the main reason I play fighter-mages, rather than just a mage, is that you can't trust your magic to work on powerful enemies. So I guess I agree with you at least partially on NWN

And I found the colour button, thanks. The fact that it had a big letter next to it threw me off

archaven · Post by **archaven** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:44 am

Thanks for making a thread for this. I was wondering myself how does the game mechanics and rules work in this game. I've 29 points of unused bronze points unspent (only use 1 bronze points in Strength). Reason is that i'm not sure which is the best skills for me as i do not want to invest wrongly on skills. From the description of the skills, it doesn't seem very helpful.

If anyone knows, it would be great if you could share some light:

1. What is the difference between Parry and Dodge? Do they work the same just so that Parry for Strength tree and Dodge for Dexterity tree?

2. Strong, Group or Fast? Not really sure which should i specialise in. My concern, if i specialise in Group then will i be not good enough to handle larger or stronger opponent later in the game? Similarly, if i did not invest in Fast skill, will i not be good enough to handle agile opponents later on?

3.
Strength Tier 1:
Effects: Damage +5%, Parry +5%, Vitality +25, Resistance to Bleeding +5%, Knockdown Resistance +5%

Strength Tier 2:
Effects: Damage +5%, Parry +5%, Vitality +50, Resistance to Bleeding +5%, Knockdown Resistance +5%

From the description, i would like to know does the Effects stacks? From Strength Tier 1 to Strength Tier 2, only benefits i gained just Vitality +25? (From Vitality +25 to +50) or I actually gained Vitality +75? Similarly for the Damage, Parry, Bleeding and Knockdown. Are they +10% instead of +5%?

Thanks.

swcarter · Post by **swcarter** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 2:39 am

archaven wrote:Thanks for making a thread for this. I was wondering myself how does the game mechanics and rules work in this game. I've 29 points of unused bronze points unspent (only use 1 bronze points in Strength). Reason is that i'm not sure which is the best skills for me as i do not want to invest wrongly on skills.

Just a note here. You're going to get so many bronze skill points that I think you're going to end up being able to buy all of the bronze skills. My character is level 23 now, and I'm still getting 2 bronze points per level, and I stopped knowing what to do with them a while back.

FWIW, I believe all of the skill bonuses are added together.

SWC