Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

[jiri]

Thanks for you answers.

What problem are you having with saving the town?

Well, I found ruby there and I was keen on using it in Repository (I think). So I killed grey lord who blocked exit doors. I was able to save town during my second visit but got no points for it. Same was so with oracle/Emerald of Fate. During first visit I did not understand what should I do. I tried to play without hints from conflux wiki as long as possible. Then I read descriptions in wiki but it was too late to correct some mistakes I did. To be honest I was able to visit MANY conflux places only because of info in conflux wiki.

[jiri]

{10, 31, 31} contains Vorpal Blade. I was able to open door at {10, 29, 26} and close the pit at {10, 31, 29} but teleport at {10, 31, 30} prevents me from reaching {10, 31, 31}. Can you please give me hint how can one pass it?

[Phoenix]

Ah, the Strong, Quick and Rich puzzle.

Well, you've done the hard part to close the pit.

Spoiler

Stand on the closed pit and place an object on the ground to the north. Immediately step south to get the blade.

[jiri]

I am in Alchemy Lab of the Hellforge. I have read Alchemy Guide wiki page. I can create Vitroglass to get another Empty Flask. (+1 point towards the Challenge). Then I can collect many other flasks (very good). Another useful item is maybe mushy wine, definitely zo Liqueur and sar wines to mix another zo Liqueur, partly ice winds.
I see almost no value in coating thorns, creation of Black/White Kath grenades, Auric water, Philosophal Stone (I have one already), Elven boots (too late for me) .... Well, it would be for sure different if I can reach such Lab at the beginning of game ...
Is there anything other important I overseen (item I can create with permanent effect)?

[Phoenix]

You can only reach the Lab from Halk's Quest. The flasks there do not give points toward the Challenge. You don't need to be in the alchemy lab to perform alchemy. You can do any of the options as soon as you have the required components. The Alchemy page is up to date with all the possible combinations, there are currently no other creations.

As for value, well that's for each player to decide based on their play style. I personally, almost never use the lightning spell when I can use fireball. Alchemy was very useful for the Maleficient guild quest. I made clothing and torches. Kath bombs are useful when you don't have any mana, but it's not like anyone is forcing you to use them or thorns. I think of many of the options as a proof of concept for the CSBWin engine. Hopefully, someone will be inspired to create another dungeon and expand on what Zyx has shown is possible.

[Zan]

Hi,

I started with Conflux III some weeks ago. First of all: until now (4,5 levels), this looks like one of the best games I ever played (and I have more than 50 years games experience...).

I think, there should be a walkthrough for this (at least until you have 6 of each Guild item) and I'm willing to provide one (indeed, I have already started).

So, now my questions:

1. Is a walkthrough really needed (or other said: is anybody still playing this game)? I need one, but I can keep it for myself of course...

2. I don't plan to publish the map passwords (although they can anyway be found already in the net). Is there anything else I should NOT publish?

3. My biggest problem is currently that the Wiki does no longer present the introduction texts for the maps and even worse no annotations for special squares any more. Is that intentional or has somebody made a mistake? And if it's a mistake, it would be nice if someone could correct it.

4. Can I publish the walkthrough in the Wiki in the "Selected Player Paths and Strategies"-section - or does somebody want to take a look at it before I do this?

Thanks in advance!
Zan

[Antman]

Yes Conflux is a great game! I've been meaning to finish my playthrough of the latest version.

1,4: I think a walkthrough would be great, adding it to the "Selected Player Paths and Strategies" sounds reasonable to me.

2. Publish everything!

3. Hmmm that is strange, the annotations used to be visible, I remember adding a lot of them a long time ago. It looks like only the hint oracle text is appearing now. I see the original annotations are at https://dmwiki.atomas.com/wiki/Conflux/Levels_notes but it was nice to have them displayed on the maps themselves. Anyone know why that no longer happens?

[Paul Stevens]

2. Publish everything!

I agree completely.

[Phoenix]

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for. There is no one true way to complete Conflux, it's not CSB or DM where there is a path to completion. If you look at my path on the wiki, it does show how to completely unlock the Guild. The Quests section does provide all the information neccessary to complete the Challenge. I had planned to do a room by room overview with screenshots, but too many people objected to my plan to replace some existing content (Places). I did provice Paul with a playthough which you can watch, and it does show unlocking the Guild and one of the possible endings. My complete playthrough of the entire game has been delayed, but it's almost done. All that is left to do is the four guildmaster quests and the Zoo. It's probably going to take a full day or more to watch.

I can't help with the online map issue. You'll need to talk with ChristopheF. There are errors in Level Notes... I just checked Levels and the maps are broke at least from my view.

If you have questions, please ask them here.

[ChristopheF]

Sorry I don't have access to manage the dmwiki, I don't know what is the issue.

[Phoenix]

Oops, my bad, I meant Megar.

[Zan]

Thanks for your replies!

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for. There is no one true way to complete Conflux, it's not CSB or DM where there is a path to completion. If you look at my path on the wiki, it does show how to completely unlock the Guild.

Yes I should have explained this more precisely. I'm aware that there are different approaches. I looked at Joramun's and yours when I started. And since yours was more detailed I used it for my first explorations (and it was very helpful, btw.). But it contradicts my playing style to rush through as you did (as an example) on your way to the Fur Trader. I would have liked to take some looks left and right in the Sewers and the Mines. But with all these stairs, ladders, pits and teleporters it is quite difficult not to get lost - even with map support.

So I decided to follow my usual approach: explore all and everything! And this is what I intend with the walkthrough. It is definitely not meant to provide the fastest way to get through. Instead I want to explore as much as possible of the game. Oh, and I want to do the Single Maleficient game also...

I'm planning to do the levels just one after the other as far as possible (I know, it's often not possible...). When stairs are going down, I'll add them to a list (so that I don't forget them) and continue with the current level. Or, mathematical spoken: I start with level N+1 normally (there will be exceptions) when I can do nothing more in Levels 1 to N. Doors, that cannot be opened, unsolved riddles and other problems go also into this list, which will be presented in the walkthrough from time to time.


With respect to the online maps problem I can give some more info. Things were working fine on Sep 30 and I noticed the problem first on Oct 1.
I took a look at the Recent Changes in the wiki: with no active filters to show all contributions it said: "No changes during the last 30 days" ?!?
So I assumed the problem is in a script. Looked at dmmaps.js also - but didn't understand much there.

[Phoenix]

I understand your play style is your own, and I'm not saying my path is the best, but until you unlock the guilds you are at a disadvantage. It's easy to get lost in Conflux. Just wait till you get to Moria... One thing you can do is load your savegame in the Hint Oracle. It will tell you where your are most of the time, and you can post here for help/hints. Also, I don't recommend playing Conflux like DM/CSB. Both DM/CSB encourage you to explore every pit and knock on walls. This can have bad consequences in Conflux...

My path may seem quick, but it was very very long in the making. I started years ago with Conflux_3.5B8. I've played every version of Conflux at least twice or more. The first time through, I followed the recomendation to take all four guides and used them to explore the dungeon. After that, I started to play the Challenge, but each time you play Conflux, you can learn something new. One thing I learned was that if you don't unlock the guilds as fast as possible, you lose experience and you can't level up. I tend to hit the fighter ceiling quickly in the beging of the game. You need to reach Expert to be able to survive certain tasks and creatures. You need to get your champions to UM Master to have their full capabilities. This is especially true for Priest which affects your ability to identify objects. You can't reach Master without completely unlocking the guilds.

You can unlock the Ninja guild without leaving the first six levels, but for the others you need to go deeper. How fast you unlock a specific guild is determined by your choice of initial champions. With Gando or Zed you can perform some tricks and open the first three gates after you visit the Cellar. I've provided Paul with four playthroughs of unlocking the guilds for Gando, Zed, Iaido and Leif. While they all have similar actions, each is diferent due to champion special abilities and limitations. So you can't really make a generic walkthrough for Conflux.

The Malficient Guild path requires you to know where everthing is or you will be crushed.

Instead of a walkthrough, why not submit a journal of your adventure to the wiki. There was a recent poster who did this in a CSB thread.

[Zan]

I understand your play style is your own, and I'm not saying my path is the best, but until you unlock the guilds you are at a disadvantage. It's easy to get lost in Conflux. Just wait till you get to Moria... One thing you can do is load your savegame in the Hint Oracle. It will tell you where your are most of the time, and you can post here for help/hints. Also, I don't recommend playing Conflux like DM/CSB. Both DM/CSB encourage you to explore every pit and knock on walls. This can have bad consequences in Conflux...

Of course I keep an eye on unlocking the guilds. Wasn't that one of the first things mentioned in the Wiki's FAQ? And I've already learned that many clickable objects don't reveal treasures but instead spawn monsters... I always try to avoid to climb into unknown pits (especially since I fell the first time through a pit into the sewers before I had cleaned them) as long as I have other options.

My path may seem quick, but it was very very long in the making. I started years ago with Conflux_3.5B8. I've played every version of Conflux at least twice or more. The first time through, I followed the recomendation to take all four guides and used them to explore the dungeon. After that, I started to play the Challenge, but each time you play Conflux, you can learn something new. One thing I learned was that if you don't unlock the guilds as fast as possible, you lose experience and you can't level up. I tend to hit the fighter ceiling quickly in the beging of the game. You need to reach Expert to be able to survive certain tasks and creatures. You need to get your champions to UM Master to have their full capabilities. This is especially true for Priest which affects your ability to identify objects. You can't reach Master without completely unlocking the guilds.

Yes, fighter experience cap is reached very fast, but I didn't worry about that too much. I did many fights as Ninja, where the cap is removed after finishing the first two levels. And if you explore all and everything there are enough monsters left anyway. And furthermore there seem to be monster generators everywhere...
I have already removed the experience cap for all my groups by doing about 80-90% of the first 4 levels (and a short visit outside for the solution of the fighter guild riddle).

You can unlock the Ninja guild without leaving the first six levels, but for the others you need to go deeper. How fast you unlock a specific guild is determined by your choice of initial champions. With Gando or Zed you can perform some tricks and open the first three gates after you visit the Cellar. I've provided Paul with four playthroughs of unlocking the guilds for Gando, Zed, Iaido and Leif. While they all have similar actions, each is diferent due to champion special abilities and limitations. So you can't really make a generic walkthrough for Conflux.

As you write, they all have similar actions. So, if I provide a walkthrough for a single Maleficient, it should work for all other groups also. Of course things can be optimized for the others (especially with Leif in the group for the first 3 fighter doors). But the differences are less than you might think (at least until now - maybe this will change later). Currently my to-do-list (consisting mainly of unexplored stairs, doors that could not yet be opened and unsolved riddles) has about 50 entries - but only three of them are different between the groups.

The Malficient Guild path requires you to know where everthing is or you will be crushed.

Instead of a walkthrough, why not submit a journal of your adventure to the wiki. There was a recent poster who did this in a CSB thread.

You're talking of Sera, right? Yes that was entertaining. But I'm better in writing technical descriptions than entertaining adventures. Although I wrote a journal once for the Icewind Dale II hard mode. Maybe I'll do one after the walkthrough - I'm planning indeed some more games

[Paul Stevens]

I've provided Paul with four playthroughs of unlocking the guilds for Gando, Zed, Iaido and Leif.

I'm sorry but I don't even remember what I did with these.

Did I make them available somewhere? Can you point to them? I see one walkthrough
at the bottom of:

http://dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/Games/C ... ption.html

If there are others could you please help me get them all posted publicly. I'll
try harder to get it done promptly.

[Phoenix]

Yes, fighter experience cap is reached very fast, but I didn't worry about that too much. I did many fights as Ninja, where the cap is removed after finishing the first two levels. And if you explore all and everything there are enough monsters left anyway. And furthermore there seem to be monster generators everywhere...
I have already removed the experience cap for all my groups by doing about 80-90% of the first 4 levels (and a short visit outside for the solution of the fighter guild riddle).

The expirience cap as you put it isn't fully removed until you unlock the Leadership gateway for each guild. And it's not really a cap. You still get experience for killing monsters/casting spells, it just doesn't let you level up. You can have the numerical experience of an Expert, but still be locked to a Craftsman.

As you write, they all have similar actions. So, if I provide a walkthrough for a single Maleficient, it should work for all other groups also. Of course things can be optimized for the others (especially with Leif in the group for the first 3 fighter doors). But the differences are less than you might think (at least until now - maybe this will change later). Currently my to-do-list (consisting mainly of unexplored stairs, doors that could not yet be opened and unsolved riddles) has about 50 entries - but only three of them are different between the groups.

I don't object you you doing this. I object to calling it a walkthrough. They don't truely have similar actions as much as items/puzzles are in fixed locations. Conflux isn't a linear dungeon, it's an expirience. The order of execution is completely personal and arbitrary. You do not have to do everything to get to one of the multiple game endings. There's a ton of Alchemy things you can do, but none of them are neccessary to do. There are puzzles and things to do that have no effect if you chose not to do them. There are actions that only occur if you have specific champions in your party. A walkthrough implies a specific path and order to completion.

You also can't do a single Maleficient. You need to take all four Maleficient champions to get the Bone Doll. If you don't have the Bone Doll, you cannot access the ending. Antman made a playthrough of the Maleficient guild to its ending. He completed the game, but he didn't do everything that he could possibly do in Conflux. I've completed the Malficient guild and the Challenge at the same time, and it was work. It forced me to completly re-think how I played Conflux, but I couldn't have done it without the expirience of multiple playthroughs.

Paul, I emailed you those playthroughs a while back, but I can't send email at this time. I still have them though. You also didn't tell me if you wanted to link to files on your site to the wiki.

[Paul Stevens]

I can't send email at this time

Well, let's get this done somehow. I'll send you a private message.

[Zan]

A walkthrough implies a specific path and order to completion.

I wasn't aware of this definition (I'm not a native English, btw.). I'll try to find a better wording. I don't have much time this weekend, so I'll give a more detailed reply to your post on Monday or Tuesday.


With respect to the maps problem:
I checked today with Firefox Browser Console and when loading a map it says:

FaviconLoader.jsm:253:22
[Exception... "Favicon at "https://dmwiki.atomas.com/favicon.ico" failed to load: Forbidden." nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: resource:///modules/FaviconLoader.jsm :: onStopRequest :: line 253" data: no]

I tried to look at "https://dmwiki.atomas.com/favicon.ico" but got also
403 Forbidden - Request forbidden by administrative rules.


I have just informed megar per PM with all infos so far.

[megar]

Thank you, i will see why annotations are no longer shown on the maps.

[Zan]

And it's not really a cap. You still get experience for killing monsters/casting spells, it just doesn't let you level up. You can have the numerical experience of an Expert, but still be locked to a Craftsman.

Ah, that was new for me. To understand this right: does this mean, I might see not all options of a weapon, but with the existing ones I do "Expert damage" instead of "Craftsman damage"?

I don't object you you doing this. I object to calling it a walkthrough.
...
A walkthrough implies a specific path and order to completion.

OK, I'll call it exploration guide or just path...

You also can't do a single Maleficient. You need to take all four Maleficient champions to get the Bone Doll. If you don't have the Bone Doll, you cannot access the ending. Antman made a playthrough of the Maleficient guild to its ending. He completed the game, but he didn't do everything that he could possibly do in Conflux. I've completed the Malficient guild and the Challenge at the same time, and it was work. It forced me to completly re-think how I played Conflux, but I couldn't have done it without the expirience of multiple playthroughs.

What if I kill three of them immediately? Does this count as 1 or 4? I would have the Bone Doll then. Or do I need 4 living ones somewhere later (please don't answer this, I want to find out on my own). From the game feeling this feels more like 1 than like 4 (less food needed, but low load capacity).

And the wiki states also the possibility to start with 1 Maleficient (but for insane players only...) for getting the 4 guild leaders. I have started this one also, but I'm not sure whether I'm insane enough to do it until the end. It's indeed hard work.


megar has almost finished correcting the maps. Introduction texts and annotations are visible again. Only links in the introduction texts are still missing.

@megar: thank you for your work!

[megar]

It's only partially fixed.

Also bitbucket deleted the repository, I have to recreate it.
The thread for the map viewer/editor is here : viewtopic.php?f=76&t=29228

It will take a couple of days i think.

[Phoenix]

Ah, that was new for me. To understand this right: does this mean, I might see not all options of a weapon, but with the existing ones I do "Expert damage" instead of "Craftsman damage"?

No, it means you can have the numerical experience that in DM/CSB would make you an Expert, but you will still be a Craftsman. I will update the Guildhall information on the wiki, but in short:
There are 5 Guild doors for each School that need to be opened. The first is the Aspirants Door, until this door is opened, champions are restricted to Apprentice level. The second in the Gates of Membership, until this door is opened, champions are restricted to Journeyman level. The third is Threshold of the Initiate, until this door is opened, champions are restricted to Craftsman level. At or after this door is the Guild Riddle which requires an item to remove a barrier. The fourth door is Doorway of the Pretender, until this door is opened, champions are restricted to Artisan level. The last door is the Leadership Gateway, until this door is opened, champions are restricted to Adept level.

So, say you haven't opened any doors and have gained enough experience to reach Apprentice. Level progression in DM/CSB is a geometric series. You need 500 exp to reach Neophyte, 1000 exp to reach Novice, 2000 exp to reach Apprentice. You can obtain 4000 exp but still only be an Apprentice until the Threshold of the Initiate is opened. You then open the Theshold of the Initiate and you have 4000 exp, but now you need 8000 exp to reach Journeyman not 4000.

What if I kill three of them immediately? Does this count as 1 or 4? I would have the Bone Doll then. Or do I need 4 living ones somewhere later (please don't answer this, I want to find out on my own). From the game feeling this feels more like 1 than like 4 (less food needed, but low load capacity).

You can do that, but it kind of defeats the spirit of the Maleficient Guild challenge. Food is never an issue in Conflux. If you are running out of food, you're definitely doing something wrong. The Rat's Nest in the Cellar is an infinite source of steaks, and once you have reached the Council level, the Officer's Canteen provices an infinite amount of worm rounds and chewer pods.

The goal of the Maleficient Guild is to get to the Maleficient Guild ending, not the Guild leaders.

[Zan]

So, say you haven't opened any doors and have gained enough experience to reach Apprentice. Level progression in DM/CSB is a geometric series. You need 500 exp to reach Neophyte, 1000 exp to reach Novice, 2000 exp to reach Apprentice. You can obtain 4000 exp but still only be an Apprentice until the Threshold of the Initiate is opened. You then open the Theshold of the Initiate and you have 4000 exp, but now you need 8000 exp to reach Journeyman not 4000.

Hmm, that would be really diabolic. Then I should maybe restart and do some more optimizations. But before doing this I tried to do some tests about this. I play with WIP008.

So I started with a fresh Leif, went to the Wine Cellar and there one stairs down to the Temple door. I hit this door with a torch until being Apprentice FIghter. These were the number of hits I needed to reach Neophyte/Novice/Apprentice:
72 / 56 / 111
Astonishingly I needed more hits for Neophyte than for Novice. From Novice to Apprentice it just doubled.
Later with another Leif, I repeated ths with Punch for NInja and got the same:
100 / 84 / 166
My explanation for this would be quite simple. After reaching Neophyte you get a little more experience per hit.

Now for the more interesting stuff. With the Apprentice Fighter I continued as follows. I did some more hits and then returned to the guilds, opened the first guild door (always with first or second hit) and continued hitting the Temple door until journeyman (I did not hit any rats).
The following table lists in each line:
- the number of hits done before opening the first guild door
- the number of hits done after opening the guild door
- the difference of hits (after opening) compared with line 1

before - after - diff
---------------------
0 - 221 - 0
30 - 218 - -3
100 - 209 - -12
300 - 187 - -34

The 221 in line one sounds reasonable. It's just the 111 we needed for Apprentice doubled.
When wasting experience in lines 2-4 the total number of hits adding the first two values of course is higher. But the second value is smaller than in line 1. As it looks you get a small discount of about 10% of the wasted experience.

I advanced the last game (where I wasted 300 hits) from Journeyman to Craftsman. This took me 441 hits which is 221 just doubled. So to me this looks as if wasting some XP doesn't matter much since it seems not to cause later penalties.

Of course, doors are not monsters and behaviour might be different there. But anyway, I decided not to restart and continue the games as they are. But I'll keep in mind to do more optimizations in future.

You can do that, but it kind of defeats the spirit of the Maleficient Guild challenge. Food is never an issue in Conflux. If you are running out of food, you're definitely doing something wrong.

Yes, I did it wrong in the first "4 Maleficients game". I underestimated the Chewer Trees. It took me too long to get them down.

The Rat's Nest in the Cellar is an infinite source of steaks, and once you have reached the Council level, the Officer's Canteen provices an infinite amount of worm rounds and chewer pods.

Spoiler

It might be that the Rats are infinite - but after a certain amount has been killed the respawn time seems to be increased incredibly high. Anyway, I have solved food problems in the meantime.

The goal of the Maleficient Guild is to get to the Maleficient Guild ending, not the Guild leaders.

Why not do both? OK, it takes tons of time...


Edit: typing error corrected

[Paul Stevens]

These were the number of hits I needed to reach Neophyte/Novice/Apprentice:
72 / 56 / 111

You may know this, and it may not even be helpful. But you can
directly view the experience values by playing Conflux in a
window at the smallest size. I have used this feature to get
estimates of experience gained by various attacks.

[Zan]

Hello Paul,

indeed, I didn't know that. I never used the smallest window before.

I just checked with a new Leif at the Temple door. And yes: it's 7 experience until Neophyte and from then on 9 (and for Ninja 5 and 6). That fits perfectly with the values I measured.

Although I'm not exactly sure now HOW this will help, I'm pretty sure already THAT it will help...

Thank you, Paul!

[Phoenix]

It might be that the Rats are infinite - but after a certain amount has been killed the respawn time seems to be increased incredibly high.

The respawn rate is constant. Rats spawn in the main enterance. When you step on either of two grates on the floor a rat is spawned. If you then attack the rat, kill it, and put any items it drops in your inventory, you only have to wait 5-7 seconds before a new rat can be spawned.

Why not do both? OK, it takes tons of time...

You can't. You can kill off the other three Maleficients and still complete the Maleficient quest with the Bone Doll, but you can't add new champions to the party. Killing a champion doesn't open the slot for a new champion. The Emerald of Fate only allows switching between one champion and then it is fixed. Besides if you want the true difficulty of the Maleficient Guild, you need all four.

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/692 and http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/690 details the rules for experience.

[Antman]

So, say you haven't opened any doors and have gained enough experience to reach Apprentice. Level progression in DM/CSB is a geometric series. You need 500 exp to reach Neophyte, 1000 exp to reach Novice, 2000 exp to reach Apprentice. You can obtain 4000 exp but still only be an Apprentice until the Threshold of the Initiate is opened. You then open the Theshold of the Initiate and you have 4000 exp, but now you need 8000 exp to reach Journeyman not 4000.

I didn't realize this was how it worked. Does this mean that the experience for later levels is also doubled? I.E. I now need 16000 exp to reach Craftsman as well. Or do you gain two level immediately upon reaching 8000 exp? If it's the former that is indeed diabolical. I guess it would also imply that if I reached 8000 exp before opening the threshold of the initiate, I would now need 16000 exp for Journeyman, 32000 exp for Craftsman and so on. This would mean huge penalties for not unlocking the guilds fast enough and training too much too early.

I also wonder how that works under the hood. As IIRC the level isn't stored, just experience which is used to calculate level directly for displaying to the player. So I always assumed the block just stopped you from gaining experience.

What if I kill three of them immediately? Does this count as 1 or 4? I would have the Bone Doll then.

I did this for my game and it definitely makes it easier, but does defeat the spirit of challenge as Phoenix says. I should try it again sometime playing with all 4 members. I think Zyx made it a bit harder since my playthrough too, removed some telefragging possibilities etc.

@Zan If you're not already aware, one thing I would recommend is not deleting log files that created during your game. At the end you can splice them together with a tool and playback your game, including at super fast speed. It's very satisfying watch.

[Zan]

The respawn rate is constant. Rats spawn in the main enterance. When you step on either of two grates on the floor a rat is spawned. If you then attack the rat, kill it, and put any items it drops in your inventory, you only have to wait 5-7 seconds before a new rat can be spawned.

As I see it, this is only true for the first 30-50 rats. Then the respawn timer seems to be set to a higher value.

Why not do both? OK, it takes tons of time...

You can't. You can kill off the other three Maleficients and still complete the Maleficient quest with the Bone Doll, but you can't add new champions to the party. Killing a champion doesn't open the slot for a new champion. The Emerald of Fate only allows switching between one champion and then it is fixed. Besides if you want the true difficulty of the Maleficient Guild, you need all four.

Sorry - I was talking about 2 different games.

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/692 and http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/690 details the rules for experience.

The first link I knew already but not the second one which is rather great. Many thanks! I copied it already in a table, so that I can sort by the columns i prefer.

What if I kill three of them immediately? Does this count as 1 or 4? I would have the Bone Doll then.

I did this for my game and it definitely makes it easier, but does defeat the spirit of challenge as Phoenix says. I should try it again sometime playing with all 4 members. I think Zyx made it a bit harder since my playthrough too, removed some telefragging possibilities etc.

@Zan If you're not already aware, one thing I would recommend is not deleting log files that created during your game. At the end you can splice them together with a tool and playback your game, including at super fast speed. It's very satisfying watch.

So maybe I'll have to start a game with 4 Maleficients also...

I read a lot before I started playing (also in this forum), so I'm keeping my log files. Although I doubt it's amusing watching myself dying hundreds of times

[Antman]

Although I doubt it's amusing watching myself dying hundreds of times

Actually the log splicing tool is clever enough to only use the logs that result in your complete playthrough, you just give it the latest log you've made. So no need to watch yourself die, unless of course your final recording resulted in the death, but that would be pretty anticlimactic For example you can watch my playback from here https://dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/Conflu ... tMovie.rar with no deaths even though I died over and over (and over) while playing it. Spoilers abound in the playback obviously and it was made with an older version (in 2008!).

[megar]

Zan: the dmwiki maps are functional again. It was caused by a mediawiki update. I also fixed the ability to log into the map editor, and did a little change to the layout.
BTW, the Oracle file I have is rather old, is there a more current one ?