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Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick ObscuraStatus effect effects?(19 posts)solved(19 posts)solved
(19 posts)solved
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Posted March 22, 2013
My google-fu is apparently not up to this..
Using a chem/explosive character right now, which means I have a lot of status effects to throw around - but it is not at all clear what some of them do exactly. is it even worth using smoke or flash grenades, for instance, and when? What is the effect when someone is "knocked down" (and is instantly standing again, with plenty of fatigue left)? What's the difference between stunned/paralyzed/whatever else? The best I was able to see were "common sense" answers that were very vague and didn't actually help quantify or clarify anything. (There's a big difference between "makes it harder to hit - by 3%" and "makes it harder to hit - by 90%" for example)
This question / problem has been solved by ewmarchimage
Posted March 22, 2013
The only one I know for sure is stunning, which is very useful as it can make enemies miss their next turn. So you can hit them a bunch and then with your last few action points throw a stun grenade, then the enemy misses its turn and you can go back to beating on them.

It's been too long for me to remember the other effects though. I'll defer to other experts on those.
Posted March 22, 2013
Yes, good question. What exactly does blindness do and how long does it last? You get those flash grenades very early but I can't tell if I'm wasting my time (and earning mucho aggro) when I use them.
Posted March 22, 2013
Encumbered reduces speed, and if encumbered enough it forces walking or immobilizes.

Poison reduces hp by 1hp/sec. There was a time for me where sometimes when someone was poisoned it would reduce speed by 6 or 8 or something. After I moved to playing a different installation, it doesn't happen anymore and I can't reproduce the effect so I'm assuming it was some weird thing. Perhaps a side effect from me modding the game.
The thing is, I wish it still did it because poison is so inconsequential otherwise. Tragic.

Blind not sure the exact effect

Stun/paralyze seem essentially the same. Character can't move or act, and their turn is skipped in turn based combat.

Fear causes running, usually for a certain number of squares.

Charmed increased reaction.

Mind controlled adds to your party.

Unconscious (negative fatigue) seems to work the same way as stunned. Large to-hit bonus.

Polymorphed removes worn items, cannot equip items, incompatible with certain other effect flags (body of fire, etc.). The spell will reduce NPC damage to almost nothing, but monster damage doesn't seem to be affected.

Body of fire causes any attacks to do 15 bonus fire damage and any attackers take 5 fire damage. The aoe water spell will do extra damage also.

Entangle prevents movement and the spell reduces speed by 5.

Scarred reduces beauty by 1.

Crippled leg reduces speed by 5 if i remember right.

Crippled arm will prevent the use of your offhand (no shields or two handed wielding like rifles) and I can't remember if it does anything else. Only had a crippled arm once.

Crippled brain will make you play baldur's gate instead of arcanum.
Posted March 22, 2013
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ewmarch: Crippled brain will make you play baldur's gate instead of arcanum.
This.
Posted March 25, 2013
That just leaves the three things that made me scratch my head in the first place: Blinded, smoke cloud, and "knocked down".
Posted March 25, 2013
Firstly be sure not to confuse knocked back and knocked down. Grenades and things do knockback, which pushes the enemy away because of the force of the blow. Knocked down is when your character falls and gets back up again, which in real time just means you arent attacking for that time but in turn based it simulates the same effect by removing some action points from that turn. You can see this easiest when you're fighting on ice and you slip when running, but it can happen from being critically hit or making a critical miss too.

Smoke grenade honestly does nothing, as far as I can tell. I've never been able to see any difference from fighting in smoke.
Posted March 25, 2013
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ewmarch: Knocked down is when your character falls and gets back up again, which in real time just means you arent attacking for that time but in turn based it simulates the same effect by removing some action points from that turn. Smoke grenade honestly does nothing, as far as I can tell. I've never been able to see any difference from fighting in smoke.
its been my experience that knock-down also skips their turn in turn-based but that may just be because it ate up all their AP

as to Blindness, I think it just subtracts from an enemy's hit chance as if they were fighting in darkness. I was tooling around with the Phantasm tree and was able to use Blind on a couple enemies and it felt as if they were missing all their attacks in a given round when before being Blinded they would hit me fairly consistently.

It makes me wonder exactly how the mechanics work though since many enemies have Expert or higher trainging in Melee which negates lighting penalties IIRC
Posted March 25, 2013
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GRV: It makes me wonder exactly how the mechanics work though since many enemies have Expert or higher trainging in Melee which negates lighting penalties IIRC
I would assume it overrules the training modifiers for combat then? Instead of just creating a "darkness penalty" it properly blinds the character.
Posted March 25, 2013
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GRV: It makes me wonder exactly how the mechanics work though since many enemies have Expert or higher trainging in Melee which negates lighting penalties IIRC
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SheBear: I would assume it overrules the training modifiers for combat then? Instead of just creating a "darkness penalty" it properly blinds the character.
youd think that, because hey, why give you a worthless spell, but then, you know, Arcanum.
Posted March 25, 2013
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ewmarch: Smoke grenade honestly does nothing, as far as I can tell. I've never been able to see any difference from fighting in smoke.
I'm guessing to-hit chances may suffer, especially from ranged attacks such as a gunslinger.
Posted March 25, 2013
I've used those flash grenades a lot and I really don't notice a difference in my opponent's tohit. It may be that the effect is very small or that the effect only lasts one round or that the effect is bugged/not implemented.

I've never used the blind spell so I can't compare effects. Maybe that works differently.
Posted March 25, 2013
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ewmarch: Smoke grenade honestly does nothing, as far as I can tell. I've never been able to see any difference from fighting in smoke.
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TwoHandedSword: I'm guessing to-hit chances may suffer, especially from ranged attacks such as a gunslinger.
interesting, would make sense but I wonder if theyre meant to be used offensively (to reduce the ranged to hit of an enemy) or defensively (to reduce that ranged enemy from hitting you!)

would be funny if we've been using them wrong all along :D
Posted March 25, 2013
I haven't used the smoke grenades much. I thought that the bowmen/gunners would first walk out of the cloud before shooting. Is this true or a false memory?
Posted March 25, 2013
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alcaray: I haven't used the smoke grenades much. I thought that the bowmen/gunners would first walk out of the cloud before shooting. Is this true or a false memory?
That may depend on whether you're fighting in real time or turn-based. From my experience, in turn-based mode ranged attackers don't move around unless you do.
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Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick ObscuraStatus effect effects?(19 posts)solved(19 posts)solved
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