GABYSOFT

i just discovered this game while searching for a great rpg. i got it because of all the great reviews, having no idea it has such a rich history! congratulations on creating a genre and making a game that is still challenging and fun decades later. no small feat sir! i played Wizardry obsessively back in the day so i am very excited to have discovered the game that Wizardry was based on, especially since i had never heard of Oubliette before.

as someone who is just getting started, i am focused on optimizing my stats. i have a couple questions about that.

1) when creating a character, we are given a range of values we can roll for each attribute. this is shown on the initial character creation page when you click on a race. yet when i am rolling, i regularly get number outside that range. in fact, it seems to me they are all exactly 8 points lower than the actual maximum possible points i can roll. is this correct? why not show the actual range?

2) can a character only get a stats boost from a Good quality school? or do all schools give a boost, some more some less?

3) i know you have philosophical objections to making the game too approachable, which i think is awesome. figuring something out is way more satisfying than reading it. however there are a lot of things that simply have no context and can create a massive obstacle, such as blatantly wrong number ranges for stat values. i'm thinking about compiling some of the information i found painful to track down into a beginner's guide, but i don't want to undermine the basic philosophy of jumping into the deep end. where would you say that line is?

again, thanks for bringing this awesomeness to modern platforms for me to discover!

dice, of course, that makes complete sense! i missed the whole d&d scene due to a bizarrely religious upbringing. i could tell the the highest numbers came up much less often than they would have if it was an even distribution. now that i know what the algorithm is i can adjust my expectations accordingly.

to get specific, let's look at elves. this is what we are presented with:

HITS 1-6
STR 3-18
INT 4-24
WIS 3-18
LDR 4-24
CON 2-12
DEX 4-24

so if i roll a 12 for CON then i get one more die. my observations are that i can roll a maximum of 20 so i assume the extra die is 8-sided. that would make the full range the following:

HITS 1-14
STR 3-26
INT 4-32
WIS 3-26
LDR 4-32
CON 2-20
DEX 4-32

if this is correct, then i feel the second set of numbers communicates better. a range of numbers is a fairly universal concept that anyone new to the game will make assumptions from. it really threw me when i saw a clearly defined range of numbers that i kept rolling outside of. or perhaps simply add one line that says something like 'Max Roll Bonus: 1-8'.



is there a chart anywhere of those ranges? i found a few lines in one of the docs but it was very incomplete. if Quality is Average for both schools but one is Hard and one is Moderate then does the Hard one yield more potential bonus points?

also, the original manual talks about Dex as shortening the cool-down period between attacks. is that a universal that holds true for all character classes? the higher the Dex the faster they can attack and/or cast a spell? does it affect anything else?

Hi pokerjunky,

If you're not afraid of a spoiler, you'll find stats for most of the guilds/schools, plus a lot more like the chart for stats/attributes you're looking for, in the Additional Player's Guide on this site: http://www.zimlab.com/oubliette/ipad/index.htm

In that guide, the guild/schools that I have not provided stats for is because of the little interest in joining them due to their very low bonuses. This was done using a trial and error method and it took a very long time, so I didn't waste time on less desirable guilds/schools.

Snafaru

P.S. The site also has a character sheet for you to keep track of your character's stats.