a few questions about game mechanics

[Rhygadon]

So ... I have one party in Chapter 7, two more experimental parties in Chapter 2, and so far I've found the game tremendously enjoyable. (And a very welcome change of pace from more mainstream RPGs.) I'll save my general comments until I've finished the game, but in the meantime, I have a few questions about the game mechanics ...

Ethereal damage
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- Repeated hits from Black Bullet (using a single Musketeer) don't seem to stack; the second hit doesn't make the numbers go down any faster, and the durations don't seem to be added together. Is this correct? What happens if two different Musketeers hit the same target, say, 10 cycles apart?
- Black Bullet seems to be the only player attack that gives the "poison" hit point tint and damage-over-time. Are all other player sources of Ethereal damage (from Sprite, Krampt's scripture, &c.) applied instantly?
(I worry about this last one because I don't see the Sprite causing damage-over-time, but nor do the numbers for Sprite-enhanced attacks seem as high as they would be if the Ethereal damage was all being applied at once. Are you sure Sprite damage is really working?)
- If both of the above are true, does this mean that there's no interference (i.e. lost damage) when using other sources of Ethereal damage against a target who's currently poisoned by Black Bullet?
- Am I right to assume that the listed Chi regeneration for Sprite is spread out across the 140 cycle duration, while the damage is applied to each attack?

Order of effects for damage
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- Does the defensive effect of Trick reduce the incoming damage before it hits Chi or Aurora? Once Chi is gone, does the effect apply before or after armor?
- Is bonus damage (from items) affected by the 25% reduction or 25-30% increase that some attacks get against some targets, or by the increase for successive hits with Lucky Shot?
- Beyond simply being better for penetrating armor, is bonus damage of the same type as the attack treated any differently than bonus damage of other types?
- What happens if a 100 point attack hits a character with 60 Chi remaining and 50 armor? I assume it should be that the Chi soaks 60 and the remaining 40 bounces, but in practice, hits that finish off my Chi seem to take more Health than I would expect. Are you sure that armor is correctly applied in such cases?

Other
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- It seems item-granted powers aren't affected by buffs: Trick from an item doesn't benefit from Empowder, Heal doesn't benefit from Bless, and so on. Are there any exceptions?
- Does Trick from an item provide the same 25% reduction as a normal Trick?
- The rounding on stacked Dodge effects seems a bit, er, wonky. On a Musketeer, the increase in net Dodge from items seems far lower than what one would expect from multiplying the probabilities, presumably due to repeated rounding-down. (I don't have an example in front of me, but I remember something like 39% from LL + one 6% item + one 5% item yielding about 43%.) Is the fall-off in performance really meant to be that steep, or is this just a problem with generating an integer value for display purposes?
- Conversely, multiple Dodge sources seem purely additive when they're on non-Musketeers, even when they take Dodge into the teens. Intended?
- Does Bless affect passive skills (e.g. Might, Lucky Lady, Chosen)?
- Another post mentioned that Charge is not affected by Overdrive. Is this true for any other active skills?
- Does Overdrive improve both effects of a Sprite? Both components of Black Bullet or Staggering Blow?

Whew! I'll stop now, and await enlightenment.

[Mark Pay]

Hi Rhygadon!