Ceiling Durkheim

And even then, there's a scarab for that.

I'm in agreement with a couple people above that the shaman is substantially underpowered, especially in comparison to the tinkermage. Give a dex-focused TM a group heal scarab and a couple elemental attack ones, and s/he can do everything a shaman can, only with better evasion, the ability to equip a shield without losing out on the best skill bonuses, and overwhelmingly greater damage output. It's especially silly that a player who saves money can get the earthshatter scarab long before a shaman can get earthshatter, and do a lot more damage with it if played intelligently. (I mean, technically a dex shaman can do just as much damage with earthshatter as a a dex TM/BM/SW or an int sorcerer, but the latter four classes don't have to hamstring the rest of their offensive abilities to do so.)

It bears noting that there are certain items available in shops that are arguably the best of their class. One can only get Shadowwalker's Boots from a shop, for instance. Titansteel equipment has the best base stats of anything in the game, though I usually prefer the bonuses one gets from other high level equipment. Shop around and you will find a few things that will stay with you right through the endgame.

Noted. Thanks!

So, given that I'm thinking of starting up a pro-Farlander playthrough sometime soon: what are the correct dialogue options if one wants help from Dheless? I mean, mostly they're probably the obvious ones about supporting the Farlands and opposing the pact/Avadon, so I'm really mostly wondering whether there are any counterintuitive ones.

I felt it fit in with Redbeard's characterization in Av2 (overmatched, tired, a little pathetic), though I can see how one wouldn't be a big fan of said characterization. As for big set pieces, I have to say I'm not that fond. I like them in theory, I certainly think they can be cool story events, but I find in turn-based games they make everything really slow. You have to wait two minutes for your party to take a turn, and if you get a game over part way through the fight, you lose a quarter hour of progress.

The strategy that worked for me involved parking all three of my characters next too the center construct. That way you only have to deal with one group of turrets instead of three. Meanwhile, the other two constructs are within range of missile weapons and circular AoEs, as are the constructs in the center. It's slow but it works. That said, supplementing it with some earthshatter spam from the room's center on the first couple turns would probably help.

It's conceivable, but probably not. There are small unreachable areas in a lot of Jeff's games, many of which never get revisited.

That I always kind of wondered what Avadon's position on relationships and sex was. It's clear that it's not totally forbidden (Miranda and her husband were recruited to Avadon together; when Callan muses on the possibility that Redbeard has a wife and family somewhere, she doesn't seem to think this is a betrayal of his duties), but almost no one in Avadon's employ seems to be romantically entangled. Interesting little world building question that I wish Jeff had dealt with at some point. Ah well, the series isn't over yet.

Hmm. I don't have a save from around that point in the game, but I checked and there are definitely six spots for golems (marked by pentagrams on the floor). I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree until someone can present more conclusive evidence.

Didn't Nathalie say that she arrived at Avadon when she was 16, with the implication that it had been a year or two since she got there?

Aren't there three on each side? For my money, the only way I could find to beat them on torment, with at best 6-4 force distribution (6 golems vs. 1 tinkermage, 2 turrets, 1 wand/scarab summon), was to fight them long enough to kill one or two, run out of the room, leave Avadon, then come back. At this point they had returned to their previous positions, minus any that I'd destroyed. Rinse, lather, repeat once or twice, and you have yourself a manageable fight. Cheesy, yes, but sans cheese I found the fight essentially impossible, harder by a large margin than Vardegras or the tinkermage constructs. The golems are strong enough that they'd make for a fairly challenging fight for a party of three, let alone a party of one.

Looks very good overall. The one bit I take issue with is the advice on stat distribution: putting at least a few points into endurance is helpful on lower difficulties, and basically mandatory on higher ones.

It depends. Summoned allies generally last 10 turns, which gives plenty of time to move around and find an optimal position. I'm mostly with you on buffs, though, especially in the early game, before one has access to much +blessing/curse equipment. Using one party buff (I favor triumphant roar/call of the frenzy) before enemies start tearing you apart can be very helpful on higher difficulties, but use more than that before battle and none of them will last more than a few turns.

Well, at least one of these problems has an obvious solution: you can often summon turrets before combat. Your sight range is generally greater than the range at which combat will begin, so if you see tough enemies (or if you try to fight an enemy, get killed, and have to approach it again) you can summon a turret or two and then lure said enemies into combat. Also, a lot of boss and sub-boss encounters require you to initiate combat by talking to the enemy in question beforehand. This is an excellent time to summon turrets and use any buffs you want to. This goes for shaman summons and wands of calling as well, and is pretty much required if you want to do well with summoning characters on the higher difficulty levels.