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The Black Fortress has a lot of issues with the way it works. Arguably, the ruthlessness and concentration of power seem to serve some purpose in the world, because the countries of the Pact appear to behave like rabid wolves that would just as happily tear each other apart as the ogres. Also, the Pact army is oddly useless without Hands around. Setting that aside, Avadon appears to have one fundamental issue that seems to cause a lot of problems for it- no retirement. Once you're in, that's it, kiss your life goodbye forever. There doesn't seem to be any sensibly structured time off, either. This is, clearly, terrible for the mental health of all Hands, Eyes, and Hearts. I'm thinking Miranda didn't betray Avadon entirely because of some fifty year old mega grudge. I'm thinking that one day, after going through the endless stack of reports, assignments, and enduring the same back to back grind for most of her life, she couldn't take it anymore. Imagine if you had spend the last forty or fifty years of life working at one corporate job, perhaps with brief pauses, in the same building complex, with no possible retirement in sight. Anyone, even the most devoted person, would go mad. I'm thinking Redbeard went a bit nuts also not just because of the betrayal, Hanvar's council being singularly unhelpful, and suddenly not having one reliable Heart around (more paperwork for everyone else)- but also because he had basically spent a good chunk of his life staring at the same rooms with the understanding that his only option of quitting was to get murdered (In Avadon 3, if you killed Redbeard and picked dialogue options that you planned to leave after some time, in the ending text it says you try, but the Hearts stop you before you actually can leave. Stay or die, basically). Then there's all the conscripts. That's fun. You have a nice life, somewhere, perhaps starting to become a more accomplished tinkermage, or you've taken to swords and seem to do well among your peers. Then, out of nowhere, some Hand arrives, shenanigans happen, and you suddenly find yourself forcibly recruited for the rest of your miserable life. Oh, and forget about your love life. Your love is your job. Your career options are to advance into the marginally less odious position of Eye, or what appears to be an inevitable descent into madness, a Heart (again, not surprised the eternal prisoner did what he did). Your other career options are to die, or, if you have extra [censored] luck, the dungeons. I'm thinking an optional retirement after 20 years would solve at least some of the issues... Keeper succession is still up in the air, but perhaps it doesn't have to be a fight to the death, just a fight. What about all the ex-Avadoners running around? It can't be worse than the already disenfranchised and demoralized lifers.

I'm in the middle of A3 now, and I'm honestly surprised at just how weak the case is for killing Redbeard. This seems to be a major theme in the series, yet it never comes across to me as an option I should realistically consider. Am I missing something? The Wayfarer is unconvincing The Wayfarer's quests are all intended to weaken the Pact and motivate you to oppose Redbeard. The problem is that what he largely exposes is the player's own corruption. Following his quests means stealing privileged information from your allies, framing an innocent man for treason, accusing an innocent man of crimes to help out his competition, etc. Unwittingly, he reveals that the main problem with Avadon is actually undisciplined Hands like you. While it's certainly fair to criticize Redbeard for not keeping a tighter rein on his underlings, are you really going to kill him off because he didn't stop you from abusing your authority and betraying the Pact for a little coin and some paltry loot? Your PC doesn't really have much room to talk, especially if you are complicit in murdering people for your party's self-serving agendas (and you probably did if you're fighting Redbeard). Your companions' motivations aren't compelling either Sevilin wants to murder the pardoned protectors of a destitute settlement of his own people because revenge > all. Shima wants to murder loyal allies of the Pact in cold blood AFTER he tried to kill them and they spared him. Nathalie is pissed because she ran off to fight a drake on her own, which is somehow Avadon's fault. Dedrik was banished from his tribe for supporting the Pact, then decides to murder fellow Pact warriors and possibly ignite civil war between the Wyldrylm and the Kva just to visit his family, since apparently them visiting him isn't good enough. Khalida in A3 wants to kill a camp full of friendly NPCs because it will piss off Redbeard and get his attention. (No comment on other A3 quests because I haven't gotten them yet.) Do these things for them, and your merry band will cheerfully assist you in killing Redbeard. If your PC wants to reform Avadon, s/he should probably start by curbing the party's homicidal tendencies. Dhorl Stead is the fault of two selfish, cruel, and cowardly men The Wayfarer repeatedly tries to blame Redbeard for the fate of Dhorl Stead. Right, because Redbeard totally put a gun to Moritz'Kri's head, forcing him to experiment on his own people to turn them into a bizarre horror army. Yep, it's definitely Avadon's fault that Moritz'Kri decided to brainwash all those Khemerian soldiers to fight you to the death and summon a demon lord capable of destroying the world. Forget Avadon and politics for a moment--Moritz'Kri is clearly evil and would be killed by the PCs in basically any RPG setting ever. The self-defense argument is completely bogus, as demonstrated in the ending when the city holds off invaders just fine without either Moritz'kri's horrors or Carsta'Arl and his men. They wanted an army to invade the Pact, not to protect themselves. The player gives Carsta'arl the chance to turn himself in to spare his people, but instead he uses his own wife as a human shield, not to mention his blacksmith and many of his soldiers. And that is Redbeard's fault how? It may not be fair, but it just goes to show that Avadon is justified in restricting the Farlanders' ability to arm and learn forbidden magic. Avadon is necessary to keep the Pact together In Avadon 2, there is a wretch blacksmith in Rockridge Keep with sixteen little wretch children running around. They are constantly trying to bludgeon each other to death, and the wretch dad is constantly breaking up squabbles between them. It's an apt metaphor for Avadon and the Pact. Many people express the opinion that Avadon has too much power, but what happens when Avadon's power gets reduced? The squabbling children all start killing each other, and we have both civil war and war war. Many, many more people are harmed and killed by this, both Pact and Farlander, than were ever harmed and killed by Avadon. All of Avadon 2 and what I've played of A3 so far is just one non-stop proof that Avadon is necessary to defend the Pact. Yoshiria claims in A2 that Avadon is redundant with the Pact army, but guess who does all the heavy lifting in A2? That's right, Hands of Avadon. Even the narration at one point notes that it's a common story for the Pact army to fail at something then call Avadon in to clean up the mess. Your PC helping Farlanders makes very little sense Do the Farlands have legitimate grievances with the Pact? Absolutely. They pay heavy tribute and don't even have the right to self-defense against Pact citizens. Are their actions in the game justified? Nope. Dheless in A2 claims that all he wanted was to remove the Pact's boot from their throats, but this is BS. If all he wanted to accomplish was deterring Pact/Avadon aggression, the Farlands could have made their own pact for that. But what did they do? They engaged in repeated, deliberate acts of war against the Midlands Pact. Sending armed spies and saboteurs into Pact lands was an act of war. Assassinating Monitor Shigaz was an act of war. Attacking Avadon was an act of war. They don't want freedom; they want to crush the Midlands under their heels like in olden days. Your PC has been fighting for the Pact all this time, so why would they decide to suddenly switch sides? From a moral standpoint, a role-play standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense to ally with the people invading your homelands. Redbeard is neither saint nor demon Redbeard is made out to be a cruel dictator, but as far as I've seen, he is never shown to be cruel for cruelty's sake. Instead, he is coldly pragmatic. If murdering someone will stop a war from happening, he will murder the one to stop the war. If he can neutralize a threat to himself or the Pact without killing them, he often does. He spared a lot of people that a truly cruel and selfish tyrant would have killed, such as Cahil and his men (much to Sevilin's dismay), Eye Leira, Heart Miranda, and many people in the dungeons. Ironically, it was his mercy toward and trust of Miranda that led to his undoing. Pretty weird for a guy who's been billed as ruthless and tyrannical. You could argue that the cause was actually the death of Miranda's husband, but it's hard to fault Avadon for executing a man who tried to murder a high-ranking military commander. Keeper: a thankless job with impossible standards Many people are quick to find fault with Avadon and Redbeard without acknowledging that it was Avadon who brought the Pact out of the Black Age, that Redbeard presided over decades of peace and prosperity, and that Avadon's loss of funds, influence and manpower gave us the Age of Chaos. A1 tries to spin a narrative that Redbeard is somehow at fault for the decline, apparently for not checking his crystal ball to correctly predict Miranda's betrayal and Dheless's plans to start a war. And God forbid that he show signs of exhaustion or stress during an extremely chaotic time when he's short on both funds and manpower; why, that is clearly grounds for immediate assassination and removal. Looking out for number one is also a crime, even though the overwhelming majority of people join Avadon for wealth and power. If Redbeard was a truly selfish person who only cared about his personal comfort and wealth, he would have been another fat, lazy bureaucrat like the toll collector in Castle Vebeaux. In A3, he would be less focused on work and more focused on amassing wealth and creature comforts for himself. But that's not the case. There's no real alternative We're justified in assassinating Redbeard for failing to check his crystal ball, but it's totes okay that Hanvar's Council is so plagued by infighting and indecisiveness that they completely ignore multiple clear and blatant acts of war from Tawon for years, up to and including the attack on Fort Foresight. Everything will definitely be totally fine if we trust these guys to run the show instead. Miranda is an evil villain, full stop In all three games, she causes countless deaths, many of them innocent, for the sole purpose of revenge against Redbeard. We learn a little more about this in A3, but it honestly doesn't change the picture that much. Yes, it was morally wrong that Miranda and her husband were tricked into murdering innocent people to gain wealth and power for Avadon. You know what's more morally wrong? Getting lots of people murdered who had nothing to do with your husband's execution, purely to avenge yourself against one man. By her own admission, she purposely manipulated the A1 PC for the entire game, hoping to goad him/her into a seemingly impossible task that would most likely get them killed. It is highly unlikely that her husband would want any of this. Are we really supposed to kill Redbeard because of anything she says? If you are loyal to the Pact, the timing (in A1 and A2 at least) makes it a bad idea Even if you have quibbles with how Redbeard runs things, why the heckin' heck would you decide to kill Redbeard when Avadon is being overrun by foreign invaders? Unless you are actively trying to harm the Pact, this makes no sense whatsoever. It's even worse in A2--sure, let's go kill off the only military commander who predicted this years ago and is prepared to respond right now. In the end, it really seems to boil down to personal dislike Disliking Redbeard's character or wanting the top job for yourself seems to be the only realistic motives, and neither really speak well for your PC's character. If you will murder people out of personal dislike or to get their job, you are very likely to be a far worse Keeper than Redbeard ever was. Acting Keeper Protus has so far instituted some reforms, but at the same time he threatens you, jails dissidents like Laria, and can also be overheard casually ordering the murder of an Eye. tl;dr: I'm partway through A3 and still haven't seen a reason to kill Redbeard yet. If anyone has one please let me know!

Hello, does anyone know how to get into the middle of the Student Barracks under the Four Circles place in Avadon 3? I found a plant pot that opens a secret door, but that's already inside and the other plant pot doesn't help. I've wandered around the room for a while looking for more secrets, but can't find any. It's early game so won't be anything very useful in there I'm sure, but I do like to fully explore places and it's annoying me.

So I have done everything except Silena's quest and have spoken to Redbeard and gotten the final meeting quest. And still Silena won't advance the quest. I quit and went back to an earlier save & redid the Redbeard conversation where I get the final meeting quest again. She is same as ever. I have been to the site with her several times & have said I would help her. Why is this stuck? I don't want to go into the endgame without this, but it won't trigger, & I have researched & know it is supposed to trigger now (and it is my last chance). On a Mac, running Mohave 10.14.5, have not installed any cheats or messed with the program in any way.

I just started up Avadon 3 and I noticed that I can no longer seem to highlight objects. There used to be a button that highlighted loot on the ground, this was really handy as it made it possible for me to identify objects I could pick up. Now I have nearly no idea. I am constantly wondering if I am leaving loot behind. Was this ability removed from the game? Was the button changed and I just don't know about it? Similar to the above, in the previous games, I could hit the "attack/use" key("A" button in Avernum: Crystal Souls), and the screen would then display different characters I could talk to. I would follow this up by tapping the corresponding key and my characters would walk over and initiate dialogue. I found this to be a handy device to assist in playing. Was it removed or the button changed to something else? Anyone have any insight into this?

Based on the wonderful work for Avadon 1 and Avadon 2 by Jerakeen here on the forum, I spent about 7 hours today making a version workable in Avadon 3. The editor pops up when you click on the sign next to the trapdoor to the Holding Cells in Camp Nightshade. I couldn't figure out how to make most of the skill ups work, but I got the raising stats, and god party working, and added a few more categories of items to the item editor part of the mod. With this, what you can do is: Add Items: Lockpicks Potions Crystals Wands Scrolls Light Cake Money 500 1000 10000 15000 More Items (Use at your own risk) Scarabs Runestones Charms Totems Weapons and Armor (by class, class specific items only) Quest items (specific to the junk items quests if you're too lazy to go look for 20 pieces of fruit, etc) Raise Stats Lockpicking skill +3 for chars that have lockpicking (just do this once) Raise primary stats by +5 (recommend not to do this more than 3 times total) God Party (defensive bonuses for everyone as it was in Av2 char editor) PLEASE only do this once. Make sure to back up your z0nightshadedlg.txt before replacing it with the new one. DOWNLOAD (mediafire) z0nightshadedlg.txt Credit goes to Jerakeen who made the original editors. All I did was modify them and add items for av3. (I hope posting it is okay, if Jerakeen isn't okay with me doing this I'm cool with the editor being removed. Since I couldn't find one and I was doing this for myself, I figured I share for those others that want a little (or big) boost.)

First of all, I'm aware that similar threads exist but most of those are fairly old, and I'm not sure what the policy on necroing old threads is here. Anyway, I just want to share my thoughts and experiences with the Avadon series. To begin with, I thoroughly enjoyed all three games though my favorite was definitely the last one. Throughout the series, I played with a Shaman as my main character on normal difficulty. In all of the games, I tried not to use the same companions for every mission, but some missions and other events sometimes made that a difficult goal. Avadon: The Black Fortress had a great story and probably took me the longest to complete. This was in part due to the amount of forced combat encounters in the game and the novelty of the series. In terms of difficulty, I feel it was the best balanced of the three games. In particular, it seems that most character combinations are quite feasible, and I used a variety of the companions throughout the game. In addition, I feel that the characters in the first game were developed a lot more than in the future games: the companion quests felt like actual side quests that allowed to fully understand your companions whereas in latter games, the quests got shorter and the choices didn't feel as meaningful. On the flip side, the companion quests took a good while to complete and while they were enjoyable, it was rather annoying to go find and rescue all four of your companions. In the end, I wa only happy with doing two of the companion quests: Jenell's quest because I saw no real harm to do it, and Nathalie's quest because Avadon could care less that that drake was dead. I went through Sevelin's quest, but demanded a bribe from Cahil because Cahil was apparently under the protection of Redbeard (much to my annoyance). Finally, by the time I got to Shima's quest, I w starting to get annoyed and didn't really do his at all. Not to mention that of all my companions, Shima's goal seemed the most selfish and dangerous. For the endgame, I used the Annotated Maps here mainly because it was late at night, and I really wanted to just finish the game. This game definitely had the longest endgame as I had to finish up the following morning. Nonetheless, I loved this game's endgame because it contained a huge plot twist that I did not see coming. In addition, you get the choice to fight the Wayfarer at the very end in Avadon for a very fun final fight. I was very disappointed to see that something similar wasn't done for the loyalist ends in the other two games. Perhaps most surprising (considering how many people say they reach the level cap half-way through the game), I never reached the level cap. Actually, I was not extremely close to it either -- if memory serves, I was around level 26 at the end. Though to be fair, I did skip a lot of sidequests. Avadon 2: The Corruption was a bit more annoying and less addictive than the firs game. It starts out with an excellent hook, but it kinda loses you with the first major quest. When I reached the Corruption with its extremely strong monsters, I lost interest. The difficulty of the Corruption probably played a huge factor, but the story just wasn't that interesting at that point for me. Sure, I want to hunt Miranda, and the Corruption definitely has an interesting background, but I kinda gave up as I was tired of making very little progress. I ended up taking a hiatus from Avadon and played Avernum 6 one-and-a-half times instead. (I got to the Eastern Gallery then started over because I didn't like how my characters were built.) By the time I got back to playing Avadon 2, I was willing to be a bit more patient and eventually got past the forsaken Corruption. If there wa one thing that the Corruption taught me, it was how to run: up until then, I literally engaged groups of monsters versus single monsters. I also learned how to effectively use the revive outside combat feature to my benefit. When I reached the first mission involving the Tawon temples, I completed it in a rather unconventional fashion, and I don't think the developers fully expected it to be completed the way I did it. First of all, in the perimeter of the temple, I kept getting murdered by Icy Bones and wa literally running (a lot) to try to get somewhere I could revive my party. I literally kept going in circles until eventually, I was either killed or until I managed to get around a corner without the enemy in sight. I could've probably saved myself a lot of trouble had I use some vitality (especially considering how little I used inside the temple...) to save myself a lot of trouble, but let's just say I'm ultra-conservative in both my consumable and vitality use. Anyway, once inside the temple (and figuring out how it works) , I went to the northwest area where the four priests are. I tried killing them all at once first, but that didn't work at all. So, I reloaded and tried to lure them one by one. That didn't work either as they always teleported my character away into a lone corner and no matter how hard I tried, my single character could not out damage the lone priest who kept using heal spells. I did realize something though -- One of the priests teleports your character to a remote corner out of view of the other priests. The priest never returns either. With that in mind, I reloaded and let my character get killed then revived in my safe zone. The other three priests unfortunately did not whisk you out of view of the others, but that was okay. I triggered the other priests' teleports as well, let my characters die, and respawned. This time, I made a run for it -- I ran for the basin while the three priests were separated from another and then ran out before they could kill all three of my characters. Needless to say, it worked (and the priests, interestingly enough, did not chase me. For the third basin in the southern part of the map, I did something even more ludicrous than what I did with the priests: I ran to the basin, then ran towards the center leaving behind one of my characters to be killed, allowed the character to die and quickly exited combat mode, did some talks, then fled the dungeon. I could have perhaps saved myself some trouble since there wa (thankfully) no final boss, but he, solving the dungeon tactically was an interesting change. (A note about the southern golems that activate with approaching the basin -- they will chase you until you or them are dead. I didn't kill them.) The companion quests were extremely boring in comparison to Avadon 1's quests: they were short and did not develop my companions' characters nearly as much. Khalida's quest was the most disappointing of them all. I did all of the quests because I saw no reason not to (except maybe the fact that most of them were boring and felt like a waste of time....). Alcander's quest was perhaps the most interesting, but it doesn't justify the other ones. A very interesting aspect of this game wa the scout companionship dynamic. I really did want to help Silke (in part for the medal), but I just could not kill Odil; I literally reloaded because I could not force myself to do it. While on the subject of the rebel fortress, I might add that I loved the Konstina fight. You have to figure how the fight works, but once you do, it is a lot easier and a lot more fun. Also, a bit of advice -- don't let Konstina flee southward; force her into the western corner. It's outside the circle still, but at least she'll remain within attack range. The Corruption Core (compared to my first experience with the Corruption) was one of my favorite parts of the game. The creation stories were very interesting even if they were faked. It also featured what was in my opinion the hardest fight in the game (minus optional bosses). The three linked fighters (1 shaman, 1 priest/mage, and 1 shadowwalker) were obnoxiously tough, and I ended up having to change my party composition about twice. The Miranda fight forced me to change compositions again. (The fact that the Miranda fight gets cut short surprised me and would have been useful to know as it was a pretty difficult fight.) I feel this wa kinda an oversight and probably not intended, but I made the endgame a lot easier by using a teleportation scarab. Unlike the shadowwalker's shadowstep ability, the teleport scarab has near unlimited range provided it is along a clear, straight line that is within your range of sight plus a few tiles. Between this exploit and the revive trick, I skipped a bunch of encounters and fights. For instance, inside the tunnel (after you fight that Defender something guy), I teleported past the spirits or whatever was summoned. Later, when I was back in Fort Foresight, I used the teleport scarab to slip past enemies (who were busy with my other two characters) and avoid a bunch of fighting. Once again, I finished the game below the level cap though quite a bit closer than the first game. I think I wa around level 27 and 28 at the end. Avadon 3: The Warborn was my favorite both from a mechanical and plot perspective although I favored Avadon 1's depth and content a lot more. The change in how vitality worked was very nice as I could start spamming abilities without worrying about running out of vitality for boss fights. I also liked a lot of the new abilities in the game. The passive radiate healing (etc.) ability was useful (though I feel that giv en he Shaman's weaknesses, it could've had a slightly longer range). From a plot standpoint, this game ties up a lot of loose ends. Some people don't like that, but I did as there were so many unanswered question in the first two games. I also like how my two favorite characters from the first and second game were back in this game (Alcander was nice, but I liked Khalida more despite the lame companion quest in the second game). There isn't much more to say for this game except that the Redbeard fight in this one is very doable. I managed to do it on Casual with only two hands (Botan and Nathalie -- I was more focused on the main quest and therefore skipped most of the companion quests) without the things to make the fight easier. Having a sorceror(ess) by the way makes the fight a lot easier as they absorb a lot of damage. Overall, loved the series and am already in a second playthrough of the first one on hard using a Sorceress.

That's right, the game's not even out for a day and I'm already doing my Let's Play of it. I did Avadon 1 and 2, and now I'm going to complete the trilogy. Feel free to join me, as I play! And if you wish to see the previous games, check them out here and here!

So, I bought Avadon 1 on my Ipad and have enough money left to buy EITHER Avadon 2 or Avadon 3. Which one do people recommend and why? (And, is it better to play the games in sequence?)

Sorry if this is already answered somewhere in the traditional Strategy Central extravaganza, but are hard level caps in for Avadon 3? I'm trying to decide whether to start a playthrough over the next few weeks, or just wait for a sale in a year or so, as the implementation of the caps in the previous games really put me off. Cheers!

I don't know if anybody noticed, but the Avadon 3 trailer is out. Doesn't look that much different gameplay wise, but looks nice. Here's hoping it'll be a great game.