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Avernum: Crystal Souls - Level 3 Spell Books (SPOILERS)


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Level 3 Spell Books

 

Arcane Lore Level, Spell, Location

 

Mage Spells

 

3 Bolt of Fire - Aranea Web

4 Call Beast - Upper Lizard Lair

5 Cloak of Curses - Brigand Lair

7 Daze - Coven cave

9 Haste - Almaria

10 or less Slow - Lair of Athron

Icy Rain - Patrick's Tower -In the Tomb of Demonslayer. Requires Move Mountains, Dispel Barrier at level 2 or 3, hidden switch [TU 8 in one PC only], and the Deciphering Lens

Spray Acid - Tower of Elderan

5 Cloak of Bolts - Formello

6 Minor Summons - Cave of Motrax

10 Lightning Spray - Solberg's Tower

11 or less Blink - Shrine of Crystals

12 Capture Soul - Dark Tunnel

11 Simulacrum - Pyrog's Cave

15 Cloak of Blades - Shrine of Crystals

10 Dispel Barrier - Barrier Tower

8 Summon Aid - Nephar Fortress

8 Howl of Terror - Trapped Hall

12 Fireblast - Erika's TowerArcane Summon - Oglai - Reward for returning 3 Crystal Souls

11 or less Cloak of the Arcane - Tower of Magi

12 Arcane Blow - Castle

 

Priest Rituals

 

5 Minor Heal - Serpent Cult

5 Curing - Tower of Magi

7 Smite - Tower of Magi

10 or less Protection - Tower of Magi

11 War Blessing - Patrick's Tower

6 Call the Storm - Cotra

9 Summon Shade - Patrick's Tower

8 Ward of Thoughts - Giant's Cave

10 or less Move Mountains - Snake Pit

2 Unshackle Mind - Nephilim Castle

9 Heal - Ruined Town

6 Mass Heal - Cave of Motrax

9 Mass Curing - building south of Fort Dranlon, southwest of the Circle of Pillars. You need to be enlightened.

17 Ward of Steel - Shrine of Crystals

8 Divine Fire Blosk

12 Domination - Dharmon

1 Sanctification Ritual - Formello

11 Ward of Elements - Ganss

14 Return Life - Empire Archives

Divine Retribution - Oglai - Reward for returning 3 Crystal Souls

11 or less Divine Restoration - Tower of Magi

12 Divine Host - Castle

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Thanks for posting this. Looks like you can get away with 12 AL pretty easily?

 

14 gives you return life, but you don't really need level 3 of that, you can revive just fine with level 1/2

15 gives you cloak of blades but with most parties you'll probably want cloak of the arcane up instead most/all of the time

17 gives you ward of steel, but you probably want ward of elements (or sometimes thoughts) up most of the time instead anyway

 

Also, your item list says Vahnatai Lore reduces the AL needed for "some" spellbooks. Which ones does it not apply to?

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It seems like Sage Lore doesn't count toward the Arcane Lore requirement for the two books in the Barrier Tower: I had Sage Lore on all four characters and couldn't read either book. This is actually kind of a big deal, since one of them is Dispel Barrier and the other is part of a major plot quest. I did some testing using the character editor and the Arcane Lore requirement for the portal ritual is only 2, but the requirement for Dispel Barrier is 13. (I did have one point of Vahnatai Lore when I tested; I don't know if that counts or not.)

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OK, I just looked in the dialogue script for the area and I see what happened.

 

When you first examine the Dispel Barrier book, there's a magical trap on it that prevents you from reading it. 13 Arcane Lore or higher will disarm the trap, and Sage Lore does not count toward this check. However, after seeing the trap activate once, you can talk to Pyrn and he'll disable the trap for you, allowing you to read the book as normal -- there's still an Arcane Lore requirement, but this time it's only 10 and Sage Lore does count toward it, as does Vahnatai Lore.

 

You still need 2 points of actual Arcane Lore to learn the portal ritual, though.

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Randomizer (or someone else), can you test whether 2 levels of Vahnatai Lore (and no AL) will work on the portal ritual book?

 

You'll want to test it with 3 levels if you're testing whether Vahnatai Lore counts, since I had one level of Arcane Lore and one of Vahnatai Lore to begin with. 1 AL + 1 VL wasn't sufficient to read the book: 2 AL + 1 VL was.

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Cool, thanks. That was one reason I was planning on waiting until a patch came out. I did also see someone reporting save file corruption issues (or something about someone walking around with a spear equipped that suddenly disappeared? - some weird stuff I can't find again on the forums right now), which would be nasty, but I guess I'll just hope that doesn't happen to me.

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Hey, look, it's Lilith reporting another annoying situation where Sage Lore won't work!

 

I returned Jekknol-Bok to the Shrine of Crystals and tried to claim the Cloak of Blades spell as a reward, but was told I didn't have enough magical skill to understand it. This also means that Randomizer's numbers for the Arcane Lore requirement to learn Cloak of Blades are wrong: I don't know if Vahnatai Lore is counted or not, but from experimenting with the editor I do know that 4 Sage Lore, 3 Vahnatai Lore and 8 Arcane Lore didn't work, while the same setup with 9 Arcane Lore did (as did the same setup with 9 Arcane Lore and no Sage Lore at all), so the requirement is either 9 or 12.

 

I assume the other spells taught as rewards for returning Crystal Souls work the same way. It's likely that their listed Arcane Lore requirements are also inaccurate. I consider this to be pretty unambiguously a bug, since the documentation claims that Sage Lore counts as equivalent to three points of Arcane Lore "when trying to learn new spells" (which the Resistance crystal isn't and the trap on the Dispel Barrier book technically isn't, but this definitely is) so I'm going to use the editor to temporarily give myself the necessary Arcane Lore, learn the spell and continue with the game.

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I consider this to be pretty unambiguously a bug, since the documentation claims that Sage Lore counts as equivalent to three points of Arcane Lore "when trying to learn new spells" (which the Resistance crystal isn't and the trap on the Dispel Barrier book technically isn't, but this definitely is)

Except that the Arcane Lore tooltip was the same in A:EFTP, and it didn't work on the Stagnant Tunnels spellbook, which explicitly taught new spells. This could be an unintentional bug, but it could also just be an inaccurate tooltip. Given SW's excellent track record with bugs and the track record of its tooltips, I'm inclined to blame the latter. :p

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Except that the Arcane Lore tooltip was the same in A:EFTP, and it didn't work on the Stagnant Tunnels spellbook, which explicitly taught new spells. This could be an unintentional bug, but it could also just be an inaccurate tooltip. Given SW's excellent track record with bugs and the track record of its tooltips, I'm inclined to blame the latter. :p

 

a tooltip that unintentionally gives clearly false information with significant gameplay consequences is also a bug, imo. i'd have built differently if i'd known there were spells that sage lore wouldn't help me learn

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hi,

how can i get into the tomb of demonslayer part with the icy rain spellbook? the entrance is blocked.....

thanx in advance

 

As the list mentions, you need the priest spell Move Mountains, the mage spell Dispel Barrier, and a character with 8 ranks of Tool Use to hit a hidden switch. If your way is blocked by a magic barrier, use Dispel Barrier. If it's blocked by cracked walls or rock, use Move Mountains. If it's neither of those but you just can't find your way to it, look for a switch.

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Found it, but this spellbook is the worst of all, esp that spot requires move mountain doesnt look like a crack on wall to me (probably to most people), and because only one person is permitted to go thru the portal, only the TU level of that individual would be counted towards the requirement. That makes this spellbook more difficult to get than killing gharzad(or whatever name)

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Yeah, now I'm thinking of swapping 2 points of Spellcraft per caster for 2 points of "real" AL - especially for that Resistance crystal, though. Just not sure it'd be a good tradeoff.

 

And I see what Jeff did now - if you want to get everything in the game (spellbooks/crystals), you'll need 13 AL + 4 Vahnatai Lore = 17 AL for all checks. Sage Lore don't cut it. I still agree with Lilith on the misleading tooltips for Sage Lore, so I'm using the editor to "fix" the situation.

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I don't really remember clearly from Avernum and Exile 2 (or even if it is relevant since it could have changed in Crystal Souls), but would it be possible to have a character enter the portal to the Tomb of Demonslayer, use the spell needed to clear the barrier/broken wall, exit without claiming Demonslayer, and then have the character with 8 tool use go back and read the spellbook? Or is all that unnecessary because the cracked wall and barrier can be cleared with a scroll of move mountains and a piercing crystal?

 

Also, just how tough is the fight after claiming Demonslayer? Would a single archer/swordsman character be able to do it with min-maxedish stats and lots of potions? Thanks in advance.

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Randomizer's item list must be out of date, then - so if the Ward of Steel book doesn't really need AL 17, is AL 15 for Cloak of Blades the highest AL needed in the game? Or is that incorrect as well?

 

EDIT: OK, I see Lilith posted yesterday that Cloak of Blades only needs either 9 or 12 (depending on whether Vahnatai Lore works for that - dang, juggling SL/VL/AL is getting confusing). Still would be nice to know what the "real" maximum AL for the game is, but I guess we're still figuring that out.

 

EDIT EDIT: But I guess if you want the Resistance crystal, that's still 13 AL (SL/VL don't work), so in that case you'll end up getting to 17 AL including VL anyway.

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Randomizer's item list must be out of date, then - so if the Ward of Steel book doesn't really need AL 17, is AL 15 for Cloak of Blades the highest AL needed in the game? Or is that incorrect as well?

 

Randomizer's party evidently had Sage Lore, so his Arcane Lore numbers can't be trusted for any of the level 3 spell events that don't count Sage Lore. So far, that's Spray Acid, Cloak of Blades, and probably Blink and Ward of Steel (since they're taught the same way as Cloak of Blades.

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I only had one party that didn't have Sage Lore so my numbers may be high for spells that don't give you a message on the AL number and the party's current AL number. It was even more confusing before Jeff fixed the message. There is no message other than you learn or don't learn for the 3 Shrine of the Crystal spells.

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But it's confirmed that the Resistance crystal needs 13 "real" AL points, right? In that case, I'll just get 13 AL + 4 VL, and that will definitely get me both the crystal and all the spellbooks - though it'll probably be overkill for even the toughest spellbooks in the game, from what I'm reading now.

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But it's confirmed that the Resistance crystal needs 13 "real" AL points, right? In that case, I'll just get 13 AL + 4 VL, and that will definitely get me both the crystal and all the spellbooks - though it'll probably be overkill for even the toughest spellbooks in the game, from what I'm reading now.

 

I had 12 AL and 4 Vahnatai Lore and the crystal wouldn't give resistance. Once I leveled up to 13 total, it worked.

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I don't really remember clearly from Avernum and Exile 2 (or even if it is relevant since it could have changed in Crystal Souls), but would it be possible to have a character enter the portal to the Tomb of Demonslayer, use the spell needed to clear the barrier/broken wall, exit without claiming Demonslayer, and then have the character with 8 tool use go back and read the spellbook? Or is all that unnecessary because the cracked wall and barrier can be cleared with a scroll of move mountains and a piercing crystal?

Does anyone know the answer to this question? I'm trying to decide who is going to train in the extra points of tool use before I get to that point in the game.

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@jimbob - You need only the scroll move mountains, but you need more than a piercing crystal. You should be able to rotate characters to get to the hidden switch since the demon spawning is triggered by getting Demonslayer and not you being there.

 

Randomizer, if you're not sure about these numbers, maybe you should label the ones you're not sure about.

The ones I wasn't sure about have no number. The ones from the Shrine I got from Synergy and tested them myself, but since I already had Sage Lore I included that in the number. Before that I didn't have a party with enough Arcane Lore and had returned the Crystal Souls.

 

Edit - I'm going to have to start over with a new party without Sage Lore. The other parties took place while Jeff was tweaking the game and will probably give wrong information.

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