EvilEye

I don't see this mentioned in any faqs so I thought I'd post it ( for future reference ). In the church in the Tower of Magi if you throw coins in the box and pray at the altar it will increase your characters intelligence by 1 IF they are below 10 intelligence.

My biggest gripe about avernum 4-6 is the overbearing linearity ( that and the level grinding ) This was not the case for exile 1-3 and avernum 1-3. You could go most places from the start. Especially exile 3 and avernum 3 ( which are my favorite ). Rushing straight toward the high level areas for the goodies is my favorite part of RPG playing. Or do the quests way out of order. My god, ever since avernum 4 it feels like I'm playing the game in a straight jacket. It doesn't let you go anywhere before you do this-or-that quest. This is no fun whatsoever. It also means you have to grind through the whole game until you get the high level spells and good stuff. What's the fun of that? Some twisted sense of balance? I don't give a damn about balance, I play to have fun. There is no replay value in a game that I can only play one way. Please don't wall off the world with locked gates that require you to go beat the "slime king" or whatever first. Doing the game according to the official storyline should be optional.

I was rooting through an old hard drive and found a walkthrough I wrote a while back but never posted ( at least I don't think I did ). At one point I was obsessed with playing through the entire game with an all NPC party, so I meticulously worked out the fastest way to get all 4 NPC's. I thought some Avernum 3 fans would be interested. Here it is... ---------------------------------------------------- Avernum 3 Speedrun Guide v1.1 The purpose of this guide is to: *Get Miranda at the beginning of the game. *Get all 4 npc's within 7 game days, doing as few quests as possible. *Do it on Torment difficulty. Basically I was looking for a way to get Miranda at the very beginning of the game. She's one of the best NPC's, and it would be awesome if you could start the game with all 4 NPC's. There is actually only 1 requirement to getting Miranda to join you. Bring down the giant / troglo barrier. That's it. You don't need to be able to enter the footracer province, and you don't need a high reputation. Also once the barrier is down you can go into Gale and get Carol ( requires 50 reputation ). Then with Carol and Miranda the slime quest is easily finished, which will allow Falko to join. So the question now is, how do we bring down the giant / troglo barrier after just starting the game? There are tons of hard enemies in our way, including a doom gaurd! The answer is... Hsska with invulnerability potions and heroic brews. Yes it's all possible. Without cheating, and on Torment difficulty. I get the money for the potions by going after the easily available high value items and selling them, but you could of course do the courier quest at Libras. I didn't do that because it's kind of cheesy. THE METHOD ---------- First thing we gotta do is get Hsska. Hsska is a much stronger fighter then we will have for a long time. He is also a great Priest. We will need him to get our 3 other NPC's. To get Hsska we must fight some fairly tough chitrachs in Upper Avernum. Not to worry, we can make new characters that can handle those beasts with ease. So let's get started. Start a new game. Make 2 slith pole fighters with 4 strength, 5 dexterity, 5 pole weapons, 6 defense and 2 hardiness. Give them each the divinely touched and elite warrior traits. Next make 2 nephil mages with 5 intellegence, 7 mage spells and 1 priest spells. Give them divinely touched and natural mage. I play on Torment and this guide assumes you are playing on Torment difficulty. It will of course be much easier if you play on a lower difficulty. Now start the game. Skip the into ( or watch it if you want ). You're in Fort Emergence. Loot the room and walk out into the courtyard. Now go out the gate and over the bridge to the surface of avernum. Walk outside until you get the 3 dialog boxes. Now go back into Fort Emergence. Go into Anaximander's room. A bunch of dialog boxes will pop up. Now head to levy and get your weekly allowance of 25 gold. Head into the main storeroom. There are some boxes in the middle of the room. One box holds some chainmail, and another one holds some fine leather. Push those two boxes into a room with noone around, close the door and steal the contents. Now go into the side storeroom ( to the southeast ) and take all the items. Head towards the bottom gate. Go to the left of the gate and take the unidentified rock which is on the ground. Have Habecker identify it for you. It's a rough diamond. Cha-Ching! Head out the lower gate into upper avernum. Aproach the gaurds outside and tell them about the surface for +1 reputation. Reputation = 21 *NOTE* I should mention at this time, if you get in a battle, do NOT use any special skills like beserk or divine aid. You will be needing these shortly and I will tell you when to use them. Head to New Cotra. Head south-west and take out the ice slime in the corner ( look for the blue ice looking tile ). Your sliths should kill it in 2 hits ( or 1 hit from each of them ). Enter New Cotra. Talk to the mayor in the tavern and tell him you defeated the ice slime. + 300 coins and +1 reputation. gold = 455 reputation = 22 Talk to Nance and tell her about the surface, she will tell you about a mind crystal in her room. This part is optional, but I always get the mind crystal so no point not doing it now. Now talk to Elspeth the blacksmith and sell all the stuff you picked up so far, except the mind crystal if you got it. gold = 950 Go to the alchemist and buy 1 invulnerability potion and 2 haste potions. Do NOT use these potions until I tell you to. You don't need them for a long while. Now go buy the boat from Gointz. Get on the boat and head up to New Formello. gold = 67 Don't bother going into New Formello, instead head south-west to a cavern where there are chitrachs guarding a body ( and the amber shield ). -Might wanna save here because the next fight can be hard on torment.- Kill them all. There are 6 battles total. The last 2 are the hardest. The first 4 should be easy, and you shouldn't need to use any special abilities. Save the special abilities for the last 2 waves. The last 2 waves will have null bugs, these are pretty tough for your level. I suggest having one warrior use beserk and divine aid for each of the two final battles. Have your mages cast haste, heal and ice lances. With beserk, divine aid and haste you should tear up the null bugs even on Torment difficulty. You may have to reload on the last 2 battles, sometimes the bugs get a lucky hit or two. Once you win all 6 battles take the amber shield and head to New Formello. Talk to Ahsoth in the building and get the quest to help out the sliths. Now talk to Commander Ace and tell him you destroyed the chitrachs. Now delete a character to make room for Hsska. I prefer to put Hsska in the last row to give him natural mage, but put him wherever you like. Recruit Hsska and put him in the front row. Now talk to Ahsoth and get your reward for giving the sliths more heat. Hsska should level up. reputation = 25 Give Hsska the amber shield and the invulnerability and 2 haste potions. Also give him any decent equipment you picked up. Strip everyone else of their equipment and sell it. gold = 201 ( or thereabouts ) You should now have Hsska with the amber shield, and his starting equipment. He should also have 2 haste potions and 1 invulnerability potion. He might also have the mind crystal if you picked it up in New Cotra. Everything else should be sold and the other characters should be naked. Hsska is now your main fighter. We will keep the others around for just a wee-bit longer. Go out of New Formello and hop on your boat. Head to the east and north up the stream until you come to a waterfall. There should be a tunnel to the west with lots of poison patches. Go west into the tunnel and take the slith spear at the end. This will spawn a shambler in back of you. Have Hsska equip the slith spear you just found. Go into battle with the shambler, and have your naked characters charge it. Use their special abilities and cast haste on Hsska with a mage if you still have one. Have Hsska cast bless on himself. While the shambler beats on your naked characters, have Hsska attack it. We don't care if it kills the naked characters, because we are going to delete them anyway. The shambler should fall after 4 hits from Hsska. Once the shambler is dead delete all your characters except Hsska. We don't need them and battles will be simpler with just one character. Head back to your boat and go south just above New Cotra. Go on shore and head to the west and slightly north. There should be a cavern with a fake wall at the north. Head through the fake wall and you will come upon a nephil village. ATTACK! Cast bless on Hsska and kill the nephil magic users first with your ice lances spell. If Hsska gets low on health have him cast healing. You should be in no serious danger in this fight providing you heal every so often and keep yourself blessed. Once you kill all the nephil, gather up the most expensive stuff and make sure you leave room for 1 item in your inventory. Usually they drop a few unid rings, make sure you pick those up. Exit combat and search the village and take the bracelet. Now go back in your boat and head east. Leave the boat near Ghirkra and head back to the south. You may run into some bandits, if you do slay them. Head to the fork in the road with a sign. Now head west along the wall, there is a secret passage leading to a body. You will probably fight some giant lizards but they are a pushover. Search the body for some papers and head back to Fort Emergence. Talk to Thereza who is wandering around in the middle area. Tell her about the papers you just found. reputation = 27 Now talk to Habecker and have him identify your stuff. Equip the strength bracelet and the radiant slith spear. Your should have equipped: Radiant slith spear Strength bracelet Amber shield In your inventory you should have: 2 haste potions 1 invulnerability potion Now head outside to avernum. You will probably run into some slimes. Kill them they should be easy. Head to Krizan. Go to the blacksmith Jinx and sell all the excess stuff you looted from the nephil village. gold = 967 Now head to the west gate and search along the north wall. There should be a secret passage with a ring and a few iron bars. Take them and head to Fellows in the south-eastern building. Get the quest to find his ring and give his ring to him. He gives you a lucky charm. Equip it. Now go sell those iron bars. gold = 995. Head outside Krizan and to the east and loot the cache just east of Silvar. Head over the bridge and go into the Colchis Ruins. Head to the south west and talk to the spirit in the hidden passage in the building ( you have to fight a few slimes but their easy ). Now go to the pillar and get the necklace. Head out of Colchis and keep going east and slightly north. You should pass 2 rocks on a dirt clearing. Go slightly north-east from there and you should see a mountain range with small pools scattered around it. Head to the north of the range and do not attack the drakes that hang around there. There should be a secret passage with a drake lord somewhere around there. Do NOT attack him and agree to help him out. Sometimes this battle does not start immediately. If it doesn't you can wait or reload until it triggers. Once you go into battle just have Hsska move to the back and defend. The drake lord does NOT need your help at all. He will easily win by himself. Once he kills all the enemies exit combat and he will give you an unid'd chain mail worth 7000 gold. CHA-CHING! Head northeast to Golddale. Get your items identified by Ivanova. Equip the icy chain male and sell the basic charm and wand of bolts to the weaponsmith. gold = 1608. Exit Golddale to the south. Walk along the east mountains until you find the secret passage to the Fiery Pit. Go inside. Yes, were clearing this out, and it's easier then you might think. Hsska should take very little damage from the lava. The key to beating the drakes in here is to get close and wipe them out quickly. -Might wanna save here because the next fight can be hard on torment.- First head west and slightly north until you are just outside the room with the 2 drakes in it. Now go into combat mode and cast bless on yourself and drink 1 haste potion. Now move around the corner and plant yourself right in between the two drakes. They will probably cast fireblast on you, but with your insane fire resistance you just laugh it off. Ignore any summoned monsters and focus on the drakes first. Once they are dead do not leave combat because there is another drake headed your way. He should be just around the corner. Kill him off quickly before your haste wears off. If you're lucky and you time it right you should have killed 3 drakes using only one haste potion ( and bless and healing ). Now exit combat and loot the area for a mass curing crystal and a rough diamond. Don't forget the rough diamond shows up as an unidentified rock. Head south from here. -Might wanna save here because the next fight can be hard on torment.- You should reach a spot with 2 more drakes and a bunch of fire lizards. Stand just outside their lair and cast bless on yourself and drink the second haste potion. Rush toward the two drakes ignoring the fire lizards completely. Attack the two drakes. You may have to heal a lot here, if your lucky they will just cast fireblast which will do no damage. But sometimes they hit you with something harder. If you die reload and try again. This battle is very winnable with only haste and bless. Do NOT give into the urge to use the invulnerability potion, we need that for later. Once the drakes are dead, finish off the fire lizards and loot the area. Be sure to pick up the haste potion from one of the nests. There's also drake-skinned boots and another mind crystal. Now head east to the room across the lava. Take the rough diamond, the gold ore and the ring. Head north, and take the west passage. There are some more rough diamonds scattered on the floor here. Take everything of value and head outside and back to Golddale. Talk to Ivanova again and get everything identified. Unequip the icy chain mail. Sell the following: icy chain mail all the rough diamonds assassin's band both spellshards gold ore any bolts / scrolls / minor weapons you picked up Make sure you keep the haste potion and the invulnerability potion, and everything you have equipped. gold = 6766 Leave Golddale and north to Gidrik. Find the potion seller and buy 1 heroic brew, 1 haste elixer, and 2 haste potions. Leave Gidrik. Go west and follow the road until you reach Farport. Take a boat from Farport to Port Townsend. Head west out of Port Townsend and curve around south to the Southpoint Lighthouse. On the way you will be attacked by ogres and ursags. The ursags can kill you on torment, so you should just run to the west and exit the battle. Enter the lighthouse and go to the crystal shop. Buy a recall crystal. Exit the lighthouse and go to Shayder. If you run into any roaches just cast bless and wipe them out. Find Bohman ( wandering robed guy ) and buy 2 haste potions and an invulnerability potion from him. *OPTIONAL* Enter The Wild Gaff tavern and talk to Mickie. Buy ale and order the "stronger stuff", then ask about the secret. Talk to Irvine ( the soldier guy at the table ) and get the quest to take a package to Lorelei. Exit the tavern and get the package ( it's in a secret room to the southwest along the fort wall ). Getting this package will make it a lot harder to maneuver outside Lorelei because the guards will attack you, so decide whether or not you care to make another trip to Shayder* Exit Shayder. Go back to Port Townsend and take the boat back to Farport. Exit Farport. Go west along the coast and you should see an island with stones leading to it. Go to the north east of that island and loot the shipwreck. You should get some silver and iron bars. Drop 4 of the iron bars and keep following the coast west. *Note Hsska has a chance to generate herbs in his inventory so make sure you drop them if he does this otherwise you may not have room to receive items you find* Soon you will find an island with a stonehenge-like structure. Search it to get a knife. Keep going west. Once you hit the western coast search the body there for a bronze great sword. -Might wanna save here because the next fight can be hard on torment.- *NOTE* You need 2 inventory slots free in your inventory so if you don't have that drop something ( like an iron bar )* Now there should be a passage in the mountains to the south-east. Follow it and fight some fire lizards, then follow it more to a cave and take the necklace. You will fight a drake and lizards. You should be able to win with just bless and heal. Be sure and go for the drake first. Now head to Krizsan. Take the shortcut though the mountains guarded by unicorns. Have Fellows identify your gear. Unequip the radiant slith spear and equip the serendipity knife. Now head to Jinx and sell the radiant slith spear, the iron and silver bars, the fireorb charm, the greatsword, and maybe the health charm if you want, though I chose to keep it for later. gold = 7003 Head out of Krizsan and into Fort Emergence. Create 3 new characters and give them each the great renown trait ( The great renown trait adds +8 to your reputation BTW ). Head out the south gate into upper avernum and get in your boat which you should have left near Ghikra. Go to the island surrounded by rocks and knock on the door. You should have enough reputation to buy potions here. Buy 2 heroic brews and 3 protection brews. Exit the boat near Ghikra and head back to Fort Emergence. Delete the 3 characters you just made and head out the north gate. Head through the mountain pass and west to Earnest's house. Pay 250 to use the teleporter and teleport to Lorelei. You cannot go into Lorelei yet so exit to the north. Be sure to avoid the guards if you are carrying the package for the thieves guild. Head into Bengaro ( north of Lorelei ). Talk to Alonzo and buy some potions ( wandering robed guy ). Buy 1 invulnerability elixer and 1 haste potion. I also pick up a graymold salve here for another quest. Okay here's the stuff you should have right now: 2 invulnerability potions 6 haste potions 3 heroic brews 1 haste elixer 3 protection brews 1 invulnerability elixer 1 recall crystal serendipity knife ( equipped ) strength bracelet ( equipped ) lucky charm ( equipped ) amber shield ( equipped ) If you do not have these items you screwed up somewhere. If you are missing one of the potions it is very likely you cannot make it through the giant caverns. But I am assuming you followed my directions and you have all the necessary equipment, so here we go... Head out of Bengaro and south along the mountains. Run from any encounters. Eventually you should see a wall with a gate. Pass that and keep heading south. You should see another wall with a gate facing east. This is the one you want to attack. Attack the guards. You should survive the first round. If Hsska dies, reload. Once you survive the first round drink an invulnerability potion and a haste potion. Now just run past the giants and exit the battle. No problem, we are now past the guards. -Might wanna save here because you will need to reload if you don't do this part right ( or you get unlucky ).- Enter the cavern of giants. If you don't know this map very well it could be difficult. Go into combat mode and drink a haste potion ( make sure you heal and bless yourself first ). Now sneak to the northwest over the lava. A few of the giants will shoot at you but not enough to kill you. Just heal with your last action point. Your high luck should save you if you happen to hit 0 hp. -Might wanna save here because you will need to reload if you don't do this part right ( or you get unlucky ).- You should come across a pillar that says BLACK EMBER. There will be some stairs down right next to it. Take the stairs. Your in the middle of some more giants. Go into combat mode and drink a haste potion then on your next turn drink a heroic brew and the invulnerability elixir ( not the potion ). Now head slightly south and take the west tunnel and go over the bridge with the lava. Avoid the giants, even though you could kill some you won't kill them all and your potions will run out. So just run. Make sure you do this in combat mode. When you reach a fork go north. You will see another fork with some wolves to the east. Go west until you come to a fork with a pillar and two ogres. Take the south tunnel. The tunnel will snake around and go east then south. You will pass another pillar and then there will be a room to the west. Go in it. It will spawn nagas and giants. Go past them, what you want is behind the west-most platform. Find the chest and take the key. By this time your potions will wear off. Drink another heroic brew and the invulnerability potion. Hope to god those stupid nagas have not blocked off your exit. They did that to me and I had to kill a few of them to get out. You might want to reload if that happens. I managed to get out fine with the heroic brew still in effect. Retrace your steps back to the stairs. If haste wears off drink another haste potion. Don't drink another heroic brew, you need that later and should be able to get out fine. You can probably drink one protection brew if you want. You can also heal yourself when your down to 1 movement point, this should keep you alive once the invulnerability potion wears off ( which is pretty quick ). Once you are at the stairs take the east tunnel. You should come across two giants and a fork in the road. Go south and go in the building with the two pillars at the door. Once inside, step in front of the control panel. Hit the buttons Owa, Legov, Taful and Mung, in that order. This will open the gate to the east. Head toward the gate. You will have to go out of combat mode to go through the traps. Chug a protection brew and a haste potion. Exit combat and walk through the 2 traps. -Might wanna save here because you will need to reload if you don't do this part right ( or you get unlucky ).- In this next room there is a demon and around 4 black shades. This room can get really crowded if your unlucky. Save the game and reload if it gets too full. Once you are past the traps go back into combat mode and head toward the top left chest. Exit combat, take the map from the chest and re-enter combat mode. Now its a race for the stairs. Chug another protection brew if you have to ( only if you still have 2 left ) and make it back up the stairs. When I got back up the stairs I still had 2 haste potions, 1 haste elixir and 1 protection brew. This is about optimum, since you will need 1 protection / invulnerability brew for the last part. Go back up the stairs, enter combat mode and exit the Cavern of Giants ( should be easy just sneak back south along the east side of the lava ). If you made it this far give yourself a big pat on the back. That was the hardest part. Head north toward Spineridge. You may run into a group of bandits, if you do pay them off. Once you see Spineridge head southeast and follow along the mountains southward. You should see a bridge cross it and keep going south, staying close to the mountains. Avoid the pink bats they are too strong for you on Torment. Eventually you will pass a tower and there will be a tunnel in the mountains. This is the concealed tunnel. It only appears when you have the map we got from the Giant Caverns. Walk past the laser beams and grab the mirror that appears to be facing you ( northwest part of the map ). Push it down and to the west. There is a room with a teleporter. Push the mirror north the unactivated crystal and into the laser beam. The beam should redirect to the damaged crystal, activating the teleporter. Go into the teleporter. You now have 2 mirrors to cut off the beams blocking your path. This part is simple. Just push the south mirror forward until it blocks the first beam. Then push it down one square. Now push the other mirror forward until it blocks the final beam. You should now be able to walk down the passage into the barrier cavern. There is a doomguard in here, so don't go to far toward the center just yet. Instead head south and grab the crystals in the chest. Now sneak close to the center and go into combat mode. Drink a haste potion and your last protection brew and smash the crystal ( avoid the doomguard completely ). This will bring a bunch of troglodytes and giants in the room. Once the crystal is smashed walk near enough to pick up the shards, and then head out to the north where the giants are. -Might wanna save here because you will need to reload if you don't do this part right ( or you get unlucky ).- Take the passage back into the Giant Cavern. Chug your last heroic brew ( if you still have one ). Run north and snake back around to the exit ( check your map ). You've already been here and there shouldn't be any heavy resistance on your way out. Your protection brew will wear off, but bless and haste potions should get you through. As I reached the stairs my last haste potion ran out and I was completely out of potions, but I did make it Even if you get hit you will probably survive because of your high luck. Exit out the Cavern of Giants one last time. Congrats you made it. Now lets go pick up Miranda. Head to Lorelei. You still cannot go in, but I am using this opportunity to make another character so I can move Hsska down one slot. That way when I recruit Miranda she will be in the first slot, giving her the Elite Warrior trait. From Lorelei, head west. Far, far west to Calloc. Recruit Miranda. Yep, she joins you now Head out of Calloc and use your recall crystal. Now your at Fort Avernum. We need Carol, but there is a problem. She requires 50 reputation, and we don't have 50 reputation. We have ( or should have ) 27 reputation right now. So head into Fort Emergence and talk to Anaximander and get the jewel of return. Now make a new character with the great renown trait. Give this character the jewel of return. Now put both Miranda and Hsska into the character holding room in Fort Emergence. If you don't know where it is, it's right below the room you started the game in. Now you should have just one character, the character you just made with the great renown trait. Head through the north gate and through the maintain pass to Ernest's house. Pay 250 to use his teleporter and go to Gale. Talk to Pasi and he should let you go through the trap door. Now you need to make 2 more characters with the great renown trait. This should give you over 50 reputation. Go find Carol and recruit her ( you might want to make sure she joins in slot #4 so she gets the natural mage trait ). Give Carol the jewel of return and delete the three temp characters. Leave Gale and use the jewel of return. Head into Fort Emergence and add Hsska and Miranda to your party. That's 3 NPC's and for me it was only day 7. Not bad aye? Falko will join you once you do the slime quest, and that should be easy with Miranda, Carol and Hsska... Then you have all 4 ( extremely overpowered! ) NPC's at about day 8 or so. Where to go from here: Before I bothered with the slime quest I would get some things: Unlock doors level 3 Dispel barrier level 3 Move mountains level 3 That will enable you to go anywhere in the dungeons ( even the slime dungeon has a door that needs unlock level 3 ) For unlock doors all you have to do is visit the house on the hill between Sharimik and Softport. Just break the barriers with Carols dispel barrier and read the book. BOOM! Unlock doors level 3. For Dispel barrier all you have to do is visit Ivanova in Golddale and take her quest to steal Ernests book. Just have Carol read the book and now she has dispel barrier level 3. BOOM! Now you can break any barrier. For move mountains take Ernests portal to Gale ( make sure Hsska has move mountains level 1 or 2 first, you can get in Shaydar ). Talk to Nantier ( the alchemist ) and take his quest to get the recipe for the heroic brew. Now go to the library ( near city hall ). Get as close as you can to the door and have Carol cast unlock doors level 3. WHAMO! The door opens. On the bookshelves there is move mountains level 3, along with the recipe for the heroic brew ( oh ya, and the location of Pachtars plate ). BAM! Now go do the slime quest and hire Falko. Don't forget to clear out the dungeons totally since you can get everywhere now. After the slime quest you can go in Sharimik, so I'd go get the altar purification special skill, that way you can purify any altars you come across. Now I'll bet you want access to the Footracer province don't you? Well guess what? You can get there once you have unlock doors level 3 and can survive the tunnel to see the Empress. First lets go to Moon. It's all the way up to the north next to the footracer province. If you want you can buy admission to the library in Moon and learn Cloud of Blades level 2. Level 3 is in Blackcrag Fortress. Exit Moon and keep going north past the Draigoth Ruins. Head into the guarded tunnel near the valley of tracks. If you didn't buy permission to pass through in the thieves guild in Lorelei then you have to fight your way through ( which isn't hard with the 4 NPCs ). I find the best way to deal with the doomguard is to kill the original and exit the map then come back at which point the duplicates will be gone. Once you are in Blackcrag Fortress head to the Throne Room. Then go near the Boring Library and have Carol cast unlock doors level 3. The doors should open, go in and read the tome for cloud of blades level 3. Now go to the northwest corner and cast move mountains. The wall should break and you can go in the main entrance to the throne room and talk with Empress Prazac. She'll give you a letter to take back to Anaximander. Do so and then return and talk to Empress Prazac, you should now have access to the Footracer province. Congrats!

The faq / item faqs say if you use it as a missile weapon it returns to the wielder, but I can't seem to equip it.

I tested it and it seems that fists do something like 2-2 damage per level. Problem is even with strength at 102 ( the max ) you only do around 200 which is the cap with weapons ( and FAR easier to reach using weapons ). Now i suppose you could count things like elite warrior + beserk + whatever that temp buff from divine touch, however it still wouldn't be THAT much stronger then hitting the cap with a weapon. I estimate that you could get maybe 280 or so damage if you pushed it. Still not that impressive compared to spells which have no cap and multiple targets.

How much is the base damage from fists? How much increase per strength point? Do they benefit from melee or pole skills? I'd also like to point out the overpoweredness of the hired characters. The first 3 are easy to get early and have many more skill points then characters you can make yourself.

physical damage is capped in A3 so I'm not sure how 100 strength would be any better then a melee char you could make normally. If you really want crazy damage you have to go for high spell damage.

Avernum 4/5/6 wore me out because of all the "grinding", that is: mindless linear monster killing and questing, which was required so you were powerful enough to do even more grinding to proceed through the story. There were no shortcuts / different strategies, you were forced into a box. I can't try Avadon yet because I don't have a mac, so I am asking your opinion about how the grinding / linearity in this game compares to the previous 3 avernum titles.

Yes, this post WAS about Avernum 6. I posted about this AND e-mailed Jeff when Avernum 5 was freshly out. He assured me he would fix it with the next installment.

Right after I got access to the castle I was able to run up the stairs, open the door ( with lockpicking 15 ) and run down the hall in combat mode ( avoiding line of sight with the sentries. I disarmed the traps and opened the door with the demon, ran past the demon and slipped in the treasure room door all in the same turn. I then looted the quest item in the chest and grabbed all the high level loot on the table. So at the very start of the game I now have 6 gold bars, 8 emeralds, blessed greaves and blessed breast plate. All without a fight or angering anyone. By the way, what is the mirror used for?

I first pointed this out in avernum 5 Here is my post: Post on ME not working in Avernum 5 Seems to be the exact same problem as before, I edited my ME to 40 and arcane blow still takes 25 energy each time, on the other hand, divine retribution costs 0 each time. Please fix this, this is a REALLY old bug and I even sent an e-mail about it way back in Avernum 5.

Ah nevermind the gates just opened

Dunno if this is a bug but I helped the people through the portal and now there are imps coming out of it in droves. I can't beat them there are just too many. Nichols is fighting them but hes getting his butt kicked. The gates are still closed however, did I miss a script somewhere that was supposed to let me out?

Ya but... you get to train the flip side of the coin mage skills. Why not priest skills. Thats discrimination.

Looking at the trainers for different skills, I notice there is a trainer for mage skill, but none for priest skill. Or is it just that noone has found one yet?