Urthdigger

Well, while I personally think 3 is the best (though, have not played 5 or 6 yet), I'd recommend starting with 1. I believe it's a little simpler than the other games (3 will drive you nuts with the time mechanic if you're OCD and having the town get damaged bothers you). Also, if you plan on going through all of them anyway, going through them in order can help make sense of things. The games do a good job of making sure experience in the previous games is not required, they explain the important details and such, but there are details casually mentioned in later games that you may understand better having actually experienced those events.

Maybe they're one of those lizards that change their sex due to age or environmental circumstances.

As far as I know, Phil as only responsible for the line art in the skills/training menu, which is what I was talking about. With the change to the geneforge style system, these were completely removed. As far as the more realistic art the series has had lately, that's good for the sprites and backgrounds and splat screens and such... just saying I loved those little images while I was working on my skills.

Well, seems I may have some hope for my wish. Met up with Kaja Foglio at Sakuracon and expressed my desire for Phil's art to return, getting into a brief discussion about the series (She's actually the one who brought up the rewrite after I mentioned liking the art they did for the series). Apparently they're good friends of Jeff Vogel, fancy that.

I'd like them to have line art by Phil Foglio like the older Avernum games again.

I've recently started going through Avernum 4, and I'm having some issues. First off, the controls. I hate how clicking is used both for movement AND for targetting mobs. I keep finding myself trying to click on a mob for a ranged attack, only to waste a bunch of AP and put myself in danger by running up behind the mob. Any advice on dealing with this issue? It sucks having to carefully move my cursor until I've hit just that right pixel where I'm targetting the mob... and hope I don't bump the mouse at all when I click. Another issue is: Are there any respawning monsters in this game? In the other avernum games, I'm used to having a "safety net" in that, if I ever truly get in trouble I can go kill some wandering monsters on the overworld to grab some xp and gold, and it doesn't look like I can do this in avernum 4. Even though I don't normally need to use that safety net in the other games, it's affecting how I play: I'm not as willing to sell items I come across (especially since I can't buy them back), I never use any potions, wands, or scrolls, and I'm basically a huge miser. Any advice on getting over this or dealing with it?

Huh, Hardblade's case is kind of touching in a way. I do find it odd though, how it seems you get a lot more comments and such about nephils in your party than you do with a slith. That always confused me, since while they did have issues with nephil bandits and such, most of the surface people haven't even seen a slith before, so you'd think that'd get more of a reaction out of people.

Yeah, I've seen Learned Piner remarking on the changes it has brought to my Shaper. Guess I'll go back and grab every canister I can with him now

Really? I could have sworn I heard that the number of them used (and thus your corruption) affects the ending.

Ok, so I've already had it spoiled for me by my brother (who is a huge fan of the series) that the canisters corrupt you and drive you insane. My question is, would it be possible to go through the entire game without using a single canister? I currently have a Guardian playthrough who I am attempting this with, relying solely on the strength of my weapons to carry me through. Is there any stopping point I might hit where I am simply screwed and can't just use rods or pods to get by?

I voted for Avernum 3, though I really think Blades of Avernum (Well.. my experience with Blades of Exile anyhow) was the best. I just think Blades of Avernum is kinda... unbalanced in a way? You have many different adventures just packaged with the game itself, and then you can make plenty more and play adventures friends made... and you get to keep you party. I mean, how awesome is that? But going with the main, canonical two series, I really liked 3. The cave dwellers finally breaking out into the sunlight and having to work to save their new home seemed like a fitting end to the original trilogy. It had a beautiful landscape, many different foes, there was that whole "try to find out who the source is" deal (even if the clues for the demo plagues are mere red herrings and the true one is made about as bluntly obvious as possible by the time you need the answer).

I know I'm probably not the only one who is amused playing as a nephilim and watching all the racist remarks tossed my way. From people having to quickly amend comments with "Present company excluded" (Or more commonly me being able to retort "Uh, you know I'm standing right here..."), to snide comments behind my back and rude rumors about what I do to farm animals, playing as a nephilim is always amusing to me. What are some of your favorite examples of racism in the series?

Aww... that is unfortunate. I liked having characters with different background than what you're given at the start (Members of unspecified services, members of avernum's army, yada yada...)

Huh, I was not aware that those quests were actually able to be finished to where they won't take anymore. Is it possible to finish in the same way with the research books in portal fortress, papyrus and pen&paper in spineridge, or the fine meal in that colony? Aside from the fine meal, they also give xp, and the papyrus does stack.

I like doing playthroughs where I use the 4 recruitable NPCs over the initial characters, partly for the power they have, and also because of the background that comes with them (especially in Avernum 3, where most of my party wound up being surface people just fighting back against the plagues). Now, I know where they are in Avernum 2 and 3. However, in Avernum 1, I only know of Andrew, Sabrina, and Jay. In addition, I've yet to play Avernum 4, 5, or 6, but it looks like you can't get NPCs to replace your party in the second trilogy, is this true?