Erebus the Black

it definitely works with 2 you just need some wall to hide your guy behind so the monsters won't see him and try to target him (distance works as well, but not as effective). Only problem is that the fighter is to easily intimidated and most of the time just runs away when terror is cast, and most of the time he runs towards the priest revealing his location. tip: charm lasts no more than 4 turns, so if you can hide your priest from your fighter as well, a good tactic is: charge into charmer, activate mighty blow and hit, get charmed heal and haste with hidden guy, wait till charm wares off, activate mighty blow and hit, rince and repeat. So he is more correctly described as a decoy rather than a shield because he doesn't prevent anyone from reaching the priest but tries very hard to keep their attention on him. For example: 5 ogres fighting the fighter, wiard/priest hiding somewhere where he can heal but not be seen. *mage casts heal on fighter* ogre: "Hey, EHHHH, what was that noise?" fighter: *hits ogre* "Hey, eyes up front" ogre: *breaks melee running somewhere* fighter: *chases ogre* "YO STUPID, OVER HERE" *hits ogre if can reach* "I said eyes up FRONT" and so it goes every single time, even with the thrasher, where I made him come out of his lair then placed the wizard inside and blocked the way in with the fighter

so Eliavri's bow is better for basic archery dabblers as it gives bonuses while the heartstriker doesn't?

Originally Posted By: Khoth Originally Posted By: dgoodrich I don't know about you but no matter what I do I can't get the unlock door spell to unlock much of anything. Tool Use boosts the power of the Unlock spell, so it's best to give it to your mage, and then they can open doors. I'm pretty sure they canceled this for 5 (it was true for 4). The unlock only removes magic bindings from doors, the lock still needs to be picked manually most of the time. to improve the spell itself add to spell craft, magery or wizardry and if still doesn't work steal a tinker's crystal from the anama. if still not working change the tinkers bauble or the thief's gloves to 90 and no door will ever stand in your way again (unless magically bound beyond your skill in which case your sc***d). (see script editing section)

Originally Posted By: Untamed Banana Slug Meat shields are dead weight. don't get me wrong he was an excellent warrior ~300 every second hit at end game but he just couldn't stop anybody for long. I just had to keep shouting (figuratively speaking) 'hey, eyes up front' at the computer after every mage attack and use the warrior to hit the creep that just left melee to chase the wizard. (and tweak the cryo spear to include icy touch) Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves I suggest that you let the mage/priest spend the first couple of rounds buffing--make sure that (s)he is hasted. Of course you buff, what else would you do with a priest mage? the attacks were never very strong unless the creep had extreme weakness to an elemental attack (or distruption). Eventually at tough fights I hid the mage (after buffing before hand) behind a wall very far away from combat (less than 30 paces obviously but a lot more than 10) and just used him for healing the warrior and hasting him when the haste ended, if the other buffs expired then it was 'tough' for him. (when I reached dorikas he had 1 or 3 in priest and could buff himself) Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves In the long term, it helps if your spellcasters act last in the round and your fighters act first. Thus the usual sequence is: Fighter, enemy (attacks fighter, hopefully), spellcaster. Rinse and repeat. Basically, don't invest in Quick Action or much Dex for your casters. I guess using a nephil as a wizard and a slith with fast feet wasn't such a good idea as the gymnastics gave the nephil the extra move before the enemy but not before the slith. Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves Two fighters and two summons can do a pretty good job of diverting attention from your spellcasters. I still can't completely get why the summons are nerfed relatively to their roaming counter parts, so I used them only when direly outnumbered as they take a two turns that otherwise can be used for healing the warrior or sceaming a devious plan to get out of the current mess. Also, from the range the wizard normally was the summons didn't usually enter melee but just stood there and gawked at him, as if saying 'you wanted something?'. I realy miss the fireball from exile - cheap, very effective (except against fire retardant creatures of course) and can get rid of minions very quickly.

still, two fighters can't stop 8 creeps that just realizes that guy in the corner is a mage because he just threw an ice rain on them and he just happened to take the last move

Originally Posted By: SacredPath_82 for example not that I see the need to "explain" things like this (or how being "divinely touched" makes you an ever better archer, fighter and mage) see hercules

Could someone please explain to me how you use them. I played a group of 2: meat+warrior, mage+priest. Whenever my mage attacked he automatically got swamped by every monster on the screen (engaged or otherwise) unless I hid him in a tunnel behind the meat which was not feasible most of the time. I'm assuming that in a larger group hiding the mage behind the meats would be easier, but after playing the entire game it is obvious to me that you just can't pull that off, because if there is a route, no matter how remote, between the mage and the creep, the moment my mage attacks the creep heads towards that route and flank my mage. Which eventually led to me using him as a haste heal bless only as any attack would have immediately led to his death (and AoE's are even worse). So what is the point of a Meatshield if he is not the preferred target and can't even be used as a distraction?

However, how would you explain it? getting beat up makes a tough hide tougher, not less tough? growing in level makes a humanoid with good constitution have better constitution due to extreme exposure to poisons and toxins (and not to forget the most important ingredient: getting beat up)? I'm not mocking you, it just would be interesting to hear how you could reason this out.

Quote: Well, you can satisfy your need of collecting things with em. I have over 260 rocks in my priest packbag. 260?, my slith warrior decided on a hobby mid game and now is the proud owner of over 700 rocks (not to mention the crystals and metals). I just decided to see if the game had renewing items like in exile and also wanted to see how many rocks were actually embedded into the game (it doesn't, that's obvious enough, but I wanted to see if after a restore and a return to a forsaken place it will happen. Of course by the time I got back to the forsaken place(s) I've already forgot whether I already cleaned it of rocks or not so I don't really have an answer) so I started picking up every rock I could find. I've stopped playing the game due to tests so I don't have my exact current tally. although I did beat dori so I don't know if I really have the will to continue. *meh*, maybe I'll retry it if I'll ever feel like joining the dark side. Oh did you know that in exile you could actually throw them at people?

Click to reveal.. Dorikas wasn't guarded by demons, a few golems and magic orbs were the only magical creatures there (the goo and lizard not withstanding and mages, priests and druids not considered creatures). There was the regicide, but he wasn't mandatory (or did I miss something?)

let me remind you that in A/E3 the vahnatai built a city in upper avernum as an embassy, so a city is already there. Now all we need is recruits: Looking for Vahnatai with a thirst for glory, adventure and who wish to serve their race by monitoring closly the ongoing adventures of the so called avernite races by joining them as the Vhanatai representative to observe their conduct and prevent the destruction of further vhanatai ancient crystal relics. All who wish to apply may sign up at the recruitment office at Ghikra in the upper caves.

I was hoping to be able to start as a vahnatai group this time around

thanks

would you consider 11 bows 8 Dex and 3 sharp(upgradable with the far-sight band and dead-eye chain to about 8) to be low? because both bows do about the same damage at these levels (around 20 damage for high level creeps)

could you please elaborate.

Why is it that I see a lot on this forum people praising the heartstriker bow as the best bow? In my experience Eliavri's bow(glowing blue) generally does more damage.

OK, here's something you definitely want to know on your first play: Things your party drops will remain everywhere. Things in chests and on the floor before you got there will remain there (but if you want to be sure take it out of the chest and drop it on the floor). Things that enemies drop (except maybe rare/special) will disappear. If you plan to come back for the loot (because you currently don't have space for it), drop something, pick up the loot, walk around a bit and then drop the loot and retrieve the something (unless you don't want to).

nandamonai

don't think so, never tried it though

you can always add a blockspell/mute spell to shut wizards up or a general distruption/banishment spell to get rid of summons

not to forget that any improvement to dispell barrier is invaluable

You all make a basic assumption mistake about armor. The mistake is that armor bonus is not as explained in the manual. Meaning wearing a breastplate with .34 and leggings with .10 your total armor reduction is 0.34+0.34*0.10=0.34+0.034=0.374 != 0.44 (and this is without getting into the chance to block first I saw somewhere else (not talking about parry)) if you also had a belt with 5% hten your total armor is: 0.374+0.374*0.05=??? etc, etc... the only thing I'm not sure of is how the order of the armor is calculated or if it even matters (having taken 3 courses in statistics I have a feeling it does)

see if you can kill the slith shade and then get his key which opens a door with a staircase up marked as egress

What you are over looking is that mortality rates are not an issue (see ginghes(sp?) khan or the 100 year war (or is it the Rose war?)), and that wands are really nerfed in comparison to a gun, a fiery wand does 20 damage on average and cannot be reloaded, a bow does about the same with 5 to bow skill, a gun would do 50 damage and would be a lot harder to parry. Never actually found a time to use the null wand or the inferno wand because I believe my wizard would do a lot more damage using his own spells, and I never run out of magic without having a way out or a few magic potions. (all magic is nerfed in comparison to the magic in exile (don't you miss quick-fire even jk roling used it and turned it into wyrd-fire(sp?)), it's as if the gods decided all of a sudden that magic is too powerful and should be reduced in order to increase the general populus life expectancy). I really don't know why I keep any of the wands (except for the allacrity), I guess I'm just a hoarder. The real question is does gunpowder work in valorim/avernum or is it like in the Amber chronicles that it is innert and just fizzles and so fire arms cannot be developed at all. To whomever wrote about them: Ballistas actually exist in avernum (see highground) and eventually tribuchet's will be developed and so weapons such as cannons can actually be more effective when fired from within a fort where the enemy's mage can't reach them. Note that wizards here cannot make things explode at will from afar, they need to be able to see what they are aiming at, so in combination with some kind of invisibility spell or behind proper cover (see vietnam) firearms can be just as effective as spells and more fatal with less work. (compare a gatling laser to an arcane blow) p.s. there's always ressurection spells (especially now that we don't need a resurection balm) rant rant rant, happy hunting p.s. Oh, by the way, wands do miss(wand of distruption against runed skeleton in soultaker's pit used by a warrior, I brought them just so he would have something to do instead of just being a meat sield there and all he did was point and miss) and WHOA do they back-fire just look at the scroll maker in Shanker's tower (and thats just a scroll). Here's a disadvantage of magic vs. gunpowder: Shades! Every source of magic automatically causes a large congregation of strong dead mages or extra dimensional beings to appear around it and bath in its glow (the magic's) only plus is they give extra XP for adventurers passing by any source as that.

It's been a while since I played A4 so I might have turned things upside-down, but In A4 a spell book read after it's spell was maxed by the trainer gave you an extra point you couldn't get anywhere else (for example: let's say there are 2 books with heal, and you go and read them before learning it from a trainer, then the maximum spell level you can reach is 3, however if you go and train both levels first, and then go read the books you reach a spell level of 4 (could be the other way around, but this is the more logical scenario)) is this still the case in A5?