Bushwhacker2k

I found out about that guy, and a bunch of others too. Notably, the merchants in Gale are the best for it (anyone who can buy from you maintains an unlimited stock) since there are so many and some have fantastic prices. Once you get decent potion-making, sell some herbs to someone and just continuously make potions that sell for more than the price of the herbs and voila, infinite money. Factor in the ability to make Knowledge Brews and you've won the game. The funny thing is, with an herb merchant like the guy in Lost Isle(or w/e the name), you don't even need an infinite stock merchant since he restocks everything once you buy his entire stock.

Hmm, interesting. I'd like to play Exile someday, not sure how I'll manage it with newer computers though.

It seems like I keep having bad frame rate spikes. When I tell my party to move somewhere, frame rate drop. When I hold tab to see titles then try to move the screen, frame rate drop. Sometimes just during combat, frame rate drop. It's definitely not a game-breaking issue, since this is turn-based, but does anyone know any fix or possible solution to this?

Haha, it's not cheating to use the game's mechanics to do well in the game. The spell is weird since it actively gets less useful as it's leveled. I'm not sure I ever really noticed or made use of this particular exploit. Gaddika gave me a lot of trouble at first, I actually gave up and returned later to beat his tanky mage arse. Guardians can be really annoying because they're actually quite powerful and invisible, so they can end up next to your casters and then it's reloading time. Black Shades are definitely annoying because normally mages would be dealt with with extreme ranged prejudice, but they can't be targeted! Now, Doomguards are one of the most dangerous enemies in the game... I actually had less trouble in A2 than in A3 (I may have been playing on Hard instead of Torment), but Divine Warrior really makes the difference. Keeping your casters somewhere where they can't be targeted is really important, I've found. Nice. I found the Demonslayer part to be difficult too, had to stock a few potions, but once I actually ended up using a Heroic Brew it was all over. They just died.

Whew. The beginning of A3 was quite enjoyable- I didn't realize there was some kind of time limit imposed on towns until day 13. But I actually rolled with the time limits, after the day 10 attack on Krizsan I didn't let a single time get damaged. I think it was around the time I hit the golems that I got to the point that I was too powerful. The golem factory was actually pretty difficult, but more because it was totally aimless and filled with annoyances than because enemies were actually challenging. The alien beasts were total jokes. I didn't have any trouble destroying them in every encounter. Once I got into the Tinraya area I never looked back, I knew I would only get a small reward for checking back up on things, but it'd take a long time running around. The ending portion was weird for me. I felt like I was being told killing the Crystal Souls was wrong, despite the fact that they willingly caused the deaths of thousands of people (they basically decided to kill the entire empire, despite the fact that only some people were responsible for stealing the Crystal Souls- not to mention it was a group of Vahnatai that actually gave them away, but they seemed to want to sweep that under the carpet), imprisoned me spontaneously and then tried to kill me upon seeing me escape. I did kind of conclude that Vahnatai seem to believe vengeance is pretty much A-OK regardless of ANY circumstances. Which is pretty ridiculous, because what if the random unrelated people you harmed in your insane mass attack on everything in Valorim decide to get vengeance on you? So everyone is always getting vengeance on everyone else until groups are just totally obliterated... In the end of A2, I felt really powerful, I destroyed Garzahd with overwhelming abilities. In A3 it felt like it was being rubbed in my face how powerless I was: Rentar-Ihrno can constantly teleport me at will and seems to have a totally indesctructible shield, and the random Empire mage could locate and teleport my party and other people on a whim. My party pretty much gave themselves up for dead the second they blew the fort up. : / I enjoyed this game a lot, but definitely more in the earlier aspects. I liked the multitude of ways to earn money and the variety of stuff to do. I liked how you could find Tier 3 spells before nearing the end of the game. I liked the revamped stat/skill system which made it more clear what a lot of things did. Onto another game!

Yeah, I like puzzles- but I want to be doing the puzzle, not juggling combat, specifics of the puzzle and not getting hit with lasers at the same time. Too much stuff xO!

Yeah, respawns (that you can't do anything about) of creatures with undodgeable ranged attacks that always do some damage in areas filled with lasers that flicker on and off that also always do some damage. It just burns my party out. Doesn't help that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing pretty much the entire time I was in there- and it turned out that all the little things I worked out going through the factory are much easier to handle after you take care of the main stuff. I love this series (games made by this company, pretty much), but I consider it a design flaw that it's most efficient to maneuver during combat- but ending combat to save can shoot your party into lasers for no good reason... and no way will I play without saving frequently, too much can go wrong.

I looked up a few walk-throughs (actually it was the same walk-through, but different sites kept taking the info from something else), and it gave some information that I could have figured out. "Everything in this factory is BAD and HATES you, OFF is good." But some of the options don't seem to have any obvious meaning. One had choices of Pod1, Pod2, Pod3 and Pod5- and I couldn't figure out at all what it could be referring to. Furnace options are Pull and Hold... One had options of "High, Up, Down and 0-0". I did not come across anything explaining these (not for lack of trying). But I guess it's not a big deal, I cleared the factory (sooo much easier to get around when you deactivate everything). Just a curiosity that caught my attention and was wondering if there was maybe something explaining this stuff that I missed.

First, dear god- the Golem Factory........ I'm reminded of some areas in Geneforge where you take constant damage and as a result pretty much have to have combat mode on all the time, because things take place too fast outside of combat mode... But onto my question: There are a lot of options on the Control Panel- some of these are so nebulous and vague I don't even know if it's possible to figure out what they do. Is there any way to understand what you're doing with each option?

These gloves give: +1 to Assassination +2 Damage to Humanoids Does Assassination only factor into physical attacks(non-spells) or does it only factor into melee attacks? Does the bonus damage to Humanoids only factor into physical attacks?

I notice, looking at the logs of combat, that when someone attacks, regardless of whether or not it's a hit it shows the chance to hit. But, some attacks, like the giants' thrown rocks, don't show the hit chance and when they're avoided it claims a character has 'dodged' the attack, rather than the attack just missing. Is this just tricky wording and it functions as a normal ranged attack- or does it actually function differently? I wouldn't ask, but those giants are so accurate with their rocks and generally inaccurate with melee attacks.

Ahh, I haven't been using those at all, despite saving up some. : / I wish I could break my habit of almost never using items, but when they're less powerful or as powerful as what I could put out normally I just have no drive to use consumables... Wish designers would take this into account more often.

I didn't end up using this much in A2 (just spammed it at the last battle with Garzahd), but in A3 I stumbled upon the tier 3 variants of both spells earlier than I expected. Before I got the tier 3 variant, I captured and conjured an Efreet and it lasted all of one turn before disappearing. Now that I have the tier 3 variant, it lasts 3-4 turns. I'm actually pretty sure other creatures conjured by Simulacrum last longer. Can anyone verify this? This spell is ending up pretty fun to play with, but if stronger creatures will dissipate faster then it ends up being less useful.

I'll keep my eyes open. I've used a few other Spellshards- Bolt of Fire, Repel Spirit, Healing, Move Mountains, Lightning Spray, Ice Lances... The damaging ones did pitiful amounts of damage and could target a seriously low amount of enemies, healing didn't heal much (admittedly by far the best spellshard I've used though) and Move Mountains failed to move the things I was already moving just by casting the spell. It's a shame they don't scale to your level or actually function at a decent level. Have to assume they weren't tested much, or they were underpowered to prevent people from just abusing them.

Quite possibly, though I had a lot of trouble with the A3 Doomguards Playing on Torment and possibly slightly underleveled though. Also, no Divine Warrior in A3.

Okay, so in A3 they actually specifically get weaker with every split? I don't think it happened that way in A2. Thanks for the information, I can use this next time

Okay, I'd noticed it a few times before, but at the time I hadn't been killed by a Doomguard 3 times. What's with the accuracy varying so seemingly at random? Sometimes it has 5% accuracy, sometimes it has 67%... This is against the same character, with no modifications, with the tier 3 War Blessing active every time.

Are spellshards ever useful? Do they make them more powerful in later games? The idea of a gem that can cast a spell a theoretically infinite amount of times sounds great in theory- but when I have a very limited inventory and the spell that comes from the spellshard is a very weak version of the spell- it makes them not all that useful.

I was under the impression Find Herbs worked individually for each character that had it (just that it was beneficial for each character to have it), but it's good to know that I can stop having one character pump Nature Lore. It's weird that it's stated really clearly that Arcane Lore helps with each character, but not with Nature Lore.

Arcane Lore seems to contribute to something that is summed up within the entire party. Does Cave/Nature Lore function in the same way, or does it just pick the character with the best skill in it(as Tool Use does)?

Playing Avernum 3, it shows my Slith as having 110% fire resistance, but he definitely still takes damage. What's the cap?

Cool, thanks.

At least it's easy to remember.

Also, does encumbrance exist in A1-A2, but as an invisible stat- or is the attack chance just lowered with nothing you can do but make up for it with greater chance to hit?

Okay, that would explain why I have yet to see it. Hardiness does a lot more than I first suspected. Referring to Rainbow's or Jerakeen's comment?