Llyrellenya

Nah, don't bother. I'm not playing SW games anymore, not if Jeff can't be remotely consistent between them.

I've generally beaten the prior Avernum games on Torment difficulty without too much trouble, especially if I plan out my party beforehand and have some idea of what I'm doing. Avernum 4 on Torment was practically a cakewalk with a 3-person party of DT/EW Nephil, DT/PS Slith, and DT/NM Nephil. Nothing was very hard after the first 1/4 of so of the game, and even then it wasn't too bad. Blades of Avernum was really the only game that gave me trouble, because I didn't like the timed scenario (I'm a completionist, and you can't really be a proper completionist when your time is limited). The first two scenarios were no problem (except for the vampire fight in Valley of Dying Things, which I'm pretty sure is not even possible on Torment—I killed the vampire once out of dozens of tries, and then promptly died to his summoned minions). That said, Avernum 5 is approximately a thousand times harder than Avernum 4. I read up on Slarty's party guide, and I'm relatively certain I optimized things pretty well. My party members are, in order: DT/EW Nephil tank, DT/EW Nephil archer, DT/PS Nephil priest, and DT/NM Nephil mage. From the beginning until getting a boat at the Harston Docks, I have had significant problems actually being able to survive, as well as to kill enemies. I've had to leave things for later and try to remember where they are when I come back, something that I did not have to do in any prior Avernum game. Enemies seem to have about three times as much health and do twice as much damage as on Torment in Avernum 4; cave slimes were one-shotting my tank when I first found them. This is not normal behavior, in my experience. So, what's going on? Am I doing something wrong? Is it widely known that A5 is significantly harder than previous Avernum games? Am I expected to come back later to finish up side quests? Because if so, I'm going to have to just call it quits on this game right now, which is very frustrating. I can't play enough to remember where everything is when I've progressed significantly past in the main storyline, since by that point I may not have been back there for several weeks. As of this point, I've completely nearly everything around New Harston, including Dirty Desiree, Rat Lord, and Hirickis, but to even get past the Darksider ambush leading up to the Docks, I had to skip past Hasen, which meant I didn't get the shielding dagger. But trying to go up into the waterways now, anything I attempt seems even harder than what I've already done.