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ThomasCats

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Articulate Vlish

Articulate Vlish (4/17)

  1. Turns out that Goblin Shaman's weakness was being hit with a spear.
  2. That's in five minutes, right? Yes, I'm still on the same date.
  3. The pre-determined character classes are mainly irrelevant, you're all rebels or, the Empire made you rebels even if you didn't plan to be. You get four character slots, so a classic set up might work like a high armour/HP warrior type (there are traits you can pick up that make enemies more likely to attack one character over others, which rather helps with this), a physical damage dealer who doesn't spec as much into defence, could be melee or archer (archer characters can do very high ranged single target damage in one round later on, which is hand for picking off enemy casters), a priest type for healing and blessing (and later area damage) and a mage for general area damage and debuffs. The only real restriction is mages can't cast in too much armour, but that doesn't apply to priests, so if you felt like it you could have all your characters with minor healing abilities. Normal difficulty isn't too hard generally (except for one tricky end game bit, but you can use potions for that). Summoned monsters don't do anything about experience as far as I know, though they're mostly hit point fodder in Avernum 1. Avernum 2 after a while lets you have some control over what you summon and you can get some handy buffs from summons, but they don't tend to do much damage compared to the PCs.
  4. Thanks, I'm through the first three Avernums, going to have to write an e-mail now, which for some reason fills me with terror.
  5. While you're there there's a spellbook in the bottom right you need a button to get to.
  6. Note from Sabe: It's been a gruelling 65 days, but we seem to have dealt with most of the main problems on Valorim. Do not anticipate anything terrible will happen if we leave the alien beast behind their wall for a bit while we go have a proper look round. P.S. We should probably put some guards around the Vahnatai portal in the Tower of the Magi. Might write a proper report later.
  7. Report from Sabaren: After a period below (we must return later to sort out a chitrach infestation) we set out anew to our original mission, exploring the environs of Fort Emergence's upper bound. There are more religions on the surface than I would have thought; though we are used to those in Exile, as it were, the Empire has been less restrictive in Valorim than in its core. We have found (in a town named Silvar no less!) a church dedicated to money above all, and further North a faith opposing all arcane magics (Garzahd would not have approved). More regarding them later. Though messaging is difficult I gather at least one person in the castle was pleased with the last report, so I will continue. After destroying the Slime lair we explored the westernmost tip of Krizsan Province, and found it mostly unremarkable, save for the vast amount of settlements compared with Avernum. Indeed, it is hard to tell the people of one town from another sometimes. We also found and killed a rather strong giant, then luckily found there was a bounty on his head before we let it slip in casual conversation. Rumour has it there's a drake in the area. I'd like a shot at it, but I am not sure the kids are up to one of those quite yet. After a bit of messing around with some unicorns (they exist) and some gremlins (they still exist, even upstairs...) we found a rather nice inn, and a mage who wanted some strange metal lumps. He knew exactly where to find them, so obviously someone else did and there was a little bit of a fight, which we won. I was concerned it might be that strange metal that makes you ill, but luckily it wasn't (they've heard of it up here, there was a book, or a sage told me, it's hard to keep track). Anyhow, Valorim does not seem to have the rest of the Empire's rigid adherence to who can learn magic. Obviously I was not very interested, but our mage is picking up almost as much up here as she was below. A week or two has passed, and we ran into a strange race known as troglodytes (I believe it means cave dwellers in some old tongue), they look like ogres, which was rather disappointing, I had heard a rumour or two and imagined their khazis (powerful mage priest figures) would have some kind of black robe and hat, but that's just me. Before we went too deep into their lands though we encountered a port, named Farport (can't complain when we have Fort Emerald named after a giant emerald), a type of giant cockroach and a magic hating religion called the Anama all at once. Hitching a ride over the rough seas to the Bigail Island we set forth to learn more of them all. I'll have to send this quickly now, we found someone who can inscribe scrolls, and the papyrus supply is currently being contested. Remind me to tell you about this bow I heard about. - Sabaren
  8. Report from 'Sabe' Sabaren: Upstairs is interesting, most of them seem to have an idea who we are, or at least, where we're from, but they don't seem bothered. We're at the far edge of the Empire. It might have been worth coming down here to start with. Our progress North so far has been limited, but there are odd reports there's only one heavily defended pass out of this continent. Narrow passes work both ways. Erika might well have ben able to hold it with appropriate support, and we wouldn't have been in the firing line for the initial Vahnatai attack. That's all supposition though. The kids ran around for a day near the fort without going up top, as per the advice of Anaximander. Some goblins and brigands working in a loose confederation. I wonder if one day we will see the goblins as we now see the Nephilim, or the Slithzerikai. They are not so far from us and clearly do not perceive all humans as enemies (though they only work with our vilest). Maybe they were sent here as some from of Goblin Avernum, as the Sliths, or those of the Abyss and one day we will find their true culture. On the second day of our mission we ventured into the light. Apart from that all too short a time after running the gauntlet, and the windows of Hawthorne's Spire I have not seen it since I was sent below. It is far more than ever I recall, and that advice about the night-time was well given. My studies of the surface's nature are nowhere as advanced as my knowledge of the caves came to be, but it does not take a great scholar to tell that the trails of destruction caused by the curious slime creatures were not indigenous to this place. With a little pointing from me about the best places to pick up information and rewards, and the impetuousness of the young we raided a brigand tower (said impetuousness sending us through a trapdoor first, but who in all honesty can claim to have avoided all of those?), discovered how these slimes were produced, and followed a lead to a cavern to the east of the largest local town. I will not bore you with the details of what we found, but the Erika mark was clearly a set up (as the great mage later stated herself). A lot of crystals around the place though, and some unseemly business in New Formello that followed gives me qualms. It has hard to reign in these youths, they have set about exploration with a voracious appetite, and I must admit there are strange things on the surface I have never encountered before. I have kept my true identity a secret, and though I miss my old bow I am sure we will run into something suitable in time. To my first three friends: you truly became a mystery, there are statues being built at Fort Emergence, but no one does more than guess at your fate, and to my latter three, they are sure we are all still working below, although after we killed Garzahd they were a little starstruck, it's no wonder they assume we can't be apart. One last think, Gypsy is on the surface! I'm sure we can all be happy to hear that, a cavewood guitar always played best in a minor key. - Sabaren
  9. Hello, we're a wandering party of adventurers who just broke a portal, found some crystals and hit a nasty wizard in his weird red face until he turned into dust. Together with three other adventurers who killed a nasty emperor, found a hole in the ceiling and stabbed a demon who killed their friends in Fort Remote we're considering our successors wellbeing and wondered if things would be much the same for them. We made more notes than the first party, and realised, amongst other things, that we should improve our own skills as much as possible before paying someone else for any additional pointers, and only then should we let any weird magic caves, exotic reptiles, suspicious looking pools and the like bless us with their knowledge. We'd like to know, while we run around hiding all the most precious artefacts we've discovered (Sabaren if you do that mysterious "my name's Sabe and I'm definitely not one of the original heroes thing again please don't give them too many clues) if any of these weird little idiosyncrasies in the way of the world are likely to change before the next major expedition sets off. Thanks for any assistance proffered, we've just got to decide whether to hide Smite or use it as a curtain rail, and give someone in the Castle a note about Rentar-Ihrno's cryptic vengeance remark. I'm sure we won't forget to do that.
  10. Everything above seems accurate, but I'm doing Avernum II right now, so it's all fresh in my mind. A good thing to check is whether your other (not trained in that magery) characters have level 1 in the spell. If they do you've got the hard to get level, and just need to buy the easy levels.
  11. I'm still two and a half away from that! Still on plot I can dimly remember, though I had forgotten about the portals in Exile II, so having the Tower of the Magi take a step back in portal dynamics is a bit weird. I will be pressing every button I can find for a good while longer, whether they do anything or not.
  12. Ooh, I'll try that, would be handy if it works. Some walls have much better camouflage for those buttons than others, still easier than trying to walk into all random walls like in Exile.
  13. I visited Starcap, found out about needing something from Patrick's tower to read his book, but now I'm back the door to his house seems to have vanished. Is there any way to get it back? Oops, there was a button on the wall I'd forgotten about, and the wall was the same colour so it wasn't so obvious when I wasn't in full exploration mindset.
  14. Hello, on to Avernum 2: Grumpy Wizards now and I'm noticing that my inbuilt quest priority is getting worse. In Avernum 1 I mostly obsessed over dispel barrier 3, but now I'm running all over the world for dispel barrier 3 (got them all at pretty much the same time due to magi clearance coming with the Italian liqueur assassination), move mountains 3 (do not have!) and Orb of Thralni (have although I dodged the gazer floor tiles since they were a bit above my ability to kill, so I have to go back there at some time). After that my priority is fully exploring ever town and dungeon I run into, and only then, and then the outdoors. People in towns must think we're mad. Either we turn up for the first time, get a load of quests and immediately tell them we did that ages ago, or they give us quests that we completely ignore for (in game) months because we're not going that way. Worse for the Empire though, with four people who seem to them to make rather random beelines for some of their more heavily defended installations, nick all their stuff and go straight back off, leaving their frontline outposts completely cut off and only aware that at some point they're due for a thorough exploration. On the other hand the Tower of the Magi will probably be quite happy when they realise that the adventurers only stole their ink and paper to make room for stashing dozens of magical items in their desks. (Holdover from having just done the Avadons: anywhere that has a portal network is home.)
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