Alorael at Large

If you have any metal bars, check them. Unidentified ones just may be uranium, which diseases your entire party. Gauntlets may be Pyrrhic Gauntlets, which also cause disease. Those are the two big mysterious sources of contagion in A1 and A2. —Alorael, who doesn't think the gauntlets are cursed and who knows the uranium isn't. Drop them and everything is fine except for very angry Avernites.

Escaping to the surface is one of the three endings. Assassinating the emperor isn't exactly escape, especially when you have to flee back into the caves. —Alorael, who will add that the Final Gauntlet is also a very annoying dungeon and no game is complete without one (or many).

It's in the Tower of Zkal. Go to Gale and buy a boat trip from the nephil there, then head southwest on the island full of undead. You'll find the tower if you've already paid the nameless mage for information about it. If you haven't, you can find him in several towns. Krizsan is one. Search all the small houses and see if you find him. If you don't, you can either look in the smaller towns to the west or wait outside for a change in the day. The mage will be there eventually. —Alorael, who does not like the Tower of Zkal at all. It is painful and really not worth the reward.

I don't think the Justice Lance is in E3 at all, editor or game. It's in A3, and I'm pretty sure it's in the game as well as the editor. —Alorael, who doesn't remember finding it in A3. He's basing his guess mainly on discussions and the people who claimed to have the Justice Lance.

Agreed. The Anama gives a short-term bonus to your priest spells but losing out on the magery hurts in the long run. I also tend to give my casters both mage and priest ability, so joining the Anama actually weakens them. —Alorael, who will add that joining the Anama makes sense for a singleton. It's hard to make a mage-priest-fighter, and if you have to sacrifice one of those, mage is the easiest to give up. That makes the Anama a good choice.

Rache's A3 walkthrough obviates the need for an A3 hintbook. There are online walkthroughs for all three games, but only A2's don't seem to have any maps. —Alorael, who buys hintbooks anyway. They're often easier to find quick information in than online walkthroughs and they support Spiderweb. No, he is not averse to seeking help when stuck.

Mind Crystals permanently give a character an ability or skill boost. Spellshards are items that can be used once per day to cast a spell, but they don't teach a character the spell. The Fungoid Spine is a moderately good weapon that adds acid damage, I believe. It's also cursed, but that's easy enough to fix. I don't remember where I got it, but I do rememeber that I had better weapons when I did. It's not a major quest to find it. —Alorael, who dropped by Rache's walkthrough to find that the Fungoid Spine is obtained by killing the Experimental Fungus in the back of Erika's Tower. Walkthroughs are your friends.

Egli is on the big lake in the middle of the Vahnatai Lands, and you can reach it via a ferry southeast of Avit, but there's no one there who can remove Dread Curse. You need to go to the Tower of Magi for that. The Tower isn't accessible in the demo, so you're out of luck. You can leave your loot anywhere in any town. It won't disappeaer and nothing will take it. However, you could also just find someone who will buy it. I'm almost positive there's someone who will in Mancuso, and there are probably other buyers in Olgai and Egli. —Alorael, who recommends exploring all of the vahnatai Lands that you can (safely) reach and visiting the towns. There are nice shops, nice quests, and interesting things.

Magical Efficiency does it in BoA, but the skill doesn't exist in A3 and I don't think anything reduces spell costs. —Alorael, who didn't need cheaper spells in A3. BoA's spells took a big cost hike and efficiency became necessary.

Magery adds to your Willpower and Magic Resistance (under Useful Skills) and each point counts towards your bonus for both mage and priest spells cast. Intelligence does the same and some other things besides, but it doesn't add to Magic Resistance. —Alorael, who would say that the real purpose of Magery is to make additional bonus feasible when your intelligence and appropriate casting skill are both very high.

There is a hidden dungeon of sorts in A2 and a better but more bland one in A3. Yes, the GIFTS are the Giant, Intelligent, Friendly, Talking Spiders. They're neat! For the test of patience, I shall point you to Schrodinger's FAQ. Quote: Walk along the path, ignore the wheel, then make it to the lever. Pull it, and pilot it out to the water area, and take the upper path. I'll let you figure this out, but it's not too hard. Then just keep pushing the block up the stairs. The block won't fall off the cliff either. Move back onto the rune, and uh oh! Just push it south through the secret door. Jump down after it, and move it back onto the rune. That's it. —Alorael, who is always happy to copy someone else's work, especially for the test that he has never managed to solve.

You can get a higher selling price for your items by raising your skill in Barter. You can't raise the skill by training until you buy a level of it for the character, and you can buy levels from Tor in his farm east of Fort Draco. It's more useful to buy five levels for everyone from Tor than to spend skill points on it. —Alorael, who can't remember the exact equation for Barter and selling prices. The full 20 points from five purchased ranks to all four characters isn't useful because the max price is capped. Somewhere around 17 ranks might be the optimum.

Hey, I thought this was about the AT too. While playing Exile I used healing much more frequently, I didn't bank, and I didn't add potions. With spells like Avatar, Major Blessing, and Protection, energy is more important than potions. —Alorael, who will also ruefully admit to supplementing his skribbane stock with the editor. There's no such thing as enough skribbane.

Yes, because you can use the abilities button everywhere. The window that has the delete, rename, and new graphic options can be reached by clicking the button that looks like a hand or by pressing U. —Alorael, who doesn't think Kel meant the same place in terms of town/outdoors. He meant the same window.

Actually, I think you get trapped after going a certain distance in, not by breaking an explosive vase. There's a way out if you continue all the way through. Look for portals and such. —Alorael, who also recalls having to use combat mode to split his party and turn otherwise unreachable wheels. That's probably bug abuse, but it worked for something.

I use the editor as a bank to avoid the irritating gold cap and occasionally use it to heal and restore energy. I don't add items. —Alorael, who supposes this is not exactly true. He has, on occasion, cheated to add potions when he needs them, but he tries to then dump an equal number of potions from his stockpile.

The Tower of Zkal is indeed the worst, and it bothered me even more than the ToSF. I never did manage to get through the tower in E3. —Alorael, who will admit that he would likely have skipped the ToSF too if it weren't central to the plot (such as it is). The conveyor belt bugs were irritating to no end. The lasers in the Avernum golem spire aren't nearly as bad.

On the other hand, that could just as easily have been a new topic. "Should I get [insert game(s) here]" topics are common enough. My answer is a resounding yes. If you're playing Spiderweb games, you're not playing for eyecandy. Nethergate has the same graphics as Avernum for the most part. The atmosphere of the game is the strongest I've seen in any Spiderweb game, and the plot is quite good. My only complaint is that it's shorter than any other Spiderweb game, and even playing both the Celt and Roman sides of it doesn't quite make it seem as large as Exile/Avernum. —Alorael, who as always recommends that you download the demo and try it. You get a very good sense of what Nethergate is like. It has the same heavy plot beginning of Avernum 2, but unlike A2 the game doesn't suddenly feel very different after the demo area.

Whirling dervishes are mystics (and sometimes performers), not soldiers. —Alorael, who doesn't see any direct influence from any religions on Avernum beyond their influences on generic fantasy. Examples, please?

Behold the last topic on the first page of ET posts! —Alorael, who can't help with E1.

A vizier is a government official, albeit usually one in a Muslim government. The term may have appeared once in Avernum. Dervish is definitely Muslim, but not the way it's used in Avernum (elite heavy infantry or officer corps?). In any case, both words have become fairly mainstream in fantasy and the second tends to get misused. I don't see any great Muslim influence. —Alorael, who would like to know how dervishes became warriors at all. It makes less sense than the unarmed warrior monks, who are at least somewhat based on the more martial Eastern orders.

Unlike E1 and E2, E3 doesn't let you run around at all after winning. That means that you can't revisit Blackcrag or anywhere else, so the rumor is very obviously false. —Alorael, who will add that the ending includes a scene from Blackcrag. That's a little bit like wandering around except without the wandering.

If you wander around among the poppies without getting put to sleep you can find a moderately helpful item. —Alorael, who likes the gremlins a lot more in E3 than in A3. Riddles are easy when you get to pick from a list of answers.

Quote: Originally written by Flaming_valkrye: sum guy told me to ask about the gf3 trainer here... How do i use it iv done everything needed but it just stays the same!please help me before i go crazy with curiosity! Since GF3 hasn't been released yet, you probably mean GF2 or Avernum 3. Or are you a cheating beta tester...? —Alorael, who otherwise has nothing to add. Yes, this post probably could have been more useful.

So should... You know, I can't write that with a straight face. —Alorael, who deems this topic barely shy of needing to be relocated to General. The proportion of on-topic E1 posts to General material is rapidly decreasing.