Alorael at Large

Yep, A2 has the odd smiley cavern. A3 has Generic Land, reachable courtesy of one rune and one pair of pants. —Alorael, who is almost certain that special pants don't work. Don't lose your work clothes en route!

There is also a good use for pants at the very end of the game. No, you're not in trouble if you have no pants (beyond the obvious problem, I mean...), but they're good to have. —Alorael, who will say no more until asked.

In either game, the spells Simulacrum and Capture Soul are separate from the soul crystal but cannot be used without it. Once you have both spells and crystal, you can Capture Soul on any creature except those that split when hit (viscous goo or doomguards). This is considered an attack, so you shouldn't be casting Capture Soul on anything friendly. A successful Capture Soul will place a copy of the targeted monster in one of the four slots in your soul crystal. You can't choose the slot, so it may overwrite something you already have. Once you have something in your soul crystal, summoning a copy of it to fight for you is as simple as casting Simulacrum. You can summon as many copies from your soul crystal as you want without losing the slot. —Alorael, who hopes this is enough about the spell and the soul crystal. Getting the crystal is a different matter and specific to the game, as Kelandon said.

You can leave stuff anywhere and it will still be there when you come back. This means that you can clean all the loot out of a given area in several trips, which can be handy. The exception is that too much stuff on the ground will cause some things to disappear simply because A3 can't "remember" an endless number of items. The limit is quite high, and I've heard more worthless items vanish first, so don't worry about it. —Alorael, who certainly never lost stuff while crazily stockpiling anything and everything in Fort Emergence.

Oh, right. I missed that critical word "demo." Obviously not everything is available in the demo. That's why it's not the full version. To get Dispel Barrier and several other spells, you need to register A3. In general, it's the high level spells you won't find. —Alorael, who feels somewhat blind for having missed that.

You can get every spell. You can't get every spell at level 1 in A3 (level 1 is basically just a leftover from A1 and A2), but you can always get level 2, and that's good enough to let you learn level 3. Sometimes it's easier to find level 3 than lower levels, but that doesn't do you much good. Rest assured that all spells can be obtained, although I'm not sure that all of them can be found in a dungeon, town, or cave. Sometimes you have to hand over your cash to one of the mages who can teach you. —Alorael, who will add his vote of confidence to Kelandon's advice. If you can't find a spell anywhere, there's a good chance that you're supposed to complete a quest to get it. Find people who want something from you. They're everywhere.

There are a few boats. You can buy one in New Cotra to explore Upper Avernum, and there are some more in various places on the surface, I believe. You never get a boat outside on the surface, though. All of them are for use in the place you find them only. —Alorael, who doesn't think a rowboat would do too well out in the middle of the ocean anyway. So no, no Aizo for you.

Cloud of Blades is always good if you've got a priest. You don't get experience if the wall kills them, but your enemies are left dead. Rakshasi are the only ones that are impossible to take down with spells. The others have resistance to everything, and the drakes are immune to fire, but if you keep throwing spells at them they'll keel over eventually. —Alorael, who finds himself very much missing Wound from the Exiles against resistant foes like these.

How could you forget Khoth? He's one of the more memorable dragons. —Alorael, who agrees that Pyrog wasn't as much of a challenge as other dragons. His giant hordes don't add much, either.

I haven't even tried to play with singletons, but here are my utterly untested thoughts. A Roman singleton warrior with minimal druidic abilities can simply crush, kill, and destroy, as you found. A lone Celt doesn't have the melee power to do that, but since Celts don't really have any armor anyway, a half decent warrior with druid spells is feasible. Basically, one could kill weak or almost dead enemies with a sword or spear and plenty of Battle Rage and use spells to kill things and to stay healthy and buffed. It would be a skill balancing act for a long time and it would require large stocks of potions, but once the character learns Hero of Old it should become a walk in the park. —Alorael, who figures he need not mention the (bug-abusing) method for starting off with Hero of Old. If you do that you really shouldn't have much trouble past the very early parts of the game.

You're also better off using the lump of metal from Athron to get another Mithril Blade. The Beastslayer you get from the dragons is worth using against the Alien Beasts if you're weak, but the Mithril Sword more than makes up for the damage with extra AP, and you can use that against anyone. —Alorael, who has now confused himself. In E3 you can get more than one sword, but in A3 he's not sure you can. It's enormously irritating to have to wait around for it once, too. Twice may not be necessary if you only have one sword-wielding fighter.

It made combat interesting, especially with enemies' tendency to use Slow as much as possible and then some. I meant that E1 and E2 got new graphics, not E3. It has always had the same graphics, and its graphics invaded the other two. —Alorael, who is also pretty sure that Exile went through an intermediate graphics set between the crude originals and pretty E3 graphics. They were something like the E2 graphics. Does that ring bells for anyone?

I don't know what waiting you've experienced, Arenax. I've gotten new registration codes by email in less than two days and new ones by phone immediately. Using a phone should also take care of any problems you have from switching to a new email. —Alorael, who had a lovely time with an old Performa that ate hard disks. He went through three of them in two months, and each time required new passwords. Spiderweb was very helpful about it. No matter what you think of Jeff's BoE/BoA policies, Spiderweb's customer service is top notch.

When you enter any town area, like Vakkiri, you automatically regain all your health an essence not tied up in creations. Be sure to clear areas so you can always get back to to a town. —Alorael, who finds it slightly irritating to have to leave a town and return if he uses any essence while in it. It was probably made that way to make combat in towns an actual challenge, but it gets annoying.

The idea was to make dropping a one click process. Click the drop button, and the widget is placed in the space its erstwhile bearer occupies. I guess Jeff didn't see much call for specific item placement. —Alorael, who agrees that Nethergate has nicer dropping option. In BoA, that could be even more of an issue. Now it's not possible to place the ritual items on the altar. Leaving them on the mat before the altar just isn't the same.

Thank you all for this failure of civility. This topic deserves to die the death. While I do not wish death on anyone, several people at least deserve to be sniped in the foot for posting unhelpfully as well. —Alorael, who doesn't know of any sites with maps of any of the vahnatai tests. The help Kelandon gave should be enough to get through.

Be sure to destroy the golem generators and bring more energy potions than you think you'll need. You'll need them. —Alorael, who also recommends using excessive caution when rounding corners. Running into hordes of golems who are inaccessibly located past laser barriers can be hazardous to your party's health.

The original version of Exile 3 isn't significantly different from the current version. It's only E2 and E3 that got graphics facelifts and some other changes. Doesn't E1 have APs now instead of the old one man, one action system? —Alorael, who confesses that he doesn't play the older Exiles very much. Yes, he is one of those Avernum lovers your parents and certain board members tell you to avoid.

And Sulfras switches too, doesn't he/she? Motrax and Khoth remain comfortably male, at least. The former is too old to try these newfangled geners and the latter is too preoccupied with deep thoughts to bother. —Alorael, who is pretty sure X was male when he was on the boards. That's as good a basis for judgement as any.

End the slime or roach plagues to get into (I think) Sharimik, Lorelei, and Gale. Gale is the city that requires the crawling through a hole. —Alorael, who isn't sure if Ernest's portals can also get you into Sharimik or not. It seems likely, but he's never tried it.

Please refrain from posting spam. If you don't have anything to add, please don't add anything at all. No, "lol" is not something. —Alorael, who brings you this warning on behalf of people who do not lol when reading lol. In fact, they are likely to simmer silently instead, and nobody wants that.

I say AN-win, for Annwn although I've heard from a friend who knows a thing or two (but no more than two) about Gaelic that it should be Anoon. It's also commonly written with an F and/or a Y in there either instead of or along with the W. Make of it what you will. [Edit: The word is Welsh, though. Now I must even further question the authority of my friend on the subject.] Aethdoc is AITH-dock to me, or sometimes ATH-dock when I'm in an Old English mood. According to Irish Gaelic, "ae" should be a long A sound, I think. [Edit: I have no idea what language Jeff was channeling on that one, though. I'm fairly certain not everything comes from Welsh. Shadowvale is a mishmash of cultures, which makes some sense if the magical folks from all over the world are arriving.] I pronounce Goagh-Nar as GO-ag NAR on absolutely no authority. —Alorael, who is positive that there is a right way, or maybe several right ways, of pronouncing Annwn. The rest may have come straight from the mind of Jeff Vogel, so you can pronounce them however you want and declare yourself to be the one true authority.

If you have the activated amulet and Erika is still not showing up, you haven't focused all the lasers. There are ten of them, and if you redirect them in the wrong order you may find that the beams block your path. Turn off the offending laser, go past it, and then focus it again. —Alorael, who does not like looking for missed lasers very much. It can be done, though, and it sounds like your problem.

Cloud of Blades causes this problem as well, but Cloud of Blades is a far more useful spell. —Alorael, who usually hopes to kill enemies with the first appearance of the cloud. Otherwise, just use it sparingly enough that you don't cripple your party.

Near Vanarium, also outside of the area you can reach in the unregistered version. —Alorael, who was disappointed not to be assaulted by large hordes of Haakai there. A large stone circle just got his hopes up.