Learned Noremac

Success! Drath was defeated...and fully defeated, too! No running away. Though I had to use a crystal in order to drink from the basins, they were definitely worth it. I got Drath down to "flee mode" without taking any lasting damage, thanks to that long lasting invincibility. It got a little dicey at the end -- only 2 of my party members survived, and one of them only made it by the skin of his teeth. But as I said before, this is more common that you'd think. Now, with Demonslayer in hand, I'm turning my attention towards the Hakkai Lord, once I've replenished my supplies. I always found Drath to be far more challenging than Adze-Hakkai on previous files...let's see if that bears out. I did buy the 2 levels of Resistance for SOME of my characters, and I'm thinking that now that I can take full advantage of it, I'll buy the rest of the Cave Lore too.

Yeah, essentially the purpose of adrenaline rush is to allow me to eliminate either 1-2 strong foes or a large number of weaker ones before they get a chance to take any actions. Focus firing(focus stabbing?) is pretty important for a party like this, since you need to reduce the overall damage output of enemies very fast. I just went through the Crypt of Drath, but had to retreat once I reached Drath himself. I took out his cronies pretty easily by just luring them into the nearby room with his Spellbooks. But even by himself he just did way too much damage--I might have been able to pull it off, but it would have cost too many Return Life scrolls, and I'm working very hard to save those. So I am going to attempt one of two things -- I will either go ahead and buy 2 levels of Resistance for everyone, or buy another level or two of Cave Lore so I can use the Mandrake patch and make some invincibility potions. Though in theory I should wait on getting Resistance until I can get it cheaper in Gnass, I can afford all but 1 point right now from Ethridge. If I recall correctly, all Drath drops is a super good spellcaster cloak, which I can't really make use of. So, shameful as it may be, it may be more cost effective to let him run once he tries to. But I still can't even get him to that point, so I'm going to need to stock up on supplies before I try to beat him again. By the way, is there any way to get Drath to move to the edge of his platform? If at all possible, I'd like to avoid using a Piercing Crystal in this fight, but I do absolutely need my melee fighters, since he can take out the archer pretty easily if she's the only one hitting him. I'm slightly concerned that I may have to buy out one of the merchants that sell piercing crystals...I inadvertently saved after using a crystal on a non-crucial door in the crypt.

Progress Update: Everyone is now around Level 20. I've beaten the Ogre Mage, Rescue a Spider, Spiral Pit, and two of the island Slith Fort quests, as well as a bunch of random other quests. My next main goal is to start seeking out Demonslayer pieces, and then to follow up with the Hakkai Lord quest, once I've gotten rid of some of the easier quests waiting on my list. I've got easy access to all the herb patches I'll need for the next little while--there's a couple of areas that I don't feel comfortable wandering around in, but otherwise I've got a steady cashflow and a steady influx of herbs for potion making. It turns out Fort Remote, prior to its destruction, yields an unlimited supply of free kebobs if you talk to the cook. Thankfully, I've got the ipad version, so I was able to mindlessly poke at the screen for a half hour or so while watching TV and get 400 kebabs -- 100 for each character. This, combined with a group total First Aid of 9(8 bought, 1 as a quest reward) means that potions are now exclusively used for healing during battle. Stat-wise, everyone is getting nice and durable. My two dual-wielders and my spearlady are either at or just a level away from having Parry and Hardiness maxed out, and my archer has 12 base Gymnastics thanks to a trainer. Everyone is also able to use Adrenaline Rush, which helps immensely with survivability--less targets attacking you. I'm going to try holding off on buying extra Parry and Hardiness levels until I can do as many Freehold quests as possible, since the trainer there lowers his prices for each one. (Though I forget if he does Parry.) Two guys in the group took Negotiator as a Trait, so I'm hoping to eventually give EVERY character 2 points of Resistance, Arcane Lore(for mental resistance), Hardiness, and Gymnastics. I may be able to improve even more stats, depending upon how many scrolls and potions and stuff I end up needing for some of the bigger quests. I've managed to get by with only using (I think) two Return Life scrolls, so far. Interesting little bug I've noticed: If a foe is Immobile or Ensnared for only one turn, they have effectively resisted the staus effect. Meaning, if I use Flawless Shot on someone and inflict a turn of Ensnarement on them, they won't ACTUALLY be Ensnared--they recover from it immediately at the start of their next move and are free to walk wherever they want. Which is a bit of a shame.

The Ward of Thoughts pool is indeed in the Honeycomb, but I managed to beat the Hivequeen or whatever its called without it anyway. It may be useful to have for some later fights, but I'm thinking my best bet is to just buy 2 points of Arcane Lore for everyone when I meet Erika. More detailed update to come. But the short of it is I've managed to defeat some rather difficult bosses.

Thanks for setting me straight on Bargha guys...it would have been a bit of a pain to sneak around the giants on the way to the city only to be curbstomped a few inches from the gate. The investment will pay off more later in the game, I'm thinking, especially when I attempt dungeons like the Spiral Pit. The minimal amount I've bought did help with the Ancient Crypt quest (where you get sealed inside). Worth noting, if anyone attempts this, that you need a Tool Use of 5 to get into Bargha's portal. Not fun to make that trip a second time. Though dungeon endurance isn't my main problem currently. I'm at that crucial point in the game where there are precious few level appropriate encounters, so I'm dying a lot, treading lightly, doing dungeons in little pieces just to gain experience. Rather important question: Is there any place in the game where I can get a Ward of Thoughts? All I've been able to find so far is a spring for Cloak of Curses and Cloak of the Arcane, and none of my items can give me one. And I am getting a weeeeeeeeee bit annoyed at being perma-dazed when fighting Aranea.

Progress so far: Decided on doing it on Hard Mode. Everybody is currently between levels 9-10, and I've just got myself a Crown Token for the nephilim necklace quest. It has been tough going, but so far this is far more doable than I expected. I've bought 3 levels of Cave Lore from Vemeers, which has allowed me to make use of the healing herbs patch near the Bandit Lair, and more recently the one in by Silvar, now that I scored some Almarian Wine from the nephil fort. They don't spawn nearly quickly enough for my tastes, but I essentially get a free healing potion from each of them when they're ready. I can also buy potions, and since my money isn't tied up in spells, I can buy a LOT of them. Formello has a SEEMINGLY endless supply--the store claims to have 10 potions but restocks when sold out, and if I recall correctly will do so for quite some time until he "really" runs out--and by being fairly miserly with my supplies (I try to save the potions for battles that are difficult) and grabbing and hoarding every food item I come across, I've been managing. Some interesting things: -Poison is annoying. Sweet JESUS poison is annoying. Particularly since most of the nephils seem to come equipped with an area of effect poisoning attack...it's a bad scene for any party in the early game, but when it consumes a non-renewable resource, and they do it every turn, and seem to constantly get criticals...let's say I'll be glad when I'm high enough level that poison doesn't matter. -I will be extremely happy when my fighters stop missing their crucial killing hits. It's not happening often, but man, I had forgotten how annoying missing was in the early game. -Death, most of the time, is merely inconvenient. It means I have to return to a town, but it RARELY means that I've lost the fight. And I think I know why: most normal parties are created with synergy in mind. Each character is part of a whole strategy, and thus certain characters, when taken out, cause the strategy to fall apart. Think about what happens when they take your priest or your tank out--unless you can revive right away, the rest of the party will follow. Here though, no party member serves any crucial function, so a death merely means a small reduction in overall damage output and one less target to spread attacks out for. Thus, I've won a few major fights fairly comfortably even when they focus fire and take a guy out on the first turn. My plans now are to try and make my way down to the Tower of Magi solely for the purpose of activating the portal. Then, I will use a boat to make an early trip to Bargha, so that I can buy some First Aid skills from the trainer--if I haven't misread the map, I can go west of Fort Dranlon and then north and find myself in the Giant Caverns. I don't expect to survive any outdoor combat engagements, but I think I SHOULD be able to avoid them for long enough to get into the city. Then, I'll just teleport home and resume doing quests in the Northern parts of Avernum. I can always come back for the boat later. I've held off on a few quests until I can do this, as it will mean I can more easily "commit" to a dungeon.

You definitely want to start with the first one, both for plot reasons and because you'll learn the game more easily that way. Geneforge 1 knows that an RPG where you essentially create your party out of your MP stat is an unusual idea and works hard to ease you into it. The other games do have friendly tutorials, but demand that you figure out this whole creation business pretty fast. #1 is actually less plot heavy than the rest of the series--the later series have more of an obvious attempt to craft a narrative with recurring villains, climactic boss battles, and so on--but if you don't start at the beginning, you won't fully enjoy the narrative in the later games. Also, G1's endings are a bit more fun. In the later games Jeff seemed to be more conscious of creating a series, so most of the endings are at least vaguely compatible with a sequel, but G1 has a number of really crazy endings that are quite a bit of fun. Plus,

Ah, you know, I was just thinking that I might not HAVE to fight all those physical resistant guys. The Hawthorne quest has the Gazer on the way, but using the secret door allows you to completely avoid that fight. So that works. The Haakai Lord is still pretty vulnerable to Demonslayer, so that shouldn't be any more of a pain than any other fight. As for Grah-Hoth...well...to be perfectly honest on my most recently completed file I should aimed all my attacks at him, then fled the castle after he was dead without taking out all of his pets. The teleport spell was involved, and only one character at 65-70% health managed to make it out, but still. It's at least concievable. That only leaves the boss fight of Final Gauntlet, and I'm sure I can find some way around those. Ok, I think I'll actually try this. I'll just start a Torment file alongside it in case I get fed up. The only question now is difficulty. There's no way I'm attempting this on Torment, so it is really just a question of Hard or Normal. I'm thinking 2 dual-wielders for swords, 1 spearman, 1 archer. With a heavy emphasis on tanking for all of them.

Hmm. I may just attempt a regular Torment file. The only thing really holding me back are the Steelward enemies. While healing out of battle may be tedious, my feeling is that it would only be tedious for some of the game--once I get everyone 2 points of First Aid from the trainer, I should be able to fight a number of battles without needing to run outside for healing. But Steelward foes don't seem worth the trouble. Even if I get the Flaming Sword and Lightning-damage bow as early as possible, they will still be highly resistant to my attacks, and thus it will be a boring grindfest of chip damage that could take hours. I could use wands, but with the exception of the very powerful ones, I don't see that significantly increasing my damage output against these kinds of guys. Maybe if the game had more magical melee weapons/bows this would be more doable, but I think if I do this at all, I'll save it for much later.

I meant to say without Priest Spells, too. Yeah, I am worried that it would require too much tedium--I may do it on a lower difficulty just for the sake of my sanity. I will probably also buy First Aid skills at the trainer--perhaps not the most cost-effective investment, but it could save on some time. I may just abandon this idea and do a regular Torment file next. But it might be worth trying. By the way, does anyone else remember the "free food" place I mentioned? It might have been Fort Remote.

If you are looking for a more positive assessment of summons, I have some experience to share. I am using a Mage/Knight crossclass character, with emphasis on debuffs and summons. So I can't speak for the Shades or for a more specialized caster, but I have some thoughts to share. In terms of damage output, summons never become particularly useful. They will never do as much damage as another party character, and rarely do enough damage to be worth noticing. Their main use is actually defensive. You have to remember that you are facing opponents controlled by a computer, and these opponents do not know that your summoned creature isn't a threat. Thus, they are just as likely to waste attacks on your summoned creatures as they are to attack you. And while investing in summoning doesn't do much to improve their damage output, it DOES improve their survivability. Think of this in terms of attrition. Summoning a monster costs you a single action. Let's say you've invested in summoning, so your creature has a decent amount of health. If it takes 8 attacks for your opponent(s) to finish it off, then it has done its job. Your team is now 7 actions ahead of the competition. If you're casting Group Heal endlessly, you'll do even better. I remember this most vividly from the Grah-Hoth battle, where you are overwhelmed with summoned creatures. At one point, my summon was surrounded by about 7-8 monsters, slowly chipping away at his health. As long as those creatures continued to engage my summoned creature, they were essentially wasting all of their actions--they were essentially all "dazed" for the number of turns it took them to defeat the summoned creature. So basically, the more you invest in summoning, the beefier your meatshields become. This doesn't work as well in every situation, of course. Area of effect spells sort of throw this out the window, though in my experience monsters don't seem interesting in hitting multiple characters, so spacing can help here. Also, they are much better when fighting large groups of enemies than when fighting a single, powerful foe. But unless Shades are more offensively oriented--and they may be--that is the primary advantage of summons.

I'm nearing the end of my Hard-Mode file on Avernum, and as the title suggests, an idea for an unusual challenge party occurred to me. Specifically, would it be possible to complete the game without ever casting any spells? I may not get to this for a while, and those of you much better at the game can feel free to attempt this, but I have thought a little bit about some of the issues. Healing: In the absence of spells, items would be the only source of in-battle healing. This would mean I would have to very carefully manage my money as well as my supplies, and thus would require me to run out of dungeons a number of times. Thankfully, walking around outdoors heals you, so I would not have to run all the way back to town--I'd just need to step out for some fresh air, as it were. One issue I'm worried about is limited stock. Am I right in understanding that stores never replenish their supplies? More specifically--are there a limited number of Return Life scrolls in the game? I know I can, with enough Cave Lore, "farm" for all the potions I'll need, but can you make Return Life scrolls? Mental effects also worry me. As far as I know there aren't any items that cure Stun, Terror, or Charm, and outside of spending skill points for the sole purpose of increasing mental resistance, I don't see a way around this. Additionally, I forget the location, but there is a town in which you can ask a woman to give you some food, and she'll give you a free kebob. She shows no signs of stopping when I tried it again and again. So, I could have each character carry a massive amount of kebobs that they could heal themselves with between fights. Barriers: As I've already heard, there are enough piercing crystals that you don't need Dispel Barrier Level 3, although you do miss out on some cool stuff. So I should be okay on this front. Wards/Cloaks: These can be supplied by scrolls, but also received for free at certain towns(Castle's altar, Fort Emerald's emerald). As well, since I don't ever need to rest in town, I can keep the cloak until I need a quest reward and/or to sell something. Dealing Different Damage Types: This is the main thing keeping me from starting this. I am particularly concerned about how I'd get around an "Ironward" foe, which are not common but show up now and then. A big question I'd want to know going in is if there is any way to improve a character's proficiency with Wands. Whenever I've used them, they essentially seem to do very little damage and have a very low accuracy rate. Is there any stat that improves either the damage or hit chance of a wand? Please let me know on this one. Otherwise, my only real option is to get a Flame Sword to fight these guys, and there may be a bow that inflicts magical damage. That might allow me to whittle them down in a reasonable amount of time. Party Makeup: I am thinking that there likely aren't enough decent swords to go around for everyone to dual wield, so one character at least will have to use a spear. I would also be interested to hear people's thoughts on archers--my feeling is that I should have at least one ranged damage dealer, although I know the damage output of pure archers is fairly low. What do you all think?

Basically, I just found "Smite", and its presence means I can now give two characters in my party 10 action points, allowing 2 attacks. I ideally would have liked both of the characters to be spellcasters, since they wouldn't be bothered by any of the strength penalties, but since one of the items is a rather bulky breastplate, I can't easily do so. So, I am considering throwing it onto my pure melee character. If I do, he loses 12% armor and 2 Strength points. My assumption is that the strength penalty will be heavily outweighed by the second attack...is this right? I do also have a Mage-Knight character in the party, who might also take this, but the Strength penalty would affect him too. Also, his current breastplate provides a small bonus to magical damage(it's not the primary use of his spells but it does help his versatility when I need it) whereas the team's tank doesn't get anything worth writing home about from his breastplate.

If a bow gives a bonus to your hit chance, is it for your overall chance to hit or just when firing the bow?

Archers, if you have them, are probably pretty good for this because mages won't, most of the time, have much resistance to them. Otherwise, inch your fighters towards the mages as you move through--take a slowed step, attack, repeat next round. If you have Icy Rain, your mages can fire it while in another room as long as one of your characters can see the spot, and if your "central" square has no character, friendly or otherwise, in it. Also, your healers don't need to see who they're healing--just click portraits. Fighters can probably manage the damage a bit better. Otherwise, try to survive until you can get Mass Healing. Or...if you're not afraid to take "Learned Noremac's Foolproof Strategy for the Cowardly and Dishonourable Adventurer"(Copyright pending), you can make a few early boss game fights easier by recognizing this: Bosses and their cronies do heal if you run away, but the dead ones don't respawn. Thus, go into a difficult fight not with the goal of WINNING, but with the goal of REDUCING the number of guys in the room, even if only by one. Conserve your items, target the cronies only, and keep at least one guy near the back row. Once at least 2 of your guys have died, leave one guy in the fight to give your last guy enough time to get away. Then, run back to town so everyone can sleep off their decapitations, then do it again. Eventually, you'll be left with just the boss itself, which will be far more manageable.

If you pay...Leith? I think is his name? He says pretty much the same thing. Make your prey more of a challenge. But of course its sort of a joke item since most people will just use it and wonder how that Vapor Rat just boosted its stats so much.

Funnily enough, I did the opposite. My first file had a Healer/Archer instead of your mage archer, which worked quite well, and now on my second run I'm going Magical Knight instead of Paladin. And just to gush, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS about this game. I mean basically any RPG class you've ever wanted to use is in this game. It's fantastic.

I figured that, but of course a number of those curses are not especially useful when they only last 1 turn. But I may just invest more magic points, not sure when I'm due for another trait.

Even the damage is decent. You lose out on damage overall, but having versatility shouldn't be ENTIRELY underrated. Sword Mage is basically the "Ninja" class with melee and missile weapons with magic instead of missiles. Though I expect Healer-Knights probably are better overall, it's just fun to see a knight slinging fireballs and shooting lightning.

Hmm. I may have to invest in that. I've been trying a Sword Mage and I'm increasingly learning that he is significantly more effective when I focus on summoning and debuffs, and just look at damage as a secondary thing...

You're absolutely positive that Blessing Focus improves the effect of curses as well? Spells like "Slow" or "Howl of Terror"?

So, as some of you may be aware, the Wand of Carrunos, an item you pick up a few of in the game, is something of a joke item--it poisons the target(which is almost always resisted), but also loads it up with oodles of positive stat boosts, and makes the fight harder for no real reason. BUT! I actually made practical use out of it in a fight. Whenever one of your guys becomes charmed, you are allowed to attack him. So, you can cast the Curse of Carrunos on the guy while charmed, then caste Unshackle Mind, and huzzah! Awesome stat boosts. So, give all your Carrunos wands to your priests.

I figured the second was a glitch. I mean sometimes that mage would be in another room doing damage with that spell.

First off I should note that I am using the iPad version. Not sure if that makes a difference. On occasion, when you use the portal to travel to Formello, you teleport outside the "walls" of the area that you can normally walk around. I've been able to explore the blank ground where I shouldn't be walking, as a result. It's a harmless glitch, as there are a number of trap doors in this "forbidden" area that will take you to the middle of the street on the ground level of Formello. Additionally, and I am not sure if this one qualifies as a glitch, but I notice something unusual with the "Icy Rain" spell. When choosing the area to cast the spell in, if one selects a space not occupied by an enemy as the "centre" of the spell's area, there is no range restriction of any kind, as long as someone in the party can see the targeted space. However, if the space selected IS occupied, the caster will attempt to move in order to get a clear line of site to that spot, in the same way you would well casting firebolt or firing a bow. I feel that some part of this system is not working as intended.

Well in my defense, all of his items may have been silly but they weren't all useless. I found the Rod of Attraction to actually be tremendously helpful and the Blinking Pants have saved one of my casters on occasion.