Jeremiah

Good review. I agree with much of what you said. 1) Party Size. It's a trade off. 3 makes battles move more quickly, but it limits tactical possibilities. I like the "backstab" and zones of control that Avadon adds. Those things would only get better with more PCs to set up a backstab and to block off softer PCs. I suspect that Avadon's combat style -- where a dungeon often plays like one long continuous encounter -- makes the advantages of Party-of-3 more important. If encounters were fewer, further between, and larger, more PCs (I like 5) would add tactical complexity. 2) Enchanting Items I agree entirely! 3) Lockpicking I suspect the Multiple-Picks method is an abstraction meant to provide an "economy" to give players a sense of reward for investing points in utility skills. It gives value to an otherwise menial task by limiting it. It is a bit odd, but it cuts out the save-reload cycle that I inevitably fell into with older games, knowing that eventually my 35% chance would pan out. I'd actually like to see a utility skill for each class that has use outside battle. It gives the game more dimensions than just combat, but with a light touch. (Combat is, after all, the heart of the game.) Each would again use a limited resource. Maybe a Smithing skill for Blademasters (uses steel ingots to provide a small bonus to weapons and armor). Maybe a very simple Alchemy skill (turn healing herbs into healing potions). I say "very simple" because I honestly despise the complicated cookbook minigame that is "Alchemy" in most RPGs. I have no desire to look up and remember complex recipes and go foraging or shopping for various herbs and fruits. Just have Healing Herbs as a limited resource like Lockpicks, and turn them into Healing Potions on an easy ratio that decreases as the level goes up (4:1, 3:1, 2:1, 1:1). 4) Status Effects/Special Abilities I agree. More transparency about how buffs and debuffs work is key to making them feel "worth it." I know other RPGs do this with two different damage reports: "25, +4!" Some way to check statuses, with meaningful feedback on their effects, would be great. (e.g., "Cursed, -15% to hit") Mental damage for failed Daze or Charm is a fantastic idea.

It's not level, it's progress in the main plot. You'll get the Blue Ore side quest some time before you can go there. Keep taking quests from your boss-lady in Avadon, and eventually she'll give you one to fight ogres in Jereth Deeps. Also, there's a sticky at the top of this thread that has lots of helpful tips (this one included).

So I love the tactical element of protecting my healer and glass cannon (Natalie) with my Blademaster main PC. I can usually do this with careful placement, but every now and again I find myself wanting to use Challenge to draw enemies toward me and away from them. It's hard to tell, but it doesn't seem very effective at that. It's only Level 1, but Challenged enemies far more often than not all still attack the hero closest to them. Has anyone tested Challenge at higher levels? Does it ever become effective enough to actually draw away an enemy who's pounding Natalie in melee? (I've been asking a lot of questions here and do want to contribute, too, so if I get a "no," I'll see if I can runs a few tests and report back.)

In-game text and the forums here talk about big bonuses to skills if you improve them to Level 7 and Level 8. Do those big bonuses continue as you stack items and specializations (the +1's you get at levels 5, 15, 25), or are skills effectively capped at 8? In other words, if I take Natalie's Firebolt skill to level 8, and I've specialized in the left ("attack") column 3 times, and I get the robe that grants a +2 to Firebolt, is her effective Firebolt skill 13? Does she receive the "+4 levels of damage" bonus 7 times (once each for levels 7-13)? That seems too massive a bonus (+28 levels of damage?!), but to do otherwise means that players aren't warned that they're wasting skill points. Or maybe bonuses from specialization and items provide only +1 level, and only buying skill level 7 and 8 provides +4 levels, so the Natalie above calculates damage with a skill level of 19 (13 levels, +3 for level 7 bonus, +3 for level 8 bonus). I just want to be sure I'm not wasting precious skill points. Thanks!

Hi, all. I didn't see this on the strategy thread and I couldn't turn it up with a search. Can someone explain (or point me to an explanation) of how the numbers in combat work? What determines the attacker's percentage to hit? Presumably, Strength and Melee Training (and maybe Character Level?) make a hit more likely, and the target's Dexterity (and maybe Character Level) make it less likely there will be a hit. I suspect these are all combined into one random event, otherwise I'd expect to see tough monsters hit far less than they do. In other words, if a PC has a certain "evade" percentage, then he should be evading both Wretches and Dragons at roughly the same frequency. That doesn't happen, so I suspect the Dragon's attack skill so far overwhelms the PCs defenses that they are negligible. Ok, so once a hit is determined, is there then a Parry/Riposte check? Are they separate and independent events, or are they combined somehow? And once a hit is determined, and it is determined that there is no Parry/Riposte, gross damage seems to be calculated with an NdS model, where N = number of die and S = sides on a die. (Got this from threads.) At that point, do Armor Resistances work like a simple "percent of" calculation? In other words, if an Ogre rolls 100 dmg against me, but I have 60% armor, does that mean I take only 40 points of damage? And finally (I know this is a lot), but how is the Armor Resistance calculated? I was playing around with it, and as I added more pieces, I started getting "diminishing returns" on the armor value. For example, I stripped Jenell, then added armor back a piece at a time. Armor rating started at 0%. Bronze Helmet +5% to 5%. Drakescale Greaves +10% to 15%. Leather Belt +2% to 17%. Fine Cloak +5% to 22%. Chainmail Boots +7% to 27% Huh? It only went up 5 points. Then Deadeye Chainmail +22% to 44%. It only went up 17 points. Thanks for any help!

Old Spiderweb gamer here who was drawn back by Avadon for $2.49 on Steam. I was 14, I guess, when I first registered Exile I by mailing in a check, only to have my fundamentalist mother confiscate the letter with the registration code because the game contained witchcraft. Fortunately I had already written down the code. Good times. Avernum was OK but I missed the more tactical feel of Exile, where you could strategically place walls of force and had to carefully place fireballs or risk hurting your other PCs. I like Avadon's move back in that direction. No friendly fire spells or "persisting zone" spells (that I've found yet, anyway), but the radius of control and the Blademaster's challenge and the shaped spell attacks like Lightning Burst are nice nods in that direction. I bought Avadon for $2.49 and Batman: Arkham City for $20. I've played 30 minutes of Batman. I've played hours of Avadon. So here's hoping that my "good times" story is a little balm for the bitterness of seeing others practically steal a really excellent game that is more than worth Batman's $20.

At some point in the Valley of Dying Things, outdoor signs stopped working for me. When I look at them, the text window at the bottom says "sign," but no message box pops up to tell me what the sign says. I have Blades of Avernum v.1.1.1 running on Mac OS X. Any ideas?

I'm considering buying an iBook and registering Avernum (I bought Exile I and II years ago, loved them, and realized that I still love them with Avernum). Right now I have the Avernum demo on my PC. My questions are these: 1) Can I transfer my saved game file from PC to Mac? Can the Mac read the PC's .SAV file? 2) If I register before I buy the iBook, is there some way to migrate my full version from the PC to the Mac? 3) If I can do that, should I uninstall Avernum from the PC? Some software allows a license to be used on one desktop AND one notebook, I guess on the thinking that you'll only be using one at a time. Thanks.