Dikiyoba

Dual Wielding is the strongest form of melee in the game, so for a deliberate challenge you might want a pole user or another sword and shield user. That said, Dual Wielding is pretty fun and there are more interesting swords in the game than there are spears and halberds.

Normal difficulty isn't that hard, so you could easily use a nephil or slith (or both) as one of your melee fighters or archer.

Dikiyoba.

I've stored stuff (sometimes large amounts of it) all over the place and never had any of it disappear.

There used to be a limit of 200 items per town or zone. Dikiyoba thinks it's gone, but Dikiyoba might be misremembering.

Just make a new pinned post for links to the greatest Avernum: Subtitled threads. That way the Strategy Central doesn't get cluttered up while everyone will know where to look for the humorous or otherwise interesting threads.

Dikiyoba.

Undispellable barrier in the Vahnatai Fortress.

Claw marks look like claw marks? Tor, if this is what you taught Dikiyoba's party members, Dikiyoba wants a refund.

Go back to Pathass and have the whole conversation with him again. The pools ritual only gets you onto the island. Pathass has to teach you the actual ritual to find the charm on the island through dialogue. It's a bit tricky.

Dikiyoba.

Some games are so eager to seem 'dark' that they basically cut out the player's ability to create anything resembling a 'happy ending', 'cuz that would mess with the atmosphere... and making the whole thing seem pointless as a side-effect. Why bother when you won't make anything better anyway? Of course, I don't know if Geneforge tends that far in that direction...

G1 and G2 certainly don't go that far (although the story of G2 does rely on the G1 protagonist being fairly useless. G3 and G4 are bleak (the player still has power in G4, it's just doesn't make the world any less dark), but then G5 goes back to happier endings. But you could play G1 and G2, then leave the series feeling mostly satisfied, or just skip ahead to G5. (There's no real reason to play G3 ever, but the first two-thirds of G4 is good enough that it might be worth playing.) G5 might even be a better experience without G3 and G4 knowledge as baggage (G5 has lots of retcons, unfortunately).

Dikiyoba.

Dikiyoba recommends giving Nethergate: Resurrection another try first, since it's highly regarded here and written just after the Exile series, so it should be the most similar to it in terms of options and exploration and so on. Next, try Geneforge 1. It doesn't have as many options (later Geneforges have more spells, creations, Shaper classes), but it has an open world and a great story. The demo is nice and large, so you'll know whether it's for you or not well before you need to buy it. Avadon is small and very linear compared to Avernum.

No, you didn't miss anything interesting.

Dikiyoba.

What difficulty are you playing on? I missed those same two on my first playthrough on casual, but picked up the Royal Clearance medal on normal. Maybe that's the difference?

Dikiyoba.

A few more weird things:

1. First the lizard-person eggs and young that require water, now this. I'm not entirely sure Jeff actually knows what a lizard is:

2. Weird AI in the Nephar Fortress. The cave giants are active, even though I haven't encountered them yet.

Dikiyoba.

I actually figured out how to get the Waterfall Warren sliths to display properly. I can't change the code, but I can switch the actual text around, which I did.

Dikiyoba knows there are a few more reports of odd text in the Weird (Buggy?) Things thread to look at, but any specific suggestions are welcome.

But if you can get past the first big fight with the help of the Vahnatai, you can leave the upper levels of Ornotha Ziggurat until later.

Dikiyoba.

Dikiyoba doesn't want to disparage anyone's life story or anything, but remember that depression is often a cyclical disease, that resolves itself on its own but reoccurs later in life. So just because you beat it once and are doing fine now doesn't mean it won't be back later. Don't let it sneak up on you the second (or more) time around, okay?

You'll need Magi Clearance to get to the boat, if you don't already have it. It's in the gated off area in the northeast corner of town.

Dikiyoba.

1. You can't get into the Barrier Tower now. Don't worry about it. You will come back to it later.

2. There's another way into the Ruined Fort. Land the boat on the island and enter the fort by land.

Dikiyoba.

Screenshots!

Dikiyoba.

WARNING: This thread contains information about modifying your game files. If you modify your game, it may change in ways you don't expect or want. These modifications are not designed or supported by Spiderweb Software. Use at your own risk.

I've tweaked text descriptions, item definitions, and creature colors that stood out as odd and potentially irritating. These edits don't touch combat balance or otherwise impact gameplay. Obviously, this mod is unsupported by Jeff and co. Use at your own risk, (especially for non-PC platforms because I have no way to test whether this runs properly on anything but a PC).

Changes

Version 1

1. Black Basalt is now called Red Basalt, including in the quest.

2. As much as possible, the Serpent Cult is now the Worm Cult, and leftover references to snakes have been removed.

3. All items (except the Orb of Thralni and Demonslayer) are now sellable (though not necessarily worth anything). Trash, lizard eggs, maps, etc.

4. Limoncelli is no longer gray.

5. Altered giants are no longer gray.

Version 2

1. Fixed Waterfall Warren Sliths

2. Changed intro text

3. Changed text related to looting the shrine in GIFTS cave

4. Tor now recognizes you from Fort Avernum

5. Infernal in Angierach now has a name

6. Mother Clarisse now asks for 500 coins to cure the Dread Curse, instead of the erronous 1000.

7. Fixed a variety of typos and odd phrasing

8. Changed frenzying mob pronouns from "it" to "they" (optional; don't copy over the file "mobfrenzy" if you like "it" over singular "they.")

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How to use

1. Download the folder and uncompress it.

2. Open the scripts/resources folder. If on PC, go Program files > Spiderweb Software > Avernum 2 - Crystal Souls > Scripts. If on Mac, go Macintosh HD> Applications > Right Click on Avernum 2 and Show Package Contents > Contents > Resources (thanks Excalibur).

3. Backup the original scripts and replace them with the downloaded copies. (If for some reason you forget to do this or lose the backups, the original scripts can be downloaded here. But every time someone clicks that link, God puts feathers on another dinosaur.) Version 2 changes a few files that were already changed in Version 1, so if you downloaded that be sure to replace all files, even the duplicates.

4. That's it. Enjoy the mod.

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Requests for help

1. Is everything working okay? No bugs or anything?

2. What other changes do you want to see in future updates of this mod?

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Things I don't know how to change (please tell me if you do)

1. The name of the dungeon(s) Serpent Cult and Snake Pit. (Probably impossible)

2. Chitrach graphics.

3. Efreet graphics (probably impossible, unless replaced by a graphic already in the game)

4. Is there code for checking to see whether there are humans in a party?

5. If anyone can figure out the code to make a poor leather helmet no longer a requirement for entering the starting tunnel in Fort Ganrick, that would be great.

6. Is there any way to make the door in the Barrier (Pyrn's) Tower openable through tool use or a key?

7. Any ideas on the Angierach text boxes?

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Older Versions

Mod, version 1

Original Scripts, version 1

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[Edit: It helps if I actually put in the links, doesn't it?]

[Edit 2: Dikiyoba has updated the description and links to version 2]

Did you edit the sale value of trash?

No, the sparkle animation remains until it is completed when you switch between inventories.

Dikiyoba.

Having all the best junk in the game. Just look at it all, sparkling away:

It's not petty, but Dikiyoba also gives food to the Cotra refugees (or at least drops it on the ground near some of them) in Silvar and Fort Duvno. Bill and Bill get all the cake, ale, and a few board games.

Me too, but I do not miss giant slugs.

They're still in the game, just as boring generic worm things instead of as actual slugs.

Dikiyoba is rather peeved that the Serpent Cult still exists, now badly changed to worm worship, despite the removal of snakes from Avernum. Worms are a boring substitute, even if they had replaced all the snake references correctly.

Also, you no longer get the "selected" stat increases (i.e. the stat increases you can choose yourself)

This is not accurate. You definitely still get the manual stat increases with the 2 skill points beyond level 30.

Dikiyoba.

If you're playing on casual, some dexterity on a priest may not be a bad thing, because it lets you use move mountains in combat, and plink arrows at weak enemies. It's decidedly suboptimal, but move mountains is a fun spell.

Giving one or both mages a few points in priest spells is usually a good idea, too, for emergency healing and for smite as secondary offensive spell for fire-resistant enemies like hellhounds early in the game.

Dikiyoba.

Probably worth noting that all three items are available in the Hall of Chaos, so you don't need to bring them with you.

Dikiyoba.

Surely a bigger issue is that the Escape from the Pit party is on the surface, and therefore unable to go on underground adventures?

Dikiyoba imagines that the EftP party is dead or imprisoned by the time Crystal Souls happens. The original party is clearly bad at keeping a low profile and will eventually attract unwanted attention. Someone will figure out they were Empire Hawthorne's assassins eventually. 4 to 6 people fighting against the full might of the Empire is not likely to go well, no matter how powerful those 4 or 6 people are.

I think the accuracy cap is really only apparent when dealing with trash mobs, which is why it's a problem. "How will I survive?" is not a question asked in easy battles. It's "how much longer will this take?" or "how awesome and powerful can I be?" An accuracy cap provides less satisfying answers to those questions, which is why it is so annoying. Of course the accuracy cap exists in hard battles too, and maybe it does some good there, but you don't really need it. Hard battles have so many other things going on that you question and plan for your survival without needing to worry about missing occasionally. So the accuracy cap provides minimal gains in hard battles and noticeable losses in easy battles. That's not a good reason to keep it around. If the occasional miss turns out to make difficult combat better, just make major bosses and/or enemies on high difficulties sufficiently difficult to hit.

Dikiyoba.