Randomizer

Never tried it in that order, but it will probably work. Or you can keep them to give to Melanchion and just go kill Gladwell.

Before going upstairs to kill the Slith Horror there is a lever south of that gated room that opens the wall to the hidden passage from upstairs.

It takes a second trip through the lower level after you trigger the first lever to open a secret door near the start of the lower level. After that you can go up the stairs and go back around to the stairs west of the Prime Sentinel to go down to the portal hidden in a secret area. Don't forget to loot the mage's body near the Magery spellbook.

In terms of experience and reward it doesn't matter what you do, Besides from the one time I killed Sorengard all he dropped was a standard issue dagger so it's a waste of time doing it expecting a decent item.

Yes, see Californian\'s post about halfway down. There is a discussion of various tricks and how to keep from losing them.

Compress the save game folder, transfer it using a flash drive, and expanding it on the other computer. I do this to save old games so I can go back and look at something before it happened.

The Expel Muck quest has 3 ways to do it - let the giants attack Muck and report it to Highground and Thalants before killing the queen, let Morbo live, and kill the Mayor which of course makes Muck hostile. To leave the Vahnatai Lands you can do the quest, fight your way through the East Gate which makes Thalants hostile, or go under Kherebass and fight your way eastward until you come out the other side at the Dark River. There are ways back through using a secret door into lower Thalants and later the pylons.

Don't invest in creation shaping magic. By the end when you need some support you can get 7 with items in all 3 shaping classes and you don't need the items after you created your creations.

That's what icy crystals are for (killing wingbolts) and they give great damage with some missle skills. For most of the Forsaken Lands you can get by with just unsellable javelins while you wait for a decent melee weapon and build up your character. Besides you want a good range attack for speeding up the rate of killing.

Avernum 3 was the last game where you could wander almost wherever you wanted. There are enough areas where you have some freedom. This game restores most features that were lost from the earlier games in Avernum 4. Keyboard controls for spells and targeting them, boats, elevations, a better plot are a few changes. Mostly after you leave the demo, it's a whole new world with almost no preconceptions about what you will find. There's plenty to explore and the fights are more interesting. Even when you face hordes of chitrachs. About a 9.8 since there is some room for improvement.

Actually I still have to finish Avernum 3 so I have only done the Alien Slime and Cockroaches plagues. I plan someday to finish them all.

Domont in Solberg's Tower mentions that the Darkside Loyalists would like Solberg's Notes. They aren't the only ones that will reward you for them.

Jeff announced in his newsletter that Avernum 4 and 5, Blades of Avernum, Geneforge 4 and Nethergate: Resurrection will get upgraded. No word on the older games. There are test versions of the upgrades available, but some have minor problems that will get corrected before they become official. You could try downloading them from the different game forums and see if they work better on your system.

It depends what you want to do as your primary attack. A servile can be played as a weapons character like a guardian or as a battle magic character similar to an agent/infiltrator. I found that most of my points at the start actually went to mechanics and leaderships so I could get the free experience from doing quests and looting around Southforge Citadel. A few points to missle weapons and/or battle magic makes it possible to use those unsellable javelins for attacks or to beef up that attack from bolt of fire. Daze from mental magic is what you use to give you time to pick off the swarms. There really isn't a wrong way to go with a servile since you can even use him as a poor lifecrafter that is always short of essence.

Jeff pretty much has made A5 and all future games pretty linear. The good news is that except for the Hirickis/boat and killing Lysstak in chapter 3, you can get around some of the obstacles that Jeff put in the game. You get somewhat underpowered if you slip through Tranquility and the Anama Lands to race into the Azure Gallery, but it is at least possible.

Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: I bet y'all think Hamlet should really have been a 5-act running swordfight: Indiana Jones in pentameter. It beats 5 acts of a college boy on break whining about his mom's remarraige, his lousy stepdad, driving his girlfriend crazy, killing his future father-in-law by mistake, and in general not being able to party. The ride through new lands was fun, it's the reason for the road trip that was the problem. It's better than A4.

I didn't try killing them, because there is a limit to the number of sentinels you can kill before the locals get mad. Retreat to Horace's building to the north is a better option since you only need to outlast them.

Mandrake forms the limit. There more of the other 4 herbs than mandrake. I counted.

Jeff will make you choose a side, but the real question is how soon in the game will you have to pick a side and stay there. From a writing standpoint, Jeff would delay the final choice to minimize the amount of dialog variations for each area. The sooner the games diverge, the more differences have to be done. Like having different dialogs for joining the Anama halfway through A5. Having to fight on one side or the other makes it more interesting for a player. More like Nethergate where you see the conflict from each viewpoint and get bits of what the other side is doing, but not the total pciture until after you have played each side. I doubt Jeff would make an Avernum size world with a Nethergate style plot. It will probably be more like A5 and A Small Rebellion where there isn't the break until the last part.

Once you report Shankar to Sgt. Cienna, Shankar will no longer help you with spells, training, or quests. You do get a lot of experience. You miss out on the Mad Crystal quest. You need Moref the Shade quest from Lark as the recipe quest after Baquaba the Arenea. Then you can ask Tiacoura for the key to get into Moref's door.

I think that you will be able to continue. You will have to use pylons to jump around to avoid triggering the curse at the Exodus bridge. The geas is split into the overall one in special items and 5 geases that correspond to each item that Gladwell wants. Regarding stealing items that are marked NY from merchants, I wandered in and out of Landman's shop in Shankar's Tower until he moved to a place that I could take items without being seen. Those wands one the counter have 1 charge each *grumble*. At least he has 3 mined crystals in a barrel.

The pillars are more or less in a straight line. You might miss it because of the partially constructed buildings between the center and last pillar. You can see in the surface map the locations of the 3 pillars.

How did you get to run a party of 5 characters? Dorikas while being old school Empire in his disdain for nonhumans does change his dialog if you have them in your party. Besides this game really screws over humans with regard to gaining battle disciplines. It costs more in skill points and takes longer before you can get them all.

You can leave the Anama by getting help from Shafrir in the Azure Gallery. However you will be forever shunned by the Anama *snicker* so they won't sell you anything more. You permanently lose all mage spell skills that you bought with skill points and all mage spells acquired before joining them without being able to learn them again from used spellbooks. It doesn't really pay to regain the path of sanity by leaving them anymore. It would be better to never have done so in terms of what you have lost.

Dorikas pretty much sits in the background and tries to manipulate events with the idiots he has working for him. Most are opportunists like Ruth who are looking to improve their position in the changing world. Dervish Tholmen is an example of why the Empire failed to beat Avernum. He doesn't inspire but tries to win through fear. Dorikas doesn't have the developement to be a frightening villain. Actually if you play the pro-Darkside Loyalist ending, the best dialog is when you tell General Redmark that your after him because you think Dorikas' feeble attempts to eliminate you might finally suceed. There isn't a real attempt that will stop you since Jeff wants a casual player to reach the end. The Howling Depths was the best attempt and that's more of an endurance test to see if you can prepare to go the distance. Maybe with more interaction between the players and the Darkside the could be more with developing Dorikas. Still it's better than A4 and the weak rehash with Rentar.