Randomizer

It's a long explanation so see here. It takes several trips up and down the ladders before you can enter the right path. Each time if you don't leave the zone, then a new one opens up.

The walkthrough calls them rough crystals. They were cheap crystals that could be use to make swarm crystals or the guardian claymore.

Each time you suceed a statue nods and the ground shakes. It's obvious when you completed what's needed for that trial. Jeff was dripping with sarcasm in this area.

The only problem is Jeff made it required that nature lore be 5 to do the final battle in the Sentinel Workshop. It is possible to fight your way out of the southwest quadrant by avoiding all sentinel encounters until you reach the corner just before the road out. There you have to fight 4 sentinels and another 8 that later guard the road (these are easier to deal with because you can do 1 or 2 at a time). You might be able to go this route and then do the Anama Lands and the next few regions to get the Explorer Ring. Of course this means bypassing the weapons trainer too. Endurance helps here to reduce acid damage and give the health to shrug off damage. You also need it for Lysstak in chapter 3 because it's a long scripted fight. The upside is that the areas after Tranquility aren't that hard for a singleton. You can pick up the discipline knife for 3 combat skills, there are cheaper places to get spells, and once you reach Muck you can get knowledge brews made. I found that mandrake is the limiting factor to making knowledge brews. The next is energetic herbs because because they are required for both knowledge brews, wisdom crystals, and energy potions/elixirs. Making wisdom crystals is a waste of time and money. Graymold becomes so plentiful at the end of the game that it's never a problem. Clicking through all those caches is a pain. It's hard for a regular party to go back for that one cache that needed a higher NL.

Since you got the saved skill points, you might want to raise TU 10 to get the few missed locks and the minor XP from opening them. Raising endurance is also helpful since at this point you actually get some health from it and can reduce acid/poison damage. I don't think raising nature lore above the 5 for chapter 4 is helpful unless you want money. NL 8 only gets you the one wisdom crystal but lots of crystals in chapter 3. I did all the hard ones before moving on to chapter 2 and that's a grind. You could go downstream to chapter 3 and visit Harkin's Landing for the priest spells up to mass curing and the other trainers depending upon your cash flow (resistance is expensive). Then take a pylon back to finish up chapter 2 since you need a second trip anyway to do the quest in the rapids. You're ahead of schedule for the chapter 4 mage spell levels to get dispel barrier and prismatic shield.

I did it recently and they went neutral and stopped attacking. It's a pain to do it as an Anama since you don't have an area attack that damages them. Picking them off with smite is slow.

Don't leave the zone (chitrach nest), but do go up a ladder and down a ladder (I use the one in the northwest corner) and then go into the southwest part of the lower level to fight those worms. Each time you repeat the process a different wall opens to reveal a passage or room. It takes a least 4 trips to reach the one for the mindwarp chitrach. I did it a few weeks ago and I had blocked the pain of doing this area over and over.

Wander around the mansion until you see him. Sometimes it's the garden and there isn't anything to do. When he stands next to a pillar in the southeast part then search that pillar for a nifty item.

It depends what you mainly do with your characters. Melee and pole weapons gain damage with strength but after the costs get too high it's easier to get the cheapest. Combat skills (melee, pole, bows, and thrown) are needed to get battle disciplines so it pays to get them once you have enough strength for armor and whatever you normally equip. You may want to buy cheaper skills to get all the battle disciplines. Quick action is cheap and can give an extra strike in melee and pole. Spell casters need intelligence, spellcraft, and magery.

The main difference is that you can't buy magery using skill points until after intelligence and either mage or priest skills are high enough. Get whichever is available when you can at the cheapest cost. They both raise the damage or duration of a spell.

Keep going. Eventually it ends. Try to avoid wasting energy on side trips since you can come back later.

This is meant to be done late in the chapter or game depending upon what your characters are like. Send only high health and armored characters to directly fight the unstable statues and keep frail spellcasters out of explosion range. Try not to detonate too many of them a round so you can heal. Things to reduce damage include using protection spell, bladeshield battle discipline, invulnerability potions/elixirs (last resort), and detonating them at a distance using spells. Eventually if you destroy enough of the ones that Moref is hiding in, he will appear and you can concentrate on him. Killing Moref ends the other attacks.

There are 3 boats that you can take from the Harston Docks. They are near the center of the north side and you don't get a message about angry miners using it or that it's being repaired. For a trip that doesn't require many stops, you can take one of the returning boats from Gladwell's Keep, Shankar's Tower, or any similar place later in the game. Keep a save from before using these boats so you don't get stranded. Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave your sanity at the door.

Avernum 4 had too much of a recycled plot from A3. The best addition was the Darkside Loyalists which become the major villians of A5. Jeff was mostly working on fixing the combat system which is better in A5 and he restores all those things that A4 lacks like elevations and boats.

This is a pain. Try going upstairs and then back down without leaving the chitrach nest area. It takes several trips after you have cleared the areas near the regular entrances. Basically once the nest is cleared. There is one trip for the path around the southwest corner, the second opens the entrance to the southwest ladder, the third opens a path along the west part to the northwest, and the fourth trip downstairs should open the path to the mindwarp chitrach. Each trip also involves fighting those spiny worms.

1. About how much arcane lore will be enough to read most of the magic tomes that are sitting around throughout the game? See here about arcane lore that is needed. It's broken down by total arcane lore so you can see where to quit. You can get trained for 3 levels and there are items to give you another 6 levels later in the game. 2. Is there any way to get information on the location of the Venemous Mong Bat quest from that New Harston guy without entering the employ of Gladwell? You can get information from Galena near Shankar's Tower so you never need to take Gladwell's geas. 3. How do I survive the death curse that is placed on me in that Slith temple by the Slith zombie like guy? You need to drink from the filled basin that appears about a round or two after you get cursed. There are 4 and it's random which one gets filled next. It really helps to have a summoned creature keep the Slith Horror busy while you run back to get cured. 4. Is it possible to retain the really nice weapons etc available in the Fang Clan testing thing? (In this situation I assume that it will involve considerable violence) The weapons are supposed to be removed automatically when you reach a point on leaving. I never tried so see if you could drop them and pick them up from beyond that point. 5.Kherr is apparently hiding with the Fang Clan. Where exactly is he? Kherr is sitting in the room to the northeast with some other nephils in the northwest corner. If you challenge him, he goes below to the storeroom part of the testing area so you need to have done the testing to get to him. I never tried challenging first. Edit - You do need to train/add to nature lore to 5 level to get through the Sentinel Workshop prime sentinel fight. That's scripted so I doubt there is another way to do it.

You get 2% armor from each point of parry so there is some advantage to having it for damage reduction. The damage avoidance isn't as great as in the earlier games. Dropping from 5% to 3% makes it less likely when you get it in the 10-12 range that it will help. It still does against melee and missle attacks and even a little against missle spells. What parry doesn't help against are the area effect damages. Giant stomps, lightning aura, and rain of fire are the worst for a singleton that doesn't have a meat shield fighter to pin the monster. Poison and acid aren't that bad because endurance and the pathfinder skill in Muck can negate most of those damages.

You can kill the shades even in torment. But first move away from as many of them as you can. There is usually a corner that is free of them. Repel spirit or bolt of fire is the easiest way to damage them or use lightning and divine fire for groups. Physical damage is only good for shield breaker. Still *i is right in that you can wait them out.

The way to Gladwell is through a secret door so look for levers to the NW of the way to Soultaker's Pit. When you have the colored lights in the right order ringing the gong opens the gates instead of summoning a banshee.

The lush is probably out getting another case of wine. Don't trip over the empties.

Search the rooms nearby to it for a lever to open a secret door to the outside. Then go outside and there is another lever to get into the East Tower.

See here for more, You have to wait a few rounds, then after the split you can do more damage to the splintered shades. Each one is vulnerable to different damage.

A nephil gets to 3rd level by the end of the basement. You can then start tool use and get TU 4 by doing the rats and bats north of the outpost above and below ground. This gets you Dirty Dan's loot before fighting him. Acid spray starts out great, but after a few encounters it isn't as helpful. Hasted bolt of fire works great for the slimes and they have some great loot. I could fight most things with bolt of fire or smite, but I relied more on a spear to do the damage in the early fights until I built up spell energy. Figure 13th level and maybe 14th for the demo plus the one knowledge brew. Then in chapter 2 there are the Gladwell message knowledge brew and a knowledge brew and wisdom crystal in Shankar's Tower to buy. I never got past clearing the east half of the Northern Isles except that Mongobat. Edit - Looking at Synergy's singleton in normal, he reached 24th level in chapter 3 as a nephil. You probably will be just below 60th level by the end of the game. Running a nephil means that in chapter 3 you are already at 5 combat disciplines without doing anything. By the time you make the trainer in chapter 4 you should have 1 and 1/2 from Khora-Vysss and maybe 1 from levels. Either way the trainer will easily give you 6 before you run low on money so you will be at mighty blow, From there spending skill points pays off to get the last few battle disciplines. There is also the discipline knife in chapter 5 for 3 combat skills if you are relying mostly on magic.

You need a nature lore of 5 as the total for the party to get damaged servant to come over to your side. Once you damage them enough they will fight the Prime Sentinel. Then retreat to a corner and stay healed up. Whenever the Prime regains control you have to attack those traitors (they will appear as red on the automap) to get them back on your side. To "speed" up the fight, an occasional shield breaker attack on the Prime with a bow shot gives you something to do. Don't close with the damaged servants until they are totally destroyed and then go loot. If you put a character in the very corner, then it shouldn't take damage from the area effect. Jeff expanded it after I used to stand in the south doorway to wait out the fight.

You can do the fight with a single character even in torment. I know from the 5 times I did it. There is some things that you have to do. First use multiple buffs since when it hits you will start to lose them. Second is to retreat before damaging it so it follows to the east passageway where you can only be hit by no more than 2 places (front and back). This is also a great fight to use an augmentation potion in case you get hit twice in a round. Cast a slow spell on the unstable slime unless you are playing with only priest spells (this is harder). Daze spells also help keep split unstable masses from attacking. The unstable mass won't split if it doesn't get an action. Daze won't always work on it, but the idea is to reduce the number of splits you face rather than brute force fighting. Or you can engage it a long fight against lots of them. Synergy and I have done it so we know there are several ways to win this fight.