Vicheron

You won't get Ur-Drakons until the end of the game while you can have Drayks and Wingbolts for half the game.

I think that Cryoas Roamers, Drayks, Cryodrayks, and Wingbolts are the best creations. You can get Cryoas before you leave Southforge and they stay useful throughout the game if you evolve them. Roamers are a good and cheap source of acid damage. Drayks only do a bit less damage than Drakons but they cost a lot less. Cryodrayks do cold damage, which is resisted less than fire and magic. Wingbolts just do a lot of damage, plus their bite is poisonous, which can be useful since not many creatures resist poison. Kyshakks, Rotghroths, and Eyebeasts are pretty good too. Kyshakks do less damage than Wingbolts but they have a lot more health and their lightning aura is actually pretty good against creatures that resist magic. Rotghroths are probably the only Battle Creation worth making due to their chance of double attack and acid touch. Rotghroths are also useful to have since the melee damage of Fire and Magic creations seemed to have been significantly reduced. Eyebeasts are very powerful but they're also very expensive. I don't think that Drakons, Ur-Drakons and Gazers are worth their cost. Drakons and Ur-Drakons do more damage and have more health than Drayks but it's just cheaper to create more Drayks or to level and evolve Drayks. Gazers have better resistance, health, and melee damage but they do about the same range damage. You can go through the game with only Fire Shaping. You cover all the elements, Roamers cover enemies in acid, Fyora/Drayks/Drakons/Ur-Drakons do fire damage, Kyshakks do magic damage, and Cryoas/Cryodrayks are the only creations that do cold damage.

Vlishes are probably the next most intelligent creations below Serviles. They're probably more intelligent than Battle Alphas and Thahds. They've been shown to have limited psychic abilities. They're also used to command other creations. They just can't talk. Plus Gazers/Eyebeasts are based on Vlishes.

I would make 70% to 90% of their cost take up spell points.

Well we already have the Shaper/Lifecrafter and it's not overpowered. It has strong Shaping and medium Magic, which both rely on intelligence. With Agents, Guardians, and the new classes, their strong and medium class skills rely on at least two different primary stats.

The Lifecrafter is basically the Shaper, the Warrior is the Guardian, and the Infiltrator is the Agent. The addition of the Shock Trooper gave us a strong shaping/medium weapon/weak magic class and the addition of the Servile gave us a strong weapon/medium magic/weak shaping class. Why isn't there a strong magic/medium shaping/weak weapon class?

I'd have to side with the Shapers. The rebels are just way too dangerous. They give power to people who haven't earned it, and obviously many of those people don't deserve it. They don't have nearly enough experience using their power and are prone to making huge mistakes. As cruel as the Shaper ways are, it's based on years of experience and expertise, so they have effective ways of dealing with mistakes.

Lower resistances - Lowers elemental/magic/poison/acid resistance. Essence Drain - Only affects creations. When creation dies, you gain some essence.

Greta leaves in G3 if you kill the Rebels on Harmony Island or if you kill the Creator but you can still get the rebel ending if you did those things.

I'm guessing that everything that's going to happen was forshadowed by the events on Sucia Island. They keep making more powerful and more unstable creations until civilization gets wiped out. The survivors move away and forget about Shaping. Centuries pass and the same thing happens again on another continent.

Yes! It's out! Thank you Jeff! You saved Black History Month!

I'm really hoping that the fighter class can learn some special abilities/techniques like charge or shield bash. Guardian was the most boring class in the previous GF games. It would also be nice if there were labs where you could improve spells and creations.

I think that fighters should be able to do more. Mages and Priests have always had a large variety of spells to cast but fighters only have two options, bash or shoot. It would be nice if fighters could learn some techniques like blind enemy or shield friend.

Quote: Originally written by Semisubpar: Everything is fine now, but a looming cataclysm threatens destruction! The only problem with the plot is that if all goes well, nothing exciting happens. There's a reason heroes show up when things look darkest. —Alorael, who wouldn't mind a cataclysm returning Avernum to its hardscrabble roots, though. Avernum was better when steel was rare. (Better for players. Not so very nice for inhabitants.) If a cataclysm is prevented, bad things will still happen. A lot of people will want to leave Avernum. Valorim will have trouble absorbing the new arrivals. There could be accidents with the portal. There'll also be speculations and theories about unnatural causes of the the cataclysm. Lots of people are going to think that the Vahnatai were behind it. The Anama may take advantage of the situation by telling people that such events are caused by ramapant use of magic. Both Avernum and the Empire may be forced to spend massive amounts of resources to solve the problem, limiting their ability to respond against other threats, such as bandits, chitrach investations, those random undead attacks that pop up out of nowhere, etc. Plus the solution to the problem may not even be permanent.

Quote: Originally written by Meeshka: Quote: Originally written by Vicheron: ... No uber bad guys are involved, your major enemies are nature and time. And what is the point? I mean in the end everyone in a team, who survived wil understand they are the best friends ever met and return and live happily ever after? What for was that mess with quakes? Or was it just the "trailer" that you wrote? Why does there have to be an intelligence behind every catastrophe? How can you possibly say that there's no point to preventing natural disasters? Sometimes the most frightening disasters are the naturally occurring ones. Plus you think that just because they prevent a catastrophic series of quakes, if that does happen, that everything will go back to normal? If a series of earthquakes hits the town you live in and then a while later the government tells you that they just prevented a cataclysmic quake that could have destroyed your entire town and every town within a hundred mile radius, are you going to feel safe living there? Another thing is that just because it's naturally occurring does not mean there isn't something unnatural making it worse and there are always those unscrupulous enough to take advantage of such situations.

Here's an idea. A series of cave quakes cause panic and an exodus of Avernites. Empire and Avernite mages assure the people that it's nothing major and that the quakes will subside soon. Valorim is having trouble supporting the influx of new Avernite arrivals and you're hired to help the mages investigate the quakes. Basically you climb down deep below Avernum, trying to discover the source of the quakes. You're guided by mage scryers. There's long periods of time without being able to go back to town. Limited opportunities to resupply. Lots of nasty surprises from the shadows. Some new skills for deep cave exploration and survival. More interdependence within your party. Skill synergy between the party members. You have to be able to really fend for yourself. A few Vahnatai/Slith towns, a couple of demon/undead dungeons, and a few surprises to change the scenery. No uber bad guys are involved, your major enemies are nature and time.

The Athame can cut through anything so if it's made into an equippable item it'll probably have an ignore armor ability and do full damage to everything.

I wonder how big Avernum is. It must be pretty big, Fort Draco is around 100 miles away from Formello. Avernum must be bigger than California. With the first three Avernum games, it really felt like you were travelling big distances on the world map. With Avernum 4 engine, Fort Draco does not feel like it's 100 miles from Formello, it really didn't feel like you were travelling hundreds of miles like in previous games. If A5 uses the same engine as A4, which it probably will, I don't think it should cover an area of hundreds of thousands of square miles like previous Avernum games. It should cover maybe around the same actual area as the Great Cave or the Eastern Gallery, just have it divided into more sections so there's the same amount of gaming area as A4.

Have blacksmiths make stuff for you and then sell them. The stuff they make is generally worth more than the raw material. For example, it costs 3 Fine Steels, 2 Focusing Crystals, and 2 Gold Bars to make a Blessed Breastplate, the Brestplate is worth 1500 gold and the Fine Steels, Focusing Crystals and Gold Bars are worth 1020 gold, that's a 480 gold profit, well it's actually a 120 gold profit since you sell things for 1/4th the price. Just make sure you use the blacksmiths that do it for free.

Quote: Originally written by Ephesos: Micah's other son was a bit of a dunce... I doubt he survived long in Avernum, even locked away in the Castle. I assume that Micah's wife died of the manifold diseases and syndromes associated with prolonged cave-dwelling. I mean don't forget... Micah's dead as well by the time A4 starts. I know that Chevyn is an idiot but that just makes it easier for him to be manipulated. A group like the Darkside Loyalists could try to frame Starrus for a murder or make people think that Starrus isn't really Micah's son, then use Chevyn to challenge Starrus' rule and start a civil war. Most people in Avernum don't remember that Chevyn is an idiot. The Chevyn supporters could just say that all the rumors about Chevyn being an idiot was started by Starrus, who usurped Chevyn's rightful position as king of Avernum.

Rentar-Dumbo is not that different from other powerful wizard type characters. Erika, Rone, X, Linda, Garzahd and even Solberg are all pretty eccentric. Erika wasn't into politics but Rone became the King's advisor, and Linda ran the Tower of Magi and they even let her back after the first incident. About the plot of A5, did anyone find it a bit convenient that King Micah just happened to have a genius son when Avernum needed one? Whatever happened to his other son and what about his wife? His other son has a legitimate claim to the throne and could potentially be used by people who want to destroy Avernum. It would be interesting to see a faction trying to cast doubt on Starrus' claim to the throne and rallying to have Micah's other son take over.

Monsters are much more powerful relative to PC's in this Avernum game. A lot of monsters from previous games are missing but each monster has many different subtypes like in Geneforge and Diablo.

I would really like to know a bit about the gods or deities they worship. Something is giving the priests power. Plus there was an angel in Avernum 1. Oh and I really hope that there are more debuffs in A5. Curse from the Exile games should be brought back, maybe web too. A lower resistance spell would be really nice too. It's really annoying how you constantly get cursed by monster but you can't curse them back.

Like I said in a previous post, the Abyss is the new Avernum. Avernum's criminals are sent to the Abyss and sooner or later the Empire will want to start sending people there too. There are also tons of magical and mysterious treasures in the Abyss seeing as how Erika, Pyrog, Khoth, and Grah-Hoth lived around that area. The Empire's main forces were stationed in the Abyss and the Empire couldn't have taken everything when they left and I bet the Empire left all sorts of nasty stuff there in hopes of one day getting their revenge on Avernum. Plus wasn't the Empire teleporter also in the Abyss? So at the very least there's a lot of errant magical energy wrecking all sorts of havoc. I would also really like to know what happened to the Scimitar now that their benefactor Erika is dead. It would be interesting to see some former Scimitar members trying to bring some order to the Abyss.

Don't forget that mage spells cost more to train than priest spells.