Mimir

Quote: Divine retribution is almost useless compared to divine fire. It doesn't work on demons, or undead, or golems, possibly some other exceptions too. Ah, so it only affects living creatures, then. That's good; it balances things a bit more.

Quote: Originally written by Archmagus Micael: What I'm trying to say is: Most Mage spells are affective against most things, but Priest spells do more damage to certain monsters. It's true that Repel Spirit is better than any mage spell when it comes to undead and demons. Otherwise, I've never used Divine Retribution, but my guess is it does non-elemental damage. If that's the case, it's probably quite effective against the vast majority of enemies, just like Arcane Blow. Quote: Originally written by Old Scratch: My archer has been the most useful character Wow, really? I had an archer in my Avernum 2 party, and he was far and away the least useful of the four. Good projectiles were heavy, not always abundant, and did less damage than both my fighter's melee attacks and my mage's Bolt of Fire. Perhaps I was doing something wrong, or perhaps (cross)bows got powered up for Blades.

Is it me, or do mages really get the short end of the stick compared to priests? No one denies the immense usefulness of Ice Lances early on, nor, say, Haste, Slow, or Dispel Barrier at any point in the game. But it seems to me that in the late game, mages start to really be shown up by priests. In Avernum 2, I recall realizing that Arcane Blow was barely an improvement over Fireblast, even though it cost an extra five spell points. Both did mediocre damage. Meanwhile, my priest could just cast Divine Warrior on my fighter once, and together they'd mow down hordes of Elite Warriors and Golems without even breaking a sweat. Not to mention Divine Restoration. And with Divine Fire, which, I believe, both required a lower skill level and cost less spell points than Fireblast, my priest could beat my mage at his own game. Now, in Avernum 3, Divine Warrior is gone, probably because it was too overpowered. (Arcane Shield has likewise been watered down, though. It only grants invulnerability at level 3 now.) In its place is Divine Retribution, which does a great deal of damage and enfeebles to boot. Arcane Blow is significantly better than Fireblast, but, well… I looked at the formulae for calculating spell damage in the manual, and they didn't seem easily comparable, so, compulsive mathematician that I am, I drew a graph! It uses the third-level version of each spell. (And before anybody asks, yes, I have no life.) As you can see, Divine Retribution is generally better than Arcane Blow, and Lightning Spray is generally better than Fireblast. This changes only at very high levels, when the caster has a spell bonus of 45 or more. I doubt that anyone will get that skilled during the course of an ordinary game. And let's not forget that the skill for priest spells costs less than that for mage spells. And you can cast priest spells while wearing armor. Conclusion: It's unbalanced. Damage-dealing mage spells should do more damage and cost less spell points. Mages are supposed to be the real damage-dealers, after all.