Alberich
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Thank you kindly!
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I reached the girl herself and tried the fight once or twice. I'm trying to keep her alive (which the medals suggest is possible), I've figured out how to get her out of range so I can use turrets on the summoned things in the circle, and I've got the message that says destroying the summoned creatures seems to help her regain control. What I don't know is this: is this simply a matter of endurance, to keep killing the creatures 'til she regains control, or is there some other feat I have to accomplish? I tried killing all the creatures at once before I got that message…but new creatures just kept appearing the next round. I haven’t yet managed to kill them all after getting that message…on Torment I’m sure it’s possible but it can get expensive in terms of items I prefer to save. (Though I haven’t yet tried going back to fetch the sorcerer, who may be the best man for that part of the job.) If there’s some other strategy I have to figure out…please don’t tell me what that strategy is because I like to figure things out for myself. But if it’s just “keep killing the ephemeral monsters ‘til they’ve had enough,” please do tell me.
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The golems have a couple of weaknesses (outside of going inert when the controllers die) -- they make a beeline for anyone they see, and they cannot see around corners. (Exception: if you dash around a corner, look at them, and run back they will follow you; but if they're beating up on one of your characters and the others are out of sight around a corner, they will not "know" to come looking for you.) To beat that fight on torment, I had my shaman send a hellhound around the corner to draw two of the golems to it and retreat to the stairs (the "heal pet" spell has infinite range). Then I had Alcander and the blademaster run past that fight to where those golems couldn't see them, and concentrate on the enemy's temporal turret. They died shortly afterwards, but I simply had the shaman go downstairs (and thus resurrect everyone), then we came back up and did something similar again. That is, we had a summoned creature dash around the corner to distract every golem that saw it, sneaked two others past to kill controllers, and had the shaman hiding near the stairs to resurrect us in case we died. (The golems don't go back to start if you run downstairs, so on the second try I was able to distract three golems with my hellhound.) That's part of the fun of this game -- some of the fights (the NPC shaman's quest is another) go from "absurd" to "winnable" if you make good use of the geography. The demon fight at the end of Avernum: EftP was similar.
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Wishlist for Avadon 3 - interface/gameplay suggestions
Alberich replied to mikeprichard's topic in Avadon Series
Also - I wish he'd put more details in the manual, the way he did in some of his previous games I am an inveterate manual reader though I know many players are not. I don't mind much because I've played a bunch of Spiderweb games and have a feel for this...but there are still questions I'd like to see answered. For example, whether intelligence benefits Tinkermage (I found a Tinkermage-specific item that increases intelligence, hinting that it does, but there's nothing in the manual or the game to tell me whether it does) and whether anything other than the relevant skills (i.e., the character's level or ability scores) affects summoned creatures. On the interface itself, the ability to see your summoned creatures' stats (the way you could in Geneforge) would also be nice. -
Questions about stats and abilities of tinkermage
Alberich replied to stars2heaven's topic in Avadon Series
Does intelligence make any difference for Tinkermages? I found a magic item which suggests that it does, but it's not clear to me from the manual or the in-game descriptions what that difference might be. -
Wishlist for Avadon 3 - interface/gameplay suggestions
Alberich replied to mikeprichard's topic in Avadon Series
Jeff has done a great job of removing the pointless frustrations and timewasters from his CRPG's, but there is one thing I would greatly like to see: If there is a long dialogue that segues right into a tough boss fight, please please please give the player a chance to save the game between the dialogue and the fight. No need to stop things and let the player move around; just give him a pop-up window that says "do you want to save before this fight?" That way, when you lose and reload, you don't have to skip through the same dialogue over and over. -
Avadon 2 First Impressions Thread! (no spoilers)
Alberich replied to Rent-an-Ihrno's topic in Avadon Series
I'm liking it. It has a way of drawing me along and making me want to keep playing. I'm doing a shaman on torment again (male this time) but I can see what people are saying about the Tinkermage....some of the adventures seem especially designed to showcase the tinkermage and the tinker NPC is excellent there. I feel much more at ease with my shaman this time...which I put down to some careful game balancing. One thing I really appreciate in Mr. Vogel's games over time is that he's always looking to eliminate the most irritating aspects of CRPG's...such as the long tedious journey back to town to heal the wounded and revive the dead. As I commented long ago, I like the Avadon approach to "torment"...the minor fights are still easy; the big ones not so much. Yes, you still have to run back to the pylons to recharge your vitality sometimes, but even the routes to the pylons are faster than they were before. And the story is engaging - a logical extension of the previous game, but enough new material that it's not just an uninspired remake. I'm impressed. I also like the extra political dimension – now there’s not just pro-Avadon versus anti-Avadon, but there’s the question of oversight by Hanvar’s Council. I always liked the multipolar games best (which is part of why I liked Geneforge 2 and 5 so much) – they give you more positions you can stake out and fight for, plus they add some depth to the game. -
With respect to that switch - which was the key to me (on torment) - you can do even better than fighting from the passage; if you leave one fighter at the far end of the passage, you can have your mage zap the north barrier in the side room, and then you can shoot at G-H and his little friends through the unbreakable barrier. What I liked about this was that G-H's charm spells were then targeting my priest and mage/priest, who were quite uncharmable, instead of my fighters, whom he couldn't see. I didn't do this until after killing the two summoned gazers - because I didn't want them shooting back through the barrier. Most of the summoned monsters are hand-to-hand only, which is why the terrain is so helpful. One of the "stunlings" jumped through the barrier but by itself it was no match for my three party members who weren't guarding the passage.
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I went for 2 -- it kept the multiple-faction plot, and gave you a freedom of action I liked, but your choices had consequences. I don't care how cartoony it looked - that first drakon was <i>scary</i> the first time I met him. And I always liked being recognized for making it through as a canister virgin (I played as a loyal shaper, unaligned with any mountain faction). 4 felt a little "forced" - once you picked a path, the plot was pretty well laid out, and the way it forced you into it was a little crude (plus you couldn't make drayks without using canisters). 5 was my second favorite - I went the Trakovite way and liked the feel of the ending.
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There is one other nice thing about a wisdom crystal: if your spellcaster is within 200 XP of the next level, it makes a good substitute energy elixir (for some reason, at least when I played on Torment, going up a level did regenerate spell points but did not regenerate health points). Once I passed level 30, that's all I used them for (didn't buy them but did save them for that reason). Whether that's worth giving them any extra value, I leave for you to say.
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Thank you! One other question I forgot to ask. One of the spell-point traits says you're good at chess. I bought it; I had lots of intelligence; but I never got to where I could beat (or even challenge) the chess player who's in the first city north of Fort Avernum -- Is it ever possible to play that guy?
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Since I've beaten the game, and won't have time to replay it, a couple of things I'm curious about -- In Sulfas' lair, the statue tells me about an untrapped treasure chest. I see what looks like the secret treasure area through a window in the south wall. And I see a button next to a statue on the west wall - but I can't reach that button past the statue and tables. I found two spots in the game where I could kill my enemies without them fighting back. (That is, before starting a fight, I go into combat mode and keep answering "yes" when asked if I am sure I want to fight this friendly character -- yet they do not turn hostile and neither does anyone else.) One is in the Empire Ambassador's room below Formello - I killed her golems without a word of protest, and when I came back to kill her (out of sheer joie de vivre after I killed her emperor), I cut her down to her last few health points before going out of combat mode and having the conversation that provoked her to fight me. The other spot was in Pyrog's lair - the giant guards in her room (but not in other parts of the lair) could be killed in this "friendly" fashion. I didn't see any other encounters like that. My question is - are there other encounters like that in the game? I didn't save the game in a place where I could test what happened if you abandoned Avernum after reaching the "final gauntlet" exit. If I had done that - would it have made a difference whether I'd first killed Hawthorne and Grath-hoth? Also, would it have given me any personalized information about the people and places in Avernum? I suspect not - since the messages I got when I completed all three quests were pretty generic. A comment - One thing I love about most Spiderweb games - Avadon in particular - is the way you get to see the consequences of what you've done in the various towns and on the various NPC's (e.g., "With Meera and the giant chieftain dead, Bargha comes to dominate the abyss...with Kyass dead, Avernum expands into the northern caverns to prepare itself for the coming war....your ill-advised murder of the ambassador makes war come that much faster...") I really liked the part of the Avadon ending (pro-Redbeard) where you got to pick what kind of job you wanted, and that was woven into the ending. (I'd like it even more if the individual characters' final attributes led to short descriptions of where their careers went...a little like in Cute Knight...okay, it probably won't happen any game soon, but I can dream...)
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A:EftP - pole weapon vs double sword
Alberich replied to kensuguro's topic in Avernum Trilogy (2011-2018 remake versions)
From browing around this forum, I see that I did find that weapon - but under another name and without the properties I was looking for. (I wasted a bunch of time looking for it, when it was in hand all along. Which is what I get for wanting to play the game through without getting hints from the forums first.) -
Where do these ninjas come from?
Alberich replied to kensuguro's topic in Avernum Trilogy (2011-2018 remake versions)
For that matter, the "hunters" (i.e., assassins" in The Bard's Tale had a decidedly ninja-like look. -
A:EftP - pole weapon vs double sword
Alberich replied to kensuguro's topic in Avernum Trilogy (2011-2018 remake versions)
I just finished the game on Torment. My two-sword man was a lot better than my pole man. In fact, once I found a certain item, Click to reveal.. a sword that added 8 points to blademaster, late in the game, I actually "reinvented" my pole man (15 pole weapons, 10 blademaster, 0 swords) as a two-sword man - and he was still doing more damage with two swords than with the strongest pole weapon, even though he didn't have ambidextrous or two-sword mastery. (And if I'd built him for two swords from the beginning, he would've been that much more awesome.) The clues in the game mention a very powerful pole weapon -- Click to reveal.. a pike called Giantslayer - but I never found it, myself, whereas, as the other commenters have said, there are lots of quality swords. -
I've got a group of characters near 35th level on Torment, and we can't read the spellbooks in Erika's tower. We've got 28 levels of arcane lore (2/2/12/12), everyone's got a level of Drath's knowledge, and two characters have the learning trait (the one that subtracts 3 from the level of knowledge you need to read a spellbook). My question is - to read her spell tomes, do I just need more Arcane Knowledge/special traits/brute force, or is there something I need to figure out? (If there's something I need to figure out please don't tell me what it is, as I like to figure things out.) I tried a few odd tricks like throwing up a ward of thoughts, reading the same tome over and over, etc., and I tried briefly switching to Casual difficulty, but so far whenever I try to read those books I just get the "you're dizzy and it takes you time to recover" message. (I'm avoiding strategy central in case it spoils a puzzle or something.)
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I'm with Dikiyoba on this one. Castra'Arl was playing with fire for sure, but he was at least acting in a way that would benefit his tribe if it worked. At least as far as he knew. Gryfyn's the opposite. He starts on the stronger side, with a real chance to do what he says he wants to do -and a pretty distorted sense of what's more and less important, insofar as it affects his people and their safety. He's like a rat who chews a hole in bottom of the ship, so it'll sink and he can desert it.
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I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to attack and replace Redbeard. I didn't try. I mean: - The Pact, and Avadon itself, are in the middle of a disaster. Kill off the strongest fighter Avadon has, and take over the position yourself - how is that disaster going to get easier to manage? (And if you have a strong leader who wants to stay in power and manage crises like that, that's a blessing you shouldn't throw away lightly.) - The Tawon Empire is obviously looking for an opportunity to reassert its dominance, so you're not going to end up with free and independent states, even if Avadon is overthrown. The two Pact countries closest to the TE are about to exhaust themselves in a war with each other, leaving it wide open for a campaign of expansion. What's going to make that better than Avadon-as-it-is? Yeah, you could *try* to play the dragons, vikings, imperialists, reformed-barbarians, whatever is going to come out of the Corruption, and so forth against each other to keep one or two of these countries independent and their borders safe. How high are the odds of success? - For that matter, the "barbarian" country is sitting right next to their angry, estranged, and warlike cousins, who have started building fortresses...with the pact falling apart and the tribes back to fighting each other, I can see another war of conquest on the horizon even though I'm nearsighted. And it's not as if The Corruption is going away, nor the island raiders to the southeast. Tarkus & Co. tried to prove the Pact was inadequate by having titans, wretches, etc. from the mountains keep attacking, no doubt promising them an excess of plunder once Avadon dies and the Pact disintegrates. So what's to stop that promise from being kept? What you need, obviously, is a stronger army of Hands...which, with Redbeard dead, you are going to get - how? - Every Redbeard decision somebody's bitching about is at least understandable and hard to improve upon. (I love the way you get the chance to ask him your companions' questions, and hear his explanations.) All right, you might've done one or two of those things differently. The way this world works, whoever runs Avadon is going to have to make decisions like that on a weekly basis. Do you really think you'll do better, consistently? More moderation and you'll look weak in the face of some very determined enemies, who are trying their hardest to make you look weak. More extremism and you'll miss valuable opportunities (like info from enemy turncoats, who don't trust you to honor your pardons). You need fear and respect on your side, and having killed the major source of fear and respect...where are you? - Since it's pretty obvious from the story that Redbeard is at least going to be tougher than you alone...how long are you going to last against the next assassination attempt, fomented by enemy spies among disgruntled hands like the ones you keep meeting? I can't see how it could ever be worth it, unless you're like Miranda, and have such a personal grudge against Redbeard and Avadon that you don't mind seeing the overthrow of Avadon and the Pact Civil War followed shortly by the War of Tawon Conquest, with increased raids and possibly invasions from nearly every point of the compass. But there's nothing in the player character's background to give you that kind of grudge, and if there were, I'd hope most of us wouldn't sacrifice that many people over a personal grudge. Okay, I can see a gamer would do the fight just for the heck of it, to prove he can do it, but from the viewpoint of a character in the game....I just can't see it.
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It worked perfectly - thank you kindly!
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I remember, with GF 5, some kindly soul ended up publishing a link to all the ending-text options (so you could get a feel for what else was out there without replaying the whole game). Is it possible someone will do that with this game? (I originally had another question in this post, but I just found the answer in another thread.)
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The end of Redbeard's Reign: A gameplay post-mortem (spoiler free)
Alberich replied to SpiderFan's topic in Avadon Series
I finished a couple of days ago - and I think this is the best game Spideweb has done yet. Like you, I enjoyed the customization of the companions, and I did sometimes pick which companions to bring based on my hopes for dialogue. Other improvements over previous Spiderweb games: - I don't feel stupid spending my money. I mean, there's good stuff to buy (like the Titansteel breastplate, which I believe was with the quartermaster) - and if you do buy it, you don't feel like a ninny when you promptly find something better in the very next fight, nor do you discover you *needed* all that money for training. - The skill system and the retrain options are also designed so that, assuming that I play without hintbooks (as I do), I don't suddenly figure out that I should've built my character some other way when I'm reaching the late stages of the game. So you're not constantly and irreversibly punished for a bad character build. (And the way the skill tree system works, you can fix a lot of mistakes even without having to retrain - for example, I was rushing to get the salamdander summon for my Shaman, and took a lot of level-1 skills too early; but I wasn't spending points I'd never get back on skills I'd never need, so I was able to fix that issue by concentrating more later.) - Torment level (I always start on Torment) is much improved. The low-level fights you have to slog through are much easier than in other SW games; the major fights earn the "torment" title. The healing/fatigue system means I don't have to spend so much time running back to town. After winning, I thought at first that this was a much smaller game than other SW games, but now I'm thinking it simply *seemed* smaller because not every encounter with a pack of wolves or wretches required me to leave the area to heal. And that, I appreciate. The game gave me a higher payback for the time I spent playing it. - This game, I can retreat off the edge of the map or up a staircase, even in combat, a handy way of getting out (especially since some of the opponents are very, very aggressive in pursuit...which sometimes makes it easier to lead them into an encounter with some friendlies). - The player dialogue options - they include more opinions that a real person might believe. In some of the GF games, it seemed you were left with the option of saying, "Everyone's neck belongs under a shaper boot," or "The shapers should be tortured to death," without much in between...in this game, I often *took* some of the extreme options (the logic of power dictates some unpalatable results), but I liked seeing more humane opinions available. (Mind you, the options and factions in GF gave the game an "alien" feel that I enjoyed, but this game felt warmer, and I had an easier time identifying with some of the personalities.) - And as I've said before, the level cap...there's no obligation to have every fight possible just to be strong enough for the later fights; you can spare the folks who don't need killing, or sometimes just avoid a fight you don't want to have. One thing I do miss is the ability to see the enemy's hit points (as opposed to just the health bar) - it's not a big loss and I can get a feel for where they are - but since I can see how much damage I'm doing anyway, seeing their numbers would be nice. Still, I think if I try replaying some of the older SW games later, this one will have "spoiled" me. I'm definitely looking forward to the sequels. -
If there is one thing I miss from other SW games...
Alberich replied to Mod.'s topic in Avadon Series
I don't agree, actually - now, I do love nonlinear gaming, especially in tabletop RPG's when I have time for them (which is never), but there are several things I like about having Avadon this way (judging by medals I'm only about halfway through right now, so I don't know it all the way through). The thing is, the linear structure fits very well with the game concept. I mean, you're basically a soldier (with an unusual amount of leeway to take side tasks), and soldiers do the missions they're given. In the first 3 Geneforge games, at least, you got cut off from your higher authority very early on, with the result that you pretty well *had* to improvise and explore, and your storyline - like your character - would be expected to meander all over the place. It already stretches credibility that you get so much freedom on side quests and "merecenary moonlighting." Redbeard & Co., at least as I see them so far, are portrayed as pretty competent, and if they know what the most pressing issue is that needs to be addressed right *now*, you'd expect them to direct their available agents right there right then, leading to what must be a linear progression of assignments. Another advantage is that it seems to have given Jeff the boldness to write some more customized NPC dialog - I love the way the companions actually interact with you and each other on the quests. If tightening up the plot means he can spice it up with a little more character depth - more power to him! Combined with the medals, it also makes it a little easier to remember where the story's gone, if you're not able to play marathon sessions. (Another thing I'm surprised I like is the level cap - I wasn't expecting to at first - but now I see I'm under no pressure to take every quest possible, in the hopes of being tough enough for the endgame, and I can reject what looks dubious and take what I like.) -
Titan fortress minor bug/query (with spoilers)
Alberich replied to Alberich's topic in Avadon Series
Randomizer - thanks! But about "death blows" - does that mean I'm foregoing XP when an NPC strikes the death blow? (Not that it matters much with level capped at 30 - a feature I actually like as long as the game remains winnable.) Master1 - Good on ya - I think it would've been fun to let you talk to the camp commander after that. "Can the assault begin?" "It's already over."
