Alberich

And the thing Zhethron drops is very nice for fighting Velusa (not to mention that he is much easier to kill).

To me she was just so hungry for vengeance that she was willing to sacrifice several countries to war, domination by the Tawon Empire, or destruction by the Corruption...just to get back at Redbeard. At least in this game you find out just what got her so all-fired upset. And even do something about it...regardless of how you come down on Redbeard.

Assuming this is about Avadon 3...short answer is "no"...a lot of merchants have one or two lockpicks, but I never saw one with a big supply. The trick is to build up either your main character (if a shadowwalker, sorcerer, or tinkermage) to level 4 in "lockpick" skill, or else to bring along someone else of that level...then you won't need more than 1-2 picks at a time, at least not for the locks you are really meant to pick. Note that sometimes the hard-to-pick door opens into a room that you can access for free or get into by other means. If you're in a solo quest as a shaman or blademaster, then I recommend not bothering with the tough locks. The game is very winnable without them. You can be carrying the lockpicks yourself even if you're relying on the skill of an NPC.

A little like Thulsa Doom that Conan owes everything to him....since his hatred of Thulsa Doom is what gave him his "will to live." I like the fact that major series villains (Miranda and Gryfyn) get a chance to explain themselves before The End.

Just went through that scene on a replay....his main spiel is to justify his earlier rebellion. At first he was loyal to the Pact; then he thought the pact was rotten and doomed to fail, so he decided to look out for his own country by joining forces with Dheless. He claims that his own betrayal was the very thing that "brought the pact together"...and laments the fact that he won't get any credit for it, as he thinks the Pact will now be strong for centuries thanks to him. With the right answers you can talk his invitation out of him (just convince him your loyalty is to the Pact, not to Avadon, and that you are hoping to make peace instead of slaughter)...but if you do that he escapes alive.

If I fight Redbeard, all the people on his side attack me while the people on my side run around making turns take a long time, but don't actually fight. This is very annoying I thought it was hilarious, myself. Redbeard has always taken the position that he is the only person competent and strong enough to keep Avadon and the Pact together. In deciding to fight him, I was implicitly taking the opposite position. And so the other anti-Redbeard leaders proceed to prove his point by running around the room like chickens with their noodles cut off, heedless of burning goo and shocking floors. My favorite fights are against the doomed trio of Protus supporters that won't let Redbeard into Fort Foresight...because it seems like a very even fight, That one was funny for a different reason. I ran north and west, and managed to get into a fight where the "Protean" hands and I were fighting on the same side against a couple of wolves. After the wolves died and I got close to the Hands (still in combat mode), the dialogue took place and they turned hostile to me. But the turrets their tinkermage had made stayed friendly to me. Thus, those poor numbskulls had to fight my party while their own turrets shot them in the back. I pictured this as the Tinkermage having to set some kind of crude "friend or foe recognition switch" when he makes a turret...and since we were fighting a common enemy he put us down as "friends," which led to the logical conclusion once he attacked us. Or maybe his turrets decided to start the Robot Rebellion right now... If you were motivated to do three playthroughs this fast, that shows that this is indeed an awesome game. I'm going to stop after my second...I am not a big replayer...but hats off to Jeff for putting it together that well.

That's one reason I made myself take out a variety of groups during the earlier parts of the game...since I tended to equip the people I was actually with, if I made sure to take them all out sometimes, everyone got at least a respectable mix of equipment. In A3 it was easier as every trip to an anvil (or a hand camp) made everyone's inventory accessible at once.

I've been replaying on normal as a Redbeard loyalist, and I avoided Protus as much as possible but talked to her...and she opened the tower for me. So maybe it's an "either/or."

I think you also have to talk to the heart, the one who keeps wandering in and out of Protus' chambers...she grants actual access.

I don't have anything to add to my previous views, but I wanted to stop in to tull-throatedly agree with this: Welcome to the forums! We disagree (as you see) but that doesn't stop me from being happy that one more person enjoyed this awesome series to the point of writing a 3-page essay supporting a fictional side in a fictional war. If you've made it through G5, and you haven't played the Avadon series, you definitely should. Given your views on Alwan, your reflections on Redbeard through the 3 parts of the saga would be most interesting.

How the heck Zhethron is supposed to be killed (not a quest since I do it for the good of Avadon's future)? if I concentrate Z only he still makes bbq on my Shadowwalker teammate in 1 turn (Z attacks thrice a turn after knocking SW to icefield) and Shaman and main (Tinkermage) follow up quickly with same fate and if I kill Z's golems 1st then same fate. I have gotten close (1-2 rounds away) but then Z attacks multiple times per row and kills all chars in 3 turns (last with help of golems since those really pack mean punch and stun chars). Zhethron can be killed easily if you take advantage of his weaknesses. First thing to remember: Zhethron doesn't move from the middle of the room until late in the fight, and his fiery breath has less range than your arrows, javelins, and razordisks. Second thing to remember: His golems will follow you out of the room. So, start the fight by shooting him at max range. You can also send summoned drakes up to chew on him, draw his fire, and breathe fire on his golems. When the golems come, you can lead them out of the room and kill them in the hallways, the same as any other monsters. (That done, I recommend exiting combat mode and quicksaving, just in case, then getting back into combat mode fast so he won't heal too much.) Once they are all dead, you come back to the room. You shoot him at a distance and send "pets" to chew on him. As long as he stays put, he won't touch you. Third thing to remember: He is immune to fire, but he is not immune to ice. And once he gets hurt enough that he charges you and leaves his safe island, he's going onto a floor that's covered with ice.. So, get the heck out of the room but do not exit combat mode. Use a drake to "fix" him while you flee. If you do it right, he will not follow you. (When I did it, I stopped near the stairs, and I could see him perched next to the door of his own room. I was too far away to shoot him or to draw his attention, but that was fine with me. Every round there was a little blue flash as the ice floor hurt him) Stay in combat mode, but wait. Just keep hitting that spacebar and wait. Every round he will take damage from the ice. And yes...eventually the dumb dragon will freeze himself to death! (You can speed the process up by sending two of your characters in to get killed on purpose. Then you only have to hit the spacebar once to end a round...and watch him take more ice damage. At first I was sending in drakes to chew on him again, but I found that was a slower process than hitting the spacebar and letting the ice do its work.) On Torment this takes a long time as he has a lot of health points...so find something fun to listen to while you do it. No scrolls or potions required!

The second statue wrecked my team too. But

Just go there...each of them has an area at a different corner of the map where the minions will let you in if you signal your willingness to talk (they don't hold a grudge over the patrols you kill). The patrols respawn endlessly so you want to move efficiently.

True. And I ended the game without quite having reached 30th level, so there is a downside to avoiding "unnecessary" fights. (Then again, I did finish it, so the downside was not that big.)

wrt the statue, when I saw it animate wrt Zhethron,

If this is the quest I think it is...another way is not to beat them at all. If I remember, there are two quests you have to do in that dungeon. One involves a one-way trip to the north...do that one first. The other involves picking up mushrooms to the northwest. Do that one last. The thing to remember is that if one character goes up the stairs, they all go up the stairs, and you keep the items you gathered. So go into combat mode, and let one character go get the mushrooms while another stays near the stairs. Once you have what you need -- have your stay-behind climb the stairs, and never look back at that dungeon.

But was it "*needed*" ? Made things a heck of a lot easier, as I remember. Edit: Replaying on Normal, I just found another way to win this one. Have a Tinkermage with you. Before you enter the room, enter combat mode and have the Tinkermage stand south of the doorway and build a turret. As long as you have a turret in the doorway, the gate will not close. I used a shadowwalker's teleport ability and the "teleport" scarab (which I had on the tinkermage) to move the characters towards the door. I left a blademaster behind to draw attacks while those two characters fled towards the door and out to the south. (Of course I could resurrect the blademaster by going around the corner and exiting-reentering combat mode). I sent pets (summoned by scarab) to draw the enemy to the south, and of course they took lots of damage from the goo as well as my attacks. My original plan involved letting the door close so I could shoot Golath through the gate while he couldn't touch me (there's another place in the game where a similar tactic is very helpful). But the fight was easy enough that I didn't need that. It took a few recovery potions (to recover the "group heal" ability from a scarab) plus a few group heal scrolls, mostly to keep the turrets alive. Subsequent edit: May be just as well as the gate did not reopen when Golath died.

On reflection, I do remember one other place where I was able to do something like this.

Daaang. With Zhethron the only real difference is how long it takes...he was very killable without using any consumables, if you have the patience...but Velusa was a sonofagun.

But it was funny that way! (And given what Golath is trying to do to the PC, I daresay he deserves "cheap.") I can tell you, too, that this particular exploit didn't work anywhere else in the game (at least not anywhere that I remembered...and as a Shaman on Torment, you can bet I tried it out elsewhere). Bosses who heal themselves when "you're not close enough to stop them" don't count summoned creatures when deciding if you're too far off, and many others will not go into combat mode at all unless you first bring the PC's up for a dialogue...since this game doesn't have the "force attack" button, that cuts you off from the unresisted drake chew. Only in just this one place was I able to win a major fight on this exploit. And since you saved the really "tormentous" torment parts for the boss fights, I had no real motive to try it on lesser fights. So unless you want to make that one fight harder, there's no real need to fix it. If you do want to, I think the simplest way would be to do what you did in other fights...don't recognize the enemy forces as "hostile" until after the dialogue; that way the PC's are forced into the "tractor beam." Fantastic game, btw, and a very satisfying finale to the series.

If a mortal can kill a god, then it is not much of a god. In the Iliad, a mortal (Achilles) was able to wound at least one goddess (Aphrodite, who unwisely showed up on the battlefield...though, mind you, she kind of owed the Trojans given her role in starting the trouble). I think Ares also got hurt by mortals somehow...and got a chewing out by Zeus for it...but I forget the details. Mind you, I think being "not much of a god" is kind of the point...these "gods" manage to achieve worship and adulation, but at root they are something much smaller and cruder than their starry-eyed followers see them as. (In a way it's also like "The Master" from the first Fallout game. Up above there's a Cathedral full of healing and messages of comfort and joy...but below at the root is just a weird monster that wants to extend its dominions. Scarier, but also smaller, than what the cult would have it seem.) As near as I can tell, while Tawons gods are created through Necromancy, they are in fact sustained by the worship of their followers. There are examples in both Avadon 2 and Avadon 3 of their gods weakening when mortals forget about them. That's one possibility; though also it seems that the older gods (like the goddess you meet in Av-3) simply get weaker as they get older, and no one can do anything about it. So maybe "getting older" and "being forgotten in favor of someone newer" are just things that happen at the same time, but the former causes the weakness while the latter comes along for the ride. Not the only interpretation, but a good one, I think. Another possibility is that these necromantic "gods" need some kind of expensive physical sustenance they can't make all alone...like that "juice" up in Redbeard's chambers...and when they're forgotten, they don't get so much of it.

And sneaking around is quite good enough. I like going into combat mode for sneaking purposes -- even more so if you can go into "battle frenzy" and move 14 spaces per round. (Sentries won't see you run past them in combat mode as long as you are out of range before the end of the round. And if one character makes it up the stairs, they all make it up the stairs.)

That's a good question about Zhethron. Why does Dheless tell you talk to him? He seems to have no relationship whatsoever to the ending or the rebellion. At that point, Dheless still seems to have some hope of winning the war. Zhethron is a Pact ally, at least for the time being, so I figure Dheless is trying to get me to weaken the pact by killing him. (I ended up killing him anyway but only after we were much closer to victory.) It may be he approached Zhethron and was rejected, so that he wants to see Zhethron punished for this (I imagine he contacted every dragon he could in addition to the Warborn and other Farlands.) The ending mentioned we never find out how Redbeard stayed young. Is there a way to find this answer? While the game doesn't tell, my own theory is that he used Tawon-style necromancy to make himself something like a Tawon God. (Redbeard in Av-1, so I'm told, and Velusa in Av-3, so I saw, both use soul jars...and both are a little bit wacko on the subject of their own power. And both have an inherent instability that gets worse with time. Redbeard also makes a common at one point that he is "no longer human"...or something like that.)

JGG - Well, maybe soul jars are something you have to set up in your lair over time. In Av-1, people fight Redbeard in an audience chamber, I believe, and the soul jars appear in secret rooms he's set up for that purpose. In Av-2 people fight him in an outlying fort, and in Av-3, it's in a part of his tower he didn't have rigged. 'course Jeff doesn't tell, so we get to fill in the gaps the way we please, but this makes the most sense to me. It's totally in character for him to enforce the laws against necromancy while practicing the art himself, and I don't see any other magic in the game that explains him. I don't believe Redbeard if he says he's forgotten his past...he told me straight how important it is to never let anyone know about your family or background; so if he claims a blackout on his personal background, maybe he's just practicing what he preaches. Owen -- Well, then, don't think of the products of necromancy as only "zombies." In a prior generation "undead" meant Christopher Lee or Frank Langella with a noble title and lots of sex appeal...

Anyone else kinda disappointed they are just necromancy? I've been thinking about this (I just killed Velusa last night) and I really like it the way it is. It reminds me of a very human experience I (and maybe you) have had...if you read the scriptures of a religion you don't believe in, especially one with a warlike past, you'll find a lot of crudeness. If you talk to a learned believer about it, he'll tell you it's metaphorical, or loftier than it looks, or beyond your comprehension, or loaded with multiple layers of subtle meaning that repay further study. Encountering Velusa and his followers is kind of like that...the followers are gushing about his wisdom and benevolence, and I'm sure if Jeff cared to write so much dialogue, they could discourse at length about the amazing moral and practical lessons and fulfilling life experiences that they get from following Velusa. But that the bottom, underneath this intricate superstructure the enthusiastic believers have built, is something pretty crude -- a human autocrat who got jazzed up with necromancy, and extended past his "sell-by" date. I especially liked it in context. (nb, I have not played the endgame yet so please don't tell me if it contradicts my speculations) The medal text for "humiliate the Tawon" (which I won) suggests that the god I kill has to be "not an old, feeble god" (implying that someone or something in the game is an old, feeble god). Also, The idea of gods gaining power from their worshippers has been done many times elsewhere...Terry Pratchett's Small Gods comes especially to mind...so it doesn't trouble me that Jeff went a different direction this time. Also, this way the Tawon gods have no incentive to compete with each other for worshippers.