Alberich

Another possibility is that you found yourself institutionally pressured to hold the line on Avadon...bureaucracies, even military ones, don't turn on a dime when a new leader shows up. Or that the stacks of classified information you became privy to convince you that you can't risk Avadon for the Council, or else the pact will fall. Many SW game endings...even the upbeat ones from Geneforge 5...feel a little like real-world politics and strategy, at least in this sense: that you walk in with the best will in the world to carry out your moral goals, you beat the enemy or get into power after a huge struggle, and then discover...that you haven't got half as much power as you thought you did, you're lucky to accomplish any part of what you intended, and the unintended effects are waiting to come back and bite you. I was also very pro-pact...I got the best pact ending by letting Redbeard live, but in such a way that Hanvar's Council finally started asserting itself again. (Or I may have read that ending in the dialogue file after getting an "avadon strong" ending...it's been a while and I forget.)

Is there even really a motive to kill them (outside of "proving you can")? Khoth is working with the Empire, but the game doesn't let me approach him...it says I see him through a gate and quietly back away. Sulfras and Athron are rude and arrogant, but in this game they're not actually threatening us. In my view,it can't be worth 5000 to buy anything that efreet has...there is so much good plate out there already, ditto necklaces...save the money for training, I say.

I didn't think Grah-Hoth was that bad....after I noticed the switch on the wall that let me exploit the geography. (When we all stayed in his main parlor, that was a different matter.) The "Empire Portal" end quest was harder for me, even though I did find many exploits to avoid the worst of the fighting. Hawthorne by contrast was a sonofagun. I haven't yet done the other two CS victory quests so I don't know how they'll compare.

Well, he sounds like a medication for increased gut motility ("constipated? Try Motrax!")...that "ax" ending sounded weird on a dragon 'til I remembered Vermithrax. But if "Mot-rax" is too complicated, I guess that makes it unlikely that Ahtron is just an acronym for "ran hot"?

Thanks!

I tried Angierach a little while ago…I’m now planning to save it for last. (The Empire Portal was quite hard enough for now; and I’m guessing Garzahd will be as well.) When I went in, I slid down into an arena where I got hit with waves of really tough creatures…which will pretty obviously require a lot of potions when it’s time to fight them for real. Assuming I can’t dodge that fight -- and I’m not asking whether I can -- I saw a rock on the south side of the room but I couldn’t test my level 2 stoneshatter spell on it, since I couldn’t get to it before combat started, and was not willing to spend all the potions I’d need to win that fight just yet. My question is simply this: am I going to need stoneshatter at level 3 in order to rescue the third crystal soul?

Mother with extra letters? Now there's a thought...maybe Motrax is the child of an unholy union between Mothra and Vermithrax?

I get "Khoth" and "Pyrog"...he took "Hot" and "Pyro" and added some letters. I assume "Sulfras" started out as "brimstone butt"...same basic theme. But what does "Motrax" signify?

I also liked clearing the south barracks in Pyrog's lair, where I had to deal with the mindstealer and terror infiltrators...because I couldn't win just by equipping my best weapons and killing whoever came to the door first, but had to deal with the stuns and charms a little more creatively. To wit -- Also the Test of Speed...because I picture The Twelve Labors of Asterix (first labor) when doing it. Edit: And the big running fight at the Empire portal...because of the mix of tough fights you can't avoid and tougher ones you can, with the need to split up and make sacrifices.

Dervish Tugler in Kohtar. Once I finished his long-headed buddies, I found (torment, levels 27/28) that he was way too tough for us. Once he was hand to hand, he'd soon lucky and wipe out my strongest fighter in a single round. Flanking him in doorways (my most common tactic in this game) didn't work, and he had far too much health for me to think of brute-forcing him with potions or resurrecting people 'til he died. So I had to put some thought into it. My solution was to

I liberated Cotra (torment, characters around level 23). The Mayor's and Commander's bones appeared to have permanent invulnerability on, so that any blow or spell caused them no more than 2-4 points of damage, and usually just 1. What to do? The solution I hit on was to fall back to the front door, flank it with my two fighters, put on Balakirev's Symphony #1,and just hack away a point at a time. After the Mayor's Bones fell, there were the Commander's Bones in the doorway, so I found some different music and did the same again. Then I got out of Dodge, rested, and came back for my four-on-one with the gazer. I didn't mind the time spent -- I treated it as something to do with my hands while listening to good music -- but I can't help but think there was a smarter, faster way to deal with the bones. Was there?

One of the beauties of the level cap - you don't have to fight everyone just for experience. You'll max out anyway.

There was a good discussion of it in this thread. Two other important things to remember are -- (1) As soon as you kill even one of those Tinkermage constructs, you'll win the fight. (2) They won't activate until all three of your characters are in the room; so if you go into combat mode before entering, you can safely send one or two characters in by themselves, plant your turrets, summon creatures, buff everyone, etc. before firing it up.

I'm more optimistic about the pact's prospects, in part because I see it as less like NATO and more like the United States under the Articles of Confederation, with Hanvar's Council standing in for the Continental Congress and Avadon for the Continental Army. (Which I suppose makes Redbeard into a much grimmer and scarier George Washington.) (Yes, I know, the parallels aren't all that close. Thank heavens.) In some of the endings, like the one I got, you end with Hanvar's Council deciding to stop abdicating its authority, and asserting control over Avadon at the end...and that's the sign that gives me hope; it shows the Pact representatives really wanting to make the thing work, with the rule of law and the military power firmly subordinated to the civilian. With that kind of goodwill at the top I think the Pact has a decent chance of holding together, and maintaining its legitimacy...as long as it isn't simply overwhelmed. A league like that still might atrophy or drift apart once the external threats are gone...but if in the meantime Avadon helps to settle their land disputes and so forth, there's a decent chance of peace between them. In some of the other endings, as for example if you Avadon ends up defying the Council's authority...putting the Keeper well on the road to crowning himself emperor. (And there was a movement to have Washington do just that after the Revolutionary War...but Washington himself adamantly refused.) That could change the dynamics greatly - the choice for the Pact members would no longer be "our Pact, that lets us run our own countries our way, versus the Tawon Emperor," but rather, "which of these two emperors, Tawon or Avadon, will rule us?" If, as I suspect, Avadon 3 is the end of the series, and given that Jeff seems to like upbeat endings for his sagas even when the intermediate stories are grim (see Geneforge), I'm hoping the ending I got is the "canonical" one for Avadon 3.

There's some truth in that or at least it's arguable...but the problem is that, if the stone wall falls, the individual nations are all doomed and even more so. If the Tawon want not only their empire, but revenge for their satellite status, they're out to conquer and humiliate, and weakness (you fought yourselves into exhaustion against this short-sighted rebellion, thank you, please do that anytime) will simply be an invitation to them...unless your point is that the PC sees Tawon conquest as inevitable and simply wants to hasten the process. Even there, though, there's the risk the sides will fight each other into exhaustion, leaving themselves more vulnerable than ever. And if these countries aren't united (or they are but are depleted from civil wars followed by wars of conquest), Svorgald will keep raiding individual countries, being simply grateful not to have Avadon or their unified forces to deal with. The titans, wretches, and dragons will have the same incentives to raid and loot, and there will be less force to resist them. For now, at least, none of the threats the Pact countries face will be any less once the Pact crumbles; that's why I don't see the rebellion as any kind of "damage control." Even if the Wyldrylm reunites with its Farland cousins in Khemeria, it will share borders (or, in the case of Svorgald, coasts) with most of its old enemies, and (I think) be weaker than before... Miranda, I understand, would answer all this with an "I don't care; I want my revenge." (Looking at the geography makes me think that may be how Svorgald gets important in game #3. Dheless convinces some of Avadon's enemies to really work together, instead of raiding and invading from four or five directions in poorly coordinated ways...so the Svorgald use their ships to ferry wretches and titans to Khemeria for a surprise deep thrust right at Avadon itself...) DP - I quite agree. I don't remember much of anything about the Sholai so I could be off base. For the rest, I suppose the question is whether internal Pact tensions can be reduced while the Pact retains its current form...or if this confederation has to run to a different extreme, either a unified government (maybe a monarchy supplied by an Avadon coup?), or fragmentation followed by conquest. I'd like to think the Pact can survive in its current form because it's the alternative I'd most like to live in.

In short, there is no Dread Pirate Redbeard... JC - disagree on the Corruption. Firstly it isn't really a "Great RPG Evil" in and of itself; based on what the last golem-things tell us anyway, it's not going to expand and engulf the pact unless a human (like Miranda) makes it happen; and it acts in such a way as to prevent her from doing so (namely by letting you get in and stop her). It comes out less scary than it seems at first...something that can live and let live...leaving the human factions, as before, the real danger. It can't be conquered but it can be kept in check. I thought the political choices in this game were a little better than in the last one...mainly because in this one I could see two or three viewpoints that made sense to me: (1) Loyalty to Avadon, A to Z, on the grounds the Pact needs it to survive; (2) Loyalty to the Pact and Avadon, but wanting to see Avadon held accountable to the civilian government (Hanvar's Council); (3) Loyalty to Avadon, but belief that Redbeard is too unstable and needs to step down or be replaced. And given that you're basically soldiers, not free-ranging adventurers, that's a pretty wide choice. ("Join Dheless and the Tawon to help them get revenge on the pact, and rebuild their empire," that doesn't work for me; "Join the rebellion, betray the pact, and weaken them for the Tawon conquest...so you can get a kiss from Silke," that doesn't work for me either.) In the first game, your only options were pro- and anti-Redbeard, and I could not then, and cannot now, see why anyone would pick anti-Redbeard on principle. (Miranda made sense because she had a personal grudge, and decided her personal grudge was more important than keeping the peace or the Pact; but I saw nothing to bring the PC to this view.) (btw, if as some have suggested Geneforge lies in the past of the world of Avadon...is it possible that Trajkov's people are from Svorgald? I don't remember if his country got named but I remembered walking away with the impression that they were vaguely Viking-like, as the Svorgaldians are...)

This makes sense. I think he deliberately wrote it in such a way as to be compatible with the PC doing anything except killing Redbeard (which for most players was somewhere between "too hard and too tedious" to "impossible"). But I think it's equally possible for that bunch to be alive and simply off screen. Consider this - a major part of Spiderweb game "reality" is that a large part of any population you see is simply invisible. I never went through the towns and counted the population, but the numbers of people are such that even large, thriving communities don't have a thousand inhabitants each, and I'm not sure they've got even a hundred. Yet they're also portrayed as rich enough to support the inns, merchants, palaces, and for that matter the money economy we encounter. I think that means there's a lot of population walking around that you don't see on the screen, because your interactions with them simply don't matter and would be way too tedious to program.* If you count up the hearts you actually meet in Avadon, they wouldn't make a brigade staff, let alone a general staff for an army big enough to do what Avadon does. You get to meet the top figures yourself because you're involved in such important missions...but the numbers involved imply to me that there's a sizable hierarchy "off to the side," with multiple hearts and hands engaged in missions of which you know nothing, or even in Avadon itself but invisible for game purposes like most of the population. The PC and NPC's from the previous game could easily be there, so that whether they're dead or not is left ambiguous. If Avadon is only the few dozen people you see on screen, that's strange; but if there are thousands unseen, it makes a lot more sense. ______ *In Geneforge 2, I found it a little jarring that the Drakons were the only ones who stood and fought to the death in the villages I'd seen. Jarring because I'd already killed them all before I returned to the Shapers. But if you assume that the PC never interacts with more than a fraction of the people who are actually there...it makes a kind of sense.

Yes.

Is there any way to maximize the random conversational interludes with your party members in Ava2? Not exactly "random" but the only thing I know is to hit them up in Avadon itself between quests; they do add more than they did in the first game. I thought my conversation with the blademistress (after I carried out her quest but did not give her the "happy ending" she wanted) was quite poignant. Other than that there's guessing which character will have the most to say in a given area and bringing that one along...the shadowwalker is likeliest to comment on the military/tactical side of anything, the sorcerer on Tawon ruins, etc. While I always want to see more of this dialogue, I thought the game did a pretty good job of letting you understand these characters' top priorities and personal weaknesses.

Lilith - Thank you! Right now I don't have a live gaming group and am not in a position to look for one. In a couple of months that may be different and I will keep that in mind. (And depending on whom or what I find, I may ask you for some advice about good systems.) Valdain - Think of it in the "ends and means" mode I mentioned above. The classic "good thief" is Robin Hood or someone like him -- he wants to accomplish good ends (ending a tyrannical regime) but is willing to use "unrestricted" means (like stealing) to get it done. Dirty Harry -- from the first movie in particular -- is arguably chaotic good; he wants to accomplish good ends (like saving a girl who's suffocating to death, and punishing the monster who's doing it to her) but is ready to use unlawful means (like disobeying orders and torturing a suspect) to get them.

Didn't even know that existed 'til you told me about it just now - thank you!

My experience -- and heaven knows different gaming groups have their own cultures -- is that this is an oddity of human nature, using the language of morality to justify whatever you feel like doing, while using the same language to condemn whatever you don't like that the other fellow's doing. And I used to see it all the time even in games without formal alignments. It's a little exacerbated in classic D&D/AD&D because the paladin class was so powerful, yet required a lawful good alignment...so that it attracted bullies who really didn't care to live up to a chivalric ideal. (My thought was that it shouldn't be allowed as a starting class; but instead a mid-level fighter who had already shown he was acting like a paladin could go to the Chapel of Knighthood and get the additional powers...and one who hadn't, couldn't.)

Not to mention Tolkienesque dwarves, elves, elf-friends (whoops, half-elves), orcs, uruk-hai (whoops, half-orcs), goblins that ride wolves called "wargs" (or did he spell it with an "o"?) etc., most of which have since become cliché in all manner of CRPG's and related games. (And this essay convinced me that is not a bad thing, at least not all the time it's not.) If I remember from the old Dungeon Master's Guide -- and dang, that's an old memory -- he spoke most highly of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd-and-the-Mouser stories plus H.P. Lovecraft (at least among tales I know well those were the ones), and maybe Robert E. Howard, but it's a lot easier for me to see Tolkien and Moorcock in the player races plus the alignment system.

One of my buddies did this using the standard D&D alignments, in a very clever way. The "good-evil" axis was an axis of ends; the "law-chaos" axis was an axis of means. The big splits that mattered in our group were (usually) along the law-chaos axis. So, in some of our dimension-travelling superhero-powered games, my characters tended to be strictly <I>against</I> things like fixing a problem by time-travelling back for a do-over (creates more problems than it solves), using matter transmutation powers to create gold and spend it (inflationary), selling hi-tech weapons on low-tech worlds (disruptive), etc. A certain other player was in favor of doing such things early and often. Naturally, each of us thought of the other as "less good" but in terms of an alignment system, placing me on the "law" end and this other guy on the "chaos" end made a lot of sense and made the alignment system track the way we played. The trick was that lawful characters were restricted in their means - wouldn't do certain things, on principle, even to accomplish good ends, though different lawful characters might have different restrictions.* Under this interpretation...Litalia is the most interesting GF character to track. I suppose she starts out as chaotic good, drifting down to chaotic neutral or evil as she becomes jaded with her revolutionary tactics...and ends up on the good side again but with a new set of priorities. Lawful, chaotic, or neutral? She's got firm principles this time, but it seems she's willing to use nearly any tactic to pursue them (such as releasing the bug-nasties or, as she hints, even resorting to shaping if she has to defend herself), so I'm inclined to "chaotic" but it's arguable. On the other hand, OD&D's Law/Chaos axis probably owed more to Poul Anderson than to Tolkien, and wasn't expressly a moral judgement. I always thought he lifted it from Moorcock, especially the Elric/Corum series. ________ * I remember being annoyed by the Palladium alignment system, which had very <I>specific</I> rules for its alignments...for example, you couldn't be "principled" if you believed in looting useful items from your evil fallen opponents (you had to see such items as "dirty"...might work for some superhero worlds but doesn't fit many others we gamed in).

This fight was easy if you made use of the stairs....lure them near the stairs, run down the stairs without leaving combat mode, come back up and you get a free round of attacks. This one was very easy with a shaman and a summoned drake because I could go downstairs, wait a round for the drake's inferno breath to recharge, then run back up and have him gush fire all over the whole pack of golems, then run back down without them attacking at all. Since I didn't leave combat mode, they never healed. The second floor responds to similar tactics as well. Thanks to the free round of attacks I imagine you could do this with any of the other classes just using their ranged attacks, but it seemed custom-made for the shaman. (I don't know what would happen if you were a tinkermage, planted your turrets near the stairs, then ran down and up the way I suggest.)