Fael

I tried to do A5 with an all warrior party (giving everybody 1 level of priest, so they could do Minor Heal between fights), but I gave up part way through the Drake Pillars -- just too many locks that you can't open without magic and only one Tinker's Crystal in the entire game. A6 should be easier, since you no longer need magic to open locks. Buffs aren't as important in A6 as they were in A5, and there are lots more buffing items available. Items like the Fiery and Frozen Blades are available relatively early and allow you to fight monsters that are only vulnerable to magical damage. I have a feeling, though, that the lack of Dispel Barrier would still make a magic-free party more annoying than fun.

Originally Posted By: *i Fort Monastery was just a big fight...felt like Jeff just ran out of ideas here. Fort Monastery would have been a lot more fun if the soldiers actually followed orders and let the Slith run into the courtyard to fight. Instead, the challenge was to figure out how to keep the priest from running out of the fort by herself and getting killed. I ended up fighting the battle inside the gate while half the soldiers sat around the courtyard doing nothing.

Absolutely. Although, if you plan on playing all of them eventually, it would theoretically be best to start at the beginning and work forward -- I tend to find that the UI and mechanics advances in one version tend to make previous versions almost unplayable in retrospect (especially the revised encumbrance system in A5).

Originally Posted By: madrigan The only things I don't like about the UI in this game are that 1) when I click on a item on the ground or in a cabinet, it automatically jumps into the inventory of the selected character instead of letting me place it where I want it and 2) the exact health and magic points remaining are not shown on the main screen. I'm still liking the game a lot, though. Indeed, I think that nails the interface problems nicely. I've more or less gotten used to 2), but 1) will annoy me forever.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl Wait, how do you figure four? By doing math-based posts right before bed... Your numbers are, of course, correct. Originally Posted By: Thuryl Magical Efficiency has no benefit for area-of-effect damage spells: Icy Rain, Divine Fire, Fireblast and Arcane Blow. It's not clear whether this is a bug or a feature, but it makes the skill significantly less useful, especially for mages. It works for buffs, summons, and healing, though, not to mention Bolt of Fire, Acid Splash, Smite (your priest's best option against Slith, which you fight a ton of), and Repel Spirit (your priest's--heck, you're whole party's--best option against undead).

Buy a couple levels of First Aid -- two levels per character is only four skill points and I've found that to be pretty much all I need. Make sure to buy up the intelligence of your spellcasters, so that they have more mana points. The Magical Efficiency skill, once you unlock it, will reduce the mana cost of all your spells, so that you don't go through your spell energy as quickly.

It's a scripted event. You're fine.

I don't recall killing all the zombies before shades started appearing. But I do believe everybody has to be within the circle and one character has to be on a specific square in the center on the side closest to Nociduas.

Slith 40 (leveled during the final battle), Nephil 41, Humans 43. That was without DT, but also without doing the Gladwell quest string or selling skribane.

Indeed. Although it's possible to complete the mission and escape without fighting anyone outside the keep, if you're so inclined.

There's a back way into the keep, in addition to the main doors. But it's still pretty much a slash and bash.

After you complete the Impaler quest, though, you start getting teleport pylons in the northern section of the map, at which point you can 'port back north and recover your boats. So, just don't use all three before finishing that quest.

Originally Posted By: BrownieMix Touche - point well taken. Should have thought of that, though I'm sure Jeff can work something out. Besides, I have exams, so a break would work out fine for now. Yeah, but you should have had to think of that. It's something that's second nature to most people who've played through extensive parts of the series, but it's not real newbie friendly. But I bet it made it into the final game because it never occurred to any of the beta testers not to get all the quests before doing any of them...

Originally Posted By: Randomizer This is why I always asked for information about all 3 quest at once before doing any of them. Yeah. I've been pretty careful about getting all possible quests before doing any after getting burned on the Muck/Highground dueling quests in A5.

You can, however, complete the entire area, including the lich, in one go; turn in the bone shards quest; and still get the hunt the lich quest, which you can then immediately collect the reward on.

I didn't even have Fireblast when I did that quest. Lighting and bows did fine for keeping the summons under control and any which did make it through to attack got chopped to pieces by the fighters. Amazing how much damage you can do when your main party is ignoring the summoner. I don't believe you can keep your entire party outside the flame aura range, though... IIRC, the character who stands on the square that activates the shade summoning is just barely in range. But, with only one character in the blast radius, it's easy enough to keep him healed.

I don't believe that the shades that appear when you stand in the right place on the summoning circle count against your summoning limit.

Originally Posted By: elchipeo Yeah, gladwell's quests are probably the most influential, and the most beneficial to avernum, if you ask me. Melanchion's quests are also very important, there's 4, two of them define northern avernum, one defines the abyss, and the other one I can't remember what it was. The Darkside Loyalist base. Defines the Empire, I assume? (I haven't tried not killing them.)

Originally Posted By: Svelte Prince Penoir Excellent answers all around. Since I'm itching to complete Gladwell's quests, is there someone who can post the ending text that mentions Spire when one has NOT fulfilled the "Mayor of Spire" quest? If you kill the Bragga mayor but not the Spire mayor, Melanchion dominates the Abyss. I forget the exact text, but it's something along the lines of, "The Abyss is finally safe. At the cost of the freedom it valued so much." I haven't tried the various other permutations yet. Based on other elements of the ending, my guess would be that the "optimal" ending (for the people of the Abyss, anyway), would be to leave them both alive.

I haven't tested this (yet), but I think whether you take out the Fang Clan stronghold or not makes a slight difference. There are also gradations of Melanchion (incomplete) where the result changes depending on which and how many of Melanchion's missions you choose to complete. I believe this is also true of Gladwell, where completing certain of his missions will have a minor affect on the ending whether or not you do the whole string. For example, I suspect that there are four different endings for what happens to the Abyss, depending on whether you kill both mayors, neither, or just one. I'm particularly curious what those possibilities are... but, so far, not curious enough to re-do the endgame four times to check out the various permutations. As far as I know, the earliest things you can do to affect the ending are Gladwell's second and third quests. The second quest is a minor effect, the third, I believe, can be fairly major.

Note that there's a specific square in the circle that you have to stand on, and it isn't the exact center. It's actually one of the squares in the front center. I screwed up this battle the first time I tried because I mistakenly thought you were supposed to stand in the center of the circle. Silly me...

I prefer Portal Keep, as well, for the reasons Synergy describes. Although it's really only after completing the Eastern Gallery that inventory space becomes an issue; before that I just store all my excess junk in my mage's backpack.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer You will get some unwelcomed guests from the south gate. Only if you go up there right away after taking care of the Impaler. If you teleport back to the Castle, and then come back later, you'll be able to get to the upper tier, but you won't get slith spawning and running into the palace to bother you unless you actually step outside. You can wander around inside with impunity and no one will bother you.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Arena Upper Tier - NE Gremlin Wine (2), Golden Goblet (2), BOX - Crystalline Plate (34% Armor, +50% Stun Resistance, -20% Hit Chance, +15% Acid Resistance, +15% Energy Resistance), Blessed Halberd (15-60 damage) - NE The knowledge elixir and armor make another trip worth it. Absolutely. But note that you can get the items above without stepping outside the palace and triggering the spawns. The only thing worth going outside for is the knowledge elixir. And, even for that, I'm not sure I found it worth the aggravation of doing that fight.

You can -- and should; there are some nice items -- go back and finish looting the tunnels and the interior of the headquarters building, if you didn't do that before you left. Trying to loot the rest of the city is a waste of time, though -- in addition to the ones that start there, once you exit the building, two 1,000 HP sliths (worth 0 XP, I"m told, although I wasn't really paying attention to that) spawn every 3 or 4 rounds for as long as you're willing to stick around and fight them. Even on Normal, I couldn't make any progress -- the best I managed was to kill them as fast as they spawned; I never managed to advance anywhere or have free rounds available for looting. I know some of the powergamers have gotten further, but even they say there's nothing out there worth the effort. I suspect I might be able to make some progress if I turned the difficulty down to Casual, but it was sufficiently boring that I'm not tempted to try. I'd just avoid the whole thing and stay inside the headquarters.