WarHamster

Well, don't everybody answer me at once. Anyway, having tested the roamers for awhile now, I can see that both the fyoras and roamers are pretty weak by this stage in the game. Need. Bigger. Guns. Artilas are still pretty decent, though, and kick a** and chew bubble gum well enough. Go, acid worms, go!

So, I've got a Shaper character at lvl 10(ish) in G1 and he's got two faithful and long-suffering fyoras (named Zeus and Apollo, Magnum P.I. FTW!) that have been with him since leaving Vakkiri for the first time way back when. It could be said, that said Shaper has become quite attached to those two critters. However, now that he's exploring the lands beyond Kazg, the two lizards seem to have lost their aim and even with upped stats (DEX+3, namely) they aren't able to hit the broad side of a barn any longer. At best, the "non-buffed" to-hit chance seems to be around 50% and with my luck it means c. 90% of their shots miss (the game's dice-roller hates me). And now the question: Is there any sense in increasing the stats of lvl 7(or so) fyoras some more in the hopes they would start hitting enemies again or have I reached the end of their usefulness? As loathe as I am to let go of those two red, fire-breathing raptors, I made a test and absobed them and created two roamers to take their place. I'm not too impressed. They don't seem to be able to hit enemies any better (maybe 5-10% better to-hit chance, I'd guess, if at all) and their damage output isn't that much better either. I do have same level of ability in both Create Fyora and Create Roamer, and roamers start at a higher level, so the newly-created roamers are actually a level or two higher than my experienced fyoras (IIRC). But still they don't seem to be that much of an improvement. As the game itself is very tight-lipped about the actual to-hit chances and how much damage a given creation is expected to do, I thought to ask the community about the pros and cons of fyoras vs roamers. Your opinions? At least roamers seem to have more HP than fyoras and their bite is nasty, so maybe I'll use them as chargers (fire acid first, then close to melee). Also, I ran into the creation type limit the other day, which was a surprise to me. Is there a hard cap of three different types of creations the whole game through or is it level dependant (e.g. can have character lvl/3 creation types or something)?

Having just started Geneforge 1 a couple of days ago and for the first time braving the dangers of the Geneforge series (going to go through the series in order), I have a few newbie questions I hope you veterans can answer. I know there's a FAQ for G1, but FAQs are notorious for massive spoilers, which I hate, so I'm avoiding it. My questions are: - What's the quick save key? I've looked in the manual, but it says nothing of this (it only mentions ctrl+s, but that's the regular save). There's a slot for quick saves, so there must be a way of quick saving. - Speaking of keys, I take it there's no way of remapping the keys or is there (didn't find anything even remotely hinting that way in the manual)? I would love to change the 'f' key for fight/combat mode to the space bar - easier to hit it when a horde of rogues is charging you. (Even better, I would love if the game would automatically pause/initiate combat mode when your character spots a hostile.) - Out of curiosity, what's the average lenght of G1 playthrough (when being relatively thorough, but not compulsively so)? 20 hours? 40? More? - Is there any way to check your reputation (standing) with the various factions? How clever is the game with tracking your actions, i.e. will it only matter what you say to the big honchos of each faction, but not what you say or do to the 'little people' (how very shaper of me to think that way... )? No spoilers please, just wondering about the intricacies of the system. - It seems I'm no better off trying to gain experience to improve my older creations, when I can just create new and better ones with better skill. They seem to start off so much better and be cheaper to 'maintain' (essence-wise). Is this basically correct or am I misinterpreting things? The manual could have been a bit more verbose on creations, IMO.

Quote: Originally written by Celtic Minstrel: If you had "look"ed at them you would have known they were mung rats. Yeah, but in-game those critters look exactly like normal cave rats, that I had been fighting 30 seconds ago in the adjacent room (or so). So, IMO, I have a good reason to expect them to be those same, your normal garden variety, giant cave rats. I'm not complaining that they were mung rats, mind you, just a bit annoyed that they have the same game icon with the cave rats. Two creatures with such a great difference in combat abilities should have some visual difference, IMHO. (And as I said above, a simple recoloring would have sufficed, e.g. cave rats are grey, mung rats are black.) I will "Look" at my foes from now on, for sure, to be spared of nasty surprises. However, as Excalibur said above, even if I had "look"ed at those mung rats, I would not have had any idea what to expect (other than them being different) beforehand. I've never heard of mung rats before. Giant (cave) rats are a fantasy staple and I can sort of know what to expect from them, but mung rats... no idea. Never did I expect them to be such nasty beasts! Oh well, live and learn, eh? Still, a bestiary would have been swell. P.S. A1 seems to have more, eh, interesting surprises in store with regards to animal stats. Those vipers (IIRC) have a nasty bite!! The two snakes in the nephil cave (that the goblins are building) were the nastiest opponents in the whole cave! That seems a bit strange. I'd have thought goblins and nephil could have posed a bigger threat, but maybe that's just me.

Quote: Originally written by Randomizer: Even if you survive the monsters, there is always a chance of a random encounter on the way back to town. Indeed. And it seems that these random encounters usually happen at the worst possible of times - like when you've forgotten to save since the last big fight in the dungeon you just cleared (happened to me).

From Ye Olde Guide to Adventuring and Spelunking: "Remember, oh Adventurer, that a rat is not always a rat. Take heed or be sorry." Heh, awhile ago, with my still wet-behind-the-ears party of adventurers, I braved the dangers of the, rather cryptically titled, Bat Cave in A1. After having slaughtered the titular bats, I faced the good ol' cave rats. Ah, I thought, giant rats, now they are the quintessential foes of newbie characters. Onwards! Swiftly I dealt with them, with but a few scratches to my party members. Lo and behold, I spotted another batch of these nasty rodents and charged them. Even if my spellcasters were low on Mana, I thought, hah, I don't need magic, I have my fearsome combat prowess and besides they are just rats... (Insert: A scene from Monthy Python and the Holy Grail - the attack of the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog) OK, so after hacking these "just rats" for quite some time, watching my characters' HPs drop precariously low, I started wondering what was wrong. These little buggers would just not die! With no MP, my mage even resorted to blasting them with his precious Wand of Bolts (doing very respectable (for this level) amounts of damage with each hit) and still those long-toothed fiends refused to die. Finally, after running away (which greatly reminded me of the above mentioned Python scene) and getting healed and rested before returning, I was able to send the last of those damn critters to their maker. Those rats were the mung rats. And they are, as you veterans know, like cave rats on steroids (and amphetamines and whathaveyou). From now on, I will check what/who the target actually is and not just look at their game icon. It's nasty to have the cave rats and mung rats have the same icon, when they are so vastly different foes. It would have been nice to have, e.g. a differently colored icon for the mung rats (nothing fancy, just recolor the cave rat icon). So there. Let this serve as a warning to other Avernum newbies. Check your targets!

OK, thanks. Good to know I'm on the right track. Just to make sure I understood couple of skills correctly (bear with me). Arcane Lore and Cave Lore stack, i.e. their levels are cumulative across the party. Tool Use and Potion Making do NOT stack (it says so in their descriptions, d'oh). What about First Aid and Luck? I'm betting they do not stack, but I'm not 100% sure. However, even if Luck does not stack, its benefits should affect the whole party, if it affects external things like random encounters and the like (I know Cave Lore affects this as well). Yes, I know Luck is also a component in some of the special skills (or secondary skills or whatever they were called), I'd just like to know if/how it affects in some other ways. Also, how does Hardiness work? Does it give the character with levels in it a "saving roll" vs. damage? Then if the roll is succesful, some damage (equal to skill level?) is is negated. Or what? The descrption is kinda vague (at least to me). P.S. I'm not complaining here nor saying the character creation is hard or anything. Not at all. In fact, I really L O V E skill-based systems (big thank you to Jeff for using one!), but I also want to know the workings of such systems quite well. Hence this, eh, badgering of you Avernum veterans. (I do hope I used the word "badgering" correctly...)

I started A1 first with the provided ready-made party. After an hour of playing, I reconsidered and then restarted with a custom-made party as I much rather play with characters I made myself. Can't explain why, I just prefer them to ready-made stock characters. Character creation is fun in its own right and there are a lot of options which way to go, but that got me thinking (heh, yeah, I know, that's something new! ). With the freedom of custom characters, there's the danger of really poorly made characters. Making a custom party badly will most likely doom your game or at least make progress very hard. I think I've got an okay party now, but I'd like to ask if there are any big no's that you veterans know, that I should be aware of. It would be really frustrating to notice, after hours of gameplay, that I've somehow missed or overlooked something major and now have to basically restart the game if I want to avoid excessive headache and hairpulling. (Although, I seriously doubt there will be anything that's that major, but it never hurts to ask.) I know, I should not spread my points too thin, but how much serious min-maxing is expected by the game? Do I have to really fine-tune my party or can a bit more casual approach work (at least work okay enough not to hit the proverbial brick wall at some point in the game)? I'm at work now, so I can't give you exact values of my characters' skills. My starting PC party has one true fighter with no points in non-combat skills and the advantage of Toughness (or something); one fighter-rogue who's much like the true fighter but this PC has Tool Use at 6 (or so) and the Nimble Fingers advantage; one cleric (priest-fighter) with some combat skills, First Aid and Priest Spells; and one mage with no combat skills except little Defence and Thrown (to be raised later), high(ish) Mage Spells, Arcane Lore, Potion Making and the advantage of High Education (or something). Note: I didn't want to take the Natural Mage nor Elite Warrior advantages, even if their XP penalties aren't that bad - they didn't fit my, eh, character concepts (yeah, I'm an RP nutter, deal with it ).

According to the Spiderweb Software's Avernum 5 page, early 2008. I doubt you'll get a more definite (official) answer than that. It's going to be released soon, so sit back and relax, the wait is almost over. P.S. I recall seeing March 2008 mentioned somewhere, but the context was, that March 2008 was just a tentative target, that's all.

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: Did this take anyone else to a scary visual place? Sorry, I don't get the refrence. Note that English is not my first language. The reason I called them that, was 'cause I just couldn't remember what the cat-men where called (more specifically, how to spell their race's name), so I used another name, which I though was okay and innocent. Apparently it was not. Hopefully, I didn't make a terrible goof. Well, at least I didn't call them "pussies".

Quote: Originally written by Randomizer: Remember to close doors behind you since it's possible in A2 to have someone accidently die that gave you a quest. Heh, this happened to me already. In the very beginning of A2, when the "furries" attack the fort you're in, they managed to kill the quartermaster. I don't think I had left the door open (either one), but somehow he was nowhere to be found after the battle. I concluded that he must have met his fate at the hands of the attackers. Therefore, I cannot complete the quest he gives, to search for the arrows and whatnot, as I cannot return the quest. Oh well, no matter. I can start over (once I'm done with A1), it's only 15 minutes of lost time. I just hope he stays alive then. BTW, can the captain of the fort be killed in the assault? That would surely complicate things if it is so.

OK, thanks. I went and downloaded the demos for both A1 and A2 to check them out myself (nothing better than first-hand experience). Yep, as you've said, there isn't that much of a difference between the different versions. So once you learn the ropes in one of them, you already know your way around in the others. Clearly the biggest difference (game-wise) in the trilogy is the lack of right-clicks and quest logs in A1. The quest log's absence was a disappointment (haven't been taking game notes on paper since the 80's, I think), but I can live with it. With the high praise of A2, I'm tempted to play A2 first, but regardless, I think I'll start with A1, playing through the trilogy in order. Heh, I make it sound so easy. From what I've gathered, these games are huge. It's going to take quite some time to go through them all. So, I better return to the land of Avernum. Time's a-waisting. Without further ado... Chaaaarrge!! (Run away! Run away!)

Thank you for your many comments! I sort of expected your answer - the best way is to go from A1 to A3 in sequence. I got a follow-up question. Some of you mentioned the technical/game engine issues of A1 when compared to A2. I'm curious, how pronounced are these? I've not played either, only A3 (demo), but even A3's interface took me awhile to get used to, especially picking items up (I know, I'm spoiled by them new-fangled games ). How, er, laborous is the game interface of A1 and what other technical issues are there with it? Yes, I could just try the demos, but I'd appreciate your comments never-the-less.

Being relatively new to Avernum, I'd like to know, how important is it to play the first three Avernum games in sequence (from 1 to 3)? At least the fact, that they are called a trilogy, seems to hint that they indeed form a complete whole together. You see, I just started playing the demo of A3 and began to wonder if I'm starting the book from the last chapters, so to speak. I really wouldn't want to do that (no, I don't read the last page of a book first... ). So, is it a good idea to play A1-3 in correct order or is it largely irrelevant?

Great! Thanks for the info. Now if only the PC version would be released sooner than March...