madrigan

I don't like the inside/outside thing. I like everything being at the same scale, and being able to see the town gradually appearing in its actual arrangement as I approach it, instead of some generic buildings representing the town. Also, I don't like accidentally leaving the town as I try to explore the whole "inside" map. I also like having the characters revive when you reach a town or fort. It just makes things simpler. Besides, with the old system, if a character dies I cheat him back to life anyway, which is more trouble. And I enjoy the imagery of the one remaining party member dragging his comrades' unconscious bodies over miles of wilderness in order to revive them.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Lockpicks occasionally break when you unlock doors. Dikiyoba. Well, now, that is way too much realism.

Thanks again. I've noticed that one of the main differences between A3 and A4/5 is that you can't approach outdoor battles from a particular angle or direction in order to gain an advantage. But, you can reload so that the enemy spellcaster is closer to your melee fighters. Here's a followup-followup: Where the heck did my lockpicks go? Twice now, I have had lockpicks disappear from my inventory. I know I didn't sell them accidentally. Are they "charged" items?

Thanks everybody. Followup question: What is going on with the Slith lair next to Erika's tower? I went in there when I first started the game and got slaughtered. So, now that I've been playing for a while, I tried it again and was only slightly less slaughtered. Is this an optional area or am I supposed to wait for someone to say "you must go to the Slith lair and retrieve the Golden Chalice" or whatever?

After trying to play A1 and A2 and finding them very annoying, I find that I like A3. So I played up to the edge of the demo, and then registered, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't start a new game. I am on day 30 or so, and I've wandered over quite a bit of the surface map, to the point where I am encountering troglodytes and giants, but I haven't solved the slime or roach problem yet. My question is, do I have time to take care of the plagues before the Tower of Magi blows up on day 160? It would be nice to at least see it in its intact form, plus I think there are some nice rewards there.

Elf natural mage?

Regarding the plot of A4, keep in mind that it was much more compelling if you had never played an Avernum before. I suppose that if I was a veteran Spiderwebber I would have thought "It's Rentar, duh!" but since A4 was my first Spiderweb game, I thought "Who can this mysterious villain be???" When I got to A5, since Dorikas was the number two villain in the only other Avernum I had played, he seemed more important so I was really motivated to find him and eliminate him once and for all. Regarding bosses and sub-bosses, I thought the reason that Jeff created all the tough sub-bosses in A5, and made beating them a requirement for proceeding with the plot, was that A4 was so open that it was too difficult to balance the different areas for the various character levels that might end up there. Regarding enemies having too many hit points, I really do not think I am good at these games, and I always play on Easy, and I don't min-max. I didn't think that A5 bosses had too many hit points compared to A4 bosses. I think if you suspend disbelief, then you will tend to think "wow this wolf is tough!" rather than "why did Jeff assign so many stupid hit points to this irrelevant creature?" If you were one of your characters, you would be focused on the fact that a gigantic wolf was attacking you, not on how disproportionately tough it was compared to other wolves.

Originally Posted By: Nioca Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity I'm not being snarky. I see the complaint. I'm just not clear whether it's a complaint about A5 for what it happens to be, or a complaint about CRPGs for what they are supposed to be. Let me put it this way: almost everyone can agree that boss critters (generally speaking) are fun. They're a spike in challenge, and they're unique. However, they also can be frustrating at times, and it can take quite a while to bring one of them down. Now, the constant supply of unique creatures in A5 is comparable to a stream of sub-bosses. However, because there's so many of them, the challenge spike and the uniqueness of the battle are lost, leaving only a frustrating and drawn-out battle that you have to repeat over and over again. Then, when you hit the boss creatures, there's nothing special about them anymore. They're just another "unique" creature with a lot more HP that'll require even more time to hack through. The "needing unique tactics" really just boils down to using a different sword/bow/spell to kill it with. Furthermore, there's nothing even all that "unique" about the creatures in the first place. For the most part, they just do a different kind of damage in a different way. Or they summon something or they use some kind of status attack. Big deal. You hack at them enough, they still go down. I don't entirely understand these criticisms. Do you want more generic creatures? I suppose that's perfectly valid, but one of the criticisms of A4 was that there were like 10000000 identical chitrachs in a row and then there were like 100 almost identical pylons in a row. I like the unique creatures because it transmits the idea that I am interacting with actual beings or creatures instead of with game pieces. I'm playing A3 now, and there seem to be a lot of wandering monsters, and I understand that concept but there's something underwhelming about "uh-oh! bats!" and then "uh-oh! lizards! and so on. I don't know what Jeff could do about this damage thing. In nearly all RPGs, damage is generic because hit/health points are used to summarize your physical well-being. If you want fire damage to work differently than cold or weapon or "energy" damage, it's going to make the game way, way more complicated. As for tactics, I suppose it would be cool if it made more difference where you positioned your characters in battle, or if you could, say, drop from the ceiling onto someone, or snipe them, but that would also complicate things a great deal and probably would require a 3D engine.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Originally Posted By: Thuryl It's not clear how Redmark could stand to benefit from actual war with Avernum, though. Redmark seems to have the partial motivation of wiping out the family stain of Erika Redmark. Being emperor allows him to get rid of part of it, but taking over Avernum eventually would fully wipe it out. I don't know about his motivation, but getting beat by Avernum again would end his reign. I think that if faced with another imperial invasion, the Vahnatai would have to prefer struggling with Avernum for space in the caves to struggling with the Empire for space in the caves.

I love A4, and I love A5, and I've played all the way through both multiple times. A4 was more of an epic, and A5 was more of an action movie. I love epics and action movies. There are things I like better in A4 (can move after casting) and there are things I like better in A5 (battle disciplines). People like different kinds of stuff, so I don't know what we're arguing about here. As for difficulty, I did find it harder than A4, but not dramatically so. Redmark is a politician, an opportunist, and loyal to the legitimate government of his country. Dorikas is a thug and a traitor. It's clear from the dialogue in the Darkside Fortress, at least if you're playing a loyalist, that he is not comfortable with full equality for non-humans, and you can bet that as emperor he would magnify that bias into policy. That's just in A5. He was also a sleazebag in A4, stealing from and terrorizing the general population of Avernum in order to maintain his treachery on the surface. This is really one of the best indicators of his character -- his agenda mainly involves surface politics, but he uses Avernum and its people as disposable resources and pawns. Redmark, though his decision to hold onto the Darkside Fortress is suspicious at best, never encourages the PCs to break Avernite law or to mistreat the Avernite people.

Originally Posted By: The Mystic . Originally Posted By: Earth2025 i wouldn't be surprised even if we saw erika again. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Erika returned eventually, probably as some kind of vengeful spirit. She certainly seems the type for that. I vote for that! Maybe at the end of A6 we'll get a Return of the Jedi-style scene with the ghosts of Erika, Micah, and Patrick.

Solberg has to be the most insecure of all the heroes of Avernum.

How do we know that Hrickis and Hirickis were the same guy to begin with? Anyone can say that they were over by Formello, demanding tribute. Maybe it's sort of a Jango / Boba Fett thing. Hirickis is Hrickis's son, back to take revenge on the Avernites.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl You can tell which one is the right one because he talks to you first. There is also that.

I usually get the wrong one first. The one you want is right under Solberg's office, I believe. Click to reveal.. There are three demons under the tower. The one Solberg wants is the one that summons the four hellhounds before fighting you directly. The other two -- one which changes forms and the blue one which has four pylons -- are just for fun, or something.

Well, I tried closing all the doors and standing in the mess hall hitting Wait over and over. There are three guys in there. One always sits at a table, and the others walk around and sometimes sit. All three of them are just guards -- when I try to talk to them, I get the "you make small talk, etc." message. I also tried standing out in the hallway with all the doors closed and Waiting to see who walked by, but it was just more guards. No Captain Johnson. Am I in the right room? This is a big room south of Anaximander's office, with the little kitchen attached where the chef calls you "poor dear" and gives you bread. Or could this be some really weird bug? Would it help to reinstall? FIVE MINUTES LATER OMG I am such a putz! I was in the wrong mess hall! I was actually about as far away from the correct room as one can get and still be in the fort.

Playing the A3 demo. Trying to return to Commander Johnson to complete a quest. Where the heck is he? I talked to him, got the quest, and have now been walking around Fort Emergence for an hour trying to find him again. According to the walkthrus and maps I found, he is allegedly in the mess hall on the West side of the fort. But everyone in there seems to be a guard. Is he hiding under a table?

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus Originally Posted By: madrigan Tyranicus had it right -- no expander! I should have thought of that. It looks like you have to take a "special offer" to get the free Stuffit now, but I found this and it worked fine. Thanks to all. How odd. It installed just fine without any need for special offers from the VersionTracker link I posted. I tried to download it right from the Smith Micro site, got irritated with the runaround and the ads, and went looking for an alternative. Which just goes to show, if you make your product more difficult to get, a percentage of people will use something else.

Tyranicus had it right -- no expander! I should have thought of that. It looks like you have to take a "special offer" to get the free Stuffit now, but I found this and it worked fine. Thanks to all.

Hi everybody. The OS does not give me the option of opening the file with itself. I tried switching from Recommended Programs to All Programs, but it's still grayed out. Not 100% sure I know what you mean by "classic." Do you mean am I running a Mac Classic? Or a really old version of the OS? Or a Power PC based Mac? No to all.

Hello all, I tried downloading A3 three times and when I try to run the installer, I get an error saying that there is no application that can open the file. I tried changing the end of the filename to .app, as suggested on the Spiderweb site, but that didn't do it. This is in Mac OS 10.4.11. Any ideas?

Can someone let me know how to find the "individual script with associated zone number" for a given NPC? I've looked at a bunch of the scripts and I can only find the generic spellcasters. Thanks.

Originally Posted By: Toby-Linn I wish my party could learn that seared lightning spell that some of the tougher magic using baddies throw at you...that spell was evil! And so hard to recover from! I wonder if that has to be assigned to an NPC "by hand." The generic lists, if they are the generic lists, don't mention that stupid mean spell I hate it ouch.

Sorry if there is already a thread on this. I can't find one. If I want to see what spells an NPC knows, where is this information kept? I found four files called magespec, magespec1, shamanspec, and priestspec. Is this where the game gets the info for each NPC spellcaster? I was noticing, in these files, that lightning spray is not shown, but some NPC spellcasters can cast sort of a non-splitting version of that spell. I think it's kind of funny that NPCs can teach you spells they don't ever use. Then again, they have better area effect spells than PCs. Does anyone have an in-game explanation for why adventuring mages don't have the same spell lists as wizards like Solberg?

That was the problem. I went back to some of the storerooms I had already cleared and was surprised to find them re-infested.