Tcheedchee

unfortunately, one only get's server errors at the moment when trying to access all these wonderful lists from above from here… Hope there'll be a solution for this soon. (Otherwise I will have to bugger everybody with stupid newbie-questions, harrharr!)

OOPs, I wanted to say: I still like rat on a stick. - with mushroom-sauce. ; )

Quote: Originally written by Mythrael: Has anyone noticed that the only animal that appears to thrive without difficulty is the, well, RAT?...why don't avernites eat rats?...some cultures consider them delicious Yeah, like dwarves for example. Why aren't there any dwarves in Avernum? Rat on a stick! mhh, yummie!

Hi Evnyssyen! Yeah! It's real fun to let your foes attack each other! Had a lot of fun with it already! But there is some sense in using those summoned creatures to let your enemies waste hitpoints on them, sparing your party some healing. In a recent piece of the game I developed a strategy of 'summoned creatures wall' for my mage and priest, when I had a bigger group of mindless attackers against my party. As you most certainly know, mindless creatures can't be meddled with on the mind-level. There is nothing to meddle with.

Thanks Microphage for your (exhausting - just missing the right word here at the moment) answer. The several points you discuss are quite interesting. I had worried a bit, that my question would be misunderstood as prejudiced against this cheating-thing. I'm not. I've just not decided yet, what I think about it. The reason for my question was aimed at getting a better picture. Which I have now, thanks. Also, I havn't played through any type of computer-game yet, without having to get some hints from somewhere, and I do not like the mentioned (intense) frustration, when stuck without any idea how to solve the problem as well. Whenever that moment occurs, I get the feeling that possibly I'm the victim of a bug. I really hate that. It's like with any broken device, so it's pretty usefull to find out, if there is a solution to the problem or if I have to get technical support. But on the other hand, there is also always this nagging feeling of 'cheating', when the solution was easier to find, than I thought and similar cases. Then I always feel a bit put of about having asked for help too early. Therefore my reason for asking about the sense of cheating was to get a better idea, what purpose it might serve. And also out of curiosity, because in the cow-thread by Walter there are so many hints at some fun, one gets out of cheating. So however one likes to play. Thank you for your statement and enjoy furthermore!

Thanks!

Hi, I don't dare to open a new topic to ask you this possibly stupid and redundant question. I admittedly have only speeded through the postings above as it's a very long topic already. From what I understand, it almost seems as if there is a meta-game going on here… Or What's the sence of cheats? except for deleting bugs? It seems as if there must be a real delight in meddling with the game on the cheat-level, but I just don't seem to get the fun/sence of it, yet. I mean, it sounds really funny, feeding sandwiches and cakes to creatures in the games,and it makes sence to repair 'bugs' like charakters who get stuck being killed or whatever. Still… - I have the impression that some players in the forum plan on playing with cheats from the beginning and Jeff also seems to have provided more fun for them… ??? Tcheedchee ???

Hello! I try to avoid asking boring newbie-questions, if I can help it. This might be one, so please have mercy. Would someone be so kind and give me a hint about how to make the summoned creatures actually attack my opponents? Funniest, but on the other hand most annoying events, were 1) a summoned wolf blocking my way to the battle when standing in a small passage. I couldn't get it to get out of the way to reach the battleground to help it understand who it was supposed to attack. Bolts of fire directed at my foe didn't change the *%!"mind of the *'§$! animal! 2) a summoned cave worm that wondered off in the other direction… The summoned ghosts of my priest are much better behaved… What's the problem? I need those creatures to distract my foes from my characters and to save the spell energy of my mage and priest. I'm trying to get through the sentinel workshop. Unfortunately not every basin restores energy. Also it seems, I've used up all of the greymold up to Solberg's tower, so that I can't get Haskell to custom any more energy elixir for me. I've really looked in the whole game up to here twice to recover more greymold. Killed Fortunato for it, as he didn't sell any potions to me anymore anyway. That didn't help though, 'cause he doesn't hide greymold anywhere. I've also stolen the greymold of the potionmaker at shankers tower. But that was it… I also had a lethal fight with the strange mold farmer near dirty dan's hide-out long ago. Nothing to collect there either. Doesn't that stuff grow anywhere? I've got enough of the other herrbs for about 4 more energy elixirs. I know, I can turn the level down to "easy" and I eventually will, but not now, if I can help it… I'd prefer to try out once, if I can make the summoned creatures help me through the sentinel workshop. Worked out how to get through the instable stoneworkers fine. Can handle the sentinels, but I just exhaust to much magical energy… Tcheedchee

YipiieeeH, I did it. Got him! Tried a strategy on the line of Jeff Vogel's advice. I'm so happy, I'm really having a hard time, not to post a spoiler now. Anyway. It worked. – And I even am in normal game mode still. Without the reassurance of your advice I wouldn't have managed though. So now I'll go make a few reports, and then go for Tranquility or Kora-Vhyss. Tcheechee

Well, then it's really bad, that there are no cows there anymore. Think! What will the lizards eat next? Won't they return to their usual diet of human an slith meat?! As if we didn't have enough trouble beating up all the bad guys and looting all the caves and tunnels.

Hey, thanx, you guys! That's really a lot of good advise. Now I think I have a lot of possibilities to try to improve my gaming/training strategy. Happy greetings from Tcheedchee!

Hi Madrigan, Randomizer, okay, thanx, I'll try your advice… One thing Madrigan mentions has been on my mind since the Northern Isles… I do not really gain so many points at all, that I could distribute them generously, not even to think of wisely. I trained my slith-fighter - strength 4 - dexterity 7 - intelligence 2 - endurance 5 - melee weapons 2 - pole 6 - bows 5 - Thrown Missiles 3 - Quick Action 4 - no mage/priest spells - arcane lore 2 - spellcraft 1 - hardiness 4 - defense 3 - tool use 9 (here I messed up, as U will see later in the list… It took me a while to understand, that one person with excellent tool use is enough. Later in the game I even got confused once! ) - Nature Lore 4 - First Aid 3 - Luck 1 Specials: - sharpshooter 4 Furthermore I had read somewhere, that it would be a good idea to train the strength of the warrior/soldier/fighter: - strength 7 - dexterity 5 - intelligence 3 - endurance 7 (as the game kept recommending training endurance…) - melee weapons – a poor 5 - pole 0 - Bows 1 - Thrown Missiles 3 - Quick Action 4 - no mage/priest spells - arcane lore 2 - spellcraft 1 - hardiness 4 - defense 3 - tool use 4 - Nature Lore 4 - First Aid 4 - Luck 1 Specials: - parry 1 - gymnastics 1 - riposte 1 Accordingly my priest: - strength 2 - dexterity 2 - intelligence 7 - endurance 6 - melee weapons 3 - no pole or Bows - Thrown Missiles 3 - Quick Action 1 - mage spells 3 - priest spells 7 - arcane lore 1 - spellcraft 6 - hardiness 3 - defense 2 - tool use 10 (yeah, I know… - messed that one up) - Nature Lore 3 - First Aid 4 - Luck 1 Specials: - magical efficiency 1 my mage got - strength 2 - dexterity 2 - intelligence 8 - endurance 5 - melee weapons 1 - no pole, nor bows - Thrown Missiles 3 - Quick Action 3 - mage spells 6 - priest spells 4 - arcane lore 3 - spellcraft 7 - hardiness 3 - defense 1 - tool use 2 - Nature Lore 2 - First Aid 2 - Luck 2 Specials: - magery 0 (as it showed up on my list just recently) - magical efficiency 2 Apart from wasting skillpoints on Tool Use, because I didn't catch in the beginning, that it would be enough to have just one Lock-pick-expert, and also, because between New Harston and Shanker's Tower, I started being really frustrated by a lot of locked doors and boxes, I tried to distribute skills as wisely as I could imagine. But that's just it. Maybe I didn't understand some major feature of the game here yet? So, what would you say? Did I get too far in the game with these mediocre skills? How do I find out, if I skipped important quests? I checked off all of the quest boards up to now, and they are empty. The walkthrough, which I refer to, when desperation gets too great, doesn't contain any quests which I didn't solve or mess up so far. I didn' take Gladwell's geaze though, and after having solved Shanker's first quest (and having received the 2nd) I told her, that the empire knows of her whereabouts, so that she's not helping anymore. Where's best to check if all important quests were solved? Should I train my party differently? Oh, and should I keep all the magical tools I receive by solving the quests? Some are just bulky items, it seems, some just don't seem suitable… (I stored a few in the static field's rooms, but I might also have sold one or two by accident…) Thanks for your answers… Tcheedchee

Wow, that was fast! Thanks for this first reply, Azuma. Trouble is, that this is not my 1st attempt to get at Lysstak. The ratfriend disappeared, and as I explained in my previous post, Varrick (the warrior, whom you free on the way to Lysstak) doesn't join in the fight anymore, since I had to flee from the fight with Lysstak the first time. And, frankly speaking, I have solved quite a few quests afterwards, so that I don't really want to reset back to this 1st fight. (Also I don't know, if I still can, because I save quite often, and I might have written over it already.) From browsing through the forum, I get the impression, that my warriors seem to lack battle-discipline-abilities, too.So I can't use bladeshield on Lysstak, as recommendend in the forum. My slith-pole-fighter seems quite okay. But he can only use them up to "focus mind" (or so). My human-barbarian is so "clumsy" he doesn't get beyond "break shield". So when I try keeping them together, they are just slaughtered within one round, as soon as the three Lysstaks are present… I was more successful keeping them appart so Lysstak couldn't hit them both at once and had to decide to split himself up.

Hello all, I'm a total Avernum-Newbie. Started the quest with the standard-hero-set,which is provided in the beginning, and at least I got to Harkin's Landin/Exodus. Did most of the quests here (I think…) the lesser ones concerning the claims, crypt, damaged pylon, caldera-field, reported spies (Kelda and the young dude), broke the guardian-golem at the pylon-field (unfortunately, for Foramon didn't approve of that…),killed slith-gangsters,killed Gelmax (Phew!), got the pit crawler (Double-Phew!) and received the reward from Lark. I also started quests into Khora-Vyss… So it's not too bad, and one should think, my party should be able to deal with Lysstak also. Anyway Lysstak is really givin' me a hard time killing him. Unfortunately only my mage got a decent slow-spell. My priest can't help here. My mage is also the only one with rain of ice, which works quite well on Lysstak. Unfortunately, my mage never gets his hands free enough of slowing him, to use rain of ice on Lysstak, because, as I said, my priest can't help here. My heroes do not have very high skills yet, I suppose. Is there a special combat tactic or a certain gimick, I could use/would have to find yet? I have also found and drunk the shield potion in the room right bevor the 2nd lift, where the spellbook was. I always lose, when Lysstak generates his third self, as I have also lost Varrick's assistance, when I had to give up a recent round, which I managed to escape. Since then Varrick hides in the vicinity, but he can't be persuaded to fight with me again (because the text doesn't alow me to suggest it to him again.) Also - as a complete beginner in RPG: What does the shutting off of skills in the training-panel of my heroes mean, as soon as I go below 8 skillpoints? What are the concequences of doing that? It would be the only possibility to give a (weak) slow-spell-ability to my priest. Any tipps for me, please?