Silterethene

Apologies for picking this up late, but you may or may not know that in AV1, you're able to sell to Healers for the maximum sellback value, regardless of your party's Barter skill. I found this to be invaluable because: 1) It renders the Barter skill unnecessary. 2) It's a boon to players like myself who prefer a 1-2 person party. 3) For obsessive players, it's a tidy way to dispose of loot. It's my opinion that Healers are located conveniently enough throughout the game to make this a viable option. Hope you're enjoying Avernum.

Quick Question: I'm tying up loose ends, I'm in the Maze of Thorns, trying to help out the GIFTS. However, I'm unable to talk to the Widow Queen, as she's always hostile. Playing Romans. Not possible to parley because I'm Roman? Edit: I'm an idiot. I found the other way.

@Alorael In preparation, I perused the entire forum, and the reverence you guys have for the game, particularly N/O, did not escape me. By posting, I hope that the game and it's well deserved respect will be appreciated and understood by a few others. You're quite right, results are what count, and magic certainly facilitates this end. However, being free of the compulsion to precede every fight with a flurry of bless, haste, hot key combinations, I'm finding it very liberating.

I rarely post, however, after playing N/R for the past week, I feel compelled to write about this stunning little game. I'm a huge fan of the first Avernum Trilogy. I love the setting, the graphics, and particularly, the engine. I've always found it to be conducive to fast, efficient gameplay, and I prefer it to the second Trilogy's engine, although I have played and enjoyed those games also. So, given that N/R uses the BOA engine, I'm not sure why I never tried the game earlier, however, I'm extremely pleased that I did. Playing a party of three as the Romans, without magic, it's a completely new gaming experience. I'm having to rely on tactics that I never gave a thought to in the Avernum series. Being limited to First Aid and Healing Potions means that I have to be extremely cautious and reserved in my encounters. I'm finding that I often have to retreat, strategically space my characters, weaken the enemy with Missile Weapons, before I can engage in Melee. I've found that the smallest differences in skill point allocation can either make or break a battle. It requires thought and patience, and it's very challenging, and I'm loving it. I adore the Avernum games, but this title is taxing me far more than they ever did. The setting is fantastic also. If you're like me and you spend a certain amount of time sussing suitable names for your characters, imagining their backgrounds, SLOWLY reading the conversations with NPC's, taking breaks to ponder and piece together the story, you'll love this. A captivating fiction interspersed with snippets of Roman history, inspiring me to play my part as a true Roman citizen. There's my brief testimonial. If you haven't played this game, I strongly recommend you give it a go. I feel that it's easy to overlook, seeing as it's not part of an established Trilogy/Quintilogy etc. But it's awesome, and I doubt you'll regret it. I can't think of a single thing wrong with it, other than the fact that, like all Spiderweb games, it's obsessively addictive. Enjoy.

No, I did not, and having done so now has solved the problem. Thank you very much for clarifying this.

Agreed. Fantastic job. However, I noticed that it didn't work for a few switches. The secret switch in Zhethron's library comes to mind. Any idea why this would be?

While I can appreciate why many people requested larger dialogue text, I prefer the old size. As there is with in game text size, an option to control dialogue text size would also be nice.

That's that, then. Thanks for clearing that up, I'll get on with the show.

I'm getting ready to play AV6 and I've spent a little time adjusting graphics settings, just to see what looks and feels best. I'm playing on a fairly large monitor at full resolution and I really love the Partial Graphics option as it eliminates the border, leaving lovely uninterrupted, unexplored black areas as far as the eye can see. However, to my dismay, I notice that that this option also turns off the soft sphere of light when creating light, the soft edging of unexplored areas, and the amazing water effects. So, do the script editing(?) savvy folk out there know of anything I can alter to eliminate the border while retaining said effects, so I won't feel compelled to switch the graphics options every time I encounter water, just to watch it move for a bit? Thank you for reading.

I would have never let him go, had I've known.

Foramon will train resistance only after you complete his Stone Circle quest. (He also trains magery and magical efficiency, but those are both cheaper from Shanker) Regarding Sorengard, apart from the quest-completion dialogue with Solberg, it doesn't change anything whether you kill him or not. He doesn't drop anything, if I remember. The choice is there for role-playing purposes only. So if you want some paltry experience, go right ahead and waste him. Personally, I let him go because I felt he was right about the whole Sentinel thing.

Prismatic Shield is available from Tiacoura in Solberg's Tower, after completing her South Tower Sentinel quest. At exorbitant prices, mind you. I never tried it as my mage spell level wasn't high enough at the time.

It sounds as though you don't have enough fire/cold resistance. I would suggest going through your item hoard and equipping as many fire/cold resistance items as is reasonable. If you completed everything in the game up to this point, you should have something along the lines of: Chilling band (+15% fire resistance) (If you cashed in the Rat Lord quest with Goodman Wolf first in Harston) Ruby breastplate (+8% fire resistance) Coated cloak (+5% fire resistance) Polar fur cloak (+5% cold resistance) Shield of warmth (+5% cold resistance) Drakeskin bracers (+2% fire resistance) Slith bloodspear (+10% fire resistance) Ruby necklace (+5% fire resistance) Shining silver band (+7 cold resistance) Woven silk robe (+10% fire resistance) Aranea silk tunic (+8% fire resistance) Thick wool tunic (+5% cold resistance) Reflecting shield (+5% hostile effect resistance) Clover boots (+3 luck) Ceremonial leggings (+2 to resistance) (If you used the kill-your-character-while-wearing-all-the-ceremonial-items cheat after the Fang Clan testing) Drakeskin shield (+10% fire resistance) (If you promptly murdered Elder Mhrrorr after completing the Fang Clan Testing) Refer to Synergy's Item List for locations. Don't forget that you can buy 3 levels of resistance from Foramon in Exodus, and that luck also helps with resistances.I understand that Prismatic Shield also protects against elements, so you may want to give it a try. Lastly, don't forget to Augment before the dungeon. I don't know your party set-up, but I would suggest the usual haste/bless, then send out 2 of your most protected characters, while keeping your healer(s)/poorly protected characters behind, out of range if possible. Try to close with the ranged enemy units as quickly as possible as this will cause them to use their puny melee attack. Closing is not always possible, but use your spell casters to heal at the end of every round and you should be fine. Don't let weak characters fight, even from a distance, as this will draw the enemy's attention. Remember that you can draw an enemy's attention away from weaker characters by attacking it with your stronger characters. Be patient. As already mentioned, you should post your stats.

Thanks for clarifying. I'm assuming I can return to levels in order to uncover caches and reread spell books. On a related note, I understand that certain quest rewards/reading books involve the boosting of one stat or another. Is there a maximum level to any stat, after which I won't receive the bonus? I vaguely recall in AV3, in the Tower of the Magi, it was possible to gain a free point to INT, provided that your current level was no higher than 9. Again, cheers.

Hi there, I've been reading the boards, readying myself for AV5. Will skill trainers train me regardless of my current level in that skill, or is there a cutoff/maximum level to which they will train me? Should I be holding off on certain skills until later, when I can purchase them without sacrificing skill points? (As in AV1, waiting until reaching Fort Draco, and then buying 5 levels of cave lore from Carlos for everyone.) Cheers.

I have an early 2008 white Macbook with the integrated X1300 graphics. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the latest versions of Av1 & 2 work just fine, despite running in millions of colors. Av3 starts up fine, the only (major) problem is that the playing area remains black. Everything else is visible, character portraits, inventory, etc. I can still navigate with the auto map, go outdoors, etc, so everything seems to be working properly, I just can't see anything. Can someone tell me why this is? Is there a work around? I would love to reinstall and replay the entire trilogy. Thanks very much in advance.

Yeah, thats what I thought. And a stick does 1D4, right? I'm still interested to know how strength/melee/pole stats affect weapon damage, in AV1 and AV2.

So, a weapon doing 2-20, being wielded by a character with 10 strength and 10 melee weapons skill = 30 D2 dice, thereby doing a minimum of 30 damage, notwithstanding the armor of the opponent. Is that correct? And a stick, unaided, will do a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 8 damage? Seems weird.

Can someone explain how strength and melee/pole skill feature in damage calculation. Assuming you've a weapon doing 2-20 damage. How do your stats up the damage? What are the rolls of the dice, so to speak. Thanks.

Those cows are indeed a frustration best avoided, but the lonely cows that follow you and stick to you like glue just out of Almaria are much, much worse.

Well, they will effect shopkeepers to give you a small amount of cash, but other than that, quite useless. For some serious extra fun, you can roll dice.

Yeah. Those are quite good actually, because you can transport a lot at one time and make a fair bit of cash. Also, by selling enough, these quests can be finished, so you've the satisfying feeling of no loose ends. Cheap wine to one of the Bills in Fort Draco, Av 1. Pen & ink, papyrus to some bureaucrat guy in Poulsbo, I think, in Av 3.

Actually, Carlos sells you Cave Lore, not Pathfinder, but cheers The arrows are still a mystery. For acid, a "Resists acid" message doesn't even appear. Shame. I've Avernum 1.02. Got anything to do with it? Thanks for the replies.

Sometimes you need a common item for something specific. A jug of wine is needed to placate the gremlins in the toadstool patch just outside of Fort Avernum in Av 1. A hammer is needed when doing the Grah-Hoth quest. In Av 2, you need to blow a horn at some point. And so forth.

Hello everyone, I've played through the Trilogy a couple of times now, and I'm intending to do it all again, once the Uni semester is over. I've some questions that I've always wondered about, so hopefully someone can provide the answers. Thanks in advance! Do the exotic arrows function as they should? When using bolts of life, acid bolts, arrows of light etc, they never seemed to have the effect that they're supposed to. The acid arrows never caused acid damage, demons/undead never took extra damage from arrows of light/bolts of life. Is this an Av 1 problem? Do the archers cloak, archer's ring etc, affect damage? Or only the hit percentage. Has anyone ever found where to purchase pathfinder? The hint book says Fort Dranlon, but I've never, ever found it. And just for interests sake, is there any reason why Melee damage is capped at 99(?) whilst spells seem to have no such limit. (Fireblast is a good example). Thanks once again.