Sade

Your guess is as good as mine. It was a very late save file, so the game might simply be protecting me from losing resources when there are only a few quests/dungeons remaining.

All I know for certain is that I have never seen the uninspired message during normal gameplay.

I tried loading one of my later saves to see how long it would take for resources to stop generating, and it turns out that my colony had become endlessly inspired at some point. Even after resting in bed for months, resources were still generating normally.

I am fairly certain that the Steam user kirill-busidow is correct: enemies have a certain minimum level depending on the area, and once your party exceeds that level, their level scales to (party level − 1).

On my playthrough, I was almost always fighting enemies that were exactly 1 level behind my party.

Caligula
Nero
Genghis Khan
Leonidas I
Burger King
Redbeard

Also note that all resistances are capped at 90%, so the ring couldn't have increased your mental resistance much further anyway.

The awkward thing about the second Avernum trilogy games is that one of their biggest flaws is the lack of a separate outdoor mode, and straightforward remakes could not really address the issue.
 

You have to stand on the patch of white mushrooms and then walk directly south to make the stalagmites disappear.

You are not supposed to get through this cave without the corresponding map, which you can get...

Yes, you will get 2 skill points per level up to level 35 in A3:RW. Your calculations (73 total skill points at level 35, 75 at level 40) are correct.

Dark Thoughts seems to increase your mental resistance by 1%, but it has no other effects on gameplay.

There are no set bonuses or anything similar in this game, but you do get achievements for finding certain artifacts and 8 of the Xian items. Xian Rock spawns (useless) bricks in your inventory.

The second Perfect Flower is likely intended as a spare.

In addition to the events you listed, rats can appear in the storeroom. It's nothing particularly interesting.

Here.

The bonuses from War Blessing affect all kinds of attacks: melee, ranged, and magical.

There is a hidden switch in the SE corner of the Slime Pit (upper level):

Jeff Vogel said, four years ago, on Reddit: "No more Blades games. Making a working scenario editor is a huge, painstaking job, and I'm just not cut out for it."

Blades of Avernum was a huge commercial failure for Spiderweb Software, so it is extremely unlikely that Jeff would ever be willing to remake it again.

You need to press this hidden switch to access a lever that clears the way to the Fury Bow:

1 hour ago, Randomizer said:

the Hint Book recommends going back to get help from Redbeard and his party for this fight.

Huh. Redbeard and his escort can very easily get killed by the three Hands, especially on higher difficulties. Since this breaks the game, I would never have guessed that the ability to involve Redbeard in this fight was an intended feature.

Actually, it's the other way around: mages have a -5% encumbrance limit in the beginning, and every level of Swordmage increases that limit by -10%.

Personally, I consider Swordmage well worth it for all Mage Spells users, singleton or otherwise. Wearing the most encumbering armor available isn't strictly necessary, but reaching 90% resistances to all damage types isn't easy with sub-optimal gear. Without any levels of Swordmage, your equipment choices will be very limited in the end-game.

Furthermore, the opportunity cost of getting Swordmage is not all that high, since you can pick the best 20+ traits for your character regardless. Thus, while Swordmage may not be as valuable as Negotiator or Sage Lore, it is not really competing with them. On the other hand, getting more mileage out of Swordmage than Improved Endurance (or some other mid-range trait) is less difficult.

1. No, there isn't. As you mentioned, your actual to-hit chances depend on enemy stats, so the ability to see your theoretical base to-hit chances would be rather pointless.

2. Since enemy stats and encumbering equipment both decrease your to-hit chances, you will need a lot of Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence to reach the 95% to-hit chance cap, especially on higher difficulties. 19–24 points is not enough when fighting later enemies, at least not on Torment difficulty. 

Quoting Slarty's min-maxing guide, "the 4-stat system means you can't have secondary attacks; they will be useless. Everyone has to pick melee or magic and stick with it." As such, you will not benefit much from increasing a warrior's Intelligence or a spell-caster's Dexterity. There's no need to place every available point into your primary offensive attributes, but any additional points are probably best spent increasing your Endurance.

3. Dual Wielding is not a useless skill, but both Blademaster and Lethal Blow are better for increasing a warrior's damage output. Since maximizing those two skills and Parry (and every warrior wants Parry) already consumes almost all of your available skill points, there won't be many points left over for Dual Wielding. Also, if you want to make a warrior as bulky as possible (which is a good idea on higher difficulties), you should maximize both Parry and Resistance. Doing this takes so many skill points that low-priority skills like Dual Wielding will have to be ignored.

4. As long as you place most of the available points into your primary offensive attributes, hitting enemies should not be much of an issue. I personally find even slightly sub-optimal to-hit chances very annoying, so my recommendation is to wear as heavy armor as you can while retaining the maximum to-hit chance. 

All to-hit penalties stack, and the total penalty has no cap.

5. Sure Hand is not a good trait, since it does not increase your damage at all, unlike Ambidextrous and Dual Blade Mastery. Sure Hand only increases your to-hit chance by 5%, making it strictly worse than a single point of Strength, which does the same thing and also increases your damage. Maximizing to-hit chances is important, but you don't need Sure Hand to do that.

6. Many guides are written with min-maxers in mind. Since Melee Weapons and Pole Weapons are mediocre skills for characters that actually use those weapons and completely worthless skills for everyone else, you will optimally want to place as few skill points into those skills as possible. Thanks to equipment bonuses and paid training, buying 8 points of Melee Weapons (or Pole Weapons) with skill points is enough to maximize Hardiness (which is an excellent skill for everyone) and to reach Adrenaline Rush. 

If you don't care about fully optimizing your party, increasing your Melee Weapons (or Pole Weapons) to level 15 with skill points alone is not terribly wasteful, but there are better ways to spend the extra 7 skill points.

7. This is really a matter of personal preference. I like to place 1 point into Mage Spells (or Priest Spells) and 1 point into either Melee Weapons or Hardiness after every level-up in the early game, until both Melee Weapons and Hardiness reach level 8. This strikes a nice balance between increasing damage and bulk and reaching Adrenaline Rush ASAP. Of course, you might occasionally want to place points into Tool Use or the Lore skills instead.

And yes, Adrenaline Rush is super good for spell-casters.

You can purchase the second level of Dispel Barrier from any of the following magi: Black (Calloc, 1320 gold); Velnas (Gale, 1320 gold); Macitar (Dellston, 1500 gold); Khoth (Lair of Khoth, 1500 gold).

Alternatively, you could reach level 2 DB for free by reading the advanced knowledge spellbook in the Lair of Khoth.

While it doesn't pose much of a problem, the fact that the day counter can get covered up is a pretty silly design flaw.

Your favorite motivational quote
Your favorite subject in school
Your least favorite subject in school
Your favorite season (of the year)
Your least favorite season
Your favorite cuisine
Your least favorite cuisine

Arsène Lupin
A. J. Raffles
Zorro

Sherlock Holmes
Hercule Poirot
Batman

I waited until day 199 without doing anything at all, and this is what happened:

4 hours ago, jlsgaladriel said:

Nope!  I lugged one (or several?) around for too long in the Bag of Infinite Junk, and eventually started getting sick.  

Are you sure about that? I'm pretty certain that placing any of the items that occasionally trigger effects (uranium bars, Pyrrhic Gauntlets, some Xian items) into the junk bag prevents their effects from occurring.

Besides, the effects always target whomever is carrying the respective item(s). The junk bag (and the items within) are held by no character in particular, so if you put, say, a uranium bar in there, its effect should have no valid target.

Yes, they are. Only the lame basic knowledge books in the Anama Temple require you to be real members.

Which is a bit weird, but there you go.

I think that Blink is the only spell whose level 3 upgrade is in a location that can become inaccessible, although...