joedaddyzzz

I guess my point is you can have two basic methods of skills accumulation in the games that I've seen. One via practice and use and another through user assignment. Both have problems, the practice model only allows improvement in skills you use and the assignment method means you must understand what the impact of each skill is. The skills available in Avernum are incredibly robust, but without knowing their importance can lead to bad decisions, and ineffective characters. What I would say is if you use the assignment method documentation is required to generate a useful character. How many cases have you seen on this list where people have plowed points into lore or first aid or luck, only to have people tell them its all wasted? Self assigning XP also allows the player to craft his/her own character, so I think that method is more rewarding. But, in my case it led to a dead end. "Carebear" JoeDaddy.

Fractalnavel Yes, I can go back to before the workshop and maybe a bit earlier. But not 4 or 5 levels ago, which would give me enough point to get the magic levels I at least think I need. How did you dispel barriers without a mage? I burned about half of my crystals on barrier they would not open, so in general that is a pain. I ended up saving before using a crystal to see if it would work, almost cheating there. I seem to limited by where I can get in. I can adapt fighting techniques for my skills, but its the doors and barriers that really limit progress. JoeDaddy

Yes, 7 points of Mage and Priest skills. I think the problem is that I have done nearly all the quests up to this point. Thus, there is no clear path to more XP. So, I believe I have backed myself up into a corner where I can't even use the rewards for the quests I have done, ie no dispel barrier. I plowed all the last XP points I got into arcane lore to read Solberg book, only to find out I'm levels too low to use it. ;( JoeDaddy

I can send them this evening. In general its my mage and priest being only level 7 for mage and priest spells. I was more concerned with raising spellcraft, lore, magery and others than the basics. Now I can't cast any of the better spells and get enough XP points to get the levels. JoeDaddy

My point is that if you need guides or plan better for the future then those should naturally evolve within the game, not off-line. Or corrections should be available some how in game, turning down the difficultly or using cheats makes for a poor gaming experience. I think these games should allow for you to develop and adapt characters for success. If you need to read how to win before you play its not much of a RPG then is it? JoeDaddy

Well, I'm completely stuck trying to kill the prime sentinel and pretty disappointed with the game in general. I understand the need to use the unstable sentinels to beat the prime, but I can't survive long enough with my group. While having a huge set of attributes and skills to develop for each character is great fun, its also a liability of this game. It appears that I have mis-spent my experience points trying to build what I thought would be effective characters. However, I now have an ineffective group that can't dispel barriers, can't read books that I assume are expected to be read by the time you get to Tranquility, can't unlock doors greater than 10, can't cast lightening and other inabilities. If the game requires specific character development/management then the developers should describe that path to successful character development. From the start the player has to know what is required later on and follow a schedule to be successful. If the game is supposed to be a RPG where players decide how to develop their characters, then a method of training to correct for inadequacies has to be made available. A training for money system is okay, if you can continue to gather money. However, in Avernum 5 once you do all the defined quests you have no other way to get money. Even a basic economic system of trade could allow for some ways to generate cash. So at this point I give up. I'm not interested in replaying the game to follow the required character development to move to the next chapter. I just wish I had not invested some much time or money in a wasted adventure. JoeDaddy