kryft

How is the damage without a bow?

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo Plus, I think maxing out dex is slightly overrated, as especially in the first portion of the game you can't do a whole lot of damage with a max dex character. I don't think Shima, for example, gets very good at offense until later in the game. My main character is a max strength blademaster and I took a more balanced approach between strength and dex for Sevilin and I used Nathalie, my main blademaster, and Sevelin for the first portion of the game (up through the beast hunt, in fact--after which I tend to use, Shima and Nathalie). It's nice to hear that a more balanced approach works - based on most other posts, one might think that maxing dex is the only way to survive torment.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Jeff ran out of time trying to adjust the game between high dexterity and low dexterity characters. I'm guessing Avadon 2 will have more diversity in monster types so you can't get through most of the game relying on one stat to avoid damage. Jeff says in the Appendix of the Avadon manual that he's considering making stat gain automatic (not player-controlled) in Avadon 2, effectively forcing balanced stat distributions.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S Actually, those sound like pretty sensible builds. I could nitpick a few points here and there (Blade Training is probably worse than the middle column for your Shadowwalker, and War Cry may not be the best investment) but those sound fine. War Cry was mainly an attempt to improve my survivability by reducing enemy damage output, and it seems worth a point for that (although perhaps one point would be enough; I don't know if weakness curse is worth two additional points). Quote: Torment really requires paying attention to the details of how the game engine works and taking advantage of them. Lure single enemies away from packs when you can (sometimes this takes a lot of patience). Use summons and sometimes blessings the turn before you initiate combat / make the enemy visible. One problem is that I don't really have any blessings to speak of unless I use items. How often can I afford to use Battle Potions etc? I hadn't noticed that you could lure single monsters; that certainly helps a lot!

I'm almost level 10, tracking the beast in Khemeria at the moment. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, because I'm starting to run out of fights that I can win without heavy item use. My main character is a shadowwalker, and I've used Sevilin and Jenell. All characters have invested heavily in dex. I've used the retrain cheat to try a number of builds. Jenell is mostly focused on summoning and healing. She doesn't seem terribly useful, but on the other hand not having her healing (and meatshield) would require more item use. There seem to be plenty of fights where I have to heal one or two characters every round or have one of them fall unconscious. My shadowwalker has 7 (+1 spec) in steel discipline, 4 points in blade training and locksmith and one point in shadowstep. Sevilin has 6 (+1) points in path of the shield, 4 points in blade training, 3 points in second wind and war cry and 1 point in archery. I suspect that I must be building my characters wrong if other people can make it further in the game with just one character.

Originally Posted By: Lilith 2) There are more and better missile skills than melee ones. All ranged and area attacks for the Blademaster and Shadowwalker actually count as missile skills and key off your Dexterity, even if they're described as melee attacks. Is the damage of the melee area attacks really based on the missile weapon, as the ability list in Strategy Central seems to indicate? If your melee attacks have a chance to inflict a status effect (e.g., poison for the shadowwalker), do these work with melee area attacks (or even single target abilities)?

Ok, so basically both shadowwalkers and blademasters should ignore the melee damage skills and focus on ranged attacks?

Originally Posted By: Lilith 1) Melee builds are pretty bad on Torment, because you'll want Dexterity for defences and evasion, so use ranged/missile builds for your Blademaster and Shadowwalker. (Note that pretty much all physical ranged or area attacks key off Dexterity, even if you might expect them to key off Strength.) Summoned creatures are decent as damage-dealers early on (especially if you get Call Hellhound ASAP), but their damage output and especially their accuracy starts to drop off toward the endgame. They're still at least usable as meatshields. Also, around halfway into the game you get the option to retrain your characters' stats and skills from scratch, which can be used as many times as you want. Thanks for your quick and detailed reply! I'm in a hurry, so I'll only ask one quick question; I may come back for more later. What kind of build would you recommend for my shadowwalker? For instance, should I ignore shattering blow and backstab, if I will be pumping dex and focusing on razor disks? Is the right tree worth investing in?

I started my first game on torment. I'm at level 3, prepared to go through the first portal. I have a few questions, mostly about building characters, that I haven't been able to answer completely by reading existing posts. 1. Are there any abilities or character builds that are particularly ineffective on torment? I've read that monsters have higher to-hit ("it's hard to make a character that can reliably dodge attacks on torment") and that summons tend to miss a lot later on, but I'm unsure about the exact implications. 2. Is there any point in pumping the first-tier skills that aren't linked to skills higher up, apart from lock picking? It would seem a 'waste' of points in the sense that those points don't contribute to unlocking higher levels of higher tier skills, but perhaps having a strong self-heal is worth it? My main character is a shadowwalker, and at level 1 the self-heal doesn't seem worth a turn. 3. I haven't pumped Locksmith yet because I wanted to make a beeline for the early aoe attack, but I didn't realize that lockpicks are apparently a fairly limited resource. I think I've used three lockpicks so far (two on Valna's door). Would it be wise to save locks until I have a chance to increase Locksmith? 4. Is there a list of abilities somewhere with detailed specs on what they do? I've browsed the Strategy Central topic, but I couldn't determine (for example) how thorn shield or the various curses work and how significant the effects are. 5. This partly overlaps with #1, but can you give me a general idea of what sort of stat distributions I should aim for with my characters on torment? My impression based on what I've read is that pumping dex may be the most powerful for everyone except the sorceress, but that more balanced builds are also doable; however, I don't know if this applies to torment as well. It's also not clear to me how much you should invest in other attributes if you do decide to pump dex - melee characters need some strength for equipment and encumbrance, and maybe having a few points in endurance is useful? 6. Can you respec more than once later in the game? I'm not far into the game, but so far I've really liked it, and I'm still in the part that many reviewers considered boring. One thing that I appreciate is that the game system seems fairly balanced and that this is clearly a priority for Jeff. Planning character builds and finding powerful tactics has always been a big part of the enjoyment that I derive from computer RPGs, but I also want the game to be challenging. Far too many high budget blockbuster RPGs these days have systems with so many ways to make a ridiculously powerful character that I need to either mod them heavily or place lots of arbitrary constraints on myself to have fun.

Thanks for your responses. I didn't realize that you could change the difficulty on the fly. I don't know why I assumed that you couldn't. I think I'll start with Torment and see how it goes.

Hi, I just picked up Avadon on Steam. I've heard of Jeff Vogel's games, but I haven't actually played one before, so I'm not sure how to gauge the difficulty settings. Would Torment be utterly impossible for a CRPG veteran who enjoys build optimization and difficult combat?