Doc_B

The situation with "boss fights" in this version of the game is showing a consistent pattern: the party cuts through the dungeon in a reasonably efficient manner, only to be overwhelmed by the boss. In a few cases, repeated attempts at the fight have produced a hair-thin victory (the Quick Save/Recall function works wonderfully). In others, the group hasn't been able to win with any tactics. This latter situation has been true (so far) for the Underground Fort, Spiral Fort, Island Fort, and the Hidden Aranea Lair (south of Lost Bahssikana). This could be a result of my party composition, my play style, design imbalance, or some combination of the three. It is interesting that, even though the party is now several levels higher than the original encounter, it is still being defeated in the Island Fort boss fight. There have been several boss fights where, usually after several tries, the party has narrowly won with the last member still standing and just a few HP remaining. These fights are certainly rewarding and, to me, indicate a good, tough balance in the fight in question. That's as good as it gets, at least for my personal sense of accomplishment. The ones noted above weren't close. It will be interesting to see if this pattern continues throughout the game.

I tend to distribute scrolls, wands, and potions among the party. As a general rule, the fighter types will carry any "area effect" scrolls that radiate from the user, since those folks often end up attracting a good deal of attention, while "fan effect" items will generally go to the magic users. I like the MUs to have fan effect wands (etc.) because, in many cases, it helps to have a bit of stand-off distance with those spells.

Agree with the idea of a "get all" button associated with the "ground" screen. If done, activating the button should only get items with value >0 (sorting out all of those green cloaks, amber tunics, and rocks would get annoying very quickly). I also agree that there appears to be a leveling gap between around level 6 and 10. About the phase where my party graduated from Nephilim to (attempting to fight) the Slith, I started to experience the gap. I turned-off the "roster order", for all the reasons stated. It was strange having half of my party wiped at the outset of an outdoor encounter, before my high-initiative types could even move. A question I've not seen addressed: as I recall from the original Avernum (and, I confess, I've not played that version in years) buffs and debuffs were cumulative. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that this is now the case with the updated game. Can anyone confirm whether these are cumulative? Thanks.