The Reverend

A:EFTP and Avadon use a new engine, which has some pros and cons. This type of automovement (of archers and spellcasters) is definitely one of the cons.

Yeah, that would make sense. Or even just get rid of it - it makes no sense to have a game mechanic that essentially does nothing. I understand that it was supposed to make the player think that their characters were getting tired, but it never seemed to have that effect on me since it never got low enough for me to worry about it.

As more votes have been counted, Obama's lead in the popular vote has expanded. It's now up to about 3.5 million (http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president). I believe the one million number that was quoted on election night was from before they had counted most of the west coast votes. We may be three hours behind the east coast, but we still exist! But your point about the silliness of the whole electoral college system still stands. It's possible to lose the popular vote and still win the election (e.g., Bush v Gore), which doesn't sit well with a lot of people. And Nate Silver's final simulations this year had over a 5% chance of Romney winning the popular vote but Obama winning the electoral vote. I believe this number was even higher right after the first debates, when Romney started moving up quickly in the polls.

There's a limited distance that you can fly (I think it's either 3 or 4 squares). Also, I've had issues where it won't work if it's not a straight shot. For instance, I once tried to use it to fly around the Spire Fortress, but it wouldn't let me (I was coming from the Abyss, and hadn't yet entered the fort from the South to get permission to pass).

The Reverend walks over to the shopping list. The Reverend: "Strawberry shortcake. Spaghetti. And nacho ingredients. You can never have enough nachos." The Reverend writes everything on the list, and starts to head towards the bus. His flask of bourbon is running low, and he figures maybe he can get a refill at the store. On the way, he notices that Harehunter has completed his penance, and overhears him say something about "powerful puns". The Reverend: "Careful, son - the penance for the next infraction is four stacks (Reve's puzzle)".

Yeah, in the more difficult zones of G1 having a couple creations as meat shields really helps your agent. As I think about it some more, I think there were actually a couple times in the first half of the game where my agent created a disposable meat shield for a single zone. But the nice thing (in my mind, at the time) was that with an agent, your main character is the primary fighter and the creations are just support. By the time I got to G2, though, and was more used to the system, I found that I could also enjoy the Shaper style of play.

Go to this link, and search for "Witch's Hut" or "Crone's Boon". The list will be right underneath that: AEFTP Item List

I started G1 as a shaper, but I wasn't enjoying the combat. I restarted as an agent and loved it. By the end of the game I had a couple creations, but for at least the first half it was just my lone Agent Angie.

It makes you plan ahead. In many of these types of games, your spellcasters just end up casting the same spell every round. It may differ in different encounters based on the type of enemy you are facing, but often not very much during a particular combat. When you run out of energy, you head back to town to recharge. In Avadon, you have to make choices and plan ahead for when you are going to use abilities, since once you use an ability, you can't use it again for a few more rounds. So you may choose to delay the use of an area-of-effect ability if you expect the enemies to be better clumped in the next round (or you expect to be able to get your character into a better position for the cone-style abilities in a latter round). In regards to this limiting the shaman and sorceress too much: the Shaman has multiple heal abilities (and can get more with scarabs), and the sorceress can get pretty short recharge times by pumping up (and specializing in) the middle column skills. It really depends on your playstyle, and what you like in games, of course. But personally I found the cooldown system an interesting change from previous Spiderweb games.

(OOC: I always associate it with Hendrix, because I heard the Hendrix version long before I even knew there was a Dylan version - much less that Dylan wrote it originally. But you're right, it was originally a Dylan a song.) Edit: Sorry for the double post - I didn't want to mix in-charcter and out-of-character.

The Reverend sets down his guitar and grabs his Kentucky coffee. The Reverend: "I guess I must not be dreaming. There's no way I could sleep through Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." He looks over at the dish-stacking, rhyming rabbit (who he initially, in his half-awake pre-coffee state, thought was a man). He practically jumps out of his robes, and manages to spill most of his remaining coffee all over them. Before his eyes, the rabbit transformed into a Jackalope! The Reverend: "I guess the coffee stain will go well with the tire tracks, hoof prints, and gazer dandruff. But can somebody please explain what is going on here?? Lately things just don't seem the same, Actin' funny, but I don't know why'." The Reverend then catches sight of a man with a sword. The Reverend: "Hey (Excalibur), where you goin' with that (sword) in your hand?"

If I remember correctly, killing Duke Griffin does change the ending text slightly (I think it makes it slightly better for you/Avadon if you go the loyalist route). But, it's been a few months so I don't remember for sure. But, as Randomizer said, you can still get the loyalist ending regardless of what you do to the Duke.

It means that you can't just spam the same spell/ability over and over again every round, which I like. It adds a bit of variety and tactical thinking to combat. I do wish it was implemented slightly differently, so that using the lower level version of an ability didn't preclude you from using the upper level version, and vice versa - I'm thinking in particular of some of the sorceress spells, where the two versions are really quite different spells. But this is just a minor quibble. In general I like the cooldown system.

The Reverend accepts a cup of coffee from a rhyming man standing behind a nearby tree. Given everything else he's seen since being awakened by the bus, a rhyming man handing out free cups of coffee behind a tree seems downright normal. Freshly invigorated by the coffee (spiked with a splash of bourbon, of course), he makes his way through the gates and into the hall. The Reverend: "What is this place? And who are these ... people? Talking ponies? Floating eyes? Is this a dream? Or a sign from the heavens?" The Revered kneels and begins to pray. The Reverend: "In the name of his holiness, the one and only saint Jimi, please grant me the wisdom to see through this Purple Haze. Is this the Red House, inhabited by the Foxy Lady? Or am I merely wandering All Along The Watchtower again? Truly, the Wind doth Cry Mary." The Reverend stands up, puts away his paper bag, sets down his cup of coffee, and retrieves the guitar that had been slung over his back. The Reverend: "Amen, and Hey Joe." The Reverend begins an acoustic rendition of Spanish Castle Magic: It's very far away, It takes about a half and a day to get there, If we travel by my uh, dragon-fly ...

After being repeatedly trampled by people, ponies, and ... a giant floating eyeball? ... The Reverend finally gives up on his nap and follows the crowd. The Reverend: "Anybody have any coffee? It's looking like one of those days..." He looks down at his brand new robes. The Reverend: "And does anyone know a good drycleaner? I've got tire tracks, hoofprints, and gazer bits on my best robes."

The Reverend crawls out from under the bus. "Can't a man of the cloth take a nap under a tree without getting run over by a bus?!?" He looks inside a brown paper bag in his right hand. "Well, at least my bourbon is undamaged." The Reverend find another tree, sits down under it, and falls back asleep.

If you avoid killing the villagers in Dorhl Stead, it changes the ending slighty - and makes it a little better for Dorhl Stead.

RaustBlackDragon showed that it is possible to go multi-classed and beat the game, even on torment - you just have to be careful about how you allocate points and know what you're doing. The new system in some ways actually makes it easier to fine tune your build as you learn, because you don't have to allocate such a large portion of your skill points at the beginning of the game (IIRC, in the old games you got 60 points at the beginning and then 5 points each level). Edit: To be clear - I'm not saying the new system makes multi-class builds easier. The opposite is probably true. Just that the new system makes it easier to fine tune whatever build you do choose because of the different timings of when points are distributed.

This, exactly.

This does help you prevent starting with unviable characters, but it doesn't really solve the problem of not knowing what the prereqs are for the cool hidden skills. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy the old Avernums (and their skill system) as well as A:EFTP. I'm just trying to point out that there are some real benefits to the new system. Both are fun though, IMHO.

This effectively means that you have to check Strategy Central before you start your game, and plan your build accordingly, if you want to be assured of getting these types of skills. I would say that there are a limited number of good builds in either system. The old system might have made some mixed-class characters more viable (in particular the mage-priest - I'd often go with 2 fighters and 2 mage-priests where one of the mage-priests was slightly more focused on mage and the other slightly more on priest), but it also made it easier to end up with a build that just wasn't viable at all.

The stat system is structured differently in this game, but most of the same stats are present. It's actually easier to unlock some stats here than it was in the previous games because you don't have the same high prerequisites for the formerly hidden stats. In many ways this actually limited your freedom, because you were locked into grabbing large amounts of various prerequisite stats if you wanted to unlock the cool hidden stats. I think they only time when you have less freedom is at the very beginning - in the original Avernums you could allocate a number of skill points at the beginning, whereas as in A:EFTP you only get a few points at the beginning. But later in the game, though, you get to upgrade one stat and two skills every level. This was rare in the original Avernums due to the increasing cost of skills as you leveled them up.

Well, technically it will not become legal here in Washington until December 6 ...

No, this analysis assumes a 4-character party. With a singleton you can only get to 4 cave lore with free points and points purchased for 900 in Formello (since each character can only purchase 2). To get up to 10 without spending skill points you need a 4-character party. The only reason I advocate spending a skill point to get up to 11 is because you can get to 10 and still break even monetarily (with just a few trips to the mandrake patch), and then spending the 1 skill point to get to 11 generates enough additional gold (2100) to buy training in almost any skill you desire and still have money left over.

I've been (slowly) working on calculating the value of each point of cave lore. The purpose is to determine if buying points in it for 900 coins in Formello is worthwhile. The min-maxing analysis argued that the items you get from cave lore would generally not be worth the cost (and that the small bonus to poison/acid resistance was not worthwhile either), but I thought that it might be undervaluing wisdom crystals and mandrake, and also not taking into account the renewable herb patches (3 of which require cave lore). Excess herbs that you don't use to create wisdom crystals can be sold. I explained wisdom crystal and mandrake valuations in the following thread from last month: Wisdom Crystal and Mandrake Valuation To compile this list, I looked at the list of caches, and the other cave-lore specific things in the item list (mostly herb patches, some renewable and some not). I ignored the rubies in the giant quarry, because you can get them without cave lore if you are willing to fight. For most items I then looked at the price you could get from selling it with 4 characters with Negotiator. For wisdom crystals and mandrake, I instead used the valuation described in the above link. I did not attempt to place any value on the poison/acid resistance - my idea was that if you can break even monetarily, then the poison/acid resistance is a nice free bonus. Here are the values I came up with - note the "sweet spots" at 5 and 10: Cave Lore 1 Cost: 0 (Free point from doing herb quest in Mertis) Value: 0 Cave Lore 2 Cost: 0 (Free point from pool in giant lands) Value: 44 Cave Lore 3 Cost: 900 Value: 450 + 33 per collection of healing herbs from the non-gremlin Eastern Gallery patch Total cost to get here (sum of all previous points' costs): 900 Total value of getting here (sum of all previous points values): 494 + 33 per healing herb collection Cave Lore 4 Cost: 900 Value: 835 Total cost to get here (sum of all previous points' costs): 1800 Total value of getting here (sum of all previous points values): 1329 + 33 per healing herb collection Cave Lore 5 Cost: 900 Value: 1404 + 44 per collection of energetic herbs from energetic renewable patch Total cost to get here: 2700 Total value of getting here: 2733 + 33 per healing collection + 44 per energetic collection Cave Lore 6 Cost: 900 Value: 690 Total cost to get here: 3600 Total value of getting here: 3423 + 33 per healing collection + 44 per energetic collection Cave Lore 7 Cost: 900 Value: 387 Total cost to get here: 4500 Total value of getting here: 3810 + 33 per healing collection + 44 per energetic collection Cave Lore 8 Cost: 900 Value: 1340 Total cost to get here: 5400 Total value of getting here: 5150 + 33 per healing collection + 44 per energetic collection Cave Lore 9 Cost: 900 Value: 646 Total cost to get here: 6300 Total value of getting here: 5796 + 33 per healing collection + 44 per energetic collection Cave Lore 10 Cost: 900 Value: 295 per mandrake collection Total cost to get here: 7200 Total value of getting here: 5796 + 295 per mandrake collection + 33 per healing collection + 44 per energetic collection So it is clearly worthwhile to get to 5 cave lore (2 free and 3 bought). You'll make back all of your money even if you don't do any herb collection trips, and so it is essentially a free bonus to poison and acid resistance. And if you like to collect herbs, you can make a profit pretty easily. I would also argue that it is worthwhile to get cave lore up to 10 (2 free and 8 bought). You only need to collect mandrake from the renewable patch 5 times to break even (and you'll be visiting the nearby Freehold quite often for training in the mid to late game - I just take a quick jaunt over to the mandrake patch every time I'm there to see if it has regenerated). Cave lore 10 is the highest you can get to from just free points and training. However, if you are willing to invest 1 skill point, you can get to cave lore 11. That allows you to get the First Expedition Ring which gives you an additional one point bonus. That in turn lets you get the CL12 cache containing the putrified gauntlets. If you then sell the ring and gauntlets, you can make 2100 coins. I'd argue that that is a good investment of a skill point, because 2100 is enough to train an additional point in any another skill, and still have some extra money left over. So, to be complete: Cave Lore 11 Cost: 1 skill point Value: 2100 (use the First Expedition Ring bonus to get the Putrified Gauntlets, and then sell both) Total cost to get here: 7200 + 1 skill point Total value of getting here: 7896 + 295 per mandrake collection + 33 per healing collection + 44 per energetic collection