The Reverend

I'd imagine it's mostly empty - I suspect Jeff wouldn't bother to populate a Fort that he didn't intend anybody to enter.

My (admittedly hazy) recollection is that you aren't supposed to be able to enter it.

Another way to look at it is that, in the eyes of the Takers, the Obeyers are just mindless fools who are too weak to break away from the Shapers. The Awakened, on the other hand, have figured out that they have minds of their owns and deserve independence from the Shapers, but have come to a very different conclusion about the best way to achieve it (peaceful co-existence rather than rebellion). In some ways, that makes the Awakened a bigger threat to the Takers than the Obeyers. It is interesting how this mirrors some real-life situations, where people have stronger negative feelings about others with related but different opinions than themselves, as opposed to people with polar opposite opinions from themselves. I think it's the same idea - working from some common ground, but reaching different conclusions based on that common ground, is harder for people to understand.

I would definitely recommend at least trying the demo of Nethergate: Resurrection. The graphics and interface aren't nearly at the level of Jeff's latest games, but if you can look past that, it is an amazing game - one of Jeff's gems.

I would always name a fyora after our dog...

If a priest raises their intelligence enough, they'll almost never be affected by mental effects. There have only been a few occasions where I've had more than one character charmed. I've seen multiple characters get terrified, but in my mind terrify is not nearly as big of a deal, because you don't have your own characters attacking you (and often doing more damage than any of the opponents). Since terrify and stun (not sure if stun is a mental effect, though?) don't seem to last very long in most cases, I'll often not even bother casting unshackle in those cases, and just use one of the priest's attack spells instead. The effect often wears off in 1 or 2 rounds. Also, you can cast ward of thoughts if you are about to enter a battle where you expect a lot of mental attacks - but I rarely used it (I think I might've used it before the Arenea Queen, but that's the only time I can think of right now).

Slarty's builds are meant to be the optimally min-maxed way to build your characters. The game can still be beat, even on torment, with very different builds. Check out Raust's victorious torment builds, for example: http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/281546/My_victorious_heroes#Post281546 Also, the fighter-priest build works well for a tank, because it lets you get both hardiness and resistance. And Slarty's builds sell archers short. It is true that they will never do as much damage as a dual-wielder, mage, or even dedicated damage-dealing priest - but their high dexterity can make them an effective tank, since very few enemies will be able to hit them with greater than a 5% chance (except for enemies with cold attacks).

Originally Posted By: Death Knight I didnt have to worry about protecting my mage/priest much due to resistance, but Im not sure what I would have done if I had an archer as they dont have high resistances. My first playthrough I had an archer, and she had no trouble with survivability, including in the major quest final fights, due to high dexterity. Except for cold attacks, everything had just a 5% chance to hit her from pretty much the mid-game on. I gave her some cold restistence boosting items to counteract that weakness, and also put a few points into melee to get some hardiness.

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires call the storm is bit useless damage wise and some enemies don't move that easily (2 blocks after 2 cts's is wasted mana) and it doesn't do damage to undeads (skeletons, liches, etc), div. fire is nice but does less damage than fireblast (although my party has lvl 3 fb and only lvl 2 df), div. retr. is nice but very energy consuming and needs to be done closeish to enemy/ies. It clearly will be more difficult than a party with a mage - mage's are probably the strongest characters in the game as far as dealing lots of damage. That's why I'm considering this a "challenge" playthrough. However, I think it's at most a moderately difficult challenge. Clearly there is no one priest spell that will work for every battle (the same is true for mage spells), but I think there are enough options that there should be some tactic that gets me through each of the battles.

Yes, if you keep hitting Grah-Hoth, you'll quickly get overwhelmed by the all of the summons - I believe the scripts are set up so that the summons occur when his health gets down to certain set levels. So, once he summons a group, stop attacking him and take out that group. Then go back to attacking him until he summons another group, and repeat...

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires I'm not convinced that your party will survive from some tough battles (like Slith castle, Slith Temple, Spiral Pit and of course main quests). They already survived the Spiral Pit. On my first try they had to run from the battle at the exit (after killing the commander in the center), but then on my second try I used a different strategy and was able to win that battle as well. I'm not anticipating too much trouble later - the only real difference from a fairly standard two fighter/one priest/one mage party is two priests rather than one priest and one mage. By the late game, priests have a decent selection of area damage spells (call the storm, divine fire, divine retribution) - not as many as mages, but having three characters who can cast mass healing and two who can cast raise dead will be helpful. If a singleton can do it, I'm sure these guys can do it. And for melee heavy battles, multiple level 3 call the storm casters is amazing - two knockbacks pushes melee-only enemies far enough away that they can't hit you.

Originally Posted By: Mosquito---Slayer I don't think intelligence affects the strength of any spell, damaging or non-damaging, it just increases your spell energy. Intelligence does increase the damage done by your spells - you can see the damage displayed when you mouse over the spell increase if you increase your intelligence.

I meant to do an update at level 15, but it slipped, so here's a level 16 update: Progress Brutus, Cecilia, Fred, and Mini spent most of the time since the last update exploring southeast Avernum. They lifted (at least temporarily) the undead curse in the Mertis Area, explored the honeycomb, and fought a bunch of ogres. They haven't yet taken out the ogre mage, but almost succeeded in their recent attempt, so they will likely return soon to finish him off. They were also appalled to learn about the mess that the mages at the Tower of Magi had gotten themselves into with the Haakai - typical power-hungry magicians, ignoring the safety of themselves and others in the pursuit of their evil arts. They also discovered the Freehold of Kyass and helped them with a couple simple tasks, met a strange Empire envoy under Formello, raided a few Slith outposts, and repaired a beautiful crystal cavern. Just recently they arrived in the great cave. After clearing out the sewers of Almaria, they headed down to Patrick's tower to deliver a recruitment message from Kyass. While there, they used the graymold salve recipe they had found earlier to cure Patrick's wife. With their improving reputation (well known), Brutus and Co. are hopeful that they will eventually be able to convince more of the Avernites to join their faith. So far they haven't had much luck - some nonsense about the mages being the reason the Avernites have light and food - but they have faith that if they continue to help Avernum without using magic, the people will eventually see the wisdom of the Anama's ways. Builds Brother Brutus Strength: 21 (+ 3 from traits and items) Dexterity: 6 Intelligence: 6 Endurance: 9 (+ 3 from traits) Melee: 10 Hardiness: 10 Parry: 10 Quick Action: 0 (+ 1 from items) Priest Spells: 3 Spellcraft: 1 Resistance: 1 First Aid: 1 (from quest in Mertis) Cave Lore: 4 (2 bought, 1 from quest in Mertis, 1 from pool in Giant lands) Traits: Improve Strength, Improve Endurance x 2, Mighty Blows, Good Health, Robust Health, Negotiator, Parry Mastery x 2 Brutus is still at the minimum Priest Spells required by my Anama playthrough rules (3 by level 10). Now that he's maxed out hardiness and parry, he's starting to put points into resistance, which will soon require additional priest spells skill. At that point he will start to take on more of the party healer role. Sister Cecilia Strength: 21 (+ 5 from traits and items) Dexterity: 6 (+ 1 from items) Intelligence: 6 Endurance: 9 Melee: 13 Hardiness: 7 Parry: 7 Blademaster: 5 (+ 1 from items) Quick Action: 0 (+ 2 from items) Priest Spells: 3 Cave Lore: 2 (both bought) Luck: 0 (+ 3 from items) Traits: Improve Strength x 3, Mighty Blows, Ambidextrous, Good Health, Robust Health, Negotiator, Sage Lore Cecilia's combat skills still make her the most deadly for single target damage. She is also the most commonly knocked out, though, so she's starting to fall a bit behind on XP (about 300 behind the leader). Father Fred Strength: 6 (+ 1 from items) Dexterity: 6 (+ 2 from items) Intelligence: 21 (+ 4 from traits) Endurance: 9 Preist Spells: 17 Spellcraft: 9 Resistance: 6 Tool Use: 3 (+ 1 from traits) Magical Efficiency: 0 (+ 1 from items) Cave Lore: 2 (both bought) Traits: Improved Intelligence x 4, Elemental Focus x 2, Nimble Fingers, Negotiator, Sage Lore Mother Mini Strength: 6 Dexterity: 6 (+1 from items) Intelligence: 21 (+ 4 from traits) Endurance: 9 Gymnastics: 0 (+ 1 from items) Priest Spells: 16 Spellcraft: 8 Resistance: 5 Tool Use: 4 (+ 1 from traits) Arcane Lore: 1 Magical Efficiency: 1 (+ 1 from items) Cave Lore: 2 (both bought) Traits: Improved Intelligence x 4, Elemental Focus x 2, Nimble Fingers, Negotiator, Sage Lore Fred and Mini now have 1 level of ward of steel and ward of elements from spell books (Mini trained in a point of arcane lore so they'd be able to read the ward of elements book in the Freehold). This, combined with training in mass healing, has been a great aid to party survivability.

Originally Posted By: The Rev That would seem to indicate that Jeff may be working on both in parallel - although I suspect that the Avadon 2 work is probably the priority, since the Spiderweb web site front page mentions mentions that they are: Quote: gearing up (painfully slowly) to announcing Avadon 2 ... and doesn't say anything about Avernum: Crystal Souls Hmm, as of today (with the release of A6 for iPad) he's updated the front page to say: Quote: What Are We Working On Now? -We are also still slowly gearing up to announcing Avadon 2: The Corruption and Avernum 2: Crystal Souls. I'm still theorizing that Avadon 2 will come first, based on recent patterns - but now it seems less clear than it did yesterday...

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires lookslike you did pit too early with unprepared party. prolly all hostile casters do 2 attacks per round due they can cast battle frenzy. I'm familiar with coming back later and trying again if you can't handle the main boss - that is in fact what I did here. The first time I went into the Spiral Pit, I cleared out everything up to the Spectral Commander, and then came back a few levels later to take him and his friends out. But in this case, after I defeated the main boss, I was expecting to take an easy jaunt back to town. Then on my way out after defeating him, I encountered a battle that I found more difficult than the main boss - the specter by the exit didn't hit quite as often as the main boss, but when he did hit, it went for more damage per round (at least given my party's current resistances and wards). It seems that battle is triggered by defeating the Spectral Commander, since it didn't occur when I left the Pit earlier.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer I don't remember the leaving battle being harder as long as you still have spell points to fight. It's in a narrow area if you retreat so you don't get swarmed. I encountered them right as I rounded the final corner (SE corner), where there is room for them to swarm you. There's a 1-wide passage a ways back, but I wasn't able to get there before being swarmed. Last night I retried it though, and waited at the mouth of the 1-wide passage instead of continuing on until I reached the occupied corner. After waiting awhile, some of the undead wandered into visual range and came at me, allowing me to take them out one at a time. After I had picked off most of those guys, I headed into the corner and managed to take out the specter and his final remaining companion. I did have one of my characters go down in the battle though. The problem was that (even with Ward of Elements cast) my cold resistance was apparently not high enough to prevent the specter from killing either of my front line characters if he managed to get two of his cold damage attacks in (and he appears to always have enough AP for two attacks per round). This was even if I fully healed them each round. But at least the battle was winnable with this tactic.

Over the weekend my no-mage torment party took out the spectral commander at the heart of the Spiral Pit. They were a bit worn down, but everyone survived. I collected the loot, and started what I thought would be an easy march back to Mertis. However, when they were almost to the exit, they were attacked by a group of undead led by a Specter. The battle seemed harder than the main boss/Spectral Commander in the heart of the Pit. After a few failed attempts to beat them, I decided to retreat, and managed (barely) to get one character out so he could run back to Mertis and revive the rest. My previous playthrough was on hard, and I don't remember this battle being particularly bad - I may be misrembering, but I thought it was easier than the battle at the heart of the pit. Did Jeff significantly up the difficultly of this battle as a nasty surprise for Torment players? (Just when you think you're done with that dungeon, surprise you're not!) If so, that's not the type of surpise I appreciate!!

Someone posted the following on Spiderweb's facebook wall on July 31: Quote: Do you have a release date scheduled for your next game(Avadon 2 or the next Avernum?) Like · · July 31 at 12:53pm The Spiderweb facebook account reponded on August 2: Quote: Spiderweb Software: We are at the beginning of both Avernum 2 rewrite and Avadon 2. So it will be a while and we have not set a release date. When we do have a rough date we'll post about it to facebook. August 2 at 2:21pm · Like · 3 That would seem to indicate that Jeff may be working on both in parallel - although I suspect that the Avadon 2 work is probably the priority, since the Spiderweb web site front page mentions mentions that they are: Quote: gearing up (painfully slowly) to announcing Avadon 2 ... and doesn't say anything about Avernum: Crystal Souls

That is the way it has been on normal difficulty in recent Spiderweb games. I switched to playing on hard difficulty for my initial playthrough (and torment if I do a second) when Avernum 6 came out, because I noticed some comments in the forums that normal had gotten easier. I find that hard is about right for someone who is used to Spiderweb-style games, and is looking for a difficulty that approximately matches normal on their older games.

Originally Posted By: Mosquito---Slayer I had say that due to lesser availability of capital companies will be slower in expansion, that might mean lower job creation and such This is certainly a good argument for the pro side. For the con side, I wonder if being owned by stock market investors distorts the goals of companies by incentivizing growth over everything else (e.g., a sustainable business model). Most shareholders care only about the stock price rising*, and the stock price (in theory) only rises when the company becomes more valuable. A profitable company with a solid, sustainable business which is able to pay its employees well, but isn't growing, will not make the stock price rise, and thus will not make its shareholders (i.e., owners) happy. So rather than contentedly maintaining their sustainable business model, they are forced to take risks to try to grow and expand, or to try raise profits by cutting costs (e.g., layoffs, benefit/salary reductions, etc). *Income investors who target dividend paying stocks are the exception ...

Here's a question I like to ponder - is the stock market "good" for the economy? Or, to put it another way, what would the economy look like if we didn't have a stock market, and businesses raised capital solely via loans and revenue streams? Would we be better or worse off? I go back and forth on this question, but am curious what others here think.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Microsoft lacky What I could never understand is why if a company is doing great but the stock all of a sudden plummets, the company may find itself in dire straits. The causation is usually the other way around: most of the time if a company's stock suddenly takes a dive, that's because something has gone badly wrong for it or is expected to. Stocks can also decline on good news, which can be frustrating to small-time individual investors who may not react as fast as the big automated traders. If good news is expected it can end up being priced into the stock. Investors expecting the good news will buy ahead of the news and run up the stock price, and then sell and take a profit after the good news is released. It's not uncommon for the investors who bought in at the tail end of the run up to lose money because all the investors who bought at the beginning of the run up start selling off as soon as the news is released, causing the stock to drop (sometimes quickly).

Originally Posted By: Cairo Jim I just saw this on Facebook, although the price I saw was $4.99. The facebook post said the price is $4.99, but it is on sale for 20% off for the first week - which makes it $3.99. Also, it appears that they only have the PC version on Steam.

A small number of new skills wouldn't surprise me - Jeff has certainly done that sort of thing in the past between games in a series.

Originally Posted By: Dear Potato @The rev: I normally do the same with other games; but, this is my first time replaying a Spiderweb game, and reading some posts in the forum made me think that Avadon could get pretty irritating on higher difficulties... but I guess you are right. I've been playing RPGs since childhood and I have the experience of a first playthrough I'm curious, though, if I will be able to kill certain dragon and certain demon... The dragon was a bit tricky on hard, but not impossible. The demon was actually fairly easy, when I come back at an appropriate level. (He cleaned the floor with me when I tried to take him on when I first met him!)