The Reverend

So basically I think that screenshots should showcase animations, new graphics, and plot teasers.

I also like the build screens ... lets us speculate on abilities/classes/etc.

Funny you should ask - I basically stopped playing A:EFTP in late January, because real life got way too hectic ... It's still fairly hectic, but has finally mellowed out a bit to the point where just yesterday I was finally able to open this up again for the first time in months. I'm trying to reacquaint myself with these builds and where I was in the playthrough. The characters are all level 9, and I think they just completed rescuing the Formello mayor's necklace and clearing out the rest of that fort. So not much further than I was in the 1/25 update ....

It was interesting that those rebel lands also bordered on The Corruption, and "The Corruption" is the subtitle of Avadon 2 - makes me speculate that some elements from the corruption may be fomenting rebellion in the pact.

I found the map screenshot interesting - it shows a change from the original map, namely the area now marked as "Rebel Lands". Also, what the heck is that creature guarding the gate by the lava??

Please try not to revive old (as in, three years dead) topics unless you have something new and constructive to add. This was neither.

This thread was recently linked to in another thread (the Avadon 2 thread), so it's not completely out of the blue.

On torment difficulty I actually prefer to do a bit higher investment in endurance, because of the hidden 30% resistance penalty - it means your resistance is effectively capped at 60% rather than 90% on torment. Having more endurance (and thus more hit points) helps here, since the penalty means you will be taking damage (except maybe for high-dodge rate characters like archers - but they will still take cold damage as noted above). I typically go for about 25% endurance-75% primary attack stat for non-tanks, and 33% endurance-66% primary attack stat for tanks.

I assume you haven't cleared Giants castle yet nor Pyrog's lair, I want to "see" how will you accomplish those.

As long as you are careful to avoid getting swarmed, I found the Giant's castle and Pyrog's lair to be easier than Drath.

I try to go in at level 35 for Hawthorne and use invulnerability potions for torment.

This, except I was at level 36. And yes, invulnerability potions makes it much easier to survive long enough for Hawthorne to waste all his shields.

The key for making it through the royal spire on torment (or any level, really, but especially torment) is to not get bogged down - new guards continually spawn, so if you don't keep moving, you'll get overwhelmed. Speed helps (e.g., battle frenzy), so you can make more progress before additional guards catch up with you. They are tough on torment, but by this point you should be able to clear out enough of them fast enough to make progress - high powered AOE spells help (you may want a good stock of energy elixirs if you think you might run out of spell points), as does being able to attack multiple times per round (AP boosting items and adrenaline rush). The trickiest part for me was when you get to Garzhad (or however you spell his name). You need to take him out as fast as possible before too many guards catch up with you.

Once you actually get to Hawthorne, it's just a waiting game - he'll eventually use up his shield trying to fight you, and at that point you should be able to kill him in one shot. You just need to survive the mob that attacks you long enough. I found divine retribution at level 2 to be helpful here - it gives the slow status, which the sentinels seem particularly vulnerable to. And it also does a lot of damage to the guards that arrive while you are waiting.

So I am going to attempt one of two things -- I will either go ahead and buy 2 levels of Resistance for everyone, or buy another level or two of Cave Lore so I can use the Mandrake patch and make some invincibility potions. Though in theory I should wait on getting Resistance until I can get it cheaper in Gnass, I can afford all but 1 point right now from Ethridge.

Regardless of how you handle Drath, I'd recommend getting Cave Lore up to 10 or 11 - it does pay off in the long run:

http://spiderwebforu...e-of-cave-lore/

"To spam, or not to spam: that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the forums to post

The congrats and accolades of outrageous milestones,

Or to take arms against a sea of spammers,

And by opposing filter them?" - Apologies to The Bard of Avon

Congrats, 3000. That's a REALLY big number, as my 3-year old would say.

You can also adjust the difficulty level, which makes a dramatic difference - casual is easier than normal, which is easier than hard, which is easier than torment. You can even switch difficulty part way through the game if you decide it is too easy or too hard.

Interesting little bug I've noticed: If a foe is Immobile or Ensnared for only one turn, they have effectively resisted the staus effect. Meaning, if I use Flawless Shot on someone and inflict a turn of Ensnarement on them, they won't ACTUALLY be Ensnared--they recover from it immediately at the start of their next move and are free to walk wherever they want. Which is a bit of a shame.

Yes, that is annoying - it makes status-inflicting attacks much less useful. Which is a bummer.

It sounds like having all four melee/bow fighters with adrenaline rush can partially serve the same purpose as magic users with AOE attacks, in that it allows you to thin out large groups of enemies quickly?

Thanks for posting the update - I look forward to hearing more about your progress!

IF (POST = Milestone)

MYPOSTCOUNT = MYPOSTCOUNT + 1

PRINT ("Congratulations")

ELSE

GOTO NEXT POST

END

Go To Statement Considered Harmful

Look Ma, I can inflate my post count too!

How did a thread about alcohol get sidetracked into a discussion about credit card policies? I thought all other conversations were supposed to get sidetracked into discussions of alcohol, not the other way around!

Yeah, if you want to avoid combat with Giants, you have to take the alternate route that Jerakeen mentions. If you try to reach Bargha by land via the Giant Lands, there is a mandatory giant encounter that you can't bypass (IIRC).

One big problem is the difference between the two mouse versions and the iPad version. For example, all instructions have to be changed from "right click..." to "touch your finger...", etc . And, the sun icon that allows you to use an inventory item in the Mac and PC versions actually has no iPad equivalent. Touching an item on the iPad pulls up a mini-menu allowing you to manipulate said item.

 

Fly-specking the iPad version just to remove the mouse references is a big job. And, there were definitely some platform specific bugs found during the beta for Avernum:EftP. Those realities make me wonder how simultaneous the iPad beta can be with the other two. The waiting is just killing me.....

I think a lot of those issues were already ironed out in Avadon 1 and A:EFTP. I'm sure he will be reusing a lot of the instructions, so things like "right-click" will have already been changed.

That said, it would not surprise me if the Mac and Windows versions came out simultaneously, and the iPad version came out a couple (or a few) weeks later. This could still easily satisfy the "Fall 2013" target date he listed for all three.

Some of my favorites:

• Good craft brews, of pretty much any style. I've recently started to dabble in brewing my own. Not nearly up to the standards of the microbrews I frequent, but much better than the aforementioned PBR. And I'm hoping to improve with practice.
  
• Pisco (a grape brandy made in Peru and Chile) - Pisco Biondi is my personal favorite, but I'm a bit partial because the first taste I had of pisco was in Moquegua, Peru, home of Pisco Biondi.
  
• Calvados (French Apple Brandy) - my French father-in-law gave me what he calls a "Wuudy Wuudpeckaire" (my attempt to write Woody Woodpecker with a French accent) the first time I visited by pouring me a few too many servings of this ...
  
• Eau de vie de Poire William (pear brandy, also French). I prefer the bottles with a whole pear inside - much more appetizing than the tequila bottles with the worm inside.
  

Keep us posted on how it goes ... I for one am very curious.

But Steelward foes don't seem worth the trouble. Even if I get the Flaming Sword and Lightning-damage bow as early as possible, they will still be highly resistant to my attacks, and thus it will be a boring grindfest of chip damage that could take hours. I could use wands, but with the exception of the very powerful ones, I don't see that significantly increasing my damage output against these kinds of guys. Maybe if the game had more magical melee weapons/bows this would be more doable, but I think if I do this at all, I'll save it for much later.

I may be misremember-ating, but I don't think there were many physical resistant foes. A few yes, but not a lot ...

Seems like you could save up the most powerful wands for those battles.

In general having extra actions is great. If you are worried about loss of to hit then give it to a priest so you can get extra healing since most priest attack spells aren't as good as a mage.

 

By late in the game you usually can hit even with penalties.

And a priest casting multiple divine retributions in a round can quickly do some serious damage to a lot of enemies... Grah-Hoth's summons drop like flies.

I meant to say without Priest Spells, too. Yeah, I am worried that it would require too much tedium--I may do it on a lower difficulty just for the sake of my sanity. I will probably also buy First Aid skills at the trainer--perhaps not the most cost-effective investment, but it could save on some time.

Since you won't have to buy any spells, you'll probably have a surplus of cash, so this shouldn't be a problem.

One issue I'm worried about is limited stock. Am I right in understanding that stores never replenish their supplies? More specifically--are there a limited number of Return Life scrolls in the game? I know I can, with enough Cave Lore, "farm" for all the potions I'll need, but can you make Return Life scrolls?

Stores that only have a limited stock of every item they carry (in other words, every item for sale has a quantity next to it) will restock, but only if you completely buy them out of everything. For example, the Slith Village right by the entrance to the Waterfall warren that sells piercing crystals among other things will restock. If you happen to run out of piercing crystals and need more (see below), this is an (expensive) option.

Barriers:

As I've already heard, there are enough piercing crystals that you don't need Dispel Barrier Level 3, although you do miss out on some cool stuff. So I should be okay on this front.

Yes, there are enough to open every barrier that you need to open, however there are not enough that you can just open every level 1 and 2 barrier you encounter (unless you resort to the expensive trick above). You need to plan ahead and figure out which barriers you need/want to open, and make sure you save enough crystals for those. Since you are not using any spells, you can skip all of the barriers that just have spell books behind them.

Wards/Cloaks:

These can be supplied by scrolls, but also received for free at certain towns(Castle's altar, Fort Emerald's emerald). As well, since I don't ever need to rest in town, I can keep the cloak until I need a quest reward and/or to sell something.

One thing to note is that these only give level 1 of the ward/cloak. Certainly better than nothing, but level 3 gives a nice bonus over level 1.

A big question I'd want to know going in is if there is any way to improve a character's proficiency with Wands. Whenever I've used them, they essentially seem to do very little damage and have a very low accuracy rate. Is there any stat that improves either the damage or hit chance of a wand? Please let me know on this one.

I don't think there is, no ...

Party Makeup:

 

I am thinking that there likely aren't enough decent swords to go around for everyone to dual wield, so one character at least will have to use a spear. I would also be interested to hear people's thoughts on archers--my feeling is that I should have at least one ranged damage dealer, although I know the damage output of pure archers is fairly low. What do you all think?

If I was trying this, I'd go with one or two archers, and two or three dual-wielding sword fighters. I know there are enough swords to equip 4 good ones, having done it, and there might be enough for three. I'd choose an archer over a pole fighter ... But I've always been a defender of archers, and not everyone shares my assessment of them.

I haven't tried anything like this before, but I'll be interested to follow your progress. Did you mean to limit your fighter/mage and fighter/priest to 10 levels of mage and 10 levels of priest spells? If so you miss out on Dispel Barrier (save up on piercing crystals - there's enough in the game to finish, but it can get a bit tight at times - if you run out, I have some tips I picked up doing the Anama playthrough). You also miss Fireblast and Arcane Blow, as well as Raise Dead (save those scrolls!) and Divine Retribution for the priest.

The lack of both the most damaging mage and the most damaging priest spells seems like it could make this quite difficult, but it'll be a good chance to explore what can really be done with melee in this game.

Out of curiosity, is there a reason you only have 3 characters in your parties? Or just personal preference?

You can steal with open doors and not get seen, you just have to be very careful, and often wait until people wander out of sight. It can take a while, and your positioning matters a lot - try to position yourself so that as small of an area as possible outside the door can see you. Many shopkeepers will eventually wander out of their store, so you can get some decent loot from a few stores if you're really patient.