The Reverend

No, a thousand times over. I can't do anything that requires use of more than the most basic functions of my brain until I get that first coffee in me.

I guess I had always thought that "neutral" was only used for characters where one of the game's three major quests would be broken if they turned hostile. But I went and checked, and that shopkeeper is marked blue (neutral) rather than green. I guess that bag of meal quest really is important!!

Reading this made me curious, so I decided to do an experiment. I attacked one of the shopkeepers in Formello (the one who gives you the bags of meal quests), and the town didn't turn hostile. In fact, the shopkeeper didn't even turn hostile ... I got the pop up warning that the town might turn hostile if I attack a friendly character, but it didn't happen.

I don't drink alcohol and I don't eat kidney or liver, and for much the same reason. I don't want to consume something else's waste products.

 

—Alorael, who is just kidding. He consumes at least one of the above regularly!

One yeast's waste product is another man's nectar ...

I think I'm acquiring a taste for whiskey as I grow older.

With age comes wisdom (and good taste) ...

Once you pass level 30, you only get new points every 5 levels. So you'll get some more at 35, and then 40. You do get the other level up benefits, though (more health and energy and the automatic stat increases).

That sounds like an odd bug - I'd recommend emailing support@spiderwebsoftware.com

Or maybe, if the status changes are mostly good statuses, you can just enjoy them.

At level 26, your party should be able to handle most of the game. The sliths should be no problem for you. The undead spiral will probably feel fairly easy, but you should do it at some point because you do need something at the very end of it in order to complete one of the game winning quests.

Edit: That advice assumed a full sized party. I haven't played a singleton before, so I'm not sure what makes sense for you at that level.

I've managed to fit in a few hours towards this playthrough over the past week. An update, if anyone is interested ....

TL;DR version: Party is level 6, completed silvar sewers, bandit fort, goblin/nephil fort, and rescued prisoners from underground fort. Plus a number of minor quests. About to head to Formello. Build proceeding as planned - looking to try RBD's suggestion, and give my mage-archer maxed out Gymnastics and Lethal Blow (since the Bows allocation requirements of this playthrough mean I'll already get part of the prereqs done).

Long version

Backstory: Robin Hood was the leader of a small band of rebels based out of the woods of Midori province, in the continent of Valorim. Nominally, their stated goals were to disrupt Empire troop movements and raid Empire supplies throughout the Midori forests as part of larger efforts by a number of loosely affiliated rebel groups to gain independence for Valorim. In reality, Robin Hood and his compatriots mostly spent their time drinking ale and carousing around the campfire. They would occasionally break into Empire supply depots or ambush and rob small bands of soldiers when they needed more ale. Through this they developed modest skills in archery and lockpicking.

Friar Tuck was a local clergy man that was sympathetic to Robin and his band (and liked their ale). After a particularly daring raid by the "rebels", Tuck was arrested and brought in for a bit of "forceful interrogation". Worried that Tuck would give up their location (and not wanting to have to relocate and haul around or, worse, abandon their kegs of ale), Robin decided to stage a rescue mission. His very large friend Little John volunteered to join, as did Maid Marian, the daughter of some local minor nobility. She had recently had a falling out with her family and joined Robin's group. Prior to the falling out with her family, Marian had received a small amount of magical training and was eager to test it out on the rescue mission.

The rescue initially went smoothly. They snuck into the prison complex via some abandoned sewers, and were able to make it to Tuck's cell without being spotted. They managed to pick the lock and were on their way out when they discovered that it had all been a trap. Two large groups of empire soldiers rushed out of the barracks ahead of them and the cell block behind them. Robin noticed a small unguarded building nearby, and urged Tuck, John, and Marian to follow him in, hoping they could hide or at least form a better defensive position. When they entered, they discovered it housed a large portal. And that it was occupied by more guards, who immediately drew their weapons. Rather than risk capture (and who knows what fate), Robin and his friends jumped through the portal. When they regained their senses at the other end of the portal, they found themselves in a small cave. Marian (who, as the daughter of nobility, had a bit more education) was the first to realize what had happened: "Oh ####, I think we just jumped through a portal to Avernum...". Robin and Tuck looked concerned, but Little John's first reaction was "Do they have any decent ale down here?"

Build Plan: As described in my initial post, except for Maid Marian. I will be trying to make her into a mage with maxed out Gymnastics and Lethal Blow. RaustBlackDragon had great success with his high gymnastics mage, and the bows requirements of this playthrough mean that I'll already be forced to get bows to 4, and 4 more points gets it up to 8. Two more bought points allows maxing out gymnastics. Then, since bows will already be up to 10, each point of lethal blow will require two skill points (1 sharpshooter and 1 lethal blow). Lethal blow increases damage by 2.5% (Slarty did an analysis once that showed that it actually increases the critical chance by 5% not 3%). Adding extra points to mage spells effectively gives about half of that by the end of the game, since your mage spells level will be around 80 assuming a standard allocation of points to INT and mage spells. So, spending 2 points to get a single level of lethal blow is about as effective, in terms of end-game damage, as spending 2 points to get 2 levels of mage spells (assuming you get at least 17 mage spells points first in order to get to Arcane Blow). I believe there are enough skill points to get 17 mage, and max out spellcraft, gymnastics, and lethal blow (plus their prereqs).

Also, I will be giving everyone the Nimble Fingers Trait to reflect their history as rebels and thieves.

Progress: The party is level 6, almost level 7. They've completed the Silvar sewers (Droknar), the bandit and nephil/goblin forts, and rescued the prisoners from the underground nepharim fort, as well as a number of minor quests. They are one thier way to Formello now. The going has been fairly easy so far (longbow damage is quite nice in the early game). Marian also has icy rain and Tuck has call the storm, both of which are great for enemy crowd control.

It depends on what level your characters are (and also the difficulty level you are playing at).

Mertis and the Undead Spiral are reasonable next steps, as are some of the easier Slith locations (the lower level of the island fort near Cotra is not bad). The Tower of Magi is another nice place to visit.

And you still find time for more and more A:eftp walkthroughs.

Gotta do something in the period of the evening between when the brain gets too fried to work anymore and when it calms down enough to go to sleep. Sometimes I watch TV (on the rare occasion when there's something good on), and sometimes I play spiderweb games.

I wish you all the best with that. I know that I probably could teach a class. I just dont think I would want to as Im currently employed. Still hope things go well for you.

Oh yes, and I have a part-time job as well. I hope my advisors aren't expecting too much progress on the dissertation this quarter.

This quarter I'm working on my dissertation, and teaching a 400-level (advanced undergrad, mostly juniors and seniors due to the number of prereqs) Comp Sci course, with a heavy emphasis towards the later. Teaching a class that you've never taught before apparently eats up a ton of time, between preparing lectures, writing homeworks, and making sure the project works and is doable by students who've never seen the material before.

Trying to make money from the regenerative herb patches can take a loooong time. Ditto for random encounters.

And yes, you can "farm" the final gauntlet for loot/money by doing it over and over, but if you're already able to do the final gauntlet you are basically able to win the game (it may be slightly easier than the other two final quests, but not by much if at all). You need money for training/spells before you get there, when you're still trying to build up a party that can take on the three winning quests.

Aiding the Freehold of Kyass enough can get you the best available training prices on a number of skills and spells. If you attack them, you miss out on that training. To get the very best prices, you need to do Kyass' first five quests (up to and including the Giant quest), and you need to give Pyrog's tome to Evyss (the slith mage in the Freehold). Doing all of these will bring prices down to "pretty average", and make the very highest level mage and priest spells available from Evyss. The money you can potentially save on training makes that probably the best Pyrog reward, IMHO. By the way, I checked in my last playthrough, and I verified that the Drath quest does not change training prices or availability in the Freehold.

As far as the Scimitar "waiting for the right time" to take out Thantria, I think that if they knew she was attempting to seal off the exit they would decide that now was the right time. So, when she gave me that quest, I provoked her (by entering her room), and then took her out.

Every merchant that you can sell to will pay the same as any other merchant you can sell to. However, they will pay more if you have the negotiator trait. The more of your characters have it, the higher the price. I think it's 20% of value with 0 negotiators, and an extra 2% of value for every character with it. So if all 4 have negotiator, you can get 28% of value. That can make a huge difference in the amount of money you make over the course of the game.

It increases the number of levels of damage you get from the spell, so the exact percentage depends on how many levels you are already getting (where the number of levels is something like Intelligence + Mage Spells + Your Level/2). By the end of the game (assuming you've allocated a good number of points to intelligence and at least 17 points to mage spells), the increase will likely be less than the increase from spellcraft. Of course, spellcraft is capped at 10 (or 12 if you buy two points after training 10), whereas mage spells is not capped (or if it is the cap is higher than I've gotten to), so you can keep increasing it after you've maxed out spellcraft. But, you may be better served by increasing other skills, e.g., hardiness and resistance for better defense.

 

I also have not managed to find anything about the endings except that there are 3 of them, each has a quest.

 

I am guessing one is to kill hawthorne for the scimatar, one is to serve thantria loyally and receive a pardon from the emperor, and the third is to just escape to the surface...

 

The three final quests are for:

The quests are:

At least you didn't say Draco.

I actually had to go look at the map to remember which one of the three that was - the three names are interchangeable in my head ... I also mix up Blosk and Bargha ...

Luckily I'm much better with real life places. I've never ended up going to Paris when I meant to go to Portland, or example. Although maybe that wouldn't be so bad ...

Edit: Nothing against Portland, it's a great city, as is Paris...

I think you mean Ft. Dranlon. And yes, any of those spells might be helpful if you can afford them, but Droknarr is perfectly beatable with the starting spells.

Oops, yes I do. I mix up all of the Fort D-somethings.

Another tip is to head over to Fort Duvno and buy/improve some of your spells before attempting that fight. Getting Icy Rain up to level 2, for example, is nice because with the 15% bonus it gets at level 2 it can do a decent chunk of damage to Droknarr, plus hurt (or sometimes even one-shot kill) his summons. You can also buy Haste there, which is really helpful. For priests, you can buy call the storm, and improve smite to level 2 (gives a damage bonus). Another thought (that I haven't tried, but sounds interesting) would be to try buying a level of summon shade for your priest there - shades are fairly tough, especially relative to early game characters, and Droknarr may focus some of his spells on the shade rather than your characters.

I don't really see the point in setting arbitrary limits on character planning.

Why take away points that your mage needs and put it into bows?

It's not like the mage is going to hit anything with their bow.

Well I guess you will have your fun anyway.

This (doing it because its fun). More specifically, setting rules for character building can be fun from a role playing perspective (e.g., my Anama/no mage spells playthrough), or from the perspective of creating an additional challenge (everybody must at least minor in archery/dexterity). Having already beat the game on Torment, if I want a replay to be fun I need to create some extra challenge (and I've never really enjoyed playing singletons).

I'm also genuinely curious to see how a party of all archers and archery minors will fare. Some of the previous analyses on these boards made archers sound like a poor build choice, but I think they aren't as bad as they were made out to be.

Avernum 1.5: Escape from the rabid ducks!

against large groups 2 chars can be surrounded and in outdoor battles its not possible to make it so that only 1 gets hit.

You can usually set it up so that 1 or 2 of your characters take most (but not all) of the hits. If those two are the two primary archers Robin and John (2/3 points to DEX, 1/3 to END), you should be able to evade a good percentage of those hits.

It's not perfect, certainly, but my goal here with this playthrough is to learn more about how archers and archer variants play, and what their best strategies are. And also to rescue them from the bad rep that they've gotten, by showing that they can be a good (even if not ideal) build that is perfectly viable even on the highest difficulty.

Again, I should stress that one of your spellcasters should try to get lethal blow, it's a VERY rare opportunity for mages that you should seize and test out now that the opportunity has presented itself

I usually buy a couple points of it for each of my main spellcasters, and often give them items that boost it as well. But I hadn't thought of maxing it out before, since it has so many prereqs. But, since I already have to put some points into bows, that does make it easier (just put some points into sharpshooter). If the path went bows-gymnastics-lethal blow, it would be even better, alas. I have to think through my final skill point allocations, but perhaps it'd be possible to have one of my spellcasters max out gymnastics and the other lethal blow. That'd mean less points for magical efficiency, though, which I do like on priests especially because of the high costs of their attack spells.