mikeprichard

I think I've found a good compromise: for my priest, I'll replace Healing Focus x5 (I agree the 3% healing boost per trait is weak) with Blessing Focus x5, and for my two mages, I'll replace Summoning Focus x3/Swordmage x1/Recovery with Blessing Focus x5. 6 extra levels per summon would've been cool, but it seems like blessings are probably more universally useful than I thought originally. Edited my prior party build post.

I completely agree that the accuracy cap adds nothing positive to the game. As the OP said, there are ways to balance combat difficulty/damage that don't involve a maxed-out blademaster swinging a sword and missing a cave slime 1 out of every 10 attempts (or also in my anecdotal experience, even significantly more often, despite the "90%" display). Anyway, it was a step in the wrong direction moving from the 95% cap to the 90% cap, IMO.

Nalyd - thanks, I didn't notice that. I'm just trying to see which traits I'd want to replace with Blessing Focus for my two mages so they can get use out of it with Haste. I'd like to try out Summoning Focus, and the Intelligence/Extra Health/Elemental Focus traits seem pretty powerful too, so I'm not sure.

Are you talking about "BF" as in the Battle Frenzy discipline? You saying that's also enhanced by Blessing Focus (which is what I had meant when I said "BF" above - I changed it to be clear)? If so, that'd be pretty slick, but a bit strange, as the Blessing Focus trait requires Mage/Priest skill points, and its description refers only to enhancing "blessing spells"; if it really also enhances battle disciplines, you'd think Jeff would make it easier to stick it on a non-magic fighter. Besides, I'm only currently planning to take those 5 Endurance traits on my magicless fighter, who won't have access to Blessing Focus anyway.

So as long as you use Haste a lot (and most players probably do), you're saying the benefits from the 5 Blessing Focus traits would outweigh the benefits from most any 5 other traits? Or are you not taking all 5 Blessing Focus traits? I guess I don't see investing 5 traits to get 1 more turn of Haste being too overwhelming (though I admit it's not too shabby, either).

Hmm, good points, but it does seem to be kind of a close call/subjective (2 extra points of Endurance - which gets you the real stat bonuses beyond just the level-up 5HP - ain't that bad).

But I did want to ask why you were so down on Healing Focus, and so up on Blessing Focus earlier. Even with BFx5, your blessing spells would only be 5x5% = 25% more effective, so with Haste (the example you used earlier), even at spell level 3, the 3-turn duration would maybe become 4 turns, and you'd possibly get a chance of Battle Frenzy closer to 40% compared to the original 30%. Of course, that's just one spell example, but investing 5 whole traits just for that kind of return seems incredibly bad. I'm sure I'm missing something here.

Yes, the Far-Fletch Clan and several other trainers are listed in darint's post (just below the OP) - not sure if they're going to get added to the OP.

Thanks for the XP trait data, Slarty! Barely one extra level at endgame is about what I expected (that's also how the traits worked out in A:EFTP), so IMO they're not really worth it - the difference between (say) a level 33 and a level 34 party isn't enough for me to justify bumping two other traits, even for humans. But of course, that all depends on your party build. Anyway, good to know.

And Triumph - I remember gold having a max carry amount back in the original Avernum trilogy, but I didn't think it's been like that for the past several games. Best to let the experts weigh in, though; I'm still only at level 6.

Randomizer - the wisdom crystal in the Northern Caverns (first area) definitely doesn't work with CL 2 (my party currently has CL 4 but Luck 0, and doesn't get the crystal; the dialogue message even says "How unlucky."). The OP should probably be updated to remove the "CL 2?". Thanks, and amazing work as always.

Thanks, Randomizer - that's one more thing that'll eventually be out of my luggage.

EDIT: Just saw Slarty's new topic that's replaced this one in Strategy Central; it also explains this. Thanks again.

It looks like iron bars are only needed for the Fort Draco/Kellia quest, which is completed when the barriers come down - so there are no quest/XP rewards for collecting them after that point, ja?

Thanks for the heads-up, Lilith - I'm going to use the editor as well at that point. I think losing out on the Resistance crystal is enough of a penalty to my Sage Lore party build as it is, anyway.

Right, I was planning on using summons more as meatshields for tough boss fights, but I still might change up a couple of those traits; I'm only at level 3 so far. Going back to the XP thing, it'd be great if anyone who's further along could post some data - or I'll just test out the XP traits myself later (comparing characters with one and both XP traits to characters with no XP traits). If I do and nobody else has come up with much in the meantime, I'll post what I found.

Cool, thanks. That was one reason I was planning on waiting until a patch came out. I did also see someone reporting save file corruption issues (or something about someone walking around with a spear equipped that suddenly disappeared? - some weird stuff I can't find again on the forums right now), which would be nasty, but I guess I'll just hope that doesn't happen to me.

Have fun - I'm just starting on Normal, but I think that group should see you through Torment. Later!

Nobear - great ideas; I'm stealing them! Recovery on the fighter is probably redundant with his QA, and the loss of Fast Recovery on everyone except for the "main" priest (it makes sense for him at least to have that from a roleplaying perspective) is more than compensated for by having 3 Mass Healers. I'm updating my older post with your suggestions; good one.

So it looks like all level 3 spellbooks are actually in the game and accessible in version 1.0 for Windows/Mac? I thought I read somewhere that some of them were still missing/bugged.

This is why I plan every skill, trait, and training point for each party member before I start a playthrough. Totally not obsessive at all.

Ahhhhh OK!

Good question - I was also wondering whether that trait pick was worthwhile compared to maybe the Luck traits or something else. 2 extra summoned monster levels per Summoning Focus trait sounds really good if you actually use summons, but I'm not sure how it works out in practice - or if it works at all with Simulacrum.

Darn, bad news. It's not a huge problem if you plan for it, but if you train your two points before you "max" the skill (at 10 for most skills), you'll only be able to get the skill to 10, not 12... which is very annoying for us min-maxers.

Minor typo in the initial nephilim castle - the nephar chieftan's dialogue has him shaking his "hand" instead of his "head" (the latter makes more sense in context).

Speaking of which - no offense, Slarty, but I think you've misspelled "retroactivity" in your sig. Obviously not important; I'm just nuts.

I have to test it, but the skill tree was set up in A:EftP that if you used the trainers before getting to level 10, then you couldn't raise the skills higher. This may have been fixed.

I was also wondering if it still worked this way in A2:CS. I hope not, but please let us know if you do test it out!

Thanks, Lilith; I get it - so I'll probably max at Swordmage x3. And Slarty, I'll look out for those armors; they might free up another trait or two to test out the XP bonus traits. Again, I vaguely recall they only added barely another level by the endgame in A:EFTP (nothing to sneeze at, but not mind-blowing) due to only tacking 5-9% onto the diminishing monster XP returns, but I could be misremembering and/or they could be better this time around, depending on how XP is distributed.

Two levels of Swordmage are pretty easy to get some use out of: a breastplate plus a heavy shield will already get you to 30-35%. 4 is almost certainly overkill, though.

I'm not quite clear on how Swordmage/casting mage spells in encumbering armor works. If you start with the ability to cast mage spells in up to 5% encumbering armor, and each Swordmage trait adds 10% to that, how would only two Swordmage traits (10% + 10% + 5% = 25% encumbrance as max for mage spells) allow you to get to 30-35% encumbrance without incurring a spell penalty?