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I think my sorc is around lvl 18. I just finished the contested woods quest (going around wrapping up some of the subquests I missed). I guess the reason I see her as underpowered is because: - I'm running two full melee (unapologetically) - I've spec'd her offensively for area effect damage. - The druid would be a much better complement to the two melee (thorns/reflection alone). What can I say, I'm old school, I like my wizards being glass cannons edit: and I reaaalllly want thorns/reflection for that last bit of damage! Man I wish I was running a druid.

I'm playing on hard (and there are some parts that are really friggin hard), and I'm doing good with pure melee. I generally have a party of blademaster, ninja, sorc (I sort of regret picking a sorc as my main character, since the druid as a buffer would probably work better - and I feel like the sorc is a little underpowered). Originally I planned to have the fighter tank, thief backstab and sorc in the back raining havok - so I spec'd everything offensive except the fighter. Since then, I respecced my ninja to focus more on the middle column and I've been increasing his dex/end with like 3/2 and increasing my fighters damage output with more strength (since he's unkillable at this point anyway). It's not a power gamer build, but its working effectively and its fun. I sort of wish the skill tree was a little better balanced, as the middle column is just so insanely good. I still have my sorc specialized in offensive (left column) but its not power gaming, more just how I want her to play.

Originally Posted By: Lilith This is more or less correct, yes, and your analysis seems on the mark. There's a reason why Dex builds are considered so powerful in Avadon. On Normal difficulty, you can split your stat gains evenly between Dexterity and Endurance and evade nearly everything: on higher difficulties, this isn't practical, and you need to prioritise Dexterity more and find other ways to survive cold and poison attacks. Thanks for the response! The interesting thing is that (if my formulas above are right) it works sort of counter intuitively. If you want to increase your survivability, its almost entirely based on how much you expect to get attacked. If you expect to get attacked a lot (your tank), you really want to max out evade. If you expect to get attacked infrequently (your sorc/druid) then you (surprisingly) get a lot more bang for your buck in raw hitpoints from endurance! (although obviously, pure theory/mathcraft like this doesn't always translate exactly in game - but at least in theory your back line guys benefit more from more hps than evasion (per stat point))

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Jeff split damage type evasion, being missed by the to hit chance, into three stats: Dexterity - physical, fire, and energy Endurance - cold, acid, and poison Intelligence - mental An increase in those stats decreases your chance to be hit by 5% per point. So I assume the way this works is basically 5% chance to evade per point difference against the attack stat? So if I have a 10 dex and I get attacked by a club wielding 8 strengther I have a 10% chance of evasion? Probably the same with the 'proficiency' stats +5%, and there is probably some minimum chance to evade, like 5-10%. Ok... then... The way this works then is that every point of evade stat you have above the average enemy attack stat should be worth 5% of resistance mitigated attack damage. So if the average enemy attack results in 50 damage, each point of evade stat advantage is worth an expected 2.5 hp PER ATTACK. So if you're attacked an average of 10 times in a combat, each evasion stat adv is worth 25 hp. On the other hand, endurance providing hp gain is worth a flat 5hp per combat session. Basically then, the EXPECTED HP VALUE of each point of evasion vs raw endurance based hp gain is: ( total_evade_stat - expected_total_hit_stat ) * .05 * expected_damage * ( 1 - resistance ) * expected_attack_count_per_combat_session VS The expected HP value of each point of endurance: 5 + ( 5 * resistance ) I just ran some numbers through excel, if this is correct then it's pretty interesting. If anyone but me cares i'll post some graphs.

Other than for a vitality boost, is it ever worthwhile to invest in endurance? In terms of survivability, is dex always the right choice? End and Dex both keep your characters alive in a fight, although they do it in different ways. Dex causes misses, where End gives you more hp. Armor and resistance are roughly the same thing, both are damage mitigation. Because of this, in theory, endurance would be more beneficial to characters with very high armor and resistance. Whereas dexterity, being a flat 100% reduction would be most beneficial to characters with lower resist/armor. My question though: does this work out in gameplay? On hard difficulty, it seems like a PC can generally take around 4-5 hits before dying (average damage hovering around 20-25% of total). Causing a single MISS is an effective increase then of ~20% of hp. Whereas endurance is a fixed flat hp gain. Meaning that dex's payoff increases along with increases in enemy damage, whereas end's payoff decreases with every increase in enemy damage. Although, to be fair, as you increase in level, your armor and resists also improve, increasing end's payoff...hmm... Does anyone have any actual numbers for how dex actually affects miss rates?? I wanna figure out how this works!

Compared to the other items on the list, it'd take much more work. And for some reason, I think theres some weird psychology that makes it more annoying to walk to an exit after your goal is complete, than walking towards your goal from a given entrance.

So I edited up my post a little bit. Wanted to highlight how good a lot of the tactical level design is (because it really is).

At the time of writing I'm not finished with the game. So obviously, take this with a bit of salt. Avadon may be the first time in a gaming career that stretches back to the c64 days where I've played a character that begins unapologetically as a highly respected / feared enforcer for the worlds dominant imperialist superpower. It's really refreshing, and totally enjoyable. As an avid long time rpg player, its (very ironically) one of the first times I actually felt like I was playing a role, and I found myself picking dialog options that fit an imperialist enforcer (just to see what the response would be). The writing allows for that, and is superb. Although there are certainly times when a bit of editing could help shrink the wall of text that hits you in some dialog boxes. That said, the writing is a big part of the games strength, and is treated carefully and correctly. Even succeeding in avoiding black and white, good and evil, without hitting you in the head with the "you now face a moral dilemma" hammer (ala bioware). You're just an imperialist enforcer, doing his job, and sometimes you just gotta go collect the empires escaped political prisoners (they're not being tortured, just mind scanned!). This brings me to my big gripe. The 'atmospheric' level design. It's really bad. Like, wow, bad. Sometimes I just found myself wondering "why exactly is there a random 'battle/explosion' crater in the middle of this forest??", there must be a half million random pen & ink's everywhere, and those damn severed arms, whips, manacles, and pillows. All of these random, valueless, clutter objects everywhere. Too much of that. This mixed in with the fact that there are often occasionally useful items mixed in with other crap on the ground means you have to keep hitting "g" over and over. There are some other minor points that could also use some work, stuff that additional playtesting might help. For instance, there is a misson (no spoiler) where you're told not to tell anyone about why you're there. Low profile and all. There's some great dialog where a character wants to know why you're there, and you refuse. Thumbs up, loved it, again -- like role playing. Unfortunately in order to open up the next map location, you must discuss the reason for being there with an NPC (even though you're given a quest in that other location!). I had to check the FAQ to figure out why I couldn't progress. Little things, consistency is really important. This is sort of a borderline bug, as the "bounty" quest should really open up the next map area. The following are really minor things that could be easily improved: - You should be able to immediately exit to map view by hitting some key (if there are no bad guys left). - You should be able to pick which entrance to use on a map with multiple exits. (not needed really) - Your journal has really gotta update you as quest milestones get hit. Sometimes its hard to remember where you left off last night - or if you just gotta go pick up your reward. - Some general indicator of enemy toughness. Just a ballpark level indicator. - And have the text change color on mouse over for selected dialog. Sometimes i worry that I'm gonna click the wrong item if the mouse is sort of on the border of two text options. The tactical level design is excellent. New critters are usually introduced in wimpy "young x" form, introducing you to the types of attacks, resistances, and tactics they use, giving you just the right amount of time to understand how to fight them, before they start getting life threatening. This kind of smooth introduction helps keep the game moving along and prevents you from having to constantly die and reload just because you've never fought this kind of critter before. There is really a surprising amount of diversity in the tactical situations and enemy composition. Fights move quickly, are interesting, and (so far) never feel redundant. In so many other games (old rpgs especially) missions and dungeons drag on for too long. In Avadon, because of the really careful, quick progression of fights, the tactical situations are always changing slightly and don't generally get stale. Really well done. I'm pretty sure that everyone loves the "flooding" fight. It was just the right length. Didn't over-do it, and really added an interesting twist. That was really excellent tactical level design. It's a good game, well worth the price of admission.