Bonam

Thanks! It still works though even if not on a Utak character?

I see several items with + bloodletting. I don't see this skill listed or explained anywhere. Anyone know what it is?

Ellyn in Sharamik teaches priest spells (pretty average): Call the storm - Divine Fire.

Oops: Saw this was already posted above. 

Very useful list, thanks! 

Missing from the list:

unicorn horns

So is the takeaway here that there is no need to put any skill points from leveling up into Arcane Lore unless one wants the 28 spellbook? 

Also, what about Nature Lore? 

So properly finishing Nathalie's loyalty and getting the Library quest finished are mutually exclusive?

No. Do Nathalie's quest and then go tell Tamsin about the library, no problem.

There are 8, but some aren't easy to find or have really tough guardians.

Thanks, figured out which one I missed. It was the one from the inner treasury at goldcrag... tried to kill the sentinel but he was way too hard at that level. Thought I'd come back later but totally forgot about it.

Was there supposed to be an 8th rare item to hand to Nicodemus? I found the 7 listed on this list in my playthrough but the quest never completed.

There are a number of fights where you seem to be permanently or almost permanently immobilized in the later part of the game. Definitely annoying! Getting 2-3 summons plus 1-2 turrets and spacing them all out helps to keep the damage off your main characters though and buy you enough time to kill things. Teleport scarab and other teleportation abilities can help for positioning too.

Best tip I've found is do something else on an adjacent screen while your characters are walking around

In some cases pretty dramatic bonuses. I have Nathalie at 13 focus mastery and 15 ward mastery and she's pretty damn close to immune to elemental damage.

Where is the Shock Troop Shield found?

The retrainer basically sets you to level 1 and lets you adjust all your points to your current level at once. Be careful with strength or you may find you are encumbered and have to do it all over again.

Helpful, thanks!

Avadon 3: The Warborn

 

SW Pact Camp

-- Trainer Herve - retrainer to adjust character builds

Does the retrainer allow you to adjust stat points, skill points, and specializations? Or only skill points?

Thanks for all the information. Just reading through this, it could use a few clarifications:,

1)

Skills:

Class calculations assume maximizing the center skill column to 8 and using the 3 column skill points given at level 5, 15, and 25. For games at torment difficulty it's better to increase defense and use the center column skills. At lower difficulties you can increase offensive damage instead since you take less damage per attack.

We now have "rows" rather than "columns". It might be better to describe the skills rows by their names rather than by their position in the window since I have no idea what this means other than by opening up Avadon 2 and trying to cross-reference. I haven't crunched any numbers but it seems like putting all the specialization points (5,15,25) into the passive "efficiency" skills is best since you get those bonuses all the time, regardless of what action/ability you are performing.

Also what do you mean by "class calculations assume... ". What calculations are you referring to?

2)

Basic skills (can only raise to level 4):

Disarming Blow (ability a) - weakening a foe's attacks

Challenge (ability - regenerates for 3 turns and shielded - useful before closing to fight especially early in the game when it's a significant part of your health regenerated when it's your turn to act.

What is the benefit of putting more points into these skills?

3)

Efficiency Skills:

Focus Mastery (automatic) - best sorceress skill

--- 5%/level chance of critical damage - adds to firebolt chance )

--- at level 3 - 3%/level chance of damaging and stunning foe that hits in melee

--- at level 7 - absorb 10%/level magic or elemental damage to recharge abilities - very powerful for reducing damage and recharging

 

Ward Mastery (automatic)

--- resistance to physical damage 3%/level

--- at level 3 - resistance to mental attacks 8%/level

--- at level 7 - resistance to magic and elemental attacks 10%/level

 

Magical Mastery (automatic)

--- increases to hit 5%/level for spells

--- at level 7 - adds 10%/level chance to reduce time to recharge abilities

For these and other class's passive skills that gain additional effects at higher level, does the scaling start with that level or level 1? What I mean is, for example for ward mastery, if I have it at level 7, does that give me 10% resistance to magic and elemental attacks, or 70%?

If you keep the shades from reaching him, he's a cakewalk. I did the same thing as Juan... placed summons in the hallway to block the shades from getting to Elderan.

Athron and Sulfras were fun.

You need to step on the two pentagrams. The SE one can be easily reached from the secret passage. The W one can be reached from the front door. Use one character in combat mode and avoid stepping on the tiles that teleport you. Moving around with a mage with blink also makes things easier.

In the tomb of demonslayer, look along the wall in the NW corner.

I tried playing with a priest tank and 3 mages but didn't like it. The priest tank, being the tank, gets hit by all the debilitating abilities enemies throw at him.. stuns, nullifies, slows, etc. Misses enough turns that healing himself doesn't always work well, and he rarely has a chance to throw a heal at the mages if they need it, and if he dies, no one else has a castable resurrect. This pretty much means one of your mages will need to get enough priest spells for unshackle mind and mass healing to help in the support role, which reduces damage.

Therefore, I prefer keeping the priest in the back. If you're gonna go all casters, having a mage tank might be a better option. Too bad mages don't have a "nova" style damage spell.

The sale price of items does not always accurately reflect how good they are. Yes, 3 blademaster is better than 8% melee damage. As far as I know, both add %melee damage in the same way.

Good points. Hypothesis does not match the available evidence. Thanks

So, the other part of the OP is that changing the difficulty changes the auto-calculated stats for every NPC. That is what is responsible for any increase in damage beyond the double damage effect of Torment. It's likely that this has a different impact on enemies of different levels, and also affects different attacks differently.

 

In other words, if you can show me a single consistent 8/3 multiplier (or whatever) on damage from a variety of different monsters, of different levels, and with different attacks, then I'll believe it. Otherwise it's just 200% plus NPC modifiers.

Why wouldn't it just be ALL NPC modifiers rather than a combination of those plus some hidden 2x damage factor?

The old engines (anything before Avernum 6) are pretty much unplayable for me now. The tiny tiny game area window in the above screenshot that's maybe 300x300 pixels (since most of the rest of the display is the gigantically bloated interface, which already is itself capped at some tiny size like 800x600 or something) out of my 1920x1080 screen.

My top requests for interface changes in the new engine would be:

- more bindable spell/action slots (maybe 8-10 instead of 4)

- mousewheel support for scrolling through inventory (junk bag, merchants, items on ground, etc)

- be able to zoom in a few stages in/out in the game window (also using mousewheel)

- fix boat pathing so it works the same as pathing on the ground (intelligently paths around obstacles/outcrops instead of getting stuck)

- more mouseover tooltips on things - it would be nice to be able to mouseover a ground tile and have a list of the items that are on it be shown in a tooltip

- the much-asked-for ability to open/close windows like inventory using the same keyboard button, rather than needing to use escape to close

- the ability to turn off auto-move in combat

- be able to turn on a visible grid for the ground tiles so you can more clearly see how many squares it is over to a target

- have the stat window display aggregate special bonuses like critical hit chance, +% healing, +%magic damage, %melee damage protection, parry, etc

- add a few more sprite versions to show the possibility of carrying 2 swords, a shield and sword, etc

- add a displayed area effect that you can see for large area spells like Slow, Divine Retribution, etc... I never know quite where to position my priest so the DR hits all the targets I want