Bonam

So, something like:

Priest 1 (main tank):

14 priest spells

10 spellcraft

10 resistance

8 melee

10 hardiness

10 parry

1 cave lore

Priest 2:

14 priest spells

10 spellcraft

10 resistance

8 melee

10 hardiness

7 TU

3 free points

Mage 1:

16 mage spells

10 spellcraft

10 resistance

8 melee

10 hardiness

3 TU

1 AL

5 free points

Mage 2:

16 mage spells

10 spellcraft

10 resistance

8 melee

10 hardiness

4 TU

1 AL

4 free points

Options for the 12 free points:

- could do 13 in AL to get the spells early + 4 resistance

- could do parry on all those characters for more survivability

- could get first aid for SP recovery

- could get luck for more resistance

- the free points on the mages could go to priest spells for extra flexibility in healing/buffing

Slarti, based on the OP, are you basically recommending a pure spellcaster party of 4 characters each of which have:

17 priest OR mage spells (probably 2 chars with priest, 2 with mage)

10 spellcraft

10 resistance

10 melee

10 hardiness

leaving 24 total party skill points for:

1 cave lore (8 can be trained, 2 from items/quests to reach 11)

14 tool use

13 arcane lore

That's 4 points short, which means sacrificing 4 hardiness or 4 resistance to get those 13 points of AL to get the 4 points of resistance... so may as well drop AL and use sage lore.

That leaves, 24 total skill points for:

Char A: 6 parry (front line character)

Char B: 4 tool use, 2 free points

Char C: 4 tool use, 2 free points

Char D: 5 tool use, 1 cave lore

The free points could go to parry, or maybe luck? first aid?

With this build, you'd have 4 spellcasters, all with early access to adrenaline rush, all quite tanky.

Are there no encounters of note that have magic immune (i.e. can only be damaged by physical attacks) enemies in A2:CS?

It kills the roleplay and immersion factor forcing yourself making a optimal group. Because you'll be skipping out on stuff like cave lore and lock picking. I feel the game was made for normal or hard. Torments more like a challenge mode of like "hey your not supposed to win kind of deal" unless you optimize and cheese your way through battles through daze and aoe spell spamming.

I don't think that's true. The penalty for getting cave lore is a few hundred gold. And tool use is totally worth it on Torment. I typically finish Jeff's games with a party that can access all caches, open all doors, read all spellbooks, etc.

Now, it does mean that you need to build your characters optimally in terms of role and point distribution. Daze mostly doesn't work at higher levels anyway, but in any case using the available spells in strategic ways isn't really "cheesing". Cheesing would be going back to town after every fight, or ducking in an out of a level to kill one enemy at a time, whittling away a group, etc.

I pretty much only play SW games on Torment. Just not challenging enough otherwise.

Just having 8 mappable ability slots instead of 4 would be huge.

You can train and read books in any order.

You can use the uranium to build a nuclear reactor, to provide power for avernum and allow civilization to prosper underground. Or, you can use the uranium to build an atomic bomb and use it on the empire. But you only have enough for one of the two, so choose wisely!

I agree it's likely not the most optimal allocation of points. I want to know how it works though!

It's too bad there's no Quicksilver Bulwark this time around...

Anyone know the math behind how this skill works? What is the chance to activate per point and how much does it reduce spell cost when activating? Slartibus?

I was thinking about the gymnastics + 1 AP item case while playing. At 12 gymnastics, that's 6% bonus to chance for 2 attacks per point. But at say 4 gymnastics, you still get a 34% chance of 2 actions, which is 8.5% per point.

Going with a piece of mercuric armor in combination with even just the 2 trainable points of gymnastics seems a decent option for most character types. With 2 points and the +1 AP item, you have a 19% chance of 2 attacks every round before any buffs.

By the way, I recall in some older games you could sometimes get 2 extra APs from gymnastics. Is that still the case?

I use an archer as a high evasion meat shield that can do damage to the back row without having to move. It's a buffer for the softer casters that supplements the melee fighter since it usually doesn't have to move. Facing large groups the melee fighter gets bogged down with other melee attackers and can't be as selective on where to deal damage like an archer.

How effective is evasion on torment in A2?

Anyway, I feel like it's almost always magic attacks that pose the greatest danger to my tank, and that's with an investment in hardiness, which the archer can't easily access.

I don't think archers are that bad, even on torment. They make up for their lack of damage output with range. It's necessary that they will do less damage than melee, lest they be grossly overpowered. If archers did as much damage as melee characters they would probably be game breaking.

The problem with archers isn't the relative damage.. it's their lack of any useful role in a party.

A melee character stands in the front and prevents enemies from attacking your softer casters, as well as doing damage

A mage pumps out massive AoE damage, buffs your group, and curses enemies

A priest heals and blesses your group, and also provides AoE damage

An archer... does damage

An optimized group will have at least 1 melee, mage, and priest. From there, the choice is usually whether you want your last character to be a 2nd mage or a 2nd melee, either to hugely boost your party's survivability or to hugely boost its AoE damage.

Given that the archer's role is nothing but damage, and they can only really do single target damage, I'd really only consider an archer if they did at least 2x the single target damage of other character types.

Move Mountains spellbook is "magically sealed". What does it mean? How do I unseal it?

Well, yes, clearly it's all up to him in the end. But that doesn't mean people can't discuss the reasons behind it or suggest changes, just as with his games.

Yeah it would be handy. Not sure why it got merged with the A:eftp board right away. Better to keep them separate until superseded by newer games.

Pencil and paper here.

I make note of things like doors/barriers I couldn't get past, spellbooks I couldn't read yet, bosses/enemies I couldn't kill yet, etc.

Yes, auto move is terrible. I've had it get me killed a few times in dungeons when a PC would randomly run around a corner I hadn't explored yet and get attacked by more enemies. There should at least be a setting to disable it. If you try to cast a spell or shoot a missile at a target and your character is out of range, the game simply should just give you a message "out of range" and you can then move your character manually and try again.

There's a guy in Fort Dranlon (Postelwaithe) that tells you about the boots in the Cotra garbage patch. You need to talk to him first, then go search the garbage patch.

Definitely, really like it as well. I think for me it's my favorite Spiderweb game so far.

I didn't find A4 particularly hard to play for the UI, I do not like the blending of indoors and outdoors. That said, the earliest that Jeff could remake A4 on his current schedule would be for a Spring to Summer of 2017 release. By then, windows 11 will be in a beta form and who knows what Apple will have changed, so I think that Jeff will need to do an A4 remake as either the release after A:BW or the release after the release after A:BW, leaving room for him to start remaking Geneforge.

2002: Avernum 3, Geneforge 1

2003: Geneforge 2

2005: Geneforge 3

2006: Avernum 4

2007: Geneforge 4, Nethergate, Resurrection

2008: Avernum 5

2009: Geneforge 5

2010: Avernum 6

2011: Avadon 1

2012: A1: EFTP

2013: Avadon 2

2015: A2:CS (should have been late 2014 to follow the cycle)

With 1 game/year, if he was gonna remake the whole Geneforge series, going forward could be:

2015: Avadon 3

2016: A3:RW

2017: Geneforge 1 remake?

2018: A4 Remake

2019: Geneforge 2 remake

2020: A5 Remake

2021: Geneforge 3 remake

2022: A6 Remake

2023: Geneforge 4 remake

2024: ?

2025: Geneforge 5 remake

Of course, this ignores the possibility of making new games rather than remaking old ones, which he might also decide to do.

I think Avernum 4 and 5 will need remaking when Jeff can get to them. I don't think it's fair to lump 4 and 5 in with 6. Avernum 6 had a totally revamped GUI/graphics, and I enjoyed playing it, but when I tried 4 and 5 I didn't last more than 5-10 minutes cause of how archaic the UI was. Avernum 6 is a lot closer to A:eftp in terms of the game engine than it is to Avernum 5.

Does "Blessing of the Caves" from the Healing Waters near Formello do anything?

Thanks for posting this. Looks like you can get away with 12 AL pretty easily?

14 gives you return life, but you don't really need level 3 of that, you can revive just fine with level 1/2

15 gives you cloak of blades but with most parties you'll probably want cloak of the arcane up instead most/all of the time

17 gives you ward of steel, but you probably want ward of elements (or sometimes thoughts) up most of the time instead anyway

Also, your item list says Vahnatai Lore reduces the AL needed for "some" spellbooks. Which ones does it not apply to?