Sarachim

Archery is pretty much totally worthless, as is lockpicking. Don't waste skill points on either. Some people like alchemy, but I've never found it to be worthwhile. Also, never, ever, ever make a character who is just a preist or just a mage; instead, make all your spellcasters know both. One you've already poured skill points into intelligence and SP, it's a relatively small investment to train in the other school of spellcasting. It makes your spellcasters more versatile, and also means you don't need more than two or three, freeing up extra slots for fighters to do the real work. For tactics, Thuryl's advice is pretty much dead-on. Always, no matter what, bless anyone who's going to be using physical attacks. Also, don't overlook Light Heal All; it heals almost as much damage as Heal and in general is a better use of SP if more than one PC is hurt.

I believe the answer is "heron." If that's not exactly right, then I think the clue was in the Bodyguards' town, and I think it came from Arichat.

The first five stand alone pretty well. After that, each one depends increasingly on the ones before. As for the rune battle, I recommend blessing and hasting your fighters, and backing them up with Wound spells. Throw everything you've got at one rune- once you kill one of them, you win the fight. It may take a couple of tries, but with luck, you'll get it. As for getting there in time, just don't waste time and you should be okay. If you find yourself short on time, you can save a few moves by moving in combat mode instead of town mode.

If you mean the secret room near the middle of the south edge of the map, there's a secret passage on level 1 that will take you there. Bang your head against the wall awhile and you'll find it.

Ah, that makes sense. I remember seeing the location of one I never found in a hint file once, even though I was sure I'd found all six.

The BoE Arena isn't really part of Desp. Djur was just nice enough to host its message board for us.

It'd help if you told us where you found the ones you already have. For the mold, it's all in the same general area as the witch who gave you the qyest, and it's all outdoors. One of them is past a secret passage right next to where you met the witch, and I think that's the easy one to miss. For the crystals, have you gotten the one in the Chasm Drake's lair, west of fort Remote? Again, that's the best-hidden one. Two more of them are outdoors on islands in the big lake south of Cotra, and I think a fourth is in the slith island fort on that same lake. I can't remember where the last two are hidden, but I think they're both relatively near the crystal cave itself.

Quote: Originally written by burglar ben: And those ways are? Trade secret, Benny. It's really not worth the time and effort, to be honest.

Quote: Originally written by m's devotee: Divine Thud- YEAH-YEAH or even the unresistable Wound was a nice priest spell. With six level 50 priests you could kill Rentar Ihrno with it. Oh the fun fun fun. If/when jeff does come out with A4, better spells is one of the things that I would dearly love to see. Really? Wound never did any damage to Rentar for me, even though the game always showed a "1" on the battle view. I had to kill her other ways.

No, you misunderstood me. The doomguards don't move, so you don't need barriers or anything. You just need to not attack them.

The easy way to kill Erika is as follows: cast Protective Circle so the blade wall hits one of her doomguards, and then run and hide in another room. The doomguard will split, and whenever a doomguard splits the new one is always hostile, even if the original is friendly. The new doomguard will fight the old one, but as they damage each other the room will fill with hostile doomguards. Once they finish off the one friendly doomguard they'll swarm Erika, who will waste most of her time on spells like Firestorm and Divine Thud that do nothing, or summoning monsters that do more harm than good. It'll take awhile, because Erika will heal herself a lot, but eventually she runs out of SP and the doomguards will bring her down. It's boring, but it's also pretty foolproof. Or, alternatively, you can get the protective amulets from the Bunker in New Cotra, and just fight her. Note that her doomguards do not move- if you don't attack them or go near them, they won't bother you at all. Makes the fight worlds easier.

Let the thread die, man. Nobody wants to see it suffer.

Quote: Originally written by Slasher: The best part about Exile is that you have a HUGE spellbook of interely useless spells. Sometimes I'll try a new spell like venom arrows, or Slow Group... Slow Group is actually one of the more underrated spells in the game, especially in outdoor combat. For 4 SP, everything within 12 spaces misses every other turn. Definitely more bang for the buck than any other level 4 spell.

I can't remember offhand. But I do remember that all the crystal soul rituals were performed on the same island within the Crystal Shrine, which would seem needlessly inconvenient if they needed the body, and would at least imply that they could afford to wait awhile. Furthermore, given that a number of the crystal souls we meet were warriors in their physical lifetimes, it stands to reason a few must have been pretty badly cut up or had their bodies lost entirely. But then again, Alorael was hardly being serious. We don't really need to go to great lengths to refute him.

"—Alorael, who doesn't think there's any way to become a Crystal Soul if one dies of violence. Spurting blood and/or ichor makes it difficult to perform important rituals." If I remember correctly (and forgive me if I don't, because it's been a while), the trilogy implies in a few places that the ritual to create a Crystal Soul does not involve the body of the recently deceased, and that it can be performed long enough after the physical death that blood-spurting would have ceased to be a problem anyway. A few years a go I could have given you specific references, but my knowledge of all things Exile is not what it once was.

Quote: Originally written by Garrison: Not quite. In the long winded and mostly redundant debates between Avernum and Exile, area of effect spells, more spells in general, and ambidextrous capability have been mentioned a few times. But I too am frustrated with Avernum's spell target system. Sarcasm aimed at you is more wasted than me during happy hour.

Playable: Sliths. Non-playable: Arabs.

Regarding Pearlblossom, I thought I found a clue once: Manius Volta, the merchant in Vanarium, brags about how he managed to steal something from Castle Aethedoc. When I first saw this, I immediately through of Pearlblossom, but I couldn't make any further progress with it.

Ohh, the puzzle box. That reminds me, just what did the puzzle box do? I found it, but never saw any reference to it again.

That would not work, blade wall turns the town hostile.

The story is more or less the same, but gameplay is significantly different, and many people, myself included, prefer Exile's setup to Avernum's. I suggest you check out one of the demos and see if you agree.

*sigh* Bring pants to Rentar-Ihrno's fortress. In the southwest corner of the upper level are two runes. Put the pants on one, and step on the other.

If all you want from the drayk is his crystal, you can talk him into giving it up if you have enough Leadership (I think I had about 6 when I did it). It saves you the trouble of fighting.

Also, if you've found any of the legendary artifacts, a bug in the game makes it possible to sell them to Levy and then get money for buying them back. As a bonus, you also get multiple Fury Crossbows and Black Halberds and so forth for your party

I played Nethergate with a singleton once. It was a very long time ago, but I'm pretty sure I did it as a Celt. After the first couple of chapters I pretty much cruised.