noknuckles

I only had Avadon and Avernum 4-6, but I'm now a happy owner of this delightful collection. The hintbooks are cute

Yes, enemies play smart and punish me when I play stupid. It's not a bad thing, but doesn't make it any less brutal!

I just finished the game on the 2nd hardest difficulty and my experience has been as brutal as yours. There are a select few easy battles, but I never know when enemies would just randomly swarm me and kill off my spell casters before I have time to react. Every battle felt like a tossup, and the result of the battle hinges on how carefully I chose to proceed. If I just explore carelessly, I might walk into a swarm of enemies and get my party killed

I had to save after almost every battle. Sometimes I'd lose the same battle over and over so I would just pre-haste my party. This was just for some regular battles

Dharmon has lots of awesome spells for Priests, but holy wow it is expensive. I'd say it costs an arm and a leg, but I don't think arms and legs sell for that much in Avernum. For Mage, you might already have it, but Lightning Spray is my favourite. You probably already have Haste. That is the most awesome spell ever