Zaego

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

What about Vahnatai's magic? They've lived in the caverns for centuries and millenia, so I'd imagine that they'd propably have some kind of magically altered fungal species or moss to be able to use said plant species as pillow stuffings (if they use pillows in their slender, weird beds in the first place). Since the caverns in Kingdom of Avernum's area shows visible signs of Vahnatai having at least visited these caverns during some unspecified time in the near history, could it be propable that they brought these moss- or fungal species up with them, intentionally or maybe even as unintended entrants? Maybe these (un)intentionally planted species are used by avernumian settlers to their own purposes?

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

I agree, Darth Ernie. And also I feel like it's a rather fitting to have such an ending to Avernum. This way the underworld remains as a wild place, rather than becoming a place ruled by a single entity. It's like returning to the beginning from whence the underworld was once shaped, completing a circle, in a very bittersweet way.

While the caves would be a bit more sane, wouldn't the caves also be a little bit less neat and cute?

Ah, in that case, fair enough.

I agree with this. For example the mad Crystal Soul that you first encounter in Avernum 2, (in the Dark River if memory serves; could be some other place, too), and later you can find the same Crystal Soul in Avernum 3, in Ghikra. Continuing to reply to Dragonboy, I'd say that the Crystal Souls do serve a purpose outside of quests -- as sources of lore and information on the Vahnatai. If I remember correctly, it is the Crystal Souls at various points in Dark River chapter of Avernum 2 that give you first background information on the Vahnatais' nature, i.e. their Resting.

Concerning Merries, I think there were about a dozen of them. Eleven or so. And the funny thing about them was that the shop items didn't vary (at least they didn't for me). Instead, every Merry had the same inventory of items. I guess they all had a magical chests which magically synchronized their inventory with each other whenever one of the Merrymen sold something or added a bought item there.

EDIT: Nevermind my original post, I was posting a question in the previous page and didn't realize that there was another page where the question was answered by someone. Silly me. I really should get some more sleep and less staying up too late. EDIT EDIT: Maybe I'm just being really sleep deprivated but is there a way to delete one's own comments to avoid unnecessary flooding of the forums such as in a case as mine? I'm trying to look around for one but am not finding it. Third Edit. I wouldn't be so hard on myself if I were you. I mean, you seem like a nice enough guy or gal, nice enough to apologize for the possible drama you may have caused and acknowledging in general the mistakes that you've made. Unto my experience that is a rare thing indeed on the internet, and even if I don't visit these magnificent forums too often (real life has the tendency of getting in the way) I really feel like it'd be a shame if you left. Well, that's just my two copper coins.

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

Me too. Inwardly I still think of the hellhounds as hydras and dismiss the hellhounds as just a graphical glitch on my screen. :3 I'd imagine that at least some of the clothing would be made of spider silk (infact, now that I think about it, there are actually items called Spidersilk tunic,etc. with varying effects). Also, there might be clothiers who have specialized in weaving mushroom into rough strings which they could use as fabrics. Finally, the weird cavern plants could be propably used in a similar manner, in addition to all of the methods described that feature giant lizard leather, etc.

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

Darth Ernie It occured to me, however, that in case these kind of enhancements were possible, how would they affect the whole party? For example if you had two wizards, would the spell enhancement affect both wizards' spellcasting or could these kind of spell-tweaks be done on an individual basis? If we followed the latter, it might add some variability to the party, so that you could have two wizards with quite different repertoires of magic. PS. The double XP.. I guess it might be nice to have that especially on a torment playthrough.. Hyena of Ice Just reading all of those ideas for different disciplines make me want to go and give the Geneforge series another try. I got through the first five or so towns before I gave up on the series for the lack of time and other reasons. Also concerning the idea on Whirlwind Blade, I like Your version more than Jeff's because a lot of the melee warriors have much more strength, at least that's how I'd picture it. Another cool idea might be that instead of using a fixed statistic (either strength or dexterity), the game should check which is higher and use that for the damage calculation. Concerning the other ideas that You've written here, I must say that they're all brilliant. One more point, however: I wonder if it might be a good idea for magical attacks to be only parryable with shields? When I think about a blazing arrow of fire directed at me or my companion, I cannot imagine I could achieve much if I was wielding anything but a shield in one of my arms.

Maybe it's because of the fact that your characters are from the Empire. Maybe they haven't got used to the harshness of the underworld... ?

Yes, this is something that I had in mind, too. Or maybe you could change one or two spells so that the element changes (switch Icy Rain to become Acid Rain), but as is established, the amount of changes should have to be in a minimum. This is how the stealth should have to implemented, I'd wager. You'd have these specific areas, maybe, for the sake of clarity, where you are presented with a choice to either kill everyone or sneak around and gain a similar amount of XP that you would've gained if you had killed all of the bad guys. There should be some way, of course, to keep people from abusing this mechanic by first sneaking past and then killing everyone for the extra XP. Finally, getting back the ability to close doors would be really nice.. My OCD to close doors after myself drives me nuts in the recent Remakes where I can't close them...

Having every PC move before your enemy moves may be crucial, but even more crucial it is to have your priest act before your warriors. At least this is my opinion. I like it this way because oftentimes warriors naturally have weak mental resistance, so I like to have my priest unshackle the melee warriors' minds before they act, should this happen. Nothing frustrates more than to have one of your melee warriors charmed and run up to your priest or mage and kill them before you can do anything, should they be unfortunately low on health at the time.

Indeed, it is a good point. It would be certainly interesting thing to see, even if the PCs were able to learn only a small amount of spells / battle-moves on their own. Moreover by keeping the cost of such a purchase (their own house) as high, you could easily ensure that the PCs must be high-level anyway, before they can buy the residence. And as for the skill points' question, both of you Darth Ernie (sorry, I have no idea how to spell that name... ) and Hyena have good points there.

One thing that has actually always bugged me is that the adventurers in the games (well at least in Avernum) always have to learn the spells from trainers, rather than ever coming up with anything of their own. I do understand, of course, that the adventurers are quite a busy bunch surviving the tough life but it would be certainly interesting to see a possibility to buy a house for 10,000 or 15,000 coins where the adventurers could spend time in a study or a training area and learn spells and new battle techniques in exchange for experience points. (Level drain not possible. Take for example that you have level 10 hero who has 5xp points earned above the level zero-point. You take the hero to a learning room and try to train him in battle-techniques. A new move called Well-Aimed Blow costs 50 xp. Thus, you cannot train the hero, until you go out and kill some monsters and return back with more xp.) As for what Hyena of Ice said about the item interaction, that would sound very nice. It'd possibly require adding several misc. skills - like Metalcrafting, Enchanting and Tailoring, unless Tool Use and Mage Spells could just take over those areas of expertise.

It's a complete shot in the dark (and also goes beyond the thread for psychology and depression, for which I apologize) but have the doctors ever tried to search for spinal disorders? A spinal cord strained between two or more dislocated bones could cause such symptoms of permanent and crippling pain around a large portions of Your body.

Fair enough, Spiderballs, I do see Your point there. On the other hand while I mentioned earlier that it might break the immersion a little bit, on the other one keeping little things like "meh" can actually personalize a character into being more memorable and realistic, more approachable if You will. It's quite a tightrope of a job, creating a story.. Oh and yes, what is this OC that You mentioned? Basically, are You in need of characters for Your story? (I'm too lazy to look up the definition of OC.. Yes, I know, I'm a horrid person.) I guess I could either throw some ideas here to the forum thread or PM them to You. (On a sidenote, don't beat Yourself for not being prepared: asking for help in a forum is never a bad thing, especially here where the general atmosphere is friendly, from what I've seen. It is the very reason why forums such as this exists: for people to offer and receive help from one another, as well as having good time in the process.)

Here's a bit of that constructive criticism you ordered! (Oh and yes a foreword, I haven't read every post in this thread just yet and thus I'm not sure if it's been adressed already. If it has then I apologize for redundant posting and if the moderators see it fit I will remove this unnecessary post: I have to read it all later but I really need to post this before I forget) Anyway. One thing that every writer should be wary of is using modern idioms and manner of speech in a fanfic that takes place anywhere else but the modern, real world where we Forum Posters live. Using idioms like "meh" within a text breaks the immersion, unless the fanfiction aims directly at being self-ironic and not taking itself seriously (there are even movies that do this, Stark Raving Mad being one example where the lead actor oftentimes looks directly at the camera and talks to the viewer). If, however, the fanfic aims to be as accurate and respectful of the original world then I personally would leave/edit out any and all similar uses of modern idioms ("meh", "lol", et cetera.) unless they have been used in the fantasy-setting that the fanfic has been derived from. I hope this helps!