A4 - Knowing Spell Levels

[faustmn]

This may be a stupid newbie question, but is there a simple way to see what level you have achieved in each spell?

[Micawber]

Click "see spells/traits" in the top right-hand corner of the character screen.

 

Edit: correction

[Darkbridger]

Heh... I didn't realize that was there.

 

I have to say, I don't really understand the point of skill trainers. The spell ones make sense, and I've bought upgrades, but the skill ones are confusing. They only train me if I've NEVER put skill points in something? The first one I found in Formello wanted an exorbitant amount of money to do this (around 2,500 if I recall correctly), which makes it seem next to useless. I guess I do things wrong when creating characters. I put points everywhere for everyone... nature lore, arcane lore, first aid, defense, hardiness and bows... even 1 point of luck. If the prices are so steep, why does it matter if I've put points into them, particularly if they'll only train me twice? I don't know how many "points" they put in the skill, but buying level one and two of something is pretty darn cheap point-wise for a majority of the skills.

 

The only character I have that I would consider spending money on this for is my Fighter, who has so far ignored Pole weapons, but needs level 6 in it to make use of Blademaster I think.

 

Am I not understanding how these trainers work, or am I just messing up by creating more generalist types of characters?

[SevenMass]

The general advice is to spend mostly all gold on training skills, you can gain spells from reading books, and a point in magery or spell craft has the same effect as adding 1 level to the spell itself. The only items you would want to buy from merchants are knowledge brew or crystals. There are a very few exceptions to this, such as a relatively good bow, in Formellow, or a focus crystal in Grimstone. But thats about it.

 

Oh, and paying the priest in Dharmon for its blessing is also a good investment.

 

But you don't need gold for anything else, so only the trainers are left.

Note that you can't have more than 30k, if you do get more, you will still have 30k, and the gold you gain after that will just disappear. So its a good idea to buy some trainings every time you near the 30k limit. That way the gold won't go lost.

 

Personally, I just invest points in things such as arcane lore, or nature lore. But for other skills I'd not invest points until after I got 2 levels of payed training.

 

Buying training for archery and sharp shooter for all your characters is well worth it, except if you have a specialized archer, then you'd probably already invested in these skills for that one character from the start.

 

Other things i do is buy training in spellcraft and magery. Before I meet the trainer for these, my spellcasters would invest in "Mage" or "priest" or intelligence, These will need the points anyway, so spellcraft can wait until after the trainer.

 

These are just my thoughts on this.

 

Here is a list:

The city name is where the skill is cheapest. So, you can train arcane lore in Formello, but its cheaper in Coltra.

Also note that The trainer in Silvar becomes cheaper after you destroyed the shade, and it will also give training in more skills after this event.

There are some more trainers who will only train you after you did a quest for them.

 

Pp means gold per point (if it takes 4 points to invest 1 in skill x, and if training in x cost 2000 gold, the efficiency is 500 gold per point you buy)

1up means cost for buying the first rank in the skill

2up is just 2 times 1up

PartyMax is what it would cost to buy max training for all party members.

The numbers below are the cost for buying all trainings for one character, and for every character.

 

Code:

				Pp	1up	2up	PartyMax-----------------------------------------------------------------Melee		Silvar		450	1,800	3,600	14,400Pole		Silvar		450	1,800	3,600	14,400Bow		Camp Samuels	480	960	1,920	7,680Throw		Camp Samuels	400	800	1,600	6,400Quick Action	Silvar		1,800	1,800	3,600	14,400Arcane Lore	Coltra		1,000	1,000	2,000	8,000Spelcraft	Coltra		667	2,000	4,000	16,000Hardiness	Silvar		1,800	1,800	3,600	14,400Defense		Silvar		900	1,800	3,600	14,400Tool Use	Almaria		2,800	2,800	5,600	n/aNature lore	Duvno		1,120	1,120	2,240	8,960First Aid	Coltra		800	800	1,600	6,400Quick Strike	Silvar		600	2,400	4,800	19,200Parry		Silvar		600	1,800	3,600	14,400	Blademaster	Silvar		360	1,800	3,600	14,400Magery		Coltra		375	1,500	3,000	12,000Magical Eff.	Fort Remote	360	1,440	2,880	11,520Resistance	Fort Remote	600	3,600	7,200	28,800Sharpshooter	Camp Samuels	200	800	1,600	6,400-----------------------------------------------------------------						63,640	237,760

[Randomizer]

Skill trainers serve two purposes.

 

1 - Some people power game, where they don't put points into a skill until after they have bought 2 levels at the cheapest trainer. This allows them to save skill points which are limited by how high your character can get within a game. Only after spending money for training do they use skill points.

 

2 - It allows you to train a character in a skill that isn't normally used by the character class. Giving bow skills to a spellcaster, and in some other games spell skills to a fighter type.

 

If you are running a singleton, then trainers become important since you can get enough skill points for everything.

[Alorael at Large]

It's Cotra, not Coltra.

 

The only powergaming I do is waiting until Camp Samuels before giving my casters bows, and sometimes doing the same for fighters. I also often buy some First Aid, because you can get along just fine without it until you can buy it with gold.

 

—Alorael, who isn't quite that much of a compulsive optimizer. Close, but not quite.

[Lilith]

Spellcraft, Magery, Magical Efficiency, Resistance and Blademaster are all perfectly viable options for training without significantly hampering your party's power early on. In a normal game, you probably won't get a chance to put many skill points into the last three anyway.

[Darkbridger]

This seems like a really cumbersome and unwieldy system. Why not just have trainers that sell skill points, regardless of level. It's simple, allows for "bleeding" money out the game and doesn't require prior knowledge of the mechanics to make the best use of it. I know the manual mentions this, but it's not really spelled out how it should be used. I'm sure lots of people spread points out in some skills, heck the skill descriptions themselves even tell you when it's best to do that. This trainer system (if you want to make the most of it) seems to be counter to reasonable character creation. If that's what's called "powergaming" in Avernum, then I guess it doesn't matter. A person can complete the game even without utilizing the trainers I guess. At this point, the "unlockable" skills are probably the only thing I can spend money on, unless I want my fighter to suddenly use magic or my priest to suddenly take up pole weapons. The only skills I don't have points in are the ones I assumed I'd never need on that character.

 

Bows seem to be incredibly powerful in this game since they don't require ammunition. My mage is so costly to improve that I've debated, at times, just replacing her with another archer. I gave everyone bow skill at creation time and I tend to only use magic in tough fights. But, I'm only playing on Easy so far, and I've only done the demo section so far. Hopefully magic becomes more potent later on.

 

Still, it's kind of silly to think that people can only train you to Level 2 in Avernum. I guess the 3-20 skill (or whatever the reasonable max is) people are too stingy with their abilities to want to pass them on.

 

Also, I didn't realize until browsing some of the older posts that xp (and hence skill points) and gold had a "cap". If monsters don't regenerate, then I guess you can't just keep levelling to get more points for things. That's kind of discouraging, but trainers fit that system I guess.

[Randomizer]

After you get out of the demo and into the Honeycomb, you run into slimes that are almost immune to physical weapon damage, but fall to magic.

 

You will find that the tactics that work in Easy don't work so well in Torment (hardest mode). At the harder levels the monsters have more health so fights take longer. You can get through the game without trainers, but it helps to gain skills that require a lot of prerequisites or you need the skill points elsewhere.

[faustmn]

Quote:

Originally written by Micawber:
Click "see spells/traits" in the top right-hand corner of the character screen.

Edit: correction

Thanks. I didn't see this easier. It would be nice if there was a tabbed character screen in A5 so you could easily jump between spells, equipment and the character sheet