A6 -How do I tell which quest to take when?

[almuric]

Last night I spent a little time trying to complete Gladwell's 'red stripe' quest in Fort Remote. My characters are around 10th level and got their butts kicked in a couple of rounds. In fact, they died within 2 or 3 rounds when opening any of the four striped doors. My question is, is there any way to tell what level you should be before attempting a specific quest?

 

I mean, these weren't close fights where a slightly better strategy or better dice rolls would have netted me a victory. These were complete blowouts. No chance of winning at all. I had the same problem in trying to clean out the Skribbane dealer under Dhaermon. I believe I was around 5th or 6th level at the time. Him and his Ogre/Giant (can't remember what it was) guard mopped the floor with me in 2 rounds. (Although I might be high enough level now to go back and teach him what's what.)

 

Obviously I can just load my save and move on, but I'm just wondering if there's any way to tell ahead of time if I'm about to attack the wrong guy.

 

Btw, I took the default party when I started. I see now that that was probably sub-optimal. I may start over again but that's a lot of lost hours. Can I use the character editor to remake the default group into a better party? Is it a good idea to get everyone at least a level or two of priest spells so that anyone can heal? And if only the highest Tool Use is counted, how can you get that to a decent level? Seems like you'd spend all your skill points for one character on just that.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Duck in a Top Hat]

I can't remember the precise levels I was at when doing any of those quests, but here's some advice for the Gladwell quest above Fort Remote: Skip all of the doors that aren't the one you're looking for. Just go into the red door for now; you can come back to the others at a higher level. For the red door room, just activate all of the shades and run for your life. After a few rounds they will go away and the quest will be completed.

[Tcheedchee]

Hi almuric,

 

it's true, that you get quite a bashing in the beginning of Gladwell's quest if you open the other doors. It's better to only do the red door and return for the other doors later.

 

I also found the Skribbane dealer under Dharmon a hard fight when I did it – at an early stage of the game. I needed three starts, before I had worked out how my party could manange this fight. The way it finally worked out for me was to place my party in a corner where my mage and my archer-shaman were shielded by my two fighters, so they could do a lot of healing, while the fighters did the damage. To do that I entered the skribbane-den first and went right up to the dealers desk, before I chose to pick the fight, because when I tried do the same thing in the entrance, I didn't have a good position to shield my magical users and got killed very fast. Buffing up before the fight also buffs up the skribbane adicts, so that's also out of the question… Also I remember that I tried to get rid of the ogre very fast. A control foe would be handy there…

 

I have no tipp as how to judge beforehand if a fight can be won, as I'm not such an experienced player, yet. So I see no harm in dying once in a while, if that means, that I can find out which perils I will face. Next time round I'll be better prepared, because I can come up with a more suitable strategy for the fight (– also learning when to keep from making all these little mistakes that might kill you. Like accidentally hitting the 'f'-key in the middle of the fight. )

 

Sometimes it really only depends on how you've positioned your party, if they defeat the enemy or if they die. In the skribbane-den I'd say you can gain a lot of chances by the way you position you're party.

 

My party only differs slightly from the default party and it works out all right on normal.

I've got a human melee fighter, a slith pole fighter (who's got all the tool use skill of the party), a nephil archer-shaman and a human mage. I didn't make any adjustments with the character editor. For my way of playing two healers are enough, but I always try to have some healing-potions/exilirs handy for the fighters (in their own packs).

In some parts of the game my party does a lot of dying, that's true, but not too much to be frustrating, and enough to find out how I have to adjust my tactics. Sometimes, when I see that a fight gets lost, I try to get one of my characters to flee and escape. He can revive the unconscious other ones and all can return to the fight refreshed, with the advantage that the fight will continue at the stage, where you escaped from it. At least regarding the number of foes remaining to be defeated. (Sometimes they even stay wounded, or they wither away while you're on the run, if your mage has sprayed them with acid… Har Har!)

 

The tool use is best invested on only ONE character, as only the character with the highest TU-skill counts. There are also other minor skills which are important to have. So maybe the other characters should collect more nature lore, arcane lore and first aid. These skills are really important too.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: almuric

Last night I spent a little time trying to complete Gladwell's 'red stripe' quest in Fort Remote. My characters are around 10th level and got their butts kicked in a couple of rounds. In fact, they died within 2 or 3 rounds when opening any of the four striped doors. My question is, is there any way to tell what level you should be before attempting a specific quest?

You're not actually meant to fight the ghosts. Have one of your characters run away (possibly after drinking an invulnerability potion) while the others fight. The ghosts stop attacking after a few rounds. As for the other doors, you'll have to come back later for those, but after all, Gladwell did warn you not to open them.

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Obviously I can just load my save and move on, but I'm just wondering if there's any way to tell ahead of time if I'm about to attack the wrong guy.

Trying to attack them and getting horribly killed is usually a good hint. Save often.

In general, most of the optional quests in an area are harder than the main plot quests.

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Btw, I took the default party when I started. I see now that that was probably sub-optimal. I may start over again but that's a lot of lost hours. Can I use the character editor to remake the default group into a better party?

Well, of course. That's what it's for.

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Is it a good idea to get everyone at least a level or two of priest spells so that anyone can heal?

Some people like doing that. It's probably more worthwhile if all your characters are Divinely Touched, since that way they have a bunch of free Spellcraft that's otherwise going to waste.

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And if only the highest Tool Use is counted, how can you get that to a decent level? Seems like you'd spend all your skill points for one character on just that.

Not really. You can get 3 points of bonus Tool Use from items, and you never really need more than 15 Tool Use in total. A very few doors and traps go up to 18 TU, but there's nothing behind them that you can't afford to miss.

[Fael]

Originally Posted By: almuric

Obviously I can just load my save and move on, but I'm just wondering if there's any way to tell ahead of time if I'm about to attack the wrong guy.

Not really. You won't have seen this yet where you are in the game, but sometimes, a particularly hard quest will warn you either when you get it or when you enter the area to fulfill it that things look "very dangerous". Lots of times, though, your first warning that you're in the wrong place is death. Same thing happened to me on my first play through in both those quests. You should be able to finish both by the time you've completed the other Great Cave quests. But, yeah, if you do 'em when you get 'em, you'll die. And, no, there's really no way to know that ahead of time.

Originally Posted By: almuric

Btw, I took the default party when I started. I see now that that was probably sub-optimal. I may start over again but that's a lot of lost hours. Can I use the character editor to remake the default group into a better party?

Yup. You can change anything but character race, I believe. And, although there is a generally agreed upon optimal distribution of races among the party, you can do just fine in the game without it.

Originally Posted By: almuric

Is it a good idea to get everyone at least a level or two of priest spells so that anyone can heal?

I think so. One level is sufficient. I then use Minor Heals from my non-spellcasters to heal between combats. Others think it's a good idea to get a second priest up to the level where they can cast at least Unshackle Mind and probably also Mass Healing, although I don't like "wasting" that many skill points on duplicate abilities.

Originally Posted By: almuric

And if only the highest Tool Use is counted, how can you get that to a decent level? Seems like you'd spend all your skill points for one character on just that.

Yeah, you need to get a single character to a TU or 13 or 14 and you need to do it pretty early. That means, basically for the first 10 levels or so, you're spending all that character's skill points on TU (and it's also a good place to throw a bunch of Knowledge Brews and Wisdom Crystals). If you have a Slith polefighter, he's a great character to devote to it, since he'll be getting a bunch of weapon skills from the Slith racial abilities, anyway. Or, if you're going to use the editor, this isn't a bad thing to use it on.

[almuric]

I did the running away thing from Gladwell's 'red stripe' quest and was able to get away. So I've completed that. But while running away I accidentally clicked on one of the other doors (with the blue lizard things behind it.) One character was able to still get away downstairs but it led me to thinking if I could get the monsters to fight each other? Go down to the end, open the doors and lure the monsters out as I run away? Would the monsters fight each other? Would I get the experience if they end up killing each other? Has anyone been able to do this?

 

I ended up in the Western Reaches. I found a demon there who again took my party apart within 2 rounds. I think I did about 3% damage to him. Does anyone have a method for remembering things like this? I'd like to try him again when I'm 20th level or so. Is there a way to annotate the map or do people just keep like a text file open and jot notes down? I remember encountering one demon under Patrick's Tower (or near there) that was chained up. Not sure if I'm supposed to free him as part of a quest but at this point I don't even remember how to find him. Is there some way to see encounters that are still not finished? If for no other reason than for the XP.

 

I did use the Character Editor to give each of my characters a couple of traits. I tried to pick appropriate ones. I'm not sure how much 'cheating' that is, but whatever. I've got the XP penalty now and didn't have the advantage before. If I'm higher level than I would have been without it, I did get to this level legitimately. And I gave my Tool Use guy a few levels in that as I think he's disadvantaged by the amount of skill points he has to expend on that.

 

Also, reading through some of the advice I see that should be spending my money on trainers and not buying spells? I finally found one of those guys near the Great Portal. But if I give my fighters a level each in Priest/Mage, I'm not sure I can remember where I found all the spells at. Is it really a waste of money if I buy spells from people?

 

That's all the questions for today. I'll probably have more tomorrow. Thanks.

[jlsgaladriel]

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Is there a way to annotate the map or do people just keep like a text file open and jot notes down?

I think in-game map annotation sounds like a great idea for future implementations; so much usefulness without a huge programming investment. Hopefully other people will also look at Jeff with big sad eyes and he'll consider this?

I actually print out the maps from the game booklet, and make little annotations on them. Luckily, the maps are in a separate section from the walkthrough text, so one can do this without spoiling the game. (I believe the maps are free for the demo area, but Jeff does charge for the full 'hint book' that contains all the maps.) The free way to do this would be to take in-game screen captures as one hits each region, and print those captures.

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I did use the Character Editor to give each of my characters a couple of traits. I tried to pick appropriate ones. I'm not sure how much 'cheating' that is, but whatever.... And I gave my Tool Use guy a few levels in that as I think he's disadvantaged by the amount of skill points he has to expend on that.

It's not a multiplayer game, so cheating is however you define it. Part of the fun for me is to figure out how to meet challenges given the restraints of the skill system, so while I'd have no qualms about adjusting traits that one time, I'd have less fun knowing I'd cheated myself extra skill points on my rogue. If, however, you're more interested in story, and not so much in the challenge of balancing skill distribution, then of course you should do what makes you happy!

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Is it really a waste of money if I buy spells from people?

There's been lots of debate about this in other threads, but the bottom line is that the lower-end spells are really very cheap, and I don't know many folks who've regretted having spent money to buy minor heal to maximum power or haste to its best duration.

Likewise, at the high end, I can't imagine that spending thousands of gold for an extra half-turn of cloak of blades has ever seemed like a good decision. The only time I buy high-end spells is to obtain a spell I don't yet have, and even then, I only buy this one level of spells I really really want.

I'd say it's really only the middle level spells for which the decision matters at all: a few levels of these represents enough money that in buying them one might be foregoing a skill purchase. I personally *do* spend to increase the power of mid-level spells I use very often. Then again, I play on 'normal' or 'hard,' not on 'torment,' so my margins for such decisions are broader than for the truly hard-core.

[jlsgaladriel]

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if I give my fighters a level each in Priest/Mage...

Oh! I've found that giving everyone a priest level or two is very nice -- especially, as folks have pointed out, if they're divinely touched. Minor heal is useful even in endgame, and is cheap to buy levels for.

On the other hand, I'm not convinced a level or two of mage on a tank would do anything for you other than waste skill points.

[Soul of Wit]

The key to figuring out that Gladwell's quests are dangerous is paying attention to your dialog with Gladwell. He's one creepy dude.

 

They key to success, in general, is using MOST of the tools in your tool belt. You'll find a few that don't work for your style. I will say that A6 is better balanced than most of the Avernum series. There are very few worthless spells.

 

Try some/all of these. The mage spell Slow means that a group is NOT attacking you every round. Slow is vital when an enemy can self-heal and/or summon creatures. Get some Acid on those high hit point "boss" enemies. The 3 Bs = Buff before battle: Haste+Shield+Bless before all but the simplest encounters. Daze will take part (sometimes all) of a group out of the battle for a time. Hint: the dazed enemies will appear slightly darker than the others. The text will tell you who got dazed and who resisted. Be sure to not attack the dazed enemies (that instantly ends the daze) and concentrate on the non-dazed.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: almuric

I did the running away thing from Gladwell's 'red stripe' quest and was able to get away. So I've completed that. But while running away I accidentally clicked on one of the other doors (with the blue lizard things behind it.) One character was able to still get away downstairs but it led me to thinking if I could get the monsters to fight each other? Go down to the end, open the doors and lure the monsters out as I run away? Would the monsters fight each other? Would I get the experience if they end up killing each other? Has anyone been able to do this?

Nah, they don't fight each other. That would have been kind of a neat thing to implement, but it wasn't done.

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Also, reading through some of the advice I see that should be spending my money on trainers and not buying spells? I finally found one of those guys near the Great Portal. But if I give my fighters a level each in Priest/Mage, I'm not sure I can remember where I found all the spells at.

I don't see what your fighters have to do with anything. Your fighters will learn spells from spellbooks along with the rest of the party even if they don't currently have the skills to cast them. When you get their skills high enough, they'll be able to cast the spells they've learned.

[Fael]

Originally Posted By: almuric

Also, reading through some of the advice I see that should be spending my money on trainers and not buying spells? I finally found one of those guys near the Great Portal. But if I give my fighters a level each in Priest/Mage, I'm not sure I can remember where I found all the spells at. Is it really a waste of money if I buy spells from people?

Certainly not the ones you're looking at with just one level in the skill. I'm pretty sure you can get all the intro spells at the Castle, and they're dirt cheap.

[Ociporus]

I don't believe you are MEANT to be able to defeat the ghosts. Leave the room right away, without fighting them. They eventually eye the exit and take off. From what I can surmise, you are not intended to be able to defeat them, and probably never could. Them escaping is what the quest is really all about. They are being unleashed on the world...sinister thought.

[Tcheedchee]

Originally Posted By: jlsgaladriel

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Is there a way to annotate the map or do people just keep like a text file open and jot notes down?

Hopefully other people will also look at Jeff with big sad eyes and he'll consider this?

I will.
And I'll also invite Spider, Spider and Spider to

*Look at Jeff with big sad eyes. *

Where can one drop such requests to Jeff?

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Tcheedchee

Where can one drop such requests to Jeff?

The best way to reach Jeff is by e-mailing him.

Dikiyoba.

[Tcheedchee]

Well,

 

now my question sounds really stupid. Didn' even think about that. I'm not used to this kind of personal access to the makers of games. Neat!

 

… thanks.