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Avernum 4 - polearm user skills?


khelvan

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Hello, I'm brand new to the Avernum series and am starting with Avernum 4. I'm a little confused as to what will work best for my Slith polearm user. I know I should go for blademaster, but in terms of maximizing his potential, what is best?

 

Is investing more in polearm or more in blademaster better?

 

Should I bother with defense once I have unlocked parry?

 

Should I go for riposte, or just up parry? Or go for lethal strike instead? Or quick strike? And/or anatomy? And/or quick action?

 

All these choices are quite confusing!

 

Also, will increasing the difficulty level give more experience and/or loot per encounter, or does it just up the difficulty per encounter? Does it add more monsters on the map?

 

Thank you!

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Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave your sanity at the door. The rest may make sense.

 

In terms of maximizing potential get the cheapest in skill point cost between blademaster and pole weapons. Blademaster is more useful if you decide to switch to sword and shield, but with a full party having one person with pole weapons is helpful.

 

Above normal difficulty, having more defense won't help as much as having more parry since that will completely block the damage.

 

Riposte and lethal blow cost a lot of skill points to unlock and you can't do that until near the end. You are better off just taking the training. Riposte doesn't do much damage and is mostly for damage avoidance.

 

Quick action if very useful for getting extra melee attacks. Quick strike is more useful for missile attacks. Anatomy isn't as useful as it sounds.

 

Increased difficulty just makes the monsters more powerful and makes it easier for them to hit you. It doesn't change experience, loot, or number.

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Just to clarify, damage calculations for weapons use the sum of (Melee/Polearm skill) + Blademaster. Get whichever is cheaper. The advantage of Blademaster is that it applies to both types of weapons; since your character should be concentrating on one from the beginning of the games, that's actually no advantage at all.

 

—Alorael, who will also point out that this means melee and poles are identical except for the weapons you get and the shields you can or cannot use.

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