At a low experience gain

[Death Knight]

I am currently in the city cotra and have been doing many quests to destroy bandits all throughout that lower right region. I dont know if i am moving too slow through the game, but i am getting barely any experience, maybe 4 per enemy which isnt very good. My parties levels are 12 and 11 range. Should i move faster through the game as i am not gaining enough exp?

[Randomizer]

The Second Trilogy games use the Geneforge experience system where experience is adjusted up or down depending upon how powerful you are compared to the monster. At least Jeff removed the message where you get no experience.

 

I found most of my experience came from quests for the next 10 levels.

[Death Knight]

Cool, i thought that was what he meant to do. I played divine divinty which said something similar-fight monsters at low levels, at higher levels, solve quests. Makes sense.

[Death Knight]

jeez, the difficulty is warped. First its easy, then ridiculously hard, then middle. It doesnt seem to make up its mind. And to top it all off, i learned the hard way that melee is broken in a4. The point cost for skills is 4 at start, whereas ranged weapons is 2, and magic is 4 or 5.

 

I would say now that i am at the honeycomb caves, that i might have to switch over to bows as melee is useless and more than 1 melee character is unneeded.

 

Hopefully when i get done with avernum 4, 5 at least remedies this problem. As it stands in this game, Magic reigns supreme, then followed by ranged weapons like bows, (thrown if you can carry them), and last goes to melee. I dont know why jeff did that.

[Lilith]

Yeah, melee characters in Avernum 4 tend to have problems dealing damage, especially since there are so many enemies that can riposte attacks or otherwise punish you for hitting them in melee. Avernum 5 does improve this: riposte is less common and battle disciplines help melee characters a lot.

[Aoslare]

Also, Blademaster gets even better, which helps out melee builds that boost it with skill points or traits.

[Death Knight]

Well, im glad it challenges me, though my char is lvl 13 and will switch her focus to bows, will that really hurt me? I doubt it will as ranged weapons have such a low cost for skill points. I can probably get to 8 skill with bows in 5 or 6 levels.

[Earth]

making bows as prim. attack is useless since good bows are gotten in lateish of game and good swords are gotten earlier and sword>bow on damage wise. bows are good secondary weaps against enemies who punish sword/polehitters (at Avernum player can use bows against enemy standing next to cahrs unlike at Avadon).

[Death Knight]

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires

making bows as prim. attack is useless since good bows are gotten in lateish of game and good swords are gotten earlier and sword>bow on damage wise. bows are good secondary weaps against enemies who punish sword/polehitters (at Avernum player can use bows against enemy standing next to cahrs unlike at Avadon).

No, I meant making bows as my attack when i am far away and can pick off some low enemies, when they close in, my already more than decent melee skill will take care of them. I am only suggesting this because my thief character has a tough time keeping up with my slith polearm user who romps around destroying almost anything.

Thieves are essentially useless fighters in this game, unless i am playing it differently. I might need more defensive skills.

[Earth]

due bad bows investing on bow-skill isn't useful (I have never invested on bows skillpoints only bought bow and sharpshooter skills). no need for having thief as char and I would train thief similarly as fighter (except once in a while boost tool use a bit). exp isn't given mostly to that who gets kill, it is spreaded between chars somewhat equally.

[Harehunter]

Quote:

exp isn't given mostly to that who gets kill, it is spreaded between chars somewhat equally.

This is a huge change between Exile 1-3 and Avernum. It changes a lot how you plan your tactics.
Also, I have never found bows or thrown to be as effective as melee/poles or spells. My #2 player is my sapper, with very high tool use, but melee is primary skill. Have you looked at the skill set for a shaman?

[Txgangsta]

Thrown can work. Use other weapons except in the most difficult of circumstances, and save those razor disks and whatnot for bosses. Its less useful for the everyday, but they are the most powerful physical weapon and they are distance.