Cave Lore

[Death Knight]

I have about a cave lore of 5 total for my party and i was just wondering what the complete deal of it is? I read the written deal of it on strategy central and the skill description in game. Besides the 2% poison and acid resistance and the caches, is there any bit of other benefits of it such as calming monsters like in 2nd trilogy?

 

I know the description has stayed like that for a while so just wondering.

[Randomizer]

You have the option of avoiding some fights outdoors, but I think that's based upon party level and not cave lore. No second trilogy calming monsters.

[Jerakeen]

No, Cave Lore definitely lets you avoid some outdoor encounters - you "avoid their notice". Being a much higher level makes them "flee in terror". In either case you have the option to fight them anyway.

[Caribou16]

Does anyone actually use the "avoid" option? I fight everything, no matter how one sided the fight is. That said, cave lore should let you avoid those annoying traveling merchants.

[Lilith]

It can sometimes help you avoid fights that you'd otherwise lose, so that's handy.

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Caribou16

Does anyone actually use the "avoid" option? I fight everything, no matter how one sided the fight is. That said, cave lore should let you avoid those annoying traveling merchants.

I do. Sometimes accidentally, of course, but other times I just don't feel the need to fight a bunch of wandering rats, or a posse of goblin newbies out on a school trip from their "Learning how to avoid Heroes of the State" class.

[Juan Carlo]

Low level fights are an annoyance late in the game as they can still take ages, yet give you little experience. I know hardcore min/max people will disagree but, personally, I think once you reach level 30 there's not much reason to fight anything that you don't have to anymore. You're strong enough at 30 to take on all the end bosses, even on torment, so the near constant trash mobs in some of the dungeons become a big annoyance late game (The demon dude's castle especially. It's full of lower level demons every 5 steps, none of which are a big threat to you, but all of which have enough hit points to really eat up your time and slow you down. I really hated that level).

 

I really loved this game (I put 100+ hours into it on steam, which should tell you something), but if I have one criticism of it it's that there are far too many trash mobs. I don't mind early and mid game when you are still leveling, but once you hit late game they are a pain. Which is why cave lore is actually a really good idea (as theoretically it allows you to avoid combat if you want), but it doesn't always work that way (even with max cave lore you still can't avoid fights in the high level areas). I really think he should have left most of the combat to above ground encounters and made them optional with high cave lore so you can choose to not fight them any more once you no longer need the experience. Fighting low level monsters every 10 steps in dungeons can really harm the fun of the game's sense of exploration at times. Especially once you've already killed every type of monster in the game 100 times over.

[Caribou16]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

It can sometimes help you avoid fights that you'd otherwise lose, so that's handy.

Ahh, I've never had the particular usecase happen to me. If I think a group of monsters roaming the over world is going to kick my butt, I stay well away from it!

[Earth]

I haven't avoided outdoor fight since lvl 10 chars (at that time big groups of Slith shamans+slingers+warriors+regulars and group of Giants (went "bit" too early to visit at ToM) and those lightning using undeads were too much), now at lvl 30 normal Giant/Ogre/Slith dies quickly and tougher G/O/S die after 3 rounds w/o buffs, only those undead groups are tough due their lightning ability but once majority of those are dead then rest are easy, if enemy group has healers then fights last many rounds due their healing is very high.