Barriers, Blinking, and Blockage (Minor Spoilers)

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

 

This is my first time through Avernum on PC. I'm on Hard. Because it felt like the right difficulty at the start.

 

The Points

1: Can I make my Wizard the lead character, enter combat mode, cast Blink to get beyond a barrier, then end combat to force my party to regroup?

 

2: Since I can't kill bosses and boss packs, how should I get the experience, items, and training to do so? (I missed the opportunity to farm the Neph Fort back entrance fight.)

 

3: I've already agreed to help Kyass evict Cenac. How do I get into the tower where he is?

 

Background

My group (Dual Wield 'Paladin' Tank/Dual Wield Fighter DPS/Cleric/Wizard) is L12 going on 13. In general, I followed Slartibus's Guide for character building. And I refuse to cheat!

 

Things were going well until about L10 when area bosses just farmed me. I'm trying to save money by avoiding buying spells I can get from the Stagnant Tunnels. To do that, I seemingly need to get a L2 Dispel Barrier, but that's expensive. (I do have the Orb. Found it by accident. Woo!) To save money, I checked on the Arenea fight where I can get L1 Dispel Barrier as a reward. My party died before it got a turn.

 

I tried going through Erika's Tower, but died when I had to enter the pen near the start.

 

I can't get Solberg back to the Magi Tower because that means beating a demon lord, which implies I need Demonslayer, but at least one of its parts is guarded by a pack of boss demons at the Neraphim Fort.

 

My group has plenty of money (about 12K with Negotiator x4), but nowhere I'm confident spending it on. I've avoided buying weapon and armor upgrades, since I find similar gear anyway.

 

I already bought 2 ranks of Mass Heal. I'm seriously considering getting 2 ranks of Ward of Thoughts to avoid being dazed by the spiders. How helpful is rank 2 Ward of Thoughts? What else should I get?

[Randomizer]

1. The game doesn't allow Blink to move you to certain places, even when there is a clear path to them. So I doubt this will work.

 

2. You can get experience by visiting new areas and doing quests. At your level you probably skipped a lot of delivery and collection quests. Ask NPCs and you will see lots of quests for your level.

 

3. Go to the east guard room by the gate and go upstairs. There is a hidden switch to Senac's Tower.

 

Don't worry about saving money for essential spells. Besides you need lots of Arcane Lore (12) in your party to get the Stagnant Tunnel spell books.

 

You are a bit low for most of where you need to go.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave any remaining sanity at the door. It really helps.

[Endarire]

(|=^)

 

I've been investing in Arcane Lore. I'm 1 level short of getting 12 AL. (I have 8 points and one Sage Lore.)

[Randomizer]

Sage lore trait doesn't count for those spell books and the dispel barrier one west of Fort Remote.

[The Reverend]

I think that might be enough - I thought the stagnant tunnels spell books only required 8 arcane lore.

 

I don't usually bother trying to wait for them, though, because if you avoid buying levels of some of the important spells it makes the early game harder. And, now that the game has been updated to make the second level of training cost the same as the first level, money is not as tight as it used to be.

[Randomizer]

You are right. I didn't look it up.

[Endarire]

The Stagnant Tunnels Spellbooks are mostly for the less important spells and the secondary casters. Icy Rain L2, Haste L2, and a change of tactics (keeping my Wizard in back and having him flee the map when I was about to wipe) let me progress.

[kensuguro]

I bought a bunch of spells and money flow was alright. I think I had most spells by the time I got to stagnant tunnels.

 

It seems like you missed lots of quests, or are hitting points that are above your level. I can't map it out exactly, but the quests need to be done in a specific order. Go whack some random monsters and do the smaller quests. If Areneas are killing you that quick, you may have also missed smaller "kill the boss" quests. Which Arenea cave are you talking about? The one by the friendly spiders? Or the hidden one with the queen in it? The queen one is much harder.

[Earth]

there are plenty of minor quests to do to gain levels and some spells are just must to be able to do some tougher quests so no point in saving money that much, you need icy rain and lightning spray spells to do damage to/kill multiple enemies at once.

[Endarire]

How important is Lightning Spray compared to Icy Rain and Fireblast?

[Lilith]

It doesn't do the same raw damage as Fireblast, but some enemies are immune to fire and sometimes you just want to save spell points.

[Earth]

icy rain works well against giants/ogres, spiders, sliths and fire-enemies and nicely against eyebeats and gazers (although fire is better against those 2) and lightning spray is good against all kind of enemies (besides magic resistant but that's obvious).

 

if you are fighting against giants and those are nicely groupped then save spellpoints and use icy rain.