Avernum Skill Builds

[Death Knight]

I was reading over the builds written by Slarty and noticed that unless Im wrong, there really are not any builds like in previous Avernum games.

 

You definitely could make more of a focus on strength or endurance, but other than that, it seems that you end up with a fighter with max in all combat skills except riposte.

 

The first time I played the game, I had my main fighter specialized in Melee weapons at 20 for max amount of disciplines, 10 Hardiness, 10 Quick Action, 12 blade master, and maybe 3 points into lethal blow. The rest of the points went into tool use to help ease my mage and priest and cover traps.

 

Do any of the people that make fighters and ranger type characters notice that they are found maxing the entire tree out by end game, or is that just one or a few people that do that. Im not disagreeing with it, but it would be much cooler if not everyone's character had the same stats/skills.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

If i am making a pure fighter than i go with about the same distribution, it's different of course when i am going for a fighter priest which i generally do. One difference in even pure fighter however is that i give quite a few points to parry and possibly riposte as well.

[Death Knight]

Its kind of lame compared to old way, but I guess it is what is. There still are different ways if you think about it with how your 4 stats are. You have less freedom with skills as you get them all usually, but more freedom with stats like dex and strength as previous system had it worse.

 

In a way, there are still some things I like more about the new system.

[Alorael at Large]

What were meaningful variations in fighter builds in old Avernums? There were certainly many choices, but most made little difference and many were strictly inferior.

 

—Alorael, who just doesn't see immense variations on the theme of hitting enemies until they are dead while trying not to get hit and take damage.

[The Reverend]

Slarty's builds are meant to be the optimally min-maxed way to build your characters. The game can still be beat, even on torment, with very different builds. Check out Raust's victorious torment builds, for example:

 

http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/281546/My_victorious_heroes#Post281546

 

Also, the fighter-priest build works well for a tank, because it lets you get both hardiness and resistance. And Slarty's builds sell archers short. It is true that they will never do as much damage as a dual-wielder, mage, or even dedicated damage-dealing priest - but their high dexterity can make them an effective tank, since very few enemies will be able to hit them with greater than a 5% chance (except for enemies with cold attacks).

[Mosquito---Slayer]

Originally Posted By: The Rev

Slarty's builds sell archers short. It is true that they will never do as much damage as a dual-wielder, mage, or even dedicated damage-dealing priest - but their high dexterity can make them an effective tank, since very few enemies will be able to hit them with greater than a 5% chance (except for enemies with cold attacks).

Yes they are very effective and i won a lot of fights with my archer as the last man standing, however i noticed that all kind of slimes had a very big chance of hitting my archer even if they were weak otherwise, has anyone else noticed that?, I have the earliest version of the game(downloaded the same day it came out)?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Mosquito---Slayer

Yes they are very effective and i won a lot of fights with my archer as the last man standing, however i noticed that all kind of slimes had a very big chance of hitting my archer even if they were weak otherwise, has anyone else noticed that?, I have the earliest version of the game(downloaded the same day it came out)?

This is because slimes do acid damage, which is dodged by Endurance rather than Dexterity.