Avernum 2: Motrax's Many Marvelous Mquestions!

[Sir Motrax of Exile]

Hi Forum!

 

I seem to have one or two questions popping up here and there, so I figure I'll just dump my questions into a single topic so as not to spam the forum with my nonsense.

 

1. (Added 4/1/21) In A1, there's a book on a pedestal in the Bandit Lair that gives the following message: "maybe you could do something to make the words readable. You aren't sure what."

 

Well... is there some way to make these words readable?

 

2. (Added 4/2/21) Various items have +5% damage (for example, Farsight Longbow lists "+5% missile damage"). Is the damage bonus included in the listed weapon damage, or is that 5% additional damage on top of the damage range listed for the item? For example, for the Farsight Longbow, I see 84-232 damage. Is that the actual damage range, or would it be 5% more (so ~88-244).

 

3. (Added 4/5/21) How does anyone play this thing on torment difficulty!? I'm about halfway through the game, in the middle of the endless series of slith dungeons, and I just can't handle it anymore. Everything kills me, and dungeon bosses seem to have infinite health. Waah waah poor old Motrax...

 

4. (Added 4/13/21) On to Avernum 2! Yay! Unfortunately, I killed the lizards in Motrax's cave and collected the reward from Captain Ko before I got the quest. Now I have the quest sitting in the quest log, but I can't seem to remove it. Any tips on how officially complete the quest so it's removed from the log?

 

5. (Added 4/13/21) Along the lines of Question 4, is there any way to remove or complete Stoppard's Potions quest? I gave him a bunch of potion ingredients, he made potions... but the quest is just sitting there.

 

Thank you kind forum!

 

- SMoE

 

P.S. Might I also point out that Cynthia in Bargha explaining why items no longer need to be identified (cf. Exile 1-3) is marvelous.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Sir Motrax of Exile
Adding questions! (4/13/21))

[Edgwyn]

For question 1, I think that you just need Arcane Lore level 5 to read it.

 

For question 2, I believe that the percent bonuses are applied after all of the dice and level modifiers.  Ultimately, very few weapons use that mechanic in the game.

[Micawber]

For the sake of clarity, I think there are three books: one has Meena's letter, one teaches Icy Rain at Level 3, and the other one is unreadable.  The collective opinion seems to be that there is no way to read it, it's a teaser.  See https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/16673-a-eftp-unreadable-tome-in-bandit-lair/

[TriRodent]

If question one's answer isn't more arcane lore, you may have to go do an errand or two for Patrick... (or ... that may be A2s way of making things readable ... it's been a few years).

 

Q2:  I'm pretty sure damage bonuses get added after the damage calculation

[Sir Motrax of Exile]

Thank you all for responding! That quite clears things up!

 

I've added another comment/question: how does anyone play this thing on torment? I fancy myself quite the expert at these games, but I finally gave up and went to normal. On torment, it seems like every single AoE effect kills half my party. My party's level 20 and still can't get past plenty of mid-tier dungeon bosses. It's... torment.

 

I like a challenge, but perhaps I'm too old for this challenge.

[TriRodent]

Again, it's been a few years so grain of sand & all that...

 

(also I tend to play on hard/veteran but it applies to torment too)

 

Friendly fire can be really nasty if you aren't careful, granted.  However this is a turn based game so use that to your advantage.  You have time to study the game board/battlefield & position your spell casters where they won't take out/hurt your front line guys (or make them with massive endurance so that they can absorb a big hit of friendly fire or two).  Also one of the things I tended to use more than the other were the grenade (for lack of a better term) kind of spells rather than a cone.  With using zone type of spells you can toss/position them right in front of your forward guys without hitting them (such as, iirc, ice spray or fire strike (priest spell)).  Cone shaped spells worked really well for me if I could get my caster off to the side of the main fight & cast it along the line of baddies facing my front line guys (essentially perpendicular to the way everyone was facing  (or the base of an L shaped ambush if you know infantry tactics)).

 

Also, before casting a spell it shows the area of impact.  Use that knowledge to 'test' if you're in the right spot to not damage your own guys.  If not, cancel the spell & move over a little bit & try again.  Again, you're not trying to fight in real time so take a little time to make sure that you're getting the most out of each spell casting... because on torment you're going to need that slight edge

 

There's no shame in not wanting to play on torment.  Jeff makes that level as a serious challenge for the really anal types who insist on min/maxing everything.  Personally I don't have the time available/patience to make sure that 'everything' I do is the 'perfect' way to do 'x'.  Veteran/hard is still challenging without needing to be perfect.  But torment can be done if you're willing to really work at it.

[Edgwyn]

If you are going to play on torment then you really must optimize your party.  The strategy central post has a lot of good advice about how to make the most powerful possible party.  You also need to be prepared to attack and retreat a lot.

[Randomizer]

Also use summoned creations to shield your party and take damage instead of your characters. The priest spell Summon Shade works well because shades are immune to mental effects like charm and fear. Let them get between the party and your enemies to protect you and gather foes into melee with it so you can use area of effect attacks more effectively.

[Sir Motrax of Exile]

Hi TriRodent, Edwyn, Randomizer,

 

Thanks for your comments! That's quite helpful. I was doing a bit of each of those things, here or there, but not to the level of attempting perfection.

 

Attack/retreat was the most irritating part of it. Sure I can clear dungeons 3 monsters at a time, returning to town to restore mana/resurrect dead party members, but that became too tedious. So I decided I'd just switch to normal difficulty, which I did, and now my highly non-optimized party is tearing through just about everything the game can throw at it.

 

While I like to play games on harder difficulty, I guess my goal here is to cool off once in a while and have fun while moving the story forward at a reasonable pace. So I'll continue on with normal!

 

- SMoE

[TriRodent]

10 hours ago, Sir Motrax of Exile said:

Attack/retreat was the most irritating part of it. Sure I can clear dungeons 3 monsters at a time, returning to town to restore mana/resurrect dead party members, but that became too tedious.

 

One thing I did/do as a time saving workaround was, after one trip to/from the dungeon in question, if my health or mana was low enough to the point where I would normally go back to town, I would retreat back to the start of the dungeon but not go outside (to avoid resetting doors, gates, etc).  Once there I'd use the appropriate cheat code to recharge my characters & head back into the fray (under the somewhat dubious mental justification that as if the way to the dungeon from town was clear...the way back would be too).  In those places where "Are you 'sure' you want to go that way, you probably won't be able to return..." was a rather blatant warning that this was a one way journey, the cheat code gets put away & heath/energy potions get used instead.

 

Shrug, technically a 'cheat', but it does reduce the tedious things that 'are' within the rules of the game (nibbling away at a dungeon - QW takes away that option).  Try bumping the difficulty level up one notch.  You seem to have the basics of the harder levels without wanting the time consuming perfection of torment.  Things should still move along relatively apace but still not be a complete walkthrough for you.

[Edgwyn]

I always play on the normal difficulty level, because my goal is to have fun and enjoy the story.

[Sir Motrax of Exile]

Sorry, didn't mean to start an argument here!

 

I think that on a 1st playthrough, perhaps normal difficulty is best. While it's not particularly difficult, it paces the game so that there's a good balance of story and battles. I haven't tried veteran difficulty, so maybe that's exactly the balance I'm looking for, but when time is limited, normal does feel like the right choice.

 

I am absolutely impressed with those who play through to the end on torment. It really is torment...