Need insight into a few things- Avernum 2

[shadow9d9]

I am in the middle of Avernum 2 and had a few questions..

 

How does Sanctuary work? I have level 3 and have tried to use it a few times... doesn't seem to do anything.

 

Do skills ever hit diminishing returns? Such as intelligence, mage spells, priest spells etc?

 

For my fighters I have struggled at finding the best combination of skills for higher levels but I am really not sure what will help them at higher levels vs the abundance of spells and multi-hitting enemies...

 

One fighter has the following skills-

11 strength

5 dexterity

1 int

11 endurance

14 pole weapons

11 hardiness

3 defense

11 assassination

10 Anatomy

8 gymnastics

 

Would it be better to boost dex/defense or dex/end/hardiness or what else would you suggest for high level encounters?

 

It seems to be that hardiness is very important, but in the skill description it says it just has a chance of reducing damage by 1.

[*i]

You're obviously a fighter in pole weapons. What you have looks pretty good. Gynmasitics is particularly useful I seem to recall.

 

As far as hardiness, it's 1 point of damage per level. So if you have 11 hardiness, upon every hit you will take 1-11 less damage in addition to your other armor. It's probably not extremely useful so long as you can heal your party fast enough.

[Ephesos]

Boost Gymnastics and Defense when you get the time, as a nearly-unhittable pole-weapon wielder is a serious tank in A2.

[shadow9d9]

As for the post on hardiness, it says it has a chance to block 1 per level... but it doesn't sound definite from the description...

[Drakefyre]

Right - for each level of hardiness there's a chance that it will block a point of damage. So if there are 10 levels of hardiness, so on each hit it can block anywhere from 0 to 10 points of damage.

[shadow9d9]

Ah, gotcha. Makes sense. Are there ever diminishing returns with skills? My int/mage spells are both 18+ and same for the priest side...

[*i]

I wouldn't invest more than what you need in mage/priest spells. Intelligence is probably more useful as you get more spell points.

[shadow9d9]

Besides for some endurance, I can't see what else the mage/priests could use besides for int/mage/priest spells.

[*i]

Well, dexterity is always useful if you don't want your mages to be completely inept in melee. Defense and hardiness are somewhat useful. The others are Potion Making, Mage Lore, Nature Lore, and Luck. Of the special skills Magery is always good.

[Randomizer]

In reply to your other question about sanctuary, I found it helpful right after you get it on your return from the Vahnatai lands. It allows you time against the Empire assassins to get your characters hasted and blessed. In the Mertis Spiral at one point I used it to block attacks against my party by having only the characters in the middle use repel spirit while those that could be attacked do nothing so they formed shields that couldn't be attacked.

 

It drops in value in the later parts of the game where mass haste and bless speed up the process. Usually you spend all your time attacking and don't need the defense of sanctuary.

 

For your fighter you can increase his attack power with more assassination but otherwise defense can be replaced by just healing him at the end of the round. Your spell casters max out at 18 for mage and priest spell levels so just raise intelligence and magery. Be sure to have some one with potion making at 20 to make extra energy potions.

[Fort]

Defense is extremely important unless you are sure you can get away with constantly healing your fighters. By defense I mean anything that decreases your chance to be hit. Anyway, later in all of the Avernum games your enemies will start to deal unreal amounts of damage if you get hit every time.

 

Hardiness is nearly useless in my experience, but maybe a point or two more of dexterity wouldn't hurt. I personally wouldn't put any more points into assassination since it is a rapidly diminishing return type of thing.

[shadow9d9]

How do you know that Assassination has diminishing returns? Does it say it anywhere?

[Drakefyre]

Assassination skill increases the chances that you can assassinate a monster, not how much damage you do. So once you're assassinating almost every hit, there's no point in putting more points into it.

 

Also, I love hardiness. It blocks damage and increases all of your resistances. Luck is worth some points too.

[Randomizer]

For the fighter type characters you need to maximize your damage since you start running into magic resistant monsters. The worst is the rakshasa where you buff your fighter and send him up to slay it. Golems, Empire Wizards, and a few other are almost as bad.

 

Assasination usually needs to get above 10 to give you a good chance against all monsters.

 

I found that defense doesn't matter as much when you face magic casting monsters that always hit, The best defense is to kill them before they can hit you.