Oh no you don't. There is no disadvantage when soloing.

[K.I.L.E.R]

The only spell(thanks Drakefyre) that needs vahnatai lore at all is the priest one fireblast.

 

Second of all if you DO want to get it this is what you do:

After going through the portal back to Avernum, you create a character, go back into vahnatai lands and boost his VL skill to 5, now you have 10 total.

 

Stick this extra character in a barrack until you need him.

 

BTW I am replaying A2 again, I was level 15 before entering chapter 2.

 

PPS: No one in their walkthroughs mentioned that intelligence only improves the effects of spells and not their duration.

[Kelandon]

Is this in response to something? I feel like there's some context I'm missing.

[K.I.L.E.R]

Avernum 2 walkthrough by Matt P.

 

Under:

"(8) REPLAYING SUGGESTIONS:"

 

Under bad reasons for soloing:

 

"You can't learn several

spells (the ones that require vahnatai lore>5)"

[Lilith]

You know, if you create a second character, even if it's just temporarily and for the extra Vahnatai Lore skill, you're not technically playing a singleton any more.

[mlahut]

I'm running a singleton through A2 as well.

 

In my book, it's okay to spontaneously make a party with three other L1 ten-strength PCs to clean up the chain mail at the Empire outposts after they're empty, but it's not okay to make three other L1 PCs that dump all their points in arcane lore so that I can read more spells.

[Drakefyre]

With me neither is really okay, but I'd take creating another character to read spells over creating more party members to haul loot. One is allowing you to get to part of the game that would otherwise be denied to a singleton, and the other is part of the legitimate challenge of playing a singleton.

 

Besides, making arcane lore/mage lore cumulative always struck me as kind of weird.

[Alorael at Large]

If an area is already cleared, the only difference between playing a singleton and having pack mules is how many trips it will take you to retrieve all the loot. The challenge of a singleton shouldn't be time wasted.

 

—Alorael, who never created pack mules for his singleton because it never occurred to him.

[Shine123]

Pack mules might be a nice addition to game play, actually. I'm really tired of constantly running out of slots or finding that I've left something I need on the other end of Avernum.

 

Of course, I can't ever remember where I left my boats, either....

[Dikiyoba]

Technically, how much loot does a singleton need? They only need one set of equipment so that shop costs are less. Maybe the singleton uses more items, so it might be a little more. They only need to buy five levels of special skills (admittedly, some skills are the same no matter how many people are in the party) so that should mean less special skill cost. And you only need to buy mage and priest spells for one person, so spell costs should be less (at least for me, who gives everyone mage/priest spells).

 

Dikiyoba thinks that having a singleton haul every single item out of a town to sell it is overkill. Just because Dikiyoba's party of four hauls literally everything out of town (the worthless stuff is dropped and lost forever) so that the party has more money and so that items that the party hordes can be moved in doesn't mean a thing. Dikiyoba also apologizes if this sounds like a rant.

[mlahut]

Drakefyre: Creating arcane lore mules doesn't let you access books that were otherwise unavailable to a singleton. You CAN always add more int and arcane lore to a high level character, it just takes effort. As for vahnatai lore, you've got a point.

 

Dikiyoba: Some special skills are *quite* expensive. Also, in each of the avernum games, at some point, money can be spent on obtaining more skill points (sometimes a lot of money).

[Dikiyoba]

Ah. The knowledge brews. Dikiyoba sees your point. For a party of four, they aren't critical (and Dikiyoba never has enough money to buy them anyway) but for a singleton, they would be extremely valuable. But special skills are expensive for full parties and singletons alike.

[Alorael at Large]

Why can't you make an Arcane Lore mule? Make a character and just put all available points in Arcane Lore. Books check if your party has enough Arcane Lore to read them, and only after it knows you have enough does it check Mage or Priest to see which characters can learn the spell. The result of mules is your singleton learning spells and your mules not learning them, but they just get deleted anyway.

 

—Alorael, who loots everywhere exhaustively on principle. He can't bear to leave any chainmail behind.

[mlahut]

You CAN make an arcane lore mule, it just goes against my personal ethics of playing a singleton. I just force myself to wait until my singleton can afford the extra points in intelligence or lore.

[Drakefyre]

Yeah, change "arcane lore" in my post to Vahnatai lore.

[Celchu]

Hm, I think that for my next singleton, I'll create a heal mule, a lock picking mule and a haste mule... what? those destroy the concept of only using one character?

 

The concept of only using one character in the game isn't to have only one guy scoring the kills and doing damage, it's to have only one guy trying to handle every aspect of the game, including reading spell books, hauling loot, and deciphering alien languages. If one character isn't capable of doing all that and still racking up good damage, then just deal with the fact that you don't know all the spells.

[Drakefyre]

Does it make sense to have Vahnatai Lore cumulative among party members, though? If one person is a fluent French speaker and has three sidekicks who have taken a college-level French class, that's not going to make translating a French book any easier.

[Dikiyoba]

It might make it a little bit easier if the three sidekicks can help out with something the fluent speaker forgot. Also, four adventurers who aren't fluent but know some of a different language would probably help each other out quite a bit.

 

Dikiyoba can't believe that there isn't anywhere where one can buy the highest spells, just not up to level three.