Fledgling Fyora geoff walker Posted August 7 Share Posted August 7 With less mistakes and everything * I edited out all the bad language I could find but there may be relics of the first draft GLOSSARY 1. Aoe = area of effect – spells which affect more than one enemy 2. Clothie = spellchucker. I mean you have played WOW haven’t you? 3. Inv = invulnerability 4. Mag = mage spells 5. NPC = non player character. The guys you talk to 6. Pri = priest spells 7. Pot = potion 8. Remf = rear echelon mofo – your fashionable mage types at back who trouble themselves to buff the idiot at front then make louche remarks about his combat ability 9. Ret = return 10. RP = role play 11. Sc = scroll 12. Tool = tool use 13. TPK = total party kill 14. Woot = wow, loot PREAMBLE 1. Ive referenced throughout silver harloe’s excellent map and guide to avernum 1 – truly a monster feat and well worth using. Its on the very lovely harehunter site a. http://ironycentral.com/harehunter/Avernum1/Maps/mainmap1.html 2. i went thru the game once, figured id been everywhere and using a walkthrough wasn’t cheating, it was just an aide memoire. Use it if you like, don’t if you don’t. ive referenced it throughout, so this guide wont make a bit of sense unless youre using it. So just half use it. kind of peek around the edges a bit when you need a spot of help. 3. Ive not provided a walkthrough, just a guide to walking through. Mostly cos playtesting a shortest path is beyond my eyes at this moment. 4. Also youre playing for fun – if you want to kill foul hordes of darkness, kill foul hordes of darkness, if you want to wander about, wander about, if you want to talk to people, talk to people. at the end of the day, rule 1 = enjoy the game. if you aint enjoying the game, its time to clean the garage. My sons [and/or possibly daughters] if you want to trek thru the bassikhava deeps, then that is your destiny 5. this nefarious game doesn’t have a shortest path. 6. Quick shout out to the modding community: I propose a means whereby we can slay wandering merchants and cave cows, the most dangerous creatures in all of avernum PARTY CREATION .. this is for the original avernum, the 2000 AD one. here ‘tis: 1. Completely forget any of the recommended characters, create your own. The pre-genned characters will lose you the game. they can’t fight. 2. read everything, think carefully, then build. like, grab your anorak, slurp some coffee and spend an hour reading and thinking about character creation. that way your party will be something like my own and you will enjoy high self esteem 3. Your 4 basic abilities and your mage/priest levels are your prime consideration. And you need a thief. 4. forget anything whose value is based upon another value. which is to say, don’t add to it directly. Add to the thing its based upon 5. for first time players, you might well want to start with this: its got a tank, a mage, a heals and a thief so it does everything you want a. tank i. str2 dex8 int1 end8 elite warrior sickness prone b. thief i. str2 dex6 int1 end3 tool15 natch mage sickness prone ii. take dex7 then dex8. That will take you to tool16. then buy the fine lock picks at fort draco. You will now survive all the demo areas. Until then, don’t untrap nothin 1. there is a trap in anastasia’s bedroom which may go off but I put that down to bad game design. a. You need nimble fingers to completely master every trap in the game and nimble fingers is boring. b. You are only allowed two character traits in the game, one of them has to be a combat trait and the other must be a weakness to offset the XP disadvantage imposed by the combat trait iii. when you get down to the ogre cave, get the rogues’ leather. That and magic lockpicks will take you thru the rest of the game. iv. there are nimble gloves, but they need complex and morally questionable quests. Save and reload if you cant handle a trap, its not cheating, just say to yourself, “I choose this method to deal with an aspect of the game I don’t like” c. heals i. str2 dex4 int2 end4 mag3 pri6 natch mage sickness prone d. mage i. str2 dex4 int1 end3 mag8 natch mage sickness prone e. perfectly lovely party, get remfs some priesthood asap, my only real problem with it is it doesn’t have any rune reading. And really for the sake of your sanity you want rune reading30 asap. Do note that all your characters need dex4 or they will get eaten by anything with dex5 6. my lovely little party which romped through the wilds of avernum and which is capable of doing the ancient crypt on day 1 started out as: a. str2 dex4 int2 end4 mag3 pri6 elite warrior sickness prone b. str2 dex4 int2 end4 mag3 pri6 elite warrior sickness prone c. str2 dex4 int2 end4 mag3 pri6 natch mage sickness prone d. str2 dex4 int2 end4 mag3 pri6 natch mage sickness prone e. full disclosure: this party only got tested to the midgame. My old party, which is almost as good as this, had the 2nd character as a natch mage. And it rocked. This one just rocks harder. i. Had to quit cos of me eyes. ii. So some of this is a tad theoretical, but really only a tad, you should be heaps right f. note that even the tank is a spellchucker. I have a problem with 3 mages looking after 4 fighters, it gets a bit scary. Everyone being able to look after themselves makes a great deal of battle sense i. its not problematic, the guy is equal to the mages at L1 and has nice utility til the end of the game g. so you start out as a party of mage priests and they morph into their different professions. h. elite warrior and natural mage are the only two real choices in character traits. They turn your wannabes into actual sorts. The others are too trivial or weird to bother with. Sickness prone is to offset the XP penalty from warrior and mage. It doesn’t pose any problem – swamps are tedious. i. Which tediousness could be offset by extra levels in pathfinder, I might try that for playability’s sake. The tank’s overbuilt by high level anyway, he’s got points to spare. i. If your mages are too cultural to indulge in the vulgar and bourgeois practice of fisticuffs you may wish to try brittle bones. Me, I like getting a bit stabby with my mages towards the end of a fight, it’s a refreshing change for when they get tired of spells. But look really, its sickness prone. Saves your mana, adds versatility – any mage can be a fighter. Also mages get tired and chuck bad spells if they work too hard 7. This party ended up as a. codbulge [tank] i. str10 dex10 int2 end11 mag3 pri6 ass5 luck6 blade5 gym5 anat5 resist3 path3 ii. you may want to experiment with int4 or something. It might be good. But I doubt it. in a hard working fight, he seems to run out of mana about the same time as everybody else. Anyway the idea is he can summon, heal, buff, haste, slow like normal people. Replication of abilities is emphasized in this party – you need a heal? You got a heal. You need a haste? You got a haste. That way I can fight battles in a more realistic way. I don’t have to read the tale of the tape, I can just react to the changing now. I mean look the guys never going to be more than ordinary in the spell casting stakes, but spells offer such power, such utility, that its worth giving him them. Got too many points to spend anyhow. iii. A note here: if you need something done now in a fight, do it. this turn. Don’t wait for the guy who’s got the optimized skill. You could be dead next turn b. oddjobs [layabout who never worked out what she wanted to do in life – archer, thief, fighter, mage, priest,.. I think she used to take rents off migrant workers. Basically forward battlefield support] i. str8 dex10 int2 end11 mag3 pri6 tool18 luck5 gym5 blade 5 mag3 c. magicthighs [heals] i. str6 dex10 int10 end9 mag3 pri18 luck5 gym5 mag3 d. broomfondle [mage] i. str6 dex10 int10 end9 mag18 pri6 luck5 gym5 mag3 ii. Don’t bother with arcane summon, theyre just irritating nitwits who introduce randomness to your play and create traffic jams 1. Only reason I took em this round was to differentiate the character – mage is her specialty 2. I took a party with a tank and 3 mag9/pri10s once and was halfway thru a battle and thought, “these guys are all doing exactly the same thing”. 3. Repeat after me: “we are all individuals”. 8. ladies and gentlemen, this party completely rocks. they stomp everything. There’s certainly room to play about with mage and priest levels: you could try a mage11 if you like beast ceremony or mage16 if you like arcane summons. A natch mage thief can be mag3 pri6, mag9 pri6, mag9 pri10, mag9 pri12, mag16 pri6. 9. gear's a bit of a morphing thing in avernum, different levels and dungeons suggest different combos. mix n match between your characters until you find something you like. by the time i hit endgame, they had: a. codbulge [tankfeatures] i. icy chain. 45lbs as opposed to 70. Cold and heat resistant ii. flame sword [discarded after grah hoth, you can keep if you like sword n shield combos. The hell, give it to a clothie] iii. frost sword [likewise] iv. jade halberd. for when you absolutely positively have to kill every mofo in the room v. blessed cloak, drakeskin cloak vi. gauntlets of might vii. warrior's ring, armour ring viii. dex bracelet ix. crystal charm, basic charm, chill charm x. speed boots xi. pants of power, purely cos I was collecting. Spiders are irritating 1. at this magisterial stage of my avernum career I can say they are interesting if you want a slow fight xii. no shield, the guy’s a wall. But when he wasn’t a wall I gave him small steel/crystal/blessed/serendipity shield. They tend to swap about. 1. if you got a luck bracelet you don’t need a serendipity shield etc 2. theres a large blessed shield somewhere I never used cos I was too fashionable. Also a large steel shield in almaria. Please, be sensible and not fashionable. Your oddjobs has a very sharp knife xiii. steel bolts xiv. yew xbow xv. blessed steel helmet 10. oddjobs [arrogant layabout] a. mauling leather. Accept no substitute. Best armour in the game. rogue’s leather at need b. diamond dagger i. situationally, give her assassin’s dagger, ghoulbane, whatever’s fun. the rear two hobos are just for cleaning up wheelchair cases and summons c. gauntlets of might d. Blessed & drakeskin cloaks e. Skill ring, armour ring f. Dex bracelet, luck bracelet g. chill charm, basic charm h. Drakeskin boots i. pants j. Crystal shield k. blessed Steel helm 11. Magicthighs [likes sticking flowers in people’s guns] a. Blessed studded armour b. whatever the front two haven’t stolen – blessed spear’s good c. Blessed & drakeskin cloaks d. Drakeskin gloves [Gauntlets of might if you’ve been very good] e. Strength Bracelet f. immunity ring, armour ring, skill ring g. Nice comfy drakeskin sandals, very this season h. pants i. blessed shield j. Drakeskin helmet 12. Broomfondle [pinches stuff, staff has a knob on the end] a. Drakeskin armour b. blessed short sword c. Blessed cloak, dragonskin cloak d. Drakeskin gloves e. Resistance ring, Shield ring, skill ring f. int bracelet g. knowledge charm [this one’s vanity, it just swaps around between characters, doesn’t seem to do much. I really only collected it cos I like the fight] h. boots i. pants j. serendipity shield 13. so that’s my current evolution of armour. you got a tank whos actually a tank, a pretend fighter with a giant bourgeois great strength buff, a bolshie heals and a mage who can. a. Prior to that I had the tank in mauling leather, layabout in rogues leather, heals in shadow leather and mage in drakeskin. Other shadow if you want b. Which is fine, but it’s rather buff-dependent. Icy chain particularly gives the tank protection vs grah hoth, who is a sadistic mofo and perfectly capable of taking him down. c. And Giving the tank chain and the 2nd fighter mauling leather and the cleric a bracelet of strength means your first 3 characters have str10. No bad thing, makes for ease and versatility. Plus herself gets bored with healing and likes to stick it in quite often 14. A point of this one is it can loot the the ancient crypt on day 1. Got rune reading20 and everything. Just don’t go tripping any traps til you got dex6/use tools16. And spend like $200 on thieves tools cos youll be breaking them every door you clumsy oaf. 15. Where you go with your magic is up to you: I like everyone to have pri6 and frankly ive little use for anything after mag9. Priest’s got perfectly decent AOE spells and what you don’t pump into mage you pump into priest. Be aware that AOE tends to be used to clean up summons/relieve your impatience. But mag16 does win the haste/slow war, beast ceremony is a nice little luxury and the hell, you want everyone to specialize right? pri6 gives everyone condition removal, buffs n heals plus rune reading, which you need to get your L3 spells a. If you want the real story, my only use for ret life3 is grah hoth; the guy’s a little bit too serious and you only have one chance to loot his palace. But it’s on the way to divine warrior so you may as well take it. and ghod help us, deaths in the field have been known to happen. discarding b’loved loot cos you cant carry it is just depressing. 16. And it has to be said, divine restoration is needed to heal the full frontals when they got so many hitpoints 17. Be aware that it’s a four-party: if you got 40xp for the quest, each character gets 40xp. Its not 40xp divvied up between the characters. 18. I don’t take the NPCs; you may wish to. reason being, they can only get elite warrior or natch mage. They’re not edgy, they don’t have the ghastly pallor. a. The hell, give em some grief in the character editor. b. also theres this role playing thing with me that I like to start out with four friends and leave them there. c. anyway, NPCs is good, all mighty warriors. d. I would note that training your starters from the get-go is a learning. You find out where to put your skill points and how to fight. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TIPS 1. Go to dex8 for your murder hobos, dex6 then int8 for your remfs. That way you got traps n runes. then dex8 your remfs and you can swap your characters about at need. Swapping is good, it makes spells happen in a different order... (ß note subtle and class combat advice). Subsequently, morph to your different classes. Don’t worry about str, tank’s just trying to get laid. Put it at need to wear armour. F’rexample, your nice blessed studded wants 4. a. crystal quest wants you to be strong. b. Never let it be said that strength is for tanks. Dex is for tanks. End is for tanks. No, strength is for when you are bored at taking four hits to kill cat people c. NB with the mage thief version of this party, it’s really good to develop your mages’ ints to 8 tout suite. That way theyre interchangeable. Plus of course you get off to a good start with the game – your spells do more, so you have to cast them less. = faster time thru the game. plus safer. Your characters start each battle in different positions – this way, the guy at the front can do the summons, the guy at the back can be the support, the guy in mid can do whatever,.. 2. Think about your party roles: what do they do? What do you want them to do? 3. Keep a few skill points if you can for unforeseen upgrades – for example, I needed to dispel a barrier and I was only mag8. Its not really necessary to spend your skill points every time you level up. The hell, you can do a big U-circuit of the first 6 provinces before you visit the training hall 4. The level of your abilities is certainly a thing but the cost to get those levels is where your action’s really at. a. For example You got 8 skill points. You could spend 5 points on a dex or 4 points on an endurance. So you spend 2 x 4 points on endurance b. generally you can faff about til level10 before you feel the need for extra spellage. So be nice to your stalwarts and give them the str, dex, int, end & luck they need. Make em well-rounded characters. That way they are flexible and can wander about the battlefield. If you want an algorithm, buy the cheapest of any of those skills when levelling until L10 5. He who acts first dies last. Dex is a thing. a. gymnastics is a thing 6. Give almost all the crystals to the tank. a. Theres a go berserk and a lay on hands crystal for your 2nd fighter. b. And theres a magery for your mage. = win the haste/slow war early. The hell, give it to your heals for bigger heals, Its always good. Just don’t give it to the tank. I tried last run in the name of experimentation and regretted it almost instantly. Guy has a poor spell selection and never casts anyway. c. The magery crystal may be just a temporary advantage. all characters can get to magery5 7. Anatomy, archery, Blademaster, Gymnastics, magery, pathfinding; the game implies that the maximum needed level for these is 5. I was dumped in a room surrounded by thugs who were all faster than I was. TPK was a thing. I tested, gym5 did the trick FIGHTING TIPS 1. There is no one way to fight. 2. calculate is good, instinct is good. What’s your preference today? 3. But tanks are main. have a fridge with eyes stand between the enemy and your good selves a. you want a tank so your cunning remfs can buff the frontal idiot then slope off round the corner for a crafty rollup. If theyre standing around commenting on his martial technique youre doing well 4. The first round of a battle is always the most important round. Think about what each player is going to do before you touch the mouse 5. count your squares. All enemies move at 4 squares/round unless theyre hasted in which case they move 6. 6. Win the haste/slow war. If you are fast, youre doing 2 things a round. If theyre slow, theyre acting every other round. a. Think about where you are in the round. b. Speed wars are subtle. If you need to look up the combat log, do so. Boring but instructive c. Haste your people and save your last action for the end of round. That way i. you haste you if they slow you and you slow them if they haste them d. You don’t actually have to be you fast/them slow. You just have to be moving at the same speed. Then you can let your mighty warriors show their miserable tryhards what a blade is e. How fast you are at the end of this round is how fast you are next round f. First up, web the enemy druids. They are now casting once/round for the rest of the war. g. Then slow them. They are now casting every second round h. Your other first round option is just to slow them. That way their first move has to be to haste themselves or they lose the speed war. you now have time to do things like put on clothes I mean spells 7. Have a look at different party battle formations. Theres a few standard ones and they all look good. With the tank at front consider: a. Diamond; small triangle; large triangle; line; box. b. Typically you’ll want 2 squares between your viking and the hunchbacks but its really what doesn’t get em killed. 8. rage, shield, haste, slow – these are the spells the game runs on. everything else is just showing the enemy how to fight 9. Summons are the real a. but summoned from the back line they need 2 rounds to put out their cigarettes and do some sodding work b. So summon them close to the despicable enemy. Here’s how. i. Run your tank forward, haste him, shield him, then have him summon two beasts a round til he feels nice. default is one summon per enemy ii. In the meantime, your remfs can be doing the same iii. Slow the enemy. When you do this is situational, preferably when you can see all the beasts at once. Then you know who you’ve slowed and who you ain’t. but really ask yourself the question: “is slowing survivablier? Or summons?” iv. Rage tank, go kill c. Trust me if your characters feel like sitting around, summons are your friend. Swamp the enemy, stop trying to figure out what to do and congratulate yourself on your sloth i. Freaked out by spiders and their incessant need for speed? This is your advice 10. Control foes – ask for it by name. a. forget sanctuary, prick of a spell, doesn’t stop spellchuckers nuking you. no my friends, what you want when youre busy buffing up is traitors. The enemy AI will almost always revenge themselves upon your new pals. b. Force multiplication ftw; 2 less of them, 2 more of you. c. Mass haste, mass slow, mass heal. Or just let them die so you don’t have show them the price of treachery d. with bind foe3 11. Divine warrior = the I win button. it really is practical in heavy fights; those shielding concerns are so last month a. A little something by way of temptation: a hasted L3 divine warrior with speed boots has 13 movement points/round, hits for 95 points, 95% of the time. i. Endgame version 12. Cover is a thing. Watch your bolts do 30 points in the clear, 20 points behind someone and 10 points behind an altar 13. Standing around is a thing. Relax baby, you do more damage if you haven’t moved 14. Create illusions are a good reset at low level. your fearsome enemies can be relied upon to feel really wary about your paper dolls 15. summon aid is your go-to at mid level; you get almost as many monsters and they’ve got hit points 16. But when you absolutely positively have to kill every mofo in the room, summon shade 3 is your very friend. a. L1 depressed me. b. L2 summons your skinny uncle with the funny smell. c. But L3 summons the fiercest thugs in avernum. One of them could beat any of my characters in a toe-to-toe except my high level tank i. Actually theyre not the fiercest thugs; theyre the 3rd fiercest. But you get to summon 2 a round 1. Curiosity killed the cat but let me indulge you: avernum’s hardest thugs are golems. Then royal guardspersons 17. Ffs give all your players the same dex; that way you can swap their order at need. Sometimes it seems good to put the wizard 2nd, sometimes the cleric, sometimes the thief. play around to see what seems comfortable. It’ll change with levels. a. For example, my typical first round might be: tank slows the mages; priest grabs their tanks; layabout speeds us up; mage waits to see what the enemy does with haste/slow. So you want the heals in 2nd place. b. But that sometimes feels a bit dangerous – keep our nice heals at the back where she feels safe and gives us great big smoochies. Put our ostentatious mage 2nd so he can rule the haste/slow war. Or put the grubby layabout 4th so she can figure out where the mages are. its really how you feel the battle goes and how the level’s going. 18. It’s the rant window! Avernum has one mage spell, one priest spell, one weapon and one armour that are completely and utterly useless: a. Ice lances. It doesn’t even tell you the damage numbers when you cast it. that’s cos theyre pathetic. You’ve got smite anyway. And the quest to L3 it is enormous b. Sanctuary. The priests will laugh at you and cast divine fire. Plus time spent casting sanctuary is time spent not casting control foes. You want a breather? Traitors ftw c. Javelin. Look if I find a brace of steel javs and the fight’s in the next room and I get a good long throw ill save myself some arrows. Javelins cause the enemy a +2 contempt bonus d. Plate. Ive never even tried it myself so im theorizing here. doubtless a soldier party will find it best in summer fashion. But it weighs 70lb and gives you 2 whole extra points of protection! No. what you want is a shielding spell. It weighs nothing and prevents enemy attacks. 19. Crystals will save your tank’s lily ass, don’t forget to use ‘em. I do, but don’t you forget to use em. 20. In the name of Ford, don’t die with potions on your belt. Consumables are just that; consumable. You might need them later, you do need them now SAMPLE BATTLE WITH SOME SLITHS 21. Outdoor fights with sliths are quite instructive. Theyre some of the most difficult stoushes in the game. here’s a little piece featuring my 6th level characters vs 2 mages, 10 sliths and 5 slith warriors 22. BIG NB this instruction was developed using my natural mage thief party, not the elite warrior version. It is tested to the hell and gone. I’d rather give you this advice than some theoretical advice ive adapted for the archer thief. 23. Basic ideas: a. Kill the mages as soon as you may b. stick to your party roles closely if you can. it’s optimal i. tank = web mages, summon critters, cut things. 1. also does a handy mass heal at need. He cant haste himself if he’s been slowed, he’s too dumb so give something simple to do ii. oddjobs = slows and summons iii. heals = buffs, heals, hastes, slows iv. mage = likewise c. do the necessary. if the thing that worries you most is the tank’s hit points, heal him. it’s a hand to mouth battle at first, so survive 24. Run your tank forward and hit a mage with hold person 25. oddjobs hits other mage with same. Run her behind tank features at need 26. This nerfs the mages, now they can only ever act once/round 27. Hit em with a slow if youre feeling luxurious, that way they only act every second round 28. Run the heals and the mage 5 paces back from the tank with a space between them. This keeps them out of trouble, trust me the more idiots you got up front, the more you gotta shield and heal. don’t worry about seeing the enemy mages. now you got two up front doing the needed and two at back pulling their backsides out of the fire. Give the tank 2 shields or each frontal lobotomy a shield depending on enemy formation 29. Now your goal is to buff the tank so he can take pot shots at the mages. But that may take a while as you may need to heal, summon or slow first. Be sure to get two shields up on your murder hobos and keep them there. get adaptive; its whatever you need to do. be patient. You want to give your tank as clear a shot as possible so minimize summons. Do it if you need to, they are a fabulous enemy distraction. 30. Take out the mages. If you cant see them, use L3 smite to clear the enemy summonses. Once you kill them, the game’s won, until then they will continue to annoy you. 31. Run your remfs up behind the frontal lobotomies and give em a shield. Summon like crazy and go kill. The remfs can cut cheese and little else so support your fighters with bolts. GAMEPLAY TIPS 1. Shortest path: A lot of RPGs end up about being the shortest path through the game. That’s a convoluted question here. what is the shortest path? Fewest game days taken? Fewest real days taken? Fewest boring bits? What the sam hell is going on? the functional truth is the shortest path is the one that seems most pleasant to you. elegant, serene and fun to play. Ive proposed an actual path below but full disclosure is ive never played the game the same way twice. And the actual path depends frequently upon what you need to do at that time. and what you are capable of doing. Do you need that gymnastics skill to keep your druids alive? would you prefer some more spellage? Gymnastics will cost you $1500 a point, or you could spend skill points. But you’ll want a 22 reputation before herself deems you sufficiently fashionable to teach you. etc. 2. Relax. Money will come when it comes, levels will come when they come. Enjoy some interesting battles and don’t go haring off around the world in pursuit of that vital power-up; there are 50 of them. If you are surviving the battles you are good enough. theres always more than one way to solve a problem 3. Ffs keep some dosh for resurrections. Ideally 3 x $600 = $1800 for those times when one character is left to struggle home with all their gear and the dust of their corpses. A reason to take ret life 3 4. If a dungeon bores you, use the character editor to award you the loot it contains. Its not cheating, cheating is using the character editor to win the game without showing superior tactics or strategy 5. Gear is a swappy kind thing in avernum. Youll be trying to figure what’s “optimal” the whole game. a. have a careful look at the numbers from time to time and see what guarantees a fighter 95% to hit from the get go. b. And see what keeps your mages alive from round to round. They don’t have to be happy. But they do have to be there. 6. To the matter of role play – do it, don’t do it, I don’t give a damn. But here’s a few tips that actually improve your game: a. They fight better when theyre carrying less than half their maximum load b. Spell casting is tiring – be fashionable, abide by the ancient traditions of the cloth and be anally retentive I mean use least energy. in a long fight if your mages cast bolt of fire the whole time they will do half damage by the end. c. Play the game you want to play. doing what you want to do with the party you want to do it with adds an automatic 30% bonus to your abilities d. If youre making potions and ffs don’t, do it once a day, in town, after a rest, straight. Not when you’ve just walked out of a dungeon glad to be alive i. Nb if youre taking a warrior party you will of course need potions ii. Craft potions only works when you’ve got it to level 12. then you can craft most potions automatically. Otherwise you have to mess about with like “75% chance to make energy elixir”. Sorry what? I have neither the time nor the patience to collect herbs and put points into a skill which deems me unworthy of its use. e. If you tired your characters out humping woot back to the barracks, give em a night off on the beer. They’ll fight better afterwards 7. Don’t worry about returning to town with your characters’ maximum load in woot every 5 minutes. Clear the area, pick up nice loot and sell that. My baseline is a 4:1 weight:price ratio. Don’t worry, the money will come, don’t bore yourself with money runs. Play an actual fun game. you don’t exist to sell. You exist to fight and explore and figure out the meaning of game. in the end you need about 4 x $9k for spells and levelling and gear and that will come 8. And I should say you only need that 4 x $9k is youre using silverlocke’s potions and khoth’s magery. If youre being relaxed and efficient, 2 x $9k is fine a. Be aware: silverlocke is called silverlocke for a reason – she locks silver. If you want dem knowledge brews, grab em. But they will cost you trips to the bank 9. And here’s some tips that seem to improve your game play: a. They like it when they get some regular sleep. so rest them in salubrious bars with comfortable bedrooms [and possibly more than one bed, they’re meant to have sex on the floor?] b. They like it when they get fed. Amazingly enough and given that the base item in avernum’s economy is cow dung, there are chefs whove done toothy things with mushrooms. c. If a character dies, don’t ask him to carry anything; take him to the pub for a piss-up, a nice meal and a good night’s sleep d. A happy party is an efficient party. An efficient party is a happy party. The portraits react occasionally. I do believe there is a “spirit of the game”; something which has been coded in to increase your luck when you fight good and act within the value set that jeff vogel has pre-determined. F’rinstance youll get awarded better loot if you fight a battle that you like. i. I think this is basically about killing them quickly but I haven’t seen the code e. You may wish to give them a few things to keep at their home base which aren’t actually worth anything. I don’t know if the creator factored this into his coding or not, sometimes it seems like he did. Depends on how much you role play. pillows are nice. praps play with those things that have a ‘use’ button but don’t seem to have a game world effect. 10. Establish supply bases outside the healers’. So if your thief comes home naked cos there was a slight inconvenience with wandering nephil, she can put some clothes on 11. But ffs keep your nifty gear in a lockup. dem guards like dat shiny bling. 12. if you walk out of a dungeon with few hit points and mana left, youll be jumped by wandering monsters. So don’t. keep dem energy potions on you. This principle applies in-dungeon; if youre in a dungeon with a lot of re-spawns, be well and happy – they know when youre not. 13. Read everything 14. And remember – in an RPG, the game doesn’t kill you, your mind kills you. if youre tired, go to bed. If youre bored, clean the garage. 15. Reputation is a thing. Grab it while you can, theres important stuff you cant get without it 16. Note stuff in your journal. Cross it off when its done. This map is devilish complex and your only way of keeping records is pressing that button. Deciding what to do next is a thing in avernum and its done by thinking: a. What spell do I need to maximise next? b. What piece of bling do I need to get next? c. What quest do I need to do next? 17. I have a stated policy of getting slight retail therapy whenever I hit a new town a. Like everyone I prefer to find my bling. Its so disappointing to find drakeskin when you just bought it. but there is a point in looking thru the shelves. Most shops have some little thing, a quality item going cheap down the bottom of the list. Splash a little dosh, you know you like it. then hit the pub b. buy every energy potion, every energy elixir, every healing elixir [not potion] and the invulnerability potion from every shop. That’ll keep you going til game’s end you addicted little sauce 18. theres a $9k limit on the amount of dosh you can accumulate. If youre coming near it, go buy yourself something you’ve always wanted. Not fighting things cos you don’t want their money is strange and demoralizing 19. use the character editor. its not cheating. And ffs don’t disable it. Theres bugs in the game that may need rectifying. and if you sell that nice artisanal piece you so manfully won last terror dungeon, you may wish to replace it. I aint restarting just cos of a mis-click. [rant window: always save before visiting the healer’s]. 20. PS the church is rich. It gives you nice money for your woot 21. I don’t really care what missiles I got as long as I got em but its always nice to have some steel for when you absolutely positively want to put it in a mage’s neck. Just keep a little reserve in your backpack, theres not much steel in the game, save it for the quality. a. If youre feeling super-organised, keep some stone/iron/steel missiles. b. Or give your stone to the idiot, iron to the tryhard and steel to the guy who actually gets laid 22. If you start with my party, youll have a heap bunch of spells but nowhere to buy new ones. Well, you will, in the tower of the magi, but you may run into nasties down there and that would be depressing. so concentrate on using the ones you have really well – develop your int until you have somewhere to buy amusing new ones. That way you can hit rune reading 30 tout suite and relax about learning expert spells 23. Theres a certain amount of room for meta game thinking here: a dungeon will typically show you whether it is left wall follow or right wall follow at the beginning. Take the hint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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