Avernum questions

[Severian Silk]

I've never played the Avernum series. How does combat work in this game? Would it qualify as a "tactical" RPG?

[edit]
Wrong forum. Sorry.

 

[LCJr.]

You have dishonored yourself and your clan by posting in the wrong forum. You should promptly retire and commit seppuku to save what little face you have left.

But before you do that go to the Spiderweb site and try one of the "big huge free demos" and see for yourself what it's like.

 

[Fez]

Looks like it is in the right place to me.

I second the comment about trying the demo. It is a small download, quick to get into and then you'll know for certain what the rest of the game is going to be like with the bonus that if you do really enjoy it the demo is huge and will keep you entertained for some time.

 

[OSK]

Ehh… maybe. I'm not sure what defines "tactical" for you.

I'm basing my experience off of the Exile games of which the Avernum games are remakes of. I'm sure there aren't too many gameplay differences.

I guess it's tactical in that you do more than push an attack/magic button. It's turn-based, and you move your characters around a grid-based environment. It doesn't have strategic elements like terrain height or anything, but you can make use of doors and narrow passages… I guess.

 

[Psilon]

The Avernum games have terrain heights, but they generally don't affect anything.

 

[Elwro]

After finishing Avernum 1 and 2, I'd say the main tactical element for me was the use of magic. Certain spells (like Beast Ceremony) are invaluable during fights.

But yes, it's best just to get the Avernum demo and see for yourself :D A great game...

 

[Severian Silk]

Do you have an AP pool to spend from? Can you perform more than one action per turn?

 

[LCJr.]

You have an AP pool. But you can only move and attack or just attack. Attacking ends your turn. It's a pretty simple system. Like Elwro said tactics pretty much come down to what to cast or who to kill first. Plus managing your resources if you know you're going into a series of uninterupted battles.

My biggest complaints, besides the excessive amounts of combat, were summoning and the lack of friend or foe ID. In Avernum 3 the fight with the demons at the last shrine was ridiculous. They're summoning creatures every turn including Archane(?) who start summoning too. So I have my mage start summoning and gets 2 Archane and of course they start summoning. Got to where the map was almost entirely filled with critters and I'm wondering at what point the engine is going to overload and crash. The lack of FF ID really made that battle annoying since I couldn't tell my summoned allies from the enemies.

But anyway instead of asking for the opinions of others just get a demo and see what you think.

 

[Elwro]

But you can only move and attack or just attack. Attacking ends your turn.

Attacking costs 4 AP. If you have more than 4, it doesn't end your turn. At least in the first two games.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

So I'm chugging along with this and so for it's proving to be good fun. I've visited no end of towns and forts, literally lost count. I've cleared out two zones of cat people, half an undead zone, a spider lair, a bandit stronghold and a heap more I can't remember, my party is around levels 10-12, going with the premade n00b suggested party, Cave Law is good as I get an option on fighting 90% of trash mobs while travelling, loot is good and I have no shortage of goodies, heck I even found myself selling a load of wands and scrolls today, but there's just a couple of things bugging me and I'd really like to know if I'm doing something wrong before going much deeper, what with skill points becoming less and less valuable as the main stats start costing an entire level's worth of points:

1. I'm boosting both Intelligence and Mage Spells/Priest Spells and have decent Arcane Lore, but neither my Mage nor my Priest are gaining new spells. I'm guessing I have to learn them off of NPCs, but the only one I've found so far that was new and I bought-learnt this way didn't appear in the mage's spells come combat. I go back to the trainer and it says I can't learn any more levels as I've already learned it... but it's not in my selection of available spells! The game tells me that some spells require higher skill levels to cast, but after about 5 or 6 levels past when I bought it, I still can't cast it.

2. Likewise, I bought all the spell level-ups possible from the northern town after patiently looting every last plate from the cat-people fort where you get the necklace back for the mayor, but when I go to look at my spells, things like Light and Healing have gone up a level, but the actually useful combat spells, like Fire Blast and Smite are still showing level 1, and, again, stay that way even after pumping a few more levels of Intelligence and Mage Spells skills.

3. I have a pretty big inventory of Scrolls I've found around the place, including about 6 of which I can't cast normally. I was wondering if I'm supposed to somehow memorise these from Scrolls, but there's been no prompt to do this and there doesn't seem to be a button for it.

4. Likewise, I keep coming across loads of things like Papyrus, Ink Wells, Needle and Thread, and what seems like a whole raft of other crafting materials, but I have no idea if I'm supposed to be crafting or if these are all just fluff loot.

5. Bill, of Bill and Bill the Forgemasters, has asked me to find him cheap wine. I took him a Jug of Wine and got not dialogue prompts. Is this a bug?

Practically all enemy mages, even on the low levels, seem to be casting things like mass-summon, mass waterfall, mass-attack whatever spells, Paralise, Sleep and a whole raft of lovely over-powered spells while all I seem to have is level 1 Fireblast, Summon Beast, Smite, Heal and the usual slow/haste-type basic buffs/ailments. While I can 'find a way' working with peanuts it's getting to feel more and more like I'm either doing something wrong or the game is?

 

[Mustawd]

1. When you buy spells off of NPCs, they only have a limited selection to choose from. The lower level areas won't get you all the spells because, well, they are lower level. As you go to higher level areas you'll find NPCs with higher level spells.

2. Hmm...that's weird. I don't remember what makes certain spells go up, but I find what you're saying unusual. Did you read the manual to find out what makes them go up?

3. If they're just blank scrolls, then just sell them. Otherwise, iirc, they are one use only scrolls. Anyone in your party should be able to use them.

4. I never found a use for them.

5. Don't remember. Check Spiderwed forums

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Thanks for responding, but please be aware:

1. I was asking why the spell I did buy didn't appear in my spell selection, not where to find all the new spells.

2. I know what makes spells rise in level, I said in the question, you buy spell level upgrades off of NPCs, I asked why many of my spells didn't increase in power after purchasing the upgrade.

3. I know what scrolls are, I asked if I was supposed to use scrolls to memorise new spells, if there was a way to do this.

4. Thanks, that's useful to know.

5. It'll be a shame if I have to start wider googling, I'm fairly desperate not to expose myself to lots of potential spoilers. These are the only major issues I'm having atm.

 

[Mustawd]

5. Bill, of Bill and Bill the Forgemasters, has asked me to find him cheap wine. I took him a Jug of Wine and got not dialogue prompts. Is this a bug?

Actually, IIRC, I think this is just one of those "bring me these items and I will pay you X per item". So it's definitely something you can skip. Otherwise, try bringing him a bottle of wine? I don't recall if he bought jugs or not. again, not really a big quest to worry about.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I'm not worried about the quest, I'm worried about whether the game is capable of bugging out.

 

[Elwro]

Is it so in this game (played it a long time ago) that you have to be careful which character you're buying the spells with?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I don't think so, as both Light and Healing got level upgrades, though if this is the case and those were already boosted by some reason then I've just wasted 5,000ish gold pieces on bupkis.

 

[Modron]

1-2) As Elwro said, I remember training to be character specific you probably had your fighter selected when upgrading spells thus blowing all that money. Pay attention to which character you have highlighted when you get spell training in the future. As far as some spells going up, you probably found a party wide event (plenty of different things, bookcases, crystals, aranea spiderwebs, etc) that increased said spells while in a dungeon (there are a quite a few of them).

3) No learning from scrolls in game those just exist to be used sell off the crappy ones. I might be thinking of later games; but, there might be a few usable crystals that teach stuff.

4) There are a lot of misc items in game that don't really have any purpose, sometimes you get quests to bring x amount to someone or somebody out there who will buy papyrus/bars of iron; but generally speaking not needed to hold on to a lot of them until you get said quests/options.

5) I am pretty sure there is an actual item called cheap wine, not the jug of wine, that he wants.

as Mustawd already suggested the spiderweb forums probably have all questions already answered.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

1-2) Ok, I'll check that out next time I load up. someone earlier today said that wasn't it, but I'll see by trying. When you look at a bookcase and read a new scroll you'll get a pop-up which says which members of your party learnt the spell, for this not to work in shops, if this is the problem, is quite a big contrary mechanics issue. Money isn't really a problem in the game, what with infinite grind everywhere if you want it, but the lack of feedback the game gives about stuff like this is pretty annoying. If that is the problem, instead of NPCs giving so much fluff dialogue could not one of them just spent one line saying "The person who is going to use the spell needs to buy it", because it's not intuitive from other game mechanics where it doesn't matter who's leading the party, from Lock-picking to learning bookshelf spells . Thanks for replying though, I hope this is the answer as it's preferable to a worse alternative.

3) Yeah, I have a Lay-on-Hands crystal to use at some point, I just haven't decided who would best make use of it yet. It's a shame about scrolls, just having mages learn from scrolls as the be-all and end-all of spell learning was all that was needed really, not sure why scrolls are abundant but learning spells is persnickety and scarce.

4) This is awesome to know, thanks for that, I can stop worrying about whether selling the Silver Bar was the right thing to do or not now etc.

5) *rolls eyes*

As I replied to Mustward, I'm really trying to limit my spoilers to the minimum possible, hence why asking here and not googling. Someone posted a link earlier in response to a question and it was pages of spoilers about where everything in the game was. etc etc.

 

[Mustawd]

4) This is awesome to know, thanks for that, I can stop worrying about whether selling the Silver Bar was the right thing to do or not now etc.

There's a complete list of them out there. I'll see if I can track it down for you.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Thanks for the concern, but that's not something I'm interested in seeing, but please feel free to post it for any future potential lurkers who might be interested (in spoiler tags).

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Just to update, it is indeed correct that it was just a matter of talking to the vendor with the character that requires the spell (make them first in the party). So I set about storing up another batch of gold. Luckily I was just starting the Slithraki (whatever) area and those things are like cash machines, so I'd soon sorted all the spells out. While doing this I happened upon another gold mishap, once you reach 9000gp you cease being given any further money for traded goods, I suspect I lost another grand or two before I realised this, lol. Everything is flowing a lot easier now with all the spells from the spell shops at the mage tower, a lot easier meaning I haven't had to spend any skill points since I last posted and currently have at least 50 per character to spend should I need it. In the Mage's tower they're making a big deal about some Hakki or haaki demon thing, but I stumbled across one while emptying a friendly Slith dungeon full of Drakes and Basilisks and he had 4 of those warrior demon bodyguards and I just managed to beat it with my team's last breath, so I'm not sure what ramping up is left but it's all good fun and I'm so glad I started it so far.

 

[Doktor Best]

Which Avernum do you play by the way? The latest version, or the first remake?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It's whichever one comes with Gog's Complete Saga, which is, as far as I can tell, is the 2000 release. If it's a different version I'd be interested to know for future discussion reference also.

 

[Doktor Best]

Your version is the first remake of the DOS-game Exile 1. In 2011, Vogel released a second remake of it in his new engine, which is called Avernum: Escape from the Pit.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I thought my game was fucked last night.

I cleared out this Gremlin/Empire cave which involved some teleporters while I was just wandering about noseying around. Later on I arrived in a town which asked me to go destroy an orb there, which I hadn't found last time. So I go back and this time the teleporter takes me to a new venue within the cave and I destroy the orb and find two more teleporters. I then find myself in a teleporter loop of zooming around lock-in rooms with no means of getting back to the main cave. After going through all of the teleporters available to me multiple times with no change in this status I started to fear the worst, a fair few swear words admittedly exiting my mouth. Luckily I stuck with it a few more times and eventually one of them put me back to the main cave.

Much as I'm loving this game, there's quite a few instances of what can only be described as irritation for irritation's sake. Stuff that looks like it's part of the dev's personality to deliberately put irritation in the game as a game mechanic - see the cows that latch onto you outside a city you have to pass through to cross a river, see respawns when exiting a cleared dungeon, see the constant back-tracking, see the sudden Basilisk appearances after you haven't saved for a while etc etc etc.

So when you get something that might be a mild glitch, you're also never sure if it's intentional irritation either, making these little boiling points of player unhappiness that really needn't be a part of the game. Another really irritating one last night was this trapped box where you give it a password to open it. This quest involves running all about the map and, just for once, as I normally do a couple of times per session, I forgot to save when near my destination. I did the box fine but then on the way out there's this trap that takes about 1/4 damage as you walk out. I'd been playing too long and was just a tiny bit too impatient and didn't convert to fighting mode, so each movement cost a trap attack instead of each four movements. Combine this with the irritating mechanic that in 'sheathed mode' when you want to go backwards, suddenly all your team move forwards before backwards and just moving one square backwards sent my entire team through the trap. For some reason the mage got stuck there for two turns and died. I had to do all that running about again. It's only a 5/10 minute hassle, but it's one of those deep *sigh* moments that the game is all too common with.

Thankfully, all the positives far outweigh the irritations so far. I just hope I don't encounter a real problem that puts me back too far, something the game doesn't fill you with confidence wont happen.