Avernum Annotated Maps

Character Stats and Traits

See the strategy and tips page for more suggestions and comments provided by Alexander Denev about party development.

Each statistic can be raised 100 levels above the base value by paying skill points (except certain special skills which are noted as untrainable). The skill point cost is equal to the current purchased level of the skill * 2, rounded down, plus an "initial cost" noted on the table below. Thus if you have a strength and a dexterity of 6 each, your melee weapons skill has a base value of 4. Raising it to a 5 will cost 2 points (4 current level - 4 base level = 0 purchased level. 0 purchased level * 2 = 0 additional cost. 2 initial cost + 0 additional cost = 2 points to raise a level). Buying three more points of strength or dexterity would also raise the level to 5, but leave the purchased level at 0.

Figuring out the cost of a given level of skill is somewhat more complicated. First you have to figure out how much of that level is the base level and how much was purchased. This is easiest done by going into the character editor and setting the top four stats to whatever they are for the character in question, and then you have all the base values for all the stats. Anyway, once you know how many levels were purchased, you can figure out the number of skill points that cost by using a little formula for summing "all the numbers from one value to another". Say 12 levels were purchased, and the initial cost was 4. Then you know that you need to add up all the values from 4 to 9, and the cost is twice that. Call L the purchased level, and I the initial cost of the skill. Then if L is even, set L' to L. If L is odd, set L' to L - 1. If L is even, set A to 0, otherwise set A to L' / 2 + I. Anyway, after doing a lot of algebra involving the "sum of values from one point to another" formula, I get cost = I * L' + (L'² / 4) - (L' / 2) + A. e.g. In the previous example of 12 levels being purchased at initial cost of 4, that's 4 * 12 + 12²/4 + 12/2 + 0 = 48 + 144/4 - 6 = 42 + 36 = 78. For level 13, add 6 + 4 and get 88. Now the initial cost of the level doesn't come into play except in the first and last terms of the formula. And in the odd numbered case, A actually erases the third term and just adds I back. Adding I back is the same thing as adding +1 to the L' in the first term, so the first term is really just I * L. So basically I can just give you a table of last terms like this:

2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24
0	1	2	4	6	9	12	16	20	25	30	36	42	49	56	64	72	81	90	100	110	121	132

And just add I (initial cost) * L (the level) to get the cost of the level. Extension of the table into really high numbers which one can't sanely reach in the course of a given game is left as an exercise to the reader. (Here's a hint: though the formula is nice for going directly to a number, the table is easier to extend by ignoring the math behind it).

Stat	Base Value	Initial Cost	Use
Base Stats
Strength	2	5	Increases damage in melee combat, and weight allowance
Dexterity	2	5	Increases combat speed and odds of hitting with both melee and missile weapons.
Intelligence	1	5	Increases spell points and lore.
Endurance	3	4	Increases hit points and various resistances.
Weapon Skills
Melee Weapons	(STR + DEX) / 3	2	Increases hit odds with swords and such. Hit odds = 30% + (5% * melee).
Pole Weapons	(STR + DEX) / 3	2	Increases hit odds with spears, pikes, halberds. Hit odds = 30% + (5% * pole).
Bows	DEX / 2	2	Increases hit odds with bows and crossbows. Hit odds = 40% + (5% * bows).
Thrown Weapons	DEX / 2	1	Increases hit odds with javelins and rocks. Hit odds = 40% + (5% * thrown).
Hardiness	STR / 4	3	Each level has a chance of reducing incoming damage by 1.
Defense	DEX / 4	2	Reduces your odds of being hit by 4% per point.
Assassination	0	3	Increases damage when your level exceeds that of your target.
Magical Skills
Mage Spells	0	5	Increases spell points and effectiveness of mage spells.
Priest Spells	0	4	Increases spell points and effectiveness of priest spells.
Arcane Lore	INT / 2	1	Affects chances of reading magic writing (i.e. spells). Stats affected by this are pooled over the party.
Potion Making	INT / 4	1	Increases odds of making potions successfully.
Useful Skills
Tool Use	DEX / 2	1	Increases odds of picking locks and disarming traps.
Cave Lore	INT / 4	1	Increases odds of avoiding wandering monsters and has a number of places where it can get you bonus stuff.
First Aid	INT / 4	1	Allows you to heal characters somewhat. (N.B. I never, ever used this stat).
Luck	0	4	Raises resistances, among other unadvertised effects.
Special Skills (see index for where to find these)
Barter	0	1	Pooled across your whole party, increases return when selling items.
Blademaster	0	4	Increases both hit odds and damage with all melee and pole weapons.
Anatomy	0	2	Increases first aid, and damage against humans and humanoid monsters.
Gymnastics	0	2	Allows you to act faster in combat, reduces your odds of being hit in combat.
Pathfinder	0	1	Increases odds of passing through swamps and lava terrtain safely.
Find Herbs	0	n/a	(Untrainable) Gives a chance of finding herbs while walking outside (a potential money making skill).
Magery	0	n/a	(Untrainable) Makes spells you cast more effective.
Resistance	0	n/a	(Untrainable) Increases odds of resisting magical attacks.
Dread Curse	0	n/a	Makes you a little worse at everything you do - takes 500 coins in the Tower of Magi to get rid of it.
Derived Stats
Health	7 + END * (level / 2 + 2)		The number of hit points you get from Endurance goes from 2 to 22 with character level.
Spell Energy	4 * (INT + MAG + PRI)		So combo priest/wizards get many MANY more spell points than their specialist cousins.
Poison Resistance	END + LCK + HRD/2 + 2*RES		Each level gives 5% chance of avoiding poison damage.
Magic Resistance	LCK + MAG/2 + RES + MGRY		Each level gives 5% chance of resisting magical effects.
Willpower	INT + LCK + (MAG + PRI)/2 + MGRY		Each level gives 5% chance of resisting mind clouding effects like charm.
Resist Elements	LCK + DEX/4 + HRD/2 + 2*RES		Each level gives 5% chance of resisting 'elemental' attacks like from fire and ice.
Item Lore	ARC + (INT + MAG)/2		Pooled across your whole party, increases odds of identifying items.
Rune Reading	ARC + (MAG + PRI)/2 + MGRY		Pooled across your whole party, increases odds of deciphering spells and strange writing.

You can only have two traits on each character - good traits reduce the rate at which you gain experience, and bad traits increase it. The bad traits are bad enough that you do not wish to take them unless you're offsetting the experience penalty of a good trait. Never, ever take any trait which reduces your speed or action points - there are far too many monsters casting "slow" constantly already, and the last thing you need is to stand around doing nothing while monsters you could otherwise defeat nickle and dime you to death. Come to think of it, even as much as a 50% experience penalty seems like a "lot" but didn't seem to hamper my progress through the game. By default the first character has "Elite Warrior" and the last character has "Natural Mage" - you can change these if you like, but remember if you adopt an NPC they will inherit the default traits for their slot (which is to say they will have NO traits in slots 2 or 3). Note that if you use the character editor to turn on traits, you often will not gain their full effect - you will NOT gain special abilities and may not gain other bonuses associated with them.

Trait	XP Mod	Description
Good Traits
Great Renown	-10%	Bonus to initial reputation, "certain special encounters will be easier" - I assume that to mean it lowers the necessary reputation for many things.
Nimble Fingers	-15%	Bonus when picking locks and disarming traps - Alexander Denev reports this trait to be possibly broken in the windows version.
Beastmaster	-15%	gives you the Summon Beast ability.
Strong Will	-15%	Increases willpower type resistance
Good Education	-15%	Gives a bonus to rune reading and item lore.
Toughness	-20%	Decreases incoming damage and increases resistance to poison and disease.
Fast on Feet	-20%	Makes you move sooner in combat, sometimes gives additional action points.
Natural Mage	-25%	All your spells work better, and you can cast spells even while wearing encumbering armor.
Elite Warrior	-30%	Bonuses in combat which increase with level, plus gives you the Go Berserk ability.
Divinely Touched	-40%	Gives you the abilities Lay on Hands, Natural Curing, and Call Spirit.
Bad Traits
Cursed At Birth	+20%	Somtimes gives a penalties to actions, and increases damage from magic.
Sickness Prone	+20%	Increases damage from poison, disease, and such.
Sluggish	+30%	Makes you slower in combat and gives you fewer actions.
Brittle Bones	+30%	Increases damage from all physical combat.
Completely Inept	+40%	A combination of all other bad effects.

Finally, these are the special abilities - most of which you can gain at character creation time by taking special traits. Which also means taking those traits is less useful since ALL of these abilities can be found in the game (see the index for where) (except Elite Warrior which has bonuses way over and beyond the Go Berserk ability).

• Summon Beast - once per day you can summon a monster, the power of which goes up with your level.
• Call Spirit - once per day you can summon a shade, the power of which goes up with your level.
• Lay on Hands - once per day you can heal yourself, the amount of health gained goes up with your level.
• Natural Curing - once per day you can cure yourself of poison and/or disease.
• Go Berserk - once per day you can berserk, which increases your combat effectiveness (more at higher levels), but makes you easier to hit.
• Inner Might - once per day you can bless yourself, which increases your combat damage (more at higher levels).
• Defensive Glow - once per day you can shield yourself, more damage is absorbed at higher levels.

Character Classes

It's true, since all classes have 5 extra points, you get 2 free skill points for a cleric, 1 free skill point for a hedge wizard, and LOSE 2 skill points for a rogue. In light of that, clerics and hedge wizards should each lose a point of first aid, and rogues should gain a point of bows or cave lore (or lose a point of cave lore to have a tool use of 8).

NPCs

	Jay	Andrew	Sabrina	Theresa (Mona)
Base Stats
Strength	6	7	10	11
Dexterity	8	7	7	11
Intelligence	3	1	10	3
Endurance	7	8	9	10
Weaponry Skills
Melee Weapons	8	8	13	23
Pole Weapons	4	9	5	16
Bows	12	3	3	13
Thrown Weapons	10	8	3	6
Hardiness	3	3	5	7
Defense	3	3	5	7
Assassination	0	2	0	8
Magical Skills
Mage Spells	0	0	0	0
Priest Spells	0	0	18	0
Arcane Lore	1	0	16	1
Potion Making	0	0	8	0
Useful Skills
Tool Use	4	16	3	5
Cave Lore	4	6	5	6
First Aid	3	2	13	6
Luck	0	2	2	2
Other
Cost of Skills	154	202	460	422
Free Points	86	116	344	286
Level	3	5	15	20
Special	Barter: 2 Find Herbs: 1	Barter: 1 Pathfinder: 3 Resistance: 1	Find Herbs: 3 Gymnastics: 3 Pathfinder: 6 Magery: 4 all L2 priest spells (except last 4)	Blademaster: 6 Anatomy: 8

Why, yes, they DO have many more skills than you could possibly have at their level - and that doesn't even count their special skills. Jay "should" cost 68, Andrew 76, Sabrina 116, and Theresa 136. By contrast, the maximum skill points a regular character will have is 221 (before knowledge brews). And that Find Herbs 3 on Sabrina is actually impossible to get any other way (which can be good if you're into potions or just like making money selling herbs). Their big disadvantages are that they will have to gain many, MANY experience points before they get more skill points - or you'll have to get a lot of knowledge brews (you can get an infinite number of these with time and money - just keep buying Silverlocke in Blosk area out of her entire stock and she'll fully replenish).

They have no "traits," but inherit the default traits for the slot they are adopted in - if brought into slot 1, they will have "Elite Warrior". If brought into slot 4, they will have "Natural Mage".

Experience Needed For Each Level

This is total experience, not difference from last level. There is a level cap of 40. For some unknown reason the experience cap is 30,000 instead of 17,200. Read level as your destination level, not your current level. You gain 4 skill points per level, and your level over 2 (rounded down) determines how much each point of endurance is worth to your total hit points. All classes gain levels and skill points the same way.

Level	Experience		Level	Experience		Level	Experience		Level	Experience
1	--		11	1,500		21	5,000		31	10,500
2	100		12	1,800		22	5,500		32	11,200
3	200		13	2,100		23	6,000		33	11,900
4	300		14	2,400		24	6,500		34	12,600
5	400		15	2,700		25	7,000		35	13,300
6	500		16	3,000		26	7,500		36	14,000
7	700		17	3,400		27	8,100		37	14,800
8	900		18	3,800		28	8,700		38	15,600
9	1,100		19	4,200		29	9,300		39	16,400
10	1,300		20	4,600		30	9,900		40	17,200

Feedback

You can write me at hasen@flash.net - let me know if I missed or misspelled anything.

Copyright and Authorship Info

Avernum is copyright 2000-2001 by Spiderweb Software, Inc. - http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com, All Rights Reserved.
"Avernum" and "Spiderweb Software" are trademarks of Spiderweb Software, Inc.
The annotated maps were made by silver Harloe

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