Avernum Annotated Maps
Strategy and Tips
Small tips:
- If you see something that is Not Yours in a barrel or crate, just move it
around until you get out of sight and steal away. This is especially useful
for newer parties in Fort Avernum's supply depot. -- Adam Foltzer
- At the beginning of the game, pick up every object that you can without getting caught
for stealing. Once your cash flow begins to grow, just loot those objects that
have a high cash value. This way you’ll be saving some major space in your
inventory. -- Pete Vrankovic.
- Never sell anything if you have 9000 gold. That is the limit you can carry and saving
objects for when you’re low on cash is a good plan. If you want to free up your inventory
just drop them while close to a dealer. That way you can pick them up later if you need to.
-- Pete Vrankovic (this and the previous tip come from the
GA-RPG review of Avernum).
Tips from silver:
- In the early game, battle rage OFTEN. which is why both your spellcasters
should have it. One for each fighter. Always put a point of priest on your mage.
- Most important stats: Strength - on all characters. affects the weight
of items you can carry (good armor is heavy) and damage you can absorb via hardiness.
Cave Lore - avoid those wandering encounters. Some cave lore is needed
to ID some patches of potion ingredients as such. These are always the
ingredients with the highest value. Plus there's random rewards here and there
for high cave lore.
- Don't bother with "back up plans in case I run out of spell points" - there's
only four places in the game where you can't just walk outside and wait until
you have spell points again, and three of those are the last maps of the three major
quests. Take energy potions on those levels (or save your wands for them).
- Don't bother with non-sword weapons or skills. You just don't have the
points to make it worthwhile, and the best magic weapons are swords.
- Don't bother with potion making at first, but keep those ingredients.
Potions have a higher re-sale value than their constituent ingredients.
You probably don't need to make potions to use - only some
invulnerability and restoration and energy is useful, only in the last
levels of the three major quests.
- Don't bother with food - the 'wait' key works as well as resting - better,
in fact, since you can wait in areas where you can't rest.
- Haste level 3 is the best spell ever. 3 spell points, fixes up your whole
party.
- When you slay Adze-Haakai, go ahead and drop a few bucks to give Mage Spells
L1-5 to your front line fighters (it takes no skill points, after all).
Not to use - to distract Mung Demons who like to dumbfound the nearest spellcaster.
- Habitually hit control-S often.
- Historical scrolls, sacks of meal, ore, and the like are waste of time "quests".
You don't have the inventory space to worry about it for the tiny rewards you'll get.
(The problem isn't the weight, it's the limit of 20 items combined with none of these
things being "stackable")
- Tool use is still important for traps, no matter how good your unlock doors spell
is. Build it up.
- You can get a Magery of 8 (or even 10) if you wait to use the crystal until after you buy the
first five levels. Similarly with blademaster, you can get to level 8 or even 11
without any skill points at all.
Tips from Dr. S. Douglass:
[ed. note - Dr. Douglass beta tested the games and has played through it quite a few
more times than I have. I retyped most of a letter he sent me mostly about character/
party design]
"I noticed that you have mentioned having two swordsmen up front as quite a few else
have, and I agree. This can be a good thing. However, there is a good use for spears.
The enchanted ones like Ghoulbane and Smite are useful, and then there is the SHDB.
Super heavy damage blow. With a Blessed Halbred, a high assassination skill, and
battle rage, I have seen a character hit for 200+ damage in one strike. You
must admit that is pretty impressive." [ed note - even with my cheated-for-mapping
character, I never saw strikes over 100 damage using a sword].
"The same thing for Crossbows. 32 points of damage is the base factor for
damage. With battle rage, and a good hit, they can do some serious damage.
Quite good for a spell caster with low spell points or when those damn Mung
Demons dumbfound you. Archery is a good skill to have for limited purposes.
"Me personally, I have a slightly different party structure, and I find, in
the long run, this works. Two swordsmen, one spearman, and one mage/priest (like a hedge wizard).
Starts off slow and you need to buy a lot of knowledge brews for the spell caster,
but, in the end this guy is a powerhouse. With all the mage and priest levels,
his (or her) magic resistance is top notch. Spell points in the hundreds.
I have even seen my spell caster resist a dumbfounding from a Mung Demon once
(and only once. since then, this has never repeated).
"Also, fun things to try: Beat the game with four fighters. No spell casters.
It can be done. Just have one guy with potion making skill. This is not at
all easy. For even more of a challenge, same deal, with with 4 Archers. In
some ways this is actually easier. You seem to take less damage when you
avoid close combat. Killing Hawthorne was a problem that I would rather not
talk about, but I will say, each shot took about one point most of the times
from those Royal Guards. Ugh. Four Priests. Plenty of healing, and some
serious punch at the end. Four Priests, each one casting Divine Warrior on
themselves. The effect was awesome. For all these parties, bring tons of
Dispel Barrier crystals and scrolls. And then four Mages. I think this one
was my favorite. You can summon an entire army of critters with this team,
and have them do the physical combat. However, fighting Mung Demons was a
serious problem. That was very bad. And last but not least, four thieves.
In this game there are blessed daggers, an Assassin's dagger, and a Diamond
Dagger. This was kinda interesting. I mostly would sneak around and avoid
combat all together. Lots of Assassination skill made the times when I did
have to fight much easier."
Tips from Alexander Denev:
- For PCs you create yourself, you might try the combination of Natural Mage +
Brittle Bones (or Sickness Prone) for a mage; you'll probably be able to
keep him/her out of melee. Also, Fast on Feet might be fun to experiment
with. Nimble Fingers doesn't seem to work at all (perhaps a bug in v1.00 for
Windows).
- The NPCs start with zero experience (even L20 Theresa), but get lots of
'free' skill points, only some of which are wasted on things like First Aid.
So, in the long run, it pays off (although it might pay off too late). Also,
don't forget that you can customize the NPCs by changing the name and graphic.
- Jay:
If you're not testing some really exotic party, the first thing you should
do is to run to Silvar and pay him 100 gold to join in slot 1 (Elite Warrior).
You'll get a level 3 swordsman and archer with 28 health points, 2 levels of Barter (a 300+ gold value)
and 1 level of Find Herbs (also gives you extra income).
- Andrew:
A good fighter and excellent thief (with 1 level of Resistance - somewhat
useful) - just what the doctor prescribes for slot 2 (though you might want
him to make him join in slot 4 at first so that you can develop him as a
mage later). It takes him 500 XPs to level the first time - this is becoming
a nuisance...
- Sabrina:
Very powerful. If you can kill the Gap Drake within reasonable time, and
don't mind waiting ages until she gets 3000 XPs to level, just delete your
priest and get her instead. You can develop her as a 'shaman' (MAG 18, PRI
18) - put her in slot four make her a Natural Mage.
- Theresa/Mona:
Not very useful, unless you can join the Scimitar very early in the game.
She doesn't fit in well in a party with the other 3 NPCs, and her higher
level (5000 XPs to level the first time) will make her high Assassination
skill less useful (you don't need to assassinate goblins...).
- I'd recommend the following party: slot 1: Jay; slot 2: Andrew; slot 3: Sabrina; slot 4:
A mage starting with MAG 8 (Lightning Spray will take care of those goblins and Nephilim...),
PRI 3, Natural Mage + Brittle Bones.
- Sulfras has Boots of Speed and a Mage Robe (aka Robe of The Magi) just in
front of her, and you can challenge her the same way you can challenge Athron
(without losing Reputation).
Tips from Michael Young:
- You can kill Athron without a Reputation penalty. After you get the
L3 Slow and the Password Part from her, call Athron a worm and stay consistently
insulting. Athron attacks, leaving you justifiably defensive.
- After getting all of the information, spells, and alchemy from
Patrick's Tower, kill everyone in the tower using the basilisk. You get
a Diamond Dagger, and more importantly, a Robe of the Magi (better mage
casting) when Patrick meets his stony demise. The guards have steel
chain mail and steel bolts that make it worthwhile to do this. The
guards have a 95% chance to hit using the steel bolts, so you have to
leave the tower everytime it gets close to dying. This puts a fresh,
unhurt basilisk back in place - ready to stone away. [ed note: what this means
is: free the basilisk and then run to an exit and wait. If the basilisk gets
hit twice, exit immediately. A third hit will kill it. And the basilisk will die
if Patrick even sneezes at it. And the guards resist a LOT, so this will take a
long time and a lot of tedious saving and loading, and closing the door behind the
basilisk to try to herd it. Good luck.]
- Cleansing Spire - remember to talk to Meena after taking the Silver
Circlet, then admit to stealing it. Everyone in town tries to kill you
- even the Scimitar contact. Actually one of the toughest battles in Avernum.
[ed note: when I did this I was not attacked by the Scab, Zagat, or either of
the ogres involved in the Arena setup]
Scott Rychnovsky's Two-Character Party Story and Tips:
I went through the game with a two-member party: Priest-(elite
warrior) and Mage a (natural mage). It was very hard early on, and
lots of the groups one wanders into are very rough. Always use battle
rage and haste or you will not have a chance. I turned both of them
into very good fighters, with the priest specializing in melee weapons
and archery and the mage specializing in pole weapons and archery.
A group of two improves fast because they split all the experience
points. By the end of the game they were completely maxed out (well
over 24000 experience points; they max out at level 40). The priest
ended up at level 17 and the mage at level 13, but they were very good
warriors and very hard to kill. Keep lots of potions around (healing
and energy) for the nasty parts. The various ambushes were very
interesting. I found the Grah-Hoth fight easier with this pair than
with the default group -- you don't have any weak characters to die on
you. The best pole weapon is the jade halberd and the best melee weapon
is the alien blade. There are always enough magic rings and good armor and
weapons to equip two characters.
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
All content on these pages which is not copyrighted by Spiderweb Software, Inc. is copyright
2000-2001 by silver Harloe, All Rights Reserved. Exceptions on this page only: text sent to me in
private communication is jointly owned by the credited people; the tips from Pete Vrankovic
are copyright 1999 by Gamer's Alliance Inc., Used by Permission.
Express written permission is hereby granted to Jeff Vogel and Spiderweb Software, Inc.
to use this content in whole or in part, to modify or redistribute it, or even to take
over the copyright.
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