Avernum 2 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.
• 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:

"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.
• The NPCs start with zero experience (even L20 Bekka), 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.

Scott Rychnovsky's Two-Character Party Story and Tips:

Hints from Matt P

• ITEM STATS:M In general, try to figure out if something is better than what you've got. For instance, a stone spear has stats of 2-20 -1, whereas an iron spear has stats of 2-20. The stone spear has an average damage rating of 10, but the iron spear has an average damage rating of 11. Go for iron. This is pretty much always true. The hierarchy of items is bronze/crude/poor/stone < iron < steel < blessed. Look in the equipment section for a stat summary.
• FINDING STUFF: Look in items. Press "L" and choose something. The best stuff is found in crates, barrels, dressers, bookcases, desks, and of course chests. On rare occasions, you can find stuff in other objects- for instance, in Fort Ganrick, there are some casks in the equipment room which have some cheap wine hidden in them, which you can take.
• It ain't a crime if you don't get caught. Many items have a "NY" next to them. If you try to take the item, and someone is watching, you get in trouble (and may even instantly die). There are ways around this.
• FOOD: There's a big selection of food in this game. Generally, I go for the lightest (greens), and ignore the heavier lizard haunches and fine meals. If you want variety, pick up all that you can. You should never need to buy food, as there's always plenty lying around.
• LOOT: From luthien on the spiderweb message boards: If you're loading up on loot and hit the max items, you can pick up a couple more things if you equip the non-magic jewelry (or any other items like bows and missiles that you don't already have equipped). This is typically only useful earlier in the game before your characters are completely decked out. Also, you may find yourself unable to carry any more. There are a few ways around this, from Zeviz: There is also a (slightly cheating) way to carry much more than your weight allowance. When you are trying to equip an item, it does not go through the weight check. So if you equip that super heavy Empire armor straight from the ground, you'll be able to carry it even if it takes you over your weight allowance. And from TIE187: Also, if your party has a strength bracelet, you can pass it around and equip it on each character when they're picking up loot. It adds 60 stones to the character's carry capacity, up to 350 stones. Again, "the problem is that you can't drop anything since you won't be able to pick them up again."
• QUESTS: Quests are your main source of reputation, and a good source of gold and xp. Whenever you complete a quest, be sure to get your reward! Uncompleted (ones where you've not received a reward) quests can be found under "Current quests" in the character info screen. From luthien on the spiderweb message boards: It appears that the penalty for experience is random. If your penalty is -50%, I think the 50% is applied by giving each point a 50% chance of occurring. Either that or some other distribution. I've completed quests worth 30 XP where the 50% penalty character will get anywhere from 10 to 20 XP. The moral of the story is, save before you complete a quest or some other big-XP action. It will be hard to get max XP for all your characters, but at least you can prevent one PC from getting cheated too much.
• WANDERING ENCOUNTERS: Whenever presented with the option to be friendly, do so. More often than not the others will react with friendliness or indifference. If nothing comes of this, save, then attack. From luthien on the spiderweb message boards: Since loot and experience are so valuable, I will usually save the game right before any wandering encounter. Then reload the game to make sure I get the maximum number of enemies. 8 bladesman, 6 empire archers is better than 5 and 3...
• LEARNING CRYSTALS: You'll occasionally find one of the really nice learning crystals. They're small blue things that come in three flavors- abilities, skills, and energy pulse. Ability crystals give you a new ability, like lay on hands or something. Skill crystals teach you 3 points in a given skill (for some skills, hold on using these until you have purchased as much skill as possible to get the maximum result). Energy pulse crystals just dumbfound you, but are good to sell at 599c apiece.
• MAGIC BARRIERS: There are three types: fire, which can be walked through for damage, force, which are impenetrable but can be removed with a dispel barrier spell, and Big and Weird, which are those which are separating Avernum and which you'll run into again later.
• HERBS: There are two types of herb patches- one is found on the outdoor map as a special encounter, the other is found in an actual dungeon. The latter are much better as they have more herbs than the outdoors ones. There are 3 dungeon herb patches. Come back to either of them every 5-7 days or so to pick up some more herbs.
• SINGLE PLAYER AREAS: There are a few occasions in which you have to select a specific character to do a quest. This is one of them. In general, choose the character best suited for the job (obviously). Addition from TIE187 on the spiderweb message boards: For single PC quests, I use my Mage/priest. I give him or her all the protection and special armor the others wear: shielding spike, 2 or 3 amulets and jewelry, rogue leather, lockpicks. Having your choice of Priest or Mage spells and the large amount of mana that goes along with training in both is quite nice.
• NPCS: All npcs are stronger than your characters at their respective levels, for the most part. There are a few role playing considerations, but if you want a powerful party, get them to join you. NPCs also get character traits based on their position of entry: if they start as the first character, they get elite warrior, and as the last, they get natural mage.
• SPELL CASTING: The power of one's spells are based partly on luck, and partly on the mysterious Bonus. The mage bonus is equal to the mage spells skill + int/2, and the same is respectively true for priest spells. There are some ways of increasing this ability through wearing items, acquiring skills, or choosing specific character traits. The mage's bracelet and the robe of the magi both give a +4 bonus to your character. However, wearing both does not give 10 bonus, so it is best just to wear one. The magery skill gives a bonus equal to the number of points in this skill. The natural mage trait gives a bonus of 4 at the beginning, and may increase with levels. For priests, there is only the priest's bracelet. The mage's bracelet and the robe of the magi do not affect priest spell strength, however, both magery and natural mage do. More on Natural mage from Alex: Unlock Doors level 1 is the easiest way to see how the bonus is calculated. My result: The bonus is incremented every 7th level, so the benefit of Natural Mage is:

  +4 at level 1

  +5 at level 7

  +6 at level 14 etc.

  There is also an increase of 0.4 per level whether you have Natural Mage or not (i.e. it's on top of the Natural Mage bonus). This makes Divinely Touched (+1 regardless of level) look even less attractive. TO HIT: Interestingly, there is no 95% cap to fighting unarmed. Even so, the damage done is pitiful, so I wouldn't recommend this.

COMBAT VS MONSTERS

• DEMONS, DRAKES: At low levels, you can take them on one at a time with the bind foe 1 spell. Cast it once a turn, and pummel them with all of your other characters. At high levels, they should present too much a problem, just wait with your mage till the end of the turn, and cast haste to void their slow spells.
• WIZARDS, RAKHASHI: Only try these guys on higher levels. They can easily destroy an unprepared low level party. The bind foe 1 strategy can take them out, one at a time, but it's more time consuming. A decent strategy is to summon up a null bug, and either sit in the antimagic field, or get the bug right up next to them, and hit them with your weapons. Missile weapons are quite effective on these guys too. Cloud of blades is the only spell that can hurt the rakhashi.
• DOOMGUARDS: Hit hard and fast. Divine warrior, blessed and hasted warriors are necessary. Do not use the jade halberd while fighting these guys. Monster summoning is also generally a bad idea, since they are immune to magic, and will split even if they take only one damage.
• DERVISHES: Eventually these guys are only a mild nuisance. Still, at low levels, bind foe 3 works wonders. Most damaging spells work too slow to be of much use.
• LICHES, HAAKAI: Pray they don't hit you with their charming ray- it's quite difficult to resist. Otherwise, the bind foe 1 trick could work quite well, and repel spirit is rather powerful.
• GARZAHD: Demon slaying arrows are the way to go, honest. They do 50 damage a hit, the best possible. Don't worry about his non- spellcasting friends, they actually will help you by diverting his arcane shields.
• GENERAL: Haste works wonders. Before entering a battle, cast haste (or beast ceremony), then (w)ait, being sure that the enemy doesn't do anything. This'll give you an extra attack. Some hints from Zeviz on the spiderweb message boards: If you open a door to find a room full of hard monsters, you can close the door back by clicking look button and looking at the door. (Warning: this does NOT work in combat mode) Now you can proceed with advice 2 and 3. 2. If you see monsters in a dungeon, but they haven't seen you yet, you can still cast Beast Ceremony if you close a door in front of you or run behind a corner (or wait until your light runs out). 4. If you are in a dungeon, faced with the enemies who have no long range attacks, you can cast your defensive and summoning spells without entering combat mode. Since the enemies move 1 square per turn when not in combat, you will have more time to cast spells before enemies cover the distance between you and them.

REPLAYING SUGGESTIONS:

• Try the game on a higher difficulty level.
• Try the game playing as all the NPCs for a super-powerful party.
• Try the game as all magic users.
• Try it with only 2 people in your party.
• Try it with all sliths, with completely inept people, etc.

GOING SOLO:

• Try a slith, they are the most powerful race, and give him the natural mage trait, and some other trait, probably. Why so many traits? Experience is very easy to come by. When I played a solo game with a slith natural mage, I maxed out my level before finishing any of the 3 major quests, and then stopped playing. I would not go for either beastmaster or divinely touched, since as a solo character you'll get crystals with these abilities quickly. Maybe go for strong will, because if you're paralyzed or put to sleep, you're pretty much dead. Fast on feet could be good, too. Elite warrior isn't as useful, since your character may build up enough skills to become quite powerful without this spell. Toughness could be nice as well, but with only one character, you end up equipping all the best armor anyway, minimizing the bonus of this skill.
• Starting out: Plunk most of your skill points into spells. You'll rely heavily on them at the beginning. Hardiness is also an important skill, since you want to keep all of your AP and wear the best armor possible. The exception may be the thinking cap, which is an excellent item that improves your spells, something that is badly needed. You may want to eventually replace it with the mage's bracelet, and put on a blessed steel helm instead. In terms of armor, get the best possible. Go for blessed plate rather than icy chain, and then go for a dragonskin cloak. You won't regret it. Getting a freedom charm early may be a good idea.
• How things are different, bad: You'll get smacked around more, and will need to cast haste before almost every fight. You can't learn several spells (the ones that require vahnatai lore>5), and will have a very hard time obtaining some items (like the alien blade and the mage bracelet). You actually have to put skill points in barter in order to sell items at a good price, and will have to cast safe travel 3 occasionally, too. The fight-end cheat doesn't work anymore.
• How things are different, good: Getting slowed isn't so bad. Just end combat, and fight the enemies one on one. Haste 1 and 2 are very nice, battle rage 3 is super. You can use all the mind crystals on one character, rather than spreading them around. A lot of spells that once weren't used at all suddenly become somewhat useful.
• The best reason for trying this is that you create a character who can slay empire troops without any hassle, and who is ultra-powerful, almost like a greek god. It's very satisfying.
• Additionally, from Luthien: Another con is looting dungeons! It's a major pain to have to leave every time your inventory is full. However, you can get around this by using the create a PC option, and creating a character with 10 strength to lug stuff around for you. This also will help you use the fight-end cheat. Also, you can store characters with high barter skill and use them when selling expensive items (or when needing vahnatai lore or rune reading). A quick note about creating characters -- you can only do it in 'major' towns, which still makes it a bit awkward when you're deep in a dungeon. However, if you simply clean out a dungeon via fighting and don't pick things up along the way, you can go to town and create 3 characters with 10 strength and come back. Another con is Gymnastics costing 5000 gold for 1 character- yowch!. Finally, another con about looting is wilderness encounters. Sure, in a dungeon you just make lots of trips. But when you fight wandering monsters (especially empire troops), you all too often need to leave chain mails and steel shields lying on the ground!
• Some of the pros are that you can spend all your money on one character (including all those knowledge brews!). Also, I've used bows with the 1 PC more than I ever have before. What a great way to save those precious spell points! That's why I went back and started again as a Nephil -- good with bows and acts quick in combat without needing fast on feet, which leaves room for natural mage and elite warrior (or strong will as you suggest).

COMMON QUESTIONS:
If you just want to find something fast, check here. Then search this faq for the areas listed.

I'm having trouble opening a book. What's up?
One of several possibilities: you don't have enough rune reading skill, you don't have enough vahnatai lore, you don't have the deciphering lens, or you don't have the blessed athame.

Where are the passes?
Red- GIFTS cave, area east of Motrax's cave, Almaria (on the Blosk spy quest). Blue- Secret Empire Fort, Unfinished Empire Fort. Gray- Totem halls.

Where do I get the deciphering lens or the blessed athame?
Patrick will give you the deciphering lens. Go to his tower. The blessed athame is found in the Halls of chaos.

I'm having problems in the empire portal fort. Help?
Make sure you have the ritual from the barrier tower, and the onyx scepter. Then get or do the things needed in the three sections (SW, SE, NE).

How do I get into Pyrog's cave?
Present the evidence found in Fort Dolthar to the vahnatai council, then go around back.

How do I bring down the barriers in Angierach?
Use a phoenix egg. You can get one in Pyrog's cave or from Rentar.

How do I get passed some empire guards?
As often as not, you can't. These serve to end the explorable area. Examples of this are Bargha, the cliff in front of Garzahd's fortress, and the area north of Dharmon. Otherwise, you probably need a pass, or need to kill them.

Where is the Adamantite armor?
There is no adamantite armor. You've been had.

HIDDEN SKILL SUMMARY
Same info as in walkthrough, but also with the location of raising places, ignoring mind crystals.

BARTER is a very useful skill. It increases the selling prices of your items. Get 5 points for everyone, pretty much as soon as you can. Don't bother training in this skill, though, just get Tor to max you out. Every time you get 150 coins or so, come back and have him educate you. You'll quickly max out your skill. 60% is the maximum selling price obtainable through any means. (Tor)

PATHFINDER is a nice and useful skill. It allows you to walk on places which normally hurt you, like swamps, magic-zappers, and even lava. As such, possessing enough of this skill makes the safe travel spell completely obsolete. By everyone 5 points, except for one character. For this one character buy only 2 points. You'll find a learning crystal later on which'll give you three more points in this skill. Don't bother training in this skill, as there is no benefit to getting more than 20 (or even ~17 for that matter). (Priest in Formello)

VAHNATAI LORE- A special skill that can not be trained. This skill will help you in a few important encounters. Get around about 10 points total, that's all you really need. (Vahnatai in ruins, E of Avit, W of Mancuso)

ANATOMY: This is an expensive skill. It's worth it though. Almost all the enemies in Avernum are humanoid, meaning you'll always get more damage. It does around about 1 point of damage per skill point invested, but only against humanoids. It affects both melee and missile, but only seems to add .5 points of damage per skill point with missiles. It also affects first aid, if you use it. Buy it when you can or remember. When you get a big batch of cash, go ahead and use it on this. When someone gets a 5 in this skill, you may want to get that mind crystal you found in Chapter 1 and get 3 more free points. (Priest in Mertis)

MAGERY: A great skill. Unfortunately, you can't train in it. It will increase the power of all your spells (even magery). It's a great skill for mages and not too bad for priests. Get more points from the drake. (Solberg, Ice Drake, Erika)

PARRY: A decent defensive skill. It makes you dodge blows occasionally, especially if you defend. Max it out, as it's cheap and useful for everyone. Later you'll be able to acquire another point in this skill for free, so that's why it's best to get everyone at 5. (Mancuso, island near Patrick's tower)

BLADEMASTER: A nice skill. Unfortunately, no one teaches it to you, so you have to train yourself in this skill. It's worth training in occasionally, as it increases your melee ability. (Bug shrine)

GYMNASTICS: A decent skill which is trainable. It makes you act faster in combat, and dodge more blows. Buy some and be happy. (Trainer near Fort Remote).

FIND HERBS: A nice skill, which unfortunately can't be trained in or otherwise improved (unless you have Wendy, who starts with a point). With this skill you'll randomly find potion ingredients when traveling about by land. (Justin in Blosk).

DREAD CURSE: Technically, it's a special ability. Don't pursue it, though. Fortunately in this game it's a lot harder to get than it was in Avernum 1. Mother Clarisse in the tower will cure it for you. (Doing bad things)

RESISTANCE- a most excellent skill. It'll block a lot of damage. There's only two ways to get this skill unfortunately, and you can't train in it, or it'd make your party unstoppable. Damn. (Vahnatai fort).