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A3: Wand of Absorption? in The Avernum Trilogy
Apprentice
Member # 3420
Profile #0
So I'm clearing out the Monastery of Madness, and in the treasure room I find a Wand of Absorption. The description tooltip reads "Changes Experience When Used". Except, it doesn't. When I zap the thing, my "mind feels a sudden burst of clarity". My XP doesn't increase or decrease.

Clarity is a word sometimes used to describe curing dumbfounding, but if I use the editor to feed myself an energy pulse crystal, the wand doesn't cure it.

Does anyone know what this item is supposed to do?
Posts: 31 | Registered: Tuesday, September 2 2003 07:00
Oh no you don't. There is no disadvantage when soloing. in The Avernum Trilogy
Apprentice
Member # 3420
Profile #12
You CAN make an arcane lore mule, it just goes against my personal ethics of playing a singleton. I just force myself to wait until my singleton can afford the extra points in intelligence or lore.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Tuesday, September 2 2003 07:00
Oh no you don't. There is no disadvantage when soloing. in The Avernum Trilogy
Apprentice
Member # 3420
Profile #9
Drakefyre: Creating arcane lore mules doesn't let you access books that were otherwise unavailable to a singleton. You CAN always add more int and arcane lore to a high level character, it just takes effort. As for vahnatai lore, you've got a point.

Dikiyoba: Some special skills are *quite* expensive. Also, in each of the avernum games, at some point, money can be spent on obtaining more skill points (sometimes a lot of money).
Posts: 31 | Registered: Tuesday, September 2 2003 07:00
Oh no you don't. There is no disadvantage when soloing. in The Avernum Trilogy
Apprentice
Member # 3420
Profile #4
I'm running a singleton through A2 as well.

In my book, it's okay to spontaneously make a party with three other L1 ten-strength PCs to clean up the chain mail at the Empire outposts after they're empty, but it's not okay to make three other L1 PCs that dump all their points in arcane lore so that I can read more spells.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Tuesday, September 2 2003 07:00
German review translation in Avernum 4
Apprentice
Member # 3420
Profile #0
While I eagerly wait for the Windows port to be completed, I thought I'd try brushing up on my German.

This is the review posted yesterday in the "news" page. Disclaimer: I am not actually German, I've just studied the language about 5 years. Some mistakes may still be present.

-------------------------

Among RPG fans and Shareware experts, the American company "Spiderweb Software" has enjoyed a good reputation. No wonder, since they have been supplying their fans with meaty new games, on and off since the days of Mac OS 8. After a somewhat lengthy break, they have released the fourth part of the Avernum series.

A story of epic proportions
There's plenty to do with your band of heroes, as you take either a standard group of 4 or a carefully tweaked custom party into an adventure starting at Fort Monastery. As the story slowly develops, each moment is packed with excitement about what happens next. The excitement doesn't let up until peace returns to the land, after an estimated 60-80 hours of gameplay. The duration of the game can vary drastically depending on playstyle and the number of side quests you complete.

Practically every settlement, in addition to having its own purpose, also contains a so-called Job board, where one can obtain some diverse and more-or-less well compensated tasks. In this way, you can improve your reputation as well as acquiring some silver, which can be exchanged for better equipment, in grand RPG tradition. At character creation, there are many choices of character types such as mages, priests, warriors, berserkers, rogues, etc, and also three different races to pick from. You'll want to choose carefully, since only a balanced team will have a realistic chance of surviving the adventure.

Hard, but fair
When that first hour isn't going as well as you would have liked, the game conveniently provides an option to change the difficulty setting. Fortunately, reviving one member of your party is no problem at all, but it can be annoying when your whole party gets destroyed in an ambush. In that case, only frequent save-and-reload will help you, which is easy to do at any point from the game menu.

During the game, the party members do not have individual personalities [in terms of interacting with the plot]. Some gamers may not enjoy this, but I thought it was not a problem; it allowed me to quickly identify with my virtual ego.

To further develop your party, you'll get lots of treasure along the way, and with each level you'll get a few skill points to spend on one of several disciplines. In addition to magical and weaponry skills, there are other skills like Tool Use and First Aid to learn, so that you can cross any hurdle in case of emergency.

A breath of days past
Technically, Avernum 4 is unfortunately very dated. Or in other words, pure nostalgia! Depends on your perspective. The fact is, your party doesn't have much of a walking animation, and the combat animations are pretty spartan. The isometric 3-D landscapes are lovely and have many tiny details, but in the long run they get pretty boring. Life in the underworld isn't particularly colorful, and few things are more complex than a simple image alternation.

The same is true about the sound; it's on about the same level as the graphics, and after the title screen, it's quiet enough for you to play iTunes.

A significant issue with Avernum 4 is the language, which can't be changed from English. For those whose mastery of English isn't as great, there's a constant danger of missing important information in the dialogues.

Summary
For those who aren't thrown off by the "nostalgic" presentation of Avernum 4, it's an amazingly complex and engrossing adventure. With moderate system requirements, even users of old Mac models should be able to play - and for $25 you can't go wrong.

You can decide for yourself with the demo link [at the top of the review page] and take your own first steps into the world of Avernum.

Positives:
- giant environment
- engrossing story
- low system requirements

Negatives:
- very dated graphics
- poor sound
- only available in English

81%
Posts: 31 | Registered: Tuesday, September 2 2003 07:00