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Avernum or Avadon?

Anthony Davis

Blizzard Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Sep 7, 2007
Messages
2,100
Location
California
I want to get one of these for my iPad2 because I am not always at my computer, but I always want to RPG.

Which one shoul I get?

Thanks!
 

OSK

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
8,003
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Between those two? Avernum.

The Geneforge series is his best work, but it's not available on tablets.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
Avernum is basically Baldur's Gate: Cave Edition. It's got a lot of towns, quests, etc. and is light on story. Lots of exploration and stuff to do, heavy combat focus, etc. There are even decent choices in solving quests, both in gameplay and in story. The systems are nowhere near as good as Baldur's Gate, but the faster pace of the game means it works well for phones, and it will satisfy the exploration and turn-based combat itch decently. It starts out poorly but once the tougher enemies show up and tactics become necessary to win, it actually gets pretty fun.

Avadon by contrast is extremely linear and BioWare-style in its structure and overall presentation. While I would say most of the writing is actually quite good (better than any recent BioWare games, and Avernum for that matter), there is somehow even more filler combat in it than in Avernum's open world, and the game is just easy and boring 99% of the time. It does have a neat world with some interesting politics that starts out very generic but actually grows on you after some time once you begin to see all the details, and there are decent characters, but actually playing it is just a chore most of the time.
 
Repressed Homosexual
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
17,867
Location
Ottawa, Can.
Avernum is actually really good and not (too) dumbed down, I'm already midway through the game.

Still stupid that you can't close doors anymore because of Ipad users accidentally closing them.
 

Monocause

Arcane
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
3,656
@Anthony:

If you haven't played Avernum 1 or Exile 1 then get the new remake, it's nice. Avadon is rather pale in comparison to most of Spiderweb's games and I would advise against getting it; hopefully the sequel will be better.
 

Anthony Davis

Blizzard Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Sep 7, 2007
Messages
2,100
Location
California
@Anthony:

If you haven't played Avernum 1 or Exile 1 then get the new remake, it's nice. Avadon is rather pale in comparison to most of Spiderweb's games and I would advise against getting it; hopefully the sequel will be better.

Is avernum on the iPad the remake or the old one?
 

Monocause

Arcane
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
3,656
It's the remake. The old one's a PC/Mac exclusive, I think Exile had a Linux port done too but JV stopped doing these after Blades of Exile.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
but the quest compassssss!
... makes doing the dozens of quests much easier. Yeah, okay, it's not really necessary but frankly I'd rather not wander around aimlessly talking to every single NPC just to find out if I've indeed killed enough rats or collected enough mushrooms to deserve a reward. The game isn't so small that it's easy to keep track of everything to do.
 

BLOBERT

FUCKING SLAYINGN IT BROS
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BRO
Codex 2012
BRO I GOT MY AVADON FOR ONE DOLLAR LLOLLOLOL THE REST OF THE INDIE FAG BUNDLE GAMES I DOUBT I WILL EVER TOUCH
 

Anthony Davis

Blizzard Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Sep 7, 2007
Messages
2,100
Location
California
Ok, finally got a chance to play some iPad Avernum last night.

I made my own party (via custom character):
A fighter type
A fighter type with some priest stuff
A thief type with some fighter stuff
A wizard type

Was blowing through it pretty quick and enjoying it, but it got hard quick For example, the nephilim shamn summoning the worms in the Sylvar sewers, he pretty much wipes my party out with the AoE poison spell he casts - plus he can cast two spells/attack per turn. Even when I get him almost dead, he summons another 4 enemies and then poisons my party.

So I decided to move on, when to the Brigand Fort, was blowing through that pretty good when all of a sudden an enemy rogue one shot my toughest fighter. This was AFTER killing the junior wizard kid and his huntsman friend - so I assumed the worst was over. I do think it is a bit ...uneven, that my speaker in the party regards the junior wizard kid with the brigands as some sort of novice... a novice that proceeds to absorb almost 200hp of damage before dying whereas my entire party doesn't have 200 hps added together.

The documentation is decent, but I feel like I'm missing some key understanding with the game that is causing me to have to reload a lot when my party gets wiped out. I am using buffs and stuff of course, but the only buffs I really have are shield stance and the wizard one that allows your attacks to curse enemies.


Other notes:
I enjoy the writing, I think it's well done.
The world is very neat. Seems low magic which I also like.
I was hoping for more "surivial" in the game, but food seems pointless (for eating that is) and you are healed and restored just by entering/leaving a friendly town.

So far, still a good game and am enjoying it.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
@Anthony Davis

The nephilim was challenging for me on hard and even on normal but he is beatable. Buff yourself before combat (and summon a creature) with Curse cloak and shield and use Daze a lot on enemies. This spells should always be active. For the nephilim you should have one partymember who is able to cast curing every round and another should cast healing spells. And you can use potions and still have enough ap to attack.

In general it seems to be a good idea for me to have two people who are able to cast healing spells to have more healing power per turn. I gave my wizard some priest skill and the game was getting easier for me.

For some useful information which should have been in the manual in the first place:

Stats and Abilities and what they do
 

Anthony Davis

Blizzard Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Sep 7, 2007
Messages
2,100
Location
California
@Anthony Davis

The nephilim was challenging for me on hard and even on normal but he is beatable. Buff yourself before combat (and summon a creature) with Curse cloak and shield and use Daze a lot on enemies. This spells should always be active. For the nephilim you should have one partymember who is able to cast curing every round and another should cast healing spells. And you can use potions and still have enough ap to attack.

In general it seems to be a good idea for me to have two people who are able to cast healing spells to have more healing power per turn. I gave my wizard some priest skill and the game was getting easier for me.

For some useful information which should have been in the manual in the first place:

Stats and Abilities and what they do
Ah! I'll start over and make two characters who can heal then.

I think I'll do:
Fighter/Priest
Fighter/Priest
Mage/Thief
Mage/Thief

Since magic is amazing;y powerful in this game. Thank you for the help!
 

Morkar Left

Guest
No problem, I'm currently playing it too.
I'm not sure if it is a good idea to give only your fighters healing magic because if they heal they can't attack and you will have to rely on constant healing. But probably only a big problem in the beginning. I suppose later you will do the most damage with area magic spells.
What do you understand under thief? You only need that lockpicking skill and as far as I know this skill uses the sum of all partymemberskills. And range attacks aren't that useful according to some guides on the forum. But I think at least one bow char could be useful properly skilled with a lot of fast attacks. Parry is a good skill for your tanks to suffer lesser damage, try to max this skill out (I think skill lvl 10 is max). And for clarification because I was a bit confused about it at start; the skilltrees start from bottom to top, not horizontally.
 

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,487
Location
casting coach
I only played the demo, some impressions on what worked:

Bow is good, at least early. I stole a cavewood longbow somewhere which was a big deal. My bowman did easily the most damage, since I pumped all points into dexterity, and bow/sharpshooter/sniper at a 2:1:1 ratio. Could be 1-shotted by tougher enemies like those boss rats, but that's avoidable since they can't reach her.
Melee and priests go nicely together. Healing spells' effectiveness is not determined by intelligence at all (mostly only by the priest spells skill) so you don't have to pump that necessarily. So I had 1 frontline guy focusing on good endurance, and priest spells with some melee/hardiness. Who's positioned to take the most hits and cast spells, not so much deal damage.
And another with strength and focus on dealing melee damage, and skills to suit that. I had poles but apparently dual wield (or any melee) is just much much better, though early on the slith warspear I found hidden in a crevice (no combat but probably a low cave lore check required) was an excellent weapon.
Then a mage with 1 mage lvl and usually utility skills on the other point per level... Other guys didn't have much in the way of noncombat skills, it seemed to fit the mage best since it felt the combat skills beyond those mage spells points weren't very useful (2% more damage for spells? kinda meh compared to getting something better for my other guys instead of taking the lockpick etc. on them)

It's actually a good idea to give everyone 1 rank in priest so they can cast emergency heals. And if they don't have mage spells to use that's free spell points basically.
 

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