I am under Agate Tower and cannot get to Bojar. I believe he is behind one of several locked doors that each require Tool Use level 5. My party has a sum of Tool Use level 0. I purchased the manual and hint book. The manual simply says that locked doors require Tool Use or for you to find a key; my searching has turned up no key. The hint book vaguely tells me that I need to get to Bojar but does not specify how. At no point has the game, the manual I paid extra for, or the hint book I paid extra for implied that any of the character skills are required for progress. Do I need to level grind? Are there other character skills that I need to have in order to progress at other points in the game? Thank you for any help!

EDIT: This is for Avernum 3: Ruined World, released 31 Jan 2018. I am running a solo game, since the game's creator specifically said that it was possible to do that in an AMA on Reddit (posted on 7 Feb). Since there are only 2 skill points per character level, skill growth is focused on survival much more than exploration. It seems unlike this company to have plot-required character development, and even more unusual to not mention it being required in-game or in any of the purchasable extras.

my question is why wouldn't you have 1 char with the skill?
it will give you access to lots of extra loot most of which offers no other method of acessing

try looking for secret doors, sometimes mission areas are accessed through them, or keys or door opening levers/switches, etc

You seriously thought that was a dump stat?

Chastising the OP for not putting points into Tool Use is not a helpful response.

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the newest remakes so I don't know the answer, but does someone else specifically know if there's a way to find Bojar without Tool Use? I would be surprised to learn that Spiderweb Software requires players to have a specific skill at a specific level in order to progress the main story.

theoriginaljon, can you clarify which Avernum game this is? The forum is for the entire series. Thanks.

There is a secret door that leads to him - look around the bottom left of the map. Hope this helps.

i apologize if my earlier post came off as being somewhat hostile it was not my intention
i was merely trying to ascertain if the op was trying to run do a solo char or paladin ethos type playthrough

No problem. I guessed that's what you meant; I was more referring to Darvond's response actually.

Also thanks to Pajama for answering the OP's question!

When you refer to the bottom left, do you mean the Guardian Cave or the Slime Spewer?

No, Under Agate Tower.

Yes, in the floor called "Under Agate Tower" in the bottom left, there is an area called the Guardian Cave and there is another area called the Slime Spewer. Which area are you referring to? Thanks!

In "Under Agate Tower" Bojar is near the bottom left corner. Fairly near to him, (again middle/bottom left of map) there is a room that has cauldrons cooking slime(!), there are a couple of secret switches in this area.

Usually Jeff does quite detailed hint books, what does it say about this area?

The hint book says to "Destroy the slime pit at D and walk through the passage at E. Bojar is at F. Kill him and search his office at G." There is a marked map with these points on it. No mention of a key to be found or a Tool Use requirement.

Attached is the mini-map. I should be just on the other side of the wall from him.

Right, it seems that you have hit a snag as the switches I was thinking of are in the area you can't reach - I hadn't realised that the doors were locked as I just went through them with no problem (I have points in Tool Use) so sorry for the duff advice.

However all may not be lost as you can bring up the Character Editor on the main menu page and add some points into 'Tool Use' (at least this will allow you to move on in the game). If you're not happy doing this then maybe contact Jeff at support@spiderwebsoftware.com to make him aware of the problem in which case he might fix it for the next update due soon or tell you a way around it. Good luck.