Well now that Avernum's here, it means that tactics are going to be needed. Stats may be a good thing to have but tactics can make the difference between surviving and not making it.

A few things. First is most important-

1-Haste Haste Haste Haste!!!!!

You've got to really get that through your head. Any character that casts haste for mage spells at the 1st level gains 6 action points RIGHT AWAY. (That goes for Avernum 1-3 and BOA only) Not Avernum 4-6. That means that you gain 2 combat turns if you are a spell caster, 2 bow shots if you are an archer and 2 strikes if you are next to an opponent for melee.

2-Now its realistic that not everyone will want that. So that is why there is (for avernum 1-3) fast on feet trait. This neat trait gives you 1 extra action point 30% to 50% of the time. Thats excellent for moving for melee, and shooting twice for ranged/spells.

3-Endurance is key. Its not a lie, you need to develop endurance on at least every party member, moreso on your fighters. The cool thing about endurance is that if you are like me, you make one fighter a tank that can take hits, and 1 that can evade them. Its handy as you can setup battles to go in your favor.

4-Specialize is key. You must know by now that you won't be finishing the game with all the skills on a char. Its just not going to happen. I would say pick at least 4-6 skills and work on them for a char. Skills that MAKE sense and go together. If any of you play Geneforge, you know this is key right away.

5-Make the right movement choices in combat. I said before stats are good but sometimes you need to focus on the right enemy at the right time. For that you need to go to the right place on the battlefield.

6-Slow your enemy before they slow you! This one speaks plain and simple. Slow is an obnoxiously overpowered and currently not fixed asset to use in battle. Cast it on your enemies that are the most powerful and cause the most threat.

7-Mix around and play around with mage and priest spells at creation screen. You can start the game with some powerful spells that normally aren't available if you put enough points in the spell schools at creation screen.

8-Have fun!

Edit- Final words-This link is to a page on the spiderweb forums that lists in depth character info on Avernum 1 and 2 stats. If you want to make or break an awesome character, I'd take a look at this page made by some of the coolest people out there.

http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/16040-avernum-1-damage-stat-effects/

Favoriting this thread.

I would be curious to follow this thread as well. It has been a long time since I last played this.

Here's one I'd like to add: Battle Disciplines. This was introduced in A4 and was one of the more useful additions to the game that I found. I often liked to have my tank go in with Shield Breaker and then have my dedicated bow sniper follow up with a Well-Aimed Blow; I often found this especially devastating with higher level bows like the Heartstriker Bow or Eliavri's Bow. Later Disciplines like Focus Spirit and Mighty Blow are really good too.

Yeah if you read on the forums you will find that many of the moderators have 'somewhat' proved that bows are better in the long term than in Avernum Escape from the pit. The reason bows are somewhat better is that unlike Ave: EFTP, in Avernum 5 and 6 you can give hardiness to any archer which means that they are just as good as tanks as the real fighters. Add on to that the fact that archers can get parry, bows are naturally good.

For battle disciplines, Mighty blow is usually the best for damage shield breaker is good to setup a set of takedown attacks. Leg sweep is usually used for fighting boss characters as it makes their attacks weaker. In some ways the battle disciplines in 5 and 6 are better than Ave: EFTP.