Blades of Avernum
Character Faq
By Deathknight1728
[email protected]
True Rogue, or “Bully” Character Guide
Little Intro to this game-Blades of Avernum is the
offshoot scenario editor to the awesome game series
Avernum. Avernum 1-3 are great games and while I like
them a lot, this game is my favorite of the games made by
Jeff Vogel. I have played nearly all of Jeff’s games and
like each of them but Blades was always my favorite
because it just has everything you could want. Blades of
Avernum is based on scenarios, not one big world like
Avernum 1-3 and I think that’s why it is so amazing. To
this day, people are creating scenarios that almost force
Jeff Vogel to don the Redbeard, heh. Anyway , that’s all
I can for intros. If you like it fine, and just the same
if you don’t.


Brief Reason for why you should read this guide- This is
by no means, a regular character guide for the game-
Blades of Avernum. This is more or less a way of playing
that I find to be a lot of fun and seeing as there are no
character guides for Blades of Avernum; I thought it made
sense to make this one for blades of Avernum. This guide
while exclusively for blades of avernum, can be played
for Avernum 1-3 pretty well too. So without further talk,
let me explain this type of playstyle.
I’ve always liked playing games different and in a game
like Avernum, you can only play so weird before getting
devoured by something vicious. This will detail a
particular character in your party. I will not be giving
ideas on how to make your entire party, but instead will
give you an idea for how to play the game in a neat and
fun way. Enter the True Rogue or Bully character. This
character was made somewhat famous from a user on the
spiderweb forums named- ValdaintheKing. The skill
assassination has always been a cool skill. So how do you
maximize its potential, by getting to a higher level than
almost every creature. At that point, you will be
assassinating almost everything while only lethal blow
characters (very few of them) that they are, can come
close.
So how do you do this. Its actually kind of simple-
disadvantage traits. Already I can hear the shouts of
rebellion as gremlins and people storm my house each
holding pitchforks screaming you’re nuts! But no, the
disadvantage traits actually give a different advantage
to this unique character guide. The disadvantages start
out slow but eventually you will be “bullying” most
monsters if you took the right traits.
Disadvantages give you experience bonuses like no other.
And when you take the least lethal of them, you become
very powerful in a game like blades of avernum.
Especially since there is no level cap, so yes you will
by mid/endgame be assassinating everything even bosses,
which is so cool.
Firstly, assassination is a very dominant skill. It
activates for most fighters on most low monsters and for
True Rogue’s, on almost all monsters. This is excellent
when you think that you can save so many points to level
other things as assassination is pretty much maxed at 7-
10. You can increase anything else that you desire and
that makes you stronger than your other melee comrades as
they are 1 of lower level, and 2 need to get blademaster,
anatomy and lethal blow to be as effective. This is not
to say that lethal blow is useless. It actually is more
powerful, but also a real you know what to
unlock. Likewise, this is not a powergaming thread.
The traits that you need to be less impaired-Pick at
least 1 (and possibly 2 if you are a masochist). NOTE-
SICKNESS PRONE IS A GOOD DEAL TO PICK IF YOU DON’T WANT
TO RISK THE OTHERS, IT IS ALMOST NEGATABLE COMPARED TO
NOT TAKING ONE FOR YOUR ROGUE.
Sickness Prone (20% bonus exp)- This trait is almost too
good. If you die from poison it will be regardless of
having this or not. Why? Because endurance hardiness and
luck are needed anyway. You need all three and they
offshoot this trait. An easy 20% bonus and a must for
this guide.
Cursed from Birth (20% Bonus exp)- This trait is kind of
meh. Although you take a little more damage, which sucks,
Its not really that bad as I have used this trait with
sickness prone with little problems. Its usually a good
go to trait giving you 40% bonus exp if you took sickness
prone. I would say a good 2nd choice. (For avernum 1 and 2
players, this trait is glitched. It actually doesn’t
increase damage and instead just gives you a negative
chance to hit of 10% which can be offshooted by 2 easy
points of weapon mastery and a small negative chance to
clouding magic. That’s really not so bad if you are
playing that game.)
Sluggish (30% Bonus exp)- This trait is only if you don’t
want to take cursed by birth and I still wouldn’t
recommend it. I mean its not really that bad as it will
knock you up to 50% if with another. Still, it makes
things much harder. It’s actually not bad to people that
know the game. If you know the game, you can easily get
items that give you 1 ap, making the trait non-existant.
Some people think it’s the best to choose. I think its
only good if you are a pro and willing to sacrifice until
you get something to offshoot the loss of ap. I used
sluggish on one character and it worked fairly well. I
was assassinating some bosses in quite a few scenarios,
which was cool as I only had a 30% experience bonus.
+ValdaintheKing- makes mention that a decent level of
quick strike will offshoot the penalty of both speed and
ap problems, making this actually not bad at all.


The types of True Rogues
I will now go over the types of true rogues that you can
do for successful characters.
Assassins-This type of rogue is amazing against human
types as the bonus to damage against any humanoid is by
percentage which rocks. You can get damage to a high
level with this type of character. The good thing about
this rogue is that assassins are also good at healing
with first aid. That might seem useless, but not when
your healing 200 hp per shot, something that healing
magic wont do, especially when out of mana in dungeons. I
recommend 10 in anatomy. Just remember that this build is
only extremely powerful against said enemies. This
character against humans is capable of 1 shotting quite a
few tough humanoid characters and some bosses as well.
Rebel- This type is more like an oldschool rogue. He is
good at missile weapons giving him the ability to shoot
arrows or thrown at people, something the assassin cant
balk at. He does less damage than the assassin against
humanoids, but is more viable overall as he can do ranged
and still assassinate with the best of them. I would
recommend a high dexterity to take advantage of ranged,
making him more finesse than the assassin.
Mage-Killer: This is not really a class but always has
been a favorite of my roleplaying types of characters.
This character is all about 1 shotting mages-
assassination’s favorite targets. Because of that,
Resistance is a must, along with high dex and endurance
just to get the skill. Besides that, a fair amount of
parry. Other than that, this rogue is a mages worst
nightmare although is not as powerful as an assassin, or
as viable as a rebel. Still my favorite. Gymnastics
recommended.
The Brute or “Common Bully”- This is the fighter rogue
build that I will go over. It is the most common bully
both in real life and in the game, heh. Just a big, tough
jerk that rushes up to enemies and annihilates them. Any
that are left and in melee range are destroyed  from a
decent level riposte. Riposte makes this guy very good
against melee. While the assassin can deal more damage (I
think), this guy has some nice defensive capabilities.
Riposte and parry make this guy nasty against against
people in melee and parry also helps against some ranged
and magic. The mage-killer still is better at killing
mages though, at least to my knowledge.
The BeastLord-This is the 2nd to last build so far and I
have found it is a very “different” form of rogue.
Sacrificing some bit of assassination ability allows you
to take the beast master trait which is a positive trait.
Now run with me on this. Thoukiyides on Spiderweb
Software, has tested beastmaster’s summon beast and has
found that every 15 levels you get new beasts to summon
up to some very nasty and powerful enemies. Because you
gain levels so fast, Every 15 levels allows your
character to gain summons that would normally be
unavailable to mages and priests in the same predicament.
Add on top of that, a still decent assassination and you
have-The Beast Lord. I will go into more about this lower
down if anyone is interested.
The Sniper-This is the last build and only one where I
will go all ranged. This build should focus on either one
of 2 types of characters-A Pure finesse sniper and a mage
killing sniper. The finesse one will have the highest
chance to hit and damage and will likely just pick one
disadvantage to keep from crippling the character.
Likewise sickness prone is the best one to choose. All
points in dex and bows or maybe throwing allows this
character to clear house with damage. The other choice is
to make a character that can be adept at fighting mages
and other creatures that deal elemental damage. This
sniper is more focused on luck, intelligence and
hardiness, all of which make your character tough as
nails at the otherworldly creatures.

How to Make it Work
The problem right away with this guide is that most
people wont know how to make it work the right way. So I
will give you the stats that you should base this off of
in the beginning. I am not going to mention this later,
so instead I will now-ALL OF THESE CHARS WILL NEED TO PUT
POINTS IN ASSASSINATION, AT LEAST 5-10 POINTS ARE NEEDED
THERE. The rest is up to how often it activates for you.
You should not put more than 10 into it as there are
items that do the rest.
-An assassin rogue should have 4 strength, 4 dexterity, 4
intelligence and 4 endurance in the beginning. He should
spend points to get 6 intelligence sometime around level
5-10, after he’s spread his points out in major things
like melee or spears. He has to decide if he will go
spears or melee as he wont be using both and getting
blademaster. This build should focus a bit on first aid
as he should be decent at it too. Defense and hardiness
are a must though too extreme. This is an offensive
build, not a defensive. A marginally decent parry but
should focus more on defense and dexterity for defensive
measures. By level 10, this character will be fair but by
15-20, he will start to notice anatomy kicking in as you
fight ogres, sliths, humans and nephils. From that point
on, you will want to start putting points in anatomy once
it reaches 15-20 skill points. From then, maximize your
defense and minor offensive skills like melee and
dexterity. Remember that this class will be more about
getting that 1 shot attack and thus, will need to
maximize his movement. Quick strike will be necessary and
I do NOT recommend using sluggish trait. Whenever you are
fighting humans, this character will shine, especially at
high levels.
-A rebel rogue should start out with 2 or 3 in strength
so you can carry a bit. 5 or 6 in dexterity as its your
bread and butter, leave intelligence alone, and endurance
at 4 or maybe 5. The rebel will want dexterity to be
focused on almost exclusively, every 2 points in dex
gives you 1 level of damage for bows and chance to hit in
melee with blades. Focus on melee instead of spears as
you wont have the strength to lug around spears/halberds.
You can use daggers quite well for assassinations and
will also be able to shoot from afar. You could use
razordisks but I would recommend using bows as they are
easier to use/less weight. Focus on bows and
assassination with a few spare levels in melee. You wont
need as much melee as you will hit with assassination
which boosts damage nonetheless. You wont need as much
hardiness and defense as your dexterity will be high.
This class will be ready to use from the beginning. It’s
the easiest rogue/bully build to use as it requires
little to be effective unlike the others which require
unlocking skills. I would say that it’s the most
adaptable rogue build as whenever things get bad, you can
jump out of sight and shoot a few arrows allowing your
warrior or tank to get in there and take over. Once your
attack skills are maxed, focus on endurance. Forget about
parry. When you are higher in level and melee (20), get
quick strike which will give you 2 attacks for bows and
maybe 2 attacks in melee. Remember, don’t be afraid to
use the bonus action points to get out of sight and take
a shot with bow. This class of rogue will have less
health than the common fighter and thus will be more
susceptible to taking death blows. He will need be a
secondary fighter and primary archer. An ideal way of
thinking about it is like baldurs gate 1’s kivan. Kivan
is primarily an archer, but can still fight alright as a
secondary combatant. That’s how this class will work.
-A Mage-Killer Rogue should start with 3 strength, 4
dexterity, 3 intelligence and 5 endurance. Points should
be spent to raise endurance and dexterity to high levels
along with hardiness close behind. This will be needed to
get resistance. Resistance will make this char shine and
luck at level 5 wont hurt either. Too much luck is
practically cheating as you wont die almost ever. I say
stick with resistance as it provides help against
clouding magic. This char will want to focus on defense a
little but more on the 3 main skills and melee or spears.
Spears offer more damage while swords offer benefits
being lighter and some swords/daggers give assassination,
a good bonus. You can do either. Once resistance is
reached, this character is going to be a mages worst
nightmare as assassination mixed with an extremely higher
level fighter that is almost immune to magic=a dead mage.
This class will need to be fast and will require a
different style of playing. You will want to take the
attention off of your rogue and onto your tank in the
party. They will divert the attention by
luring/attacking/skirmishing the enemy while your mage
killer moves in. Because your endurance and resistance
are so high, regular enemies wont be able to do as much
and thus, this rogue is a decent tank at times.
-A brute or “Common Bully” should start with 5 in
strength, 4 in dexterity with more focus on strength.
None in intelligence and high endurance. Parry is a must,
as is blademaster and riposte eventually. This char
should put a decent emphasis on parry as it is your bread
and butter. This char can barely be called a rogue as it
is more fighter than any of the others mentioned. These
chars you see going up to brutes and killing them in 1 to
2 shots while other enemies kill themselves attacking
your character. They are not bad to divert mage’s
attention either as magical attacks get missed with a
high parry. Mostly, these characters are good with
allowing the rest of your party destroy the enemy with
spells and arrows/ranged weapons. They are more or less
just a regular fighter that has a decent assassination
ability and high level which makes it deadly. They still
don’t come close to the amount of assassination damage an
assassin can do. Nor are they as viable as a rebel, or as
tricky as a magekiller. They are mostly just a good
choice for someone that wants to beat people up and
assassinate punks that the party could do without. I
would say a bully is good as using spears to make him
more deadly. A good halberd makes these fiends nasty and
their attacks go far. Make this character like a regular
fighter and you should be fine. Quick strike at a few
points is not bad, but don’t spend too much in it.
-A Beast Lord Rogue should start with obvious points in
dexterity and a little in endurance. The rest is up to
you. Strength can make this more like the common bully,
you can add anatomy to make him more like the assassin.
Its easily the most adaptable rogue that you can make.
Here is what Thoukydides has said on this ability-
Thoukydides- I have to say that I was very surprised at
some of the creatures I got using the summon beast
ability. The lack of a level cap certainly helps it
because in the first trilogy Summon Beast is outclassed
by the mage spell Call Beast. In Blades of Avernum
though, at around level 70 I was able to summon ogre
mages, shamblers, centaurs, vampires, and flame hydras.
This is equal to a mid- or high level summon aid spell,
except the spell summons 4 monsters. Also, my level 118
character can summon a fetid zombie, a skeletal warrior,
an efreet, or a rakshasa with the ability, so it does in
fact increase with level. I don't know if it will go
higher than that, but I assume it can depending on the
types of monsters available. I suspect that a 120+
character may be able to summon a drake lord or a dark
wyrm.

So, yes the summon beast ability does increase with
level. Every ~15 levels will give a new tier of
creatures. So at 1-14 you summon monsters from group 1,
and at 15-29 you summon monsters from group 2 and so on.
At 60-74, or group 5, you get the same creatures I listed
above, and at 105-120, or group 8, you would get the
efreeti, rakshasa, and high level undead.
So yes, the beastlord is the most interesting class even
if you only get to use it once a day, its very
interesting with some of that information on there. I
would suspect that you can build that class as I stated
earlier, any way you want.
And that’s pretty much it. I didn’t expect this to be a
big guide and im sorry to disappoint if it wasn’t what
you wanted. I would be more than happy to answer any
questions at my email. Its definitely been something that
I always wanted to do and for once, I had some actual
knowledge in a video game worth playing. If you have any
ideas for other builds, I would be more than happy to
upload them on the site. Thanks for reading and hopefully
we will all stay safe from Redbeard’s gaze.

-A Sniper should have low strength 2 or maybe 3 to start,
5-6 dexterity, 4-5 endurance and possibly some
intelligence. The cool thing about this build is that you
can play pure finesse sniper and go all out with
dexterity or focus a bit more on intelligence and other
things that raise your magic resistance. The reason that
you do this is that snipers are naturally a burden to
mages. And when your sniper has high spell resistance, a
dexterity so high that melee and ranged cant hit, the
rest of your party can stay from the other end going for
the kill on the mage while you distract with shots. I
like that as an idea and if you go with that, a high
(maybe 70% resistance to all magic) is nice. However, its
just as nice to go with the finesse sniper, focusing on
defense, dexterity, bows or thrown, and some hardiness
and luck. You really don’t need parry, but a skill of 5
might not hurt. This finesse sniper character will be
extremely powerful as those skill points add up. Either
character can benefit greatly from 2-3 points in priest
spells. Shielding and Battle Blessing are excellent for
these characters as they do less damage than the melee
counterparts.
Copyright Rant
Im just going to be blunt-I don’t really care about
copyright. You can take my guide and send it to the New
York times, only to get 5 million dollars, that fine: I
don’t care. This is a minor project that I had fun doing
and anyone that wants to use it can. I don’t own the
company of the games I’m writing about, nor will I ever
own any of the company so take it up with the man.
Spiderweb Software is the owner of the games I am talking
about, not me.
Dedication-I dedicate this page to everyone that’s ever
supported me at writing. I don’t have to list people, you
should know who you are and thus why I am doing this faq.

My email is as follows if you have something to contact
me about- [email protected]
Note-I will not respond to emails that don’t make sense,
are about how much you hate my faq, or hinder me in any
other way. I don’t believe that I am being a jerk by
offering my time to give you, the reader, another way of
looking at the game. If you cant deal with that, then you
probably shouldn’t be reading this to begin with. If you
have any questions feel free to ask them, also character
guides (that relate) to this type of character are always
helpful. I am hoping to do a magic run with priest and
mage rogues in the future to find new ways and characters
to play this great series.

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