Looking for some beginner’s tips for Avowed? Avowed, an action-focused spin-off of the Pillars of Eternity series, is Obsidian’s latest RPG, and it’s set in a beautiful world of magic and mystery known as the Living Lands. Players will take on the role of a godlike Envoy, a representative of the Aedyr Empire sent to investigate a plague known as the Dreamscourge. Defined by hallucinations and some mushroom-sprouting body horror, the Dreamscourge is spreading throughout the Living Lands’ frontier, and it’ll take dozens of hours of exploration and a little bit of steel and gunpowder to find the sickness’ source.
Avowed features a giant world with a fair amount of character customisation at your disposal. If you’re just diving into the game and feeling overwhelmed at the possibilities, this beginner’s guide will give you 10 tips to make the first hours of Avowed as smooth as possible. Good luck out there, Envoy – you’re going to need it.
You can multiclass early on
Avowed presents you with three character classes – Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard – and each has its own skill tree. These classes are what you might expect if you’ve played an RPG before, with Fighters good at tankiness and strength, Rangers specialising in ranged combat and mobility, and Wizards excelling at magic. But you needn’t lock yourself into a singular class, as Avowed lets you freely choose skills from whichever skill tree you prefer, and respeccing is a snap that only requires 100 gold the first time you do it, and 250 every time afterwards.
From the getgo, I quickly settled on making my Envoy into a Ranger/Wizard multiclass. Even if you don’t normally gravitate towards spells in RPGs, I’d recommend investing a little in the magic route, which takes me to my next point…
Magic is darn useful
Magic in Avowed feels essential in a manner that stands out from other RPGs. You cast spells via grimoires, and you can dual wield two grimoires for double the spell shenanigans, or equip a melee weapon in one hand and your book in the other. Spellcasting in the midst of a fight is fast and furious, and you’ll have to juggle cooldowns and keep an eye on your Essence meter, which is the equivalent of Mana. But magic feels fun and varied in a way that a pure melee build isn’t.
Spellcasting is also important for traversing the world. You’ll come across brambles that block your way in dungeons and watery pits that you won’t be able to jump, for instance. But magic fixes this – cast a Fireball spell to burn the brambles, and cast Chill Blades to summon icicles to create frost platforms to walk across. While there are other ways to get around not having these spells (such as grenades which cause similar fire/frost effects), having magic makes things ten times easier.
Fast travel is a snap
Avowed boasts a lot of user-friendly features, such as easy respeccing, the ability to transmogrify your armour, and perhaps most important of all, simple fast travel. You’ll run across fast travel beacons with great regularity once you reach the first region of the Living Lands, known as Dawnshore. They always look like stone torch-holders with purple flames radiating from the top. Once you’ve encountered a fast travel beacon, it’ll appear as an icon on your map. You can fast travel between beacons simply by clicking on their icons – and you can also travel between your party camps, which also appear as map icons!
Movement is key in battle
If you’re concerned with survivability in combat, stay on your toes. Avowed is an action RPG for a reason, and its fast-paced gameplay is a far cry from the slower, real-time with pause combat that was in the Pillars of Eternity games. Be prepared to jump around to dodge attacks and enemy AoE abilities, which are telegraphed via red auras, and be aware that this athleticism is going to make your Stamina meter drop.
For those of you playing as a ranged Envoy, movement is extremely imporant, as lining up your shots requires you to pay attention to the terrain of the battlefield while targeting enemy weak points. It’s entirely possible to let your companions soak up melee while you duck behind a pair of rocks to deliver headshots – just be aware that foes might sneak up behind you for a surprise stab as you do so.
If you are having trouble in combat with the speedy movement, you can always open up the game’s radial menu, which is how you access items and spells. This slows down time and acts as a pause feature of sorts. Use the radial menu to give yourself a breather and to get out of scrapes.
Use your companions’ abilities in combat
Avowed features four companions, and they each have talents that correspond with one of the game’s three classes. Kai, your first buddy, is a Fighter. You’ll next meet Marius the Ranger and then Yatzli and Giatta, who are both Wizards. You can have two companions at once, and you can level up their respective abilities as you see fit. Their abilities will appear on your radial menu for activation whenever you like.
Get started by experimenting with Kai’s skillset as soon as possible. He’s a hardy fish-skinned fellow, and his Fire and Ice ability fires a blunderbuss shot that can stun a monster in their tracks. Use this to soften up foes for your own attacks, and follow this approach with all companion skills to find your own synergy combos. I’d recommend maxing out two preferred abilities on each companion’s skill tree as soon as you can.
Don’t buy too much Common gear
Item rarity in Avowed matters, and Common is the lowest tier when it comes to weapons and armour, with Fine, Exceptional, Superb, and Legendary rising in rank. Each tier has a base level and three tiers of improvement.
You’ll find shops selling Common gear as soon as you reach Claviger’s Landing, a docks area that opens up after Avowed’s first 45 minutes. I’d resist the urge to spend too much of your hard-earned coin on Common stuff, because you’re going to be picking it up later after defeating monsters and opening chests. As a rule of thumb, it’s only worth purchasing items from vendors if they’re of Fine quality or above.
Loot everything
This one ties in with the advice on not buying Common gear. From what I’ve seen, there is no penalty for robbing everyone blind in Avowed. Whenever you can interact with something, loot it. Pick up whatever isn’t nailed down – every vegetable, spare coin lying on the ground, and plant that you come across – because you’ll likely need it for upgrading your gear later. Even if you don’t use it for upgrading, there’s a tonne of edible tidbits that can be used for cooking, as well as other goodies like grenades hanging out in plain sight. The folks of the Living Lands are a generous sort – abuse their generosity!
Upgrade and cook at party camps
You can set up a party camp whenever you come across an Adra Waystone, which are those big purple-glowing crystals scattered across the map. Once in camp, you can chat with your party members and more importantly, upgrade your stuff. As previously mentioned, gear in Avowed features a tier system, and entering a party camp is the only way to access the upgrade workbench. Party camps also feature a workbench for upgrading unique weapons, which you’ll increasingly use as you progress through the game and get bigger and better armaments.
Cooking is the other major activity you’ll do at camp. All of those bits and bobs you’ve been looting can be combined into unique recipes, like a lovely fish stew that’ll boost your Envoy’s stats on the field. Also, be aware that you can cook rotten food that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to eat due to negative status effects.
Experiment with multiple weapon loadouts
Avowed features the following weapon types: arquebus, bows, daggers, great axes, great hammers, great swords, grimoires, maces, pistols, spears, swords, and wands. And yes, you can dual-wield whatever isn’t a two-handed weapon. That’s a lot of variety, and it pays to experiment with a variety of weapons to see what loadout gets you going.
My personal favourite weapon loadout includes a dagger, since I like the heavy emphasis on critical hits, and a grimoire in the other hand for magic-using. I switch it up sometimes with ranged weapons, and I’ve got both a bow for silent strikes and an arquebus for explosive power. Basically, I think of myself as a melee/spellcasting magus. I even tried to dual wield flintlocks at one point to add a degree of gunslinging, but found that I prefer the pure strength of an arquebus shot when it comes to explosive firepower, even though the process of loading one is time consuming.
Don’t ignore side quests
While it’s totally possible to zoom along on Avowed’s main story and ignore all of the side stuff, know that you’ll quickly encounter some tough foes if you do so. You can usually denote the difficulty of a foe by checking the status bar next to their name when they appear – if there’s one or more skulls displayed there, it means they’re tougher than your current level. To match enemies in level and grow stronger, try exploring off the beaten path and navigating a side quest or two, especially since the story revelations and gear rewards are pretty decent.
The Dawntreader quest is perhaps the first big side quest that become available in the starting Dawnshore area, and features you delving into an underground temple and coming face-to-face with another godlike with some unusual plans up his golden sleeves. Completing this quest gives you a good melee weapon called Last Light of Day, which deals fire damage and restores health on hits.
With these tips under your belt, you should be well on your way towards defining a new destiny for Aedyr in the wild frontier. Stay tuned to Rock Paper Shotgun for more on all that Avowed has to offer – in the upcoming days, we’ll drop guides on all aspects of this RPG, including your four companions and the many unique pieces of weaponry and armor that lie in the Living Lands.
