Finished
Avadon 2 last night. I thought it was a step up from the first one, but probably only due to me finding the first few hours of the first one incredibly dull.
I took Redbeard's (supreme leader of The Pact) side this time. I didn't exactly get a happy ending, as I apparently eventually got taken over by Corruption and got locked in a dungeon for the rest of my life when I became too useless.
I especially liked:
1) The Corruption. It had some good strange encounters, and weird new creatures (e.g. the unstable ones that can randomly turn into something else if you're not quick enough killing them). Many excellent combat/encounter set-pieces (e.g. the "stalked by a dragon" parts).
2) The Tinkermage, a new class, quite different from the ones carried over from Avadon 1. Some players think they were OP. I didn't find it so, but I probably suck at games or something. (However, it did seem a bit strange that there were Tinkermages all over the show in this one, but nary a mention of them in the first one)
3) The conspiracy was fairly interesting. It seemed fairly obvious who parts of it involved, but there were a few characters that were suspicious enough that I got a bit paranoid about them, only to find by the end that they they had nothing to do with it. (Or do they? Mwuhahahahaaa.) Not everything is black and white, people have reasons for doing wrong, or legitimate reasons for why they think they aren't doing wrong. I like that sort of thing.
The main negatives (also apply to the first Avadon):
1) Three person party limit makes things a little less interesting. Gets a bit silly when this gets applied so strictly, where it doesn't make sense, e.g: you rescue one of your characters, thus having four, and it makes you choose only three to fight your way back out. What happened to the one you didn't choose? Did he/she vaporise? Teleport back home? Seriously, was it too hard to just balance that section for four characters?
2) Having one of your mainstays disappear for plot reasons. Seriously, I hate this shit. I got a fair way through and was thinking "at least he hasn't done that again", but no.
3) The skill trees don't always make sense. Why do I have to be an expert with bows before I can learn how to hamstring someone? (There are many other examples). Also, the inverted skill tree ensures that rather than start generalised and become specialised, you are forced to become more generalised as you progress, because the upper skills have a heap of the same lower skills as pre-reqs.
Overall though, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think Vogel's writing is "good enough". He doesn't overdo it, and there are plenty of examples of wry humour. Despite my issues above, I'm looking forward to the next. (I'll probably jump ahead to Queen's Wish first, though, so I can talk about it with others currently playing it.)