Avowed is Obsidian’s newest cRPG set in the world of Eora and predates Pillars of Eternity 2’s story by 3 years. While the game is currently in early access and is set to launch officially on February 18, 2025, you might want to brush up on a few things before you try out the game. So, here’s our Avowed Beginner’s Guide.
Avowed: Character Creation
Let’s dive right into character creation—an important part of your journey. It’s crucial to make your decisions wisely, as you won’t be able to change your appearance or background after finalizing your character. Take your time to ensure you’re happy with how they look before locking it in.
One unique feature you’ll encounter is the Godlike Features, which give your character plant-like growths on their face and hair. While these are primarily for lore purposes, they may not appeal to everyone. Fortunately, you can hide them by toggling the setting to “No” in the Godlike Features tab. This won’t affect gameplay—NPCs will still react as if you have mushrooms sprouting from your face—but it’s a good option if you’d prefer not to see them.
Avowed: Backgrounds
Once you’re satisfied with your character’s appearance, the next step is choosing a Background. Backgrounds define your character’s lore before the game begins and will influence certain dialogue choices throughout your journey. Pick one that feels right for your character’s personality or story. It also influnces the weapons you can wield in the game. Here’s a list of the Backgrounds in Avowed. Keep in mind, each Background influences how the story plays out, allowing you to replay the game five times, if you can stomach the game that much:
- Arcane Scholar
- Court Augur
- Noble Scion
- Vangauard Scout
- War Hero
Each background also provides a recommended attribute spread and determines the starting weapon you’ll receive in the tutorial. However, both can be adjusted right away, so don’t stress too much about this part.
Avowed: Attribute Points
Before starting the game, you’ll allocate Attribute Points across six different stats. These attributes shape your character’s strengths in various ways:
- Might: Increases flat damage from all sources and boosts carry capacity.
- Constitution: Raises your maximum health and improves resistance to poison and bleed buildup.
- Dexterity: Enhances attack speed, animation speed when changing loadouts, drinking potions, and reloading.
- Perception: Increases your base critical hit chance and extends weapon range before damage falloff begins.
- Intelligence: Expands your maximum Essence, which is used for casting spells and abilities. It also boosts resistance against elemental status effects.
- Resolve: Raises maximum stamina (used for attacking and blocking) and strengthens the Second Wind ability, which revives you upon death.
Pro Tip: Don’t overthink your attributes—these points can be reset at any time for a small fee, allowing you to experiment freely. That said, for beginners or players less familiar with RPGs:
- Focus on Might and Constitution as a baseline.
- Add Intelligence if you want to emphasize magic.
- Choose Resolve if you prefer a weapon-focused approach or want a safety net with Second Wind.
Dexterity and Perception are also useful but can generally be ignored early on if you’re unsure.
Resolve is particularly valuable for new players, as it significantly improves your Second Wind revival ability. Keep in mind, this skill goes on a long cooldown after use, so avoid relying on it too heavily.
Avowed: Skill Trees and Abilities
Once character creation is complete, it’s time to think about building your character as you progress. Each time you level up, you’ll receive an ability point to spend in one of three skill trees.
Avowed offers a flexible customization system—you can mix and match abilities from any of the three trees. Each tree aligns with a general playstyle:
Fighter
Focused on close combat and survivability. This tree offers passives tailored to two-handed weapons and blocking, along with tools to close the distance to enemies.
Ranger
Designed for nimble, evasive combat. It grants abilities related to stealth and ranged attacks. You’ll find passives benefiting one-handed weapons, bows, parries, and dodges.
Wizard Tree
The Wizard Tree, as you might expect, is focused on spells, elemental damage, wands, and Essence management. Unlike the Fighter and Ranger trees, the Wizard tree comes with a unique requirement—you need to invest in the Grimoire Mastery passive to unlock higher-tier magic. This adds a deliberate cost to wielding the most powerful spells.
However, the Wizard Tree offers flexibility to offset this limitation. You can learn certain spells permanently, allowing you to cast them as innate abilities without holding a grimoire. This is especially useful for two-handed weapon users or shield-focused builds who want to weave a bit of magic into their arsenal.
Just like with attributes, abilities can be reset at any time for a small fee, encouraging you to experiment freely.
Best Abilities in Avowed for Any Build
While your build will depend on your preferred playstyle, a few standout abilities work exceptionally well across all character types:
- Constant Recovery (Fighter Tree): Provides steady health regeneration based on the last hit you took. It won’t fully heal you, but it greatly reduces reliance on health potions. Combined with regeneration food, it becomes an efficient way to sustain your health in long fights.
- Weapon Damage Passives: Each tree offers a generic passive increasing weapon damage by 25%, 40%, and eventually 50%. Be sure to pick up the passive that matches your primary weapon type—whether it’s two-handed, one-handed, or ranged.
- Parry (Ranger Tree): Allows you to block incoming attacks and counterattack, completely nullifying damage if timed correctly. It’s highly effective and can even work against unblockable attacks.
- Arrow Deflection (Ranger Tree): Expands your parry capabilities, letting you deflect projectiles and block some attacks that would otherwise bypass normal defenses.
Avowed: Godlike Tree
As you progress through the story, a fourth skill tree—The Godlike Tree—will unlock. This tree is influenced by the choices you make throughout the game, meaning your available abilities can change based on your decisions. Choose wisely, as some passives may only become available depending on the path you take.
Certain Godlike passives can also be discovered through exploration, making it worthwhile to venture off the beaten path. Exploring hidden corners of the world can reward you with new abilities that are otherwise unavailable.
Gear and Equipment in Avowed
Once you’ve settled on your playstyle and skill choices, it’s time to outfit your character with appropriate gear. There are six gear slots to fill, each serving a unique purpose:
Armor Types
- Light Armor: Provides minimal protection but maximizes stamina and Essence reserves, making it ideal for ranged characters or mages who avoid direct combat.
- Medium Armor: A balanced option, offering moderate damage reduction without heavily impacting stamina or Essence, making it a safe choice for new players or hybrid builds.
- Heavy Armor: Offers the best damage reduction, cutting a flat percentage off incoming damage. However, it reduces stamina and Essence reserves, making it harder to swing weapons or cast spells efficiently. This is best suited for frontline melee fighters.
Armor Weight Impact
Armor weight affects stagger duration—lighter armor leaves you vulnerable for longer after taking a hit, while heavy armor minimizes stagger. This is especially important for melee builds constantly under attack.
Clothing (Boots & Gloves)
While boots and gloves don’t offer defense bonuses, they provide passive stat boosts that help fine-tune your character. These bonuses can include:
- Extra stamina and health
- Reduced block costs
- Increased dodge distance
Accessories and Weapons in Avowed
Accessories
In Avowed, your character can equip:
- 1 Trinket or Amulet
- 2 Rings
Each of these accessories offers unique passive abilities, and the fun lies in discovering which buffs best complement your build. These can significantly enhance your character’s power, so keep an eye out for new accessories as you progress.
Avowed: All Weapons Types & Weapon Loadouts
You have two customizable weapon loadouts that can be swapped on the fly during combat. There are 13 weapon types, each with its own strengths, weaknesses, and playstyle nuances:
- Swords: Fast but lower damage.
- Axes: Slower than swords but hit harder.
- Maces & Hammers: Slowest but deal the most damage.
- Daggers: Very quick, with a higher critical hit chance, but low base damage.
- Spears: Longest melee reach.
- Pistols & Arquebus: Ranged firearms; powerful but loud and slow to reload.
- Bows: Silent but with arrow drop, requiring skill to aim at long range.
- Wands (WS): Magical homing shots and block capabilities.
- Grimoires: Enable spellcasting.
- Fists: Viable with skill tree investment.
Avowed: Unique Weapons and Gear
Unique weapons and armor come with their own backstories and exclusive passives. These one-of-a-kind items can reshape your build and enhance your power in creative ways. Save any unique items you find, as you may discover their true value later when fine-tuning your character.
Avowed: Adra Crystals, Fast Travel, Camp Sites
Throughout your journey, you’ll discover glowing Adra Crystals. Activating these unlocks a camp site with several important utilities:
Fast Travel
Unlocking a camp site allows fast travel to that location from anywhere.
Workbench
This is arguably the most critical camp feature. It upgrades the quality of your weapons and armor, improving their stats. Enemy difficulty scales with item quality, so upgrading gear is essential.
Enemies have quality ratings, and using lower-quality gear against higher-quality enemies will reduce your damage and increase the damage you take. Item quality is more important than character level, so prioritize upgrades over leveling.
Party Stash
Use the stash to offload excess items, freeing up your inventory.
Pro Tip: You can send items to your stash directly from your inventory screen, no matter where you are. This prevents encumbrance and lets you carry more loot.
Avowed: Weapon Enchantment
You can enchant unique weapons at camp to either enhance their power or alter their effects entirely.
Check enchantment options even if a weapon seems weak initially—it might unlock a powerful effect that suits your build.
Use The Cauldron For Cooking
Use the Cauldron to craft consumables and potions. which buff or regenerate your essence, health and mana. So, if you’re out exploring the world of Eora, don’t make the mistake of not foraging around and gathering ingredients in Avowed.
Totems & Totem Fragments in Avowed
Scattered across the world are Totem Fragments. Combining these at camp activates powerful buffs, functioning like additional unique gear. In Avowed, you’re supposed to collect 6 Totem Fragments in a specific area and these passives remain active in that particular region.
Talk To Companions To Gain Buffs & Attribute Points
You might be the type to ignore NPC conversations in RPGs, but you might get a few extra attribute points. Your companions may request to talk at camp which would be indicated by an icon on the left side of your screen. These conversations can lead to permanent stat boosts or new passive bonuses, so engaging with your companions is always worthwhile.
Avowed: Last Tips & Tricks
1. Explore the World
Rushing the main quest can lead to difficulty spikes due to under-leveled gear.
Exploration is key to finding materials, unique items, and upgrades.
2. Carry a Grimoire (Even for Non-Magic Builds)
Certain environmental puzzles and destructible terrain require elemental damage.
Grimoires or elemental grenades can solve these, but grenades are finite, so keeping a grimoire in your inventory is a safer option.
3. Eat Regeneration Food
Even when at full health and Essence, consuming regen food will store the effect as a buff, activating automatically when your bars drop.
This prevents wasting food mid-fight.
4. Always Buy Lockpicks
Chests often require multiple lockpicks. Since lockpicks are consumed on use, keeping a stockpile prevents missing out on loot.
5. Merchant Restocks
Merchants restock their non-unique items every 3 days.
You can force a restock by resting at camp three times, which is useful for farming consumables or crafting materials.