[Jazzepi]

I would avoid the N2/F2 pick. I don't think it's terribly important. It's very difficult to diversify into F, so all you really want from it is the ability to forge some choice items like firebrands, rings of fire resistance, rune smashers, etc.

Your crones can easily random into N4, and you will have an N4 crone by the time you want to cast stuff like mother oak, or mass regen. I would use the daughters of avalon to cast the green site searching spell instead of trying to tack it onto your pretender.

By lowering, or even getting rid of the F/N picks, you can knock up the other ones. Astral and Death are, IMO, the best gems, and the most important gems for the late game.

I just really think that it's more important to be able to reliably find a high percentage, read 95% with level 3 in a path, of a small variety of sites, then to find a smaller percentage of a larger variety of sites. Sites that require higher path levels also tend to produce more gems, and gems of multiple types.

You definitely need to pickup Misfortune 2. Also, spend one tilt of that scale on Magic 1. Magic 1 makes your bards research 5 points, instead of 4. That means that relative to their original research value, if you have only bards researching, you're getting a +25% bonus to research. Now, obviously you're going to recruit crones too, and they research twice as well as bards, so the bonus is reduced on them, but bards/daughters of avalon will make the bulk of your research production.

Misfortune 2 is really 2 free scale-ticks when combined with O3. You're doing yourself a disservice to be afraid of taking Misfortune in a situation like this. It's really not bad at all.

Jazzepi