Even so, the books are not without criticism. Wavering difficulty is a common criticism made about the series. The battles tend to be either too hard or too easy. This is mostly attributed to the attainment of the Sommerswerd (a sword forged by gods) in the second book "Fire on the Water" which drastically increases the wielder's combat abilities. Another reason for this would be the fact that a player can start with drastically different statistics. Finally, because the books were written to be functional both as a series and as standalone adventures, whether a player would have access to certain special weapons and abilities made difficulty hard to gauge.