How about this for an improvement?

_______ watched as she stripped it of everything useful for his tradecraft, even finding the secret compartments containing his deadliest poisons.





For bigger context, here it is in the paragraph.

The young woman dressed as if she just left a cloister nodded and retrieved the pack. Zevran watched as she stripped it of everything useful for his tradecraft, even finding the secret compartments containing his deadliest poisons. This sister bore watching. He subtly checked for the things he carried on his person. All gone. His estimation of her changed to artisan.

I mean, when you're trying to talk about all of something, you have a few options as far as words to use, but all of them basically serve the same purpose as "all" and would be just as potentially problematic.

A lot of the time (not always, mind) you can just drop the "all" entirely. You could say "she stripped it of his lovely potions" and "all" is, to some degree, implied. However, if you want to emphasize that all of something is involved, then you really have no choice but to use a word like "all" or "every".

Personally, I think that this is just one of those cases where an editing system gets it wrong. They're very useful tools, up to a point, but they have their limits and should always be augmented with a solid understanding of grammar and the meanings and connotations of words. Just the other day, my autocorrect tried to get me to say "the place were the boy stood" instead of "the place where the boy stood". I still use it; it's caught something I missed plenty of times. But I don't accept everything it says as fact.

It's good that you're watching out for these things, but I don't think "all" is a problem word.

I can't say I've heard of "all" being a word to avoid before, but thinking how I'd write the sentence differently, perhaps you can be more descriptive with it. Replace "all his lovely potions" with "every glittering vial and philter" or some such.

IMO, the issue you'd really be fixing isn't with "all," but with "lovely." (I HAVE heard that adverbs are often not your friends.) What's lovely about the potions? Tell us that instead.

But that's just my take on it. {= )

~Neshomeh