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Slarti

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  1. Yes, it is 100% possible to do this. Simply leaving a faction won't actually alienate them and they'll always let you switch back, if you still meet the criteria. The meaningful bonuses for joining are pretty much limited to: Awakened - Combat skills +1 Obeyers - Create Fyora +1 Takers - Speed and Create Vlish canisters without angering Kazg; Kyazo and Kaxen quests; much easier access to Trajkov amulet Each faction offers a level of training in the Sholai language, but these are trivial to acquire anyway. Also, the Obeyers and Takers both remove "NY" from all items in their respective main zones on joining. There is mostly no downside at all to having the Trajkov amulet (from any source). Note however: - Halm won't offer Leadership training if you have it - Gavrila will attack you if you have it, which doesn't matter unless, for some reason, you want to collect the maximum number of Sholai language trainings. This has no impact on the game itself Unless something has changed from OG1 (the ending text chunks don't appear to have, but feel free to correct me here), this is wrong. What changes the ending is what you do with the Geneforge (and with Trajkov and Goettsch). Each of the servile sects pushes you towards a different Geneforge resolution, but sect membership itself doesn't actually affect anything.
  2. That is a really good point. There are some other factors I left out -- critical hit chance, for example, which can actually be quite high with the right equipment, and which boosts direct damage significantly (I think it's 1.5x when critting, so an effective +15% to total output considering the best-in-slot jewelry) but doesn't help acid. I decided to just test this all out repeatedly. The good news is my projected damage numbers hold up exceptionally well. The bad news: Goettsch is level 23 and is actually tricky to hit on Torment. This is hard all around, but is particularly terrible for an unfocused shaping skill strategy. Chances to hit (blessed, etc): Drayk (fire shaping 9 + 2 stat lvls) physical attack: 77% Drayk (fire shaping 9 + 2 stat lvls) fire spray: 57% Searing Artila (magic shaping 9 + 2 stat lvls) ST acid: 62% Searing Artila (magic shaping 9 + 2 stat lvls) acid spray: 52% Searing Artila (magic shaping 3) ST acid: 22% Searing Artila (magic shaping 3) acid spray: 12% Additionally, Goettsch resists taking on the acid status about half the time that he is hit. The console doesn't give a percentage here unfortunately. (I think this is the result of his curse resistance, which isn't displayed either, but maybe it's also level-based? I don't know.) Searing Artila acid is almost always applied for 3 procs (sometimes 4 at a small chance correlating to creation Int). Since it does proc twice per "round" for Goettsch, this means a lone Searing Artila will need to reapply it every turn to get the full effect. Mathing it out, the odds of getting at least one successful application per Searing Artila turn are about 46% for the MS 9 artila, and just 18% for the MS 3 artila! (The odds could be slightly better (or worse) depending on how much status resistance he truly has.) So in theory that 230 acid damage per round sounds amazing, but in practice, it's not that easy. For comparison, at level 19, my Shaper has a very similar 64% chance to hit with Searer. For whatever reason Searer seems more consistent at applying the status effect, but I didn't test exhaustively so I'm not confident in this. Searer does layer on more turns of acid, generally 5-6. Ultimate conclusions: - For a Magic Shaping strategy you definitely want a Searing Artila, maybe two, for this fight. Because of all the layers of random chances, this will be swingier and less consistent than a direct damage strategy, but not necessarily worse overall -- but will probably require more reloads. This is especially true if you're also using statuses (Airshock, Glaahks, whatever) to handle crowd control. - For any other strategy, they'll be pretty rocky. - Mixed shaping type strategies will be rocky in general.
  3. The Searing Artila does roughly 115 from acid + 35 from its own attacks (prorated for hasted attacks), assuming a. it only attacks Goettsch, b. it never misses, c. at least one status effect application makes it past status resistance (I think this is curse resistance, which we can't see?) on any turn where acid isn't already applied (very likely but not a given, especially in round 1), and d. it doesn't die. The Drayk has two options. If it uses overloaded ranged attacks, it deals roughly 136 damage per turn (prorated in the same way). However, if it instead uses overcharged melee attacks, it deals roughly 193 damage per turn. Regarding the assumptions, (c) does not apply at all, and (b) applies, but depending on which attacks each creation uses, the Drayk will have a 5% to 15% better chance to hit (all things being equal) if it uses ranged, and a 20% to 30% better chance to hit if it uses melee. At low shaping skill levels (likely, if mixing creation types) this is more likely to be relevant. (The Searing Artila actually has a surprisingly decent melee attack itself, but it doesn't apply acid, so I'm ignoring it here.) And of course, this really only applies to Goettsch. Trajkov has surprisingly low elemental resists, and there aren't a ton of other fights with high enough HP for acid to compete this well.
  4. All right, I'm upgrading Searing Artila, since they do have a realistic use case. I think they only make sense if you're going full Magic Shaping, but in that case, they are an obvious support for Glaahks, and probably the main creation pick prior to Create Glaahk. (If you're mixing creation types, one Drayk outdamages even the first Searing Artila, counting acid, even against Goettsch's 1025 hp, 45% elemental resist, 25% acid resist, and is less frail, for nearly the same essence cost.)
  5. Three Searing Artilas? I-- I don't even understand the theory, at that point. Acid doesn't stack. They have an AoE, which is spammable.
  6. Radius AoE effects like Frost Aura don't hit friendlies even on Torment. That said, I did some quick testing to see how much damage it actually does. Frost Aura (Cryoa & Cryodrayk versions are identical) is hardcoded. It seems to do 1-2 damage per level of the creation to every hostile creature within a circular radius of 4 squares (at the orthogonal ends). There is no base damage, and importantly, percentile bonuses/penalties (from Int, bless, wrack, etc) are NOT applied. For comparison, a level 16 Cryoa will do an average of 56 damage with its breath attack (assuming War Blessing, Helix Bracer, and no other bonuses to Int). Given Haste, its DPT will be about 76. It will do an average of 24 damage with frost aura. So it's a reasonable increase of about a third... on turns where an enemy you care about is very close to the Cryoa at the start of its turn. In fairness, there could also be turns where you hit multiple targets this way. However, I think the utility is limited -- especially when you realize that if you have the cryoa rush in to melee range, you're likely giving up a potential extra ranged attack from a haste proc, which is roughly the same average value as the aura damage anyway, except you can actually target it. So the aura seems best against melee-only creations that will actually run up to you -- though probably not the exploding enemies, where it could inadvertently cause a party wipe for you. The problem is that the only creation classes that are strictly melee-only -- Thahds and Battle Alphas (ok ok, and Ornks) -- all have knockback skills that will push the cryoa out of range of its aura. And they do seem to open with those frequently. Meanwhile, a level 18 Cryodrayk will do an average of 92 damage with its breath attack (same assumptions). Given Haste + Innate Haste, its DPT will be about 156. It will still do an average of 24 damage with frost aura. That's much less exciting, even though its Frost Aura passive costs twice as much as the Cryoa's. It's also probably worse on Cryodrayks given that they are actually flimsier than Cryoas.
  7. Later in the game you have better options than Cryoas, too. "Always works"... I mean, if you end up next to an enemy, sure. But the damage is (a) small, (b) delayed, and (c) not something you can consistently target or control. Is it really the best use of 3 essence?
  8. Were you actually still using Searing Artilas against Goettsch, Oroboros, or Trajkov, though? Plus, a lot of those tough single boss scenarios begin with them flanked by a number of high-offense creations, which you have to deal with somehow. Daze is excellent, of course. You can't always Daze the whole battlefield in round 1, though (especially when Daze fails to land) and being able to deal with groups of enemies can be pretty useful then. One thing I should have noted about HP, as well, is something you turned me on to -- how much of a difference Essence Shield can make. It's not convenient for regular use, of course, but for big fights, that can give the less sturdy creations a lot of wiggle room.
  9. Frost Aura did completely pitiful damage when I tried it out -- like, single-digit. Does it scale and become useful at some point?
  10. Acid - Acid can certainly be decent. A "massive" benefit seems like an overstatement, though. It's up to 15% max HP damage in one turn (less if reduced by resistance). This can certainly destroy some high HP enemies... if you can keep them busy, or stunned, or whatever, for 7 rounds. And if you can do that, you can destroy them in any number of ways. 15% HP isn't nothing and it's a perfectly nice offense boost. But that's all I'd call it -- extra damage. It also doesn't stack, so no matter how many times the Searing Artila attacks, you just get one acid proc per enemy turn. The PC applying acid has an opportunity cost, but so does using a creation to do so. Is it worth 12 essence that could go into another creation? That's an entire extra Fyora spamming 1.7 AoEs per round. But I agree with you about the opportunity cost for the PC, and I think that just goes to show that it isn't truly a "massive" benefit. Accuracy - Artila and Vlish do have a default skill of 3 with their ST attacks, which probably contributes to accuracy, since it adds dice just like character level does. However, Searing Artila have an effective base level of 3 (base level 6, but skill requirement of 3, so the first 3 levels of Magic Shaping don't boost their level). I suppose you could dash straight for all the Artila canisters, but if you are boosting Magic Shaping enough for them to beat out the PC, then -- unless you're also dashing for difficult content -- the +3 to accuracy is past the point where accuracy is going to be an issue anyway. Fyoras vs Roamers - I tried both side by side early on, on Torment, and while the resists were nice (the HP difference is tiny, it's the 30% resist all that matters), the spammable AoEs from the Fyoras made a much bigger difference. I wasn't using Overcharge then at all -- too hard to manage when it eats >50% of HP. That said, I was using a team of multiple Fyoras so enemies (literally all of them) could be easily burst down; the Roamer has more of a place on a less aggressive team where you're need to be able to soak up multiple hits in one turn, because you're leaving so many things alive to hit you back. Endurance - Yeah, it's more that Battle Betas (for an extreme example) can already survive multiple attacks per turn, whereas a frailer creation getting past the point of surviving one attack will save their hide more frequently.
  11. I'm late to the party on this one, but I finally (and very slowly) got around to looking at Mutagen's mechanics and balance more closely. Here's my analysis, which looks quite different to me from some of the advice I've seen shared. Creation Balance Creations, obviously, are more varied and distinct than in OG1, and also more balanced (with other creations) than in any OG game. That said, some are still much better than others, and some of the recommendations I've seen here aren't actually good values. In OG1, creation level mattered so much that it tended to override other considerations about which creation to use. Level still matters a lot, since it's the almost sole determiner of attack accuracy (in addition to boosting evasion, HP, and damage). The most effective way to increase creation level is by increasing the PC's Shaping skills... which means that, if you're shaping at all, those skills will offer a bigger "bang for their buck" than increasing Battle Magic or Melee Weapons ever will. This also means that concentrating on one category of Shaping is still more effective. Spreading out those points just to throw in creations that can cause certain status effects, or tank slightly better (it's really hard to tank at all with Mutagen's combat logic) mostly isn't worth it. Spreading out shaping skills isn't worth it for Control levels either. Even on Torment that's really an early game issue. And even then, those only matter if your creations are getting damaged, and early game, with strong creation choices, you can generally just wipe the enemy out before there's any chance of that. The same accuracy changes mean that it takes precious little investment for even a Guardian to use each type of spells effectively, so the skill points you're trying to save by dedicating a creation slot to landing acid or daze are questionable. Creations, Best to Worst The numbers listed below are my own calculations. They assume the PC has 8 levels in each shaping skill (9 in battle shaping, due to the extra canister available) and all Create X canisters (except for the ones Syros has locked behind skill points). - Essence cost: expected cost (with recommended augments) / base cost - Survivability: I took HP, magnified it to represent damage "prevented" by resistances, and then took the average of the physical and elemental numbers. - DPS: This is the average damage from their best repeatable attack, multiplied for inherent haste or crit passives as appropriate. They do not assume the presence of any PC equipment that boosts creation stats. For the most part these help all creations to similar degrees, but it's worth nothing that Endurance boosts will help lower HP-mult creations the most, while Strength boosts obviously benefit Battle Creations more. Tier 1: Drayks (26/14 essence for level 18, 130 survivability, 96 DPS - cone spam, optional overload to 183) Tier 1: Fyoras (12/6 essence for level 15, 107 survivability, 50 DPS - cone spam, optional overload to 96) - Basically the same creation, Drayks just have higher base level, better attack mults (+ faster animations) - Best offensive passives lets them spam AoE cone attacks with average output boosted 25% via haste chance (it's +35% but stacks additively with the Haste status) - Overload is hard to use early, but once you hit higher creation HP and get Mass Healing, it allows you to deal insane amounts of damage with very little risk - AoEs are relevant to the vast majority of the combat in the game - Cheap cost allows you to run many copies, boost level+damage with Int levels, and/or conserve essence - Plentiful early Create Fyora sources boost them early on as well Tier 2: Glaahks (27/17 essence for level 18, 243 survivability, 80 DPS - ST stun, 1/3 stun cone) Tier 2: Ur-Glaahks (34/22 essence for level 18, 243 survivability, 80 DPS - ST stun, 1/3 stun cone, 1 dominate) - Can stunlock one opponent at a time; limited ranged ability is the main drawback - Excellent survivability - Ur-Glaahks especially are expensive but Dominate is better than the PC's - Canisters all in late-game zones, though one can be reached relatively easily if you go Takers/Trajkov - Might be tier 1 if Airshock didn't exist Tier 3: Battle Alphas (22/14 essence for level 19, 227 survivability, 78 DPS - ST stun/daze on 2/3 turns) - Situationally worse than Glaahks, but sometimes just as good, and cheaper - Lategame Guardian gear has a bunch of creation Strength bonuses which will push this DPS above Glaahks Tier 4: Thahds (12/6 essence for level 15, 159 survivability, 71 DPS - 1/3 ST stun) Tier 4: Volatile Thahds (10 essence for level 15, remote controlled bomb) - Thahds are cheap meatshields that can also throw a stun in the early game; crit boost helps damage - Volatile Thahds are cheap disposable offense if you want to go that route Tier 5: Cryoas (18/9 essence for level 16, 163 survivability, 51 DPS - 1/3 cone, 1/3 ST daze) Tier 5: Roamers (11/8 essence for level 15, 163 survivability, 62 DPS - ST) Tier 5: Clawbugs (11/8 essence for level 16, 160 survability, 62 DPS - ST poison) - Other defensive options - Cryoas are versatile albeit overpriced hybrids, Roamers have the strongest consistent ranged damage outside of Drayks and are super cheap, and Clawbugs are also cheap, sturdy damage-dealers Tier 6: Searing Artila (24/12 essence for level 15, 98 survivability, 45 DPS - cone spam, acid) Tier 6: Charged Vlish (18/14 essence for level 16, 109 survivability, 52 DPS - ST vulnerable) Tier 6: Vlish (13/10 essence for level 15, 103 survivability, 46 DPS - ST curse) - Very fragile - Searing Artila are basically Fyora clones that cost twice as much and have less HP... however, they are the obvious pre-Glaahk mainstay if you go full Magic Shaping; even with Glaahks around, keeping one acid spewer can be very effective in certain situations - Vlish statuses aren't that amazing but are the only way to get them - but you need the non-damaging AoEs to land them consistently - These aren't worth it on a fast offensive team, but might be relevant to a tanking setup -- and will want disabling status support from the PC for sure Tier 7: Cockatrices (32/20 essence for level 15, 108 survivability, 57 DPS - 1/3 cone, various statuses) - Inconsistent and hugely overpriced, but can still be very effective if you are lucky with the statuses - Bizarrely fragile for their essence cost Tier 8: Battle Betas (32/20 essence for level 20, 321 survivability, 85 DPS - ST stun/daze on 2/3 turns) Tier 8: Cryodrayks (38/20 essence for level 18, 130 survivability, 102 DPS - 1/3 cone, 1/3 ST daze) Tier 8: Iron Clawbugs (16/12 essence for level 17, 168 survivability, 70 DPS - ST poison) Tier 8: Pyroroamers (12 essence for level 12, remote controlled bomb) Tier 8: Artila (11/7 essence for level 14, 101 survivability, 37 DPS - 1/3 cone, poison) - Battle Betas and Iron Clawbugs are just more expensive versions of their base forms, they get more HP but that's about it - Cryodrayks are much more expensive than Drayks, and trade piles of offense for... one non-spammable ST daze; they don't even have the Cryoa resistance passive - Pyroroamers are more expensive than Volatile Thahds, and lower level - Artila really just don't have anything to recommend them, Poison never really matters and nothing else about them is good Tier 9: Ornks (20/12 essence for levlol 11, 78 survivablolity, 29 DPS - 1/3 ST stun) - On the plus side, PC-created Ornks are no longer insufferably slow-walking
  12. The dates for his reign are made up. That came directly from Relhan/*i canon, I believe. That included one emperor Stewart and three Hawthornes. The Wiki's Timeline of Ermarian (which was my attempt to make all the actual canonical stuff work, while including whatever of Relhan could still reasonably fit with that) converted that to two Stewarts and two Hawthornes specifically to make the Stewart/Magery connection chronologically plausible, and because, as you note, nothing in the games suggests three Hawthornes at all. 722-763 was the Relhan dates for Hawthorne I, which on the Timeline becomes Stewart II, and covers almost any plausible closure date for the School of Magery. VoDT can't reasonably be set before the trilogy, since there are references in other base-BoX scenarios (maybe also VoDT itself, I forget) to events involving Exile/Avernum, and they are explicitly intended to be playable in sequence with one party. Note that there are other comments in VoDT about the date of closing which are vaguer and range from "decades ago" to "over a century ago." This makes 80 years a pretty reasonable guess, but might make the 130 from BoA a harder fit. So, in terms of actual canon, we can safely say the school was probably closed around 80 years prior to the scenario, but can't entirely rule out an older closure date. For posterity:
  13. there were actually enemies in some of the older games, starting with exile, that had an empty graphic, so were never directly visible on the map. i do think that would be worse in the geneforge engine though, ha
  14. that was a joke (hence the strikethru) also that invisible thing sounds horrible
  15. in a surprise throwback, the stalkthorn is going to use the A4 chitrach graphic
  16. "khazi" as in "troglodyte khazi" is presumably just a different transliteration (or perhaps a purposeful alteration) of "ghazi"
  17. Nope, it's just a regular bow (longbow IIRC), and yup, the bonus applies globally. It was pretty clearly intended to only apply to attacks made with that weapon, but they used a bonus effect that instead applies to anything your character does. Also, welcome!
  18. I can't help with quest specifics but I can answer some general mechanics questions: You answered your own question here, but let's expand on it. There are actually multiple points in damage calculation where randomness is involved. First, damage is usually generated as XdY + Z, i.e., roll X dice with results of 1-Y on them, and add to a base damage of Z. Z is usually pretty tiny. So if you have an ice spell with dice that do 1-5 damage each, and you have 20 dice, you could do anywhere from 20-100 damage. The vast majority of the results are going to cluster around the middle, maybe 45-55, because you're adding so many independent random rolls. But once in a blue moon you can get something close to 20 or close to 100. So you could easily have a 2x damage difference, or even more, before applying armor. Armor/resistance is also applied randomly. We don't know the exact mechanics, but we suspect it's something like, with 79% resist, each point of damage has a 79% chance to be blocked. Again, this will usually be very close to the expected block % but once in a blue moon, it can vary a lot. Now, if your priest is consistently taking twice as much damage, then we should look for another effect. But if only see this happen once, might be just random, as you said. Luck does increase resists by +2% per point, but this is already factored into your displayed total resist %. Gymnastics and Anatomy aren't really hyper-powered skills in A6, though without knowing the rest of your build it's hard to comment on how much sense they make. Although the game was balanced to play well on multiple difficulties, it wasn't really balanced around smaller parties specifically. So that could be part of it. I'm wondering if there's a gimmick required to kill him? (It's been such a long time...)
  19. ZKR is the Za-Khazi Run, the bundled (and canonical) Blades scenario. It's the only one of the bundled scenarios that has much connection to Avernum or its timeline. For the others (and certainly non-Spiderweb scenarios) I think you're right, it just depends.
  20. Yeah, definitely Mage Lore. I think some of the level 7 spells go up a little above 20 required -- it counts the party's Mage Lore in total.
  21. I can't believe you got through this post without mentioning you-know-who.
  22. Yeah, the player learns sort of the default mode for shaping, but there are other modes that allow other shapers to shape either more rapidly (doing it on-the-fly in combat) or more sustainably (slowly forming creations that are not tied to the shaper in the same way and do not permanently restrict the shaper's personal essence). Also, I thought most creations, besides serviles, were specifically engineered to be unable to reproduce on their own? Maybe I'm misremembering here...
  23. This topic was about the original Geneforge 1, not the remake. So it's possible some of these things have changed. Might have better luck making a new topic than with a 17-year-old one anyway.
  24. The point I'm trying to make is that both systems do this. The math is different, the numbers are different, but the actual result in terms of level-ups is identical every step of the way.
  25. Yes. Question for you: Most RPGs have a system where XP isn't adjusted for level. Instead, the amount of XP you need to get a level up changes dramatically as your levels go higher. In practice, these systems end up having almost the same effect. It's true that 10 experience doesn't get rounded down to 0 if you now need 50,000 experience to get a level up, but getting 1/5,000 of a level up is never going to be meaningful anyway. Do you have just as much of a problem with this more common system? In which case you're essentially arguing for something like "every complete zone gets you the equivalent of 1 level up, regardless of what level you're at"? Or are you objecting more to the feeling of getting 0 experience, even though in practice it might not be any different from getting the full amount, but having massively scaled up XP total requirements?
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