Slawbug

You can get +6 to Fire Shaping and +4 to Battle and Magic Shaping from items. Lifecrafters start with 2 in Fire Shaping, so it's worthwhile to buy 2 levels at any rate.

 

EDIT: And unless Randomizer's list is incomplete, there are no Fire, Battle, or Magic Shaping canisters.

Yes, you will rarely miss. That's irrelevant; you will rarely miss with ANY PC attack that you invest in. (Anyway, spells miss less often; they have higher base to-hit rates and all your investment goes into skills that boost the to-hit rate, whereas Quick Action does not boost to-hit.)

By "reliable" I am not talking about hitting every turn, I am talking about reliably doing your best damage. Quick Action of 8-10 means you will get a double strike approximately 40-50% of the time. That's not reliable at all! You absolutely need those double strikes if you want your damage (in any given turn) to meet the damage you can get out of battle magic. In a prolonged fight i.e. vs Matala, it matters how many you get overall but not on any given turn, so 50% vs 70% is not a huge difference. If you are fighting a bunch of Wingbolts, being able to take out one per turn might mean the difference between life and death. A 50/50 chance to double strike is just not gonna cut it.

How does an Infiltrator have "earlier" magic strength, but a Servile doesn't have the same thing for combat skills? That was a completely gratuitous adjective.

Looking at effective skill differences, compared to a Servile, an Infiltrator will have about:

-4 Melee skill (str + melee weapons)
-4 Quick Action
-5 Parry
-1/4 HP

+2 Battle Magic
+2 Mental Magic
+2 Blessing Magic
+2 Spellcraft
+1/6 Essence

However, these differences are eroded for skills you only need to build up to a certain low point. If you aren't using Battle Magic to attack, then ALL the magic skills fall into that category, and Spellcraft isn't worth buying with skill points.

You need to explain this, because it sounds like bunk. You're right about melee damage, but the same thing certainly applies to battle magic damage, and a few extra points in blessing or mental magic are mostly useless, beyond what you need in order to get the most useful spells.

This makes NO SENSE.

You are saying that the Infiltrator's magic bonus lets it buy melee skills. But doesn't the Servile's melee bonus let it buy magic skills the same way? In terms of raw skill point cost, the bonus a Servile gets to combat is slightly bigger than the bonus an Infiltrator gets to magic. If you want both classes to get combat and magic skills, the Infiltrator is just not going to come out ahead. That's the balance of the numbers.

Okay, let's try this out.
Pumping the three magic stats up to 9 each will cost

16 + 20 + 16 = 52 for an Infiltrator
23 + 28 + 23 = 74 for a Servile

That's a difference of 22 skill points. Now let's look at melee stats. We'll consider an extremely minimal investment in melee stats -- enough to get each class to equal strength, a few cheap points in melee weapons -- getting it to 7, which is 4 buys for either class -- and enough to get Quick Action to 10. I still think that's a lamentably low QA, but you said it was enough, so we'll use that number.

Str + Melee + QA
00 + 06 + 16 = 22 for a Servile
08 + 10 + 34 = 52 for an Infiltrator

That's a difference of 30. The magic numbers ignored Spellcraft, in which the Infiltrator gets an effective +2, and the combat numbers ignored Parry, in which the Servile gets an effective +5.

There are also the HP and Essence differences. I don't think either of those is game-breaking, but a Servile has 10 HP for every 8 of the Infiltrator, while the Infiltrator has 7 Essence for every 6 of the Servile. The essence really won't make any difference at all unless you are making a bunch of creations -- and if you are doing that, neither battle magic nor melee weapons are going to make a huge difference to you. The HP bonus is similarly useful, but not critical, given the availability of Augmentation, Essence Armor, etc.

Also, the Servile gets an extra point in Mechanics (likely worth 5 or 6 skill points).

*facepalm*

Then why the heck are you debating how the numbers add up???

If you want to say "I enjoyed playing as an Infiltrator more. It felt more powerful to me," nobody's going to argue with you. But that's not what you've been saying.

Yeah, that is true.

 

I don't think it's totally worthless. If you're a lifecrafter who has already pumped Int up hugely, it might be worth it to spend 6 skill points to get your Drayks and Kyshakks an extra 2 levels each.

Edited.

 

I'd like to second Khoth's comment. This is a useful way to find stuff.

I just updated the tables, because I realized I accidentally made a major goof in the first version -- I did out Artila and Roamers as acid damage, even though they do magic damage.

 

The result is that Magic Shaping no longer looks like a viable path whatsoever. You don't have any answer to Wingbolts, which means you are probably forced to make Drayks, and at that point, you might as well have done Fire Shaping.

I think the number of tools needed is based on the proportional difference between object strength and mechanics skill. Trying to open a weak door with mechanics 1 vs mechanics 2 will often have a difference of multiple living tools.

Helping Moseh requires 10 Leadership, not 8. I suggested 8 natural leadership with the +2 from items. You could skip that, but there are plenty of 10 leadership requirements after Moseh. If you care so little for the XP bonuses I'd say just skip leadership entirely, don't even bother getting to a natural 6.

I agree the Infiltrator is overlooked, and not a bad class. But I take issue with the above statement. It takes significant investment in melee skills, and especially in Quick Action, if you want to have a reliable melee attack. Battle Magic is the same way. However, the importance with other spells mainly lies in getting high enough skill to cast the spells. Blessing spells increase in duration with skill but not in power, for the most part.

I'll say it agian. For the same investment in magic skills, an Infiltrator only gets 2 more per magic skill plus 2 more in Spellcraft compared to a Servile. The Servile gets larger bonuses to melee stats. The Servile gets 1/3 more HP, while the Infiltrator gets only 1/6 more Essence.

Good question.

It has, in fact, been removed from the game.

I am talking about quarantines specifically, not just any kind of barrier or boundary. E/A 2 thus did not have any quarantines. I'm willing to give a pass to E/A 1 ("exiling", the Abyss) as well.

But E/A 3 had a quarantined continent and a quarantined province, A4 had quarantined regions, G1 had a Barred island, G3 had a quarantined island chain. G4 has a quarantined province, though that isn't so bad because you are expected to violate the quarantine. VoDT revolved around a large Forbidden area. ASR had a quarantined area (though not at the beginning).

I realize that it's easier to make these kinds of games with artifical restrictions on where the player can go, but enough with the quarantines already. I don't want to have to make any comparisons to Lufia II.

The problem with A4 in this regard is just how movement was restricted. In A1 and A2, you had the same area to explore but you had (for the most part) unrestricted freedom to explore as you wished. There were any number of ways to get from Northeastern Exile to the Great Cave. But in A4, every possible route but one has been totally shut down, so it feels much less open and free. That's fine with the more linear plot, but for people who were used to the old Avernum I think it felt stifling.

Although G4 is handled similarly, the barriers feel much less arbitrary. First of all, it really does take a lot of effort to get through an entire region in G4; it doesn't feel like you are flying through the map and then stopping because of some random mayor. Also, the war and the tasks you are tasked with make the stopping points fit with the plot well, as opposed to A4, where justification seems more tenuous.

In G1, melee damage does 1-8. Period. I just rechecked the scripts.

 

In G4, The Oozing Blade does physical damage. Period. You can look in the scripts. Its ability is just a copy of the Broadsword ability with acid splash. You are right about the acid damage in G3, but that has been changed. Rotghroth damage also changed from acid+splash to physical+splash (and even the comments in the script file changed to reflecet this).

 

(Rotghroths do have 50% resistance to physical damage, which is unusually high, AND 3 points in Parry, but those reductions will affect all weapons.)

 

Next!

Section of Avernum? That's pretty much all of Avernum proper. This is well-established.

They don't. Fort Monastery is new, and Fort Ganrick was described even in E2 as a temporary construction built solely to hold off the goblins and nephils north of Draco. Grindstone is odd only because such villages usually get a special node with a dialog box rather than an actual town.

I would, however, still like to know what the heck happened to Fort Saffron during the Empire War.

Things I do not want to see:

- Quarantines

- Rentar-Ihrno

- A new humanoid race or culture with a religious ritual that involves touching the surface of three pools of water

- Clawbugs

- Pylons

First off, magic is overpowered. Magic is frequently overpowered in CRPGs and I think there have been a few overpowered bits in most of Jeff's games.

 

I also think I know why that is. Geneforge 1 was an exception to this rule. There were 12 spells, compared to 30-60 in other Spiderweb games. Creations were way more powerful. G2 toned down creations a little and added more spells which were wayyyy more powerful, and did not balance magic to compensate. Nobody noticed because the brokenness of Parry was far more obvious.

 

In G1, weapons did 1-8 while spells did 1-5, 1-6, 1-7... weapons had Quick Action AND Anatomy. And there were fewer enemy resistances all around, certainly including armor. This was very balanced, because melee opened you up to opponent's melee attacks under that AP system, plus it was less tactically flexible.

 

Now weapons do 1-4 or 1-5 while spells and creation breath range from 1-3 to 1-10. (Yes, SoT, nothing beats 1-5.)

 

The acid and ice blades and so on are definitely good, but I want to correct an error people keep replicating. They do NOT do special damage. They do physical damage. They cause status effects, but they only do physical damage directly.

 

Also, Quick Action has a problem. It's inconsistent. Even at very high levels there's a chance you'll not get the second strike. That's fine as far as damage output over time goes if you're attacking, say, Matala. But if you're just trying to knock down some wingbolts, it makes your task much harder since you have to allow for a range of damage. (I actually like that, but only if it's applied to everything; the problem is that spells do extremely consistent damage, while QA does not.) At moderate levels of QA, it's a coin-flip. Assuming it's the same as A4, which it looks like, 10 QA is a 50% chance of a second strike and 20 QA is a 75% chance.

I believe you need 2 points in Fire Shaping.

Apple Vlish come equipped with Bluefang, the latest in telepathic networking, and a motion sensor with an optional levitation attachment.

Cupertino, 2 December -- Apple unveiled the newest in their line of color-coordinated computers, the Vlish, today.

 

"Steve Jobs saw the success of the Nintendo Wii, and was furious that we had been scooped on a new marketing gimmick unrelated to technology, having a weird product name. So he created the Vlish," an anonymous employee said.

 

The Vlish comes in three colors -- tentacle burgundy, terror olive drab, and submission puce.

Their melee attacks should be almost exactly the same, except for the poison inflicted by the wingbolt. That is another bonus, it's true.

 

The damage gap also sounds huger than expected. Do you have more training in Magic Shaping than Fire Shaping?

 

EDIT: Vlish, I'm confused. Wingbolts actually have slightly more physical resistance ("armor") than kyshakks, 40% vs 30%. But neither creation has any resistance whatsoever to ice, fire, acid, or poison. None. Have you actually tested this or is it just an impression?

They are extremely similar. Wingbolts start a few levels higher and have slightly more energy, though not by much. They are down about 300 HP, though as mentioned they have better resistance to energy attacks (80% vs 50% for the kyshakk). Their breath attack will always be a little bit stronger, but lacks the lightning aura effect.

 

I'd vote wingbolt for the simple fact that in a duel, the wingbolt would beat the kyshakk every time.

Well, it makes sense that they can't wait around forever, though it does sound unplanned.

 

The other one though, there are warnings about exitzone all over the place.

The experience reward is exactly the same, which is why it is in italics.

I don't think rotghroths were ever "banned," though there were probably comments in G2 that all the new Barzite creations were illegal. Certainly Drakons and Gazers are banned.

http://minmax.ermarian.net/g4/

 

It's bare bones at the moment. But for those of you wondering about the picayune deatils of reputation -- or about how you can get both the Ring of Eye's Purity and the Stasis Shield without giving up disgusting munchkin min-maxing -- you might be interested in my Task & Reputation Guide. It's not quite polished yet, but all the data is there.

 

(...yes, for the three weeks that I am in the middle of the woods with no car, I have too much time on my hands, it's true.)

I'm a little surprised that you would even consider rating A4 over G4. I don't hate A4, but really -- what's the comparison?

Unfortunately, Shock Troopers and Warriors are just worse, albeit minutely. Given that a shaping style character shouldn't be meleeing, the Shock Trooper is basically a Lifecrafter with worse magic, but slightly better HP and Parry. However, unless you regularly pump shaper Endurance much above 8, the HP difference is worth about 1 point of Endurance, whereas the magic difference is worth about 4 points (taking Spellcraft into account). Lifecrafter wins.

 

If we use the paradigm that pumping shaping skills is not worthwhile, the Warrior has no advantages whatsoever over the Servile, but he gets the same -4 in magic and loses 1/3 of his spell energy. Bzzt! Servile wins.