Question About Geneforge Reshaping

[RotghrothStew]

In Geneforge 4 I recall that using the Geneforge twice would lead to death as it attempts to write changes that have already been made. Why is it that you are able to use the Geneforge when fighting the Presence Servile? I thought that the player character had already used the forge in their past? Is this explained later in the game?

[Lilith]

In Geneforge 4 I recall that using the Geneforge twice would lead to death as it attempts to write changes that have already been made. Why is it that you are able to use the Geneforge when fighting the Presence Servile? I thought that the player character had already used the forge in their past? Is this explained later in the game?

 

Presumably, different Geneforges work a little differently from each other. That's about all the explanation you're going to get, because the game never really goes into it.

[Triumph]

Yeah, all the Geneforges are different. The first was made by master shapers to grant themselves demigod-like power. The next was made by drakons to grant themselves more power. The third was also made to power up drakons, but doesn't seem to work the same as the second-gen one. The fourth generation was made to grant humans OR serviles the ability to do shaping and magic. Although Rawal has *A* geneforge, but if I'm not mistaken it's never made clear what his geneforge was intended to do or who it was meant to affect. G5 also indicates that your character had been heavily shaped in your old life, so apart from the nuances of Rawal's geneforge, it's possible that something in how you were previously shaped alters the way the geneforge affects you.

[ThricebornPhoenix]

The Geneforge reworks you. It contains a template, a specific humanoid form.

Something happened to you. You were Shaped, and Shaped again. And, in the process, you were damaged. The Geneforge Shapes you yet again, erasing the damaged parts. You are restored to an earlier version.

It seems to me that the PC used a Geneforge at some point, then used canisters - and used either too many, or a bad one. The resulting damage made them sufficiently different from the 'template' to use Rawal's Geneforge without a problem.

 

It's also possible that Rawal, being an experienced Shaper and inclined to caution, built in some safeguards against that sort of thing, whereas the rebels wouldn't have bothered.

[Goldengirl]

Using any of the Geneforge's twice kills you, if the first one didn't already. G5 is the only time I can think that anyone has used two different ones, at least successfully. In G4 it was possible to use them at both Southforge and Northforge, but that would result in death.

 

Since the first time the G5 PC used the Geneforge by definition had to have been a Rebel forge, it makes sense it would be a different template. Most likely, this would be more conservative than the Rebels, and therefore have different balances of reagents. I'll tepidly agree that different templates allowed for different changes and successful transformations; if I recall right, the Drakons did that, too, to become more and more powerful. I'll give, perhaps, the added note that later descriptions in G5 make it seem like the PC was so radically changed (glowing, face sliding around, etc.) that the transformation was less from human/servile to Shaped human/servile, but from contradictory/damaged DNA to restored.

[idonotexist42]

As others have said, In G5, the reason it doesn't kill you is that apparently you got majorly screwed up at some point after initially using a previous geneforge, and so it remade you again and fixed you, kind of like when you do a factory reset on your jailbroken iPod because you screwed with it too much and broke it. Presumably Rawal's Geneforge is a copy of the modern rebel ones, and none of the Geneforges after G1 seem to be quite as powerful as the original. In G1, it was impossible to use the Geneforge a second time because there was nothing more it could do to you; it stated flat out that after it was done you could bathe in the pool and just chill and be fine.

[Slotobit]

You probably did reset, so that outcome ..