The Bullseye Shaper

[Delicious Vlish]

Ok. So, I have, when I have had a spare moment or two, been playing Geneforge again. I completed another run through G3 to satisfy a curiousity of mine.

 

After playing through with a missile themed guardian, I really started to question one of the more typical shaper builds. Strong creations backed with battle magic.

 

There are some flaws in this build and many growing pains. There is never enough essence to really cut loose with spells for one thing. I don't know about most folks, but with Mass Energise, Unlock Door, Strong Daze, and then Acid Showers and what not, casting Augmentation, (Which is kind of rare, seeing as I spend most of the game with not enough essence)

 

In short; Shapers use up most of their essence to make several strong creations. Like on the second island, when you have a couple of Vlish and a pack of Cryoas, and your essence bar is a tiny blue sliver. Some times, you don't even have enough to cast unlock.

 

So I had conservation in mind. Remove as much demand on my essence as possible.

 

So... A Shaper that is somewhat focused on a little dexterity, which can also be had with a couple of items, and some missile skill. I figured that a flat 10 for missile skill plus whatever could be had from items would do. Yes, it is expensive, but as I found out, it was worth it.

 

Battle magic is nice enough and has it's perks. Firebolt is acceptable for offence for quite a long time. Ice bolt and Searer are quite good, but they eat up your energy and your essence. Battle magic also tends to be expensive. Something to think about when you are buying up a bunch of creations and all those different spells. It damages the pockets.

 

The Shaper proved himself to be most effective. I played a no canister loyalist.

 

Playstyle is more involved than the typical shaper. You are not just hiding behind your creations, you are actively sniping the enemy and causing much pain and hurt on the battlefield. The game progresses very quickly. There is a lot of applied damage.

 

Things I noticed.

 

I had more energy and essence to cast things like War Blessing and Protection. I could cast it more often. Not only did it help my creations, it was helping me. With a plain vanilla thorns baton I was hitting for up to 40 damage a shot on just the first island and with very little missile skill investment. I could do upwards of 60 damage with javelins. I was doing more damage output in total with my creations and my shaper than my missile oriented guardian. I had more creations, and I had the ability to bless my self. Mind you, this is torment. I had a pack of fyoras, 2 thahds, and a single artilla in no time.

 

When I had a venom baton, I was clearing over 50 damage a shot on average, at the cost of no essence. Ignoring battle magic was paying off. I was doing a lot more applied direct damage with batons, crystals, and wands. I did one shot to the creator on the first island with a discipline wand for a bit over 150 damage while blessed. That was a lot more damage than a shaper would normally do with a wand. Heck, that was more damage than any spell at that level could muster. I started to realise that I was on to something... That a shaper could get more damage from pumping a weapons skill, missiles, than he could from pumping battle magic.

 

I mined every crystal, collected every Vlish tentacle, hoarded sticks, saved every gem, every roamer fang, and stockpiled weapons. I blew through the second island like a hurricane, and tore through the third with little effort. Once I had Mass Energise, I was an engine of distruction. Since I was not casting spells to create damage, I had more essence available to cast ME more often, which really turned the tide. I ripped apart Spharon's runed serviles with ease. I blasted them with crystals and pumped them full of thorns. I was doing more damage with missiles than my previous guardians. The blessing magic and a little mental magic made a huge difference. I was blasting apart golems, blowing holes in bugs, and gunning serviles down. When I had a submission baton, and two attacks per round, I became my own Glaahk. Take out a leader type or a spell caster, pump it full of thorns, and it wouldn't get off a single shot.

 

I also took much less damage than most of my shapers, probably because I was directing the control of battle better. I don't mean my shaper being damaged, I mean my shaper as a whole entity with his creations.

 

I never actually carried a sword in my quick action slots, which saved me a bit of weight. Ammo weighed me down a bit, but I was rarely encumbered.

 

Over all, with the game completed and even the Monastary Caves cleared, I would have to say with out a doubt that the Bullseye Shaper was much stronger than the typical magic using shaper. Especially once I got Reapers... It was game over. Jeweled wands and crystals did hundreds of damage and didn't miss.

 

I finished the game with a pack of Cryoas, a couple of Thahd Shades, and two Vlish. I had a Glaahk for a while, but found out that I made a better stunner than it did. I didn't miss.

 

I also managed to kill Hoge when I encountered him in the Inn. He didn't make it out of there alive... Stun crystals stunned him to one spot, I then surrounded him with creations and pumped him full of thorns.

 

It is interesting to note that your missile skill really makes those stun crystals effective. Fire off one of those little green crystals at something, and it'll do upwards of 60 to 90 damage or more, and with a high level of skill on the multiplier, whatever it is you just shot aint moving for a while. Null wands too. It almost makes the game grossly unfair because one or two blasts strips away all action points for a couple of rounds. Null wands are stupidly powerful and rather easy to make.

[Randomizer]

I found in GF1 that raising missle weapons to 10 made all the crystals more effective. As an agent they did about 2/3 the damage of battle magic spells in less action points. The swarm crystals that you could make in the mines were a very effective way to remove groups and more likely to hit than searing orbs.

 

I will try this when I run a shaper because I want to do more than direct traffic for creations and power them up.

[The Lurker]

Very interesting strategy. I almost never use batons when playing as a Shaper and I only use crystals when really necessary or when I'm fighting turrets, but your strategy sounds like a very useful one. Basically, here's what I usually do in a Geneforge game :

 

-I give lots of Intelligence points to my shaper.

-I make powerful creations, especially vlish.

-I also use my shaper as a spellcaster, though not before some time because he dies easily at the beginning of the game.

-I mostly use my creations to attack at the beginning of the game. If necessary, I make several waves of creations to clear one area (I leave the area to get some essence and replace the creatures that died).

-I use shieding spores/rods for very tough battles only.

 

Mind you, in Geneforge 1 I was able to cross the river using the Guarded bridge (I did almost immediately after finishing the Kazg area. I had not crossed the river before, nor had I been to the mines, or Kantre's realm, or the wastes). I kept making waves of artilas and other creations until they were all dead. I also cleared the Patrol Bridge area quite early, but this one was extremely difficult. I had to use vlish and reload a lot. I did the Inner Crypt area as soon as I had the crescent stone, using vlish, drayks, and glaahks. Once I had Danette's belt, most of the game was extremely easy. I didn't even bother to get an entry baton, I just destroyed the sholai at The Front Gate. I finshed Geneforge 1 with three vlish, two cryodrayks, and two glaahks.

 

Also, in Geneforge 3, I was able to kill Diwaniya before leaving Harmony Island, using vlish. It was tough, but I succeeded.

[Delicious Vlish]

I was both suprised and disapointed.

 

It seems that the Guardian was outshined again.

 

And thinking about it, I probably could have got away with fewer points in the missiles skill.

 

The build idea has huge advantages with very little in the way of drawbacks.

[VCH]

I think you should put toghther a website for all your experiments. Great work!

[Student of Trinity]

Huh. Very interesting.

 

Through several replayings of every Geneforge game I never used to pay any attention to missiles, after the early game dependence on crystals to get second attacks. But last time I redid G1 as a Missile Guardian, and was pleasantly surprised at how well everything worked. I'm a bit disturbed, though, that a Shaper can do well to finish the game with nothing above Vlish. That seems like a flaw; building up to Gazers should surely be the right thing for a Shaper.

 

The NPCs all use batons a lot in G2, so maybe I should have twigged at that point.

[Delicious Vlish]

In G1 and G2, missiles aint so special. Missile skill helps your batons and javelins, but do not help crystals and wands much. It was G3 where missiles finally came in to their own.

 

A well played Shaper does not need a Gazer or an Eyebeast.

 

Vlish are supremely powerful and I am not just saying that because of my account name... Vlish are absurdly powerful provided that you know how to use them correctly and exploit their strengths. They are, of all creations, the single most important creation you can get in the game. From the first moment you get them, you are in control. You make a massive leap ahead in power compared to your enemies. You can stun and slow enemies. As you level them and they grow stronger, while the damage might stay so so, the length of time spent stunned increases. They age better than any other creation. A pair of Vlish in the 40s, once they fire their stun bolts on a target, that target will never move again. It will die.

 

Plus, they are original and look cool. I mean, just about every fantasy game has beholders... But Vlish are unique.

[Randomizer]

Actually in GF1 missle weapons skills are supposed and do add damage with crystals. I raised the damage for Icy Crystal from around 40 to near 100 by going from 3 to 10 in missle weapons. Swarm crystals went to near 200 which meant that 2 of them would kill almost anything in 6 action points, I just used them for the Guarded Dock to see what different endings would be like.

[Delicious Vlish]

Correct.

 

But it was not until G3 that dexterity applied damage to your missiles. The dexterity + missile skill damage = crazy insane damage.

 

There is a noticeable difference here. On torment, using missiles was frusterating. G3 brought about a drastic change as to how damage is applied, making it actually worthwhile.

[The1Kobra]

Another plus for the missile weapons in G3 was the resistances. I noticed that many enemies, (Like gazers) were quite resitant to anything except physical attacks, and oftentimes getting into melee was a bad idea....

Although one thing is bugging me. If you play a missile based shaper, you probably will have a fairly low strength, as the skill points are going into shaping and missile (And dexterity). Alas, theres no guardian claymore for you (Well...), and those crystals can pile up on the weight...

(Think its .3 per, but im not sure)

[Student of Trinity]

My Guardian did fine with his missiles on Torment in G1. He put maybe one point in Dexterity, but pumped Missile to 20 as quickly as he could. Swarm Crystals gave him a very effective multi-target attack; he saved them for when he needed them, and they never failed him. And the occasional Icy Crystal was still useful even very late in the game, to save AP when finishing things off.

[Delicious Vlish]

Strength... I think I had four or five in strength, and then, with items, it was quite high. 8 perhaps by midgame with items, and it was 11 at endgame.

 

The key is, caching. You don't need 50 crystals at once. You stash weapons caches in places you visit frequently and reload. Store them all in a barrel or a crate or something. You head out of town with only a couple living tools (Heavy, just go back later and unlock after battle) And then say, 10 icy crystals, a handful of sprayers, and a few swarm crystals. Carry only one or two wands at a time and leave the rest home. Watch how many pods and spores you are carrying and only take what you need. You don't need 40 essence pods going out. You only need 4 or 5. I kept my weight in the 90s most of the time.

 

Thorns get heavy too. I kept those in stacks of 10.

[Slawbug]

Quote:

Originally written by Delicious Vlish:
But it was not until G3 that dexterity applied damage to your missiles.

So that's what happened! That makes a lot of sense.

Another innovative and interesting build, Vlish. I am actually tempted to go try it.

One comment: it's not that Vlish are overpowered, or Reapers, or some of the wands, or whatnot. It's that stunning is (intentionally, I assume) a drastically powerful effect in Geneforge. Stunning is one thing about melee combat that didn't get weakened in G3; my melee agent leveraged it successfully for pretty much the whole game.

[Delicious Vlish]

Most of my builds focus on the ability to stun in one form or another.

 

Vlish, Stunning Blade, Oozing Blade, Submission Batons, Icy Crystals, Ensnaring Crystals, Null Wands, whatever is handy.

 

If something can not move, it can not hurt you. A lot of people I think fail to realise just how powerful certain items are... Like Ensnaring Crystals and Null Wands. If you have no missile skill, they seem weak and disapointing to be sure. Something to sell to a vendor for a bit of coin. They don't seem like they are even worth carrying when you use them with out any skill to boost effect and damage.

 

But add a point or two to dex, and a point or two to the missile skill... And there is an eye opening change. It is then, and only then, that you realise just how absurdly powerful these items are... How precious they become. You can turn the mightiest monster in the game in to a pussy cat that even a pair of Fyoras could whip. Even the final enemy becomes all to easy once his action points are stripped away from him.

 

I have noticed that while Jeff tends to do a very good job balancing out many game aspects that appeal to power gamers, he occasionally misses some aspect that focuses on exploiting an extreme to achieve results, in this case, missiles. Certain items are absolutely game breaking in their effect. Just to powerful.

[Dikiyoba]

To a certain extent, it's good to have a few exploitable extremes, since it encourages people to try out different strategies to find them.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Zeviz]

This is an interesting idea. I am surprised your shaper was better than guardian, sonce missiles are supposed to be guardian's specialty.

 

How does this build compare to [my favorite] deadweight shaper? If you didn't invest into missiles and dexterity, you would be able to buy several more levels of intelligence, making your creation army even stronger. And instead of using equipment that boosts your combat skills, you could be using equipment that boosts your creation stats, further improving your creation army. Is the sacrifice in the stats of your 5 creations worth the benefit of becoming a good missile user yourself?

[Delicious Vlish]

I think so. Applied direct damage is good stuff.

 

The reason the Shaper is better is because of a surplus of cheap and easily available mental magic and blessing magic skills.

 

Standing around and doing nothing as a deadweight shaper is boring.

 

Plus, there are moments when it is good to have direct attacks. Like, when there is a traffic jam in the doorway. You can contribute to damage when you have the enemy bottlenecked.

 

And submission batons are just plain cool. I mean, really... A Shaper should carry a submission baton to keep everybody around him in line.

[chibi kaie]

I'm a little surprised it took until G3 to exploit the missile weapons. When I first started playing G1, I noticed that my shaper, despite being the biggest wimp on the planet, hit more often and did more damage with a javelin than with firebolt. A thorn baton didn't do as much damage, but still had a higher chance of hitting. Also, my shaper consistently outperformed his little fyora, which kept me wondering why I was spending all my rounds trying to heal it instead of actually damaging the enemy. My agent, who was supposed to have stronger magic, still didn't do squat with battle magic, and was further crippled by not having a second party member (even as cannon fodder, fyoras are useful). I never played a guardian, but with all the missile based creations wandering around, I did realize very quickly that concentrating on melee weapons would just turn me into toast. I'd be out of range, too stunned to attack, or just plain dead. Even though swords do plenty of damage (even a shaper wielding a paltry knife was enough to one-hit a rogue fyora), it doesn't mean a thing if I can't actually get a chance to use them. And nothing can really make up for the fact that crystals only use three AP, giving even the most beleaguered wimp (me) two attacks per round.

 

I play on Normal or Easy (when I get soundly thrashed too many times in a row), so I don't know if game mechanics change wildly on the higher levels, or later in the game (I don't often even reach the end of the demo). But I did play the early sections of the games over and over again, trying to figure out strategies with different shapers and agents, and missiles (*especially* venom or acid batons) always won hands down. Even in the Avernum games, missiles were critical. (Your mage and priest might run out of magic, but if they can use bows, they can work together to take down a foe. From A2 onward, all you have to do is make your spellcasters into nephilim, and in A4, you don't even need to stockpile arrows.)

[Student of Trinity]

Welcome to the boards.

 

Things do change on the higher levels in that monsters are tougher and hit harder. This means that the low-level missile weapons don't help enough to be worthwhile, unless you invest quite a few skill points in the relevant abilities. An almost-dead enemy can still kill you, especially on Torment, so you don't survive throwing Icy Crystals unless you have pumped Missile Weapons high enough for the crystal to kill for you consistently. And so on.

 

This means that on the higher difficulties you have to decide to focus your character heavily on using missiles, and stick with it for a long time, resisting the temptations to develop sidelines in melee or magic or monsters. Eventually you may be able to broaden out some, but if you don't keep up your core missile-launching ability as the game goes on, you'll either find yourself dying, or abandoning missiles because they stop working for you.

 

Proving a missile build right through a game, on Torment, is a time investment that DV seems to have made first now a couple of times. It's a service to the community. His results motivated me to try a Missile Guardian in G1, which I would never otherwise have attempted because missiles always seemed ineffective to me before, and which was a lot of fun.

[Suspicious Vlish]

A few questions about your Bullseye build, DV:

 

1. How much did you invest in strength? If you were carrying around missile weapons, did you need a boost in strength so that you wouldn't lose AP due to encumberance?

 

2. How much did you invest in Mental Magic, and spellcraft?

 

3. How much luck did you get? And does luck increase the chances of you hitting your target?

[Delicious Vlish]

Strength was four or five, as stated earlier in thread.

 

Keep your payload weight low... Cache your weapons!

 

Luck, I don't remember. 8ish? Maybe higher? Clover boots. Clover boots tend to be better than pretty much anything else... Action points are nice and all, but the clover boots are a subtle exceptionally powerful item.

 

I only had a few base points in spellcraft, and relied on items to boost it. Mental magic, I don't remember.

[Slawbug]

Every point of Luck gives you a 2% bonus on all rolls to hit or to dodge. I think it affects damage given and received in some subtle and random way, but I'm not sure. Although the status screen shows a visible increase in armor and resistance from Luck, I'm not sure if this actually happens. (In A4, the visible increase is total baloney and there is no actual change in damage taken.)

[Paladin95]

Sorry for posting in an ancient topic, but I did a slight rehash of this character and saw some interesting results.

 

I was also a no-canister Loyalist on Torment, but I did abuse Tolleran and Orois Blaze. Those boosts turned out to be unnecessary.

 

First, my strength was base 5 for most of the game. The Ornkskin Gloves boosted that to 7, and I very rarely had to deal with encumbrance. That may be because of my willingness to go through an area once to kill everything then returning to get all the items.

 

I played the first Island as a solo Shaper. It was hard, but focusing almost exclusively on Dex made for rather hard-hitting crystals. Missile Weapons was saved for training in San Ru. A single extra point in Magic Shaping turned into an Artila to help with the Warped Creator. During this time I also pumped my Mech and Leadership to 8 and 7, respectively. I invested one more point in Leadership before the Acidic Valley to get Thihn's Ghost boost with Infiltrator items.

 

Endurance wasn't touched. Thihn got me to four, then the Ornksin Gloves, Symbiotic Cloak, and Gruesome Charm led to a net of 6. The base of three caused me a few pains early on, but the purchase of two points of Daze alleviated most of my problems. I brought Blessing Magic to three early on, never to be touched again.

 

The points that saved on Strength and Endurance went to Intelligence for creations. Three Vlish that I ASAP on Harmony finished the game with me. Some minmaxing led in an endgame where they cost about 110 essence each and were pumping out ~130 damage per attack. They were created with a Magic Shaping skill of 2.

 

In the meantime, I raised my Battle Shaping skill to 4 and created a single Thahd Shade to deflect hits. I definitely could have gotten away with 3, saving points for more important boosts. It was also minmaxed to take 188 essence when I met Kyrik and then replaced with two 152-essence Rotghroths. The Full-Stone Bracelet and the Black Peal Talisman gave them starting stats of 17, which the Creator's Belt made 19 (21 for Int). At this point the game was no longer a challenge.

 

After training my magic skills in Dhonal's Keep, I was casting long enough lasting Mass Energizes to take out the Monastery of Tears with high-aggression and relative ease. The Symbiotic Cloak and Farsight Chitin made my Reaper Baton hits deadly. While I apparently didn't boost them quite as much as DV, the stun usually meant at least a turn without attacking when the enemy wasn't straight-up killed. On the occasions this wasn't good enough, Icy Crystals filled the void.

 

For fun I went to Orois Blaze for Create Gazer and Tolleran to boost my Intelligence to 21. The Gazer meant game over. I resolved not to let my Shaper fight Ahkari Blaze at all. He died in two rounds.

 

Being a loyalist, I didn't have access to the Agent's Shelter or the Shaper's Boon. Instead, I used the Essence Aegis and the Infiltrator's Ring. In retrospect I could have saved a lot of hassle by making the Ring first, but it turned out well enough.

 

Long story short, this build is broken in G3. By minmaxing effectively, you can create a Shaper that can dominate the battlefield but doesn't actually need to. By Dhonal I was using fewer thorns than I was finding because my creations dished out so much damage, yet the occasional swarm had absolutely no chance in the face of crystals, thorns, and Null Wands.

 

My conclusion is that this build is not better than a Mental Magic and Battle Magic heavy shaper, just more practical. I've always found pumping Battle Magic, Leadership, and Mechanics early leaves my Shaper horribly vulnerable and usually low on essence. The Missile route is more efficient, and about as difficult, early on. Also, using missiles means I never had to worry about essence and spell energy in battle after Harmony. I always had at least 80 essence to spare, and saw that grow to almost 200 by Gull Island in spite of my additions to my Vlish.

 

The game was virtually stress free and extremely satisfying. The same tactics rarely worked for any two challenges, but I always had the tactics available for a given situation. I applaud this character build and wish it were as effective in G4.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Paladin95

The game was virtually stress free and extremely satisfying. The same tactics rarely worked for any two challenges, but I always had the tactics available for a given situation. I applaud this character build and wish it were as effective in G4.

It's still viable in G4. Shock Troopers are a lot stronger than people give them credit for, especially if you actually make use of wands, pods and spores instead of trying to pump magic skills early on and be a poor man's Lifecrafter.

[Paladin95]

I did run a Missile Shocktrooper as my very first G4 build. It worked out well enough, but the sheer domination just wasn't there. Final battle was still anticlimactic, but a lot of the missions leading up to it were far more difficult. Perhaps I was putting too much stake in Fire Shaping.

[Lilith]

Yeah, magic shaping is the way to go in G4. An army of wingbolts will walk all over everything else in the game.

[Paladin95]

True. Even my no-canister Warrior became good after he got two Wingbolts for the fens. The biggest difference is that I know the missile Shocktrooper isn't the best build. Well-built Serviles and Infiltrators just work better. I just started another G4 Shocktrooper run to see if I can make it more efficient, but I think I'll still be fairly underwhelmed. Should I drop the single point in Fire Shaping for an early Cryoa companion?

 

EDIT: Scratch that. I forgot Cryoas only take a Fire Shaping of 2 in G4. >.>

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: Paladin95

Long story short, this build is broken in G3... My conclusion is that this build is not better than a Mental Magic and Battle Magic heavy shaper, just more practical.

No, the build isn't broken. Shaping, if managed properly, is overpowered. In G3, if you make the right creations early enough, pretty much any smart build will feel broken. So if you want to call something broken, call the shaping mechanics broken; it is neither missile weapons nor the build as a whole that give it that capability.

[Paladin95]

Fair. Then let me say that this build is uniquely qualified to capitalize on the broken shaping mechanics via its lack of need for large essence reserves and its minimal early investment in attacking skills. While those are also true of a deadweight shaper, that build makes everything up to San Ru a royal pain and everything after that boring.

[Slawbug]

We're coming closer to agreement, but I still disagree with "uniquely" (or even "most") -- the broken vlish build has even more modest essence needs and uses no early investment in attacking skills. Artilla are available very early, so nothing up to San Ru is a pain at all. As for the later game becoming boring, any truly overpowered build will make any game boring.

[Paladin95]

I find trouncing late-game enemies with ease fun, so I disagree with your last statement. What I find boring is hiding around a corner doing nothing. Pumping Magic Shaping and Intelligence make a difference early, but by the end of the game we're talking about essentially the same character minus one Reaper Baton and plus a couple overpowered creations. In that case I'll call the creations overkill 99% of the time and Madness Gems just as good the other 1%.

[Slawbug]

The beauty of the broken vlish build is that it doesn't actually require any skill points beyond level 10 or 12, so you end up with a huge pool that you can put in whatever you fancy. So actually, we could very easily combine the two builds we're talking about.

 

I'm not really sure why you, personally acting every turn is less boring than your creations acting every turn. But that's me.

[Feo Takahari]

Hmm . . . a former buddy of mine (offline) advocated this build as early as G2, but I had no idea anyone in the Spiderweb community ever tried it. I'm surprised to see how effective it is.

[Paladin95]

Originally Posted By: Slarty

I'm not really sure why you, personally acting every turn is less boring than your creations acting every turn. But that's me.

The PC provides diversity with many different possible actions per turn. Not getting them involved tends to make the game a bit more redundant, which wears on me by the 80th area or so. A lot of that's probably my obsession with killing anything and everything red.

I totally agree that we're talking about very similar characters. They're both obscenely powerful and let you play the plot however you want. In that sense my preference is purely personal.

On the other hand, G4 makes magic much more powerful, making the build a little less awe inspiring. My S.T. is doing fine all the way to Dillame, but I'm still reminded of beastly Serviles and mind control Infiltrators. Maybe when G5 comes out for PC I'll have this much fun again.

[Slawbug]

Really? What's better about magic in G4? My impression was always that magic got the biggest boosts between G1 and G2 (>9 spells) and G2 and G3 (AoE Daze among other improvements).

 

The real difference in G4 is that the creation-level-gain mechanic was diminished in several dimensions, effectively preventing the broken G3 build from existing in any meaningful way.

[Paladin95]

The previous comment about magic was meant in an entirely comparative sense. A solo Agent in G3 is nowhere near a Shaping-oriented character, but Servile turtle mages and Infiltrators in G4 tend to work at least as well as their Shaping focused counterparts. The changes in leveling mechanics and the item boosts available to Shaping skills contribute to that.

[Slawbug]

Yeah.

 

The funny thing is, the minmax discussion on the forums virtually ignored shapers and repeatedly proclaimed the Agent as finally being the best class in G3 (after the Shaper in G1 and the broken Guardian in G2) for a year or so after the game came out.

[Lilith]

You can pretty much blame DV for that.

[Paladin95]

Originally Posted By: Thuryl

You can pretty much blame DV for that.

That's not ironic at all. >.> *Looks at thread-starter*

[Randomizer]

Well in GF3, daze became an area effect spell so an Agent could now daze a group and slowly pick them off one by one. There was less need for the slow advance and lure a victim out from the pack, run back around a corner, and other vlishy tactics.

 

I remember still seeing the vlish pack and thahd shade parties being advocated for Shapers for the first few islands.

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: Thuryl

You can pretty much blame DV for that.

Well, his response was "I told you so", though I certainly remember his (quite popular) heavy-Battle Magic Agent build.

[Enraged Slith]

Was the Geneforge series supposed to be difficult? Not to offend but the combat is basically the real life equivalent of repeatedly running into a wall until it breaks.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Was the Geneforge series supposed to be difficult? Not to offend but the combat is basically the real life equivalent of repeatedly running into a wall until it breaks.

Try this strategy in Geneforge 5's expert dungeon on Torment difficulty, and the wall will break you.

[Randomizer]

Geneforge games are harder because the game engine required until GF4, 5 AP to complete a combat action. It was really easy to move and lose your turn. Coming over from Avernum and some other games, this takes lots of practice.

[Avid]

I know this is a bit off the subject, but I've been running into something odd with GF4 and I'd like to know if this is a 'bug' you might have run into.

 

Consistently, during combat, if I need to move my PC, the game will declare it can't move as if there's an obstacle in the way. In fact, it can't move in any direction. And this is with plenty of AP in the bucket. Any idea what's the haps?

 

This is my first play-through with GF4. Played all the others. (Yes. I'm running behind. But I'll catch up. )

 

Thanks for any help you can give...

 

Avid

[Randomizer]

Once you cast a spell or make an attack, you can not move. Making a melee attack or searching a container will let you move. This was first started in GF4. It doesn't matter how many AP are left.

[Avid]

OMG. Didn't read anything in the Help Files about that... probably skimmed right past it (assuming Jeff put that info in there.)

 

Thanks for the quick get-back. This will help eliminate some frustration... thought it was a 'bug' or my 'puter had a prob.

 

__________________________*****_______________________

 

NEXT Q's: (If you'd be so kind...)

 

1. Haven't noticed this freeze-after-shooting phenomena with creations. Is it the same for them?

 

Also, what's up with this...

 

2. Sometimes if my PC opens a door in combat mode and I 'Space Bar' to a creation and want them to move through it, the game will say they can't move. This really is an 'obstacle' or 'door not open' response because they can go in other directions and the PC or some other creature can go through the doorway while in that round of combat.

 

To fix this, I have to come out of combat mode (if I can) to get the desired creature through the doorway.

 

Even more frustrating, once this happens to a critter, they can't get through that door as long as that particular combat situation is continuing; even if it's their 15th turn, they can't get through it. (Well, that's true 80% of the time; sometimes they can get through on their second or third turn if someone else has gone through.)

 

Way weird. LOL

 

Is this a ‘bug,’ my 'puter going strange or another one of those bits of data that I missed in the Help Files?

 

Thanks again,

Avid

[Acky]

1. I'd like to help you, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you be a bit more specific?

 

2. It happens to me too. Try moving your creation back into said room, than try moving it out. This usually works.

 

The Archon

[Avid]

Oh, hi Archon. The post was a Q to Randomizer. #1 had to do with the inability to move a PC after attacking, even when there's AP left. Randomizer gave an answer about that. I was just asking if it was the same for creations.

 

Thanks for the reply for #2, though. I'll try that.

 

Seems odd that one would have to do all that maneuvering since it uses up AP. But... whatever. (Not complaining; just commenting.

 

Avid

[Acky]

Yes. The same happens to creations. Although they have a harder time moving again since they can't search containers, as Randomizer pointed out. The whole thing seems stupid to me, honestly.

 

The Archon