Mechalibur

Ethical concerns, I'd say. There are a lot of specific areas of research they consider off limits, and it makes sense biological warfare would be among those. The Taker ending in G2

In Buck Creek.

Of course, if the Shapers ever find the Sholai homeland, they're going to be at a huge disadvantage if they don't have Shaping Magic of their own. Infestation adds some interesting lore about it though - apparently the Sholai lands are very difficult to find and when they go on expeditions, only their navigators know how to return (like they intentionally take some wrong turns to confuse the rest of the crew). Their navigators also use magic that straight up kills them if they ever reveal the location of their homeland. Kind of hardcore.

I did something similar as a challenge run for Mutagen... never again!

I think the Purifying Blade is still better - 15% Lifedrain is just a 15% chance to recover 20% of damage dealt with a single-target attack. It doesn't stack with the Lifedrain weapon shaping skill either, which is essentially a buff that gives 100% lifedrain and can be cast prior to starting combat. The 10 melee weapon requirement is also a bit steep (compared to I think 5 for the Purifying Blade)

From his last AMA (after Infestation released) he said "Over the next two years, we want to finish the Queen’s Wish series and remaster Avernum 4," so it looks like it's still planned. One of the comments in the AMA was "Firstly, glad to hear Queen's Wish 3 is coming. Was a little worried that series would get abandoned for some reason." and he didn't correct them, so that makes me think it's still planned as a full game.

Every single named Obeyer that returns in G2 is now Awakened, I believe.

There's dialogue about it (Jaffee in the Magus Complex) - the Obeyers integrated into the Awakened after realizing the Shapers would never accept them.

She hides the fact that she's with the Awakened and won't tell you her allegiance unless you're also Awakened. This leads me to believe she's fearful for her life if she were to be discovered.

A bit of an aside, but I think Barzahl is actually the easiest by a fair margin if you take advantage of the machinery in Rising to disrupt the drayks.

It's absolutely a great addition. I want to hear about cultures native to the Ashen Isles in the 3 remake and what their perspective on the war is.

The Takers certainly have a philosophy that can sound reasonable on its own - the Shapers are perpetuating slavery and there's no way to free the serviles (and commons to a lesser extent) without drastic action being taken. The biggest issue for a lot of players, I think, is how awful the Takers are to you personally. In the first game, your first encounter with a Taker is a spy that asks you to murder Ellhrah, the leader of a faction that's been quite reasonable to you. While most serviles you encounter treat you as either an equal (the Awakened) or a superior (the Obeyers), a significant number of Takers you meet are either violent (requiring leadership or stealth to bypass) or dismissive of you. Only a few actually make an attempt to reason with you like Gnorrel or Eko Blade. Second game is more of the same. The first Taker you're likely to meet asks you to kill an Awakened guard who's keeping the roads safe from rogues. Unless you do that, you likely have to fight or sneak your way around Taker encampments separating the Taker and Awakened lands who want to attack you on sight. Syros is willing to work with you and explain their philosophy, but even if Zhass-Uss is friendly, several of the serviles there want nothing to do with you. Now that's not to say they're jerks for no reason. There's definitely a history that guides their actions, but from a player perspective, I can see why a lot of people have an adverse reaction to them.

His resistance is mostly fire damage. You'd be better off having drayks/drakons use their melee attack against him.

OP is asking about unloading a baton (presumably to get ammunition about of batons that come fully loaded), not reloading them.

Yep... it's one of the reasons you can't complete the quest if the Takers are hostile. At least you can continue on with the Sholai quest chain if you have good leadership.

Nope.

I think you can mod in +accuracy as a bonus to equipment, but you'd probably have to manually add it to every weapon.

I highly doubt that. He already picked his side and presumably has bad history with the other factions. The Takers especially would probably try and eat him just for showing his face in Zhass-Uss. Considering the number of magic-wielding serviles at the start of the game, it's quite possible he did this before the canister madness madness started, back when he was still idealistic about the Awakened and very invested in their cause. Even if it was after the canister madness, there's a good chance he did it just to prove it could be done. The Awakened gave him a difficult challenge and completing it was a test of his skill and mastery that no other shaper was capable of until this point. I can definitely see a mad scientist type doing that outside of moral convictions.

I don't think the idea is that Tuldaric is acting more like a Taker than an Awakened. It's that his self-shaping and canister usage have stripped away his principles and his relationships. He only maintains his allegiance with the Awakened because he believes it will give him enemies to test his new power and experiments on, and so that he can have allies that will supply him with materials and test subjects. He clearly did care about their cause at some point, but that doesn't even seem to register to him any more. It's a bit of a shame he isn't mentioned in any of the endings. His research is a huge plot point in the overall narrative, with his research being vital for the plans of the Takers, Barzites, and Awakened. I'm curious what he gets up to in a post-Awakened victory.

Yep, no use.

That's not a feature in the remakes.

The Find Jeek quest. It's an Awakened-only quest that's given in Zhass-Uss (although I think you can still heal Jeek if you're not with the Awakened).

Yeah optimizing training timing was so annoying. Good riddance.

My understanding is that each individual 3%/4% chance is rolled separately and if any of them are a success, you get a quick attack.

Attacking with Zora counts as making an attack. So you can't beat fights with her if you want the achievement.