Mechalibur

I think the Purified Essence in Phariton's place is far easier to get than the one at the end of Sharon's Grove.

It's an artifact that can be enchanted to boost shaping, magic, or melee. If you boost melee, it gives a 20% chance to double your melee damage.

Then join the Awakened and get training from Tuldaric. Easy.

She's not remotely a pacifist.

Canister use doesn't matter for the achievement. Just don't do anything like kill the leader of the faction you want to join.

The Servants are the easiest to join which could very well be influencing the achievement stats. You can join immediately if you're pro Shaper, and you can even join if you're pro-Servile if you have enough leadership.

It kind of sounds like you're not happy with the Awakened because they aren't acting like Takers? No, they aren't asking you to crack Shaper skulls because their goal isn't to crack Shaper skulls. If that's your ultimate goal then... yeah, you already know who you should join. But the Awakened do back up their ideals with a plan this time around. They aren't just sitting around hoping for something to change.

While it's most likely a typo, I like to think Zakary just has the worst intel out of anyone in the Drypeak Mountains

The targets are Akkat, Rhakkus, and Easss. Basically all the Benerii-Uss bosses.

I think it used amphoras in the original and the remake changed it to wine. You should be able to put all the amphoras you want in the junk bag.

Are you necessarily trusted and valued? I thought that depended on canister use. I don't think you have to kill him for the Servant ending. I got the Servant ending on my Pacifist run where Syros was very much alive at the end (although Rhakkus, Easss, and Akkat all died)

Your litany of questions was liable to cause my keyboard to break, so I answered in the most expedient method possible. Anyway, it seems like it's fine now, so to more specifically answer your question,

Yes, possibly but not recommended, you'd probably die, yes, yes, no

Nothing increases item effectiveness, to my knowledge. That's why I'm pretty liberal with stuff like icy crystals and fiery wands in the early game - they have no scaling.

Boss enemies can have a lot more hp than they did in Mutagen. Still, the player's damage potential is higher as well, so you should be able to do the fight after leveling up a bit and getting access to more equipment/training.

The last fight of her grove is unironically probably the hardest encounter in the entire game. Sharon could have solved this entire crisis by siccing her creations at the other factions! 😄

Depends on the drakon in question, but yeah, some have less hp than the generic 500hp warriors in Zakary's warren. Yes, it's best not to think about it too much.

Surprisingly, they do have less hp. I was more referencing Zakary's guards who are even higher level than that with more hp. I got quite familiar with weirdly high guard hp when doing the psychopath run 😄

That's already an issue! Have you seen how high a level and hp all of Drypeak's guards are (except Zora)? Edit: Although I agree level scaling isn't really a good fit for Geneforge. 3-5 are pretty linear, and 1+2 mostly have an intended path for you to follow level-wise.

Phariton asks for 1 if you're unaligned as a prerequisite for training. So 5 total, potentially. Outside of that, they're only good for selling.

I actually thought that was a weakness of the Avernum series. The open-ended nature meant a huge amount of the content was just trivially easy because of the order you picked.

Probably getting a bit off topic here, but I think level scaling gets a pretty bad rap due to being poorly implemented (quite famously in the Elder Scrolls Oblivion), but I don't really see the issue if it's done well, especially in games where you can explore major areas in pretty much any order. When implemented well, a lot of people don't even notice it's there, like I've never seen complaints about level scaling in Dragon Age Origins even though it's present, and plenty of people didn't even realize it was in Queen's Wish. I remember there was even a post in the steam forums complaining about how level scaling ruined games and there was no reason to have it in QW2 even when it wasn't in the first game... even though it was and they just didn't realize it!

There should be a lever in (or maybe it was behind) the building Shath is in that opens the center tower's doors.

Yeah, enemies demonstrably do scale in Queen's Wish, up to your level-1 (although they also have a minimum level, so they can potentially be higher level based on where you're going).

With the cheat code "retrain" you can (doesn't stop achievements either, per Jeff)