Suspicious Vlish

Hmm, I wonder how successful a Shaper who uses Pyroroamers would be? They would sure blow a hole in enemy melee.

chibi:

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I ended up appreciating Alwan's attitude. He's got a hell of a lot more initiative, guts, professionalism and foresight than Greta. I just hated Greta. What a wench.

Diki:

That may be true. Then again, you could say the same thing about any event in the game, including death. Hey, you can continue to save and reload until you finally win that battle you have been trying to win for 5 days.

 

Wild magic was implemented in BG II ToB, to great effect. You could have saved and reloaded to get great effects from wild magic, but I doubt anyone did.

 

Being able to use some sort of 'Wild shaping' function would sure add variety and fun to the mix. Perhaps the power of the random creations could be limited by your level (a lvl 1 char couldn't summon an Ur-Drakon with Wild Shaping, for instance).

 

I don't know. However, I know that some creations just HAVE to be available in the next game, even just for aesthetics. Battle Gamma, Submission Vlish, Dominator Vlish/Shepherd Vlish, Poison Clawbug. I think that a Shaper should have creation substitutes for every spell that an agent can employ.

As with the Exiles, Avernum II was by far my favourite. Avernum III was better than Avernum I, although Avernum was still fun.

 

Avernum 4 was BLECH. I've given my rant in another forum, so I'm not going into it again. But I think that Jeff just ruined the trilogy with that flop.

Civilians attack your for 1 round after going hostile, and then they flee in terror.

 

Also, you can murder individuals and have the rest of the town remain friendly. However, you have to murder them out of sight of other people, and you have to kill them in 1 round.

Do you think that summons are more useful in A4 than the previous Avernums?

'Innocent' is such a subjective term. Those in those Refuge admit to being hostile to Shaper rule. They border on being rebels. A loyal Shaper has only one choice, and that it to wipe them out.

Some of them may be criminals. It's not a sure thing, but I wouldn't be surprised.

 

And they do have some items of worth, such as the the only iron sword on the first island.

I installed GF 2 so that I could use one of its endgame pictures as my desktop wallpaper. From memory, it was a picture of a drayk getting whooped by three Shapers at once (who are focus firing on him). It is similar to the end-game picture in GF 3, where your agent and two shapers are focus firing on a drayk, but it is far better drawn.

 

However, upon installing, I can't find the picture! Does anyone here know what I am talking about? Or did I dream this piccy up?

Knockback is a great idea. They implemented it in D2, I don't see why giant creations can't smack their opponents back a few paces.

I've noticed that it is very hard to stun an Ur-Glaahk via physical means. Does anyone here know the stun resistance that an Ur-Glaahk has, and how it compares with a Battle Beta?

The 'slowing' mechanism is a great idea. Or you could implement the mechanism used for breaking melee in Exile. The opponent gets a free swing.

Bobby:

The Rotgroth would be good, if he didn't get whipped by acid and magic attacks, which are the main forms of damage utilized by the endgame opponents.

 

Kobra:

There is one nice use for battle shaping. I'll explain later, but let's continue.

 

Plated bugs used to kick butt in GF1. Then their damage got reduced in GF3, and they are rather frail to boot. So I agree, plated bugs are useless

 

Agreed.

 

Debatable. I really don't agree with that, although I agree that fyora are better value for essence.

 

Correct.

 

Actually, the only useful battle creation is the thahd shade, which is why I always sink a point into battle shaping. The thahd shade is immune to poison, terror attacks, and mental attacks. He also has nimbleness, the hitpoints of a battle alpha, and does only slightly less damage.

So does the Searing Artila. However, the Searing Artila doesn't have one thing which the Thahd has, and that is immunity to cold. Having a meat shield which is immune to cold is useful at several points in the game, where Cyroa's swarm you. On torment, cyroa's can do 100+ damage with one breath of cold, which none of your other creations are immune to. Ergo, your Glaaks and Vlish get torn to shreds. It's quite embarassing.

 

So I send a Thahd shade down to take the icy breathe, and fire at the those Cyroas with my Vlish. Problem solved!

 

The Glaahk is awesome, no doubt about it. Quite expensive, but a sight better than the boring alpha.

 

So, all in all, I think that battle shaping is worth a point. It starts of at 2. You can create thahd shade at battle shaping of 3. So only need to spend 2 skill points on it, to raise it to a level 3.

2 skill points for insurance against ice breathing monsters (one of the most damaging attacks in the game) is worth it in my opinion.

Then spend the rest in intelligence and magic shaping!

Perhaps similar to Baldur's Gate II, the Shaper could engage in 'Wild Shaping'. Merely a random blast of magical energy, and you can possibly get any creation from the game. It could be something crap (Slimy Worm) or something awesome (Ur-Drakkon). Of course, your chances of getting something awesome would increase in relation to your level.

 

Wild Shaping could also have a good chance of harming you, or creating a rogue creation.

 

A little bit of randomness + unpredictability always makes a game more fun!

It would be interesting if the long-time members of this forum came to a consensus on how the Creations should be, so that we could make a 'team' mod (if you could call a bit of script editing a mod).

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?

Heh, your head must have been pressing on the Space Bar button...

I think G4 NEEDS to allow the PC to shape Battle Gammas. Personally, I think that an additional 'upgrade' needs to be added to each Creation type (eg, Battle Alpha/Beta/Gamma, Vlish/Submission Vlish/Terror Vlish, etc).

I was fiddling about with the Terror Vlish, trying to get him to use his third attack... Terror.

It was mentioned in the past that perhaps if you didn't sink two intelligence points into the Vlish, then he might use his third attack.

 

They weren't far from wrong...

 

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y188/Red_Wizard/terrorvlishterrifies.jpg

 

Failing to give the Vlish two points will NOT cause him to use his terror attack. He will always use the poison ranged attack.

 

However, if you smack him around a bit, he turns rogue. THEN he uses his terror attack.

 

I don't see his this could be made into a viable strategy, but it sure is an interesting loophole. No doubt the veterans here will find it a morbid curiosity.

Two unsolved mysteries for me in Geneforge 3, even after years of play:

 

1. After clearing out the basement on the first island, the shopkeeper mentions that he has unlocked a cabinet. Where is this cabinet?! I've searched everywhere, and there is nothing which I can open after doing the quest which I couldn't beforehand.

 

2. At two points in the game, you find dead serviles with specials markings on a strip of bark. Does this have any relevance whatsoever in the game, or is it just a red herring?

Anti:

Not necessarily. Searing Artila are not damaged by ANY poison attacks, or by secondary poison. Check out the Searing Artila in my screenshot. He's in a poisoned state, but is taking no damage per round.

I don't think that the Vlish need to be fixed. Sure, if you specialize in them, they are quite powerful. So what? If you specialize in Strong Daze, you're quite powerful.

I used an editor to give myself 30 spellcraft, 30 mental magic, and 4 in dominate.

 

At best, I could dominate a spiny crawler for a total of 4 rounds. Ehhhh, that's quite disappointing.

Another very interesting update, folks.

 

Searing Artila appears to be IMMUNE from going rogue.

 

That's right. I've tested this 'extensively' for a whole of 10 minutes.

 

I didn't sink any intelligence into my precious Searing Artila. And then I battered him down to near 0 health.

 

The dialog them comes up with multiple "Searing Artila goes rogue" messages, and after each message is a "Searing Artila resists charm spell". My searing artila hence remains firmly under my control, despite about 10 trials. Sadly, it can still be thrown into terror by low health (but NOT by terror spells).

 

Perhaps this has no effect on gameplay (although you could say that perhaps you are better off not sinking any points into intelligence).

 

In otherwords, Searing Artila appears to be completely immune to mental magic. This includes...

- Terror.

- Dominate.

- Charm ray.

- Daze.

- Rogue

Anti:

Even on relatively low level terror vlish, secondary poison damage tends to look something like this:

 

Round 2: 25 damage.

Round 3: 15 damage.

Round 4: 10 damage

Round 5: 5 damage

Round 6: 2 damage

Round 7: 2 damage

Round 7: 1 damage

Round 8: 1 damage.

 

Poison damage and duration apparently increase as your Vlishy increases, so it only gets better.