Micawber

Geneforge 4 wins it, by a country mile.

Geneforge 1 had the most originality, but a more primitive engine. 2 and 3 are no competition. 4 is a brilliant combination of intricate plot with whiz-bang engine.

Did you already have any living tools in your inventory? Because if so then you may have lost it.

From Schrodinger's FAQ:

Yes exactly, you need to get to the top floor. Destroying the golem-creating crystals is unnecessary.

You need to run through the basement level and enter the north stone circle, where the 4th power crystal is that you need to destroy. The basement is a mirror/beam puzzle I seem to recall, you need to open up a route to the northern exit.

You're probably right; as damage avoidance is a hidden stat it isn't immediately obvious. Was a very useful bug in Avernum 4, though

Do you need to destroy them? I always just run through here and get on with the mission.

I have been reading this thread for four days and only just realised what room you are all talking about. (Duh, me no learn so fast.) Anyways turns out I never entered that room in any of my games, so time for each of my characters to go and clear it out...

The Lifecrafter finds this pathetically easy, his wingbolts and drakons escorts kill the shade in the first round before it even has a chance to summon its undead friends.

The Servile gets in a good hit and is annoyed to see he has been slowed. However, as his first move was to mass energize his drayk pets, the shade still dies in the second round, before any of its friends gets a chance to act.

The singleton Infiltrator casts two kill spells, shrugs off the attacks of the summoned undead, casts kill twice more; end of combat.

The good thing about Tek's spectral dirk is that you can get the benefit of its defensive capabilities without sacrificing your attack effectiveness: by storing it in a quick use slot you can exploit a bug to get the benefit of the +10 damage avoidance without equipping it.

Flamestryke

I always name my creations, so that I can tell them apart from my foes. E.g. when the game description says "fyora misses (40%)" I want to be sure that's an enemy fyora not my pet.

You need to go to The Castle and get the crystal box quest from Houghton before he will lower the barriers.

It's the third quest Houghton gives you.

It's nalyD, no?

The key is actually a lever, and it's in the keep itself.

You need to fight Rentar-Ihrno in her keep before you are given access to Spire Fortress and the Abyss.

This sounds like Avernum 2.

For shielding L3 in the Tower of Magi, you need to give a black drake fang to Vincent. There are three quests for a black drake fang but only two fangs, so you need to choose wisely.

For safe travel L3 in Motrax's Cave, you need to search for secret passages in the Magi clearance section (near Linda) and it's behind a magic barrier so Dispel Barrier needed.

As for return life L3 in the Giant's Cave, first check you are in the giant's cave and not the village. The spell is in a box in a secret room immediately west of the giant's shrine in the NW corner of town. Try the far sight spell in the shrine if you can't find it.

What type of computer are you using (i.e. PC or Mac) and what version operating system?

Did you try re-downloading from spiderweb homepage and doing a clean install?

I think you need to get the box mission from Houghton - in The Castle.

Yes we were talking about the Cairn Gates.

And however many creations a warrior has, a lifecrafter can have more and numbers really make a difference. It's all about action points in geneforge.

As far as I remember each town has a "tolerance" so the game counts the number of crimes you commit, and it if exceeds the tolerance then the entire town goes hostile and everyone starts attacking you.

Edit: you find out what the tolerance level is, the hard way.

Every time I play the game, I seem to do the zones in a different order. Only refer to the walkthrough if you get stuck, it's more fun that way.

In Avernum 1, left click to move 2 spaces, right click to move 1 space.

Edit: I also experienced the picking up/equipping items problem, no solution I'm afraid.

These are the adventurer tests. The first one is in a pit west of Grindstone. See Schrodinger\'s FAQ for further details.

Edit: link

Back on topic, I am really glad that boats are back. I always said that the inability to travel by boat was just what made the Avernum 4 world seem too small compared to prior games. (Well I think I might've said it once.)

And I'm pretty enthused about the lift screenshot, too. I always quite enjoyed the moving walls from E3...

The red spore batons were only in Geneforge 1, I believe. Probably just never got deleted from the scripts.

Some spore baton locations. Admittedly this is not game-changingly crucial info, but might save a bit of frustrating walking around.

Blue Spore Baton - Eastern Checkpoint from Shaper Rutenberg with Leadership

Blue Spore Baton - Secured Cross Roads, in NW shed as Randomizer said, except the baton I found was blue not green

Blue Spore Baton - Rivergate Keep, box in North edge storeroom to which Alwan gives a key as reward for betraying safehouse

Blue Spore Baton - Swamp Crossroads, NW in the bandit camp

Green Spore Baton - Turabi Gates, SW behind some blue mines

Green Spore Baton - Southern Grosch, NW box near nullity artilas

Green Spore Baton - Rivergate Keep, SW corner, locked box in barracks (NY)

Surprisingly, the download instructions in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS are there for a reason. Edit: I just re-downloaded the files and they definitely do not break the game.

On the classless character, I think that would be dangerous. Try to be good at everything in Geneforge and you will die, a lot. Specialisation is very powerful (although you can have more than one specialisation, but not everything).

It's the first sign in the Rebel Base Docks, at the beginning of the game. Near the storeroom where you pick up your first dagger.