Slariton

If you just want to mess around with builds, you can use the "iamweak" cheat code repeatedly to just keep levelling up. It takes a couple minutes of typing it in, but you can just do the levelling up once, save, and then use the "retrain" cheat any time you want to switch your build up.

Since enemies take more effort to kill on higher difficulty, and take less on lower difficulty, pure DPS (while never bad) is most effective on lower difficulty, whereas disabling statuses (while never bad) are extra useful on higher difficulty.

Not mechanics. Probably just bad luck. The other possibility though is that something correlated with it, in your game, for whatever reason. Maybe melee distance targets tended to be higher level, and therefore have higher evasion, because you tended to kill the lower level targets before they got into melee distance -- for example.

You can access every creation sooner than the Loyalist Encampment. That's only a perk if you are playing Taker, Barzite, or Non-Aligned and you refuse to temporarily join Zakary or the Awakened. I would like to emphasize, again, that the analysis in the OP is a relative comparison. Any creation of high enough level (okay, not ornks) can shred turrets and spinecores (which have practically no defenses anyway). Any creation, with high enough shaping skill, can be strong. But some will still be stronger than others.

What difficulty is this on? (Before somebody sends an angry reply, every difficulty is a valid and good way to play. I'm asking because some tactics work better on easier or harder difficulties, so it's good context to have when hearing that something feels overpowered.)

The math disagrees with you. Think about it logically: You only get 1 cast (and no more) if nothing triggers on your first cast. That's haste (35%), stats (in this case, 61% - I think charm haste is additive with Spellcraft, haven't tested; it's worse it's a separate check), and Spell Mastery (20%). In this case that comes out to 20% for 1 cast only. Assuming your turn doesn't end, you now have either 3 AP or 1 AP, depending on what triggered. Either way, Spell Mastery is now the only thing that can keep your turn from ending. So you have a 20% chance (times the 80% that you make it here at all) of getting 3+ casts, which is 16%. A 4th cast just means rolling another 20%, and so on. So if you really want to do that out we get (with some rounding): 1 cast - 20% 2 casts - 64% 3 casts - 13% 4 casts - 2.5% 5 casts - 0.4% 6 casts - 0.1% This comes out to about 1.99 casts on average if you do the math. In theory, yes, you could pump Spellcraft higher than 17. You'll start eating an obscene number of skill points, but let's imagine we put nearly everything into it and spec equipment for it, and have Spellcraft of 25. Then the math is (again with some rounding): haste (35%), stats + gruesome charm (85%), SM (20%) 1 cast - 8% 2 casts - 74% 3 casts - 14.5% 4 casts - 2.8% 5 casts - 0.5% 6 casts - 0.1% This comes out to about 2.14 casts on average. So in theory this is possible, but the skill point cost is insane. If you somehow got Spellcraft to 34 -- thus guaranteeing that 1st cast would get the AP reduction -- you'd have exactly 2.25 casts on average. I don't think this is possible, but that's the theoretical maximum average casts per turn.

Well put about the damage comparison. You can't average 3+ attacks per round, though. Setting aside the Drakon Skin Cloak (which is essentially a superboss drop), with your stats (and the Gruesome Charm, and Gloves of Spell Mastery of course, and haste active), you have roughly a 20% chance of getting 1 cast, a 64% chance of getting 2 casts, and a 16% chance of 3+ casts. This is fairly close to 2 attacks per round on average.

As confirmed by Jeff on Steam, the +X% damage bonus is calculated in two chunks which are multiplied together: 1. Sum of all bonuses from stats, extra spell training, etc. In this case that's points in Intelligence, Battle Magic, Spellcraft, and Essence Purge. 2. Sum of all "+X% to magical/melee/missile damage" equipment/charm bonuses. Normally you wouldn't see much difference, but given how huge #1 is for this character, it's enough to make adding +.05 to #2 more helpful than adding +.10 to #1. EDIT: Also, bonuses from statuses like War Blessing, Enrage, and Overload go into this number. I'm pretty sure Overload is additive as part of #1, so I'd guess the others are as well.

It's not quite as simple as using a compare function, doing that globally will break things. I requested above that people not release altered versions of this mod.

Shaping skill is the central stat for a Shaper. It's not the only stat. "Best shaper possible" is always going to be a little subjective, but I've never seen "don't invest in spell skills at all" as advice, so it's interesting that you got that idea. FWIW, here's the advice from my guide on steam: Even as a Shaper, you don't need to invest every last skill point into shaping, but on higher difficulties, you'll want to be judicious. Shaping skill is your default target. Mechanics and Leadership can be done at 6 (you'll get more points from equipment later), and magic skills can be ignored except when you're ready to unlock a key spell (Group Heal, Mass Restore; Speed; Dominate; Airshock). Increase Essence Mastery as needed, but don't go crazy -- your PC level multiplies your total essence, rather than just adding to it, so it's OK to be patient there. Speed is a flat 35% increase in average damage output for your creations. (Even for creations with the v1.0.2 haste augment, it's still a 23% increase.) Dominate removes an enemy and gives you a bonus ally. It's temporary, but that can really turn the tides in the first few rounds of battle, when it matters most. Airshock can potentially stun multiple enemies (in addition to damaging them). War Blessing and Protection aren't massive effects, but you can cast them before combat begins, so there is no real drawback to using them. 10% is nothing to sneeze at -- Spiderweb games tend to involve stacking up lots of little bonuses until you find that you're very strong. Do you also ignore charms and pieces of equipment that provide +10% damage bonuses? Now it may be that playing on Normal, with very strong creations, you don't need these effects. If you're steamrolling most enemies anyway, sure, no reason to bother casting these spells. That doesn't mean the spells suck. That means you're playing with a party that's stronger than your selected difficulty level, and as a result you've trivialized combat. Huh. Spiderweb games certainly seem on-target then! I dunno, you really feel like none of your complaints in this review apply to the above games?

Probably not, sorry. It's kind of a hassle to reconcile with the base game changes and I'd rather put that time into Overrun.

Reapers do 1d6 per damage die. Character currently has 5 Missile Weapons, 5 Agility, 6 QA. Essence Purge does 1d8 per damage die. Character currently has 12 Battle Magic, 12 Intellect, 12 Spellcraft. This character is not going to get much use out of Reapers.

Quick Action does not affect spells. It only affects melee and missile attacks.

Cap it at the requirement for the highest level mental magic spell you care about. Probably either 1 for Daze, 3 for Dominate, or 6 for Mass Madness. If you plan on getting a point from those sandals, maybe 1 less. Personally I find Dominate more useful than the later spells anyway.

The enemy is not actually higher level. Older SW games worked that way -- original Geneforge might have, I think, and Avernum Second Trilogy. The increased damage taken, and reduced damage dealt, are percentage-based effects which are much stronger than what you'd get from an extra level or two. EDIT: Oh, also, it affects Control Level for your creations very mildly. You already knew that though.