Slariton

That's exaggerating the difference between the classes rather grotesquely. Your Servile build was probably tighter and more focused than your Warrior build.

A couple rounds of Essence Orbs will barely take out a single Fyora unless you also have at least a moderate amount of training in some form of magery, be it battle magic or general spellcraft.

Quote: Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar: ...Diablo, the Master and Rentar-Ihrno... This is not an OK juxtaposition.

It's difficult to make that case when you are being persecuted left and right.

You probably need to be at a higher level. You won't be able to get past the gate until a long time after you get to that zone. A singleton on a low difficulty might be able to do it earlier, but otherwise you'll need to wait.

There is plenty of evidence from previous games that the canisters DO affect you when dealing with a similarly augmented individual. In G1, your interactions with Trajkov come to mind. IIRC, late game dialogue options with Barzahl in G2 and Litalia in G3 are similarly affected.

Quote: Originally written by Elegance: Qwghlmian or Lojban?: —Alorael, who has a new way to phrase the debate. Suppose shaping were replaced with guns. It's still a unique power, but would you argue that guns are inherently evil? How about iron armor? Or aircraft? Escalation of the tools of war is part of how the world works, even Geneforge's world, and at least shaping provides benefits as well. The problem with that analogy is that guns are weapons and only weapons. Shaping provides power much like guns do, but it also creates life forms with needs and the possibility of rights. Guns can escalate conflict, but they don't really create any conflict in and of themselves. Shaping does. The Trakovites don't argue that shaping is inherently evil. They argue that it is inevitably going to lead to destruction. Those are very different things.

Ellhrah's dead.

It's worth pointing out that, despite the absolute hostility of both Shapers and Rebels toward Trakovites, leaders of both sides regretfully acknowledge and sometimes even express Trakovite views over the course of the game. Greta: "It can be victory over the Shapers. At a horrible, horrible cost." ... She is silent, the grim debate raging inside her. Greta: "Are you mad? Of course it bothers me! My sleep is nothing but a constant cesspit of nightmares imagining it." "Then why allow it to exist at all?" Crowley: General Crowley is silent. You aren't sure whether he thinks your question is too foolish to notice or he truly doesn't have a good answer. Litalia: "Our bodies were not meant to be changed so. Not meant to be filled with so much power, without wisdom." Litalia: "The Trakovites may be right. They may be wise, and virtuous, and ahead of their time. But history teaches us that those blessed with that sort of madness tend to end up dead. Proven right, but dead."

Depends on the game. In G1, the cryodrayk is a lot better since it will have earned more levels from being shaped than XP, and those are better in G1. In G2 and G3, the cryoa is probably better, as it will be significantly cheaper and only a little bit worse. You could pump its stats and get something similar or possibly better. In G4, it is the same paradigm as G2/3, except that you are unlikely to get a cryoa to level 35 so easily, so it may lean towards the cryodrayk instead. Note that in G4 both creations are less useful, since ice breath no longer has a 70% chance of stunning.

In G3 (and G4), Essence Orbs has a base damage of 1-20 and does 1-5 damage per level of spell strength. I don't know how blessing affects damage output (I think it just adds some levels) but the setup you described (spell strength of 32) would do an average of 106 damage unblessed, in the range of 33-180. Because there are 33 rolls involved, the lowest and highest parts of that range will occur extremely rarely. That's against an enemy with no magic resistance. I suspect that whoever was talking about 300-400 damage output -- and it was probably Delicious Vlish -- was talking about damage per turn when hasted.

Melee is at times extremely difficult to do without assistance from Daze, or creations. Parry is worthwhile, as it reduces damage greatly. The regeneration enhancement, on a weapon, will be your best friend, draining large numbers of HP per attack. However, if you are making creations that's all out the window. Vlish are so disgustingly overpowered in G3 (if you pump magic shaping, make em early and let em gain levels) that the game becomes a cake walk even on Torment. Artila are also good. And they are cheap enough for Guardian use. Even one or two Vlish companions will be a big help, as you get lots of stunning and slowing action each turn.

Can you be a skilled shaper without knowing anything about magic? I don't think we've seen any examples of this in the game.

*facetentacle*

It's very simple. Healing is not shaping. Presumably, proficiency in healing craft and shaping involves similar skills, which is why they are in the same category. But healing craft spells are spells, plain and simple; they behave exactly like every other spell, from casting to spellcraft strengthening and so on.

Magic spells != magic

Um, essence exists without shaping. It's just something the shaping manipulates.

You mean because you didn't think to check two words. Having read through the dumps, I can state that the vast majority of dialogue pieces in the whole Exile series are triggered by two different keywords.

This is really not a continuity problem. The seviles on Sucia could not use the canisters on Sucia. The serviles in G4 are not from Sucia. While it's unlikely they were modified recently, in the course of two centuries the standard servile model might well have changed. And it's EXTREMELY likely that the new canisters produced by the Rebels are not the same as the ones lying around on Sucia for two centuries, especially given that the Rebels grew out of the Takers, who had servile leaders.

Quote: Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar: Slarty, I kind of agree with you. However, I think Jeff started ditching the whole power vs. moderation angle on pupose to show the desperate measures taken in times of total war. With all that power floating around, the Trakovite ideology seems very, very unrealistic, and only a walking deus ex machina like the PC would even be able to think about being able to follow it and accomplish something in its name. *nod nod* Yes, I agree completely. But there *are* always people spouting these ridiculous ideologies, and they are important. I am glad that the Trakovites were portrayed as a tiny, heavily persecuted number of individuals, and not as a full-blown sect with any power or adherents whatsoever.

Basically, the Geneforge series has had two major ethical continuums: 1) Creation Rights vs. Shaper Authority 2) Power vs. Moderation #1 has been there all along in the form of the sects, and was the main focus of the first three games. In G1, we did have #2 with the Trajkov question, and the dilemma of what to do with the Geneforge. In G2, there was the contrast between the megalomanaical Barzites and Drakons, and the only slightly power-crazy Zakary and Awakened, though the only truly moderational presence was Aodare's kill-them-all ending. In G3, #2 was discarded almost entirely in favor of #1, which I think is one of the reasons the game seemed to flat and ethically frustrating. In all three games, however, the sects sort of subsumed #2 into the #1 question. With the sole exception of the Barzites, there was a single continuum, with the loyal sects exercising restraint in power-grabbing, the Awakened exercising less restraint, and the Takers and Rebels exercising none whatsoever. In G4, the creation of the Trakovites splits the question wide open, and for the first time since G1 we really do have two ethical continuums. I have to imagine that I am not the only one who was dissatisfied with G3 in this regard, and relieved and refreshed to see the Trakovites surface.

The only line connecting the Silvars in the games is this one: "You enter the village of Silvar. Coincidentally, Silvar is the name of one of the largest cities in Exile. Who knows? Perhaps it was founded by a homesick person from here." The timeline is fairly solid on these points, so I think it is safe to conclude that Silvar the Avernite city was not named after Silvar the surface village.

The purity officer gives the acid-drip sword as a reward for the canister, IIRC. You don't want to miss that unless you never ever intend to melee.

I think the issue here is less likely to be the RNG than the display of fatuous numbers. Adequate pseudorandom number generators are not hard to come by. Seeing as Jeff once studied statistics in grad school and is clearly competent with simple algorithms, I doubt he would find them difficult to handle. We know from the Armor % display feature that not all displayed numbers are accurate representations of anything. I experimented with to-hit a lot in G3 when I tried to duplicate the A4 99% dodge build, and it failed because to-hit calculations do really weird things in Geneforge when they approach either extreme.

What does it do? I mean, does it generate reasonably pseudorandom numbers, or not?