Men are from Slars

"... It's no use! Use the Crystal!" "You, the man of Darkness, using it does not mean anything to me, you fools!" "Cecil... Use... this...!"

First off, you used the editor to give yourself 30 Luck. That's the cap Armor rating has nothing to do with your chance of being hit. Armor rating only affects damage taken. Luck does reduce your chance of being hit by 2% per point, and it increases your chance to hit enemies by the same amount. However, getting Luck anywhere near 30 is completely impractical, given how much the points end up costing. Also, other stats influence dodge and hit rates to a greater degree. So Luck is helpful, but it isn't such a great value.

One possibility would be to say that Dorikas and Redmark were *both* assassinated. This would actually work fine with the story. I do think, though, that Jeff wouldn't have introduced a major character related to Erika Redmark just to have him hand out quests in one game. But we all know what's really going to happen in A6. Prazac and Bon-Ihrno are going to come back from the dead and restore world peace...

You have cast Augmentation on your mage. This increases max and current HP indefinitely. However, every time you enter a town, everyone is healed and revived AND all buffs are removed, so the HP bonus goes away.

That's correct. The v1.0 graphics had a smaller set of PC icons and were missing a few other things, but otherwise were very similar to the standard Exile 1 graphics -- those are the "Exile 2 standard" graphics, which in fact predate Exile 2. After Exile 3 was released, Jeff did a v2.0 of the first two games using Exile 3's graphics.

A neat, but PAINFUL exploit -- max out your XP by having a level 1 Fyora strike every killing blow (and then survive to be absorbed). Possibly the most painful idea, when taken to its min-maxed extreme, I've yet heard. To clarify: this exploit does not actually exist, but it would using Kryten's idea. Oof

Grimm, I'm not sure where you're getting this from, but it's false. The amount of XP you gain is reduced if you have even one creation, although how much it is reduced depends on the number of creations you have.

The A1 counterpart gives you the option of taking the coins from the well. If you do, passing merchants may notice you -- I assume that lowers your reputation a notch. Still no rewards for giving that I can see, though.

1) Could it be either the Royal Token or Royal Seal, with a typo? Probably the latter I suspect. 3) I looked at the text dump of E1, and as far as I can tell there is no text describing anything that happens when you throw coins in the well, except for nothing happening. Edit: There are a lot of other places you can throw coins in and have thing happen in other games in the series, including a wishing pool in E2. You may be thinking of one of those, Random.

That does not work with NPCs for whom there is no equivalent rank, and Garzahd certainly falls in that category. In A5, you can kill Ruth before the end, but you can't kill Dorikas before the end. Because then, you would reach the end before you reach the end!

A scrollable automap would be neat. It isn't really a standard feature, though. I can't think of a single old school RPG that has one, in fact. I'm also not convinced that scrolling through an automap screen by screen, trying to remember what every building was and if there was anything left to do there, would be any less cumbersome than just jotting down notes on unfinished stuff. It seems like much more of a hassle to me.

Garzahd did show down with the party once before the end, at Ornotha Ziggurat.

Not possible for many reasons, but being turn-based is definitely not one of them. Most of the pioneering online RPGs, like the original Neverwinter Nights and the Shadow of Yserbius, were turn-based.

Do you mean return, rather than reduce? In G1 and G2, most melee damage was 1-8 per level. In G3 and G4, most melee damage was 1-4 per level. (This is a little misleading because spell/breath damage also went down between G1 and G3, but it was less drastic, particularly for the better spells and abilities. Melee got nerfed much harder.)

No, Parry does better than add 2% per level, because it does not contribute to the 90% cap on armor. It reduces damage at about 2% per level. Parry is amazing, despite being weaker than in previous games. Blademaster is also incredibly important since it lets you remove fatigue twice as fast as usual.

The U.S. Civil War was definitely not between "established civilization" and the "frontier". For one thing, the South was anything but frontier by the 1860's. Additionally, most of the Southern states were first settled in similar time frames as the Northeastern states. And the actual frontier, the West, consisted entirely of Union-loyal states and territories, with the sole exception of Texas.

Riposte also follows the G1 points schedule, so gains above 10 are very slow and reaching 50% requires getting to 26 Riposte. Good luck indeed.

I know the same words have been used in other fantasy settings (particularly nephilim, given its biblical derivation), but what fantasy books have Nephils and Sliths in them? None, right?

Uh, nephils and sliths are nothing like elves and dwarves.

If the other creations are nerfed, then shaping as a whole becomes too weak for a game focused on it. With nerfed Magic & Fire creations, there would be no reason to play as any character other than a Servile, or an Infiltrator/Agent.

Unless your hard disk is full or you have weird user permissions set up, it sounds like you might have file corruption. You might want to try the steps listed in the Tech Support forum header, especially step #2 (re-download and re-install).

Battle Creations: Plain old offensive damage is really what needs to be upgraded. Defense and HP are good, but not enough; just look at the degree to which the Wingbolt is preferred over the Kyshakk. Now picture a Kyshakk with no breath weapon, but even higher HP. Nobody would use it! The lack of ranged attacks are a HUGE inherent disadvantage the Battle Creation line has. Ranged attacks provide flexibility, as you will never be unable to get at the enemy you want to hit, and you can always get two attacks in when hasted; plus you get access to different elements to attack with. The fact that they also -- all of them! -- do more damage is kind of ridiculous. (And, I suspect, it is an artifact of the fact that creation battle skills were not updated when all melee damage changed from 1-8 per level to 1-4 per level between G2 and G3.) Being more survivable is a very poor substitute for a ranged attack. Quick Action is better, but it's inconsistent, which only compounds the disadvantages caused by reliance on a melee attack. Battle creations need to be better at battle -- not worse.

Jeff -- more health is fine, but the Battle Creations really need better attacks. Right now, their melee attacks are CONSISTENTLY weaker than breath attacks from corresponding Magic & Fire Creations, even though breath attacks have a host of advantages over melee attacks! What's even worse, their melee attacks are usually weaker than Magic & Fire melee attacks, and are never significantly stronger. For example: a Glaahk and a Drayk will BOTH do more MELEE damage than a Battle Alpha! And yes, this does take into account the Battle Alpha Strength bonus. Given that the Glaahk slows and the Drayk also has a missile attack, Alphas are useless. Similarly, Vlish outdamage Clawbugs IN MELEE (and both poison). The Vlish also have a missile attack; Clawbugs are useless. On average, Gazers outdamage Rotghroths IN MELEE... do I need to go on? And War Tralls... hah! Battle Alphas outdamage War Tralls in melee! You probably don't want to see the math, but it's all available here if you do: Board post here

Geneforge 5 will however have a windowed mode as well as variable display resolutions, according to the latest update.

And in pure statistics, War Tralls are horrendous. That problem really lies in the fact that the entire Battle Shaping line has been CATEGORICALLY worse than Fire and Magic Shaping from G3 onward. This is not good. The War Trall is a good place to start, but the others need attention too.