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Pyro would like hear more feedback from other users about his trainer. The thread is back in business; please keep it civil, at least out of respect for his work!

The easiest solution is to change your screen resolution to a more traditional one before playing. (My default is 1280x800, but I can switch to 1024x768 unstretched.)

It doesn't quite apply to charming because charming isn't handled like damage. Charming is basically a standard RPG to-hit roll, except instead of using accuracy and dodge scores, you get CHANCE = (Base chance) + (5 * (spellcraft + mental magic + spell skill)) - (mental resistance) So, extra points in mental magic are useless against creatures with low mental resistance, and make a big difference against those with high mental resistance. Since mental resistance is mostly just based on level for NPCs, extra mental magic skill is always helpful.

There is no "cap" -- the "cap" that DV talks about does not exist. There are diminishing returns with battle magic in G5, as with every other skill in every other Geneforge (or Avernum) game. That is to say, every new point in the skill contributes the same amount of extra damage. So does every point in Spellcraft and every point in skill at casting an individual spell. So yes, the 14th point of Battle Magic or whatever will make less of a difference, but that's only because the damage has already been ramped up; it increases damage by exactly the same amount as the 2nd or 3rd point of Battle Magic.

Yes, it can safely be considered a bug. And no, magic hasn't been toned down. *Haste* has been toned down significantly, but some other neat buffs have been added or strengthened. Mental magic remains extremely strong despite a few minor tweaks, and battle and healing spells are unchanged I believe.

Jeff refers to the factions by the name of their leader throughout the game, the manual, and the hint book. Yes, the Rebels and Trakovites are still in play as names, but Alwan's sect is emphatically NOT referred to as "the Shapers." Four of the sects (all but Ghaldring's) follow the Shaper path, more or less, and three of them are led by Shaper Council members; and in only one out of six endings is Alwan's extremist path adhered to. I don't think I saw "Astorian" anywhere, either.

Originally Posted By: Nenayar All this reminds me of a christian legend about Eden. While Adam and Eva were mindless decorative creatures, everything was good. Then they got intelligence and free will and were banished from Eden. Why? Because they became dangerous for current government, they got the potential to start rebellion in future and of course were punished to ensure the safety of god. From god's point of view they became dangerously malfuctioning toys. This is certainly one viable interpretation of that story, but it isn't the only one. (It's also one that doesn't make very much sense in the context of any monotheistic religion -- how the heck could a human being pose a threat to God's safety?) My favourite interpretation came from a professor of mine in college who worked from oldest extant sources and examined discrepancies between source languages and later translations. She suggested that the banishment from Eden, though clearly a consequence of Eve and Adam's actions, was not a punishment per se. Rather it was a sort of coming-of-age, or developmentally, the beginning of rapprochement. The issue was not so much that God had been disobeyed, as that Adam and Eve had outgrown the garden.

Who's we? Speak for yourself. The evidence suggests quite clearly that the higher essence start is an accident stemming from the fact that Guardians were NPCs and not PCs in G4, and that in the same game Jeff gave them the ability to shape mid-combat.

Plated bugs aren't as good as in past games. I forget where my analysis went, but if you account for their lower attack bonuses, they only do a little more physical damage than regular clawbugs even accounting for the second attack.

I think it's something like 1/8 or 1/10.

Droll. (Druin?)

I'm guessing that was Thuryl's point.

Typically the "canonical" ending used in the next game, doesn't match up 100% with any of the endings you can actually achieve in-game. So it is certainly not required that the G3 PC became a rebel general. The story you suggest is as plausible as any other possibility, but it isn't _more_ plausible than any other possibility, either. Likewise for Tuldaric. I suppose it's possible that Tuldaric became Monarch, but there are very few bit part PCs about whose demise we get specific confirmation. He seems less likely than other possibilities (even the G3 PC) to me, because Tuldaric's area of expertise is pretty far removed from the stuff Monarch was working on.

If you really want to push battle magic, try it in G3. Singleton agent tactics hadn't been weakened yet, but melee attacks were greatly weakened compared with the first two games.

Direct damage, ranged attacks, whatever else your character does will always pale in comparison with even a handful of your creations. The real use for a sorceress is to pump mental magic but still maintain a number of creations.

I believe you can alter the colors for any (entire) class of creatures in the scripts. There's a color_adj flag or something like that. Or maybe that's just items and I'm mixing it up, but I think it applies to creatures too.

I think Randomizer said he finished everything except the expert area as a Torment singleton.

One thing I'm curious about is why this affects the PC version so much more than the Mac version. Presumably the processing demands of the graphics are similar, but the Mac version runs fine with built-in crap like my GMA 950.

"Nothing is ever said, that has not been said before." - Terence

The name "dark elf" is not new in D&D, nor is the word "drow," but I think the fleshing out of the culture is much more extensive and original than any of the other examples listed. Gary Gygax detailed much of the culture and history of the drow in a number of adventure modules before Salvatore's spin-offs appeared. In any event, the resemblance to svartalfar is present, but limited to the basic concept, and there is absolutely no resemblance to Tolkien's dark elves (moriquendi) who were not evil and did not live underground. Eöl, likewise, is more of a tragic failure than a villain, and he didn't live underground either.

In some previous games, Parry did reduce all damage taken. It doesn't in G5. Don't trust the in-game descriptions, and don't trust GameFAQs. The best information is found in Strategy Central in this forum.

Hey, thanks Jeff. I wasn't sure if you'd appreciate this thread, I admit. Anything you wish to add is always welcome. BTW, all the replies have been added to the first post, so you didn't miss anything.

In G3, Alwan is every bit the "lunatic islander" or whatever Rawal calls him. He isn't just unapologetically hard-line, he's angry and vengeful. If anything, he is cast in a more sympathetic light in his G5 ending. Alwan is a sort of Geneforge frat boy, while Greta's a hipster with no backbone. Litalia would be her pothead friend who decides to come clean. Dear god, it's Geneforge: The College Years!

Those are seperate quests. The one in your log book probably needs to be reported to someone else, listed in the quest description.

Weird. Do other SW games (in particular, Geneforge 4) work properly on your computer? If so, the problem must have something to do with the new graphics capabilities of G5. If not, it would have to be some weird system configuration problem.