Aoslare

In G1, what you do with the Geneforge (and Trajkov and Goettsch) is actually the major determiner of the ending you get; what sect you joined, if any, can cause significant changes but you stay within the same branch.

 

G2 and G3 are both very straightforward. G2 has 4 or 5 endings, depending on whether or not you count Aodare's ending the same as Zakary's. You probably should. G3 has 2 endings.

 

G4 is a bit like G1. Although there are 3 possible endings as far as the fate of the world goes, each one has pretty big variations in what the PC's fate is, based on things other than the Unbound.

This is another situation where premises were designed for G1 and made perfect sense, but were not updated accordingly with the new settings. The rapid experience gain made sense in G1. It was accounted for by the fact that you were using canisters (a pretty fair assumption in G1). Other people couldn't do it as well because they weren't Shapers, but the ones who used canisters *were* significantly more powerful.

That only works if you go ahead of the person in combat. Otherwise, there will be a very annoying three seconds of forced inaction while you watch *them* move first.

http://encyclopedia.ermarian.net/wiki/Drakes#Basilisks

That *is* a problem. I can think of a few other places it was especially bad. There were several annoying wanderers in Rivergate Keep -- Mouawad and Duncan both managed to start moving almost every time I was about to click on them, especially Mouawad.

 

However, that wouldn't be a problem if there was some kind of keyboard movement. Directional keys would be easy enough to respond to them with and move to intercept them. With the need to move the mouse and then click, it's often impossible, as by the time you have the mouse positioned correctly, they will be past you and you *can't* catch up with them.

 

The other thing that impedes this is the need to be within a certain range to talk, but the apparent inability to get their attention. So if I click on them directly, I end up following them past multiple rooms.

He did?

 

*scratches head*

 

Well, maybe I'm confusing it with G4 or G3, both of which I've experimented with more recently; it's been nearly a year since I've touched A4. I suppose I shouldn't answer these questions anymore.

 

I could have sworn I remember having discussions about this and everyone concluding it was based on the highest level character, though.

NO. We learned a valuable lesson in Avernum 4. Re-using graphics across different game series is disastrous. It's one thing to do it with something like goblins, that are more or less generic anyway, but old PC graphics do not go into that category. If I look at King Arthur and I see a Guardian, I will scream.

 

I got over Professor X turning into a booming, Shakespearean Captain Picard. I will not get over King Arthur looking like a Shaper.

You're right that the penalty is based on individual penalties. However, experience is also scaled based on the highest level out of all your teammates. This is relevant because individual penalties obviously influence how fast you gain levels.

 

Because the level-based scaling is so incredibly steep, this means that a party of four 65% penalty characters will reach a higher level than a party of three 65% penalty characters and one character with no penalty.

Khyryk is the only Trakovite NPC who's been fleshed out at all, so I have to imagine he'll be around -- unless the Trakovites are gone.

 

What the next game *really* needs to do, IMHO, is shed this whole choose the Shapers / choose the Rebels thing that's been going on for four games. Enough already. G4 did it well enough that it was bearable (even after G3), but I really don't want to deal with it again.

The combat/character engine has undergone relatively minor changes after Nethergate, and that includes all the Avernum and Geneforge games. Although changes to the AP system and even the skill point system (in G1) are interesting it is still the same basic system with a lot of commonality.

 

I'd love to see something new, but we're going on ten years with this PC engine.

 

Shaping was certainly new, I guess.

...

Seriously Andraste, these are great. Somebody go poke Jeff to look at these.

Yes, Khyryk was definitely killable in G3, and the canon is that he wasn't killed.

The only place I can think of that what you do with Monarch could really have an effect -- based on the fact that the scripts never reference it outside of a few dialogue changes -- is the ending. And even that I doubt.

I don't know if this has changed since G3, but in G3 the acid enhancement (runed amethyst or whatever) would give the same bonus damage as the fire and ice enhancements, as acid damage of course -- it would not add layers of acid as an ancillary effect.

Interesting. I haven't actually used them in G4, and it seems they've been nerfed from G3, where they took effect every attack (though never on QA swings). I don't remember the GC affecting hit chance but that makes sense. How much of a boost does it give?

See, this is why I like to say IIRC. Because I seem to be turning into Ronald Reagan at 24.

Ack, how did I miss this thread?

 

You shouldn't worry about experience. As Synergy so kindly discovered, Monarch's rogues in at least one area of the fens respawn infinitely despite giving solid experience.

 

Weapon enhancements become a major point of debate in this challenge, as they are essentially your only source of slow, stun, and curse effects. I guess slow is probably the best one to use.

"Several people" does sound like an understatement.

I'm pretty sure that Leadership does not affect the ending. This comes from peeking into G4 resource forks at the complete ending corpus.

 

The ending has three major branches, depending on what you did with the Unbound.

 

There are minor ending differences depending on:

 

- If machinery was damaged in the Shaper attack

- Power flow settings on machinery

- If Unbound specifications were given to Shapers

- Akhari Blaze lives/dies

- Greta lives/dies

- Alwan lives/dies

- Miranda lives/dies

- Litalia lives/dies

- Canister usage

- Reputation among the Shapers and Rebels

 

For the last item, it talks about things you did early in your quest. I'm not sure what exactly this is based on. My guess is it's based on which side you chose to help in the Caravan, Moseh, and Monarch quests at the end of the first three chapters. It might instead be based on the one hidden reputation score.

 

Of note is the fact that the Trakovite ending uses the Rebel scheme for this last item. So you are much better off helping the Rebels and then sabotaging them, than helping the Shapers and doing the sabotage. This probably accounts for the drastic differences in opinion as to the satisfyingness of the Trakovite ending.

Well, there's one challenge for which the Warrior is 100% optimal.

 

The Trakovite Royale -- no creations, no canisters, AND no magic. The Warrior and Servile are the obvious winners here, and IIRC the Warrior's HP bonus is 2 HP higher than the Servile's. So he just barely edges out the Servile.

The Smoky Crystals were only used in BoE. That was one of the few differences between E3 and BoE. E3 used a special item just like E2 did.

Well, that would explain why I never used it in Avernum 2.

I haven't used it in A2, so perhaps it was weaked, but Mindduel was a real killer in E2. It was, after all, designed to be the reasonable way to defeat the final boss.

 

A2 took that last bit out, which annoys me tremendously.

Actually, EE is much better about that now. Last month I labelled pretty much everything that is not based directly on the games as apocryphal, with a box at the top of the entry warning of it.

 

Now, the vast majority of the pages are based only on game canon, and anything that isn't is clearly labelled.

The Archives of Akhronath are still up, and has a brief history of Exile 1-3 at:

 

http://members.aol.com/zzhou22876/history.html

 

EE is by far the best source to go to if you're looking for details, but big-picture overviews are unfortunately lacking.