Aoslare

At first this indeed seems like a good strategy -- but it has a flaw. As a Shaper, it is to your advantage to create creatures at the earliest level you can. This is because of the experience your creations will gain. When you are at a lower level, your experience gained scales more advantageously, of course, and therefore your creations gain more levels. A single chance for seven creations to get an extra level up permanently is better than a single level gain for a PC, since by the end of the game that will have eroded into a small fraction of a level's worth of XP. The exception of course is if the skill points a level up will net you will give you points in a Shaping skill up to 10. However, even when your Shaping skills are not optimized yet, it is still to your advantage to keep lots of creations around. Reducing the experience you gain slightly means that better creations become available when you are at a lower level, and therefore they will be more powerful for the entire game.

One of the main problems with killing NPCs -- like Aiglos -- is that if they are tied to a quest reward, you have to talk to them to clear the quest from your quest list and get the experience (and items, if applicable) as a reward. Jeff's way of having NPCs be attackable is yet another holdover from the Ultima games, in which you could typically kill Lord Brittish without any consequences to the game world whatsoever.

The text suggests the body does not much postdate the evacuation, and these kinds of picayune continuity snafus are not uncommon in Jeff's games. I agree with Dikiyoba. Better to stretch science in a game that already does so heavily than to stretch the writing and the designer's intentions.

I'd argue magic strengthening canisters make a MUCH bigger difference for Guardians, who are hard pressed to put very many points in magic skills. An Agent with Battle Magic and Spellcraft skills of 15 each is barely going to notice an extra point in Ice Spray or Kill, and extra points to Blessing spells are practically useless. Shapers, of course, get their creations at higher levels permanently if they use canisters, a much more significant gain. ...Now, if we are talking about isolated unskilled shapers trapped on Sucia Island, it's a different story, but there has only been one (Goetz wasn't an apprentice, was he?), so that's hardly relevant.

Again, we haven't met that many Agents at all -- something like four or five, total? -- and we've met relatively few Shapers and Guardians gorged on canisters, certainly less than 1 in 4, so it could just be random chance. Agents, presumably, desire a significant amount of self-control, given their solitary tactics and lifestyle. Canisters risk having that taken away, without providing any significant benefits to an Agent.

Tactically, it's a perfectly fine idea. Typical Agent tactics rely on making your one character unassailable through a combination of hit-and-run tactics, brute speed, and buffing spells. Shapers, meanwhile, can make creations that are significantly more powerful than Alwan and Greta, for minimal essence, and can do so fairly early. Arguably, Artila go in that category. Vlish certainly do.

You never read my Church of the Nine-Headed Cave Cow thread, did you, DeVlish. Pfft

STICKS TO STEAKS

As has been observed a kazillion times, the answer may be very different depending on difficulty settings.

I would be very cautious about adding new ability or creature or item definitions. Modifying already existing ones is pretty safe, but we have no idea how Jeff stores the definitions in memory. It may not be set up to handle more than a certain number of abilities, or abilities that are not numbered a certain way. It's probably safe, but if it does cause an error, it could be an icky one. This goes without saying, but test that on a copy of the game folder and not the original. Also, starting out with 10 AP *and* a baton *is* overpowered, way way way moreso than an acid baton would be. Plated Bugs don't have missile attacks, so their bonus AP isn't so hot. The 10 AP thing should be an upgrade, probably the last upgrade. Also, starting out with 25% resistance to everything doesn't make sense either. That's a reasonable upgrade at some point, but to begin with non-armor resistances ought to be lower. Standard armor gives you half its armor value as resistance to energy, fire, and ice. Poison and acid resists deserve to be low, and mental effects certainly should be low or nonexistant given the quality of Alwan's reasoning resistances: 0 physical 1 energy 2 fire 3 disruption (resistance is handled entirely by creature_type) 4 poison 5 acid 6 ice 7 mental I'm not sure how stun is resisted by creations (if at all).

If you're going to appropriate the facepalm, you really ought to save it for when it's truly deserved.

It's more useful to make sure they are high level by pumping your shaping stats and creating them early. Energy is determined for creations just like it is for PCs, so both Intelligence and Level are multiplied into the mix. A level 20 creation will have a base Intelligence of 10, 12 if you want to control it, so spending the overpriced essence to boost its Int score will only increase its staying power by about 8% -- less than that, really, since it does regenerate Energy each round. Also note that energy used varies widely by the attack and is the same as the spell with the same effect. Fyoras and Drayks should almost never run out, as they copy Firebolt (4 energy). I forget how much the Vlish attack costs, but it's also relatively cheap. Artila, Roamers, Cryoas, Cryodrayks, and Terror Vlish cost 40-50 energy a hit but even with them, at high levels, they can go quite a while. Drakons and Gazers and especially Eyebeasts are the only ones that are likely to have severe energy problems, at 75-200 energy a pop. EDIT: Yes, magic attacks are included. When I say "all attacks" I mean ALL attacks made by creations. There are no exceptions. (Actually, this may apply to every character in the game outside of your PC. Not sure about that.)

Just Strength. For creations Dex ONLY influences dodge rate. Strength covers damage and hit rate for all creation attacks.

Well, you can always pretend he's a missle guardian using gems (very slowly) and give him Essence Orbs or somesuch attack. I fail to see how an acid baton would be in any way unbalanced, btw. The base damage is lower than Searer (1-3 instead of 1-4) and Artila, which are available very early, get to use Searer. A few points in Magic Shaping and they'll be many levels higher than Alwan, too, and stay that way the entire game. Alwan won't run out of energy, so that's nice I guess, but still. If you want further realism, I'd recommend giving Alwan some armor protection. He's nakeder than a servile!

*facepalm*

Quote: Originally written by bigfix: vlish are hairless ballons. That's awesome. If I had not decided to stop namechanging, this post would totally have been made by 99 Vlishballons.

Quote: Originally written by bigfix: Quote: The point is that he is so wretchedly gimpy compared with Greta he is not, just cast essence shield and uagument on him and he's fine. Do you understand what the words "compared with" mean?

Nobody is arguing that Alwan is impossible to use, and that he can never be helpful at all. The point is that he is so wretchedly gimpy compared with Greta, with practically any creation, or with a Guardian or Agent. I don't think that can be contested.

The point is that guardians and battle betas are competing to get dumped on the most by us

Hmm. Maybe "Guardians vs. Battle Betas"

If you keep your creations at high level by creating as soon as the type you want becomes available, they will likely have high enough natural Dex to act before almost all enemies, even on Torment. My Vlish have *never* gotten second strike as of yet.

I think we've found the Geneforge equivalent to "Nephils vs. Sliths." It's called "Guardians vs."

I haven't tested this with Alwan and Greta specifically, but for creations -- and it should be the same for them -- Dex only affects dodge rate. Hit rate for any creation attack is determined by the attack, the creation, and the creation's Str. (Has anyone tested this specifically with them?)

For a missile user, the Tiny Orb of Mist enhancement, which gives +5% to dodge all attacks, might actually be better than a Golden Crystal, and significantly so. For anyone else, your dodge rate will be too low to count anyway, due to not pumping Dex. It also might be better on Normal, where it's easier to dodge.

It's been a while, but I believe my no canister Melee Agent who relied on Strong Daze had a Mental + Spellcraft score of around 30-32 by endgame and had no trouble dazing things.