Aoslare

I'm not convinced. Missiles and Dex are as expensive for a Guardian (2, 4) as Magic and Spellcraft are for a Shaper. You don't have to specialize at all among battle/mental/blessing items, it's true, and you get better weapons skills; but your creations are also weaker.

Also, I don't think Dex and Missiles increase the effects of pods, spores, and rods. I could be wrong, but I haven't noticed it, anyway.

I think I am actually coming around to SoT's disposable creations model. At least that way you get flexibility.

...you know, what with the three of us rambling on like this, and our differing opinions as to what strategies are the best ones, it occurs to me that we mirror in some ways the Shaper/Guardian/Agent trichotomy...

"ipothetical" makes him sound British. Which is very amusing.

Reapers do physical damage, just like regular batons. I guess it's just that their multiplier is so high (1-12) that they do respectable damage even against a 40% resistant enemy.

Neh. I guess things will improve once Venom Thorns become less of a rarity.

Shaping was hideously powerful in G1, about twice as powerful as in subsequent games, while magic was much weaker, both in terms of damage output and in terms of what spells actually existed. Magic wasn't king in G1.

This build is starting to disappoint me. For one thing, attacks that the engine claims have a 1% chance of hitting me are definitely hitting me more than 1 in 100 times. They almost always miss, but they hit often enough that I can't assume they will miss. If that continues to be the case, it pretty much destroys the entire premise of the build, and I'm gonna have to abandon it.

More importantly, I figured out the problem with missiles, and the reason that Icy Crystals are amazing while batons are not: javelins and batons all do physical damage.

I never paid much attention to physical resists (i.e., armor) on enemies before, because it's common and usually low. But it really is VERY common, and when you don't have Quick Action to double up your damage, it becomes quite noticeable. Specifically, I became irate when I noticed that Firebolt was doing more damage than Javelins were, despite having Dex+MiW of 13 and Battle+Spellcraft of 3, and despite Javelins having a higher multiplier than Firebolt.

But look at the list of things with physical resistance:

15% Servile

20% Roamer

25% Spawner, Turret

30% Servile, Thahd, Vlish, Specter, Glaahk, Spinecore

40% Clawbug, Fighter, Battle Alpha, Drayk, Drakon

50% Servant Mind, Golem, Rotghroth

60% Pylon

Basically, everything not named Fyora or Artila has built in armor.

Sure, there are things that resist fire or ice or energy; but (especially for energy) there are less. A spell-slinging Agent can just change to a different spell. A Shaper can either employ multiple creation types, can switch to physical instead of breath attacks, or can use items and spells as supplements. A character who relies on melee or missile weapons doesn't have those options so much.

Icy Crystals are wonderful, as are wands, but there aren't enough to use them as regular attacks.

THIS is why melee got so much worse in G3, too! -- the dice dropped to 4 AND the resists got ramped up, including physical resists.

GRRRRR!

Ghez/Max: Are you the same person?

*facepalm*

I smell a warning.

If someone gets canned in the Geneforge Series forum, would their title become "CANISTERED"?

Ah, the competition for lack of a life on Sunday mornings

I agree with pretty much your whole edit. I think it would be very nice, and very in-flavor, to give the guardian some kind of leadership capability that enhances the power of his creatures in a way different from the shaper's essence pumping. The problem is that this is inordinately hard to do when you insist, as Jeff does, that every character can potentially use every ability, spell, etc.

Perhaps Parry could become a kind of Bodyguard ability that gives a defensive bonus to creations 1 or 2 square away from the Guardian, in addition to the bonus the PC gets. That would explain the Guardian's name, and it would foster a playing style extremely different from both the Shaper and the Agent.

The funny thing is that shaping skills have already been toned down. Back in G1, freshly made creations received a bonus of +1 to their core stats PER LEVEL, rather than half a point per level as they currently do. If you pushed Fire Shaping high you could easily make a Drayk that started out with 30 in each stat. That was ludicrous.

I think the best way to fix this effect, now, is to re-balance the creations. In G1, Vlish had missile attacks that were slightly weaker than average, and melee attacks that were a complete joke. 15 essence was a reasonable cost. But because their abilities have never been weakened like the regular ones have been, they now fight as well as clawbugs and shoot as well as anything. With more reasonable pricing at, say, 45 essence, I wouldn't be able to abuse them so much. Or with crappier attacks.

Artilla are also pretty strong. Eyebeasts are broken, but that's clearly on purpose. Those are the only ones that really need fixing. Well, Clawbugs and Battle Alphas desperately need to be made stronger, too.

What I would really like to see is that the creations become less generic. Give the artila a penalty to Endurance, instead of just giving it a low HP bonus; that way it has significantly less HP even at high levels, rather than 15 below a Vlish at any level. Give the Battle Alpha a bonus to Endurance. Make the Glaahk's attack roll smaller dice than the Battle Alpha's, as it did in G1. And so on.

Level of creations doesn't affect how much XP you get, or how much XP they get. XP is determined entirely by your PC's level and the number of allies you have, approximately as follows:

# PC Creations0 50 --1 46 362 43 343 40 324 37 295 34 276 31 247 28 22

Terror Vlish, btw, don't apply Terror either. Not anymore. But investing to 10 in Magic Shaping only costs 34 skill points for a Shaper. There's plenty left over to put into Mental + Spellcraft, or Dex + Missiles, as you see fit. I'm not fond of breaking AI scripting, but I am investing heavily in Mental Magic for Daze, so maybe I'll try Terror out.

The special effect of Vlish is not stunning, but slowing, and I don't think it's possible to resist slowing in Geneforge. The thing is, there are actually relatively few differences among non-fourth tier creations aside from attack method and base level. If you get Vlish up to high levels, they compare just fine with Drayks and Glaahks; they just have a different special ability. And because they are so cheap, you can actually afford to improve their stats, even with seven of them. A level 36 Vlish, unimproved and with no equipment bonuses, will have about 350 HP. With Group Heal to support them, I don't expect any casualties.

I thought about making a Glaahk or two when I got to Dhonal's Keep, but by that point, my Glaahk would be lower level than my Vlish, with a comparable melee attack; basically I'd trade a slowing missile and a poison melee for just a stunning melee, plus I'd lose essence and they would be harder to essence-pump.

If it isn't apparent, I think that Vlish have become overpowered in G3 -- not broken by any means, just a ridiculously good value. The flexibility their cheapness affords a Shaper makes this, imho, one of the most powerful builds the game has to offer.

Torment Builds

Shaper - Cheap

Shaper - Missile/Creations

Guardian - Missile/Creations ( More )

Guardian - Missile ( Endgame )

Guardian - Melee ( More )

Agent - Melee/Daze

Agent - Battle Magic ( More )

Agent - Dodge/Missile

Agent - as Shaper

Guardian - as Shaper (plus walkthrough)
 

Technical data not in FAQ

Creation Stats

Item Enhancements ( Update )

Artifacts

Items in the Game

Parry vs. Endurance for a Guardian

Other

Editor Information

Pacifism

Ending Guide

Basic Tactics for the Geneforge Series

There's a lot of good discussion spread out around this forum, and I got tired of looking things up. I figure somebody else might appreciate having these links around, too. Et voici!

I never said a flexible strategy was doomed, just that it was less desirable than picking one end or the other. A dedicated Shaper should not have any problem with bosses and a properly supported Agent should not have any problem with swarms. Picking creations wisely, and using Daze wisely, hardly count as abusing the game engine.

The thing is that well-supported creations do not have significantly lower chances to hit than comparable PCs. At the moment, Vlish-Thsss is about a third of the way through Dhonal's. He has a team of seven Vlish, who -- simply by putting 10 points in Magic Shaping and creating the Vlish as soon as he could -- are now at level 29. That gives them a base Strength of 14, increased to 19 from equipment effects (Claymore, belt, etc). Their missile attack has a base attack bonus of +3, and a base hit chance of 70%. Altogether, that gives them a hit chance of 180% before applying enemy dodge. A Guardian with 10 Strength and 10 Melee Weapons and the Claymore will have a hit chance of 210% before dodge. Bobby's pimped out Guardian, for comparison, has a base hit chance of 271% before dodge. Add another 8 Strength from a conservative 15 levels gained, 3 Strength from the Shroud, and 4 very reasonably priced points from essence, and the Vlish are up to a 255% hit chance before dodge.

These are not big differences. Heck, throw in the 20% bonus from War Blessing, and even the 180% Vlish have a 99% hit rate against anything with less than 21 Dex. At 30 Dex, they are down to 50%, but I'd rather have seven 50% attacks than one 80% attack. The Bound One isn't going to be a problem.

Those classes don't really add anything. In my mind, adding breadth without adding meaningful content is bad. The defining element of a class is really the skills that it has trouble accessing; this just xeroxes the others. So a Champion is basically just a Melee Agent, a Constructor is just a crappy version of a Shaper, and an Infiltrator is actually a very nice version of a Shaper -- if you just push one type of creation, you get a lot more skill point wise out of cheap magic skills than cheap shaping skills.

Anyway, we already know there's gonna be an option to play as a servile (hallelujah). So I wouldn't count on anything this bland.

About Torment. Torment is much harder than Normal. This has affects strategy a lot. Generally, there are a wide variety of strategies that work in Normal. In Torment, only the most efficient strategies are going to be successful.

People who don't play Torment can definitely have good things to say. Usually, though, it's somebody saying "I gave my guardian stats x y and z and it worked great I don't know what you are talking about." Just don't say that. You can do fine in Normal with any mildly intelligent strategy. So, successes in Normal have very little bearing on discussions of what strategies work best... because everything works in Normal.

SoT: And I, too, sympathize with the desire to acknowledge ambiguity rather than accepting convenient polarizations. But in this case I don't buy it

> Against boss monsters, you need at least one strong offense to be in the game at all, and this means an Agent or Guardian, or some third or fourth tier creations.

I don't buy this. ALL damage reduction in Geneforge is handled on a percentage basis, every last bit of it; so unless your team is so weak that they are missing a lot, several lower tier creations are going to do just as much damage as one strong one -- often, more.

> But the intermediate route, of having one hard-hitter plus three or four decent back-up creations, is a flexible strategy that mixes offensive and defensive modes, and lets you cope with everything the game throws at you without having to resort to dubious tricks.

I guess you can run a disposable creations model, running solo by default and recruiting helpers when they seem helpful. The problem is that you're worse off with the creations, as you can't offer them proper support from spells; and you're worse off without them as well, since your skills are so spread out. There are few areas that are really tough solo or really tough with creations, but when push comes to shove, you have to be stronger than the enemy.

Anyway, full on offensive and defensive teams don't all resort to dubious tricks

Hmm. Now that's an interesting idea. One Shaper, one creation.

Get a creation up to the mid 20's in level (easy), pump Dex to the max, wear some Dex boosting items, should be easy to get it to 30 Dex. I assume the stats are still capped at 30 for creations as well as PCs, though haven't had occasion to test this since G1... hmm, if they are still capped, this would actually work best with a Thahd Shade, after all.

So you get 150% from Dex, 20% from Nimbleness, and then your PC can focus on pumping Blessing Magic and Spellcraft for a big Essence Armor boost. Hmm. Not bad.

Unfortunately, if your Thahd does get hit, your Shaper is too far way to heal it. Either that, or your Shaper is right there and thus the point of an unstrikable Thahd is defeated, anyway.

Neat idea though.

I'm going to buy two levels of missiles pronto when I get to San Ru. Other than that, I think I have to stick to pumping Dex and Luck. High Luck means I don't have to worry about missing anyway, and the goal is not to make myself have 50% dodge and a killer attack; it's to get 99% dodge and a decent attack. Dex pumps dodge and missiles. Missiles just pumps missiles. Dex wins.

The thorn batons would kill in two shots, but the one round of HP generation seems to be just enough to keep stuff alive. I'm still on Greenwood. Once I get to Harmony and get Speed that should make things a lot better.

Daze is a lifesaver as always, though not pumping Int or Mental Magic or Spellcraft (not yet, anyway) is annoying.

I'm not putting points into Strength unless I absolutely must. If I get the dodge high enough, I don't have to worry about heavy armor, especially once I get the armor spells.

Of course the agent will rule with missiles! It is a step down from spells, but it is a step up from a guardian with missiles.

*sigh*

Okay, here is why creations don't work well with Guardians:

In any kind of game like this, there are two basic strategies: offensive, and defensive. Offensive strategies involve having enough firepower to do relatively more damage to your opponent than they can do to you in each round. Defensive strategies involve preventing most or all of your opponent's attacks in some way, and then picking them off at leisure.

Defensive tactics usually work by minimizing the opportunity for the enemy to hit you -- minimizing the surface area, as it were. When defensive spells and skills have to be cast or built up or equipped for each character individually, the most effective way to produce a strong defense is to just use one character. This allows you to maximize the return you get out of defensive measures. A single piece of armor can reduce damage from all blows, not just one out of eight.

Offensive tactics, of course, desire the reverse -- maximum surface area. The more characters you run, the more attacks you get to make each round. And if you aren't building up anyone's defenses, it doesn't matter too much who gets hit; having more bodies just means each hit you receive counts for a smaller proportion of your total resources.

Defensive PCs will often find it useful to augment their attack and their defense as much as they can. Doubling their attack means they are twice as efficient at dealing with enemies. If you are part of a team of eight, on the other hand, doubling one character's attack isn't going to do much at all.

But if you are running a whole party, if you are running creations, it is purely and simply a waste to spend your resources helping just one of your characters when you have options available that could help the whole party. You could buy a point of Strength -- or you could buy a point of Magic Shaping, which will make up to seven creations one level higher, and half a point better in four statistics! You could buy a point of Strength -- or you could buy a point of Intelligence, probably providing enough essence to add Strength to each of your creations individually!

It's not that Melee + Creations can't be done. It's just a very inefficient strategy that makes poor use of your resources as a PC. You wind up with a weaker offense than an offensive party, without having better defense; and you wind up with a much weaker defense than a defensive singleton, with only a somewhat better offense.

--

As for melee guardians:

Of course it can be done, and of course it can be done on Torment. Nonetheless Bobby, no offense, but I am a little skeptical that you have played the entire game on Torment. Your comments sound like the things someone who playing on Normal would say. Why don't you post your Guardian's stats, and we can discuss whether it looks able to handle a swarm of Torment Rotdhizon?

Items can substitute for some effects, sure, but there are others that they can't make up for. DAZE is the most important of these. If you are playing on Torment, not all the Glaahk shields in the world will stop you from getting stunned to death; you either need to take out enemies at hyperspeed -- unlikely as a singleton on Torment -- or you need to have some way of incapacitating them.

(Blessing magic is not actually the issue, since you can buy 2 points for money, getting you War Blessing and Protection. Speed is at what, 3? And even getting to 6 or 7 for Steel Skin and Essence Armor is doable, though if you spend those skill points a comparable Agent can reach or exceed your combat skills in the meantime.)

The Missile Guardian build gets around this by using Madness Gems and other such powerhouses, if I remember correctly. The Melee Agent uses Daze and Strong Daze, often repeatedly. The Melee Guardian is helpless.

Whereas Quick Action and Parry drop off rapidly in usefulness after getting to 10, and there are LOTS of good items that boost them both, Mental Magic and Spellcraft need serious attention to make Daze viable, and there are few items that boost them. An Agent can drop 6 points (= 14 skill points, if you buy the first two) into each of those skills and be quite happy with the results. A Guardian who has 28 skill points to spend on magic skills -- let's assume he ignores blessing magic and just uses items wisely -- can get up to a whopping 5 in Mental Magic and 4 in Spellcraft. At that point, there's no reason to bother; Daze won't even work on the enemies you need it to.

A Guardian will, of course, have higher battle stats than an Agent, if that's the only place you put points. Specifically, each stat (Str, Melee, QA, Parry) will be somewhere between 1 and 4 points higher at any given time. I did the math out in the Guardian vs. Agent thread; you can google it. But again, a QA of 13 vs a QA of 10 is not much of a difference at all. Strength is only 1 point higher. HP are higher, but this is more than made up for by Essence Armor and Steel Skin. The Guardian ends up with no real advantages and a disadvantage in available strategy which, on Torment, is crippling.

Shadow47 = Ed.

I've just started it and it's going great.

Well, mostly great. Thorn batons don't kill anything, and I'm very low on javelins. Icy crystals, on the other hand, are AMAZING. Now I know how you felt when you first ran the missile guardian.

I'm up to about 9 Dex and 6 Luck. The only other stat I pumped was a few obligatory points into Mechanics.

Weak enemies rarely hit me. Stronger ones do hit. I do well when I use crystals, or bless and shield. I have problems when I don't. I need more javelins and more wands of fire. (Never thought I'd say that.)

I think the key is going to be being very careful about what order I complete areas in. A difference of 2 levels is HUGE, and I can't go after enemies much stronger than I am -- I have to be patient. I'm not used to that so much.

I'm looking forward to getting some better equipment, maybe on Harmony. That will definitely make things easier.

DeVlish is right. I've already typed reams on this. Look for the Guardian vs. Agent thread. Guardians are only better melee fighters if you are going to ignore magic entirely, and if you do that, you will die, period -- and even then they are only mildly better at melee.

(Goal: Keep enemy hit percentage at 1%.)

Here's another build thought. This came out of my singleton build for A4, which relied on Dex, Gymnastics, Luck, and Enduring Shield to boost my dodge chances to obscene levels.

At first glance, this seems more difficult in Geneforge, since you don't have the Gymnastics or Defense skills, which tended to contribute about 50% and 30% dodge bonuses, respectively, to my A4 build. However, Geneforge offers several advantages.

1) The Dex and Luck bonuses do not go to 50% power after 10 points. (YAY!)

2) Geneforge has the power of the Tiny Orbs of Mist! Used to enhance armor, they give the "Harder to Hit" bonus, which gives you a 5% bonus to dodge. There is also the usual selection of equipment and charms that naturally boost Dex, Luck, and Spellcraft.

3) Unlike in Avernum, the magical shield doesn't get weaker over time (within the same area, of course).

4) Your enemies make very few area of effect attacks. Those can't be dodged, and at the end of A4 there are lots of those.

5) Unlike in Avernum, most magical attacks get a bonus to hit of 10% or 20%. In Avernum, they tended to get a bonus of 40% or greater.

But here's the best part. Since you are putting lots of points into Dex and Spellcraft anyway, you end up being quite good with missiles and at least passable with spells -- so you're not playing a gimpy character at all.

Here's a rundown of dodging bonuses available:

5%/pt Dexterity

2%/pt Luck

5%/item with Tiny Orb of Mist enhancement

10% flat bonus for Protection

~10% flat bonus for Essence Shield

~18% flat bonus for Essence Armor (not cumulative with Shield)

~1-2%/pt Blessing Magic

~1-2%/pt Spellcraft

~1-2%/pt Essence Shield/Armor

As in Avernum, this is tremendously easy to pull off on lower difficulties -- the enemies are lower level, so they have naturally lower hit percentages -- but I think it can be done on Torment, too.

The teleporter in Olgai won't work unless you have registered the game. It tells you that, of course.

Again, the Guardian is slightly better than the Agent at melee skills, and purely in terms of skills themselves, he is very mildly better than the Shaper (but not, in fact, the Agent) at missile weapons.

The problem is that spells are invaluable support no matter WHAT your primary offensive strategy is, and the Guardian is left behind rather royally when it comes to accessing spells.

In my mind, the problem isn't that the Guardian is too weak, it's that support spells are too important and too powerful.

Although I think importing characters in Avernum would be an awful idea, it is pretty common among Avernum's closest relatives in the RPG family. Besides Might and Magic, this was a feature of the Wizardry series (cited by Jeff as a major influence) and the AD&D Gold Box games. I want to say the Bard's Tale also did this, but I can't remember.