Slariton

Quote: Originally written by Zeviz: More seriously, effective builds depend on difficulty and what game you are talking about. This is of course very true. I meant to imply G3, and I certainly meant to imply higher difficulty level. On Easy and Normal pretty much any character can be successful. That's nice, because it allows you to be flexible and try stuff out and have fun, but it also makes this kind of list pointless. So let's stick to G3, tougher difficulties.

*nod* Normally, I would never advocate such a tactic. However, it is actually pretty useful as a singleton on Torment. As a singleton, coming up with the gold to train is no problem whatsoever. And as a singleton on Torment, every skill point you get is critical -- there are basically none to spare.

*nod* Normally, I would never advocate such a tactic. However, it is actually pretty useful as a singleton on Torment. As a singleton, coming up with the gold to train is no problem whatsoever. And as a singleton on Torment, every skill point you get is critical -- there are basically none to spare.

Magma, the ONLY differences between the classes are the cost to train in different skills, the base skills you start with, and slightly different formulas for HP, energy, and essence. A guardian with 8 battle magic and an agent with 8 battle magic will cast exactly the same strength battle magic spells. But it will take way more skill points to get the guardian there. Therefore, magic-reliant guardians are worse than magic-reliant agents. Using the editor ignores almost all distinctions between classes. Do you understand why your comments about a character you created by breaking the rules of the game are not relevant in a discussion about characters that follow the rules of the game? If not, allow me to quote myself: Quote: Originally written by 84,000 Stupas: Noobs, this is not an invitation to post "I made a guardian with skills X and Y" or whatever. Please.

This time, it really is me you're thinking of. Agents aren't actually better at melee skills. (They are better at missile skills, which is silly, but hey.) They are nearly as good at melee. What makes them better for a melee build is the truly horrific number of skill points a guardian has to plunk down in order to access the good pump spells, which are key for any good melee fighter.

If you are an aggressive min-maxer, custom is still the way to go; but even then it's a close call. Certainly, few of the preset templates are actually bad.

If you are an aggressive min-maxer, custom is still the way to go; but even then it's a close call. Certainly, few of the preset templates are actually bad.

A guardian who focuses on magic is significantly worse than a melee agent in a number of ways. It's just not a good build. Unfortunately, I'm also reconsidering the shaping agent. I did some more math, and things aren't as pretty as I'd hoped. I forgot that G2 and G3 still implement 10- and 20- caps on shaping skill effects. This means that, given reasonable skill point investment, a shaper will use 34 skill points to reach 10 in magic shaping, versus an agent using 70 skill points. The problem is that Create Vlish typically becomes available before you've accrued much more than 70 skill points, yet without points into Intelligence, an agent can basically make one vlish at that point. The agent can put more points into Intelligence, but subsequent vlish lose out on levels gained through experience. Meanwhile, the comparable shaper is done on this front and gets ~20 skill points while the agent is catching up, making up for the shaper's more critical lags in magic skills. So the shaper gets extra essence forever and slightly better vlish (averaging 1-3 levels better, depending on how many you make), whereas the agent gets slightly better stats in a few random places. And I had such a good name, too -- Sss-Vlish.

Vlish and others have posted a number of interesting character builds since the release of G3. Shaper - Deadweight Shaper - blessing/dazing magic user Shaper - Missile Guardian - Missile Guardian - Melee Agent - Melee Agent - all out mental magic Agent - all out battle magic Have I missed any? (Noobs, this is not an invitation to post "I made a guardian with skills X and Y" or whatever. Please.) What else is out there? THE SHAPING AGENT One type of build that hasn't gotten so much investigation is guardians and agents relying on shaping. I was looking into the mechanics of shaped creature stats today, and I think shapers have less of a monopoly there than is commonly assumed. (Certainly less than I've always assumed.) This is because a cheap, weak creation, when levelled up appropriate, is largely indistinguishable from better creations. The first hurdle is essence: guardians and agents get 75% the essence of shapers, plus shapers get a bonus to Intelligence. This cramps shaping early on, but if you aren't a shaper, you can just use usual guardian or agent tactics to survive early. Later, this may make it impractical to deploy Eyebeasts or other overpriced creations, but there's nothing stopping you from using, say, a bunch of Vlish. The other hurdle is creation strength. Agents especially won't be pumping their shaping stats too high. This, too, can be compensated for by relying on weak creations, making them early, and allowing them to level up with you. They won't be as strong as pimped out shaper creations, but they'll be perfectly usable. This is, admittedly, a more strategically demanding build than a pure shaper is. There are potential advantages, though. Let's look at an agent using vlish. The agent will be 3-5 skill levels behind the shaper in Magic Shaping, for any given point investment. That skill, however, is only relevant when you first make the creations, so you can push it early and then ignore it. OTOH, the agent will be 3-4 levels ahead in missile ability (missiles + dex) for the same investment. The agent will also be 2-3 levels ahead in mental magic and 1-2 levels ahead in blessing magic, plus 1-2 points ahead in spellcraft. There are some other differences on both sides (quick action, battle magic, healing craft, etc) but those can be worked around. The main reason to go through all that is that (unlike previous games) mental magic requires dedicated attention for it to be effective throughout the game. With Daze and other spells at full effectiveness, you end up with a team of creations that basically use agent tactics to survive. The vlish can incapacitate several creatures easily; the agent, with some points in Quick Action, can pre-emptively daze anything that's fast or close enough to threaten the safety of the vlish, as well as using missile and wands in tough spots. Your creations will be weaker, but you end up with more tactical options. My plan is to complete the first island spending as few skill points as possible -- probably using items to help it along. As soon as I get to Harmony, make a beeline for San Ru and pick up Create Vlish. Dump the skill points into some appropriate combination of Intelligence and Magic Shaping, and make a squadron of vlish. Fill them out a little over the next few levels, then start putting points where they belong, probably starting with Mental Magic. After a little while, life is good. I'm probably overlooking something, of course.

Quote: Originally written by Delicious Vlish: But it was not until G3 that dexterity applied damage to your missiles. So that's what happened! That makes a lot of sense. Another innovative and interesting build, Vlish. I am actually tempted to go try it. One comment: it's not that Vlish are overpowered, or Reapers, or some of the wands, or whatnot. It's that stunning is (intentionally, I assume) a drastically powerful effect in Geneforge. Stunning is one thing about melee combat that didn't get weakened in G3; my melee agent leveraged it successfully for pretty much the whole game.

Oh man. That's great. Nice discovery. Do you know if that works on all versions?

There goes another eminently useful post.

I believe she also had a gender change along the way. She was a he in G1, or something like that.

Playing out of character is already an issue. If you party is all sliths or all nephils, there are frequent situations where the dialog makes no sense and you just have to pretend you're humans. There are workarounds, as (exhaustively) demonstrated in Kel's scenario Bahssikava, but I'm not sure the effort would be worth it, for a full-sized game that focuses on humans. Troglos, I think, could actually work; they can communicate with humans, they are the same size, have similar bodily needs, and are of comparable capabilities. But they wouldn't add anything to the game, and it would be odd.

Swamp folk at EE It really is a crime to not have goblins on that list.

Every point of gymnastics (unless you buy a whole bunch manually, which is expensive and not worth it anyway) gives you a 5% bonus to dodge. EVERYTHING. That's nothing to laugh at all. The pole bonus is nice, but nephils get an equivalent bonus to bows and throws. Bows are good for everyone in A4, melee fighters included. They have no drawbacks and drastically increase your tactical options. On the other hand, on higher difficulty levels, enemies have so much HP it will take numerous attacks to kill them whether or not you have a few extra points of weapon skill. At that point the key to taking down your enemies actually becomes minimizing the damage they do to you. Dodging ability is critical, especially for someone who will be in the front lines. Having unlimited, good range attacks is also important. Finally, don't be so quick to judge Quick Action as providing a huge advantage to melee/poles over bows. 2 bonus points to AP -- easy to come by once you hit the second half of the game -- mean that an archer gets two shots to the enemy of his choice EVERY round. A pole fighter with 10 AP will frequently either not get two attacks because he has to move, or will get two attacks against an enemy he cares less about killing, because it's the one that's next to him. If you just want the "best" from a pure gameplay perspective, there is no reason to play humans or sliths in A4. Open and shut case.

Every point of gymnastics (unless you buy a whole bunch manually, which is expensive and not worth it anyway) gives you a 5% bonus to dodge. EVERYTHING. That's nothing to laugh at all. The pole bonus is nice, but nephils get an equivalent bonus to bows and throws. Bows are good for everyone in A4, melee fighters included. They have no drawbacks and drastically increase your tactical options. On the other hand, on higher difficulty levels, enemies have so much HP it will take numerous attacks to kill them whether or not you have a few extra points of weapon skill. At that point the key to taking down your enemies actually becomes minimizing the damage they do to you. Dodging ability is critical, especially for someone who will be in the front lines. Having unlimited, good range attacks is also important. Finally, don't be so quick to judge Quick Action as providing a huge advantage to melee/poles over bows. 2 bonus points to AP -- easy to come by once you hit the second half of the game -- mean that an archer gets two shots to the enemy of his choice EVERY round. A pole fighter with 10 AP will frequently either not get two attacks because he has to move, or will get two attacks against an enemy he cares less about killing, because it's the one that's next to him. If you just want the "best" from a pure gameplay perspective, there is no reason to play humans or sliths in A4. Open and shut case.

Except, of course, that the pants are guaranteed to reduce every hit by 1 damage, whereas changing blades just increases one end of your damage range by 1, for an average damage increase of half a point. Pants are better than wave blades!

There really needs to be some kind of equivalent to the... Hold on, this deserves its own topic. EDIT: Be enlightened.

But canisters don't actually give you access to more essence. They basically rewrite part of your biology. Ditto with the geneforge. They use essence to achieve these effects, but the effects are not the same thing as the essence; the effects are not a direct use of that essence, they are the something that can be done as a result of what the essence does. Regardless, shaping ability obviously doesn't depend on canister or geneforge use.

The games have definitely never said essence was injected into shapers. Isn't the basic idea that all living things have essence in them, and that shapers learn to harness their own essence in a specialized way, presumably growing better at it as they gain in skill?

Well, Infernal used to have "666" in her name

In Exile, though, it's rather significant, since the minimum armor damage stacks. It's a whole lot better to wear six pieces of armor that protect from 1-1 damage, than one piece that protects from 1-10. Also, don't forget that in E1 and E2, nobody wore pants.

Yeah, but their resistance doesn't come from the fact that they are leaders. (Perhaps it is not an accident that serviles with resistance to shaper charm tend to be smart and strong and are likely leaders, but that's a different question.) As for being bizarrely smart and strong and being able to learn things and increase in skill at a truly incomprehensible rate -- well, that seems to be a given, regardless of race.

DV, that's simply not the way the shaper forcefulness ("leadership") has worked in previous Geneforges. Yes, it works wonders on meek, obeissant serviles. But it works nearly as well on meek, obeissant non-shaper humans. I don't remember it being very effective on even the random serviles in Kazg. And servile leaders among the Awakened and the Takers in 1 and 2 aren't one whit more vulnerable to it than shapers are. Neither can be at all commanded, both get mildly better but usually inconsequential new dialog options with high leadership skill.