Student of Trinity

But Dexterity costs so much more ...

Take any character you want. Only equipment: rocks. Only creations: ornks. Clear the Monastery Caves using nothing but ornks, rocks, and incredible tactical sophistication. How else did you think they'd choose the next Ornk Lord? Ballots and white smoke?

Well, duh. Finally I actually looked at what Parry in G3 is supposed to do, and it says it reduces the damage you take in melee, and at high levels gives you a chance to block it completely. So the total blocking effect, with its nice 'ka-ching!' sound, happens about as often now as a riposte did in G2. There is no riposting in G3. Instead there seems to be a sort of 'resist melee' effect that lowers all your hand-to-hand damage. And I think this is not so bad. My Guardian with the high Parry was taking a lot less damage than Alwan from hand-to-hand opponents, even back when he had the Crystalline Shroud and not much armor. Parry still isn't the game-breaker it was in G2, and it definitely isn't worth going all out to start the game with Parry of 10. But it's not just a waste; it may even be worth what it costs.

The poll is a choice among creatures that may join your party at different points in the game. Sharon's creations are very nasty. They may separate you, but they won't join you.

The Loyalists are so lame. As far as I can tell joining the Loyalists is simply a mistake, the error of deciding your path too soon. Their so-called Loyalism is really just an effort to save Zakary's neck, which is a hopeless task anyway. The true Shaper loyalist path is the non-aligned route of killing everyone but the Awakened (who are optional), including Zakary. The other three sects are all more or less fine. There are enough canisters around that you won't really miss not being able to buy two levels of the top tier creations from the Awakened.

For the sprayers use combat mode, and try speed pods and/or run away a bit between deactivations. Or take the other, southern route through the valley of Cryoas. Vlish are excellent; they're not too bad even hand-to-hand, but their ranged attack is very nice. A single Vlish may be disappointing because it may not kill things in a single shot, but six of them work great ganging up from long range. Heal them up as they get hurt and they'll fight well for you. Clawbugs might be fine; I've never really tried them much. They hassle of having to close with the enemy, compared to the convenience of long-range blasting with Vlish, has never seemed worthwhile to me. Too often, closing with one enemy exposes you to attacks from a more distant ranged enemy, that would have stayed out of the fight if you had engaged the first enemy from range yourself.

Well, to get all the Barzite-only canisters you have to do all but the final Barzite quest, so you will effectively have been a Barzite most of the way. At that point if you really wanted to powergame you could convert through Learned Darian instead of a cheat code; but there would really be very little point. You would get a few more experience points from the earlier Taker quests, but if you want a few extra hundred points that badly, it will be more fun at that stage to run naked through Inner Gazak-Uss than to do some trivial Taker missions.

No, that's not the one you want, since I don't believe it gives you any experience points. It will get you through the game and let you see some of the geography, if not the story, but it won't let you get stronger and beat things. If you hit shift-D, a command line box pops up. You can enter "Iwanttobestronger" and it will give you more experience. Repeat a few times, pumping Intelligence and maybe Magic Shaping, then make at least four decent creations (Vlish are great at this stage). Finish off ol' Vezzedra, then head south through Clawbug Canyon from the Road to Medab, and see how it goes.

Well, a big part of your problem is your relatively high combat stats. It costs a lot of skill points for a Shaper to reach your levels of Melee, Missile, Quick Action and Parry, and you get very little bang for your buck. If you were a Guardian, by now you would be sitting around 10 in these four abilities, and doing okay. As a Shaper, you should have straight zeros in these four abilities, with the possible exception of Missile Weapons. The skill points you sunk in these areas, areas in which your Shaper will never excel, could have given you much higher Shaping skills, Magic skills, and Intelligence. You also should not have raised Mechanics so high -- there are many items available that boost it for you. (I'm assuming you don't have these items since you haven't mentioned any of the southern areas in which they can be found. If you do have several, then your Mechanics isn't actually out of line.) And it is actually not worthwhile keeping your three Shaping skills equal. Instead you should have picked one, and specialized in that type of creation. Magic is definitely my favorite choice, but some prefer Fire. You should have cranked Intelligence up to at least 8 or 10, giving you lots of Essence. You should also have raised Blessing Magic higher, and maybe Mental or Battle Magic (but probably not both). If you had done these thing, by now you should definitely have your small army of experienced Vlish, and be comfortably tearing things apart. As it is, you will be badly handicapped for a long time, trying to live down your poor skill point investments in combat skills and Mechanics. You may well want to scrap this character and start over. If you do want to keep struggling along, you should probably go South, then West, eventually heading towards Rising. There are some comparatively easier areas in that direction, which you might be able to beat. I don't really envy you the job, though: at this point your enemies may well be getting stronger faster than you are. You might also consider lowering the game difficulty level, or even using some of the cheat codes to boost your experience (as a way of 'undoing' your earlier unwise choices by getting more skill points). The fact that your Spellcraft is greyed out is weird. I don't understand that. I don't think that's supposed to happen under any circumstances. If you just don't have enough skill points to buy any Spellcraft, you should just not be offered the little "+" button next to it. Maybe there is actually something wrong with your game file.

Ha! Congratulations! That actually makes sense in context, since Hoge is awfully jumpy in that episode. Maybe he didn't realize the Bulwark Inn doesn't do decaf.

You can enhance both armors and both belts, but for some reason not the shields. I think you can enhance the two rings, but I'm not sure. Golden crystals are rated the best enhancement by the marketplace, though for melee Guardians a Reviving Crystal on your sword is too good to pass up, and a lot of Steel Spines on your other gear are excellent automated payback.

It could be I just didn't remember rightly, but it might be that the location of the Shard depends on whether you're a Rebel or a Loyalist. The dialogs in Khor's Deep have you pegged as one or the other -- they differ quite a bit depending on which it is. So perhaps the PSC location also varies, since if you're a Rebel but don't have enough leadership, you might never get into Hoge's bedroom, and the game might not want to lock you out of getting the Infiltrator's Ring in this case. (BTW it looks as though it must be possible to kill Hoge before you get to him in Khor's Deep, because the script shows the possibility of meeting Mooralas there instead. Presumably this is also why the death text mentions only that 'the master of Khor's Deep' has been killed. I tried awfully hard to nail Hoge in the Bulwark Inn with my Guardian and Alwan, using speed to rush over to him and hem him in behind his table so he had to stay and fight. Just didn't have the oomph to take him down, alas. Maybe a Shaper with a good squad of creations could do it.)

They are all okay in themselves, but in practice they are all pretty horrible, because they are uncontrolled. They would have to be incredibly strong to compensate for the tremendous handicap this puts on your whole party. And they aren't.

I'm not talking about those canisters. The Barzite-only canisters are different. There is a door in the West wall of Barzahl's audience hall, which only opens if you have a Barzite badge. There is no other way in the game to open it, even if you kill Barzahl and burn Rising to the ground. It leads to a set of rooms full of pretty decent gear, plus a set of six canisters that sit in pairs behind a series of thorn barriers. As you complete Barzite quests the barriers are gradually removed, allowing you to reach the canisters. The last pair are actually double-strength canisters, giving +2 (one in Spellcraft and the other in Melee Weapons, IIRC). These are the canisters that put the Barzites over the top, reward-wise.

Okay, I could have sworn that on two previous playings I found one Pure Crystal Shard in the game, in Litalia's bedroom in Benerii-Eo. But now I just turned one up in Hoge's bedroom, in Khor's Deep. Did I hallucinate before, or is there some randomness about which ingredient you find where?

The Barzites have most to offer, because just like the Takers they offer all spells and creations, but in addition they give six excellent canisters that cannot be obtained in any way without joining Barzahl. The only things the Takers give you that you can't just take for yourself anyway are a Puresteel Soulblade (at a cost that makes it a doubtful bargain) and the company of a glowing Drayk (for a while). All the Taker canister rewards can be obtained by force.

I guess you haven't hit the Dead Pass yet. It's in the Taker lands. I don't know where else you're meeting hunter ghosts, but I guess I've just forgotten about those earlier hunter ghosts. It has been a while since I played G2. A 22nd level Shaper with nothing but a single Clawbug is craziness. I'm amazed you've made it that far. You should have a good little squad at this point, something like half a dozen Vlish. What are all your attributes? (Strength, Intelligence, Magic Shaping, etc.) Have you been using your skill points efficiently? Your available Essence goes down if you make or evolve creations, but the only way your maximum Essence should ever drop is if you unequip an Intelligence-buffing item. Did you take off a Student's Belt or something when you hit level 21? Anyway, the percentage it shows when you miss is your chance to hit. I'm not so surprised that your Shaper's personal chance to hit High Vezzedra is low: Shapers aren't supposed to be good at combat. But a pack of Vlish ought to be making short work of the wretch, while your Shaper pops a beer pod and calls out encouragement from far to the rear.

If you're talking about those nasty ghosts in the dead pass, where the mysterious horns keep blowing and so on, they're just very tough. If you're still having trouble with High Vezzedra, do not go into the Dead Pass; it is out of your league at this point. Eventually you get powerful enough to waste the ghosts easily. But it's worth pushing yourself a bit to go through the propitiation ritual, in combat mode and on Speed, before you're actually high enough level to make the ghosts easy. That's because if you do that you can grab a good charm and a very nice sword in this area.

They are scattered throughout the game. Some people tell them to you (e.g. Hawthorne). Most of them you find written in old books. Or you can just look at the hint book, or at the old topic posted by Drakefyre in this forum some time back. If you're looking here I expect you don't mind a spoiler, so: Recipe for a Geneforge 3 Artifact. 1 cup Demon Bile 1 cup Mandrake Tincture 1 shaped belt/shield/plate OR 1 platinum ring 2 rare special items First, combine the two liquids on an enchanted forge. Mix well to produce one pint of Purifying Elixir. Then combine that with the equipment item, to produce a Perfected Belt/Shield/Plate/Ring. Finally combine the Perfected item with the right pair of special items, and you have made yourself an artifact. Serves one. The pairs of special items, for the eight artifacts: Creator's Belt: Blood Poison and Deep Focus Orb Lightning Girdle: Solidified Flame and Perfect Drakon Skin Crystalline Shroud (it's armor): Crystal Fibers and Deep Focus Orb Emerald Chestguard: Deep Crystal and Demon Claw Essence Aegis (a shield): Crystal Fibers and Purified Essence All-Protector (a shield): Solidified Flame and Unmelting Ice Avenger's Ring: Demon Claw and Perfect Drakon Skin Infiltrator's Ring: Pure Crystal Shard and Purified Essence Guten Appetit.

Well, that's true. Vlish are the poster-things for the originality of the Geneforge world. But although Gazers are re-hashed beholders, I like the way Jeff has realized them. I like their big grins -- they look like they are enjoying being deadly floating monstrosities. And the ones that talk all have this eerily deadpan monomaniacal attitude that seems perfect for creatures with one big eye. You can tell that Gazers aren't really going to compete with Drakons for running any kind of organized society, because they are all just too demented. The Drakons just have to find them jobs that match their obsessions, and the Gazers will be happy. Except perhaps for Aye Eye, with its seapower and giant periscope ... it might actually pose a threat. I think I've guessed a G4 subplot.

Ghaldring's army is generaled by A great Rotghroth. And Drakons can fly, So his air force must be Under one such as he. But his navy is led by Aye Eye!

Remind me how we know Vlish are mammals? Gazers are supposed to be Barzahl's idea of an upgrade to Vlish, according to my memory of a text box somewhere in G2. So could the Vlish Lord accept Gazers towards the endgame? Gazers in G3 do a lot of mind tricks. And there are some cool Gazer-based items.

The super-trapped chest at the northern end of the secret tunnel into Greiner's rooms is just a sort of rotten Easter egg; a Mech of 20 is enough to open it, and it contains some trash. The contraband blue box in Main Army Camp is completely different. It is a sort of bug, a leftover piece of a quest that was somehow omitted from the game, whether deliberately or by accident. You can only get the 'Woven Crystal Spool' from this box after entering a debug code, and you can (apparently) never do anything with the spool anyway. At least that is my conclusion at this point. I told Jeff about it. This thread is to ask whether anyone else has actually found the relevant quest.

What are you -- Agent, Shaper, or Guardian? What level? What difficulty are you playing on?

For a Shaper, your first level of Create Vlish is probably the single biggest jump in power you get in the game. Relative to those mid-game enemies, suddenly you're large and in charge. It's almost comparable to getting Speed for an Agent, or getting Lord Rahul's gear for a Guardian.