Student of Trinity

I seem to have angered Icy End (as a rebel), and they won't forgive me. The only bad thing I did was clear out the Vat Core. Okay, I guess killing all their golems was bad. Akhari Blaze and Litalia don't mind, though, so why is Icy End so upset? It's a bit annoying, because I really wanted to get that piece of cake, and now I'll never find out what it would have done.

 

Is there any way I could have gotten the Left Access Bracelet without angering Icy End?

After you kill Orois Blaze, Vrabel doesn't acknowledge that you have fulfilled his quest. Hit shift-D, then type 'sdf 81 1 1'. Now he'll praise your valor and give you the next quest, which is to kill some dead meat.

I'd like to see Khyryk get his rear in gear, and revive the Awakened middle-of-the-road viewpoint. He seems like the kind of guy who might just pull it off: sane, self-disciplined enough to avoid canisters, averse to cruelty to serviles, also averse to mass terrorism, and evidently a brilliantly accomplished Shaper. You also get to know quite a bit about him in G3, so he's a living character. His obvious major weakness seems likely to be a reluctance to act aggressively when necessary; but this means that the PC is just what he needs.

 

I could see the post-G3 plotline assumed by G4 as having Khyryk take over Gull Island and sit there quietly for a few years, then land on Terrestia with a force and a plan. In fact, having the PC play a critical role in linking him up with some remnant of the Awakened would be a cool plot item.

I didn't waste points in Endurance with my Agent, but I put a few into Strength, because I hated being encumbered all the time, and a lot into Quick Action (got it up to 15 I think) in order to get the drop on the Golem Monstrosity in the Darkstone Core. Couldn't think of any other way to nail that thing; on Torment, I don't think I could have stunned it enough to survive even if I had put all those points into Battle Magic instead.

 

I had high enough Battle Magic and Spellcraft that I had no complaints about my damage, but I'm pretty sure I never got Firebolt up to 400. And there are quite a few highly resistant creatures in G3 that take shockingly little damage from spells that wipe out most other things.

Whatever else may be true, Agents are definitely not weak in any of these games. Just don't try to make them something they're not, by investing anything in shaping skills. Pump it all into magic, and you're golden. Stay on speed, and keep a high Quick Action, and any doorway or corner makes you completely invincible.

 

My rebel Shaper has reached the Isle of Spears and finally made a pair of Gazers. I cleared the Monastery of Tears on Torment with two Drayks, two Ur-Glaahks, and Greta; it wasn't a pushover, but it didn't take any second attempts.

I'm sure I'm nothing special in tactics; my point is that Shapers are fine in G3.

 

I am also just starting with a Guardian, the maximal loyalist. (Since my rebel Shaper was Marius, this is Sulla.) He started with 10 Parry, but so far it only sometimes kicks in - definitely much less effective than in G2. His melee damage is fine in the very early game -- one hit one kill, as with starting Guardians in previous games. I'd forgotten how much fun Guardians were in the beginning game, after playing the other two classes: for a change, attacking things just works.

Yeah, now it worked for me too, and Greta has a nifty multi-strike blue attack. What I seem to have done differently this time was (a) use the sdf in Khyryk's Tower (actually I used my modified script that took my 3000 too), instead of somewhere else, and ( then leave the zone before trying Greta's attack. The last time I had Greta attack Khyryk right away, and a plain old Searer came out. This time I took a little jaunt back and forth to Stonespire, and when we came back she had blue rays.

Yes. The 'Shaper code' you keep hearing about is fundamentally a dress code. Everything else -- essence, creations, brutal retaliation -- was added later to complement the look.

Did you really get it? Did you lose your 3000 coins? There is supposed to be a bug that prevents it from happening, and it definitely happened to me. Kept clicking on the appropriate dialog, kept getting the response about her training being effective, but never lost the money and never got anything.

 

After seeing Seletine's idea, I checked through the script for Greta's previous upgrade, from Gretchen. Sure enough, there seem to be a few lines missing from the Khyryk dialog script, in comparison.

 

Problem is that this is not the whole problem. I can edit the script so that it sets the appropriate flag and drops me 3000 coins, and those things both work. Seletine's cheat code also works to set the flag, since it does remove the Greta-training dialog option from Khyryk's dialog.

 

None of these things actually upgrades Greta's attack any. Her Searer doesn't get any better, and it certainly doesn't change into an Ice Lance (as Khyryk's words about teaching her a new spell strongly suggest).

 

So the bug appears to be in how the engine responds to the stuff done flag, not just in the failure of the script to set the flag. Looks like we will just have to wait for G3 1.0.2 or so.

 

Which means, I guess, that I have to put this game on hold for a while, since I've done just about all I can do without killing Khyryk.

I've tried Seletine's cheat code 'sdf 101 27 2' to correct the Khyryk-upgrade-Greta bug. But I'm not noticing anything different in Greta's attack now. It still seems to be a searer, and it doesn't seem to do much more damage. What is the Khyryk upgrade supposed to do? Is that code really effective?

Discovery: there is a Create Ornk canister in G3.

It's not that hard to get to, just hidden unusually well.

Apparently Master Hoge likes fresh Ornk cutlets.

I'm playing as a rebel, and Elek said I should go chat to Hoge. When I get into Khor's Deep, though, the serviles are all hostile, and so is Hoge. Is there anything I can do to make Hoge be nice and talk to me at least a bit? Do I need more Leadership, or less canister use? Or is Hoge just round the twist, and there's nothing I can do?

I haven't felt that any class was stronger than any other in any of these games, inasmuch as I have beaten G1 and G2 with all three, mostly playing on Torment, and it has always seemed about equally difficult, once I had figured out how to play the class. That is, most challenges are quite straightforward, but with each class I've found a few that took some thought. Often what was difficult for one class was not for another.

 

I do think some classes are easier to learn to use than others, and I agree that this varies from game to game. In G3 the new Daze definitely makes the Agent easier to get started with than she used to be: taking out multiple enemies in the early stages of the game is very easy now, where in the earlier games it could get tricky, with a lot of backpedaling. The G3 Shaper seems about as effective as ever, though I'm noticing that it really helps to have Greta along in the midgame, where the fact that Glaahks have no ranged attack starts to hamper you. (Specializing more in Fire Shaping might make Drayks more effective than I'm finding them; for me, they're good, but they often strike late, and not infrequently miss.)

 

I haven't tried the G3 Guardian yet, but a report in a recent thread indicated that Parry was still good, and that it was rather the amount of damage dealt in melee that seemed greatly reduced for Guardians.

Yeah, those rocks are there. Carrying them all did not actually seem to improve my fire resistance any, but I suddenly thought that this might be an overflow effect, and that maybe if I dropped half of them or so, I would suddenly have enormous fire resistance.

 

Not obviously all that helpful because there isn't so much fire damage in the game, but still.

From the FAQ:

And that fails to mention the one in the Freakish Spawner's closet in Inner Gazak-Uss. So you could actually hit Create Gazer 6. Alas, that does not let you create a new kind of Eyebeast.

Huh?

 

You can learn two levels of Gazer from either the Barzite or the Taker trainers. You can't train more than two levels, no matter how many trainers you consult. But you can eat at least two Gazer canisters, regardless of affiliation; maybe it's actually three. Check the FAQ.

 

So you can certainly get Create Gazer 3 as a Barzite, and enjoy making Eyebeasts. Most people feel that one or at most two is enough, even if you have the essence for more; use your extra essence on plain ol' Gazers.

How'd that work out? Did high Parry eventually make you nearly untouchable, as in G2?

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the courgettes began to take hold.

There are two schools of thought on this one. Some people swear by keeping creations with you for a long time, pointing out that a highly experienced basic creation can be as effective as one that costs much more essence. Others, including me, find it too much trouble to nurse along weak creations until they actually become decent, and so we upgrade at the drop of a hat. The only reason I ever wish I had more essence is that I want to make a new high-tier creation, and to do that I have to upgrade anyway.

 

Where I've always thought that the creation-keeping strategy would work best is in playing a Guardian, where you could use a few dudes to back you up, but don't have a Shaper's hoard of essence. In practice, though, I've never been able to get my Fyoras to keep up with me enough to be worth the hassle. Maybe this is partly because I play on Torment.

 

So, suit yourself.

Might want to get some nimble lenses.

Playing without either NPC, as a strictly singleton Agent who never shared a single experience point with anyone, and went out of her way quite a bit to grub up every point available, I hit Gull Island at level 30. Now as a Shaper who has never had fewer than four in his party, who kept both NPC through most of Harmony, I am about to enter the Creator's Hall on Dhonal's Isle, with Greta and some Ur-glaahks and Drayks. I'm at level 28.

 

In other words, the experience sharing factor is very minor. Greta is currently level 22, with Strength and Dexterity maxed out, and nearly 300 hit points. She always strikes first, and her Searers are very respectable. She is definitely worth far more than two more levels with my Shaper.

 

The bottom line is that the NPCs are definitely not necessary, but definitely do pull their weight. The powergamer's choice would probably be to pick just one of them, to maximize their experience by the endgame. But it's sort of fun when the two bicker.

They're kind of fun, and since you get to control them, they are at least potentially worth their cost in experience sharing. If you pick them up, remember to upgrade their abilities when they gain levels! Unlike with your creations, it won't cost you any essence when you upgrade Alwan and Greta, and it keeps them quite competitive as you advance through the game.

 

You certainly don't need them; I played one game without them fine. But now I'm bringing Greta along, for a different experience on the second game, and she's okay. I started out with Alwan too, but after he got blown away by one of the four big Spawners on Harmony, I didn't bother to go back and get him. I'm looking forward to playing an uber-loyalist Guardian next time, with Alwan as my wingman.

Thanks; found the key. I had just overlooked it, as I feared, and it would have been very annoying to have to comb through the whole darn place again, fighting poison the whole way.

 

About the Deep Crystal: Sigh. I was afraid of that.

 

I picked it up last game very easily with my Agent. Horrible poison areas are no big deal with Agents and Guardians, but are such a drag with a Shaper. In the first place I always let my Shapers stay wimpy, and carry all kinds of gear that sacrifices their own strength in favor of creations'. So a few basin belches will wipe me right out. And in the second place, you always have to go through these poison areas in combat mode, and with a big squad of creations that gets awfully tedious.

 

I'll probably just bypass the Plant this time. I'm not going to use the Emerald Chestguard anyway, since the Crystalline Shroud would suit me better.

Yes, I thought that was how it would be, but I wanted to be sure. Thanks for the independent confirmation.

 

Last time I was in such a hurry to toast Spharon, and used so much speed doing it with my singleton Agent, that if he did engage me in his charming conversation, I had forgotten about it. (Plus that time I had no idea where his soul-shard was, and never thought to look in a mere clay jar right beside him, so I was busy trying to sneak into his back rooms while he was still fighting me.) This time I got to enjoy his repartee before feeding him to my hungry Glaahks.

Hawthorne does not give you the All-Protector. You have to make it yourself. I find it a rather lame item, though.

 

There are Drakon skins -- the only kind you need, whether Ur or Perfect or whatever, there is actually only one kind -- in three places. The Drakon that emerges from a tank after a lot of Drayks; the Drakon that sells things; and some Drakon-thing in Tears-R-Uss (Monastery Caves). The first two are on the Isle of Spears, and it doesn't take long to find them. The last will take a while to get hold of because you need the access bracelets.

I'm trying to be the most rabid rebel possible, but I haven't found a way to get the rebel forces on Dhonal to accept me. Greta doesn't even seem to suggest that that might be possible; her only helpful ideas are to get help from the shapers to fight through the rogues. Is the only possible plotline the one where you help the shapers right up to the last moment, when you repair the creator instead of destroying it?

 

I understand from posts here, and from my own experience in a previous game, that you can't avoid fighting Spharon's runed serviles. But someone suggested that you could talk with Spharon himself. Is this just the usual 'banter before I kill you' conversation, or can you actually make friends with him? If so, how?