Lauren CW

I don't fully understand why everyone says drips acid is the best weapon enchantment... Almost every fight, I open up with the acid spray regardless of whatever class I happen to be. Since Acid doesn't stack with more acid, wouldn't it be better to use a golden crystal on your weapons, if you open with acid spray?

If you can afford to hold off on investing points until you can train, that will help. Also. I'm towards the end of a servile run and let me tell you: PRIORITIZE MENTAL MAGIC OVER MELEE! I was pulling my hair out on NORMAL difficulty because of the swarms until I started pumping my mental magic. Also, for a servile that doesn't plan on doing serious creation-work, there's a girdle you can craft that gives you 4 healing craft, and then upgrades up to 6 healing craft and 2 battle and fire shaping. I don't remember what it takes to make it, but the recipe is up somewhere.

I haven't played on Torment yet (Planning to on my loyalist agent runthrough) But I think if you go for a mental magic servile and buff up endurance a bit, you should be able to manage. They get ridiculous amounts of HP (I have over 700 with 8 endurance at lvl 50-ish). Just lay your DoT's on everyone, and tank it all down or charm/terrorize them. You may have to go back to town after a nasty mob or something, but it should be manageable. Again, I haven't played on Torment, but I think I have the basic ideas down after lurking for like 6 years and reading everyone elses' strategies for Torment.

Ah! That's incredibly helpful, thankyou! I read somewhere that you couldn't talk to Astoria after leaving her faction, so I went and joined Litalias already. I got the break the line quest from Ghaldring with enough leadership and proper reputation though, so I only missed whatever was in her back room. I realized much later that I should have held off on the reputation questions, so I had to seriously run around trying to get enough to join taygen's. But so far, I completed Taygens quests up through the spire, helped defend against the guardians, then turned around and backstabbed the Agent running the place. In retrospect, I may have been able to collect the reward from taygen before backstabbing her, but I wasn't certain. Then I went and released the shredbugs, killed platano, collected rawal's reward, and joined litalia. Removed the control tool, and went off to the disposal vaults/what-his-face's isle, and just have control core b to deal with before endgame. I'll be running through a loyalist agent next, ending with Taygen. So I can probably get Ghaldring's quests before The Four Shapers, then go do Litalias prior to the shredbugs, work for astoria then Alwan then end up for Taygen. I think I can get all the way to sabatoge the purity agent for both astoria and alwan, before completing it for taygen.

Now, with adequate reputation juggling and leadership, you can gain access to control core b and secret access route without joining any factions. Taygen's vault, on the other hand, needs you to join Taygen, therefor he is the ONLY one you actually NEED to join in order to powergame. Is this right? Also, what are the consequences to leaving peoples' factions? I am also trying to complete as many quests as possible while still ending as a Trakovite. I'm curious about the order of operations here. My current plan is to finish up all of Taygen's quests before the purity agent, and dump him like he's hot. THen release the shredbugs, then talk to Astoria (I'm hoping I can fulfill the Trakovite quest doing this.) Then I can swear to Astoria and do her quests as far as I can, then leave her. After releasing the shredbugs I don't think working for Alwan is an option, but I'm not too concerned with that. However, I want to successfully complete his control core b quest, and then go back and kill them also fulfilling litalia's quest. I will end up working for Litalia at this point, sabotage the purity agent, and go to endgame. So Alwan, Rawal, and Ghaldring I'll leave mostly alone, since I don't want to go on a rampage killing the council. Does this look about right? Edit: I suppose I can kill Platano as well, so working for Rawal isn't out of the question...

Wasted Almaria. I've never liked those pricks and their bridge tolls, from all the way back in E1. I just killed the quest giver in silvar + a few surrounding people. Always liked Silvar.

Control tools for government officials, with cameras embedded. If the cameras ever stopped transmitting, or they went to have the control tools removed... I'd rig a sensor to activate and kill them. I would NOT be worried about being black-bagged in the middle of the night.

So I've seen it said that sneaking around into Alwan's library is difficult, and a few other tidbits here and there about the difficulty of thievery. One thing I haven't seen anyone mention, however, is using a high initiative rating to make things easier on yourself. For Alwan's library, I had no trouble whatsoever sneaking in and grabbing the book, as well as the goods in the locker on the eastern wall. I stood on the corner just inside the library so I could see the guard coming around the far corner. As soon as I did, I ran just back around the corner, waited a few seconds, then hopped around the corner and entered combat mode before the guard gave an alarm. This allowed me to run out of his field of view no problem. Then, in order to loot everything in one go, I would exit and immediately enter combat mode. If you have a high enough initiatave (Not hard to do, by the way) the guard will have not moved at all, and you get another 8 ap to run around and loot stuff. Anyone else try this trick elsewhere? Like... What's it called, Gorash-Kel? The unbound place in the swamp. Or other tricky places. I also occasionally use it in conjunction with DoTs in combat, inflicting poison and acid, then running around a corner and repeatedly exiting and entering combat. Works well as long as you can accurately judge and make sure you stop before the poisons wear off.

If you take a second and look, there's a stickied thread called Strategy Central. It should answer just about every easy question you have. Also, there's a walkthrough available at gamefaqs which is fairly helpful. I just managed a full playthrough in about a week using said walkthrough and synergizer's item list, and I completed EVERY quest, as well as fully looting every area. (I finished the collection quests by killing the quest givers. What can I say, I like a clean quest log! >=D )

Originally Posted By: Dantius It's not so much a cap as it is you get greatly diminished returns after 10 points. Some skills are still worth investing in after 10, spellcraft and Battle Magic for Agents comes to mind, as does Intelligence. I've never put too much stock in the 10-cap and Ive gotten along fine in the games. I understand exactly how it works, I just wasn't sure if/what skills it still applied to. I'm trying to build a melee oriented servile for normal difficulty, but the swarms of poisonous worms are REALLY driving me crazy without having more adequate croud control than relying on when I happen to have crystals, and my low level daze skill. I mean, I have 4 or 5 points in daze itself, 4 in spellcraft, and 7 in mental magic and I still only have about a 50% chance of success.

I couldn't find any information on this despite using the search function and going back like 20 pages. Is there still at 10 cap in GF5? And if so, what skills have it? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the correction. It's been a while since I've heard anything about the subject. The last discussion I had was in a health class in high school some years ago. And no I'm not arguing that eating nothing but fast food for a month is good for you. It's certainly not. I'm arguing that the documentary isn't all it's cracked up to be. People use it to say how bad fast food is for you. Well, if I were to eat nothing but home cooked salmon and a baked potato for every meal of a month, I STILL would be lookin' pretty unhealthy. Edit: Quote: So is A&W, or Burger King, or Dairy Queen, or Subway, or any other fast food restaurant you can think of. And most of them are better than McDonalds. McDonalds is typically the absolute cheapest, except for MAYBE taco bell.

I've had Basshunter stuck in my head for a week now. Which sucks, because I don't particularly like him. His crappy Dota song offends me, because it doesn't do any justice at all to the game. I've been listening to some Imogen Heap, Muse, Beatles, Say Anything, and The Strokes.

Originally Posted By: Post-Chase Experiment Explain. It's certainly not good science, but it also illustrates the unhealthiness of McDonalds. No, people don't usually eat it every day for a month. Yes, it's still not good stuff to consume on a regular basis. It doesn't accurately illustrate the unhealthiness of McDonalds at all. Before starting the documentary the guy was a vegan (girlfriend induced) for several months, at least 6. His body wasn't used to a diet with meat and dairy products in it. Anybody would look suspiciously unhealthy after a change like that, whether or not there was an actual problem with the food. Also, they cut and edited so much of what was said in that documentary. People who were in it have complained, saying that they are portrayed as saying something that they didn't. EDIT: However, that being said, it is a very good example of how to manipulate a populace, and I very much enjoyed it due to that.

I'm having some trouble with Geneforge 5. Namely, installing it. On Windows XP, on a non-administrative account it tells me when I run the setup that since it couldn't make changes on all profiles, it won't install it, and dumps out. In the past I've either had no trouble installing the games, or transferring them from one PC to another via a flashdrive. However, I don't have access to any accounts where I COULD install it. Does anyone know where I could get the files for the game itself, not just the setup? All the torrents I've seen only have the setup... >.@ none of which help me in the least.

Sigh. Supersize me is a horribly biased documentary that you should watch for a laugh and nothing more. Remember that the people working there are humans too, just like you. Except that instead of working where you do, they get to sit at a thankless job for 6+ hours a day, having to put up with bitchy customers. In the morning when you ask for hot chocolate and get coffee, keep in mind that they probably had to get up an hour before you did. Most of them are kids, who are already short-changed on sleep because of school. Also, there's a good chance that someone working at McDonalds (or any fast food restaurant) is a stoner. Probably about 1 in 4 on average. They're bound to make mistakes. The salads and yogurts and whatnot that they claim to be better for you are, in fact, not. However, McDonalds food is not nearly as unhealthy as many people seem to think. Have you seen Teriyaki chicken with something on the order of 4000% of your daily intake values for sodium?

Originally Posted By: Dantius Killing the ornks in the first zone can make quite a large difference in you gameplay, since they will pretty much give you a level before exiting the first zone. They have about 120 xp apiece, IIRC. Yes which I always promptly throw into leadership and mechanics.

When I first found out that the Ornks at the beginning of G1 could be killed for extra experience, then subsequently attempting to slaughter them all, making it halfway through, then getting killed by them because I angered more than one at a time without realizing the damage they could do to a level 1 character.

If I recall it was a bit more useful in Exile 3 when you could get the fury crossbow.

I definitely miss the original Exile series, with the original graphics. They were the first RPGs I ever played, and I loved them. I prefer their spell system to Avernum for sure. Heheh, anyone remember starving your adventurers? Too many times I'd waste my last gold piece identifying some bronze piece of crap and not be able buy them food, but that was part of the fun. It seemed like more of a real role playing adventure, having to worry about where my next food was coming from (Mertis, mostly, if I could avoid the skeletons and asps) and slightly more realistic features that have been given up for the sake of convenience.

You don't get any exp from them, and you can get a bronze sword from the jail. You can, however, get some exp if you get the last hit on the 2 battle alphas that attack without you having to lure them. 80 apiece, I believe. The possible extra coin is nice if you're trying to buy the spellcraft from Burkes, but you shouldn't really have trouble getting enough money for that anyways.

The drops themselves are definitely not worth the time I spent trying to kill them. However, the satisfaction certainly was. >=D

I loot the boxes then. Or at least right after. As soon as I have the tools to spare. The Guardian didn't drop anything. Then again I only killed him the once. And you don't have to cheat to kill them. Just lure them to Greta. Healmenow and shieldsup aren't enough to take him on, he does 60 dmg with an acid or venom baton, I don't recall which.

Has anyone taken the time to kill (Or more appropriately, have Greta kill) the raiders before leaving the area? I did so and was pleasantly surprised. One of the Battle Betas dropped me an iron sword and a fine animal skin. It took me about half an hour with lots of reloading to get all three of them though. I lured the Battle Betas one at a time by having them see me, but without entering combat, and chase me back to Greta. I also experimented with getting the last hit to kill them, however, they give no experience. I only got the drop from the Beta once though, so I assume it's based on luck. So, what all can the Betas and the Guardian Raider drop for you, does anyone know?

I got the mission a few days ago, and I have the statues, but I don't remember who I bring them to. Any help?