Marak

Yes, and it gets worse the more items your characters have in their backpacks. Whenever I'd go back to town with bags full of loot, it would take me forever to sell it because my mouse cursor was so laggy I couldn't "tag" the "sell item" button(s). Yet another reason A4 is the only full version of Avernum that I own that I haven't played more thru more than once

I'll admit playing the A4 demo was extremely awkward at first: I'd never played any of the Geneforge games and was so used to moving around the Avernum world with the keypad that clicking on things took a long time to get used to. However, as things went on and I got into the plot (which is, in the beginning, suitably mysterious to keep you going) I found myself intrigued at comparing the new "seamless" Avernum (and it's cities) to the old "indoor/outdoor" Avernum of the original trilogy. Not to mention that the whole endgame of A4 was frustrating and disappointing. Click to reveal.. I mean, seriously, you destroy all 3 Shades and the reaction you get is: "Oh, ho hum, you killed the Shades. Don't expect any reward other then a new level of *random high-level spell*, though. Oh, and the cities you liberated? They don't really care either. And don't bother the King about it, such trivial things like destroying all three Shades and un-enslaving thousands of people is beneath his notice." Wait, what? And now you want me to chase the Big Bad down thru a series of trapped tunnels and confront them in their fortified lair? Grrrrrr, stupid, lousy, ungrateful... But I digress. The Geneforge/new Avernum engine has grown on me. I especially love the way A5 handles secret rooms - those buttons are a brilliant way to do it. The return of "height" to the maps is a huge plus, as well. The game feels much more alive when you get a description box popping up to tels you about the view from the top of the hill you just climbed when you did, in fact, walk up a slope on the world map to get there. Oh well. For me, it's never been about the engine the game runs on. For me, it's all about enjoying Jeff's writing style, the way character leveling and building is handled, and the phat loot (of course).

I'm split, I think I speak for most people in saying that A4 is the weakest entry in the series, but I've been having an absolute blast with A5, to the point that it's vying with A2 as my favorite Avernum title.

I've only played some of Geneforge 1 and about half of Geneforge 5 (After beating every Avernum game I started wondering about that other series Jeff's got going on) and so far it's been worth it. I jumped in head first and bought all 5 games on CD and I've been having a lot of fun so far... I mean, really, how do you beat an RPG where your "Party" is a pack of giant, face-stabbing scorpions backed by ice-breathing raptors, a giant humanoid Battle-alpha crushing things with its fists, and topped off with a floating, magic-tossing, tentacled thing? Anyway, download the demo, it's huge and free, and see if you like it.

Yes, if you order the Geneforge CD but don't want to wait for the codes, e-mail Jeff at spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com and give him the name and address you used when ordering. He'll e-mail you back the codes for any Geneforge game(s) you wish, just be sure to include the code(s) from the title screen(s) of your demo version(s) in the e-mail. Typically it only takes him about 1 business day to get back to you.

Eh, I can wait. I know Jeff will deliver and I'd rather not have to putz with getting all these OS Emulators and Direct X and various other programs to play nice with each other. I'm content to wait for the official release and then pay my $28 for another solid month of fantastic, old-school RPG action. Besides, by that time there will be Forum Threads and FAQs written to slate my Min/Max thirst

With certain Spiderweb games, you can copy the game files from one Hard Drive to another (either physically or via a shared network of computers) and the game will stay Registered. If it unregisters, you can always e-mail Jeff for a new Passcode. He's usually very prompt about it, unless you're a smart guy like me and e-mail for a new code at 1 A.M. on a Sunday - then it tends to take a while to get a response Edit: I just got my Geneforge CD last week and it contains the full version of all 5 games. You fire it up, click on "Install Geneforge X", hit "Next" a few times, BAM, the full version of the game is installed.

Heh, yeah, I just finished A5 and now the wait for A6 just got a whole lot longer... but there's no way I'm going to buy a whole new computer just to get it a little earlier =p

Re: Dantius Yes, as a pure Shaper all your "armor" is basically Stat Sticks with different icons worn on different parts of the body. Yes, there are a few heavy pieces of gear that might be worth boosting your Strength a few points to wear, but then again, you can do that through equipment as well. One of the main points I was trying to make is that, as a pure Shaper, with 5-7 Creations lined up in front of you... if you're getting hit by anything other than the occasional randomly-thrown-your-way Ranged attack, you're doing something wrong. Armor % is worthless; you need lightweight gear that is boosting your Magic and Shaping skills and, ideally, your Resistances.

Yeah, I tried what you're describing on my first attempt at playing GeneForge 5 and while I could have 2 or 3 "pumped up" creations, my damage output wasn't what I needed it to be. So, I started over and said, "Hey, this character is going to be a Shaper with a capital S. Therefore, I'm going to put a few points in Mechanics, and a point or 2 in Battle Magic, and after reading about the power of Battle Creations in a thread by Delicious Vlish, I'm going to alternate all the rest of my Skill Points in Intelligence and Battle Shaping until both are 10, and from there it's Intelligence all the way, with the occasional break to put the odd point into Mechanics, Leadership, or Blessing Magic." Let me tell you, the game got a whole lot easier after that. Yes, the first couple of areas were a little rough because I had to rely on under-leveled Fyoras to do my dirty work, but once I had Thahds and Clawbugs it's been smooth sailing, even playing on Hard difficulty. Currently I have a Battle Alpha, 3 Plated Clawbugs, a normal Clawbug, a Vlish, and a Cryora, and it's tons more fun. I now use my Shaper as a buffbot to cast War Blessing and Protection and Haste and Regeneration Aura and the odd Heal or Curing spell, and let my army of face-stabbing Clawbugs run rampant while my Vlish and Cryora debuff and blast things from a safe distance. I even managed to do the quest where you have to kill an Unbound One, which was no mean feat and something that my original Shaper with his paltry 2 Creations never could have managed. Just keep in mind, with a build like this you will have a TON of Essence - but an army of 5-7 creations will also consume a ton of Essence. Try to keep enough of an Essence pool left over so that you can cast some of those vital Buffing and Healing spells, otherwise you'll be losing Creations left and right when you get into a fight with a Dungeon Boss or a huge pack of something unexpected. The thing you have to keep in mind in Jeff's games is that, if you're going to play a caster/shaper character, you DO NOT NEED TO HAVE THE BEST ARMOR EQUIPPED. In fact, you're better off using the lightest pieces of gear you can find - the ones that boost your Shaping or Magic stats - and ignoring your Armor % entirely. Move your Character to the bottom slot in your Party so that your Creations are always creating a living wall in front of you, and if you play your cards right, you will rarely (if ever) get hit by anything. With this play style you can ignore Strength and Dexterity and Endurance entirely, leaving all 3 at their base value, and still win battles easily. This also frees up Skill Points to boost your Shaping and Intelligence even higher.

Whatever you do, don't use Acid Spray, unless it's very, very early in the fight. I actually beat him down once, got him to submit, and then he died to Acid damage afterwards =/ Yes, you can cure it because he turns Neutral and you can then cast spells on him, but I left combat and started heading downstairs not realizing and... splat. Oops. In any case, you need to get him down to a very low % of his Health, at which point a message pops up and he stops being Hostile. On Hard mode he submitted at around 75 Health; not sure if it's different on other difficulty levels.

Don't forget Radiant Pants. =p

Yeah, I noticed that buying higher "ranks" of my spells didn't seem to be doing a whole lot (plus it's freaking expensive even when you're not getting gouged by the trainer), so I started only buying "ranks" 2 and maybe 3 of my Staple Spells: buffs, summons, mass damage, mass curing, unshackle mind, stuff like that. With 3 characters able to cast 12+ spells, coins are always in short supply. I regret buying some of the spell ranks I did early on, because now I could use the cash for training stuff like Pathfinder or Magery or Anatomy, but too late now - the money's been spent.

Hrm, survey says... Taya, Priestess/Warrior 15 Priest Spells, 9 Intelligence, 3 Spellcraft, Pure Spirit, Nimble Fingers. Level 2 Summon Shade. P.S. I don't summon Shades very much since Summon Aid > Summon Shade Emrin, Mage 16 Mage Spells, 10 Intelligence, 5 Spellcraft, 6 Magery, Natural Mage, Fast on Feet. Level 1 Summon Aid. Lanea, Spellflinger 14 Mage Spells, 13 Priest Spells, 11 Intelligence, 9 Spellcraft, 3 Magery, Natural Mage, Pure Spirit. Level 1 Summon Aid. In any case, as long as you have a decent number of points in Intellect and Mage Spells (and at least a couple points in Spellcraft), your Summons will last for 5-8 rounds, even if your Summon spell is only Level 1 or 2.

Indeed. You could use "Vambraces" as a synonym for "Bracers".

Well, I made an entirely new Party, started Hard mode over completely, took everyone's advice, and came to the following conclusions after getting back to the point that my original (failing) Party got to: 1) Summons are incredible in A5. Pop them out early, get War Blessing and Haste on them, and they will go out and tear things up. If you can keep them alive you can get up to an extra 200 damage/round out of them..! 2) If you're going to make a true Hybrid Character, like my Priest/Tank/Tool Use Character, feed him or her the vast, vast majority of Wisdom Elixirs/Crystals that you pick up, else he/she will fall way behind your other Characters. 3) Endurance is your friend. One of the main reasons I was having so much trouble with my original group was that my squishie Mage-types all had 4 Endurance and were walking around with 85 Health (119 with Augmentation) in the Azure Gallery. Monsters would eye them up, walk past my fighter, and take them out in 2 bites. By contrast, my new Mages have 6 Endurance, which gives them 113 without Augmentation and almost 150 with it. They are immune to such one-shotting - and it only takes about 12 Skill Points to boost their Endurance from 4 to 6. I plan on getting everyone to at least 8 Endurance eventually, which in addition to making your Casters far more durable, opens up Magical Efficiency for them if you also pump up Magery. 4) Having 2 Characters with 12-14 points in Mage Spells is amazing to behold. Take spells like Summons, Lightning Spray, Haste, Acid Rain, Slow, Daze - and then imagine the ability to cast any of them 4 times in a single round? It makes so many fights so much easier. For instance, the Unstable Mass hiding in the abandoned Vahnatai city during the post-Anama Darkside Ambush was literally unkillable with my original Party. I gave up after going in fully buffed and failing miserably 6 times in a row. By contrast, my new Party went in there with buffed Summons and 2 casters with Lightning Spray and Strong Daze and kept the thing stun-locked until it died without splitting even once. 5) If you can't do good damage with Sword and Board, focus on debuffing your foes. I gave my Priest the Discipline Blade and my Warrior the Jinx Blade and now they can debuff everything in sight: combine the free Curses from the Jinx blade with Shield Breakers and Leg Sweeps from both my Warrior and Priest, and in a few rounds all your foes are Cursed or Weakened (or both). Sure, the melee swings themselves aren't doing much damage but that's what my dual Mages are for. Finally, a Shield-Breaking Smite or Repel Spirit at range is incredibly handy. So this 2nd play-through has been much more enjoyable. With my old Party the whole game had devolved into "get into combat, hope I have all my buffs and a perfect strategy and a good smattering of luck or it's 'hit F4' time". Having a Party that had to "practice" every single fight 3 times before winning? Not fun. My new Party, on the other hand, has had REAL trouble with only a few fights: The Endurance Quest in Tranquility was a near thing - but with 2 Mages and 2 Tanks with Invulnerability Potions I managed to just kill all 12 Golems before the test ended - on my 2nd try. Note that my original Party could not complete this quest, even after a dozen attempts. The Hraithe hiding in the abandoned Vahnatai city in the middle of the Darkside Ambush. Had to do that one twice as well, as the first time I made the mistake of trying to kill the 3 Skeletons first. Bad idea. The Hraithe kept them all Hasted while nailing my characters with AoE fire spells and Daze and Terror spells until I had used up 3 Energy Potions for each of my characters and still lost. Then I wised up and used Summons to keep the Skeletons occupied while I focus-fired the Hraithe down. It was still a tough fight and I still used a few Energy Potions, but I came out of it much better off than if I had managed to win on the first attempt. So yeah, I know, TL:DR, but I thought this post might be handy or give some insight to those folks who are having troubles and are looking for pointers on Party Builds.

I think that's sort of the point, if you could get 1 of everything made the instant you meet the Crafter, there'd be no point to Crafting at all and they should just sell you everything for Coins. Having limited materials and lots of choices is what makes the whole thing interesting/challenging.

The Xian Skull IS quite annoying but for some reason he/she/it has grown on me. And yes, 2 or 3 of his 17 random quotes are sorta kinda helpful... assuming you bother to read them anymore.

Looking at the lists at the top of this thread, it almost seems like saving up your Fine Steel and Focusing Crystals for those last 2 Crafters may not be such a terrible idea. That being said, I'd still get the Mercuric Leather from Galena in the Isles, a Bressed Breastplate from Gorp in Exodus, and Blessed Bracers (cheap, good Armor %, Hostile Effect Resist) from that Mandavian fellow.

Well, I've only gotten to Highground (I keep starting over with new Party builds) but I remember I'd save my Greymold to make as many Energy Potions/Elixirs as I could (great for those "oh crap" fights, esp. if you're playing Hard or Torment), and the Blessed Breastplate from Gorp is a HUGE improvement over what's available to you via drops and quests up until that point, so I always had one of those crafted. The Mercurial Leather can be nice too, if you can manage the Strength loss (it's sort of like having built-in Haste). Honestly though, unless you're doing the game lazy-style and skipping Side Quests and/or Job Board quests, by the time you can reach a specific Crafter (and have all the mats gathered together), you'll have gotten equivalent gear from Named Monsters, Quest Rewards, etc. with a few exceptions (like the Blessed Breastplate from Gorp). Not to mention, if you're skipping quests, you're probably going to be low on Focusing Crystals, Fine Steel, etc. Lastly, I always found the Blessed Items in general to be a poor investment: they're really only good for your meat shield/tank/fighter character, and only if you haven't found gear with Good Stats on it. Generally, it's not worth taking a Blessed piece with 2% more armor and giving up Strength or Parry or Blademaster or whatever. This is a problem because you'll notice that the majority of the crafted stuff from Blacksmiths is - you guessed it - various pieces of Blessed armor.

Thuryl: I don't see why either. I'm just stubborn. It's not logical but I do it (or in this case, don't do it) anyway. Original poster: I can't believe no one's done this yet... YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!! =p

I just fire up my massive playlist on Winamp, set it to Random Shuffle, and let it go. Maybe not the most consistent or atmospheric choice, but it's better than only listening to dripping water and hissing lizards for hours on end.

I just feel dirty about piling Divinely Touched onto an already powerful Trait like Natural Mage or Elite Warrior. It just feels dirty to me, even though the logical side of me knows that there's no long-term drawback to it. I guess it seems a bit like cheating to me to "load up" a character so much, and I loathe cheating if I can at all avoid it. But I'm stubborn like that, so don't mind me.

A3 had kids! And just like kids in real life, they ran around outside, poking the Slime Invasion Slimes with sticks, and making simplistic conversation(s) with you. Also, I'd LOVE to see MST3k Avernum. Good stuff. It'd be like every game having an Xian Skill, only more so. "Hi. I'm a talking skull." "I wanna be your friend." Does anyone else imagine the GIFTS sounding like that, only less creepy and more high-pitched? Lastly, since Jeff flat-out buys the artwork used in his games from the creators of said artwork, that's an up-front cost that he has to rely on sales to overcome. This is one of the main reasons why his games recycle so much of the artwork: recycled artwork is artwork that isn't adding to the game's development cost(s).

Yes, we wouldn't want consequences for stealing =p Re: The Mystic Darts nothing, how about a Render Comatose spell?