Hume

In case no one else do, I mailed to Jeff about this.

I confirm that strength from item will NOT increase damage. Dex works alright with chance to dodge.

Does the girdle of avoidance add creation chance to dodge?

Each point of strength should add 5% hit chance. If you have not mistaken, items increasing creation strength without boosting to hit is a bug.

Quote: Originally written by Slartyphobia: Are you sure that drayks and drakons do fire damage? Can anyone else confirm this about windows (or possibly updated mac versions as well)? If so, that's a HUGE change, which among other things makes drayks and drakons less consistently useful. I know there are a few minor errors that crept into the page. To be honest, I doubt I'll update it. G4 has lost my energy and attention. Yes, I am sure. It is a huge change, but I think it makes drakons even more useful. Fire resistance is less common than physical. Especially wingbolts and kyshakk, two of the most headaching opponents have zero fire resistance. Anyway you can use melee as a backup.

Well, in my windows version, drayks and drakons do fire damage, not physical. And a drakon costs 150, or 183 after buying 2 int, not before.

Thanks. No wonder the name sounds familiar. He had been there long time ago, and was scared away by the toughness of the golem.

My servile is tired of his loyal drayk who dies often, he wants to replace it with a ur-drakon. He has visited all the drakon canisters, but still short for a few fire shaping skills. So can anyone tell him where is Matala?

Quote: Originally written by emberglow: So - is the version of the windows demo on the FTP server the final one, out of curiosity, or is there another forthcoming? Also, is there a difference between Geneforge4Demov10.exe and Geneforge4Demo.exe It is final. Yes, finally we have Geneforge4! And there cannot be a Geneforge4Demov10.exe, never. A v1.01 is probable, a v1.02 is not very likely.

Quote: Originally written by bk23: All the walkthroughs I've read indicate that you should be able to simply walk in. Help! I didn't know that Avernum4 has that many walkthroughs

I heared someone said xp penalty is based on the highest level of your team, which is inconsistant to my experence. I have a party of four divinely touched, sliths elite warrior (65% exp penalty), nephi deadeye archer (50%), nephi pure spirit priest (55%) nephi natural mage (55%). According to some theary, my warrior recieve 35% exp, which should have a level about 2/3 of my archer (50%). But he (lv26) ends up only two level and a half levels behind the archer (lv29). The two spell casters (lv28) only one level behind the archer. So I think the xp get is based on each individual's level, independent of each other. And the penalty of level is so great that penalty from traits matters little.

Quote: Originally written by --Slarty: Sorry, you are wrong. Servile gets 1/4 more hp and infiltrator gets 1/6 essence and spell points. Considering the amount of int you will invest compared to enduran, an infiltrator is nowhere worse.

Quote: Originally written by --Slarty: In G1, melee damage does 1-8. Period. I just rechecked the scripts. Next! Strange. All weapon damage displayed are multiplies of d7. Like the guardian claymore 10-70. It is d8 in GF2 however.

In GF1, melee weapon does d7 damage, not d8. Are you sure oozing blade does physical damage in GF4? In GF3, fire and ice blade indeed do physical damage but oozing blade, the only melee weapon does non-physical damage, does acid damage, which is great. Quote: Originally written by --Slarty: First off, magic is overpowered. Magic is frequently overpowered in CRPGs and I think there have been a few overpowered bits in most of Jeff's games. I also think I know why that is. Geneforge 1 was an exception to this rule. There were 12 spells, compared to 30-60 in other Spiderweb games. Creations were way more powerful. G2 toned down creations a little and added more spells which were wayyyy more powerful, and did not balance magic to compensate. Nobody noticed because the brokenness of Parry was far more obvious. In G1, weapons did 1-8 while spells did 1-5, 1-6, 1-7... weapons had Quick Action AND Anatomy. And there were fewer enemy resistances all around, certainly including armor. This was very balanced, because melee opened you up to opponent's melee attacks under that AP system, plus it was less tactically flexible. Now weapons do 1-4 or 1-5 while spells and creation breath range from 1-3 to 1-10. (Yes, SoT, nothing beats 1-5.) The acid and ice blades and so on are definitely good, but I want to correct an error people keep replicating. They do NOT do special damage. They do physical damage. They cause status effects, but they only do physical damage directly. Also, Quick Action has a problem. It's inconsistent. Even at very high levels there's a chance you'll not get the second strike. That's fine as far as damage output over time goes if you're attacking, say, Matala. But if you're just trying to knock down some wingbolts, it makes your task much harder since you have to allow for a range of damage. (I actually like that, but only if it's applied to everything; the problem is that spells do extremely consistent damage, while QA does not.) At moderate levels of QA, it's a coin-flip. Assuming it's the same as A4, which it looks like, 10 QA is a 50% chance of a second strike and 20 QA is a 75% chance.

As far as I can remeber, both GF1 and GF2 were game over once my creation attacked me. It was no instant death, I believe. My creation attacked me, so I turned against myself, its master (same as you or your creation attack another). Therefore I lost my character. And game over.

Well, in GF series, difficulty level indeed has nothing to do with enemy hit points.The damage you recieve on four different levels are 50%, 100%, 150% and 200% respectively. It also affect the chance they can hit and dodge. The latter hardly matters since the attack skill of the pc usually be high enough to hit 100% of the times. Their bonus chance to hit make investments in dex for dodging almost pointless on torment. Simply assume enemies always hit.

Yes, melee is indeed broken in GF3. I know that a melee guardian can complete the game as easy, but melee is not only about the PC. In GF3, as in other games in GF series, melee means you have to spend action points to reach the one you want to attack and is more perilous than as a ranged attacker who stays in the rear. But what compensates for this? In GF1 and 2, melee does more damages inaddition to some minor hp bonuses melee attackers enjoy. In GF3, adding insult into injury, melee does a worse damage than ranged, which makes melee broken. How melee guardian is balanced(actually only when late in the game) in GF3 is another story.

Quote: Originally written by Randomizer: Although parry is less useable in GF3 because certain spells/attacks are not blocked by parry. What are you talking about? In GF2, the only trouble about parry is that it doesn't work agaisnt gazer kill or firebeast aura of flame. In GF3, it at least works against gazer kill, though as bad as agaisnt other missiles.

Quote: Originally written by Ghost of Starman: For many skills, G2/3 apply the skills the same way g1 did. Thus from 0-10 1 point = 1 point from 11-20 2 points = 1 point from 21-30 3 points = 1 point for these skills, you have to increase from 10 to 12 to get an effective skill of 11, from 12 to 14 to get eff skill of 12 etcandsoon No, 18 is actually 18. Every point counts. Only shaping skills work the way as in GF1. If you don't believe, try to raise edu or int above 10. GF2 and GF3 already have a increasing cost for skills so...

If you don't see the point of telling you, how can it be good to know?

In GF2, the chances to parry, deflect damage and riposite are all bottomed at 0% and capped at 50%. Chance to parry = 5%*psl(parry skill levels), chance to deflect=5%*(psl-4), chance to riposite=5%*(psl-8). The three work independently and when more than one occure, riposite override parry or damage deflection and parry override damage deflection. So with a parry of 18 and against melee, you have a 1/2 chance to riposite, 1/4 chance to parry and 1/8 chance to deflect damage. Riposite doesn't work against missile attack at all while the other two works the same. In GF3, the chance to parry melee damage is 2%*psl, missle damage 1%*psl. No chance to riposite. It is supposed to reduce damage taken but not really significient whatsoever.

Well, well... It only works after you left the area (same for the searer upgrade, few notice it because there was nothing to fight on that map then). So pay the 3000 gold, leave the map and come right back.

Quote: Sure, there are things that resist fire or ice or energy; but (especially for energy) there are less. A spell-slinging Agent can just change to a different spell. A Shaper can either employ multiple creation types, can switch to physical instead of breath attacks, or can use items and spells as supplements. A character who relies on melee or missile weapons doesn't have those options so much. Icy Crystals are wonderful, as are wands, but there aren't enough to use them as regular attacks. THIS is why melee got so much worse in G3, too! -- the dice dropped to 4 AND the resists got ramped up, including physical resists. Actually there is one melee weapon that does not physical but acid damage - the mighty oozing blade. Few in the game have a decent acid resistance, though those do usually very high.

Quote: Originally written by Mike Montgomery: The Geneforge series has 3 classes available, but the logic of the system makes 6 possible class combinations possible, as follows: Class: Strong/Normal/Weak Current Guardian: Combat/Shaping/Magic Agent: Magic/Combat/Shaping Shaper: Shaping/Magic/Combat Proposed Champion: Combat/Magic/Shaping Infiltrator: Magic/Shaping/Combat Constructor: Shaping/Combat/Magic In this scheme, the Champion could have the same health/energy/essence as the Guardian, or it could be rebalanced to trade off slightly reduced health for additional energy. Similarly, the Inflitrator could match the Agent, or it could have slightly reduced health for slightly increased essence. Finally, the Construtor could match the Shaper, or it could have slight reduced energy for slightly increased health. I don't pretend to be good at naming, and I hope that someone else can suggest better names for the three proposed classes. But I needed some names for the purpose of discussion. The Champion would be a good fit for strategies where combat is relied upon, and shaping is rarely if ever used. The Infiltrator would be a good fit for stratagies where the Infiltrator accompanies and supports her creations. The Constructor would be a good fit for missile shapers, or other combat oriented shapers. classes available? Delicious vilish was right. What matters is magic. Magic is what everyone need, while among the rest you only need choose one. So the champion will make guardian useless, while the constructor is useless himself/herself.

Torment isn't that hard for a guardian later in the game. With the right equipment, I got all my resistance above 100%, which reduces damage taken to a quarter. Able to cast haste is good enough. Get swarmed? Just hit and run. And the oozing blade is great. KEEP IT if you are playing melee.