Randomizer

Are you playing with several creations and recently changed them? 

If so the problem maybe that you don't have any free essence to recharge. Then you would need to reduce your creations, go up a level, or get more essence mastery from a canister or retrain skill points to increase your total essence.

Agent's using only magic do less damage in the early zones compared to using physical weapons like swords and javelins. They don't even need to upgrade their weapon skills for that area.

Guardians do more damage early on in the game, but until they get chain lightning, they don't have a multi target attack.

Shapers can use their creations to hit several targets just by having more than one creation or using their creation area attacks.

In the Rmastered versions, each major town has somewhere a Job Board. It may be at a angle so it loos like at thick black line with two knobs, but clicking it will bring up a box with spots for up to 4 jobs at a time that you can click on to take. there are descriptions of a task from take an item to a person in another location to collecting items to bring to a person. The jobs usually have a time limit to complete the task so don't take one that you don';t know where to go or how to get th item. You also need to have talked to the Job Dispatcher before the first job.

Silvar's one should be close to the Mayor's Office, I think to the left of the building with the Job Dispatcher in an office to the right of the Mayor.

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave your sanity at the door. We are collecting for Jeff Vogel since he needs to replace his after finishing another game.  

Those creations are specials that were created with other abilities so they get a bit more experience.

41 minutes ago, ex post slarto said:

I always figured the dropped items some entities have, were just generated when you kill them.  Nope.  Apparently they are generated when the entity is created... and the game actually gives that entity all the stats from them, and even tracks encumbrance!

After the discussion with Jeff on whether luck affected item drops, I was under the impression item drops were just a random chance out of a script of items and probability for each one. I never thought this was how it was done. It does explain why reloading within the zone doesn't change the outcome.

It was version 1.0.1 of original game and your mod.

I really only noticed when I was going over half a zone length, like in Drypeak Mine going from an entrance to the storeroom in the west quadrant. Maybe it ws using the same speed as an oink or slightly faster.

I saw the same problem with Zora in the Mac version. Also out of all the characters added to the party, she moves slower when moving the party across the zone.

No, just to rescue Lost Serviles.

Cloak of the Winds, an item, is found in the demo and lets someone with enough battle magic use that spell.

Cauldron, ink, puresteel bar, 10 fin mined crystals, and bellows.

The Everfrost Mine canister is only accessible if you do the Sholai Mission quest and while you are there the that time. The bunker is closed if you don't use it and return later.

You missed the essence mastery canister in the Everfrost Mine when doing the Sholai Mission quest.

In the Radiant College there's a guy selling crystals northwest of the center passage that will take it for a charm.

Student Belt could be replaced with several other belts:

Girdle of Genius gives +2 Intellect for more damage and spell duration with slightly more armor

Stability Belt for more physical armor and stun resistance (the bane of robe wearers)

I can see Blessing magic being high to get essence shield over 300, but mental magic doesn't have a better chance of working above the minimum needed. Almost all fights won't last long enough for extra duration.

Yes

There are others who will buy the Crystal Cone. The Sholai don't care.

That or have heavy armor so you aren't likely to be stunned too many times going past.

Shapers want to get rid of their creations to avoid triggering the pylons unless they want to sacrifice them to run past.

A solo guardian can get through the game even on torment difficulty. It's fun to play although it takes a while to figure out some fights. There are only a few boss fights that are really hard like in Gazak-Uss.

Get by level 3 daze spell and mental magic using skill points. This handles swarms for the first half of the game.  Getting more mental magic to get dominate (charm) is optional.

You want blessing magic to get essence shield. It will also allow you to fully buff before starting most fights.

Get healing craft at least through regenerate. 

Early in the game train in East Medab with Brodus Blade in chain lightning. The energy damage always hits so even if you miss with you regular hit you will do damage. This is the first weapon shaping to deal with swarms too. Later when you reach the Loyalist Encampment you can get searing spray unless you've already joined a faction. Otherwise plan on spending a lot of money on training.

Lifedrain on single target attacks heals 20% of damage and with regenerate will handle a lot of your healing problems. You have the strength to wear more and heavier armor to reduce damage.

Split between melee and missile weapons skills. There are fights where one works better like exploding creations or being able to do more damage to kill a target in a single hit. There is no right answer to which is better. Melee does more damage, but missile lets you fight from a distance, pick off foes, and retreat to avoid a swarm.

Pds only give 20 in essence shield which isn't much compared to the spell.

While blessing magic is expensive for a guardian, being able to go into fights fully buffed beforehand makes a huge difference. Also this buffs lat longer than ones from weapon shaping. There are few boss fights that will outlast those buffs.

Mental magic beyond the one level so you can use daze isn't worth it for a guardian. I know dominate (charm) is great, but you don't need it.

That its really pumping up one stat to attack.

Crystal; Chitin in the Infiltrator's Fort gives +2 Blessing Magic and some stun resistance. Until you can get Crysttal Breastplate in Complex Core, this is the most useful guardian armor.

On my 7th guardian and it's mostly a balance of melee and missile weapons so you can do either damage to best fit the fight. High armor although I've played solo agents with the same armor pieces. Evasion helps, but there are too many creations that use area effect attacks that it doesn't work against. Enough blessing magic to get essence shield and healing craft to get heal. Endurance is needed, but wait until over level 10 since it doesn't start adding much. I've gotten health up to 500 so I won't die in two rounds if slowed or stunned.

I have tried having evasion and agility to give me over 50% chance to evade. It doesn't help as much as I hoped.

You do want heavy armor and other items to push stun resistance over 70%. This is the biggest problem as a lower armor agent. You can't deal out heavy damage if you can't act the round and when yo acts ll you do is heal.

The game is specifically balanced for normal difficulty and harder difficulties are tested more to see if they are still possible. Almost all beta testers play through on normal difficulty and it sees the widest range of character builds.

There are some fights that are considered optional and some players won't be able to do them without having better party builds. This is the expert area, Gaza-Uss.

Required boss fights for quests sometimes have more than one way to win the fight. There are pacifist methods to kill Zakary, Barzhal, and the 3 Taker drays/drakins although they may require some planning to do them.

If you think some fights have too much health, you should have seen Jeff's mistake where a creation had 4000+ health due to a typo. It wasn't fixed for about 3 months because testers found it was doable.

1 minute ago, Lorn said:

Another time-wasting issue I had now: Rhakkus attacked me in Benerus-entry; I wounded him a bit then he fled - I couldn't catch him. Now I don't know if he is in Benerus-shaping or he is still hiding in the building. I cleansed the building, he is no where to be found.

Rhakkus fled to Shaping zone and was scripted to be hard to kill in the Entry zone.