Alberich

After killing Valusa, go south and watch Protector Verginia from a distance. She's hostile now so she will fight you if you get anywhere close. But if you don't, she's still saying, "I can bless you. We must come together. I don't care where you're from..."

The stairs to Redbeard's tower are behind a gate, not a door, so maybe you are looking in the wrong place? Should be on the second floor of Avadon, middle of the south wall, directly south of the Tower library.

Owenmoz -- Thank you; I enjoyed the conversation also. I think it's another fine attribute of Jeff's games that you can find yourself supporting different factions even if your basic viewpoint remains the same...in the Geneforge series I went from Awakened-sympathizer-Shaper-ending ==> Shaper --> Shaper --> Shaper --> Trakovite (?!). But really, it all made sense at the time. GGJ -- I saw from the first few words of your first sentence that you're talking about endings, and I haven't reached the ending of Avadon 3 yet (I'm going to try some tough stuff before I enter the endgame). So I will read the rest of your comment when I have. Edit: I've won now. In my ending it doesn't say I tried to resign, only that I ended up assassinated when I went a little fuzzy. I'm afraid that is the way with autocrats...one reason I liked the idea of trying to empower Hanvar's Council.

Oh, in this game it's clear to me. We needed him before because we were under siege...but now the enemy is starting to collapse and the siege is ending. If Redbeard had a different attitude I'd rather express my gratitude and give him a gold watch. But he won't step down and, from the sound of things, he's planning a lot of unnecessary "payback" after the war is over...more to establish his own dominance than to carry out anything useful for the Pact. (While we were under siege and hard pressed on all fronts the two things converged; once we win, not so much.) And while I'd normally feel a little bad for the ingratitude...Redbeard himself leads the way in ruthless power politics, and since he won't let sentiment get in the way of something that's needed, neither will I. Also, Hanvar's Council seems determined to assert itself as it should have done all along...so there is a real alternative to "betraying the Pact to the Tawons, who will presumably be just as ruthless." The game doesn't tell us very much about the laws...the codex stories hint at them but we don't get the code (and rightly not; law codes do not make for a ripping read). But the game does strongly suggest that there is a written law and that even Avadon is technically subject to it...it's just that Redbeard has disobeyed when it suits him. One of the laws that gets mentioned pretty often is that Keepers serve for life (but we're reaching the point that that one is worth rebelling against). Overall this leads me to believe that Avadon is not de jure above the law, even if some of them will occasionally act like it. The Council hasn't said anything about the deserter camp, and I couldn't get Protus to even raise the issue. Yet the Pact is prosecuting the war independently of Redbeard...judging by the way Pact soldiers talk to me, they are not under Redbeard's command...so killing the deserters is useful for the Pact even though, as it turns out, Redbeard had his own use for them. Of course if he'd told us that in advance Khalida and I might've done otherwise...but if you keep your secrets from your own people, and give them so much scope to act independently, you've got to expect to be foiled occasionally. If Dedrik was the guy who wanted me to kill off the Kva interlopers in one of the other countries...they were setting themselves up to win in the event of a Pact civil war...I killed them willingly even though I wasn't drumming up support to attack Redbeard. In the realm of strategy, "setting yourself up to win a fight you haven't had yet" can be and often is "provoking an actual fight," and it was very sensible to put a stop to that kind of thing right then and there. Even if Dedrik went wobbly after the fight was over, I didn't.

Hanvar's Council already spoke by passing the law against desertion (remember, part of her outrage is that this crime against "Pact Law" is going unpunished). They just don't have anyone available to enforce it...logical enough as the camp is too strong to crack without dispatching troops that are needed at the front. We, on the other hand, are available. While it seems unrealistic, for the sake of a better game the world of Avadon allows the troops (at least if they are Hands) a lot of leeway to enforce the Pact's interests or even take mercenary jobs on the side, so Khalida's not out of line in wanting to do so.. (I myself just finished killing a certain dragon on the theory he was setting himself up to be a big future threat of a kind the Pact doesn't need in the coming era of peace, and I don't anticipate any rebukes for it...please don't tell me though as I still have things to do before the endgame.) I don't think any law allows them to murder council members...Redbeard seems to kill with impunity, but extralegally (consider what we learn from Miranda). 'course that's one of my motives in supporting Khalida...Redbeard plays the Art of Power game very ruthlessly, and as I have determined that he should be replaced, I'm returning the compliment by doing what I have to to secure allies against him for the endgame. But none of these side quests bothers me that much. Letting the Svorgald "non-raiders" stay in place for the sake of Botan's conscience was the diciest for me, but it seems to me they're a lesser threat than Redbeard is growing to be by a long shot, so I swallowed my reservations.

I'd forgotten that she let some live, but that still leaves it understandable...the main purpose of punishment is to stop other soldiers from deserting, and the best way available is (1) killing a bunch of them, (2) killing the one who harbored deserters (which is traditionally a serious crime...still is under U.S. law, by the way, 18 USC 1381, though the maximum penalty is "only" 3 years), and (3) letting the rest escape back to the front...with lurid tales of what happens to deserters, not to mention the news that the safe harbor is gone, and the man who established it is dead. . Not as efficient as the old way of forming up the whole regiment so they could watch you shoot the deserters, but still an understandable and very rational policy...particularly given how hard the war is supposed to be. She's got plenty of reason.

But the factions in the games never made much sense to me. Mainly because the games give you zero reason to care about any of them ...The Geneforge factions worked beautifully Interesting persepctive because I have exactly the opposite view. Geneforge factions had an "alien" feel because the dilemmas were more science-fictional...what to do about a race that was engineered to like servility, while some were waking up to hate it...especially in Geneforge 3, where the choices were binary between a group of Shapers that wanted to double-down on their old practices, and a rebellion led by Drakons who wanted to smash everything the shapers had done...then do pretty much the same thing themselves. And power didn't corrupt just by being power...self-shaping corrupted people directly, resulting in some awesome villains who seemed to be on a self-reinforcing spiral of power and ruthlessness. Not like the real world conflicts I know, where combatants on both sides of any conflict are always in danger of exhausting or overextending themselves. Even in G5, no one really lined up with my own views (shaping dumb creatures is OK, shaping serviles and above is not, and canisters and geneforges are absolutely wrong)...although In Avadon, by contrast, you've got a closer parallel with real-world historical questions: in a time of serious conflict, who rules? When is it permissible to rebel against your constitution, and on what grounds? What compromises do you make with your principles...or with tyrants...to stay alive in a hard world against some ruthless opponents? I've been pro-Hanvar's Council from the beginning, and the games give me increasing scope to do something in support of that view. (I haven't quite hit the end of A3 yet, so I don't know how close I'll come to it.) It has a less alien feel for me than the Geneforge series, though I love both sets of games.

I thought Khalida's sidequest made sense...that wasn't just a camp of bandits, but of deserters, a very serious matter in war, and historically often punished by death. Given that she holds on to her sanity in part by clinging to her loyalty to the Pact in its war against the farlands...which she does even though she got tortured in Avadon...I can understand her being outraged at a set of deserters, all of whom have less reason for a grudge than she ever did, being left free to sit out the war while she and the others have to carry the fight. Soldiers resent that greatly even in our own day, and we are a hell of a lot more easygoing about it than less modern peoples were. This is especially true in Khalida's case as she's a "Stone Code-rule of law" person, and less keen on letting a crime slide. It's a lot more sympathetic than some of the sidequests in the earlier games...like Alcander's desire to go treasure-hunting, or the blademaster who wanted to kill a pardoned Pact informer. While I'm always in favor of more dialogue and story, I appreciate that Jeff had to give the player a large number of NPC's to deal with (for tactical reasons, so that you have access to all the classes and their abilities), and the number of possible third-party interactions is huge...given the rest of what he had to do to make this game a good one, I'm happy with the dialogue he did put in, and let my imagination fill in the rest. He's given us enough to know the personalities.

Yes, that's right, when it's time to fight her, you need someone nearby to stop her healing. I just killed the initial set of four turrets before I came back to fight her. (I found she did not replace them so quickly as to make that infeasible.)

Many fights in this game also reward you for changing the terrain, i.e., not just fighting every enemy on the spot where you found him. In that particular fight, I retreated past the drains (the liquid corruption doesn't go past the floor drains) and sent in creatures to kill the turrets before I charged in with everyone to fight the ghost. Also, when I get out of sight of a fight (after I've killed something significant), I can quickly exit combat mode and quicksave...the enemy heals a little bit when I do that, but it can avoid the frustration of screwing up a really long fight and having to start from scratch. Even when I charged in to fight the ghost, I made sure to kill new turrets as they arose. If a given turret seems resistant to damage, that means there is another turret you have to kill first...the turrets shield each other as well as the ghost. (It's important to keep the number of turrets down because the ghost gets damage resistance proportional to the number of turrets, but at least one turret will be non-resistant to damage.) (When you say the "last Halia" I assume you are fighting her on the lower level; the upper floor Halia can be avoided simply by taking the stairs down, and fighting her down there. She seemed nearly impossible to kill upstairs because of the constant summoning of subordinate guards; the turrets she summons on the lower floor are much easier to deal with.) I found Halia to be one of the hardest fights in the game so far (I am very close to the endgame now) in part because she did stay in place and kept summoning turrets that stayed in place, and I couldn't avoid all that corruption.

Vive la difference.

I love shamans myself, especially in A3. The drakes make the difference...they're tough enough to be good bullet sponges, and in some places they can scout ahead, damage enemies without triggering a fight, or lead them back into ambushes. In A3 you can recover fatigue fast enough to replace one drake in reasonable time without having to leave combat mode, let alone go back to base. (As long as you don't let the shaman get knocked out.) Also, the "heal pet" spell is very strong and has no range limitations -- your shaman can keep healing the drake even if he's in the next room, around a corner and out of sight. And for an added bonus, drake fire is never "friendly fire" even on Torment. So the shaman has a presence in the fight even if he's mostly hanging back to heal people. I admit that Nathalie's a fun character (and I just got a hug from her in her side quest), but I gave my vote to Khalida. I like her combination of strictness, bravery, and vulnerability. (Do you think she's named after the kalidahs from The Wizard of Oz? -- the book, I mean.)

Thanks!

The commander at Fort Foresight invites me to go to the Beraza Woods for a quest. She says she's marked the place on my map. But I see nothing on the world map between Fort Foresight and Vana's Reach. Is this an error? (I haven't seen Redbeard yet; I chose to do some side quests first.)

Thank you!

Say I have specialties or items that add +2 to a given ability. If I train that ability to 8, is it effectively 8, or 10?

My method, which I finished a few minutes ago, was slower but simpler: I had a shaman with a summoned creature specialty (he's my main character). If you send a drake or other "pet" inside, that doesn't trigger the dialogue or the closing of the gates. Furthermore, all the enemies are already "enemies"...i.e., you can attack them without waiting for the dialogue to turn them hostile. 　 So, I go into combat mode. I have the drake walk up while my characters stay outside the room. The drake alternates fire blasts and attacks on the bodyguards. When he fades away, I summon another. I just keep doing it 'til all the bodyguards and side drakes are dead (occasionally I exit combat mode to quicksave in case I accidentally walk a main character in). They don't even fight back, because the dialogue that "triggers" them hasn't happened yet. Or they're all stoned or something. My personal theory is that Dheless made them take a sacred vow that they would stay right where they were and not budge "until the Hand of Avadon arrives." And since no Hand had made an appearance, only this endless line of drakes, they had no choice but to sit there and get eaten one by one. A tribute to that famous Titan discipline. I like the image, anyway. 　 I suppose I could have killed Golath himself the same way, but I chose not to...I wanted the dialogue to happen. But he was a lot less impressive by himself, even on Torment. It's not Davd vs. Golath anymore. With hard fights, I've noticed that this game and all of Jeff's games reward you for seeing how much you can get away with before the fight begins...in terms of character placement, opening and closing doors, summoning things, killing things, etc. This was just an extreme case. Maybe this thread should be linked in Strategy Central?

Even I didn't go canister free in GF1 -- though I have talked to another player on this board who did so. (There is no challenge so outlandish that some Spiderweb regular hasn't done it.) I'm also glad that someone else is enjoying the Blxz playthrough as I did, including one of his best voices. It's a great tribute to Jeff's games that we can not only enjoy them this much and on replays, but even watching someone else take a different path through them. Here’s a very old thread in which I rewrote a Temperance Ballad for canisters – https://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/19/1260#15 Give them up and save yourself! It’s not so hard if you try…

A week or two back, I played Alhoon’s “shaper/lifecrafter” GF5 mod. It was excellent. My brief review: As you can see from the thread, the mod has two main features. #1, it allows the player to follow a quest chain to find out who he really is. #2, it allows him to enhance his shaping abilities. The overall effect is like a good sauce or condiment: it complements the flavor of the original game, but does not fundamentally change it. So, if you’ve just finished your first playthrough, I don’t recommend running right back to the beginning just to see the mod. But if, like me, you haven’t played the game for a few years, this mod makes a fun tweak to the experience. The story of the PC’s origin is spread across multiple encounters that carry him around the game world, and so prevent the reveal from coming too soon. It was well written and an entertaining theory, and as far as I can tell it fits the facts we know. (An extreme nitpicker-nerd might find an inconsistency I missed, but for the level of reality this game shows, I liked it just fine.) The player doesn’t have to accept the story as true, but it won’t hurt him if he does. The game didn’t allow Alhoon to modify the ending scripts, so don’t be disappointed if the game ending still tells you you don’t know who you are. You’ll know you do. The shaping enhancement doesn’t come until fairly late in the game and relies on at least one major anti-Shaper quest being fulfilled, though I believe Alhoon may be modifying future versions to allow this option to more loyal players via a different pathway. It relies on shaper notes—so save them—but if you sell the notes as quest items, you can buy them back (at a sizable markup) so as to use them for shaping enhancement. Even played straight it can give you a considerable boost in power; and if you go crazy (crazier than I went playing through), there’s a quest I didn’t try that can take you even further. The parts I played never made the game harder; they simply gave you options to make yourself more powerful if you chose to do so. Since I was playing on Normal difficulty, it didn’t frustrate me at all. I note that setting up the extra shaping option also gives you a sometime source of endless fights, but with the extra power and the relative ease of the game by the time I got there I didn’t see any point in grinding for higher levels. I made a few recommendations to smooth the mechanics, and to make it harder for a “casual” player to go off the rails. But even as I played it, it was a fun mod and a good enhancer for a replay, especially if that replay comes long after your last playthrough.

You could've just gone by federal judicial circuit...

The method by which some success with the Crucible has been attained is to prepare a creature with heavy protective magics and have them dip a part of themselves into the pool. Powerful Transmutative magics must be used to guide the magics of the Crucible to the parts of the subject that the mage wishes to change. I got an e-mail from Nigeria promising something similar.

I'm through it now -- at least, I got the answer (nice surprise), got some skill boosts, and didn't get any pointers to further clues. I'm playing as an Astoria supporter this time (though I did a few Trakovite quests). So, if I'm out of the running for the research lab, feel free to tell me whatever you would like about it!

Alhoon - His dialogue with that Drakon, the one who talks about the past sucker, is one of my favorite parts of the Letsplay (And one of the best voices he did.) You're in for good times!

It's your mod, in the end, but I don't see it that way...consider how Blxz used canisters left and right, but ended up as a Shaper and a Taygenite Shaper at that. It's always tempting in war to say, "Yes, I agree, this is and should be the Law of War...but if I just violate it myself, just a little bit, I can win." And there are PC’s who don’t exactly line up with one of the factions but have to choose one…for example, I myself was opposed to canisters, geneforges, and self shaping, but not so much to creating creatures…and ended up as a semi-reluctant Trakovite, but one who didn’t hesitate to make forbidden Drayks in pursuit of a Better Tomorrow. (I might easily have justified allying with Alwan on the same grounds; yet gone ahead with forbidden creations to get where I was going.)

Still about where I was...I gave Alexie her bare minimum number of books to get the Drayk lessons, but based on what you tell me, have otherwise been saving notes for when I make the lab. Is the opportunity to do this going to pop up in natural sequence if I keep following the clues to my own past, or is there something on the side I'll have to do? A suggestion: If you want the mod to be playable without an outside “guide,” and also to be user-friendly for people who play occasionally instead of in a marathon, maybe you could add a few words to the dialogue of Alexie and others who reward you for shaper notes? E.g., she might say, “If you bring me [six] more of these, I have an extra reward for you…” (Don’t have time to write cleverer dialogue right now), together with some kind of narrators’ warning… “You reflect that you yourself could make good use of these notes if you had a laboratory of your own. Perhaps you’ll find the means to do that in your travels.” Btw, do “special item” shaper notes (like the ones that are supposed to be hidden in the ruins with the unbound)…are these useful in the lab, or might I as well turn them in for rewards when I get them? Great mod so far!