BrownieMix

I'm sure this has been answered before but I'm having a hard time tracking down an answer. Does anyone know what benefit buying extra levels of a spell provides you? I get the benefit for Shaping and skills, but I'm not clear on spells - does it add damage? Hit %? Both? I'm getting a little annoyed at how infrequently some of my spells seem to be hitting their targets - looking at you, Burning Spray - and I'd like to increase my hit %. The in-game description seems to indicate hit % can only be increased with better magic skills (including Spellcraft) so I don't want to spend money to raise my spell level if it won't help me hit more with my spells. Any help on this would be awesome - thank you!

Coming back to G5 after a long hiatus and having just beat G4, and I'm curious if there's a generally recommended, optimal path in terms of rep and/or faction choice (putting aside story considerations) for playing (once again) as a Shaper with creations. From what I'm reading on the Strategy Central it seems keeping rep at or just below 100 seems to be optimal until you decide your final faction, but I'm unsure if there's any more to it than that.

Playing on my 13 inch Macbook, I have to say I'm finding the small size of some graphics to be a minor irritant. Having played Spiderweb games for many years now, I have a general sense of what to look for, but figuring out what and when items are the ground can be really frustrating. For example, in the first dungeon, there is a table with some kind of green skin (can't remember which kind it is) on it. The skin has value, so it should be picked up, but unless I look really closely it simply looks like a green dot on the table. I'm finding I'm hitting the G key whenever I see anything on the ground simply to make sure I haven't missed anything, as opposed to relying on my eyes to determine what various items are. I'm not trying to say I want multi-million dollar graphics. I'm simply pointing out that on my laptop, the graphics end up being almost too small in certain circumstances. Otherwise, it is an amazing game - everything I have ever loved about previous games and then some.

Originally Posted By: Psychosnow Emanation And really what that means is that you can use the skribbane exploit a bit earlier, maybe 5-10 levels before the end of the game, and make everything that follows easier for yourself, even if you don't actually reach level 61 as a result. That is precisely what I did - when I started my new game, I spent money on the blessings in Dharmon, then some in Fort Remote and that guy east of Almaria, but I saved every other penny for the Skribbane exploit. Unfortunately, I killed off every other dealer but the one in Dharmon, which I think means the Skribbane is slightly more expensive, but it made things a whole lot easier. The majority of the fights from the last third of the game have been much easier then anticipated, probably because I'm at such a high level

I thought it was amusing that the guards attacked me but the townsfolk never did, unlike when I cleaned out Spire, where everyone attacked me. End result was the same - death to anyone who opposes my mighty band of heroes

Right now my two magic users are 44, and my fighters are at 42. I still have a few quests to do, and if I can get up to 20k in gold I figure I can get up to maybe levels 47/45, courtesy of my favorite min-maxing drug, Skribbane. Anyone know what level they got to when they finished?

By far the most satisfying "quest" of the game so far was killing Gladwell - complete all of his quests, take all his rewards, then when he's done with me, I finish him. Payback for A5 and all those horrible things I did under his geas for the sake of being a min-maxing munchkin - felt incredibly good. He also managed to kill one of my party members, which prompted me to restart the fight with everyone using some of the 20 invulnerability potions I have stored. I'm going to let the dragon live, do all his quests, then finish this game. With my party all around level 44, I think this one is in the bag. Worst quest: Probably the lich quest, only because it is very hard to win using the intended strategy. Still felt great killing him, though.

YESSSSS! Jeff = da man! Thank you so much!

As it turns out, I had a saved game before I tried to raid Spire's treasures, which right before I reported my success in Fort Monastery. I went back to the Castle, got the Fort Draco quest, then went back to Spire and wiped everyone out. I am not going to report success until I have completed Fort Draco. yesssssss

I think what threw me off was that for all the other three-quest sequences, I picked the correct order so that even when I was done with two, I could still do the third because there was no barrier to me getting to the third place. I kinda just thought I'd be able to everytime. I hope something can get worked out, as I'd really like to see X's final spell

Originally Posted By: Randomizer This is why I always asked for information about all 3 quest at once before doing any of them. Touche - point well taken. Should have thought of that, though I'm sure Jeff can work something out. Besides, I have exams, so a break would work out fine for now.

yeah - I have the most recent version, sadly enough. email going out now...

So in the series of three quests, I did the crystal people one first (forget their names at the moment), then did Fort Monastery. The third quest is Fort Draco, but when I complete two of the three the spy guy doesn't give me the third. Normally this isn't a problem, except in this case I can't enter Fort Draco without a crystal. Since I can't get the quest, I can't get the crystal, which means I can never enter the fort, get the second anvil quest for X, complete the Lark quest, or do a bunch of other stuff. Unless I'm missing something, which I might be, that is a bug - a player should not be penalized for choosing quests in a particular order.

Ok, I might need some help - how to I get to the arena upper tier? Before I got into the arena there was a closed gate to the north, and I didn't see anyway up to where the flinging Sliths were...

So I just survived the quest to assassinate the two leaders, and am now safely back at the Castle. However, I'm curious - can I go back there and explore? There seemed to be some cool areas to explore, not to mention untold treasure to find. There were also like 20 1000 HP Sliths preventing me from finding anything...does anyone know if you can go back there?

Despite the math, I have to say that so far I've been very pleased with my decision to have two slith pole fighters as my main melee guys. My first one, at level 28, kicks major major ass. My second one, also at level 28, is not quite as strong because I made him the dedicated Tool Use guy, but he still deals excellent damage. One thing that I have definitely noticed is that the Skribbane = Level Up "exploit" has really made my decision to go with two pole fighters much easier to live with. I feel they are very powerful for where I am at the game (just got the boat, defeated the Fang Clan and the Dragon Gate). With my mage users at lvl 30, and everyone having Battle Frenzy, I'm pretty much destroying everything in my path. I even managed to go back and defeat that drake I was complaining about earlier.

This has happened to me, and it is very cool...until they disappear one turn later.

Originally Posted By: Fael Obviously, however BrownieMix and I play, it's the complete opposite of each other, since each of us found one of these two encounters very easy and the other almost impossible -- but we each pick the opposite one. hahaha - I saw your gazer response first, and didn't understand what you were talking about...until now. I don't usually use wands, instead saving them for when I absolutely need them. The lich fight qualified as such, I was just not smart enough to realize that. I think I got so frustrated at the encounter I just used the blunt force approach, instead of taking a step back and working it out in the way you did. As for the second fight, this was easy only because I guessed right about the AI. As you know, when you activate the sentinels, there are four of them and the surround you quickly. What I did was I went into combat mode, put everyone but my fighter back in the bushes, then battle frenzied my fighter and activated the fight. In the bushes, the walking grid is only one square wide, meaning only one enemy can get through at a time. I ran my fighter back to the rest of the group, then watched as one sentinel chased me. Once the computer saw it couldn't send anyone else to attack me because the previous sentinel was blocking the path, they didn't move - sure, they kept summoning creatures, but they didn't actually move towards me. This allowed my fighters to switch off and pummel the one sentinel, my priest to have time/space to heal everyone, and my mage to cast battle frenzied lightning spray through the bushes. Basically, I could attack them, but they couldn't attack me. The other sentinels never really fought back, and I killed two of them with my mage alone. When there was only one left, I bull rushed it, and it went down easy.

Originally Posted By: Locmaar Are you doing the 'Destruction of Cotra' quest? It just might be that without triggering the sub-quest of saving Asterios, key and gazer won't spawn. Or did you just stumble into their lair? Or did you, perchance, do the other 2 tier three quests first? Edit: Just read your post. You don't have the quest. If you don't have the quest, you don't need to rescue Asterios, hence no key. Exactly - I just confirmed this with some playtesting. This actually makes that fight insanely easy, as I have already cleared out the cult area. Once I got that quest, the gazer appears. I don't know if this is really a "bug", but I'm glad I can do the quest anyway. again, you MUST have the Corta quest in order for the gazer to appear. Thanks for suggestions on how to fix this!

Hmm...I wonder if the trigger involves getting the Corta quest? Apparently there is dialogue in the script involving an alchemist from Corta, yet he never appeared when I went to find him...

Originally Posted By: Thuryl Honestly, the best thing to do at this point would probably be to just edit the scripts to give yourself the key. How do I go about doing that?

I just went back to that earlier saved game, then went straight to the cult - same thing happened. There is no eyebeast. This leads me to believe that one of three things is happening: 1) My game is screwed or corrupted, which I highly doubt because I haven't done anything that should cause this problem. 2) This is a bug in the game, which could be true, except apparently no one else has this problem. 3) There is a specific trigger that causes the eyebeast to appear, which I haven't hit yet. This is the most likely explanation, yet I have no idea what that trigger could actually be.

Yeah, the construct fight is comparatively easy, especially if you use the narrow terrain to your advantage. This fight reminded me of the Horror Slith from A5, and the frustration I had when fighting it, followed by the feeling of actually accomplishing something when it was dead.

Other then the lich battle, where the "trick" to winning is practically impossible to accomplish based on small space and the lich's unlimited summoning power, every hard encounter I've faced can be won later on or with superior strategy

My autosave is now past this, as I left the cult thinking the eyebeast was hiding somewhere else. I have a saved game after I killed the lich a second time, from which I sold tons of stuff and gained a couple of levels via skibbane, killed skunky joe, THEN went into the caves, so I could do that all over again if necessary - I probably only lost about 2 hours of playtime. I am absolutely positive I do not have the key. I worked my way around the Cult area clockwise, hit that room and saw nothing. I have tried opening the doors, going back and forth into the area...still nothing. According to the hintbook, there is no specific quest to go after these guys. Jeff says there is a tunnel west of Grindstone where the gazer is hiding, but I haven't "found" it yet as I haven't reached Grindstone yet. I have not yet finished the "kill marauders" quest and do not have access to Northern Avernum. I'm thinking something else I do triggers the eyebeast showing up, but what that might be is beyond me at this point.