BrownieMix

I was able to do just about every non-essential quest and every faction quest that doesn't require you to swear to a faction right up until the choice between destroying the creation camp for Taygen or saving the rebels for whatever her name is - at that point there isn't any reason to really avoid a faction, as the game is basically over. My one piece of advice is get the quests for one side first, then you can go to the other side. For example, there is a rebel who wants to buy Shaper research books from you for 75 gp a pop. Problem is, if you are too loyal to the Shapers, you'll never get the quest. The trick is to be friendly enough with the Rebels to actually get the quest - once you have it, you can go back to being pro-Shaper and he'll always buy the research from you, regardless if you've killed a hundred rebels. Once you have the quest on the books, no future action (that I could come up with, anyway) will take it away or prevent you from getting the reward. If you are smart and think before rushing off to complete a quest, you can pretty much do every non-faction quest, including Rebel and Shaper ones.

I am the dumbest person alive. When I read about these guys in the hint book, I took Jeff's words literally - they cannot be killed if they are within line of sight with each other. However, as it turns out, this is not true. I gang-rushed one of the twins with my 4 rots and managed to get him down to almost no health. Both twins used area attacks that nearly killed my guys - but the first twin didn't heal. My rots killed him the next turn...and from then on it was EASY. I dunno if this is a bug, but I was able to kill one with the other right there. No fuss, no tricks, just straight out damage. I made that fight like 20 times harder then it had to be, simply because I assumed from what the hint books said that they had to be far away to damage or kill them. Not true.

VICTORY! I used Randomizer's suggestion (thanks Thuryl, but I read about yours only after I defeated the drakon) and defeated that stupid drakon in exactly 30 min 5 seconds - at least according to my iPod Touch. Now it's on to the pairbond constructs...

To do what you're suggesting for the drakon would take HOURS - I'm lucky to do 80 acid damage to him a round, and his health barely drops...but I'll try it anyway. EDIT - I'll set aside an afternoon for this, as after 15 minutes I managed to get roughly 1/6th of his health down. Maybe I can kill him in under 2 hours, but I don't know. Charming does nothing - each of his creations have around a 90% resist rate, and I have 8 spellcraft and 8 in the mental magic skill. Also, for the record, I know this is an optional dungeon, but WTH - seriously. There is a concrete difference between difficult and close to impossible-and this is as close to impossible as I've seen anything of Jeff's, between G4, A4, A5 and now G5. I'm sure Jeff intended players to have to go past the drakon to the power spiral, but that requires killing those damn twins, which wouldn't be so hard except that you can't get close to them AND you have to split your attention to the creatures the drakon shapes AND you have to somehow separate the two AND heal yourself - and oh by the way not die. By themselves these guys would be hard but not so hard as to make me angry. You put the two of them together, however, and it's practically an exercise in futility.

So I've been coasting along on Normal, about the win the game, and I'm thinking that it would be a good time to see how 'challenging' this optional area really is. I go into the Disposal Vault, kill a ton of creations, and think to myself that this isn't too bad... Then I meet the drakon. And the light twins. I can't kill the drakon without passing by the light twins. The light twins can't be killed if they can see each other. The drakon keeps shaping creations to bother me. The light twins have a insanely powerfull poison attack which basically kills everything I have. How in the world do I beat these guys? I'm level 50, and my 4 Rothizdons and 2 War Tralls are getting massacred.

I can't speak for Bennhold's ability to come back (I killed him the first time I entered the zone, and he never came back), but I can say the turrets do seem to regrow if you leave and then come back. Not all the turrets, but definitely some of them. I don't know if they are supposed to, but in theory you could just kepp going in and out of that zone, killing the turrets, and possibly getting an unlimited supply of thorns. Granted, they might not drop anything, they shouldn't give any exp at that point in the game, and thorns aren't exactly scarce, but still - I don't know if that's intentional or not.

Never mind - I found it. Stupid lever behind the stupid pillar...I'm glad you're dead, Bennhold.

I see the canister. I've wiped out all Bennhold's forces, including Bennhold himself. However, I can't figure out how to get that canister across the river. Also, turrets keep respawning...methinks that isn't right. Anyone know how to get there?

Well, then I guess I'll have to forget the Infiltrator's Charm - my Shaper doesn't have nearly the HP, armor, or anything else that can withstand 855 points of magical damage. Good thing I have the Cloak, Shield, Tunic, and lots of other things to make up for it.

It's my humble opinion that the southeast door in question cannot be opened. Does anyone know where the Volcanic Fetish is found in this area? Unless Jeff has hidden that lever so well no one can find it, that door can't be opened - that's my guess.

So there's this room in the Southwest Wasteland that has one chest, 2 mines and like four mine triggers. As soon as I step in the room, the mines go off and I die. From reading the hint book, I think I know what is in the chest...but unless I have 900 HP, there is no way to get it. Does anyone know of a way to get that darn chest?

So I've chased that poor little ornk to the Okavano Barrier, and I enter the zone, and I manage click on the correct ornk right away. The dialogue options come up, and I need to make sure I'm on an even keel with those silly rebels, so I tell it to flee. After being all cute and nice and stuff, it goes to leave...and then the same dialogue box appears. I'm thinking, didn't I just do this? So I do the same thing - I let the poor thing go. I try to click on it again to see if I can get the dialogue a third time, but now it can't be accessed and flees happily to wherever free shaper-influenced ornks go. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except I looked at the message box at the bottom of my screen, and I had not one but TWO messages telling me my reputation with those rebel scum had improved. Two messages...did I possibly get double the rebel reputation bonus? I don't know, because I'm not aware of a reputation counter, but if so...cool. I bet it can reproduced, but it's likely difficult enough that this was really just a major fluke.

A tasty Gruesome Charm.

So I get to the entrance to the road that leads to the Shaper Council hideaway, and this silly Unbound follows me into the encampment. I manage to kill it, but not before it kills Captain Jenkins or whatever his name is. Do I have to revert to a previously saved game because that Captain guy was essential to eventually getting into the Shaper fortress? Or will the doors open once I have permission? If I need this Captain guy alive, I'm going to be pretty pissed, as NO ONE else in that stupid encampment goes to fight - the Unbound runs away like a pansy and uses its lightning/poison/megadeath attack, and only the Captain tries to fight it. My 7 plated crawbugs are good, but against an Unbound + 4 Assault podlings, it's a wee bit difficult.

So I read this thread, and was having a slightly difficult time with my solo Servile, so I decided to start over and go with what DV had done. Now, I had never shaped really anything in G4 or G5 to this point, and as those are the only two Geneforge games I've ever played, I was a total novice to shaping - I figured it would be fairly challenging. Instead, I'm completely dominating. Granted, I'm playing on Normal, but so far the only areas/creatures I haven't been able to dominate in the first two 'chapters' is the rot in the East Shadow Cave and the Unbound fortress (those area effect attacks are a killer). All those spawners out in the Okavano swamp, the ones that took me SO many tries as a singleton? EASY. Getting through the sea caves, which I couldn't do playing solo? EASY. Honestly, I'm just using seven base stats (only two in INT) plated clawbugs, and so far it's been one easy fight after another. I've bought 2 points in Spellcraft, Blessing and Mental Magic, and in Missle Weapons. I've boosted my STR so I can wear some pretty decent armor. My Mental Magic is up to 7, so I can now cast Strong Daze. I need one more point in battle alphas to get battle betas, which should tide me over quite nicely. I'm only lvl 31, which means I have a hell of a lot more skill points to go. Bottom line, this build rocks. It's fun, and I'm sure it won't be this easy later on. Regardless, I'm having a blast, so thanks to DV and all the veterans out there who have helped a relative nOOb really kick ass in this game.

So this is a pretty generic question, but what do the mix/max powergamers feel is the best approach in terms of having a good rep with the shapers or the rebels? I found that, while attempting to be exclusively pro-shaper my first time through, there were numerous quests that I didn't have access to - the Trakovites, selling shaper papers, etc. My second time through, I turned in the servile for the +1 Intelligence, but have tried to be pro-rebel ever since. Any thoughts as to what is the 'best' approach? Is there such an approach where I can max out on quests and items?

Thanks Vlish - I thought I knew what I was doing my first time through, but clearly I didn't.

Maybe I'll remake my Servile then - I don't think I put enough into Magic until it was too late.

I thought I read on the boards somewhere that having it at 10 does some really cool things...unfortunately I don't think I have the skill points left over to put it at 10.

I tried playing as a non-shaping Servile my first time through (on Normal), but I found that swarms would decimate me, especially because I hadn't put enough points in magic for almost any attack/mental spells to work. My spells never seemed to have a higher % chance to hit then around 55, and Daze barely worked ever. I got pretty far with a acid-tipped sword, but when I faced the spawning guy in the Western Okavano, I just got absolutely obliterated. I've restarted as an Infiltrator so my magic can start off high, but I'm still worried. In G4 I was able to get pretty far without really shaping anything...can this game really be beaten with a (mostly) solo character? Or should I switch to a shaping class and lead my creations to victory?

Just curious as to what effect luck has, how high is has to be to be really useful...and is it really worth it?

What about levels of Leadership and Mechanics that are 'required' in the beginning of the game? I just started the demo, but wow...I am very impressed so far.

I find this forum topic very interesting, so I thought I'd add my two cents as a relative newcomer to Geneforge/Avernum. My first game of Jeff's was Geneforge 4. While I really enjoyed the plot - the demo really drew me into the game - I found the game somewhat unforgiving for a first-timer. I didn't realize how important mechanics and leadership were my first time through, and my first playthrough ended disastrously when my character could barely beat the demo on Easy. I bought the full game, then went back and tried it again, but no matter how many times I played I always stopped roughly 1/2 into the game, because I got burned out and never felt like finishing it. In Geneforge 4, I thought the plot was fantastic in the beginning, but I lost interest halfway through. I simply never understood Jeff's gameplay mechanics well enough to really have a chance to succeed. Next I tried Avernum 4...and found that my gameplay difficulties immediately went away. Maybe I'm just better with a party system as opposed to a single character system, but I was able to succeed very early on in the game. However, as opposed to Geneforge 4, I found the plot lacking, and didn't get past the first 1/3 of the game. The shades were interesting at first, but for some reason it was never enough to really make me care. Also, the fact that items in your stash counted towards your encumbrance was extremely annoying to me. After playing Geneforge 4, I just couldn't go back to that - I can't tell you how many hours I wasted going back and forth, back and forth between towns with items just for a few measly gold. As for Avernum 5, in my humble opinion, it took what I liked best about Geneforge 4 (the story) and combined it with what I liked best about Avernum 4 (the gameplay) to make a very enjoyable game. When I bought that game, I played nothing else for 3 months straight - a rare thing for me and a clear sign that I really liked the game. I found the fights hard but not impossible. I liked planning out my character stat points. The plot was fun, and I liked how each area had their own stories. More importantly, I could relate to the plot, something I simply couldn't do with Avernum 4. Also, while people complain about the linear nature of the world, I rather liked it - I HATE missing things, and prefer a large group of areas that I have to fully explore before moving on. I got all the way to the end, where you have to choose your ending...then never completed either ending. I don't know why, it made absolutely no sense, but basically I put all those hours into the game, then walked away at the very very end. Bottom line: I really liked Avernum 5. Is the game perfect? No. Does it have a lot of replay value? In my opinion, no. but those three months I played it were a hell of a lot of fun for me, and that's what counts the most in my book. I'm worried I won't like Geneforge 5, and maybe I'm just better suited to the Avernum series in general but I guess time will tell.

So I'm at Shanker's Tower, having killed the rouge kitty from the Fang Clan, but the kitty crystal maker doesn't give me the crystal field quest...it makes me sad. I think I might have found the crystal field before this, though - anyone know what I can do to get this quest?

Look for a level which opens a secret path that will allow you to get past the 2nd wheel-water-thingy in time.