Blurb

Madrigan, if you have a good reputation with the rebels, I think you can join Astoria's faction after you complete her second quest, which is to speak to Tholosss, the exiled drakon.

I'm having so much fun playing the game now after trying out your Shaper/Lifecrafter build. You get so charged up and it's fun (contagious) to read your posts about your progress with a build. That's all. Just thanks a lot.

Originally Posted By: Clawbugs of the Conciliator Thus they cannot live without the shaper and the shaper cannot regain his essence without absorbing them. Maybe for the purposes of playing the game, the creations thrive on the PC's essence. If the PC is killed, the game is over, so it's speculative whether in that dead space of "I lost the game and who knows where my critters went" whether that means they're dead or alive. Of course, in the larger picture, many serviles (who live a LONG time) and other creations survive the death of whomever shaped them. ETA: I agree with "extensions of the will" of the Shaper. That's why "intelligence" is so critical and why it's in short supply. Only the strongest shaper can control a number of creations. The best among them have a wider range, too.

If you talk to one of the remaining guards after the Unbound kill, they tell you that they're waiting for a replacement captain/leader.

DV, I was wondering if you had tried a Vlish, pumped up, during your various tests with creations? I have added two of these. Not very pumped at this point. I'm wondering if it's worth it. They seem to get more damage in than the other critters and take hits pretty well. I'm about at level 25 if that helps. Thanks.

I think your posts are sufficiently emotive without any need for italics. In fact, I would say that you have a real talent for it.

DV, my biggest problem with the sorceress was waiting to be able to afford training in the magic categories. That made me a weakling with a so-so little army. I'm wondering if a sorceress can even afford to wait on these and still survive. I found myself putting points in spellcraft to defeat the Mind/Presence in the first section. That was in large part to be able to heal the group better. Of course, then I couldn't buy training in it later. But I lived. My game is easier and more fun with the lifecrafter, especially with the poison-resistant clawbugs. Like, duh, that's a no-brainer, but I hadn't thought it through. Even for a sorceress, the extra essence it takes to make them is worth it. One or two clawbugs would be extremely helpful to the sorceress. I had a clawbug with the sorceress, but it was a weakling bug because I had put points into fire shaping instead of battle. Again, not thinking it through. The prevalence of poison makes it almost mandatory to have a good part of your army somewhat immune, especially early in the game since you don't get the group curing spells until later. I'm impressed by the vlish in this game. They don't seem as delicate as they were in previous games and their hits are dead on. Anybody else find them a lot more powerful?

I started a game mirroring the strategy and I could not find a way to put 10 points into shaping or have enough intelligence to make that many critters and have mechanics/leadership, too. Did you find you had to sacrifice the latter two, DV?

I meant getting across the Promenade to the testing area. I guess I'm wondering how early I can manage it and how easy it is to slip through in battle mode and cross without engaging the rogues in the Promenade.

This is really interesting. I'm starting over as a Lifecrafter at least to get to the same point in the game that I am now. How did you manage to survive getting to the testing area? Did you make a lot of creations and just run to exits?

Originally Posted By: Clambake Custom! The important tricks are to get your enemies to come to you with ranged attacks rather than charging them, because that's a good way to end up swarmed. Kill methodically and go back to a town to recharge when you need to. Regeneration Aura can counteract most of the effects of poison and acid, which should help you make it through the battle. The best way to overcome poison is to have enough health to get by until the battle ends and heal up then. While Endurance does help there, the real solution is to gain levels. Poison is hellish until the mid-game, when it's still scary but not actually terribly dangerous if you handle it well. —Alorael, who recommends picking one or two creations to be the designated poison bait. As long as they have enough health to survive the pounding they'll get from attacks and poison, you can focus your healing and not have to rely on Group Heal. If you can make a rotghroth your poison/acid woes are largely over, but by that time your poison/acid woes will be mostly over even without any poison resistance in your party. I'm at about midgame now and I am definitely finding it easier at the moment thanks to some stat boosts. Part of the issue has been my blundering around and walking right into the middle of a band of poisonous critters. I'm not taking baby steps through the areas, which is sometimes necessary. My clawbug, which was made with weak stats, is one of the "baits" because it's melee. Although it has leveled up nicely, I'm going to have to retire it because it's too vulnerable to poison and difficult to keep alive. I'm liking the battle alpha, though. Slarty, I'm not that familiar with scripts what checks in scripts mean. I understand you are able to analyze a lot by looking at these scripts. By no checks for luck, do you mean there aren't listed benefits?

I love regeneration aura! I'm usually a full-time healer in battle, too. Frankly, I kind of miss being a warrior. Maybe I've just forgotten, but is there a multi-target banish affliction coming up in the game? It would help in case I ran out of spores. So I take it that pumping up luck is not a good strategy, i.e. a waste of skill points?

I have mental magic and creations. Many of the nasties resist daze. Of course, I'm probably playing wrong. I'm not a super player. I just want a fun game. I like to try new strategies and I reload a lot, but the difficulty level is much higher in G5 than I anticipated and the diminishing of some things like speed and endurance is not something I expected. When I left the demo area, it was like hitting a stone wall. I do think that saying the nerfing of endurance is not important is maybe underestimating the damage of poison in G5. When every round the whole party is poisoned with major hits to health points, including the PC, and you can't take care of that in your build, it does make the game more difficult. Understand that I'm not having an expert-to-expert argument with you. And I really can't even argue that I know better than you because I've got the strategy down pat, etc., etc. I'm not a great player and I know it. But I am intelligent enough to understand how the differences in this game make my previous strategies ineffective. I can see why it's more difficult for me, too. Dumping a lot of poisonous creatures and nerfing the stat that helps fight it makes the game a lot more challenging. As to what I can do better? Gosh, probably everything. That's why I come here, sometimes to ask questions and sometimes to vent. I guess I've kind of vented a little of my frustration in this thread.

Originally Posted By: Delicious Vlish What he lacks in permanency he makes up for in durability. I like the sorceress... Don't get me wrong. I like her a lot actually. But she isn't the class I had hoped for her to be based on the missing slot in G4. If you play as a strong shaper sort, not enough essence to pound enemies with spells. If you play as a strong agent or spellcaster type, and rely on items to shape with, then you really are no different than an agent / infiltrator / servile type. It is in my opinion that the sorceress spreads her self to thin in achieving power. Every point she spends in shaping, she robs power from her magical abilities. If she shapes from items and boosts her magic to effective levels, her creations are little more than decoys, distractions, or a mop up crew. I'm playing the sorceress as a shaping sorceress. It was something I have wanted to do from my first Geneforge game. I have added creations as I went along, partly to experiment to see how they work and partly to help fight and partly because it makes the game more fun to have pets. Early on, so much gets pumped into mechanics and leadership that I had little left over to put into primary stats or anything else. I pumped strength and intelligence. When I kept dying I put a point into Spellcraft even though it was a penalty later on. That's one point I couldn't train in. At about level 25/26, I did the math. I think mech was up to 11 and leadership 9 by then. I had put 67 out of 140 skill points into leadership and mechanics. I'm at level 34, just about 1/2 through the game and I don't have any shaping items. These may be in places that I can't touch yet. I'm able to survive better now because I'm not putting skill points into mech/ldrshp any more. I just noticed that pumping spellcraft/magic has made me significantly stronger. There are a number of factors as to why I don't feel successful. (1) I'm a mediocre player. I find the Geneforge games difficult in general. I usually survive on a good walkthrough and this message board. G5 is very difficult for me on easy. Easy and normal don't seem all that different. (2) I play for fun. I'm game for challenges, but every round for a long stretch has been an uphill battle. It's not feeling fun right now. (3) I'm too weak to go into the areas that may have the best items to make me stronger. For example, I would love the gruesome charm, but the shades were overpowering. (4) Nerfing of some important spells/stats in G5. I've read all the threads about speed needing to be nerfed, and I get how the really good players are feeling. They want more of a challenge. People like me... well, there's only so much reloading and restarting I'm going to do. Hard to hit and run without speed. I used to do that even with creations. Not being able to build my character to account for the boost in poisonous creatures has hurt. Endurance does not do that anymore. I'm having to wear poison resistance instead of stat boosting items. Slarty tells me in another thread that poison/acid aren't important and I'm doing something wrong. Maybe they aren't and maybe I am. Don't get me wrong. There is probably many other better ways to go about playing this game. I am a so-so, maybe average or maybe less than average player. But as a player of previous Geneforge games, I'm tending to play like I did before and it's not working. Sometimes the only way you know something doesn't work is to fail. Unfortunately.

Playing as agent in the G1-G3 games, I also found essence and spell energy big issues. That hasn't been a problem in G5. That's really cool, too. You can focus on what you're doing instead of running back to town between skirmishes. In G5, I can last a good long while before even gobbling an essence pod. In G1-G3, I tried to balance magic with melee/missile with the agent, who wound up being as strong later in the game as a guardian (for me, anyway). Agent is a powerhouse at the end. But it was really difficult early on. I'm thinking that servile might be fun to try after reading this thread. I will miss the cool-looking sorceress outfit, though. I'd love it if somebody would put together a sorceress build guide because I suspect it will be a popular character because of magic/shaping angle. Also, it would be nice to see if I'm even on target with what I'm doing.

In past games it has made a difference, at least when I've played. High resistance has meant significantly less of a hit. But, hey, G5 seems poison crazy to me. Every other naughty critter poisons. Worms and two or three different kinds of bugs. They're everywhere. With resistance so low, damage is high. ETA: It's not just a little poisoning. They'll surround one character and decimate them in one round.

I kept talking to him and talking to him, but I had ignored the one question that was the quest. Shoot. Thanks.

I have been all over town in Perikalia and cannot get anyone to give me this quest. Does anyone know who gives this quest? Thanks.

From what I can see, pumping up luck appears to be the only way to add to poison and acid resistance. I have been operating under the assumption that upping endurance helped. I just tried adding two points of endurance to see if the poison/acid stats changed. They did not change. This is really different from previous Geneforge games (I think). I'm looking at luck a lot differently now. Am I wrong about this? Is there another way to get more poison/acid resistance other than by equipment or crystal enhancements?

I did get experience. I think the serviles said they'd report back about my good deed. Cash or a nice piece of equipment would be even better, though.

Hecate, I don't get how you did it because mine was a level 26 or so sorceress and the Unbound took each of us out in one blow. There was no battle. Nothing to heal there. Bang bang you're dead. And the sorry saga continues. The worms in Western Okavano took out my party in record time while trying to kill the spawners. In one attempt, a group swarmed my clawbug and he was gone in one round. Yes, I blessed, shielded, etc. In the old games, poison damage wasn't so swift and so deadly. But now, one chomp from these little fiends yields massive damage. There is supposed to be a mechanics option, but my party is attacked while disarming mines. I do great in the areas where you run around and talk to people. I'm into the story. I just don't know that I can get to the end. I've had tough areas in past games, but I could often change up the strategy and try again or come back later. I can't come back later for all these areas, though. It's looking like a trend. I wondered if the beta testers can offer opinions about this. Like, maybe this is common at this point in the game? Like, maybe the PC will eventually catch up to these powerful rogues? Or maybe that Blurb really bites at this? lol

Okay, I got the quest, went to the serviles and got them to help fight the alphas and betas. The quest disappeared from my quest list and Celaa did not acknowledge it. Is Celaa not the person who gave the quest? I'm confused.

Originally Posted By: Warmaster Golem mk4 Alorael, who has also noticed that G5 has a fairly high number of quests that you absolutely shouldn't attempt when you are likely to get them. And sometimes the difficulty ramps up hilariously. "Go spy on the Unbound. Be careful! If you're seen, you will definitely die, as a single one could incinerate you in an instant!" Done. "Excellent! Now kill one! Don't be a big baby. Kill it!" Ha ha! Your post made me laugh. And no kidding, either. Some of the areas in the hint book, if I follow in that order, are terrifying to my hapless group. But look, I thought I had it made on the kill the Unbound quest because we killed the one in North Citadel Pass. Okay, so I did it by going and hiding behind the soldiers in the south (goo goo ga ga). But, still.. So then, I ran back to Sage Quothe's lab thinking how great it was that I could fulfill the "kill Unbound" quest and so quickly. Nope. Not THAT one. Thanks, Randomizer, for clearing up the gazer thing. I was almost thinking my eyesight was going. I really thought it said gazer. Patchwork is a term I'm not familiar with, though.

I used the tab key and thought it said gazers. I could have misread it, though. If I'm wrong about that, what are those little pinkish creatures in the center? They're nasty.