Lilith

Does Taygen strike you as a person who makes good life decisions?

I found something that I have forgot: There are Gazers in Taygen's Spire and his pet agent there, that works on the purity agent, Shapes Rots. OK, Rots can be found in other Shaper places in GF5 (Shaper Alexie the Barred-creation researcher has some in a Fort). But... Gazers? They have been phased out of the Rebellion as too unpredictable according to GF4 Litalia. And Taygen of all people has 2 Gazers in the Spire?

I guess if one creation is as bad as any other to you, might as well make use of the strongest ones as long as you're using any at all.

Do you still experience these errors if you start a new game? Unfortunately, at this point it's possible that your saved game itself is also corrupted and you may have to either start afresh or start from a save before the errors began.

There's a different enemy wizard who shows up in place of Garzahd. Other than that, the sequence is the same.

nice

i mean, i'd say more, but "nice" kinda covers it

In other words, according to some poll somewhere, if you liked Exile better than Original Recipe Avernum, you're more likely to like Avernum: Escape from the Pit, while if you liked Original Recipe Avernum better than Exile, you're less likely to like Avernum: Escape from the Pit.

The Exile games are 16-bit applications. They won't run natively on a 64-bit OS. The only practical way to run them on a modern computer is to use a virtual machine such as VMware or VirtualBox with an older version of Windows installed inside it. This can be a somewhat complicated process, but short of actually buying an old computer just to run Exile it's your best option.

The Jade Halberd is a solid option if you want to use polearms. The bad news is it's dropped by the boss who appears right at the end of the Empire Portal quest, so it's easy to miss with how chaotic that part of the quest can get, and even if you get it it'll probably be late in the game.

The keyboard support in SW games often has certain quirks. I don't know if anyone here could tell you why you're having this particular issue in this particular game; you might have to email Spiderweb directly if you really wanted an answer.

Ah, I didn't notice the tag before. Here's what Spiderweb's website says about restoring the character editor in Nethergate: Resurrection:

For the support page reactivating the editor, the file they need to delete is NethergateSettings.dat, which is in the Nethergate Saved Games folder, which is in My Documents.

Which game is it? Qual é o título?

In general, you will need to find the game's data folder and delete a particular file. For example, if the game is Avernum 3, you will need to find the Avernum 3 Data folder and delete Avernum3.dat. This might also mean you have to re-enter registration information.

Which game are you playing, and is it on Mac or Windows?

I could be wrong, but I don't think the game ever actually checks whether there are humans in your party or not.

In G2, joinable party members past the Secret Tunnel can be kept around for the entire game if they don't suicide themselves. It's the later games where they come and go.

 

Do creations (and party members) with a higher level than the PC gain experience based on the PC's level, or their own?

Creations and allies always gain experience in lockstep with the player character, regardless of their relative levels. If you gain 25 XP, all your creations gain 25 XP.

You may have better luck asking on the VirtualBox forums than here.

I believe the theoretical level limit in Geneforge 1 is 31, but it's pretty much impossible to get there without exploits. Low 20s is a pretty solid endgame level. Ultimately, the Shaper Crypts are designed to be extremely difficult optional challenge areas, and the bottom line is you found them hard because they're hard.

Hi Lilith-How do you rate the following spells for later in the game? I saw you weren't super impressed with Acid Spray in a post

I use Blink occasionally for getting into position to use a spell with a cone-shaped area of effect. I suppose you could also use it to escape from a losing battle. It's not so much a bad spell as a spell with niche application.

As for the others, I second what Randomizer said in the post below yours. I'm not the only person on these forums who can ever give good advice, even if I like to think so.

Hi Lilith,

One last time I want your opinion on Sage Lore, Vahanatai Lore vs. Arcane Lore. I have restarted on Hard and am able to try different things with some testing of course, but testing stuff through the editor is really not a fun immersive experience.

13 Arcane Lore for all spells and Resistance buff?

3/4 people taking Sage Lore with 2 Arcane Lore for basic requirement in beginning of game for Ritual ( or whatever) Spell?

I would say both of those are reasonable options, and you can make your own choice between them based on personal preference -- basically, decide how much it would bug you to miss out on some stuff and act accordingly.

If going with the 13, at which point do I really need to go past the beginning 2 points?

You'll want 5 points before you get on the boat at the end of chapter 1, and you probably want to get to 13 by around the start of chapter 4 if not sooner. (The game throws up great big honkin' chapter title messages at the start of every chapter so you know which one you're in.)

I am having tough battles early here and wondering if I should be putting more initial points in defensive (Hardiness,Resistance etc). Maybe taking points after the early"demo" area? Or does the extra few defensive points for melee fighter and mage/priest spell points really matter in making early fights a little less ass kicking?

As a general rule, throwing as many points as you can into Hardiness is almost never a bad idea. Parry's not bad either.

Question: At higher difficulty levels-

If you have a party with 2 Priests and 2 Mages, you will wind up having someone get banged on right? So if you create a Priest that doubles as a tank, do you have to take some levels of strength stat to don better armor? If so, would you just use one or both for that purpose?

Would they be shield users then too? Like clerics in other games perhaps. I would think they would generally focus on Blessings and buffs as they don't have as many damage spells, or do you actually count on them to melee a bit?

You gain Strength naturally as you level up, and by the time it really matters you'll have enough to wear all the armour you need, more or less. Plus, even being slightly overweight isn't the end of the world, since it just means you lose an action point or two and your spellcasters often don't need to move around much in combat anyway. I wouldn't recommend actively putting points in Strength on characters who aren't going to be attacking in melee.

If you really want a tank in a full caster party, make a priest who invests in nothing but Endurance every single level. Their healing spells don't depend on their stats, so they can still act as a fully functional healer and buffer. I personally think that's unnecessary and a little boring compared to having a character who can actually fight, but the option exists.

Is a Dual Wielding Fighter still recommended over a Shield/Pole user? I saw the Minus To Hit went from 20% in AEFTP to 35% in CS.

 

Lillith recommends against taking Sage Lore-is this mainly for Resistance Bonus AL 11/13 whatever gives, for the fact there are a few spells you can't get with Sage Lore?

Basically, yeah. While Sage Lore counts toward most things that Arcane Lore does, there's just enough stuff that it doesn't work for that relying on it is annoying. And if you buy 13 points of Arcane Lore with skill points, then Sage Lore is pretty much redundant; between Arcane Lore and Vahnatai Lore you'll have enough points to get all the spells without it. Also, whether you're getting Sage Lore or not, be warned that you absolutely need at least two points specifically of Arcane Lore in order to meet certain requirements for major plot quests.

Well I've been following this walkthrough for grins, but I'm at the stage where I should be getting war tralls, and the walkthrough doesn't actually say where or how! I may have missed my chance because Ghaldring won't talk to me about joining the rebellion, so I can't get to the Secret Access Route mentioned.

The earliest way to get war tralls is to sneak through the labs in Gazaki-Uss and use the war trall canister there. Bring lots of living tools and be careful not to be seen.

Thanks for that! How do you know if your spell level is high enough for level 3 spells after you have the first 2 ranks?

I'm not sure what you're asking. Level 3 spells have exactly the same spellcasting skill requirement as the level 1 and 2 versions. If you can cast one, you can cast the other.

Do any of you know who made the scenario "Derwish Challenge"? It's not on TrueSite that I can see, and there's no readme. I'm trying to label the file. I don't even know where I found it...

Dervish Challenge, if that's what you're talking about, was an attempt at a multi-author scenario designed to put high-level parties through a variety of extreme challenges designed by the BoE community. I think Stareye might have come up with the original idea. In any case, not much progress was ever made on it, so only very early development versions exist, which were distributed with the intent that different people would work on different towns and then the Import Town feature would be used to merge them together into a single complete scenario.

Yes, of course, I was talking academically.

And speaking academically... are you sure training has to be done before buying any points at all? Perhaps in Rawal's castle that is true but in Mera Tev? Perhaps Quixote (or how Astoria's Shaper is called) can train you even if you had put 1-2 points. Kinda defeats the point if you have to be useless to be trained everywhere.

100% sure. Whenever you invest skill points in a skill, trainers always and everywhere will be able to train you in one less level of that skill. It's a fundamental limitation of training in the later Geneforge games. Yes, this does mean the late-game trainers are no use to you unless you specifically plan around using them, starting right from the beginning of the game. There are even threads specifically devoted to optimizing your playthrough around getting to trainers early, if you want to look for them.

Didn't Jeff say that in response to someone offering Nethergate Resurrection and not the original Nethergate?

 

Apparently it all started when someone tweeted him something like "I just bought nethergate resurrection and its already abandonware", so it's hard to say if Jeff is willing to release the original version of it unless someone asks him about the right version.

An acquaintance of mine from another forum asked him specifically about original Nethergate a while ago and he made it very clear that it's a no-go. Sorry.