Hansel & Gretel & Ted & Alice

Found it. It was buried under the pile of boots. I accidentally came across it when I was swapping out my current boots for the Boots of Stability™. Weird, 'cause I usually put unique items in the abandoned house in Drypeak. That's where I keep all the Demon Bile and puresteel rings. So, letter to wand, wand to belt. I'm a happy Shaper.

When you find the "Letter to Rising" in the Medab Inn, does it go into your Special Items list, or is it a physical object in your inventory? Because I know I saw it early in the game, but now that I have the quest from Trace in Rising, I can't find it.

So, if my reputation gets "low" enough, the Medab merchants will suddenly start trading with me? They guy at the bridge decided to let me across yesterday, but Belik at the Inn on the other side still thinks I'm scum. But even after clearing out the Power Station for the Mage School I'm still not loved enough in Medab to trade. If I ask Learned Darian to set my reputation to pro-servile, will I lose the merchants in Geth and Rising? Currently my money is good in Geth, and I haven't drained them dry yet. Perhaps I should clear out Geth, Rising and Drypeak, then get my reputation altered.

I may have made a few anti-servile comments to people I didn't want to insult or confuse. And it's possible I caused the death of a particular intelligent servile in Drypeak. But I'm just trying to get along, ya know? So, after finding out that Medab merchants won't trade with me, and that Brodus Blade won't give me permission to cross the bridge, I've been trying to boost my pro-servile reputation with all subsequent encounters. I even did a couple of quests for Learned Pinner to help Medab. But I still can't get any action from the blacksmith or the wand merchant. Do I have to align myself with the Awakened to trade here? I'm trying to finish this run-through un-aligned with any faction. How do I even find out what my current reputation is with the various factions? I'm surprised this question isn't asked more often. Or perhaps my 133t sk1llz with the search function aren't up to the task.

Figured out I could do screen captures and managed to pick up a number of them. Here is the one I was particularly curious about: Quote: Creations gain levels as you travel. If you have lots of creations, you will have a small experience penalty. If you keep the same creatures through the whole game, they will get very strong. And here are the others I managed to capture... Quote: Your health goes up as you gain levels. You can also buy more Endurance to gain health. If your Parry skill is high enough, you can reduce damage from Enemy attacks. You might even riposte, causing your foe's attack to damage itself. If you can't find a way through one area, try a different route. There are different ways to achieve practically any goal. If you keep getting killed in one area, go somewhere else. On the world map, green locations have been cleared and red locations haven't. You can use the world map to jump instantly through green sections. You can type '0' to select your whole party. Type '1' - '8' to select individuals. You can cast the spells in the four quickspell slots by pressing F5, F6, F7, or F8. If you are a Guardian, or fight a lot in melee, buy plenty of levels of the Quick Action and Parry skills. These cheap skills will be very useful at high levels. Geneforge 2 too difficult? Use the Preferences window to turn the difficulty down. You can use the 'f' key on the keyboard as a shortcut to start and stop fights. Hit the space bar to end a character's turn early. To change the spell in a Quickspell slot, right-click it. There are four quickspell buttons at the bottom of the screen. Press one to assign a spell to it. You can then select that spell very easily. You don't have to go everywhere to finish Geneforge 2. Some areas require lots of mechanical or diplomatic skill. Others require skill at combat. If you get frustrated in one place, go somewhere else. Remember, when you use essence to make creations, that essence is gone until the creation dies or yo absorb it. You may want to save some essence for spells. If you kill a monster who is much weaker than you, you won't get experience. If you kill a monster much tougher than you, you get more experience. You don't have to join one of the four sects to finish the game. But it can help. You can use the 'g' key on the keyboard as a shortcut to get items. Poison is dangerous and acid is worse. If you are having problems with poison or acid, use the Cure Effect spell, pods, or spores. Press the Journal button (it looks like a scroll) to see lists of all your special items and current quests. There are four different sects in the mountains. Feel free to listen to what all four have to say before picking one. Each has a different agenda, and each helps in a different way. There was also one I didn't manage to capture that told you to use the '=' key to disable all of your companions and let your main character explore without being crowded. They wake back up when you go into combat, though.

I'm playing Geneforge 2 on a laptop which is a coal powered antique compared to the machine I play Fallout 3 on, but a Cray computer compared to what G2 was written for. When a load screen comes up there are little hints written in the lower left hand corner that flash by so quickly that I've never been able to read them. Is there somewhere in the manual that these hints are written out? There is one particular one about "Creations gain levels as you travel..." that I can never quite catch.

I just finished the Soultakers pit area. Got all the keys and opened all the doors. One thing I can't figure out, though. In the room you first fall in to, on the center west side of the map, there appears to be a secret area on the west wall. I thought I had explored every room for secret switches (using the 'U' key), but I have not found one that opens that wall.

I've been collecting grain sacks. Or mushroom flour sacks, whatever is in there. I have 106 of them so far. Someone is going to bed without dinner. I know from playing through before that no-one wants them. Not like the "20 sheets of paper" quest. You would think that Highland or Muck would be all over them. In Morrowind, I collected paper lanterns. I filled my house with them. It was really bright in that house. Lined the stairs with them and balanced them on the bedposts. I also collected skulls. But hey, everybody collects skulls.

There is an area along the north shore of the first set of rapids where you can land. On the northern border of that patch of ground there is a raised area you can see that has a dirt pile in it. Has anyone gotten there? Also, in the maze of twisty passages north of New Halston, there is a pit going down just beyond a pile of rubble. I swear I was able to find my way to it once (from below, coming up), but now I can't repeat the feat.

Okay, on Shanker's Island, there is a guardhouse on the southeast corner. There is a button to press there that opens a short, dead-end corridor. Looking at the map, there appears to be another secret room further into the structure, but I can't find a way into it. I've looked for buttons in the corridor, on the nearby building, even across the way on the island to the south. I've tried using the 'u' key to make sure the button isn't obscured by anything. I just have a hunch that there's a +15 HackMaster hidden in there. And we wants it.

OOOooooo, now I see. So the total armor percentage doesn't matter, as long as the penalties for bulky items don't exceed 5% (or 20%, depending on traits). Much more sense, that is making. Where did I put those neutronium gloves?

It was that post that prompted my own question. The poster says a mage can have a 5% penalty before being unable to cast spells. Where do you find this number?

Is there any way, other than trial and error, to determine when armor is going to interfere with casting magic spells? And do all the worn items count? Does the armor rating of pendants, rings and boots count towards blocking magic? I'm running a party of two characters right now. They need magic in a bad way, but they also need to block damage when critters get past the acid and fire and start chewing on their kneecaps.

I have found that saving your Mined Crystals for the Vahnatai lands is worthwhile. At least so far...

Is there any vendor in the game that will give you more than 25% of the value of an item when you sell it? I suspect not, since every vendor so far, whether they sell at merely Expensive to Highway Robbery, always offer a quarter of the value. But I'd hate to sell all these Platinum Rings for a pittance.