Walter

Thing about those bonus points confusing you about how much more skill you need, is that most traits that add to skills add more points as you go up in levels. Every few levels my two characters with pure spirit and natural mage get bonus levels of mage and priest spells and magical efficiency (I first noticed this when I found my priest could cast mage spells she couldn't earlier). My nephil with nimble fingers and elite warrior keeps getting bigger bonuses to many skills, including bows, tool use, first aid, parry, blademaster, and gymnastics. Also my slith occassionally gets extra levels in pole weapons.

Actually he was underground one map square south of the goblin lair. As for the rats, there actually are fewer than 10 places where they can appear, so you have to visit them multiple times to get enough tails.

I ordered mine yesterday, and just got the email about 15 minutes ago. I guess he was backed up with a huge quantity of orders to process as the windows release was so recent.

Well now alchemy consists of taken your herbs to certain npcs to use in potions, so now you don't have to spend a number of your limited skill points on it. As for secret doors, it could get tedious trying to walk into each and every square of wall everywhere.

Well as for when you lie to protect a servile, I assume that word about you liking serviles comes from the servile talking about you, not his keeper.

It is perfectly possible to do the monastery of tears when you first can reach the boat, though it is rather hard at that point. The really dangerous area, the monastery caves which is beneath there is the area you can only enter with items from benerri-uss and has the hardest monsters in the game, but is totally optional and not very significant plotwise. As the hintbook describes it, it is really just a test to see how powerful your character is. Although there are a few really powerful items there, if you are capable of getting them you could have done any other area in the game without them.

Actually, though it might not be the case for you, for creations, including alwan and greta, increasing dex only seems to increase chance to avoid attacks. Unfortunately, even with investing heavily in it from the start you are unlikely to end up with them dodging a large enough fraction of attacks for it to be worthwhile instead of increasing endurance, so I would avoid increasing it until you've maxed out the rest of the stats. As for energy, I've never used greta, but people here seem to indicate that once you upgrade her attacks she'll use more, and even more so once you are able to cast mass energize, so unless you are frequently having her run away terrified it is probably better to hold off on it at the start but to get some a bit later.

Also keep in mind that alwan will eventually leave you if you play as a rebel, and greta will eventually leave you if you play as loyal (you can only keep them through the end of dhonal's island, but if you either help or kill the rebels on harmony island one of them will leave you at the end of harmony island).

There are a few points where canister use forces you into a fight you can otherwise avoid, it doesn't matter too much in terms of gameplay overall, but using more than 6 affects some of the ending text.

That rotting touch ability on the oozing blade means it will do acid instead of physical damage and slows the target. I checked and a reviving crystal (I think it has the same graphic as a tiny orb of mist) makes a weapon drain hp when you hit, and making your attacks heal yourself seems somewhat more useful than a slight damage increase like most enhancements give. (you can also add slow, curse, or slight accuracy bonus). As for armor enhancements, the best choice is golden crystals for 5% resistance to all effects except physical damage (they are rare but there are just about enough to enchant a full set of armor in the game). Other than that you could add steel spines to damage attackers, or blessing crystals for armor. Other armor enhancements are either of marginal benefit or only useful against a fraction of enemies (ones that use a certain damage type), and otherwise useless.

Spoiler . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . . .. You aren't really doing anyone a favor by not killing lankan if you plan on being loyal, as in the loyalist ending it says the rebels there are mostly slain anyway.

Doesn't one of the item enhancements drain hp from your enemy? I haven't played as mellee but I think that is considered the way to go. Also, there is no real consensus on what the best equipment is at any given point as it in part depends on what character you are using and what skills you are depending on. Just look at the stats on all the equipment you can find to decide what to wear, and if you are having trouble no matter what you wear you may have made poor choices in stat placement perhaps or are using poor strategies.

Quote: Originally written by Zeviz: [QB]- Normally, it takes years to master magic, shaping and combat technique. However, you can learn them instantly if you pay the right trainers. (Why couldn't your school hire these trainers and save tons of teaching time?) QB] In both Geneforge 2 and 3 it is explained that shapers are trained to learn very quickly without need for repetition, but are taught very little early on.

Well if your creations are getting charmed or hit with fear don't forget the mental barrier spell. And alwan and greta leaving has nothing to do with what views you tell people you have, but certain specific actions will make them leave you at the docks area. On harmony alwan leaves if you help the rebels, and greta leaves if you killed lankan.

Or alternately you can get into the inner keep by using several living tools to pick the lock on a door in the northeast which has a passageway into a storeroom in the inner keep.

There is only one gaurd who triggers going hostile if he sees you and he patrols back and forth between the two directions pausing briefly at both ends. You just wait for him to walk by then go the direction he came from, and close the door behind you so he doesn't see you when he comes back.

Remember, unless its an aura of flames attack when an enemy casts a multi target spell it only hits those near the main target, just like when you cast essence orbs.

Well if you are going to exploit a bug to get infinite money to do that, its not really any different in principle from just using a cheat script to do it, just a bit more time consuming.

Wonder if the penalty is the same for just helping the rebels on harmony or killing khyrk, and weather for some offenses you are forgiven if you didn't use the canisters but not otherwise. Makes it kind of tempting to play through the entire game as a rebel, but then when you get to the geneforge destroy it (someone said the boat in dhonal west gate is triggered by destroying the geneforge, not talking to rahul so it should work), or play as a loyalist until gull then switch.

Bind foe is in the foul cavern, haste is in the tower of the magi, lightning spray in the gremlin cave. Firebalst in the aranea cave, safe travel in the crypt of drath, unshackle mind in formello, divine fire in the bat cave (you will probably not have the required rune reading (or the spell at level 1) when you first explore there, its hidden somewhere near the altar past all the lava). Return life is in the slith temple, and the divine/arcane spells are indeed rewarded for the 3 major quest, reward at either the castle or erika's tower. Does anyone know what happened to the annotated maps site or when the guy who made it was last heard from?

With the skill points you can increase thier primary stats, and will probably max those all out at +12 each by the end of the game. At 2 points in the game you can get certain people to upgrade thier attacks. I haven't used greta but the second time you upgrade alwan's attacks he causes acid when he hits, so for greta there is probably a change in attack effect as well as a damage upgrade for her as well. Edit: the second upgrade for alwan is jolana, and khyrk for greta.

I remember in the creature faq for geneforge 2 the only differences were a higher creation level, and more hp. I made one in geneforge 3 and it still seemed to be the case. It probably isn't worth it, but was rather interesting to see once when near the end of the game I casted augmentation and essence armor on it and it ended up with over a thousand hp.

Remember you will get a false sense of eyebeasts hitting for much less if you are attacking fire resistant enemies. They will do much less damage to certain foes (most noteably drakons) than others, but to many foes the damage is similar. Unfortunately they do run out of energy faster though. One thing I did notice though is that the description says gazers cause terror with thier mellee attack, but that never happened for me, but it always mentions terror or terror being resisted when my eyebeast did a mellee attack (which may be advisable when fighting fire resistant enemies as it is magic damage).

Huh? how do you criticise him for not liking artifacts then complain about him using one instead of the quicksilver bulwark? Edit: on further reflection how he differs from you is he seems to favor defense more than offense (especially concerning +ap items)

Then again, when I fought akhari blaze I killed him in one and a half rounds so the summoned creatures didn't even get a chance to attack him (I was a shaper with alwan, an ur-glaak, a rotdhizon, a gazer, and an eyebeast. Except alwan all were over level 35, some over level 40, half of which had attacked the second round when he died). However the agent from the besieged camp ended up getting in one hit for 20 something damage. Of course I suppose it might have been tougher on torment or if you were playing an agent or guardian, in which case the summoning platform switch + the loyalist from the besieged camp would then make it pretty hard to lose.