RaustBlackDragon

I saw a guide say this, and their list of the available canisters seems to back this up. Is this true? Can you really not make Ur-Drakons in G3?

Hey, I'm considering giving Geneforge 3 another shot. The reason I gave up on it the first time was because every option felt like choosing between being a racist or a terrorist. Does anybody have any advice for me about choices I could make that would give me the feeling that I've actually improved the game world rather than make it worse by the end?

(This question is about the series in general, from G2 to G5)

Ever since Geneforge 2 implemented the increasing cost for improving stats (which I like a lot) and halved the stats per level of creations (which I don't like so much), I've generally assumed that even if you're playing as a shaper who doesn't keep creations alive for long and constantly remakes them, the extra levels awarded by higher shaping skill make almost no difference to their performance. Am I right about this? Is there really no reason to go above the requirement for the best creations? Should I wait until I have access to the higher level creations before improving my shaping skills to meet the new requirements?

I always try to leave my boats near towns or other major landmarks, so that if I do forget, I have a limited number of places that I need to check. It usually works out ... but I will admit to having occasionally lost a boat (or two).

This was never a problem for me. I always leave my boat by a town when I go to recharge, and for each boat I always go back to the same town to do that. The thing I mostly used boats for was to explore the areas above fort dranlon and to travel to the freehold.

max level is 63 but after lvl 30 character gets skillpoints every 5th level (trait points prolly stop in lvl 30 since I don'tt remember getting any between lvl 30 and 45).

Max level is 61 actually, I think you may be confusing the max level with the number of skill points you get by level 30.

I picked up the experience bonus traits from lvl 4 and 6 on one of my fighters and he is currently 3 levels higher than the rest of the party. Im still lvl 23, but I think that by the time I get to max level 30, he will be at least 4 or 5 levels higher than the other party. I think that that is a decent amount of bonuses if you count 4 or 5 levels. Thats a +1 strength, dexterity, intelligence, endurance bonus, plus 4 or 5 levels of health and maybe if I reach 35, an extra skill level of 2 points.

 

Basically, its not that powerful, but I just wanted to try that idea out as in your faq, it stated that those traits weren't that good. I don't think its a game changer, but still was far from useless. Thats all.

Thanks for looking into that. I'll reconsider my assessment, though I'm really surprised the impact was that much.

My party of 3 is currently lvl 23, hows your party doing RaustBlackDragon?

Level 11, I took a break from it for a bit, but I'm doing well.

Edit-Oh and I have something we might want to add to your faq when Im done.

Oh? what's that?

Party's doing quite well now. The shade isn't doing as much damage as it used to, but it's still an amazing tank. I really wish I could control it, but even so, it's really helpful. I'm eager to really start loading on the blessing/curse equipment bonuses and get haste 3 to see how Elenaia turns out. I'm also considering upping her priest spells investment to get dominate and return life, since the former is one of the few statuses I haven't made much use of, and the latter is always good to have two casters for.

Epic work Rev! Knew you could do it! Great job!

So how does skill training work when you buy skill points? Does it boost your level without boosting the cost? or does it make those first few skill levels cost money instead of skill points? Why exactly is it recommended that you buy levels in skills with money before training them with skill points?

The name doesn't exactly give it away.

 

Speaking of which, has it ever been established why so many Sliths have names starting with Sss? Does it signify something?

You're thinking about it the wrong way. These our their names converted to the roman alphabet based on sound. Since they're lizards easily capable of making the sound, it stands to reason that "Sss" is probably one of their letters or characters in their alphabet, so its frequency is far from unusual.

And actually looking at the name, it does seem feminine. It's almost like "Marissa" with an N.

The mayor is in his office in the northeast part of the city. You have to report back once you killed the assassin in the temple to the north. He doesn't appear until you have the quest.

I think it's a female assassin, though really that's an incredibly easy mistake to make.

So I ran from a fight with some Aranea, and they had summoned two minor monsters during the battle before I decided to run. My summoned shade kept fighting them, and as I rounded the corner and began to walk away, suddenly I'm in battle again, and I see that a spiny crawler, a zombie, and my summoned shade have all teleported to me at the same time. the summoned shade is still friendly of course, but the enemy summons weren't obviously, and yet the same message appeared for all of them: "X rushes to catch up to you" or something.

Can't decide what's funnier, this bug, or the fact that I never noticed it before now

...Oh my god you're a genius!

Funnily enough, I did the opposite. My first file had a Healer/Archer instead of your mage archer, which worked quite well, and now on my second run I'm going Magical Knight instead of Paladin.

 

And just to gush, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS about this game. I mean basically any RPG class you've ever wanted to use is in this game. It's fantastic.

This is precisely why I wrote this guide. There are people who would have you never do anything even remotely this fun

Even the damage is decent. You lose out on damage overall, but having versatility shouldn't be ENTIRELY underrated. Sword Mage is basically the "Ninja" class with melee and missile weapons with magic instead of missiles. Though I expect Healer-Knights probably are better overall, it's just fun to see a knight slinging fireballs and shooting lightning.

Paladins are awesome, especially their combined survivability and ability to cast return life. But a spellblade sounds cool too. Personally I go for paladin and mage-archer (for obscene rapidfire action), but I'm sure spellblades would have advantages, even if I can't think of any at 3:24 in the morning

Hmm. I may have to invest in that. I've been trying a Sword Mage and I'm increasingly learning that he is significantly more effective when I focus on summoning and debuffs, and just look at damage as a secondary thing...

I've been testing out summoning and buff builds, they seem to be working out for me so far

Of course, you can always go int/str doubleclassing, that works out very well with this ruleset I recommended.

You're absolutely positive that Blessing Focus improves the effect of curses as well? Spells like "Slow" or "Howl of Terror"?

Absolutely positive? Not on a technical level, but yes, I know it's supposed to. You'll notice that there's no distinction at all between blessing and curse bonuses, all equipment that boosts one boosts the other with the same stat.

Ah, thank you. So there is really no reason to continue playing "this" game. However, I would like to try on a higher level, as I played on Normal. Thanks again.

No problem! And if at any point the information you find on this forum somehow causes you to feel pessimistic about your dream character builds, give my guide a read, it might cheer you up

35 is quite doable if you do a lot of outdoor fights, saving up your wisdom crystals for the end also helps as there experience does not scale down with level.

(and you don't get a lot for every party member at level 35, it's just like the normal level gain, without even traits.)

Well actually it has one big benefit:

it makes your total skill points go to a nice round number of 65 rather than 63, so if you're a mage or priest it may be where you put those last two points on those last two skills you were working on.

Is he the one who has the quicksilver bulwark in his horde? If so, you can just go into the horde and escape the back entrance without ever having to fight him.

Which one is Sulfras again? If it's the one I think it is, that information is not quite correct.

Wisdom crystals scale down, but not as fast as other things. I've seen them go from 200 XP down to 186 as a singleton. But using them in combat to go up a level to recharge spell energy is a great use.

Hey Randomizer, any thoughts on my guide? I'd be curious to hear feedback from a seasoned veteran who's heavily studied the game mechanics

Just wondering, I know that spellcraft improves magic damage, but I've also been told it improves healing. What other magical effects does it improve? Does it improve the duration of blessings and curses?

Quick update:

Looks like I was wise to reserve judgment on summoning until I actually tried it, because I'm actually finding it quite useful so far, especially summon shade, which is when they start getting area attacks at their disposal. I suspect I'll be revising my guide to say Summon spells are well worth buying, depends on how summons compare throughout the game from a character without the summoning focus traits, causing them to be 6 levels behind.