Dodging- Still viable?[G5]

[Krylancelo]

Hey! I'm a long-time lurker and player of the Geneforge series. I have always loved the role playing experience of being an agent or infiltrator. Back in GF2, I played through the game as a battle-magic using dex-pumped dodge build. This was a very viable build paired with the essence armor/shield spells. I ended up being able to dodge almost all of the boss' attacks, even after he reshaped himself. It was an awesome playthrough where the player had to take extra caution when fighting ranged attackers.

This strategy also worked for GF3.

 

Now, I played through GF4 and 5 as a shaper, but I realized that the Tiny Orbs of Mist seem to indicate that a dodge build may still be viable, even though the essence armor and shield spells no longer add to dodge chance. So I started a new game, I'm in the mid twenties and I have just reached perikalia. My dex is 20 and now costs 10 to raise. My luck is 8. I have used three orbs of mist. Without using the Protection Blessing, I can dodge any creature lower than me at 1%. The beetles you encounter outside of Perikalia hit me at around 15%.

 

The problem is, I'm at the point where I need to level two or three times just to add to dex, and it's not getting any better. I figure war tralls and the unbount still hit me at 100%. I seriously doubt, even if I get another 3 orbs of mist and increase my dex by 10 more, I will stand the slightest chance.

 

What's worse is that creatures who should be hitting me at 1% seem to do so a LOT more than once every 100 tries. I don't know if the dice are just stacked against me, but I've never gone 20 times against these guys without being hit. Can anyone weigh in on if I'm missing something, or if this isn't supposed to be a build anymore? It's such a shame if it's not, I love the roleplaying aspect of being essence enhanced to be obscenely fast.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Krylancelo

What's worse is that creatures who should be hitting me at 1% seem to do so a LOT more than once every 100 tries. I don't know if the dice are just stacked against me[...]

I think that means that either
a. The random number generator works poorly, which is a definite possibility, or
b. The display numbers are rounded down, and the actual dodge chance isn't- ie you could have a 4.99999% chance to get hit, which would display a 1%, but you would still be being hit 4.99999% of the time. I don't know if this is true or not, you might want to ask Randomizer or Slarty or someone who knows how the engine works better than me.

[ex post slarto]

Dodging is harder on Torment than on Normal, so difficulty level is relevant. The games where Essence Armor helps you dodge also make it easier. So, it is viable on Normal with old Essence Armor, and it is not viable otherwise. You can often get it to work for short segments especially early on, but it won't last.

 

Note that the dodging bonus from Dexterity and most other skills comes at 5% per point initially, but then at 5% per two points between 11 and 20, and 5% per three points above that. So it's very tough to keep up with enemies whose hit rate rises for free with their level.

 

The display numbers are not perfect, especially (or at least) at the extremes. I posted about that a few years ago and we never figured out what was going on. My best guess is that the cap for the message is at 1% while the cap for the calculation is at 5%.