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Mid-combat Shaping[G5]


Argorath
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It would be handy for when a creation dies and you've got the essence to spare, but how often does this actually come up?

 

—Alorael, who can answer his own question: rarely, but it's most likely in very hard fights, and those are the fights where you want to have more tactics to try. That's probably why you can't do it: it would mess with balance if your party were, with essence pods, potentially limitless.

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But shapers like guardians and rawal and alwan and astoria can summon creations! It made it a major pain to kill astoria and make the sage counciler to run away!(by the way, my mission on killing councilers and world domination is coming along well).

 

AND I saw unbound that can shape in the dera reaches for crying out loud!

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The Shapers you see shaping in mid combat are all veterans with far more skill than you. The one plausible exception would be the apprentice at the end of the first chapter in GF4. Then again, he had more formal training than any PC (except possibly the GF5 PC, who is just rusty and, well a mental train-wreck).

 

Unbound are different. Honestly, given their description at the end of GF4, I don't think they have the mental facilities necessary to shape. Maybe it was shaped into them as a reflex action?

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Quote:
But shapers like guardians and rawal and alwan and astoria can summon creations!


With the councilors, this is justified in that they're in their home bases, surrounded by shaping machinery under their control. If you were in similar circumstances, you could probably shape in combat, too, it's just that this never really comes up. With other shapers and unbound this makes less sense, and is mostly just a matter of game balance: you bring all your creations with you, they don't.
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Originally Posted By: Master1
The one plausible exception would be the apprentice at the end of the first chapter in GF4.

He also summons really weak creations that don't require much effort. Game mechanics aside, if the PC knew how to shape worms, then the PC could probably shape them in combat too. But what would be the point?

Dikiyoba.
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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Originally Posted By: Master1
The one plausible exception would be the apprentice at the end of the first chapter in GF4.

He also summons really weak creations that don't require much effort. Game mechanics aside, if the PC knew how to shape worms, then the PC could probably shape them in combat too. But what would be the point?

Dikiyoba.


Right. I was going to say that also, but forgot.

Originally Posted By: Trenton the Drakon
But what about Dera Reaches unbound! I could take out the Mera-Tev ones easily, and now they can shape? This is getting ridiculous


Like I said in my previous post, the most plausible answer is that the Unbound have a reflex action to shape. Since they are so mindlessly powerful, they don't think about shaping as a Shaper has to. As I see it, the Unbound where "programmed" so that their shaping a creation takes as much thought as your flinching when hit.
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It's already clear that there's something different between how you shape and how others shape, at least some of the time. All your creations rely on your essence. They can go slightly rogue in that they stop obeying, but they can't run off without you they can be easily absorbed, and even drayks, drakons, and gazers have no independence or intelligence.

 

My entirely unfounded explanation is that you're doing the quick and dirty version of shaping. You just push your essence into creature shapes and call it a day. You get very good at it, and you can be quite powerful, but you're not shaping the way many others are. You don't know how to craft something independent in a vat, create free creations to send out with others, or make free-willed creations.

 

—Alorael, who has no idea what that has to do with shaping in combat. It's just already quite clear that you aren't doing the same things as most of the more experienced shapers. It's possible that they can do what you do, and they can do it in combat. They just usually don't because it's the kludge version of shaping that you don't normally rely on when you have time and access to adequate facilities.

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