Funny thing in Geneforge 2

[Learned Noremac]

So, not sure if this has been noticed before. But in Geneforge 2, at the very start of the game, if you're playing as a Guardian, you can kill Shanti the second you see her. I forget the details...it's been a while since I played, but basically she's not strong enough to survive a Guardian's melee attack, at least assuming you put skill points in the right places.

 

There's no reprocussions, too. Shantis in later areas are their own characters, and the game assumes you never try to kill her. So she will continue to show up where she's supposed to.

[Kelandon]

Huh. Would be interested to see if anyone can replicate this and determine exactly what the skills are. (Parry, I assume?)

[Learned Noremac]

No, no Parry. I'll try it again when I have time later tonight. But I mean that you can quite honestly one shot her, immediately, with your starting skill points--I guess maybe just invest mostly in strength and melee weapons. Since you're starting with the first attack, you don't need to survive anything she does.

 

It sort of makes sense, if you think about it. She only "needs" to be strong enough to not be killed by the tutorial's Fyoras. If they make her too strong, you won't get to do any fighting yourself during that last little encounter. Nothing in that first area has a damage output comparable to Guardian melee swings, even at the first level.

[Triumph]

Confirmed. I just tried it. I put most of my points in melee, with an extra point of strength (so...4 STR, 8 Melee, I think). Shanti stays on the move in the first zone, so I found it tricky to get a chance to attack (what with the old need-5-AP-to-attack system), but once I did...BOOM, one hit and no more Shanti. And she reappears next zone like nothing happened.

 

I remember some funky exploits in terms of who I could kill without consequence in G3 too.

[Student of Trinity]

Do you get a huge pile of exp for this, or is it just silliness?

 

If you do get exp, can you find a way to farm her?

[Triumph]

I think it was 120 XP? So nothing huge. And I'm not sure how you really exploit or repeat killing her...

[Student of Trinity]

In G4 you can get a heap of XP right in the first zone, if you get in the killing blow on this Battle Alpha (or something) that Greta fights. I thought this might be similar, but I guess the point is that Shanti isn't actually very tough.

[Kelandon]

I was not a fan of the "getting experience from landing the killing blow" approach to XP for reasons much like that.

[Questionably Legal]

In G4 you can get a heap of XP right in the first zone, if you get in the killing blow on this Battle Alpha (or something) that Greta fights. I thought this might be similar, but I guess the point is that Shanti isn't actually very tough.

I could never do that. In fact, I almost never got any XP in G4 from any(non-boss) enemy that a NPC did much damage to, including everthing in the first zone. It left me with the impression that you needed to do the majority of damage in order to get XP for killing anything. How did you do that!?

 

Unless you're using cheats to be waaay tougher than you should be in that zone.

[Randomizer]

It a question of luck and timing. You have to get the death blow, but you are a level 1 character that might not hit or Greta might kill it first.

[Lauren CW]

In G4, you can also, very carefully, pull the rest of the Shaper camp to Greta, last hitting them for bonus EXP and potentially starting yourself off with an... iron sword. Or maybe it was a steel sword. I don't remember. But it was a random drop from one of the monsters from that camp.

[Trenton.]

Or Debugkill and get tonnes load of experience from the War Trall, the Kyshaak, and the other monsters in the lower right hand corner...