FAQ/walkthrough is up

[Schrodinger]

Check here to see my Geneforge 3 walkthrough. It's not yet complete, but soon will be. If you have any additions to the areas I've covered (opinions, skills, trainers) please let me know. I will provide an update sometime next week.

[Travers]

very nice dude

[blackjack]

The Golden Crystal, on a weapon, increases the damage inflicted by the weapon, in its primary damage type. (opposed to steel spines infllicting a separate physical damage)

 

The Tiny Orb of Mist on weapon increases QA. Don't know by how much.

 

You may wish to add that Greta will leave you just before you take the boat from Harmony to Dhonal's isle if you have killed Lankan and the rebels.

[MrRoivas]

Please add more info, and please make it a little more organized. I'd espcially like to see more info on PCs and on creations.

[Walter]

You may want to change your description of parry. Now it reduces the damage you take when you are hit like more armor-blocking attacks entirely is no longer its main function. Therefore it is not as useless as you make it sound. Also you may make note that essence armor also increases your max hp total.

[Hume]

Damage type is important now.

So I hope you will add it in your faq.

 

damage types

f: fire

c: cold

m: magical

p: physical

a: acid

o: poison

s: searer, does direct magical damage, and subsequent acid damage.

 

ranged/melee

 

Fyroa f/p

Cyroa c/p

Roamer s/p

Pyroroamer p

Drayk f/p

Cryodrayk c/p

Drakon m/p

Ur-Drakon m/p

 

Thahd p

Thahd shade p

Clawbug p

Plated Clawbug p

Battle Alpha p

Battle Beta p

Rotghroth a

Rotdhirzon a

 

Artila s/p

Searing Artila s/p

Vlish m/p

Terror Vlish o/p

Galaahk p

Ur-Glaahk p

Gazer m/m

Eyebeast f/m

[Schrodinger]

Blackjack- thanks, will add. I had figured out the increase in QA from the tiny orb of mist, but I haven't tried any tests with it.

 

Walter- Has that been verified with Essence Armor? I thought people had found it didn't do that. Hm. Also, any idea on the damage percent lost by parry? I know that's part of the description, but I want to make sure it actually does that.

 

Hume- thanks, will add.

[Contra]

Essence Armor increases dodge now. Parry decreases damage taken and might allow you to deflect an attack (low chance)

[Travers]

You can find pretty detailed information about creations in the gf3*.txt files.

Also, is energy damage the same thing as magical damage? I don't remember seeing energy damage, but I didn't pay all that close attention.

 

Also, Hume, the "searer" damage category seems a bit misleading. First, there's no such thing as "direct magical damage", it still goes through resistance like regular magical damage. And secondly, the acid damage simply comes from the inflicted status affect; but many other creations can inflict different status affects too.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

The body in the SE corner of Southern Marsh is well guarded for what it has. Icy crystal and healing spores. Also a regular iron shield.

 

*this message is a contribution to a great body of knowledge*

[Zeviz]

Tiny correction: Leadership 10 is enough for Acid Valley.

 

About leadership, maybe you could include a note that in most cases using leadership gives you some experience. In fact, sometimes you'll get more experience from using leadership than from killing the enemy. So the skill partially pays for itself.

 

A couple additions:

1. With 10 (or 12?) leadership you can talk your way past Greinter's guards in Main Army Base. (So you don't have to go in through the back door.) Killing these guards is also an option and doesn't make the town hostile. In fact, if you are feeling evil, you could use leadership to get them to open the door and then kill them anyway.

 

2. In Darkstone Core, if you have 10 leadership (or less?), you can temporarily disable the servant mind so it doesn't help Hsssak during battle.

 

3. In South Dhonal Road you'll meed 3 serviles near entrance to purification plant. Talk to any of them and say goodbye. You should notice some unusual behavior. Talk to any of them again and ask what they do. When he gestures to a forest, you'll see armor hiden under his cloak and realize that they are spies. These are the spies Sestilla (in Fort Wilton) wants you to find.

 

4. In Mountain Pass, if you kill all roamers before they can call reinforcements and keep going along the road, you'll be able to avoid a fight until you get to guard rooms. It might have been a glitch, but one time I was attacked when I was pulling the lever in the guardroom and another time I wasn't attacked at all and was able to get to Dhonal Keep without a fight.

[Hume]

Quote:

Originally written by Travers:
You can find pretty detailed information about creations in the gf3*.txt files.
Also, is energy damage the same thing as magical damage? I don't remember seeing energy damage, but I didn't pay all that close attention.

Also, Hume, the "searer" damage category seems a bit misleading. First, there's no such thing as "direct magical damage", it still goes through resistance like regular magical damage. And secondly, the acid damage simply comes from the inflicted status affect; but many other creations can inflict different status affects too.

Do you mean the gf3objmisc.txt?
It does't tell the data belong to which creation, only something like"begindefineability 17",
how can I tell which belongs to which?

Yes, magical and energy are one and the same.

[Walter]

I concluded that about essence armor from using an armor potion which says its effect is essence armor as I haven't gotten far enough to cast it yet. As for parry, it says that in the description in the stats screen, in fact it only says it has a chance of blocking attacks entirely at "high levels".

[Walter]

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:
I concluded that about essence armor from using an armor potion which says its effect is essence armor as I haven't gotten far enough to cast it yet. As for parry, it says that in the description in the stats screen, in fact it only says it has a chance of blocking attacks entirely at "high levels" which is how it used to describe your chance of a riposte in geneforge 2.

Edit: Oops, no idea how I did that, was trying to edit my post.

[Lilith]

Yes, we know the description for Parry says that, but sometimes the descriptions lie. What we'd like is some kind of evidence of just how much damage it blocks. (From my experience, it definitely does seem to block some damage, though.)

[Hume]

A few important items:

 

Shield

All-Protector 12%, +5 HER +20 SR +2 Levels of damage 1250

 

Charm

Essence Charm +1 Int, +3 HER +8 MERC 525

 

Vambrace

Gazerskin Vambraces:

Armor: +%4

+10% to stun resistance

+2 to Malee weapons

+10% to stun resistance of creations

+10 to mind effect resistance of creations

 

Blasted Vambraces

armor +%9

+3%to stun resistance

-5 % to hit chance

+1 to strength

+2 to parry

 

Glove

Putrefied Gauntlets

8% armor, str -2, dex -2, 20% resist acid, +4 spellcraft

 

You also forget the +2 levels of damage about this

Emerald Chestguard 50%, +2 AP, +2 HER, +18% SR 1250

[Contra]

Quote:

Originally written by Zeviz:
With 10 (or 12?) leadership you can talk your way past Greinter's guards in Main Army Base. (So you don't have to go in through the back door.) Killing these guards is also an option and doesn't make the town hostile. In fact, if you are feeling evil, you could use leadership to get them to open the door and then kill them anyway.

2. In Darkstone Core, if you have 10 leadership (or less?), you can temporarily disable the servant mind so it doesn't help Hsssak during battle.
.

Need 12 for Main Army base.
9 is enough for Darkstone core, possibly 8.

[Walter]

I would guess each point of parry is probably equivalent to a certain % of armor, but as for how much the testing needed would be complicated and time consuming.

[Contra]

"Speak with Gretchen to buy new spells, as well as improve

you magic skills, and to improve Gretchen's attack to Searer."

 

From the FAQ. Just a minor error, should be "Speak with Gretchen to improve Greta's attack to Searer"

 

Edit: Might aswell add my two cents on diffrent places aswell.

 

Inner Keep has an Artilla Tunic (+2BM -1 MM, I think) in a drawer in the more common areas, guarded by two guards. Might be worth taking at this stage of the game, atleast for an Agent.

[Travers]

Quote:

Originally written by Hume:

Quote:

Originally written by Travers:
You can find pretty detailed information about creations in the gf3*.txt files.
Also, is energy damage the same thing as magical damage? I don't remember seeing energy damage, but I didn't pay all that close attention.

Also, Hume, the "searer" damage category seems a bit misleading. First, there's no such thing as "direct magical damage", it still goes through resistance like regular magical damage. And secondly, the acid damage simply comes from the inflicted status affect; but many other creations can inflict different status affects too.

Do you mean the gf3objmisc.txt?
It does't tell the data belong to which creation, only something like"begindefineability 17",
how can I tell which belongs to which?

Yes, magical and energy are one and the same.

Yes, gf3obmisc and gf3itemchars. Gf3itemchars has creation definitions and has data linking to their abilities.

Also, where do you find the blasted vambraces?

[Walter]

As for that artilla skin tunic, not really as you get one on the first island in kentia south gate.

[plazma_fd]

yeah um it takes awhile to read through all f that

so i was wondring why not split it into sections so people can easily find what the want.? just wondering because your layout is horrile and unlseess you want to read all of that it isnnt very helpful........and if you need help setting it up im good with html. jusst offeren

[Schrodinger]

Gamefaqs only allows text documents, so no division via html. Zeviz helped a bundle with splitting A2 and Nethergate, though.

 

EDIT: If you would like, once I've finished, I'm open to having someone make a webpage out of it.

 

Thank you all for the additions. I will try putting them in shortly.

[Hume]

Sorry, pal.

I found it in the item editor.

[Contra]

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:
As for that artilla skin tunic, not really as you get one on the first island in kentia south gate.

I never found that the Artilla there auto-dropped one. Thought i was luck-based.

[Fyora Toast With Roamer Butter]

In Spharon's Lands you can get some of the serviles to join you and attack Spharon. You also need to destroy a crystal to kill Spharon.

 

Some strategy points.

 

1) If you close doors you can steal everything in a room with nobody seeing you. Also creatures which are patrolling will not see you.

 

2) If you move quickly you can run in and out of areas to get things. I got the golem notes initially without having to fight the golem this way. It is possible to run through the infested pathway enhanced by a speed spell and avoid most of the fights, trick the battle alpha making it run away, then run into the madness mire. Then run for the twin mind tunnels avoiding fights. Once you kill the twin minds-- you can go back and fight everything.

 

3) In Khor's Deep it is good to disable the charging platform before Hoge can do anything.

 

4) A good strategy is to channel monsters into doorways or tunnels so you can block being swarmed.

[Walter]

Quote:

Originally written by Contra:

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:
As for that artilla skin tunic, not really as you get one on the first island in kentia south gate.

I never found that the Artilla there auto-dropped one. Thought i was luck-based.

It is? I killed it 3 times and got it every time.

[Drakefyre]

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:

Quote:

Originally written by Contra:

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:
As for that artilla skin tunic, not really as you get one on the first island in kentia south gate.

I never found that the Artilla there auto-dropped one. Thought i was luck-based.

It is? I killed it 3 times and got it every time.

There's a percentage set for item dropping.

[Dolphin]

Schrodinger - Not sure if these would be of help to you or not, but here are a few commonly needed SDFs (used as any cheat code).

 

sdf 34 5 1 - Master Hoge is not in Bulwark Inn or attacks the PC rather than running away. (Makes it so the commander will speak with you.)

 

sdf 100 4 0 - Never used canisters.

 

sdf 81 1 1 - Bug fix; Completes Vrabel's quest in Icy End to kill Orois Blaze in Breeding Valley.

 

sdf 79 4 0 - Undoes Icy End going hostile after PC entered the brood cave in Spire Forrest.

[Beamup]

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:

Quote:

Originally written by Contra:

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:
As for that artilla skin tunic, not really as you get one on the first island in kentia south gate.

I never found that the Artilla there auto-dropped one. Thought i was luck-based.

It is? I killed it 3 times and got it every time.

IMX, it seems that items drops are determined when you enter a zone. So, if you entered a zone, got lucky on the RNG, then saved, you could reload that save ad infinitum and get the same lucky drop every time. Could that account for your observation?

[neophyte]

Ya its wierd I could never find that artilla. Even looking at your walkthrough I couldn't find it and I made three files looking for it.

[Drakefyre]

I couldn't find it on my first play-through either, but it's in a secluded little grove by the ladder down.

 

Dingy, a suggestion: split up the canister locations by island so people can tell better what they can get on which island.

[neophyte]

Thanks! Drakefyre!

[Walter]

No, I had played through the early game 3 separate times.

[Learned Noremac]

In the recipes list you say the All Protector is from unmelting ice and a perfect shield, but according to Hawthorne you need solidified flame as well.

 

Other than that, its looking pretty awesome

[Beamup]

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:
No, I had played through the early game 3 separate times.

Well, scratch one bright idea.

[Hume]

That artila will only appear when you accept the quest from the guard near north gate.

 

I found that tunic on the artila every time too.

Yes, some item drops are not 100%.

But some are. And I believe this artila is one of them.

[Walter]

Two things, first of all if you are carrying lankan's canister and talk to him you aren't forced to either give it to him or kill all the rebels; destroying it makes them hostile but you can run away and exit the zone and no one outside that zone will notice they went hostile, and you can still first give norrell's message and get an experience reward for destroying the calming stone before the canister triggers.

 

Secondly, you note that if you give him the canister you can leave the island at your leisure, but you can also leave at your leisure if you kill lankan (diwaniya is so horrified he wants you off the island), so you don't have to destroy the spawners to get to dhonal's island as a loyalist.

[Walter]

Just noticed the recipies section is messed up and you are missing one of the ingrediants for each artifact.

[Schrodinger]

The recipes section is actually designed to look like that- namely the two critical ingredients are above and below the perfected item. I did this so that people can see the choices they have for the artifacts. However, I can see how it would be confusing. I will add some text describing this better.

 

An update with most of this info will be followed up with tomorrow. Thank you all!

[Walter]

A few more things to point out or pieces of advice:

 

In the school, do NOT insult Therese and when you talk to her upstairs she will give you some item (I forget what) when you ask her for supplies. If you insulted her she mentions so when you ask. (though the insult is true as she is too cowardly to help fight any more rogues.

 

In the gatherer camp, when I had them disarm the mines for me it still allowed me to disarm them for exp, they just didn't trigger when I got near.

 

If you have 8 or higher leadership you can convince Diawaniya to provide reinforcements to attack the rogues. This will cause a battle alpha, a glaak, and a roamer to appear near the supply cache in the infested pathway that will follow you around and fight for you, and will continue to do so in the madness mire.

 

The reward for fixing the shaping vat isn't just the living tools, you also get an essence pod.

 

There is an alternate quest for the papers from the research notes from the shed near fort wilton from a person in the Bulwark inn, which causes the door with the recipies and valuable items to be unlocked, and he implies you may see him later (who he is aligned with and what he wants the papers for he refuses to tell you, and he disappears if you give the other guy the papers).

 

On south Dhonal road, when you talk to the group of 3 serviles multiple times you can expose them as rouges (I think you need to talk to the differently colored one after noticing one of them say they were "happy to help" which is unusual for a servile to say) by causing him to make a gesture allowing you to see his armor. Killing them satisfies Celeste's quest but I forget the reward. If you are pro rebel after finding them you still get some experience but not the reward by claiming there weren't any rogue serviles.

 

After clearing the Mountain Pass ambush, return to the area later and there will be a guard there who can give you an item enhancement gem.

 

Sciolino in the Inner keep will upgrade Alwan's sword for 800(I think, might have been a hundred higher or lower), or free if you have sufficient leadership and have recieved a mission from Rahul.

 

Edit: I found that you can sneak into the room with the servant mind controlling the golems (walk in when the person who repairs the golems back is turned and close the door, leaving creations outside so you know when to reopen it and come back out, as if he sees you twice the town goes hostile), and you can tell it to "make it so the golems will never attack me" and it says it is decreasing thier sense radius several times and gives you a few experience. Not sure what good this will do though.

 

Edit: you should note that strength increases stun resistance, dexterity acid resistance, intelligence mind resistance, and endurance poison resistance, that wearing armor will increase your fire cold and energy resistance by half as much as the armor % making many damage type resistance armors useless to hold on to in favor of higher armor or core stat boosting equipment.

 

Edit: Perhaps note that fire shaping is a better choice for rebels than loyalists as drayks are the only third tier creation you can't get without canisters or rebel trainers, you need to use 3 canisters to get cryodrayks (only other creation you need to use multiple canisters to get improved version is eyebeasts with 2) and drakons are the only 4th tier creation a loyalist can't get any points in other than from canisters, and ur-drakons are impossible for loyalists.

 

Edit: maybe advise that you can cast the semi-permanent blessing spells on all your creations provided you have enough essence to cast them once if there is an essence pool on the map or if you are willing to use a bunch of essence pods as casting them does not prevent you from restoring the used essence. This makes many difficult fights more manageable for shapers.

 

Edit: maybe note that terror vlish will actually NOT cause terror. thier ranged attack deals poison damage (only creation with that damage type, and many types of enemies, including but not limited to pylons and golems, fully resist it forcing you to use thier mellee attack or nothing), and poisons the enemy. Thier mellee also poisons but deals physical damage. However the amount of damage done by thier ranged attack seems quite high.

[neophyte]

I also noticed that if you kill just lankan and the guards San Ru is very upset at you and the women at the bar gets mad at you for killing her husband. Kinda wierd.

[Contra]

Weird and weird, most of those people knew the rebels, and did not want to solve it by violence, nor did the shaper of San Ru.

[Schrodinger]

Hi all, the FAQ has been updated. I've taken most peoples comments/additions up through Saturday and have added them.

 

Also, the layout is slightly improved- a bit more definition between sections. Let me know what you think.

 

Thanks!

[Walter]

Another thing: the quest Stringer on the northshore bridge gives you isn't about the guards on the bridge, he tells you about them but that's not what you need to take care of to complete the quest and you can complete his quests and have him leave before dealing with them. He is concerned with the rogues in the infiltrated shore area. Of course when you reach him you will have almost certainly taken care of that already though. Also though you can get by the bridge guards without a fight with leadership, you should get significantly more experience by killing them.

 

Edit: Mass energize does bless and haste as you indicate, but it also heals everyone as well. This is like several spells unlike the description in the help file which says it shields you, not heals you. Also the blessing will last considerably shorter than with war blessing, and the haste shorter than speed as well, and is weak enough you need significantly more skill to avoid getting only a half strength haste (end up with 10 ap instead of 12).

 

Edit: just noticed your items section is missing the stats for the crystalline shroud.

 

Edit: Two things about the sea caves: If you have sufficient leadership you can get Aiglos to help you fight the rogues until the venomous artilla dies at which point he goes back. And one of the rooms in thier base you can enter without getting attacked that has an iron sword (strongest weapon on the island) on the ground you can steal with the creation trick.

 

Edit: just found you can get General Greiner to make it so the acid sprayers in acidic valley won't attack you after you bring him orders. However by doing so you miss out on the experience for disarming them.

 

Edit: you can also steal the items from rahuls private chambers safely even without permission. There is only one guard who will cause the keep to go hostile, and that is if he sees you beyond a certain doorway. However he patrols between the two different directions so you can sneak by him in either direction. you will have to fight the two Ur-glaaks, but they shouldn't be too difficult and won't get anyone else angry for doing so.

 

Edit: Sciolino also gives you some steel spines in addition to the discount for telling him about the anvil.

[Drakefyre]

Dingy:

 

In the section where you write about what the best equipment is, it would be worthwhile to mention that it's helpful to keep any infiltrator items around to boost mechanics when picking locks, disarming traps, etc. I usually keep anything with a leadership bonus too, just for those special situations when a few more points will open a door or unlock another dialogue option.

 

Parry maxes out at a certain % to block an attack - either around 25% or 13%. Still, I found it an invaluable skill.

 

In the Searer section, I'd mention that the acid damage really hurts golems too.

 

Again, Acid Shower helps a lot with golems.

 

Mental Barrier helps with weak creations (and Alwan and Greta) trying to fight off a lot of Vlish.

 

The Charisma effect can be achieved through item use too, so it's basically useless, although augmenting it with items could make it very helpful in rare occasions.

 

Pyroroamers explode when destroyed, and they're generally used like grenades. Not worth it, IMO.

 

Plated Clawbugs have 10 AP and can attack twice. Pretty nice.

 

Artilas and Searing Artilas can be quite strong at high levels, and used in combination with Vlish are nearly unstoppable in the early-mid game.

 

With the fourth tough fight in the testing grounds, I like to spread out to the corners so that only two pylons max can damage you at a time. Also, placing creations in the corners before triggering the fight will help end it quickly.

 

That's all for now.

[Walter]

You may want to fix the typo where you describe where the infiltrator's vest is and misspell it in the purificaton plant as that can cause someone to search the document for it and not find it and wonder where it is.

 

Edit: also in the item stats section it is missing stats for the infiltrator's vest and only says "infiltrator's" instead of infiltrator's vest.

 

Edit: also maybe you should list the weights of items. This is useful as some characters may need to equip +strength equipment merely to be able to equip what they wear plus some useable items, and wearing an item that is a few pounds lighter may help eliminate the need for a point of strength.

[Schrodinger]

Weight is a great idea, but probably something I'm not going to be able to do at present since it's been a pain finding all those items a second time, and a third will probably drive me crazy. Although if it comes down to it, I could just look up the scripts.

 

Hopefully the item list will be straightened up a bit shortly, and will look better in the next version.

[Walter]

A few notes about searing artilla:

 

For some reason they are immune to poison for whatever little that's worth.

 

They have an abnormally high level at creation, only creations with higher level are third and fourth teir creations and terror vlish, so if you make one as soon as you reach san ru and keep it alive it will likely be high enough level that it will be as high a level as new creations you could make by the time you get third tier creations available and higher level than anything you will otherwise make on harmony isle (you can make terror vlish after getting a canister at the rebel camp, but due to thier damage being poison type they are useless in very many battles.)

[Drakefyre]

People wanted to know where to find the Blasted Vambraces. They're in Benerii-Eo Vat Core.