School of Hard Knocks

[Old Scratch]

I started playing the demo of Geneforge 1 today, and I like it a lot so far. If I decide to buy the series, I'm probably going to play them in order, so I'm starting with the first installment.

 

However, I've noticed that Geneforge is rather difficult. I know there's an option to adjust the game's difficulty, but I don't like to use that feature if I don't absolutely have to.

 

Anyway, I'm in Watchhill with a level 3 Shaper, and I feel like death is always only a few seconds away. The ogre-like creatures can kill my character in one hit. I tried increasing his Endurance, and I got two whole points of bonus Health! (Yay!) I'm also wearing the best armor I can find.

 

So I keep saving the game after every single combat, because I might die in the next, and there's really not a lot I can do about it. Is this common in the early stages of the game with a Shaper, or is it just me?

[Randomizer]

I'm trying it with an Agent and a Guardian too. I'm just past that point and from what I've seen with the walkthrough it's not going to be better for a while.

 

Shapers and Agents get almost no benefit from increased endurance. Guardians get the most according to the formulas.

 

Shapers are meant to hang back and let their creations take the damage for them. Agents are supposed to blast first and hope nothing is left to fight them. The next section north of Watchhill is no better. The Atrilla nail you with poison or is it acid so you can't fight more than one at a time.

 

I tried the Dry Wastes north of the Bandit Woods only to find that the monsters do over 100 points of damage.

 

Raise quick action to go ahead of the monsters and just save often. It's suppose to get better eventually.

[Zeviz]

Watchhill is a pretty tough area for a new player. Later Geneforge games had a more gentle introduction. For a shaper, my favorite strategy is a "deadweight shaper": invest all skill points into intelligence, make as many creatures as you can, and let them do all the work. You shaper doesn't need much Endurance, because he should never get hit.

 

Other than that, the only advice I can give you is to move carefully, engaging 1 enemy at a time and not approaching the spawner until you are ready for it. Also, keep a couple of backup saves, because if you accidentally wake up the spawner when you aren't ready (you'll see notes about spawner actions), you'll have to reload an earlier save.

[Nick Ringer]

Right, I never liked playing the Shaper class. You can't be "in" the battle, and your creations leech your experience and essence.

 

The first time I played Geneforge I used a Guardian. Good old Dakro. I think it's a good balance of skills; since most equippable items boost the PC's battle skills, you're able to kill any common enemy within one turn, provided you can get next to it. You have enough magic skills to heal yourself, and you can make some basic creations as "cannon fodder" or "meat shields." A couple Fyora can add projectile attacks to your arsenal if enemies tend to run away. Besides, a Shaper gets his ass kicked in those "hazardous" areas.

 

This argument of mine has inspired me to make a poll on the subject ...

 

Oh, are you called "Old Scratch" from Pink Floyd's secret message? I love The Wall).

[Old Scratch]

This was just a mild complaint, and I did manage to get through the area all right. I'm around level six now and trucking right along. One thing worries me, though: I love to loot, and 66 pounds is a pretty tough limit. Since there's absolutely no reason to increase my Strength except to increase my carrying capacity, and since extra Stun Resistance is utterly marginal for a Shaper at best, and since, futhermore, another level of Strength only gives you a whopping 8 extra pounds of carrying capacity, this distresses me.

 

But that's all right; I'm sure I'll survive.

 

Quote:

Originally written by Nick Ringer:

Oh, are you called "Old Scratch" from Pink Floyd's secret message? I love The Wall).

Now that you mention it, I do remember that secret message. I didn't choose this moniker because of Pink Floyd, though, but mainly because of a woodcut (a carved wooden "stamp" depicting a scene which old-time printers covered in ink and transferred onto paper) from a book produced sometime in the 1800s -- colonial America. I forget what the story was called, but it was famous, and it featured the Devil -- aka Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Prince of the Earth, the Prince of Darkness, Mammon, The Tempter, The Enemy, Old Nick, or Old Scratch, of course. Another variation on that last is Mr. Scratch, and there are plenty more where that came from -- God must be jealous, because He only has a few name variations.

 

(Actually -- and most people don't know this -- Satan and Lucifer were two different angels. You learn something new every day, right? However, Lucifer is the one true name [albeit pronounced somewhat differently in English than in Aramaic, as with all Biblical names] for the Devil.)

[Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas]

Quote:

Originally written by Old Scratch:
(Actually -- and most people don't know this -- Satan and Lucifer were two different angels. You learn something new every day, right? However, Lucifer is the one true name [albeit pronounced somewhat differently in English than in Aramaic, as with all Biblical names] for the Devil.)

What have you been smoking?

First off, Lucifer was never even thought of until Christianity came along and therefore has nothing to do with the Torah (the old testament). Where the hell does Aramaic come into that? It has nothing to do with Christianity at all. In fact, the only connection Aramaic has to Judaism, the father religion to Christianity was during the times of the Talmud (c. 700) after the Jews in Israel had been exiled to Babylon. Long after Christianity had sprung up.

And second, there is no name given to the devil in the Torah. There is "HaMalach HaMavet" which is the angel of death, and "Satan" which is the angel used by god to sway people to disregard His laws, thereby giving them free will.

[John S]

You forgot "Prince of the Air", Old Scratch. And I think Old Scratch may have been oversimplifying for the sake of the less informed readers.

[Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas]

Oversimplifying? He got all his so-called "facts" wrong!

[John S]

It depends on where you stand in the religious world. Seventh-Day Adventists might say that Catholics have their facts mixed up, but both believe they're right.

 

I really can't tell what religious system Old Scratch is using as his basis of "truth" and so prefer to not ask any questions or claim that he's wrong. He may be able to prove that he is right, but only if you concede that, for example, Christianity is right and true in all things.

 

I happen, by the way, to be much more interested in the Angels and Demons of a religion than the actual religion.

[Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas]

Even so, the Aramaic junk was a load of nonsense. It has no place in Christianity and a very small place in only one other widely practiced religion in the world, a.k.a. Judaism.

 

And where did he get the "one true name" stuff from. The name "Satan" comes from the old testament, long before the name Lucifer was ever invented. Unless he is disregarding the phrases in the old testament all saying that the word of God is truth and cannot be changed in any way and that the old testament is the word of god, it's got no basis in any religion I've heard of.

 

Which leads to another point. All the angels that have names are named in the Torah, according to the K'tuvim, both of which are part of the old testament. And even if it weren't mentioned, all angels that sit by the throne of god (as lucifer is said to have) have the suffix -el at the end of their names (eg. Gavriel Mikhael) which means god.

[Old Scratch]

Quote:

Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:
Even so, the Aramaic junk was a load of nonsense. It has no place in Christianity and a very small place in only one other widely practiced religion in the world, a.k.a. Judaism.

And where did he get the "one true name" stuff from. The name "Satan" comes from the old testament, long before the name Lucifer was ever invented. Unless he is disregarding the phrases in the old testament all saying that the word of God is truth and cannot be changed in any way and that the old testament is the word of god, it's got no basis in any religion I've heard of.

Which leads to another point. All the angels that have names are named in the Torah, according to the K'tuvim, both of which are part of the old testament. And even if it weren't mentioned, all angels that sit by the throne of god (as lucifer is said to have) have the suffix -el at the end of their names (eg. Gavriel Mikhael) which means god.

Calm down, friend; we're talking about something I consider to be mythology. I'm an atheist, not a Christian or a Jew. What I know about the Archangel Lucifer, of the Cherubim choir (or so I thought until hearing from you), is what I have read in relevant books, in the Bible itself, or from someone else interested in angels and demons.

As with all history and mythology, different people, often using wildly different sources, come up with wildly different interpretations and explanations of the same concept. The views I expressed here are correct insofar as I know. And, in my opinion, there is no such thing as "fact" when dealing with what boils down to a bunch of winged creatures that live in the sky, written about by ancient men thousands of years ago.

[Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas]

Then why did you comment on it if all it is to you is a bunch of fairy tales?

 

Also, there is one source undisputed by Christians and by Jews, it is the old testament. If you inderstand the original language it was written in then it's kind of hard to dispute what it says as it says things very clearly and concisely.

 

The reason there are so many interpretations and explanations of the same concepts is because the idiots who tried translating the old testament from bibilical hebrew to other languages knew practically nothing about hebrew. And even when they did understand the language, they didn't translate it literally, instead they changed the defenition of many words to support their own dogma.

[Kelandon]

Every religious text ever written has been open to interpretation.

 

Just not here, in the game forums, where the question that was asked has been answered.