Luck?[G5]

[BrownieMix]

Just curious as to what effect luck has, how high is has to be to be really useful...and is it really worth it?

[Delicious Vlish]

It is worth a point. It helps armor and resists.

[Uberdhizon]

I've been wondering what it does, too. I just end up putting on tons of points because it wouldn't be there if it didn't do anything.

[BrownieMix]

I thought I read on the boards somewhere that having it at 10 does some really cool things...unfortunately I don't think I have the skill points left over to put it at 10.

[Uberdhizon]

I think all things that are not one of the following are completely stupid and wasteful of skill points:

 

Magic Shaping

Fire Shaping

Mechanics

Leadership

Endurance

Intelligence

Battle Magic

Mental Magic

(any more that I forgot; I will update this when I see the statistics list again.)

[Alorael at Large]

That really depends on your style of play. I've found the health bonuses from Endurance to be underwhelming. Gaining level really works just as well. Blessing Magic is essential, although you don't need much of it. The same is true for Healing Craft, and it's cheap enough that you can afford to heal decently. If you're playing in combat you'll obviously need more of the combat-oriented skills.

 

My biggest disagreement is the omission of Battle Shaping. I haven't done anything as deep as Slartanalysis and I'm not as sure of my anecdotal experience as DV is, but I've found clawbugs to be great for the early game, rotghroths and rotdhizons to be murderously effective later, particularly against the many acid-spraying foes, and war tralls to be almost indestructible rock-hurling machines. Fire Shaping's dominance looks like it's finally eroded, and now that vlish and glaahks aren't the game-winners they used to be I'm not sure even Magic Shaping is essential. It doesn't really match Fire or Battle until you have glaahks, and while wingbolts and gazers are powerful I'm really not sure I'd take them over rotghroths and war tralls.

 

—Alorael, who hasn't gone through the scripts but also hasn't noticed any encounters that seem to call out Luck as the relevant skill. It would fit the Geneforge world's rather grim view to make luck useless, wouldn't it?

[Randomizer]

Fire and magic shaping creations are no where as powerful as in the other games. After years of neglect the battle creations have become powerful as the others were weakened.

 

You need lots of luck to see a major increase in armor and resistances. Try equiping and removing clover boots or the charming falchion to see the differences.

[ex post slarto]

Fire shaping was never really dominant. Cryoas have always been good, but with the possible exception of G1 when drayks and cryodrayks were the ONLY high level ranged attackers, magic shaping has always been a lot better than fire shaping. Vlish were broken in G3 and were also the best creation value in G2 -- nobody noticed because Parry was such an attention-getter there. And in G1, there was a good case to be made for using vlish and glaahks. In G4, of course, we all know that Wingbolts were the end of the story.

 

Battle shaping is very good in G5, but it isn't hands down better than the other options -- even if War Tralls are the best overall creation, the lack of ranged attackers before 5th tier means that, even if it equals fire or magic shaping for a given tier, it certainly doesn't surpass them.

[Alorael at Large]

Ranged has become less immensely advantageous since G4 and 1-AP attacks. It's nice to have range, but it's not essential. More importantly, I think a few points in fire for a rush to get a few cryoas and then making a pile of clawbugs will get you through quite a lot of the beginning. Battle Shaping isn't hands-down better by any means, but I think it's definitely possible to go all battle just like one could focus on fire or magic before. In fact, magic feels slightly less viable in G4.

 

—Alorael, who did notice that the Stoneworks create a bit of a bottleneck. If you're reliant on cryoas, you will get pounded. Fire shapers can bring in some roamers for acid, but it's tough. Battle creations are exactly right for going toe to toe with golems and taking a pounding.

[ex post slarto]

Immensely less advantageous, yes; but considering that the advantage of ranged in G3 approached infinity, that only says so much.

 

I wonder if my differing opinion here is due to my playing on Normal this time around. Certainly I've said that to other Normal players often enough in the past...

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: The Game of Subtle Listening

Ranged has become less immensely advantageous since G4 and 1-AP attacks. It's nice to have range, but it's not essential.

Depends on your strategy. If you enjoy keeping enemies right at the edge of your field of view and abusing combat mode to pick them off one at a time before they can attack, a fully ranged team is essential. If you just want to make a big ol' swarm of creations and charge into the fray with them, then battle creations are fine.

[Delicious Vlish]

There is something immensely satisfying about playing a warrior type and charging into battle with your creations to hack and slash, doubly so if you have battle creations.

 

I remember my guardian and his pack of thahd shades...

[Alorael at Large]

Oops. Thuryl's right. I don't play with only, or even primarily, battle creations, and now I remember why. Actually, that suggests to me that range becomes more essential as precision and tactics become more important, which means as difficulty goes up.

 

—Alorael, who on the other hand doesn't think it would be possible to make it through the Stoneworks as a shaper without some minimal investment in Battle Shaping (or acceptance of the fact that your army is going to shrink). And on that note, did Jeff ever put in some mechanism for choosing to use a ranged creation's melee attack other than moving next to the enemy first and then clicking on it?

[Xelgion]

Originally Posted By: Uber Ur-drakon

I think all things that are not one of the following are completely stupid and wasteful of skill points:

Magic Shaping
Fire Shaping
Mechanics
Leadership
Endurance
Intelligence
Battle Magic
Mental Magic
(any more that I forgot; I will update this when I see the statistics list again.)

I would love to see you do a Servile Playthrough following that path.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: The Game of Subtle Listening

And on that note, did Jeff ever put in some mechanism for choosing to use a ranged creation's melee attack other than moving next to the enemy first and then clicking on it?

Nope. It's a pain to find out that you are just a fraction off and your melee attack was a missle one when you needed melee.

[Dahak]

I way I've found to get close enough is to hover the mouse next to the monster. If the mouse has a little X over the icon then you just move there and you are 99% of the time in melee range.

[Blurb]

From what I can see, pumping up luck appears to be the only way to add to poison and acid resistance. I have been operating under the assumption that upping endurance helped. I just tried adding two points of endurance to see if the poison/acid stats changed. They did not change. This is really different from previous Geneforge games (I think).

 

I'm looking at luck a lot differently now.

 

Am I wrong about this? Is there another way to get more poison/acid resistance other than by equipment or crystal enhancements?

[ex post slarto]

Poison and acid resistance are honestly not important. They are great if you have them, but they are not worth dropping points in skills that are holes.

 

They do reduce damage, but not by that much unless you have a lot of them. Poison and acid are annoying, but easily neutralized by spells. And unless you have unrealistically high resistance, you will get at least some poison or acid and will have to use the spells anyway.

[Blurb]

In past games it has made a difference, at least when I've played. High resistance has meant significantly less of a hit. But, hey, G5 seems poison crazy to me. Every other naughty critter poisons. Worms and two or three different kinds of bugs. They're everywhere. With resistance so low, damage is high.

 

ETA: It's not just a little poisoning. They'll surround one character and decimate them in one round.

[ex post slarto]

If your PC is being surrounded and hit by a whole group of nasties at once, you are doing something wrong. Playing the game without either mental magic, or creations, is giving yourself a giant handicap.

[Blurb]

I have mental magic and creations. Many of the nasties resist daze.

 

Of course, I'm probably playing wrong. I'm not a super player. I just want a fun game. I like to try new strategies and I reload a lot, but the difficulty level is much higher in G5 than I anticipated and the diminishing of some things like speed and endurance is not something I expected. When I left the demo area, it was like hitting a stone wall.

 

I do think that saying the nerfing of endurance is not important is maybe underestimating the damage of poison in G5. When every round the whole party is poisoned with major hits to health points, including the PC, and you can't take care of that in your build, it does make the game more difficult.

 

Understand that I'm not having an expert-to-expert argument with you. And I really can't even argue that I know better than you because I've got the strategy down pat, etc., etc. I'm not a great player and I know it. But I am intelligent enough to understand how the differences in this game make my previous strategies ineffective. I can see why it's more difficult for me, too. Dumping a lot of poisonous creatures and nerfing the stat that helps fight it makes the game a lot more challenging.

 

As to what I can do better? Gosh, probably everything. That's why I come here, sometimes to ask questions and sometimes to vent. I guess I've kind of vented a little of my frustration in this thread.

[Lilith]

In a lot of the more difficult battles, especially those involving acid and poison, my Sorceress was basically acting as a full-time healer. With the way that Haste has been changed, pods and spores suddenly help a lot more than they used to, since they only take 3 AP; you can use two spores in a round and still cast a spell. It gets easier once you get multi-target healing and curing spells.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Ah, poison is worse then previous games. I find myself actually using curing pods and spores. What was really annoying was all the kyshaks (sp) in the abandoned farms outside of the middle fort in the storm plains. How does one go about removing the lingering lightning damage?

[Delicious Vlish]

Banish affliction.

 

Regeneration aura running constantly helps with poison and acid.

[Blurb]

I love regeneration aura! I'm usually a full-time healer in battle, too. Frankly, I kind of miss being a warrior.

 

Maybe I've just forgotten, but is there a multi-target banish affliction coming up in the game? It would help in case I ran out of spores.

 

So I take it that pumping up luck is not a good strategy, i.e. a waste of skill points?

[Randomizer]

Cleanse group is the 8th healing spell and mass restore is the 9th. These really help with fixing up a party.

[ex post slarto]

It's not a complete waste. But until all the main useful skills are at high skill point costs to raise, it probably isn't worthwhile.

 

The scripts contain exactly *zero* checks for the PC's luck, btw.

[Alorael at Large]

Yes, there's Group Banish Affliction. I think that's the name; it's certainly the idea. Pumping luck won't help enough to justify the costs. Basically, you're going to have to be able to survive long enough to last through a battle without dying. The important tricks are to get your enemies to come to you with ranged attacks rather than charging them, because that's a good way to end up swarmed. Kill methodically and go back to a town to recharge when you need to. Regeneration Aura can counteract most of the effects of poison and acid, which should help you make it through the battle.

 

The best way to overcome poison is to have enough health to get by until the battle ends and heal up then. While Endurance does help there, the real solution is to gain levels. Poison is hellish until the mid-game, when it's still scary but not actually terribly dangerous if you handle it well.

 

—Alorael, who recommends picking one or two creations to be the designated poison bait. As long as they have enough health to survive the pounding they'll get from attacks and poison, you can focus your healing and not have to rely on Group Heal. If you can make a rotghroth your poison/acid woes are largely over, but by that time your poison/acid woes will be mostly over even without any poison resistance in your party.

[Blurb]

Originally Posted By: Clambake Custom!

The important tricks are to get your enemies to come to you with ranged attacks rather than charging them, because that's a good way to end up swarmed. Kill methodically and go back to a town to recharge when you need to. Regeneration Aura can counteract most of the effects of poison and acid, which should help you make it through the battle.

The best way to overcome poison is to have enough health to get by until the battle ends and heal up then. While Endurance does help there, the real solution is to gain levels. Poison is hellish until the mid-game, when it's still scary but not actually terribly dangerous if you handle it well.

—Alorael, who recommends picking one or two creations to be the designated poison bait. As long as they have enough health to survive the pounding they'll get from attacks and poison, you can focus your healing and not have to rely on Group Heal. If you can make a rotghroth your poison/acid woes are largely over, but by that time your poison/acid woes will be mostly over even without any poison resistance in your party.

I'm at about midgame now and I am definitely finding it easier at the moment thanks to some stat boosts. Part of the issue has been my blundering around and walking right into the middle of a band of poisonous critters. I'm not taking baby steps through the areas, which is sometimes necessary. My clawbug, which was made with weak stats, is one of the "baits" because it's melee. Although it has leveled up nicely, I'm going to have to retire it because it's too vulnerable to poison and difficult to keep alive. I'm liking the battle alpha, though.

Slarty, I'm not that familiar with scripts what checks in scripts mean. I understand you are able to analyze a lot by looking at these scripts. By no checks for luck, do you mean there aren't listed benefits?

[ex post slarto]

I mean there are no events in conversation with people, in towns, etc. that have a different outcome if you have Luck above a certain amount. This is in contrast to past games. In Geneforge 1 for example having high Luck would let you find hidden items in certain locations.

[Gandalf the Purple]

What could you only find with high luck in Geneforge 1?

[Dikiyoba]

There were a few minor items hidden in stone pylons, including something that would open up a bit more of the stone circle zone.

 

Dikiyoba.

[The Ratt]

I think Jeff has made a few too many poison/acid swarms though. There is a whole area that is completely poison/acid based before (to my knowledge) you have a spell that can cure multiple allies. This could be very difficult, especially for a new player that has no idea how to approach to situation. I personally was unable to get through Lerman's pass before Storm Plains because I just kept running out of curing items.

 

Also Jeff has not fixed the, glitch, for lack of a better term where damage can interrupt the healing process (i.e. you heal for 150, but that ends your turn and poison hits you for 23, resulting in you not recovering all the health). This has caused me to reload a few times now.

[Lilith]

You're not really supposed to get through Lerman's Pass before finishing the Storm Plains. It's a challenge area, and characters in the game warn you away from it for a reason.

[Alorael at Large]

The best part, actually, is when Talis-Eye shows surprise that you're still bothering with fighting instead of running. Considering how soundly I was trounced the first time I tried that fight, it seems like an eminently reasonable bit of dialogue.

 

—Alorael, who just views the prominence of poison as another reason not to charge blindly and another reason to try to kill everything in one round. Geneforge didn't really need more of those, though.

[Delicious Vlish]

Lerman's Pass isn't all that difficult. I've done it before visiting the Stoneworks.

 

Sure, it has a few rough moments, but if you are careful, and playing the right class, you'll be ok.

 

I wouldn't want to do this with a sorceress or a shaper type. I will say that. To fragile.

 

The Servile class should have a fairly good chance at doing it.

 

A well buffed well stocked warrior (or maybe a shock trooper) type should be OK as well. You'd need to be a good driver of your toon though, and know how to hold your breath when you are in over your head.

 

The key is ducking past as much of the combat as possible, avoiding worms, avoiding everything, and getting to the oozing sword. After that, hit and run tactics, as well as as much mental magic you can muster to sow chaos and confusion in the ranks. Terror is most useful.

 

As for fighting the eye tyrant it self, I have no advice other than good luck. It can be done. Just don't be stupid and you'll be fine. (All though the argument could be made that taking on an eye tyrant so early on in the game is kinda dense)

[Randomizer]

A shaping class needs the right mix of creations because of the resistances the later worms have.

 

A warrior has the easiest time since almost all take physical damage.

 

Daze or charming attacks are needed to make it possible to go one on one against swarms.

 

The eye tyrant has to be attacked on your choice of terrain since that chamber where he waits will destroy you.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

A shaping class needs the right mix of creations because of the resistances the later worms have.

A cryoa/vlish mix is the wrong mix, by the way, since they're one of the only enemies in the whole game that's nearly immune to both cold and magic. Drayks or battle creations are the best choice, since only fire and physical will do real damage. In the end I just let my creations hang back and cast Dominate on everything in sight.

I came back much later, with War Tralls, to deal with the gazer. Make sure to cast Essence Shackles and Wrack on him; if you're lucky and he loses a couple of turns early on, it's possible to kill him after he's only made one set of creations.

[Alorael at Large]

Huh. I emptied the place out with rather large difficulty using a mix of clawbugs with and without plates, drayks, roamers, and cryoas, I think. I'm not sure exactly what I used to kill the Eye, but it wasn't terribly long afterwards, and I think I still had no fifth or possibly even fourth tier creations. I did it with patience: most of my creations were on dedicated turret and worm-hunting duty, and only the clawbugs were left to damage the gazer. It took forever and a hefty essence pod pile, but without backup the gazer actually isn't too hard to take down as long as you're willing to heal a lot every round.

 

—Alorael, who thinks it would have gone much better slightly later with more durable creations at his disposal. The fight also required a fair amount of reloading when bad luck killed the bugs.

[The Ratt]

I managed to et to the eye, but had no luck against him. My recently created swarm of clawbugs (my creations from when I entered the zone no longer existed) were completely destroyed.

 

Thuryl: how did you manage to leave the zone? Isn't it made so that you can't until you kill the gazer?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: The Ratt

Thuryl: how did you manage to leave the zone? Isn't it made so that you can't until you kill the gazer?

You can't leave to the south until you've killed the gazer. You can leave to the north, back the way you came, as soon as you find the right key.

[The Ratt]

The key on the Captain's Neck? Or is there another key I'm missing?

[Randomizer]

There are two keys. The Captain's key (bronze) opens the door to the lever control for the north door and into the area where the eye retreats. The eye's key (iron) opens the door to the lever to the south door.