Lowest Level at End

[Sarachim]

What's the lowest level anyone has had when they've won the game? I just finished at level 31, and the final fight was pretty tough even on normal difficulty.

 

So I'm curious. What's the lowest level you've ever finished with?

[Randomizer]

It looks like level 35 maybe 36 for my first lifecrafter, but that was during beta testing. Jeff increased the experience before releasing the final version.

 

Doing almost everything gave level 42 lifecrafter and level 44 servile.

[Walter]

What if you do as it suggests is possible and play through the game without ever attacking anything? What level could you finish at then?

[Drayk Armitage]

That would be a neat challenge -- finish at the lowest level possible. (You up for this one, Thuryl?) A diplomacy/mechanics only game can almost certainly be done, and I bet you can get enough skill points for it solely out of doing the required quests. That restriction does make it harder though as pretty much all the diplomacy-related bonuses (like having people kill stuff for you) gives a conversational XP bonus. Hmm.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Slartanalycyst:
That would be a neat challenge -- finish at the lowest level possible. (You up for this one, Thuryl?)

Haven't I suffered enough?

I'll share a few thoughts on the challenge, but I'm not enormously inclined to actually try it.

Leadership/Mechanics seems to obviously be the way to go, if only because combat won't be reasonably possible. Minimising XP requires skipping optional quests so items will be thin on the ground as well; we will be both woefully underlevelled and underequipped.

Seems to me that there are two main goals: getting Leadership and Mechanics to a point where combat can be bypassed, and getting enough essence to have 7 creations in tow and sapping XP all the time. They don't actually need to be useful creations, since we're not doing any fighting, so 7 fyoras will do. They'll probably need enough intelligence to be controllable, though. Should get Leadership before Mechanics, since we don't want to unlock doors if we can help it and we don't care about most of the stuff behind them anyway.

To get enough essence early on, Lifecrafter is the obvious choice of class. Skill points will be few and far between (that is, after all, the whole point). Mental Magic seems a worthwhile investment -- Daze is a fine way to avoid fights, and Dominate/Charm allows us to make enemies kill each other without giving us XP. Likewise Blessing Magic and Healing Craft for the parts where combat is unavoidable but allies are available. May not be able to keep all these at a reasonable level; hard choices to make. (Problem: without doing quests or killing things, will sufficient $$$ be available for spells?) Quick Action may be necessary for safely running away from things. We can safely neglect Intelligence (at least once we've got our 7 fyoras) and shaping skills. Get Endurance to walk through minefields instead of disarming them? How feasible is this? Enough of a reason to be Servile rather than Lifecrafter? Or Infiltrator, for better Mental Magic?

[Drayk Armitage]

You only need the Fyoras with you when you are about to get experience for something. Mostly, I imagine shaping all seven right before any experience-granting encounter. Anyway, I think that means you can make do with AI Fyoras early on. It does force Lifecrafter unfortunately. The earliest you can get Fyoras at is level 3. A Lifecrafter can get to 46 essence at that point, enough for 5 Fyoras. An Infiltrator can get to 38, which is only enough for 4, sadly. One experience point later comes level 4, at which point a Lifecrafter has 60 for 7 Fyoras, and an Infiltrator has about 50, for 6 Fyoras.

 

Mental Magic is obvious, both for Daze and for Unlock, which lets you open doors without gaining experience.

 

Looking ahead, I'm not quite sure how to deal with Moseh, Monarch, and the like.

 

EDIT: Charm and Dominate seem particularly good since they allow you to nab enemy drops without gaining XP for them.

[Randomizer]

You would do the fewest encounters to reach them. So for Moseh you would only help Eliza and lure the thahd out so she kills it. For Monarch you would bypass killing the Creator and remove the least mines to get to him. Avoid the Shaper Infiltrators and fighting to reach Quessa-Uss. Daze and run.

 

I'm wondering if you would have enough points to survive making it across some areas. Mental magic would be needed to daze/charm. You could use pods/spores for blessing and healing magic. Most areas would never be visited like Circle of the Drayk, Turabi Gate, Western Morass, etc.

[Sudanna]

Do higher level creations take a bigger bite of the XP pie?

[Walter]

Has anyone even done the challenge where you never attack anything?

[Drayk Armitage]

Quote:

Originally written by Nalyd Twisted:
Do higher level creations take a bigger bite of the XP pie?

No. More information is available somewhere in G4 Strategy Central.

[Randomizer]

Quote:

Originally written by Walter:
Has anyone even done the challenge where you never attack anything?

I started a game where my character never actually used a damaging attack or spell, but let his sole creation do damage.

You have to attack some things even if you never kill them. Monarch is the best example.

[Drayk Armitage]

Walter provided an extremely useful workaround in another thread. Pyroroamers! And other unstable creations. In previous games, you could use them to kill people without triggering hostility... or more importantly, experience. I'm not sure if that still works, but I don't see why it would have changed.

 

If it does work, that would allow you to get a lot more equipment than otherwise.

[Xaiya]

Well in Geneforge 3 you can use the editor that is on the sign in South End to max out your skills while being low level, but without cheat would be hard.

[Lilith]

Explosion damage is a little weird; XP seems to be awarded based on the last person to hit the exploder. So if you kill an exploding creation, XP for anything killed by the explosion is awarded to you. But if an ally or enemy kills an exploding creation, you don't get any XP for anything killed by the explosion. I'm not sure if it works the same way for your exploding creations, since I never made any, but it seems a fair bet.

 

Explosions out of sight of the player don't appear to give experience either, even when they otherwise would. For example, blowing up the alphas on Chickweed Bridge only seems to give you XP if you see them die.

 

One problem, of course, is that making Pyroroamers is impossible if the challenge is done without canisters.

 

Quote:

Well in Geneforge 3 you can use the editor that is on the sign in South End to max out your skills while being low level, but without cheat would be hard.

This is a challenge. You are a cretin.

[Walter]

No, the trick as it worked in Geneforge 3 (haven't tested it in 4), required making the pyroroamers explode by absorbing them through their stat menu, so no one hit them at all.