Profile for Slarty
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Slarty |
| Member number | 261 |
| Title | Raven v. Writing Desk |
| Postcount | 3560 |
| Homepage | http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/slartyvsdesk/ |
| Registered | Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| What speed, regen enhancements do - from Jeff in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Tuesday, May 24 2005 12:02
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>What do the "Strikes faster" and "Dodges blows" enchantments do (from >Tiny Orb of Mist)? One improves your Quickness skill and another reduces the damage from blows slightly. And what, if anything, does the "Regeneration" >enchantment do on armor? I think this was bugged and didn't do anything, but will have a clear effect in 1.0.2. Forget what it was, though. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Challenge- Spell Sword in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Tuesday, May 24 2005 03:30
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indeed. I think I got confused by the redundant "no battle magic." in that case, all you're really doing is running a guardian with weaker skills. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| The artifacts (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Monday, May 23 2005 18:10
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The Reviving Crystal, btw, is probably the best weapon enhancement for any character, since none of the others are defensive, and the extra damage from the other enhancements will likely make little difference for a character who hasn't put many points into sword skills. Incidentally, has anyone experimented with the elemental blades (well, the Acid and Ice ones, since the Fire one didn't get tagged with the fire effect, presumably a bug)? Are they very effective, and at all worth considering over the Guardian Claymore? -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| The artifacts (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Monday, May 23 2005 17:51
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Yes, has anyone figured out what in the world determines if you can enhance a particular piece of equipment? I can't find any pattern and it seems to be completely arbitrary (except that I think all completely nonmagical equipment cna be enhanced). -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Challenge- Spell Sword in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Monday, May 23 2005 17:46
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I'll still argue that melee-focused Agents are no harder than melee-focused Guardians, if not easier. Daze is really useful and more than makes up for the reduced HP supply and the lower QA and Parry scores. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Challenge - The Spiny Guardian in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Sunday, May 22 2005 11:04
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I want to say no ripostes, but not being able to pump parry could be a hassle. *shrug* Use your best judgment. Khoth has a good point. I suppose a true purist would not kill anything before getting spines! -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Challenge - The Spiny Guardian in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Friday, May 20 2005 16:01
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Lately there's been discussion of less typical offensive focuses, like missile weapons. Here's my challenge, if any of you are crazy enough to take it on. Run a character where your ONLY source of damage is STEEL SPINE enhancements. Details: * Before spines are available, you can kill things however you like. * Enemies that either do not have melee attacks (turrets, spawners, etc.) or will almost never use them (artila) can be dispatched by other means, as well. * Dominate (and other dominating effects) are NOT okay, as that defeats the purpose of the challenge. * Creations and NPCs are not in spirit, either (except as pacifist meatshields) (And no pyroroamer meatshields, kamikaze bombers are not pacifists) A Guardian is obviously best suited to this challenge, though you're free to use the other classes. You'll want to pump Endurance a lot, as well as Healing Craft, and probably some Blessing Magic. You'll also need Strength and Luck, for their stun resistance. You'll need a LOT of stun resistance, so pull out those Glaahk Shields and Impervious Bands! You'll also want to be careful what equipment you use your spines on, since they are in limited supply. Have, um, fun! ;) -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Agent vs. Guardian in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, May 19 2005 16:13
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Any Guardian or Agent who puts skill points into Healing Craft is nuts. There are something like five different spellbooks/quest rewards/etc that increase Healing Craft in G3. Agents, additionally, will have more than enough spell power for healing thanks to Spellcraft. You're right, though, that Augmentation and Essence Armor are more effective for the G. Actually, that's a good point. High level Gs can get ridiculous HP reserves. On Torment that really doesn't tip the scales so much, but it's still something in their favor. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Agent vs. Guardian in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Wednesday, May 18 2005 22:17
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The lack of male agents is a little funny. Beyond the pic, I think every single NPC agent in the games has been female. Shaping isn't a weakness of the agent, it just isn't a strength. But there's no point in having shaping be a primary offense for either A or G, since shaping will be many times more effective in the hands of a Shaper. Thus it's really only worth considering shaping as a support skill here, and as a support skill it's frankly less useful than daze is. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Agent vs. Guardian in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Wednesday, May 18 2005 11:41
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I was looking at the initial stats for the different classes this morning, and realized that... well, there are some imbalances. This affects the Shaper very little, since he has more of a different play style, and shaping is less of a "splash color" skill than magic or melee for the Guardian and Agent. The Guardian and Agent are surprisingly interchangeable, though, so I'm going to compare them here. Basically, there are three sorts of stats differences among the classes. 1. HP, Spell Energy, and Essence - conveniently, G and A have equal essence. A has a lot more spell energy, G has a little more HP. Negligible differences unless you rely on battle magic, but the G would never do that anyway. 2. Cost in skill points to increase skills - in G1, this was huge: it would always cost A twice as much as G to increase Quick Action, for example, even when the rate of actual skill increased declined at 10 or 20 points. In G2 and G3, when the rate of increase declines (because you have to spend more points to increase the ability), the advantage of the superior class also decreases. So after the first few times you increase a skill, the advantage of the class that's "strong" in that skill drops to a fairly constant level. For strong vs. normal, this is very little. Thus, a G who puts any number of points into Missile Weapons will always have either 1 or 2 more levels in the skill than an A who puts the same number of points in. (I did the math out.) On the other hand, an A putting points into battle magic will always have earned (not counting base points in the skill) 4 or 5 levels more than the G (this stabilizes once you've put about 10 skill points into the skill). 3. Initial "bonus" points. These are often more significant, since they don't make further points cost extra, and some skills have a lot of them. G and A - AT A GLANCE Taking both #2 and #3 into account, if a G and an A both train equally in the same useful combat skills, one will have an advantage: Strength - Guardian +1 Dexterity - Agent +2 Melee Weapons - Guardian + 2-3 Missile Weapons - Guardian + 1-2 Quick Action - Guardian + 4-5 Parry - Guardian + 5-6 Battle, Mental Magic - Agent + 6-7 Blessing Magic - Agent + 5-6 Spellcraft - Agent + 2-3 Additionally, as mentioned earlier, the Agent gets better Spell Energy while the Guardian has an HP advantage. We already knew the G isn't a real magic-user. But what does this mean for melee and missile attacks? MISSILE WEAPONS: With profuse apologies to Delicious Vlish, it looks like Agents are better missile attackers. Those 2 bonus points of dexterity are a better deal than 1-2 levels of missile weapon skill, especially considering that dex also lets you dodge attacks. And if you focus on missile attacks, most of the other G bonuses aren't very useful. Then it's a question of whether you'd rather have minor shaping ability or better bless/haste/daze support. I know my preference :) ...of course, this just goes to show the weakness of missiles, since Agents can pump battle magic/spellcraft just as effectively as missile weapons/dex. MELEE WEAPONS: The G gets some very nice bonuses here. However, there is one big reason to still consider the A as a melee attacker: Daze. It will take the G a whopping 18 skill points just to get to 4 levels of mental magic! Keeping daze strong enough to be really viable is thus not a great option for the G. For the A, it's no problem at all, and the A will have little problem getting skills like QA to respectable levels, especially with equipment bonuses. Melee combat, which often doesn't allow you the corner-ducking, door-shuffling tactics favored by Tormented agents, is MUCH less dangerous if you keep your enemies dazed. Once again, it may be simpler to just run a battle magic agent, since spellcraft does double duty; melee has perks, though. Regeneration is great, and less attack spells means you have more energy and essence to use on daze. Any thoughts? -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| The artifacts (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Tuesday, May 17 2005 18:28
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I just replayed Darkstone mine, and the reagent in the SW by the monstrosity is Purified Essence, not Unmelting Ice. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Hunter Guardian Endgame. in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Tuesday, May 17 2005 14:22
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My "enchancements" thread has disappeared, I guess. But some of them are quite useful. Regeneration I've mentioned. Steel spines are REALLY powerful on armor, for a guardian. Their effect is CUMULATIVE and NEVER MISSES, and all it takes is two or three spined pieces of equipment to start doing several times the damage, from spines, that you take from an enemy hit. Really the only other enhancement to consider for armor is the Golden Crystal, which gives 5% resistance to everything. Use 5 or 6 of them and that's a hefty damage reduction. A lot of enemies late in the game have powerful breath attacks, so that's really useful. "Curse power" on weapons delivers a light curse with every non-Quick Action hit. On armor, it gives you a +5% bonus to-hit (not sure if that's just with melee weapons, or with anything). -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Hunter Guardian Endgame. in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Tuesday, May 17 2005 08:17
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I never got any results from Speed (perhaps it ups Quick Action?) or from regeneration on armor. Regeneration on a melee weapon heals you every time you hit an enemy! (Not Quick Action hits, though.) It's around 15-20 HP of healing (or was by the time I tried it, anyway), so if you do three melee attacks in a round, that's a lot of HP. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Hunter Guardian Endgame. in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Monday, May 16 2005 12:17
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I strongly, strongly recommend the Regeneration enchancement for your melee weapon of choice. A hasted guardian or agent with AP boosts can heal a decent chunk of damage every turn, in addition to killing something. Combine with Daze, and keep a few Healing Pods on hand for emergencies, and you shouldn't have any problems at all. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Item Locations and Questions. in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Sunday, May 15 2005 14:02
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I'm not sure you can get them anywhere else. I haven't, anyway. Unfortunately, the scripts don't contain any information on either initial item locations or item drops -- although you can find quest item rewards. There is a drop_item command, but it is only used with thorn bushes. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Item Locations and Questions. in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Saturday, May 14 2005 07:49
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Oops, my bad. You're right... you're thinking of the Putrefied Gauntlets. (8% armor, str -2, dex -2, 20% resist acid, +4 spellcraft) I don't know how my first sweep missed them... -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Progressing as an Agent in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Saturday, May 14 2005 07:43
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No, but given that there are several items that boost shaping skill, it really is a waste -- you are spending 6 skill points just to have Thahd meatshields an island or two early, even though there's absolutely no need for them that early. Daze is so ridiculously powerful in G3, and essence pods are so plentiful, that it should carry you through much of the game. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Artifact fork for Guardians in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Friday, May 13 2005 15:28
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On second thought, please ignore everything I say in this thread :) I've never actually finished a game as a shaper -- half or two-thirds of the way through I finally get fed up of taking care of my creations and just go play as an agent. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Item Locations and Questions. in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Friday, May 13 2005 15:21
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Are you sure about this? There are no gloves listed in the scripts that give +4 spellcraft. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Artifact fork for Guardians in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, May 12 2005 19:17
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Yeah, but not all 8 of those points are useful. In particular, the Int isn't that great for most creations. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Most "Powerful" Class? in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, May 12 2005 19:15
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Once again, this problem is not unique to Geneforge. This is really endemic to (almost all) RPGs. Years and years ago someone noticed that the game is more fun when your characters grow a lot. Realistically, of course, that's not going to happen very quickly, and it's a lot less likely to happen from adventuring than from training. I think there are multiple mages in every Exile/Avernum game who comment derisively on adventurers who build their magical skills by combat rather than by study. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Random item drops in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, May 12 2005 15:05
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Yes. The scripts are well-labelled, and are extremely easy to interpret as these things go. I don't know why you'd want to, but hey... -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| Item Locations and Questions. in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, May 12 2005 15:03
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A level of damage is basically an extra die, in tabletop RPG terms. It's fairly easy to see that all damage ranges in GF are summed dies. Thus a 4-16 damage dagger is 4d4, the sum of four random numbers between 1 and 4. This works similarly for missiles and spells, though the numbers may be different. In GF2, at least, and GF3 is probably the same, Firebolt was d4, Searer was d5, Ice Bolt was d6, Kill was d12 I think. I'm not 100% sure the "+X to levels of damage" works this way, but it looks like it does. Basically, it's like +X to battle magic (and presumably to damaging spells like terror, too), missile weapons and melee weapons, except that it doesn't give you the to-hit bonus. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| What do YOU want to see in G4? in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, May 12 2005 14:58
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Convicingly argued, SoT. I suppose if you are a loyalist, you -are- in a rather unique position. And as for the rebels, I guess Litalia and Hoge would have a harder time going undercover -- though considering that most of the other shapers have never heard of Litalia and don't know anything about Hoge's defection, I don't know that it would be that hard for them. True, they have OD'd on canisters, but you can do that and get things done just fine. The really confusing thing, though, is WHY YOU? It is apparently not an accident that you were not killed in the attack on the school. Why no fuss over, say, Greta, who is clearly sympathetic, and seems to have had nearly as much training as you? (If the GF1 shaper who's "years away" from learning simple magic spells can master shaping, surely Greta can too.) And why save you, when no one seems to have any idea what you think of the conflict? -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
| What do YOU want to see in G4? in Geneforge Series | |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, May 12 2005 09:41
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I think this is a question of the plot outgrowing the basic game assumptions. On Sucia island, this made perfect sense, since your appearance on the island was a big deal and you were, inherently, one of the most powerful forces there. There were few settlements and each one had spies from the others! In GF3, it makes very little sense -- similarly Litalia's apparent obsession with you. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |