I think that's simply part of the game. If they wanted to prevent something like that, they'd have put a floor on the mana cost reduction like they put a ceiling on the amount of damage that armor blocks. Or they'd have limited the number of armor items that could be so enchanted.

In a similar manner, you can stack protections from magic so you are essentially immune to all magical attacks, including dragon's breath. Of course, to do so, you need to raise your enchantment skill to 100 and spend 5 perks points in enchanting skills.

Portal 2:

"It says she has a medical degree. In fashion. From France!"

Wow. Really? That was the best insult an all powerful super computer could come up with?

~Psihala

That's exactly how I played through as a wizard, and I certainly don't consider it cheating, or breaking the game. It took a lot of work to get my skills up to the point where I could do that, and while doing it I had been increasing my mana the entire time. Now, had I been able to do it from the beginning and never put my level up points into manna, it would have broken the game for me. But as the end result of working my character to be that way, I just saw it as the natural result of a very high level mage - low hit points, crappy armor, but if I can stay out of your reach, I'll unleash a solid beam of lightning that will vaporize just about anything.

A game breaking one was, IMO, possible in Oblivion. Several of my friends would save right before taking the sigil at the end of an oblivion gate. They would restart until they got a chameleon sigil. Fairly quickly, they had a suit of armor that brought them to 100% chameleon, which allowed them to do anything without ever being seen. They all agreed afterwards that it was a bad idea and broke the game.

We got Mass Effect 3 the day it came out, I tried importing my Mass Effect 2 character and realized that I must have deleted it because I started playing one and was going to continue on with that character. So here I sit finishing up 1 so I can on to 2 and so then I can finally play 3, which looks so good and every now and then my husband will let me shoot at things with his character since he is playing 3.

Maybe I haven't run into one yet, but WHERE ARE THE FEMALE TURIANS?!?! I finally got to see a female Salarian. Turians talk like Turian women are in the military really commonly. Why haven't I seen one? Just tell me it's a dwarf thing and they look just the same as Turian males and I'll be perfectly happy!

ETA: I actually had a dream last night that I found a whole ton of female Turians, only they didn't have any of the spikes or face-phalanges. I thought, "That's weird, I distinctly remember Garrus telling me female Turians have fringe." My brain promptly put badly-rendered mohawks on all of them.

A female turian is a minor character in one of the comics. They look like males but have less pronounced horns and ridges. Not sure if they are gonna be any in game though.

And we have a female Krogan as a major character, which is sorta neat.

Oooh! I need to play further! (Stupid having a life. And work ethic.)

ETA: If this is what a female Turian looks like, why would Garrus compliment her fringe?

I really like what they've done with the Krogan female, and how they've explained why we haven't seen any up to this point. Mild early-encountered spoilers follow: I even think the burqa makes sense with what they've set up. And I love that she's still a badass. (I did roll my eyes at one of the things that Wrex says about females wanting to talk about stuff all the time though).

I had no problem importing my ME2 Shepards. I'm glad I played through ME2 a couple of times and made different choices. It'll be interesting to see how those play out differently in ME3. (I played through ME1 a couple of times as well, but mostly made the same choices each time. But I have a ME2 character that got the default non-imported background, which means I have one where Wrex isn't available as a character).

My impressions so far: They seem to have opted to have a lot of short, fairly self-contained missions rather than long complicated ones (so far, at least). This is both good and bad. They also at times seem to have fallen in love with the jumping/climbing system they added for this game, so that you have to find the trick to getting out of some places by figuring out what you're supposed to jump over. I really like the new weapon/inventory/modification system. I do not like the changes to the map and compass system, but it's not too bad.

I have yet to use the scanning system successfully. I'm not sure I get it, and I'm probably overreacting to the threat of calling reapers to a system....

Maybe there's fringe in a less visible place? And if they're basically insects, why would they have boobs?

Then again Garrus also had a line that referred to having bones, so I guess they aren't straight up insects as we know them. ETA: Or he was speaking metaphorically, I suppose.

Maybe Garrus is the kind of guy who also tells a woman she has beautiful eyes even though she's wearing sunglasses?

I never mentioned anything about them lacking boobs. As for the fringe, there's a line that Garrus says if you take the romance option in ME2, where he's trying to compliment FemShep:

"If you were a Turian woman I'd be complimenting your fringe or your waist right now... So, your... Hair looks nice, and your waist is... Very supportive."

Of course, my FemShep has a shaved head, so I think maybe Garrus isn't very good at compliments.

I actually like that feature. It adds a little more urgency and keeps the player from endlessly and aimlessly surveying. Now the player needs to think about it and decide if the risk is worth it.

By the way, I've been fairly sucessful with the surveying. What happens if the reapers catch you?

I was just reacting to the boobs in the picture you linked, not saying that you'd mentioned them. It just seemed like they thought, female = male with boobs, visually, even though if they'd thought about what an insect race would be like then boobs make no sense.

I actually agree with what you said in your earlier post--they could just say that the females look just like the males, and then as far as we know we've been seeing them all along.

*Laughs* That would have been an awesome moment.

Shepard: So Garrus, what do Turian females look like?
Garrus: What do you mean? I'm a female.

I don't know. I guess the immersion of the game is getting to me in a way--the consequence of actually attracting reapers to a system where they aren't already seems so grave that I have just scanned a few times with no success and then given up. I've never actually attracted them to a system, and I also have never successfully found a resource.

I did look online for more info, because I was seriously wondering if I was doing it wrong (and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right) and saw something explaining a little about what happens if the reapers show up. Basically it sounds like you can get away but might get caught, and I assume, killed. If they do show up, you have to leave the system and do a mission elsewhere, and then you can come back--I'm not clear on whether the reapers will still have a presence in the system though.

I don't really see her as having boobs. I looked up another couple shots of the character and she just seems to have the chest plates all Turians have. If that first link works, compare her to the Turian in the background.

Also, I always saw the Turians as being like, bird-lizards, not insects.

That would have been amazing. AMAZING. And my Shepard would have been able to continue her streak of being a lesbian xenophile. As it is she's just a xenophile.

You're right, in the second and third links, it doesn't look like they have boobs. (I actually think the first and third links are at least ambiguous, but the 2nd one is pretty clear). Good for them. Hmm. I don't get bird-lizard, because I don't see them as having skin, but rather exoskeleton plates. But we can each have our own interpretation.

The qarians are bird-creatures in my world.

Turtles have exoskeleton-style plates. The Rachni are the insect/spider creatures of the galaxy to me.

Tali: Making chicken feet look sexy since ME1.

Yeah, turtles have a shell, but they still have skin. Their plates are not articulating. But as I said, it doesn't matter to me that we have different interpretations.

To me, turians ~= walking stick/grass hopper (particularly with how their mouth parts move)
Rachni ~= spiders
Collectors, keepers ~= roaches/beetles

Turians have like, neck-skin, though. (The shot of Garrus in the "overview" section.) They're not completely covered in plates, which I why I lean toward lizards rather than insects.

By the way? We're officially dorks.