I've gotten right to the end of the Hellgate module - gotta destroy the portal. However... I don't have anything to destroy it with. I went pure melee dodge and needed explosives to get through the jammed door and locked door. The portal seems to spew out demons so i'll try and farm it to get more skills, but I don't know if I can destroy the portal with the disintegrate spell.
You can hold alt to attack containers/doors (possibly the portal, I haven't played the mod) you know, or have you already tried that?
The unlock spell has some very advantage e.g. to open the merchant's chest or barrel, take whatever you want and come back again the next day. If you bust it, it won't renew its items/gold the next day.
When breaking down wooden doors or containers I suggest using an axe so you don't incur weapon damage. I always wondered if hammers were good against metal doors but never tested the theory. Perhaps someone can let me know if that is the case or if it was mere wishful thinking.
I do have to remind you that sometimes the Unlock Spell is not that useful. It is a very loud spell. If you do not do it right, it will alarm guards and citizen in the surrounding area.
Best place I found to use it was in the inventor's shop in the Wheel Clan; particularly useful if you're a magic user and want to invent things on the side as it circumvents the problem of tech shop keepers not trading with you. The trusting moron even leaves the door to his bedroom open, so you only need to cast it on his inventory barrel. After that it's automatons and platisque a go-go. I'm almost certain they do get damaged, apart from the Inferno Hammer and the Iron Clan Hammer because they do fire damage. I don't have the game at hand right now to test this out though. Oddly enough, the best item I find to destroy doors and golemns with without getting damaged is the Arcane Dagger. If you can raise the money, have the patience to spam a wise woman and have 20 ST (even if you don't) it has my recommendation as one of the best items to get through the BMC mines with.
There's a small loophole. Items that are 100% magic or tech don't get damaged. This is a special perk that isn't listed anywhere. That's why all Arcane items cannot be broken. The same goes for the Iron Clan Hammer. But I can't recall right now what other tech items are 100% tech.
Interesting, I did not know that. I always assumed it was because of the fire damage with the Iron Clan Hammer.
The Iron Clan Hammer is actually 80% tech. Anything with a higher tech complexity is either a gun or a tech bow. It appears to be the latter. The Iron Clan Hammer receives no damage from breaking down metal doors, but all other hammers do. The shop doesn't restock though, eh?
I'm pretty sure it did for me, using the old get it off screen and wait a day trick. I'm sure I did it for that elf character I made a while back with the enormous party and many automatons + venomous arachnids, and also with a different elf character who made explosives on top of using Force, Fire and Phantasm amongst other things. I'll check when I get home, I still have the latter character so I'll edit in my findings. EDIT: Yep, restocks perfectly fine on mine through waiting with the barrel off screen.
Holding down Alt took me years to discover. It was only after failing to make any progress at all in the throwing mastery quest that I looked it up online. It sure adds a lot of options. In noncombat mode you can use Alt+click to drag corpses out of sight of guards. On the topic of wizards shopping at technology stores, if you cast shrink on yourself, they will trade with you no matter your MA. At first they're all like, Get out! But then they're all like, You're so tiny!
You can alt drag bodies!? And I only thought of Human Revolution when I thought of that mechanic... the more you know.