15218 réponses à ce sujet

[amanasleep]

Alesia_BH wrote...

Btw. Just a little pet peeve that I have with rangers...

Even though Ashoka can Charm a truly stupid number of animals...


she can't summon any...

If he has the kind of animal magnetism that makes squierrels stick to her clothes, you'd think she'd be able to convince a few to hang out with her from time to time...

Rangers get to Summon Insects. 

As far as BG2 is concerned, Beastmasters are the only "animal" Rangers.

[Grond0]

After some hard grind in BG1 I've eventually got a graduate from the academy to take on BG2.

Impatiens will be soloing.  Now if only I knew where to find some information about how to play a solo stalker ... hmm, let me see now ...

[corey_russell]

Wow Grond0 you got some pretty nice lore for a warrior type! Good luck (and uh, try to finish the whole thing, reloads and all). Just a suggestion, of course. And no taking mephits for granted, or assuming quicksaves/autosaves are more than sufficient! : )

[Alesia_BH]

Grond0 wrote...
Impatiens will be soloing.  Now if only I knew where to find some information about how to play a solo stalker ... hmm, let me see now ...

Good luck Grond0! 

I had a feeling we'd see a Stalker from you. Saying Ashoka looked fun was one clue. The biggest clue was your staunch support of Ashoka's Staff of Striking recharging. 

I can offer two bits of advice.

1) Watch your step in the Underdark...

2) If you play to the end of Ascension, don't kick yourself too hard for picking Charisma as your dump stat on a Ranger...

Enjoy!

Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 28 octobre 2011 - 09:56 .

[Alesia_BH]

 Ashoka vs Tree of Life Irenicus (Or So You Wanna Play Rough, Huh...)

Ashoka defeated Tree of Life Irenicus with minimal injuries. Were it not for the engine's funky treatment of Meteors she may have emerged unscathed. Jon has one person to thank for his lopsided defeat: himself. He asked for it.

Jon took his prebuffs, and his Chain. The Chain included Simulacrum and Mislead.


Next, he cast Wish and Utterly Destroyed Ashoka's Minor Spell Deflection...

No half measures for you huh Jon? You might wanna think about Spell Thrust next time though... 


Ashoka stalked the illusionary Jon's from the Shadows and identified the Mislead. She decided to dispel it so she could maintain a visual on Jon-Jon.

Hey! How'd you get a dispel immune Mislead? That's no fair!


Jon went Absolute Immunity, and then did some summoning. And I mean a lot of Summoning.


Hey! That's 6 summons! That's not fair either!


Ok. So you wanna take the gloves off? Fine. Eat rat you bastard...

Ashoka prepped her Simmy with the Helm of Defense, the Shadow Dragon Armor, the Belt of Inertial Barrier, the Boots of the North, the Ring of Fire Resistance and The Defender. It took Armor of Faith along with Shield, and then flipped to Rat form. You can do the numbers on the resistances if you like. The important thing is that all those Mordy Sword and Efreeti hits were healing her while Jon and his Simulacrum were doing minimal damage with their spells. The Rat got confused because it didn't have Harmony in the off hand and I wasn't willing to let it drink high value potions. But it served it's purpose nonetheless. It was quite amusing to see Jon, his Simmy, and an Efreeti/Mordy Sword army giving a confused Rat all they could dish out and getting little satisfaction. It's a shame I didn't take many shots of that phase...


Eventually, the physical weapon wielders unsummoned depriving Simmy Ashoka of her source of regen. Jon finished Simmy Ashoka but he was alone and his book was basically spent at that point.


Little left to do after that. Arrow of Dispelling->Arrows of Biting via Gessen. And why not: the guy's book is in Semaj territory now anyways. Might as well kill him the same way. Used a Potion of Invulnerability and AoF just for kicks.





Fin.

Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 28 octobre 2011 - 11:06 .

[Grond0]

corey_russell wrote...
Wow Grond0 you got some pretty nice lore for a warrior type! Good luck (and uh, try to finish the whole thing, reloads and all). Just a suggestion, of course. And no taking mephits for granted, or assuming quicksaves/autosaves are more than sufficient! : )

I was originally rolling for an 18(90+) throw to allow more axes to be carried; this lot didn't meet that criterion, but I could hardly turn down the extra intelligence for flayer bashing!

Just got through the initial dungeon.  Left the steam mephits in the elemental plane strictly alone!

Alesia_BH wrote...

Good luck Grond0! 

I had a feeling we'd see a Stalker from you. Saying Ashoka looked fun was one clue. The biggest clue was your staunch support of Ashoka's Staff of Striking recharging. 

As Impatiens has expertise in short bow, axe and long sword I suspect my staff won't be in need of recharging any time soon!

I can offer two bits of advice.

1) Watch your step in the Underdark...

2) If you play to the end of Ascension, don't kick yourself too hard for picking Charisma as your dump stat on a Ranger...

Sounds like I need to get re-acquainted with a certain Rod at some stage.

[Alesia_BH]

Grond0 wrote...
As Impatiens has expertise in short bow, axe and long sword I suspect my staff won't be in need of recharging any time soon!

Understood. . There are some pretty stylish Long Swords with nice immunities. That's a good route to take- particularly with an elf. 

 Sounds like I need to get re-acquainted with a certain Rod at some stage.

Yeah. That should work. Though I think  might be a more appropriate smiley...

I've always felt the thing should stat-drain kill you rather then wrap around.

So you know, I haven't confirmed that the Balthazar check is on unmodified Charisma. If it isn't, you won't need the ugly stick.

Once again Enjoy!

Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 28 octobre 2011 - 11:08 .

[Alesia_BH]

 Quick Note on Ashoka's Game:

Ashoka is completing the Hell Trial now.

I always try to have my characters kill Wraith Sarevok in a fun way.

My dream of Wisdom Draining something to death with Kachiko's remains unfullfilled, but Ashoka ended up executing a fun one: an Elemental Prison.

Wraith Sarevok wields an unenchanted weapon of course. The SCS version knows that so he won't stand there and attack elementals forever. He can be imprisoned with them though. 


That's a nice one for the naturey characters. 

Best,

A.

[amanasleep]

Alesia, your casting level is probably too low to dispel Jon. Rangers cast at x - 7.

[Alesia_BH]

It was an Arrow of Dispelling- not a Dispel Magic cast. Ashoka hasn't cast Dispel Magic once in her adventure.
(An in combat spell with a Casting Time of 6 that requires precise ranging, entails risk of potion loss, and has a chance of failure is not my cup. I'll take the arrows.) 


I've noticed the Mislead thing before. If my Misleads are hit with Dispelling Arrows (ex- Illasera), they vanish. If enemy Misleads are hit, they typically don't. On a related note, the Misleads seem to apply SI:A and SI:D to themselves on spawn.


Btw. I wasn't really annoyed by the summon numbers and such. I don't mind when the AI gets little edges like that. It often aids balance.
My diction there was just a joke.

That's a trivial fight for a character with Stealth and Bows.

Unlike the Adsaan fight, the rat served very little tactical purpose against Irenicus actually. Ashoka could have skipped the rat and just stood around stretching during those rounds- the outcome would have been exactly the same. Arrow of Dispelling-> Elemental Range Weapon of Your Choice under Improved Haste post Abjuration school weapons defenses just fixes him. Nothing else is needed aside from standard defense.

The rat was just there to spice up a simple encounter: it wasn't an angry response to his tactics.

I wouldn't mind seeing him cut more corners actually: the guy is basically screwed before the fight begins, he could use an edge or two.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 29 octobre 2011 - 01:07 .

[Grond0]

Impatiens has made a decent start. 

Straight out of the dungeon into the circus; then she felt all pious and donated all her ready cash at the temple.

Freed the Copper Coronet, although made a mistake here.  I thought I would experiment with telling Lehtinan that Hendak was trying to get out, but that seemed to result in the Beastmaster not spawning - so no Tuigan bow, when my elven ranger has expertise in short bows.  Went through the sewers collecting Lilarcor on the way - had a potion of freedom handy for the hobgoblins shamans, but didn't need to use it.

On to the slaver HQ.  The inital battle was a bit of an error of judgement; the start looked good as the cleric was quickly put down, while Capt Haegan was kept out of the fight.  However, I didn't take proper account of the poor AC of the stalker and she suffered more damage than I had intended.  There was then a lengthy fight with the mages - their support troops were cleared without too much trouble, but the mages themselves stubbornly stuck together, which made them difficult to attack safely. Impatiens sniped from stealthed long range with acid arrows for a while and eventually managed to dispose of one; the second then quickly followed.

The reputation increases for that got her up to 20 / 20 (with the help of blade of roses for charisma) and her accumulated gold soon disappeared.  Among other things she's got the reflection shield, to prevent the sort of missile damage suffered in slaver HQ, and the ring of air control.  With improved invisibility available I think she will be willing to travel outside the slums (and trigger the first ambush).

[Grond0]

Alesia_BH wrote...

The rat was just there to spice up a simple encounter: it wasn't an angry response to his tactics.

I wouldn't mind seeing him cut more corners actually: the guy is basically screwed before the fight begins, he could use an edge or two.

You could always offer him a helping hand when you redo your installation - the SCS component to remove arrows of dispelling would be a start.

[Alesia_BH]

Grond0 wrote...

Impatiens has made a decent start.

Glad to hear it. Bummer about Tuigan though. 

Grond0 wrote...
You could always offer him a helping hand when you redo your installation - the SCS component to remove arrows of dispelling would be a start.

Yeah. I considered that. The thing is, there are later fights where I'd really like to have them and they wouldn't disturb balance terribly. Once more, getting rid of the dispelling arrows wouldn't really solve Jon's problem truth be told. Elemental arrow are enough, using the Dispelling Arrows just adds a bit of speed and elegance.

Removing the Cloak of Non-Detection: now that might make a difference. Add in Detect Invisibilty via Script and some Dimmension Dooring. Well, then he might make some headway.

As is...I'd wager Killjoy could take him down if properly equipped. I've done vanilla Irenicus with my Level 1 Jester, Alisa, a bunch of times. I bet Killjoy has what it take to kill SCS Jon.

Best,

A.

Btw. I can make comments on Impatiens updates if you like. If you'd find it helpful, I'd be happy to do so. If you find it annoying, I'll just root her on. I'm fine either way. 

Oh. And If you think of things that will help Ashoka, do feel free to mention them.

[Alesia_BH]

Quick Note on Ashoka's Game:

Ashoka is currently fight Jon in hell. The demons are down: it's just the two of them now. The outcome isn't certain, but advantage Ashoka at this stage.

Presently, Ashoka is basically observing him and working through his spell book. It will be awhile before she makes her assault and I haven't quite decided what form that will take. We'll see I guess.

I will note that Ashoka made a colossal mistake earlier in the fight which should have gotten her killed. Fortuitously, Jon made a commensurate error which caused him to miss his window. Hopefully, he won't get another opening. Again, we'll see though.

Best,

A.

Edit. It's done. 


I'll post on the battle soon.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 29 octobre 2011 - 03:33 .

[Alesia_BH]

Ashoka v. Slayer Irenius

Having never done the SCS Irenicus fight without Maze Traps- and having never even done the original with a solo Warrior- I was a bit nervous heading into this battle. Learning the fight was a big priority. Unfortunately, I unwittingly prioritized observation over Ashoka's survival at a key moment and that very nearly cost Ashoka her life.

Happily though, Ashoka prevailed and my characters can feel more confident heading into future battles in hell. That's a good thing.

Ashoka took few pre-buffs here assuming they would be dispelled. She was running a Storm Giant Strength Potion (which had been quaffed in a failed attempt to open that chest by the Beholders), an Oil of Speed, and RoAC Improved Invisibility, but little else of import. She went heavy on item based immunities with Harmony in the off-hand and Dragon Slayer in the main.


As soon as Jon's prebuffs fired, Ashoka darted away and insured she was invisible during Jon's opening Time Stop.

Hurdle 1 cleared.


Hurdle 2 was the demons. And with vanilla demons installed, it's a very low hurdle for a backstaber since those poor fellas can't detect the invisible. They can be killed almost as fast as you can say "Hide in Shadows Suceeded"
Definitely need to upgrade my demons.


Hurdle 3 is the Dark Planetar. For Alesia, that was the biggest threat due to celestial invisibility detection. Ashoka simply broke for the detection radius border before the Planetar got a chance to acquire her as a target. Hurdle cleared.

Mazel Tov.

Last hurdle: Jon.

The show down began with Ashoka stalkng from the Shadows. 

Jon knew something was fishy, and said: "Let's see what a little divination will show."


I'll give you a clue Jon: 0.


The Cloak of Non-Detection rocks- maybe a bit too much actually...

Anyhoo. Jon was looking pretty freaky all buffed up. Ashoka decided to wait untill he seemed a bit more manageable. Once he started looking like a cuddly-wuddly puppy-wuppy rather than death incarnate, she fired a Gessen salvo and monitored his reaction. He went ProMW. She promptly returned to the Shadows.


Ashoka remained in the Shadows until the ticker-ticked 24 times. Then, she summoned Ras with intention of observing his reaction. This is where she made an error that should have been fatal. Here's the battle record from that point.
 

The problem isn't what is here: it is what isn't here. Summoning Ras doesn't break invisibility which is one of the reasons it's such a great tactical tool. However you do need to re-enter the shadows after activating it. The battle record should have read:

Ashoka- Leaving Shadows
Ashoka- Hide in Shadows Succeeded
...
Slayer- Attacks Ras

I was just so focused on watching Jon's response to Ras, that I negelected to get Ashoka back into the Shadows. She popped out of the Shadows, and Jon cast Time Stop. She never should have popped out of course, but that misstep could have been rectified if I had realized she was visible, she could have just quaffed a Potion of Invisibilty before the cast was completed. I didn't know though: I was just starring at Jon and Ras and ignoring Ashoka. Huge error.

Fortunately Jon returned the favor. This time it's what does appear on the battle record that was the foul-up.


See it? It's the entry right after Time Stop. Power Word: Blind. Great spell. But if you can't detect the invisible by script it is the absolute last thing that you want to cast on a stealth capable character.

Irenicus put on the hurt in melee during Time Stop, but he also gave the gift of infinite Shadows. Time resumed, Ashoka disappeared, and got herself back to full health before re-engaging.


And like that, Ashoka's error was nullified by Jon's error. The total bill for her misstep ended up being 2000 gold. She should have paid with her life. Lesson learned.

Jon wouldn't get another shot at Ashoka after that: she got back on track and Slayed the Slayer.

Slayer- Horrid Wilting
Ashoka- Potion of Magic Shielding


Few other counters were needed: Ashoka worked her way through Jon's book with Gessen and Stealth based disruption. Gessen is a wonderful tactical tool when fighting casters.


Once Jon was tapped at 6 and 4, it was time to layer in the buffs and go for the kill.

 

This ended up being slightly awkward due to an unexpectedly successful experiment. Ashoka was trying out different ranged weapons against the Slayer. Unsurprisingly, Gessen proved to be fantastic for working through the Slayer's book but not terrible impressive on the damage front. Azuredge, on the other hand was devestating with Strength buffs running. I had expected the Slayer to be pretty resistant but a Whirlwind from Azuredge put a big dent in the Slayer's hitpoint total. Not wanting to sacrifice that progress to the Slayers regen rate, Ashoka engaged before she was fully buffed. The layer approach worked fine, but the endgame could have been more elegant.




Fin.

Looking forward to ToB!


Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 29 octobre 2011 - 05:49 .

[Grond0]

Alesia_BH wrote...

Btw. I can make comments on Impatiens updates if you like. If you'd find it helpful, I'd be happy to do so. If you find it annoying, I'll just root her on. I'm fine either way. 

Oh. And If you think of things that will help Ashoka, do feel free to mention them.

Certainly comment away - I'm sure it would be helpful, but I always enjoy your writing anyway. 

Congratulations on finishing off SoA.  I was pleased to be able to anticipate Jon's mistake from your report; now if only I was as good at seeing what will happen in future battles.

Modifié par Grond0, 29 octobre 2011 - 06:52 .

[corey_russell]

Congratulations on taking on that improved Irenicus fight solo Alesia. Sounded like it took a long time waiting for all those buffs to expire...you should make a good chess player with that kind of patience.

[Serg BlackStrider]

 Congrats on finishing Irenicus, Alesia! :happy:  It is nice to see more friends in ToB where nearly everyone is seeking your death...

[Grond0]

Update for Impatiens. 

She set off for the docks and was slightly surprised to make it unmolested.  There she bought some potions for Gorch and then started some quests for Mae'var.  First up was to obtain a trinket from a temple.  On the way there she was less than surprised by hostiles.  Most of them were drawn up to the other end of the area, leaving the mage helpless on her own.  I was thinking of using the ring of energy to finish off the cleric, but a critical backstab did the job.

Stealing the necklace got Impatiens up to level 10.  While in the temple area she visited the sewers and did Roger a favour.  Also ended the rakshasa menace.  It's always seemed odd to me that rakshasa can be affected by low level area spells; not for the first time this one became a victim of his own web.

Back to Mae'var and an errand to deal with Rayic Gethras.  Entering his house under stealth revealed a crowd of mephits - yes Corey her first action here was to quaff a potion of free action!  That neutralized the mephits' killer weapon.  They were still nothing to sneeze at and did plenty of damage, but the battle was always under control.  The golems on the next floor up were simple with the aid of stealth - golems are her racial enemy so a bit of practice there is always nice.  Next job will be to terminate Rayic himself.

[Grond0]

Update for Impatiens.

Rayic was engaged with acid arrows, while Impatiens stood on the stairs ready for a quick exit if necessary.  For a long time I though Rayic would not get a spell off at all; he seemed sure to when Impatiens rolled 2 critical misses in row, but still failed!  He did eventually get a protection from magic weapons up, but his stoneskin had already gone and normal missiles quickly finished him off. 

Impatiens used her womanly wiles to browbeat a merchant into handing over some papers.

Having discovered Mae'var's treachery the guild got turned into a slaughter-house.  The troll form got an outing upstairs to keep HP up.  Downstairs the priest failed to get a spell off, but Impatiens then made an error by slipping behind the doorpost for a split-second to hide.  No surprise that some of the opponents also hid, but I hadn't counted on all of them doing it.  With all those back-stabbing assassins around, the rat got a first taste of action - the reflection shield accounted for one attacker who stubbornly insisted on using his bow.  After mopping up Impatiens reported to Renal and got a level up as her reward.

Arriving at the government area to talk to Sir Sarles I realised that Impatiens was not hidden - really must be more careful.  Fortunately it was the return journey that triggered the Renfeld ambush.  The mage had already exploded, before the others realised they were in trouble.  After returning Renfeld Impatiens did Xzar's quest; Prebek was another exploding mage and his failure to get a word off meant that Sanasha didn't go hostile and quickly followed him into oblivion.

Explored the graveyard while waiting for some 'illithium' to be prepared.  For the first time in several runs managed to save a nephew, though he didn't seem very grateful.  Just off to have a look at the tombs now.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Alesia_BH wrote...
I've always felt the thing should stat-drain kill you rather then wrap around.

Normally it does, doesn't it?

[Alesia_BH]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...
Normally it does, doesn't it?

Yeah. Without the RoHI exploit. 

Unfortunately the RoHI work around is one of those "unfixable issues"

Best,

A.

[Alesia_BH]

corey_russell wrote...

Congratulations on taking on that improved Irenicus fight solo Alesia. Sounded like it took a long time waiting for all those buffs to expire...you should make a good chess player with that kind of patience.

Thanks!

There wasn't a lot of waiting in that phase actually. By the time Ashoka was finished with the Demons, there was little life left in Jon's buffs.

The time consumming part was working through his book with Gessen and Stealth: that did take a while simply because Ashoka had zero interest in giving him a second opening.

That can be done much quicker and with greater efficiency. To a significant extent, I've been having Ashoka do recon for my other characters in this run (Seems like an appropriate task for a Stalker. ). The Jon fight was 50% intelligence gathering and 50% killing.

Serg BlackStrider wrote...
 Congrats on finishing Irenicus, Alesia! :happy:  It is nice to see more friends in ToB where nearly everyone is seeking your death...

Thanks! I hope she'll hang around for awhile! 

Good hunting!

Best,

A.

[morbidest2]

Grond0 wrote...

Impatiens used her womanly wiles to browbeat a merchant into handing over some papers.

I never knew that female PCs had so much fun    

[Alesia_BH]

 Ashoka v. Illasera (Or Every Little Thing The Reflex Does)

Ashoka was expecting a quick victory here and was hoping for a stylish one as well. She got no satisfaction on either front, I'm afraid (mostly due to SCS adjustments).  Nonetheless, Illasera is dead and Ashoka lives. That's good. 

Ashoka was hoping the Forest Spirit would prove even more prophetic than usual this time around.


The plan was to let Simmy Ashoka carry a Call Lightning into the fight, get up in Illasera's grill with the Reflection Shield, and hammer her with Celestial Fury while the real Ashoka blasted away with Gessen. An Air Elemental was added in just to push the style-o-meter a little further.


Unfortunately, it was not meant to be: the Called Lightning didn't carry, Illasera detected the Reflection Shield, and the Air Elemental died in record time. That meant Staff of Striking backstabbing.


I'll note that SCS did a nice job of sprucing this fight up and I would definitely recommend installing the SCS script over the original Ascension one for this battle. The original Illasera had serious Refelection Shield issues- she'd basically jack herself on it if you gave her the chance. The SCS version detects the Shield and goes Ethereal when it is equipped. Additionally, the Arrows no longer bounce off and thump her. Those adjustments -combined with her better use of Healing and Hardiness- made this an interesting fight even though Ashka was perfectly safe thoughout.

The Time Stop was evaded by Quaffing upon hearing the word "Gracie".


Movement handled the melee foes, and The Reflex took Illasera's devestating arrows out of play.

Unequipping the Reflection Shield would draw Illasera out of Invisibility and create a subsequent backstabbing opportunity. The Reflection Shield could then be re-equipped to catch the arrow.


Sounds like it should be a quick kill for a backstabber. That girl is a drinker though...


I counted at least 7 Potions of Superior Healing. There may have been more.

Her Hardinesses allowed those potions to go further.


This signalled Illasera's imminent demise.


Now that the potion supply was drainied, her healing would be tapped soon. Used a Dart of Wounding Whirlwind so that she would get less mileage out of here Healing spells. The Reflex was in the offhand of course.



Pop goes the weasel.


Onto Gromnir.

Best,

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 29 octobre 2011 - 03:40 .