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[ussnorway]

Ud23;

RL has been getting on top of me lately... Sorry guys but I cast a time stop and managed to get some game play with these results.

   

I needed some extra experience to get some HLA before returning to WK but my options are getting scarce... I allowed all the appendences to survive and kill minor Liches to collect some swords/ body parts & sicked my Planetar onto Alhoon so my Cleric can have “Crom Faeyr” in is off-hand but Alhoon escaped veer dimension door. This got Do'dad HLA (potions) & Haer’dalis hit L23... Still needs 1 more level.

Squid altercation:

   

I seem to recall skipping the Mind Flayer Dungeon so it’s back to the dark for me “Methild's Harp” for Haer’dalis & the last piece for the “The Equalizer”... not that I’ll use it. A cloaked Cleric makes harvesting squids easy and my Planetar gave the big-brain a migraine... Amber & Alyssia get their HLA (Spike Trap & Whirlwind).

Day 176:

   

Amber set 6 Spike Traps (3 upstairs & 3 down stairs) to get Haer’dalis a nice ring and another level for myself (‘Spell Strike’ & ‘Energy Blades’ & ‘Bigby's Clenched Fist’).

p.s. If you have the mod that BB only hits enemies then use ‘False Dawn’ to make him hostile... doesn’t break stealth.

Modifié par ussnorway, 12 mai 2012 - 12:13 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Astarta & party, further adventures.

Fire Giant Stronghold: Elite Fire Giants are no laugh. They have a batch of supreme healing potions (5 each), fight well, have fighter HLAs (but not Hardiness, thanx goodness), are quite damage resistant and start fighting with gulping a Magic Shielding potion. Still, not a great deal, as long as fighters are well protected from physical and fire harm. Berenn is immune to breach (a cleric) but not to Remove Magic. He has the support of an Elemental Golem. Nothing that scary.

2 Permanency scrolls found here, 1 Memory Boosting scroll and 1 Manual of Elaboration. Forged the Royal Elemental Staff, 1 more pair of boots of Speed and the Robe of Elemental Resistance:





Defeated Nyalee with ease, she's almost vanilla. has the support of 4 constantly respawning Skeleton Lords though, nothung scary.

Left for the Siege Camp. Lured and killed the 3 vanilla archers on the bridge. It's safe to go to the middle of the bridge, but not any further, since constant enemy Soldiers and Officers start to spawn randomly. Could charm several of them to use vs Yaga himself, using the 2 remaining Control Circlets, but didn't even bother to do so. Buffed well. One Wish was needed for ProMagicEnergy on entire party. Potions of Defense for Riskbreakers, Ghost Armor scroll for Jack Sparrow. Clerical protective and combat enhancing buffs added to the mix. In the end PC cast Alacrity, immediately summoned a Skely Lord, a Greater Djinni and a Noble Spider were gated in that exact moment, PC buffed everyone with ProFire, also Jack with Giant Str and IHaste, remaining fighters with IHaste, cast multiple RVE spells (but forgot to transfer the Ring of Greater Djinni summoning or the Spider Figurine in her pack - a big mistake), so she got 50% to HP of entire party, got a couple of Mental Agilities (those wane fast so they don't matter in the fight), got several Regenartions on party, Magical Rest and another Skely Lord. Thought of resting here and rebuffing, but Fire Giants interrupt the rest usually, so decided instead to gate in a third Skeleton Lord from the now-recharged Amulet of Hades, and try the fight with just one Greater Djinni.  Last buff was Mass Invisibility of course.

Yaga was quickly wounded:



The party eliminated some minor fighters and an Elite Fire Giants. Those are frightening enough and has to be removed as soon as possible, because of their good fighting prowess and most importantly, the Knockback effect.

Shortly after that moment (party and summons were assembled though), yaga and the first wave of Lieutenants appeared. Those are a Cleric, a Fighter-Mage, a fighter, an Assassin-Fighter and an Elite Fire Giant. Order of slaying - Cleric-mage (takes some time to debuff it, 3 RRRs and a Remove Magic)-Elite Fire Giant-Assassin-presumably Fighter, although both the Assassin and the Fighter may be left alone for a while. Three such waves of bodyguards are gated in random intervals (3 rounds IMO).





Alia had cast ProMW shorty before yaga appeared, but Astarta did not. Nevertheless, she cast Alacrity, while Yaga was distracted by some summons. Then debuffed the enemy F-M:



Mage was slain, probably the Elite Assassin was closer for attack this time, so he fell before the Giant:



Giants (including Yaga) are best lured to attack summons. The more powerful the summon, the better. Greater Djinnies are the best summons to fend off their attacks (although even they are not immune to the knockback effect). Fighters were under pre-buff Chaotic Commands to at least escape the Unconsciousness effects of Giants' blows.

Astarta refreshed Alacrity right when second wave of enemy Lieutenants gated in:



Astarta cast one Farsight spell to light a bit more around the battlefield and find the enemy Cleric. He was to the North, while the F-M is to the south. Divided the fighters into two groups. One sent after the Cleric (along with the majority of remaining summons, since yaga and an elite fire giant were there) and the other group + an elite Troll (gated in 3 of these via Alia's CC) went after the mage. After debuffing, the mage fell. BTW, used Astarta's Alacrity to cast multiple Melf's Acid Arrows on the Elite Fire Giant, bringing him to Badly Injured (after Removing his potion effect obv). Maybe should've prepared even a Minor Sequencer with these, and magic arrows too.





Alia was summoning fodder. But the most important thing is that Yaga finally attacked the Greater Djinni. Even had the time to kill the Elite Assassin and the remaining 2 Lieutenant Fighters before third wave of enemies appeared:



Yaga knocked the Djinni back, but went after him. For better navigation, cast Farsight after refreshing Alacrity with PC, and this is what she found!



Apparently, the Noble Spider was knocked to the left, summoned some Sword spiders and didn't move at all. Which is strange, since IA summons cluster around PC and always track her down no matter where she's on the map.

Since fighters' Invisibility was dispelled by the F-M before he fell, Alia refreshed it:



Right on time! Third and final wave of bodyguards gated in, but with II on everyone running, enemy F-M had no chance but to cast True Sight as first spell. The cleric, of course, was eliminated in the middle of casting. But 1 round is enough to debuff and slay the mage:



thus depriving Yaga of arcane and divine magical support for good. Now Jack was knocked back by th Elite Fire Giant in the direction where Yaga was battling the Greater Djinni. Unfortunately, Yaga decided to switch targets, but at least Jack arrived on time for the next Mass Invisibility:



Elite Fire Giant fell fast enough. But since there is no more starting RVE, party has to be healed by some other means:



Thankfully, 50% to max HP is still present, and Saros' HP are 400+ thanx to the LMD effect of each hit with Foebane bastard sword.

Yaga is alone in the end. As can be seen, Defense potion buffs are still untouched, still running on both Riskbreakers, thus their AC is still -24. Yaga on Injured activates Hardiness, which is immedaitely breached:



In a despearte attempt to survive, he knocks back the two Riskbreakers in different directions. But it's too late for him:





Melee hits harm Yaga for 4 dmg at most, but elemental strikes from Hammer of Thor and Poseidon's Wrath are an entirely different story...and Foebane still adds 1 extra dmg from each LMD.

Loot: static items. F-M drop several proMW scrolls, while Assassins drop a Ring +1 each. The Lieutenant Fighters (third one didnt appear at all - probably a gate-in bug) each carry 1 Storm Giant potion, which they don't drink (or maybe they have 2 and drink 1 fast). There is also a good quantity of Superior healing potions lying around (party now has probably 500 of these). From Yaga - Shurrupak's Plate, Shield of the Order +4, Runehammer +4, but most importantly, a Permanency scroll. Forged yet another pair of Boots of Speed. Now 4 party members have such boots, the ranger has the other pair of boots (granting him Improved Haste) and only Bane doesn't have such boots yet (he's wearing the Worn Slippers). My kingdom for a pair of Boots of Speed!

Edit: The oasis fight:

Basically, this fight is about quickly killing battlepriests and battlemages (2 each) while distracting enemy fighters (14 gem golems, some pikemen and captains, 1 general) to attack summons. Buffing is possible only in-combat or pocket plane teleport upon entering the Oasis (while enemies are still neutral). Since this is a no-reload, chose the second option. Rested, buffed well, RVE included, Rest included, cast Alacrities with both mages as last buff and teleported back. Gated in powerful summons (Skeleton Lord, Noble Spider, Greater Djinni) immediately.







Tombelten activated Smite and knocked back the Noble Spider, then he and several of his goons attacked the summons. PC debuffed first one battlemage, then refreshed alacrity and debuffed the second one, in the meantime she released all of her anti-golem spells (but not Hand of undoing, because Mental Agility from RVE had waned) on 1 gem golem, killing it.














After slaying the arcane/divine casters, party focused on the Gem Golems with Critical Strikes. It takes about half a round to kill a gem golem when all fighters concentrate on 1, but there are 13 of these remaining. Well, some are distracted by summons, but party Hardiness is not eternal, and the less golems are there when it wanes, the better. But Jamis Tombelten managed to slay the Greater Djinni and join the fight at some point. Had to use Greater Restorations to survive.



Managed to refresh Hardiness (as can be seen, few golems have survived up to that point). Mages summoned some more fodder in the meantime:



Tombelten now made a mistake, activating GWW when all party fighters and  several summons are near him. Meaning he can't activate Hardiness for 1 round (he's immune to Breach and the party can't kill him with Hardiness running). Seeing this, party fighters immediately equipped slashing weapons main-hand and attacked:



Bye General:



The fight was relatively easy thanx to the 50% extra HP and stacked Regenerations from RVE spell, otherwise the party fighters might've been crushed under heavy golem assault.

Another permanency scroll here (and tons of vanilla items, plus nerfed Answerer), used it to forge a +3 Quarterstaff. 1 more permanency scroll needed . Got two rings +1. Desperately need a third one, might as well break my head for forging the Ring of Burglary and wasting a ring there. Oh well.

Amkethran - vanilla tasks all completed, save from Malla's quest. Didn't even start that one. Lazy. Got the Darkfire Bow (thankfully not nerfed), but didn't get Ekindu's Plate or Gargoyle boots, because those have obviously been erased by IA v6. Right now party's carving their way through Sendai's drow. Forged the Runehammer +5 and also Montolio's Cloak (no one's gonna use it because it's a silly +1 cloak with meager bonus in IA v6).

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 12 mai 2012 - 02:48 .

[corey_russell]

Coremonk the level 11 monk continues his adventure...
Traveling with Minsc, Jaheira, Yoshimo, Nalia. Aerie

As I mentioned in the last post, Coremonk tried to take on Captain Haegan one-on-one. Coremonk approached via stealth, and did stunning blow then attacked with his fists. Poor Captain Haegan never even hit Coremonk...


Next up, we investigated the sewers under the Copper Coronet. A few miscellaneous battles including saving the minotaur! But he is scripted to die, so he died with nothing attacking him..Lilacor went to Minsc. Minsc is usually using Belm and FoA anymore.

After paying off Gaelen Bayle and reporting our success to Hendak we stll had a lot of cash...hmm this gives me an idea. to implement my idea, we went to Ribald's and purchased a protection from magic scroll and Staff of Rhynn. Can anyone guess what my idea is at this point?

Next stop the Temple District. We battled our way to Gaal, taking ridiculuous damage from the vampiric wraiths and the cloudkill trap. We rested up and went into the room with the sarcophagus.

The party stayed well out of sight, and Minsc put up a protection from undead scroll (oh forgot to say got two pro-undead after reporting success to Hendak from the temple above the Copper Coronet), and proceeded to put a beat down on the lich. Success!

Next stop bridge district. Minsc's scroll was stll active so we got to our 2nd stop soon as we could. But first got ambushed by some foolish muggers. 2 call lightnings, one from Jaheira and one from Aerie (using her staff) were more than enough to sort them out quickly.

We finally got to our stop, Yoshimo de-trapped (we didn't even bother looting the muggers) the door, we went in, and Minsc went downstairs alone. He battled another lich, using berserking to speed up the kill. He killed it before his protection expired.

Next stop, the docks district. Yoshimo de-trapped and picked yet another door. We charged the minotaurs in that room. The party entered a foreboding place. Jaheira and Yoshimo approached the sarcophagus. I gave Yoshimo some thieving potions, he was trying to pick-pocket Kangaxx, but couldn't do it before Kangaxx turned hostile. So Yoshimo just ran away after his failed attempt. Jaheira was using the staf of Rhynn, haste potion and fire giant potion. Jaheira did have some fire elementals, but they were irrelevant, as a death spell from Kangaxx sorted them out.

Jaheira got some nice hits in and caused the demi-lich to appear. During the battle with the Demi-lich, she got held! Yikes! But Kangaxx foolishly was spamming imprisonment on her, rather then using melee to kill her. She eventually shook it off and continued the beat down.

Kangaxx's morale broke and he started running! Uh, oh...the party could nothing but watch, while Jaheira ran all over the room trying to chase the demi-lich down. A few times the demi-lich was near the party at the entrance, if his morale restored right then, he could have imprisoned the party - but he did not.

Finally after all Kangaxx running around in fear, he got stuck on a wall! This allowed Jaheira to finish Kangaxx.


While the AC and saves boost would be awesome for Coremonk, the other abilities are wasted on Coremonk, as Coremonk can't be hasted and already has disease poison immunity. So instead gave the Gaxx ring to Minsc, putting Minsc AC at -6 while dual-wielding.

We will probably do the Umar quests next.

Modifié par corey_russell, 12 mai 2012 - 08:40 .

[ussnorway]

@saros_shadow_follower I'm all for a few photos but this is just getting silly. 

It takes me (on a broadband connection) up to two minutes loading time and I shudder to think how people on a dial up must be suffering. You need to reduce the size of your post, try using thumbnails like mine or at least photoshop them down to a reasonable size.

[corey_russell]

Coremonk the level 12 monk continues his adventure...

@USSNoray -- agree with your last comment. More use of thumbnails, links or cropped images are needed. In a single battle there were 10 full size screen shots, surely all 10 weren't critical moments. I have 1.5 MB download speed, but takes quite a while to load this page even so.

Coremonk's party decides to finally go where Minsc has been wanting to go, Umar Hills. After deducing where the problem is (somewhere by the old Amauntaor Temple) the party headed that way.

The melees of the party (Minsc, Jaheira, Coremonk) really carried the party this area. Yoshimo and Nalia couldn't damage the enemies here (no magical ammo) with their main weapons. I certainly didn't want them in melee...lot of use of Yoshimo's traps though to good effect. Finally got an Ioun stone for Coremonk as well.

Time for the main event - the shadow dragon. Jaheira has AoP so can't be level drained, everyone else is fair game. Minsc has Ilbratha, so he might be able to avoid the drains. We summoned a monster summoning II to draw out Thaxssyllyia's death spell. Then we did 2 druidic fire elementals, an invisible stalker and the berserker from the horn. Yoshimo managed to lay down 3 traps despite his so-so trap score. The party fought at different angles, mainly to minimize Thaxxy's breath attack as well as give clear line of sight for Nalia's and Aerie's lightning wands.

Jaheira and Minsc meleed the whole battle. Coremonk tried melee, but when the main group of summons and melees got buffeted back, Coremonk had the sole attention of Thaxssyllyia - he had to run and decided maybe slinging with his sling of seeking was a better idea for the rest of the battle. The mages and divine casters did doom, lower magic resistance, lightning from staff and wands, and chromatic orb and slow. Coremonk almost lost his love interest this battle -- Aerie got level drained to a single mage level before she would have gone to oblivion.

I finally remembered that Thaxssyllyia does confusion -- so Minsc was using Lilacor this fight. No CC available, yet, our divine casters 5th level spells are in high demand. No party member got the credit for the dragon's death - it was a confused fire elemental that got the killing blow in.


For the shade lord, the melees concentrated on him, with Jaheira casting insect plague then meleeing Patrick while Aerie used her sunstones against the shade altar. This strategy won the battle and got Coremonk level 12 - his fists are now +2 weapons.

We returned to Waukeen's Promenade to make the Iron Horn of Valhalla, and will consider our next move...

Modifié par corey_russell, 13 mai 2012 - 12:50 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Astarta & party, Sendai's Enclave:

Did a lot of stupid things here, only luck saved me. Too few screens of the stupid moments as well. Basically:

Drow barracks - thought that party fighters can save anytime vs Improved Web, shot by the Ghost Spider inside. Turned out they do not, and Saros was killed. Not chunked, thankfully. All in all RVE prebuff saved the day.

Loot: a Permanency scroll in addition to the Amulet of Cheetah Speed. Used that to forge a normal Long Sword +4.

No problems with the spiders, though all Mutated spiders are now the improved anvil version, meaning - very hard to kill. And since there are many of those, the fight prolonged, but no casualties or serious damage. Again, prebuff.

Both the spiders and Sendai's Slaves (Slavemaster) have to be slain in order to continue deeper. Another Permanency scroll here. OK, a Manual of Elaboration please! Even better, two!

Further ahead: Fights around Odamaron's lair. Party scouted via Farsight. Nothing. They rushed forward, made half a circle and found the first Drow ambush. Improved Drow include: a couple of fighters, an archer using Called Shot (drains str), a mage, a priestess (identical to the Underdark ambushes) and 2 Ghost Spiders (at present party levels). Eliminated first group after prebuffing, but PC went to look deeper, and found a second group! What's worse, her II was soon to wane, and she was pulled via Web Lariat of the Whisper Spider in the midst of the biggest drow + spider group ever to be seen. Fighters rushed forward (Alia refreshed Mass Invisibility on them), but Astarta's last Alacrity was disrupted due to second Web Lariat.  Ugh. Now there is no way to debuff the mage, moreover all enemies hold her captive. Two simultaneous Risk Decrements cleared the way for her to retreat, but fighters had a real tough time in the web, killing spiders and drow fighters and in no way being able to approach the mage, priestess or Ghost Spiders. Jack was held for a couple of rounds (yes, with his excellent saves), and close to death, when finally Alia got Rest for Wish, Astarta cast multiple RVE (heal the party as well as other benefits), approached to debuff enemy mage, and the fight was won without any casualties.

There was a third similar group around, but that one was eliminated after Pocket Plane resting.

Odamaron's lair: Foolishly charged with the R-C en masse with the fighters, meaning that Odamaron unleashed his Grave 

[saros_shadow_follower]

Astarta & party, Sendai's Enclave:

Did a lot of stupid things here, only luck saved me. Too few screens of the stupid moments as well. Basically:

Drow barracks - thought that party fighters can save anytime vs Improved Web, shot by the Ghost Spider inside. Turned out they do not, and Saros was killed. Not chunked, thankfully. All in all RVE prebuff saved the day.

Loot: a Permanency scroll in addition to the Amulet of Cheetah Speed. Used that to forge a normal Long Sword +4.

No problems with the spiders, though all Mutated spiders are now the improved anvil version, meaning - very hard to kill. And since there are many of those, the fight prolonged, but no casualties or serious damage. Again, prebuff.

Both the spiders and Sendai's Slaves (Slavemaster) have to be slain in order to continue deeper. Another Permanency scroll here. OK, a Manual of Elaboration please! Even better, two!

Further ahead: Fights around Odamaron's lair. Party scouted via Farsight. Nothing. They rushed forward, made half a circle and found the first Drow ambush. Improved Drow include: a couple of fighters, an archer using Called Shot (drains str), a mage, a priestess (identical to the Underdark ambushes) and 2 Ghost Spiders (at present party levels). Eliminated first group after prebuffing, but PC went to look deeper, and found a second group! What's worse, her II was soon to wane, and she was pulled via Web Lariat of the Whisper Spider in the midst of the biggest drow + spider group ever to be seen. Fighters rushed forward (Alia refreshed Mass Invisibility on them), but Astarta's last Alacrity was disrupted due to second Web Lariat.  Ugh. Now there is no way to debuff the mage, moreover all enemies hold her captive. Two simultaneous Risk Decrements cleared the way for her to retreat, but fighters had a real tough time in the web, killing spiders and drow fighters and in no way being able to approach the mage, priestess or Ghost Spiders. Jack was held for a couple of rounds (yes, with his excellent saves), and close to death, when finally Alia got Rest for Wish, Astarta cast multiple RVE (heal the party as well as other benefits), approached to debuff enemy mage, and the fight was won without any casualties.

There was a third similar group around, but that one was eliminated after Pocket Plane resting.

Odamaron's lair: Foolishly charged with the R-C en masse with the fighters, meaning that Odamaron unleashed his Grave Silence on them, and they were unable to use any abilities or cast spells (no Criticals, no Chain Breaker Stance, no Risk Decrement, no Iron Skins, no Greater Restorations). Astarta debuffed Odamaron under Alacrity a couple of times (he uses SI:Div), and fighters eliminated him, but his 5 skeleton grandlords managed to kill Bane. Still, there were only 2 remaining at the moment, and they fell as well. Astarta cast some MS VI elite trolls on entering (she had reduced casting time by 7), those helped distract the Grandlords as well.

Loot: 5 ProMW scrolls and vanilla items.

Forged Spectral Brand +5, Carsomyr +6, Short Sword of Mask +5.

All of these items are nerfed. Spectral Brand doesn't grant NPP, Carsomyr doesn't dispel on hit, Mask sword doesn't lvl drain (but the latter is obsolete in IA anyways)

Deeper: Dyatha and her goons are not very hard to kill, but Ogremoch is a different story. He's highly damage resistant (2-3 dmg under Critical), and dispels Improved Haste on hit. The party entered not well buffed btw, but still won.

Dyatha's only improved minions are the Demon Knight and the Eminent Vampire. Torham's buffs were dispelled by Hive Mother before she fell, so he ran away, while the remaining fighters took care of the enemies. Demon Knight was debuffed by PC after Hive Mother died.

Nothing good here.

Captain Eiswhateverhisnamewas is a F/M, high level at that, casts Absolute Immunities for example. PC accepted the challenge (but I really don't know how a pure fighter would win this challenge btw), cast Alacrity, debuffed enemy, cast ProMW (she was under illusions + SI:Div upon entering), summoned 4 trolls and 1 Skeleton Warrior, and kept debuffing the enemy when he erected protections. Stupid as he is, he didn't attack summons, just PC, meaning he just stood there because PC was protected from magical weapons all the time. He tried a Death spell, which was interrupted via melee. PC also attacked in melee with the Royal Elemental Staff, which deals quite good damage.

Loot: Manual of Elaboration here, finally am gonna forge the Golem Slayer (although I doubt it will be of some use anyways)



The staff is usable only by single-class mages, which makes it actually unusable.
Mithykyl is not very improved, meaning he fell fast. Forged Angurvadal +5, which is not nerfed and offers NPP along with other vanilla game bonuses.

Sendai. Tested a lot here before finally attempting the fight with the no-reload party. But at least, the strategy was well refined:

Entered lightly buffed, but under ProMagicEnergy from Wish, mass Improved Haste and Mass Invisibility. No Hardiness - no need to. First statue is cleric or druid, tried casting True Sight, but was slain fast. Second is a mage, spell interrupted:



PC cast Alacrity and quickly debuffed it (4 total alacrities for this fight, spent sparingly).
2 fighters are positioned near the entrance, to eliminate the drow. These drow are not improved - they're vanilla, and thus can be slain very fast. Statue after statue fell until the last one left, that one was left alive:



Because now started serious buffing. A Noble Spider, a Greater Djinni and a Skeleton Lord were also gated.



Astarta also casted seven RVE spells, from which the best options were twice Mental Agility and once Regenerate. No Magical rest, although she had the 3 powerful summoning devices in pack. No 50% to HP either. Then everyone was rendered Invisible, including summons, and the killing of the last statue was after everyone assumed right positions (Alia to the right in a niche, fighters lower-right from center, summons left from center. Astarta also started casting Alacrity:



Here's how the enemies are positioned. Basic idea was: PC is near Sendai, Skely Lord + Noble Spider distract one Web Golem, Greater Djinni stays out of enemy Ghost Spider's Improved Web range but lures lower Web Golem, and Sendai's Pet is lured by a Greater Yuanti just summoned by Alia. Didnt' quite work that way though:



Many things happened now. Lower Web Golem attacked Torham, despite the fact that the Djinni was closer. These golems apply Miscast Magic on hit, fight with both normal and magical weapons....i.e. they're identical to Greater Twisted Golems, but have one upgrade: these golems can be harmed by slashing weapons only!

Torham was running around like crazy, but still ate a hit. Bad. That hit dispelled his illusions and specific protections, and now he could be webbed any second and slain. Astarta made a feint, and assumed position on the entrance of one of the niches. Torham entered before that with the golem following him in the niche. Then Torham escaped through Astarta, but the golem couldn't, and was forced to fight her. She was keeping ProMW up, and because of hell trials,  she's immune to both normal and magical weapons that way. In the meantime, spiders were slain, and fighters focused on Sendai's Pet:



Currently, Astarta was keeping Sendai busy, at the start of combat with multiple Remove Magics + Breach (Sendai is a F/M/C, with 37+ clerical level, not quite sure what, so Remove Magic can not dispel her clerical bufs), but now she had to cast ProMW at random intervals, and it became Alia's job to constantly Breach Sendai. If left unsupervised, Sendai may try Dispel Magic (ugh), or Storm of Vengeance (double ugh). Alia had summoned a couple of Greater Yuantis already.

Torham is kinda useless vs the golems, since he can only wield crushing weapons. Still can be useful vs the pet, but preferred to keep him out of enemy sight:



Sendai's pet is also very damage resistant, but has to be slain fast with Criticals, because it uses a roar, which deafens everyone from the party and also inflicts some damage. Astarta's job was gating in an occasional Elite Troll between ProMW castings while Alia's was to Breach Sendai each time when Sendai cast any sort of protective spell. Finally, the pet died:



Now began some circling around, since the Web Golem attacked Bane. Bane has only 65% resistances, and this is for 5 rounds only. 65% resistances means that he may die in 4 hits from Sendai/the golem. Better if the golem attacks Saros, who has 75% (Defender of Easthaven off), or best - Jack, who's currently with 95% resistances to all melee damage types. Succeeded:



Jack has only 180 HP, but enemies score only 5-6 points of damage per successful hit. In the meantime, ProEnergy was cast on Torham:



Hardinesses refreshed when the golem had but a few HP left (intentionally did not cast Hardiness on the two Riskbreakers for 1 round, activating Criticals instead, to quickly kill the golem):



Jack's Hardiness waned right on time:



Unless these golems are killed, Sendai cannot be killed (she can be harmed though, but she regenerates, so the only idea of harming her is spell disruption, and her casting speed is reduced by 5).

Luring the second golem. Astarta cleared the way for it to escape. Only jack and summons approached, with good result:



Unfortunately, after that the golem started switching targets. Alia decided to start gating Yuantis again, only to see Sendai casting an Invocation spell, probably Storm of Vengeance. Astarta took care of that:



Afterwards, Sendai activated Spell immunity. Couldn't see what exactly in the dialogue window wasn't written anything! Supposedly Abjuration. She breached Torham (blast, just had him protected from Energy):



Last Alacrity. RRR, Remove Magic, Remove Magic, Ruby Ray on Self, just to find out PC ran out of Spell Immunities (wanted to remove SI:Div and cast SI:A). Oh well, mass Invisibility still running. Last golem was already dead:







Jack was equipped with Ring of Gaxx and Carsomyr for 100% MR (first he was poisoned - this was to negate the damage because no one could heal him soon). Also, this way he's immune to 3*ADHW Sendai's contingency. PC used what's left of her Alacrity to buff Torham and Bane with ProEnergy:





Sendai managed to Breach Torham again. PC used the last second of her Alacrity to cast ProMagicEnergy on him:



Sendai's CC. Intentionally sent Saros in too, because he had 400+ HP from Foebane bastard sword, and could presumably survive the 3* ADHW spells. Turned out he did:



But he was as well assaulted by Sendai and poisoned (now that his ring is in Jack). Used Greater Restoration, but he was poisoned again:



Sendai made some last attempts to save her hide:



But alas, it was too late for her:



Ring of Free Action and Studded Leather of Thorns looted here, as well as Wong Fei's Ioun Stone (excellent for Bane, obsidian went to PC)

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 14 mai 2012 - 03:26 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Astarta & party, Draconis:

Also took several test fights in order to pick the best no-reload strategy. BTW not a single test fight was lost either.

Party immediately brought to Draconis, no time to prepare anything.



It's best to distract Draconis with summons, because if he sees any spellcasting in front of him, he activates Larloch's Interrupter. Torham the R-C also got enemy attention under Iron Skins:





But Torham ran away quickly so that Draconis could attack the summons. Oh yeah...here's enemy buffing sequence:



PC and Alia were the last to retreat. Alia cast ImprovedHaste on Jack Sparrow, Bane cast his own IHaste, other fighters+PC summoned monsters, and Torham, of couse, cast Iron Skins which ate the Breach. Contingencies triggered, then mages retreated too:



Trolls were sent ahead. They are quick to die anyways, their task is to distract Draconis and kill Invisibile Stalkers. Away from enemy sight party buffed:



Okay, so Astarta got lucky. Big deal. With or without that magical rest - it's almost all the same. The only difference is an extra Greater Djinni. Frankly, I was wondering to pick Mental Agility, for quciker fighter casting under Alacrity. Almost the same. Other RVEs were stupid (2 original, 2 from magical rest).

Every fighter was given protection from Magical Energy and Acid (Draconis loves CC with triple ADHW, and activates one in human and one in dragon form - pure cheating IA-wise, because CC cannot be cast more frequently than once every 24 hours). PC also took care of her own protections via a Trigger (thus preserving a maximum quantity of Breach spells - 8). Breach is important vs Draconis, because he's such a high level that even multiple Remove Magicks have no big effect on him. Probably mage lvl 34 or 35.



Last buffs(including a Greater Djinni):



Alacrity, debuff, result...although enemy managed to cast True Sight. Had to wait maybe for him to cast a spell and then rush to attack, then he couldn't cast True Sight: Again had to debuff, because at Badly Injured he activated none other but Hardiness HLA.



Hmph...



Yes I do. Easily. Exactly. Astarta had started Alacrity casting right before Draconis gave his speech, meaning that it was completed during the animation. Spellstrike:



Reason for Spellstrike in no-reload on Draconis: As pointed out already, he's of extremely high level and unlike other dragons, Remove Magicks have little chance of success (55% IS little). And there is the still-present bug with the unremovable Spell Shield (by anything except Spellstrike). In addition, Spellstrike removes his Spell Turning and GoI, and he (strangely enough) recasts Spell Turning first. So some time won by that maneuver. Jack Breached via scroll.



Astarta refreshed Alacrity, but her Foreknowledge had waned. This turns out for the best, since the correct interval for casting Breaches is 2 (between enemy ProMW castings), so she simply had to sit there and shower the dragon with her remaining six Breaches, while fighters took him down. Saros and bane were buffeted once, but nothing can buffet Jack Sparrow with his Dragon Lord halberd equipped. Draconis died a round after Alacrity was refreshed:





Loot: Tsu-Zan's Bracers (now there's a real dilemma, these or Extraordinary spec gloves for Jack), a permanency scroll, a Manual of Elaboration (apparently, there are enough in ToB), and some gems. Forged this weapon with Cespenar's help, because there's plenty of money and really no need to keep the ingredients in pack. Although I doubt it will be of any use:



Frankly, what the party needs right now is a pair of Boots of Speed and a Ring +1, but I doubt there are more to be found in Azi's lair or Amkethran.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 13 mai 2012 - 12:31 .

[corey_russell]

Coremonk the level 12 monk - FINAL update

I absently went into the warehouse with the hostile party without any buffs at all. However, yet again, plague of insects, chaos and slow sorted out the enemies nicely.


We need cash for the shield of balduran so we can do the Unseeing Eye quest. So we go to the guarded compound and battle their summons. We prevail, but not before Minsc's death. Aerie raised him we healed him and went upstairs. This battle lasted for quite a while, but a little bit of bad luck -- Jaheira's insect plague did not make it to the enemy cleric. This turned out to be fatal, as the cleric managed to hold Coremonk and meleed Coremonk. As soon as the cleric starting meleeing Coremonk, I told Nalia, Aerie and Jaheira to attack Coremonk's attacker. Yoshimo was dead by this point and Minsc was running around in fear, his morale broke I believe. The ladies weren't able to save Coremonk, and he was slain. RIP Coremonk.

[saros_shadow_follower]

Condolescens, corey_russell. Good luck in your next round!

I am happy to announce that after a lot of testing with another team, the party has clarified the always-winning no-reload Azi strategy.

Azi's enclave is completely vanilla, even the Kuo-Toans are not improved(unlike ones in Underdark). Fll'Yissetat was slaughtered after breaking the Geas spell upon her:



But alas, she no longer has the Improved Invisibility ring, but a second copy of the Oaken ring. Without the Nymph Tear.

Buffed well, but no Spell Immunity. No need to. Last buffs were Foreknowledges for all who can cast it and also Mass Invisibility.

Jack was ahead of the party this time. Armed with Poseidon's Wrath halberd, it became his job to seek out and eliminate pesky Frost Salamanders which may hinder party's strategy:



Party gated in a Noble Spider, a Greater Djinni, a Skeleton Lord and even a Planetar immediately upon entering. The big advantage of the Planetar is undoubtedly the immunity to Wing buffet's knockback effect.



The fated meeting:



Azi (unlike his son) is under Spell immunity: Divination and illusion buffs. He's also of high enough level to usually disregard one Remove Magic, but not two Chain Contingencies of those (that's why way had to be cleared first, so they weren't accidentally triggered on some Frost Salamander. Jack kept killing those:





Torham was standing to the right of Azi. Saros and Bane hit from below, summons were positioned above, and Jack was gonna join the fight from the left. However, Jack had 3 more Salamanders to slay. and by that time, the fighters have already done their job:



The buffet effect upon Azi's transformation disrupts any spells, so no Alacrities cast pre-shapeshifting. But it's extremely important who'll be buffeted where. To the west there is a little space to the cavern wall, but still far enough to be out of Azi's field of vision. To the north is the shortest space, there Azi sees, but most importantly, there are gated his Ice and Ultra golems. A lone Salamander Prince is Dimension Door-ed next to PC, here the party has no choice, except providing her with powerful guardian. To the south there is lots of space, but there are several Frost Salamander alive, so fighters may be bounced there. To the right is the entrance, way cleared, so Torham may be bounced back to it safely.

Oh, upon buffeting everyone, all buffs on party are dispelled, except the undispellable ones (in this case, Giant strength, but in this case Chain Breaker stance too, because it's neither a combat nor specific protection, and also Foreknowledge, which is the essential thing). Most importantly, Astarta (standing to the left of Azi together with Alia pre-buffet) was kicked together with Jack, who's to be her bodyguard vs the Salamander Prince, because Poseidon's Wrath gives him 100% cold res vs the Improved Fireshield: Blue of the prince. Salamander Princes are not slain on hit with the halberd.



Spellcasting. That thing above the party is their own Greater Djinni, buffeted to the upper left corner of the map. It was instructed to join the fight. PC cast Alacrity and Improved Hasted Jack, who turned towards the prince, activated Critical and started hitting it while gating (still cannot retaliate):



Checking enemy positions:



Literally, this fight was won in less than 2 rounds after PC cast Alacrity. Arcane combat:



Seeing an abjuration chanting, PC cast SI:A (casting time 1):



Turned out it was a plain Remove Magic. Now while PC chants for Breach (again, casting time 1), Alia finished her own Alacrity, and started casting some spells:



Lower, forgotten by all, was Saros, who used Ring of Gaxx to turn invisible, hoping to win some time this way, forcing Azi to cast True Sight. PC finished casting Breach:



Alia and Astarta both released their Lower Resistance spell triggers upon the target (maybe one should simply contain 1 breach spell, would be faster):



Astarta decided to cast GoI, in case that the enemy uses Greater Malison. Alia used that time to shower the dragon with her Magic missiles and sequencer/minor sequencer with those spells too:



Astarta  skipped the GoI casting and approached to cast Vampiric touches (she has 12). In the meantime, Alia switched to Melf's Acid Arrows:



VT out, Melf's Arrows (12) Melf's arrows out, sequencer/minor sequencer, magic missiles (12):





Almost at the end of Astarta's spell repertoire, Alia managed to finish her first Melf's Arrow:



Some more spells have to hit, but the dragon is almost dead:



Eight Recast Vital Energy spells. Frankly, was hoping simply for one Mental Agility. Or two. The probability of having zero of these and no Magical rest out of 8 RVE spells is almost nonexistent. Even one Mental Agility is enough, because Astarta had 11 Bigby's Clenched Fist spells at the ready. Those have casting time of 6 (unlike ADHW at the same slot, although ADHW should be more damaging vs the dragon, yes), and if PC could get the casting time reduction of 5 by 1 lousy Mental Agility, she can unleash almost all of these before her alacrity wanes. And these do an average of 5-6 damage each to the dragon, which should be enough to kill it. But frankly this was unnecessary, because after RVE spells resolved, the dragon died from the still flying towards it magic missiles. Even Alia's Melf's Arrow was not needed:







Loot: vanilla items. Also a Permanency scroll and a Manual of Elaboration, which the party doesn't need at all. Well. maybe could forge the Staff of Strength...but not the Adamantite version, because another permanency scroll is needed. But that staff is not very strong, compared to other staves party has, and extremely resource-demanding.

Probably the Royal Elemental Staff (or the noble staff of Air in retrospective) is that which won the fight, because PC had 100% elec resistance from it, which maybe prevented Azi to use his lightning breath. Not that he had much time anyways.

Forged the Flail of Ages +5, which is nerfed not to provide Free Action.

Edit: Re-did the battle a couple of more times, because in a no-reload, I'd hate to have even 0.001 % chance of failure due to some random-choice based spell like Wish or RVE. Replaced all RVEs with Comet spells, turns out these are quite damaging vs Azi, an average of 15 dmg per spell, which is absolutely sufficient (together with PC's 1st, 2nd and 3rd lvl spells) to kill Azi even without the help of the sorceress. She also managed to cast a Comet before being Silenced though

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 13 mai 2012 - 05:59 .

[PPewt]

And that's why I never leave the house without a healthy distribution of Remove Paralysis and Dispel Magic.

RIP Coremonk, good luck with your next run.

Modifié par PPewt, 13 mai 2012 - 05:13 .

[Grond0]

Hard luck Corey - I was hoping to see a monk go all the way!

[Gate70]

Condolences Corey. I second the remove paralysis nod - used it in my last couple of runs.

[corey_russell]

Hmm, guess I needed Anomen instead of Minsc then, as my cleric's level 4 slots were in high demand as it was (free action/death ward/lesser restoration). I think I did have a dispel magic on Nalia should have tried that...

[Serg BlackStrider]

Sad news, Corey... In addition to other's suggestions I think Nalia (as Aerie is silenced) could use Invisibility on Coremonk (Contingency - Invisible when Helpless saved my chars many times).

[corey_russell]

Serg -- Nalia doesn't know invisibility yet - at least not in my game.

Modifié par corey_russell, 13 mai 2012 - 08:10 .

[saros_shadow_follower]

Astarta & party, latest entry:

The party rested in the pocket plane, teleported back to Azi's lair, but before going out, tried to buff PC very well via RVE spells. Main idea was to have reduced casting speed by 9, a Shapechange spell active and an additiona Alacrity, as well as a Time Stop spell memorized. Why? Here:





Seems like IA doesn't change Elminster, and he still drops tons of items when killed. Probably irrelevant, but he drops a Ring of Protection +2! If he isn't killed that fast, he starts conversing and immediately teleports away. Moreover, IA v6 Mind Flayer form has only 1 APR, 2 with Haste/Improved Haste, so there is no way to drain Elminster out of Int during the teleport action. This seems to be the only fair way (although did a little more testing, seems like forced talk bug works on him and he can be killed this way again by Int drain). The other 'fair' way would be using the Chaos blade with captain Sparrow, yes he has * in shortsword, that's no biggie, but on the other hand, that sword's nerfed to allow save vs wands, so the tactic is a no-no.

Other loot: Robe of the Neutral Archmagi (practically the party can upgrade Jansen's Adventurewear twice if only it could be used with UAI or by any other than Jan Jansen), a cloak +2.

And finally, this means that another +4 ring may be forged, leaving only Alia with a +3 and a +2 ring, and Torham with two +2 rings (but he's wearing a heavily enchanted armor, so he can't use a higher-level enchanted ring anyways) - other party members have +4/+5 ring and +2 ring equipped.

Using the last two Permanency scrolls, forged this item:



That staff may be upgraded to a +5 version, which increases Str by 2, and has a 5% chance per hit to inflict additional 4d10 crushing damage. Looks good. The catch is that the Staff of Rynn is required in the process, thus making it unable to forge the Noble Staff of Air +4(which requires Staff of Rynn as a component) or the Royal Elemental Staff +5 (which requires the Noble staff of Air). BTW, strangely enough, this time Cespenar didn't use the Staff of Rynn and it is untouched in the pack, but the party lacks yet another Permanency scroll to forge the Adamantite Staff of Strength, and btw, even if they had it, it would be kinda cheating to do so, because obviously it's not intended to have both Royal Elemental Staff and Adamantite Staff of Strength together in one run.

Assembled what items the party thought will be needed for the last fight, left the crappy ones in containers. Not sure if will win it though on the no-reload attempt (obviously, gonna test first a lot, the test group is soon to reach the EDE as well), so wish me luck.

[PPewt]

corey_russell wrote...

Hmm, guess I needed Anomen instead of Minsc then, as my cleric's level 4 slots were in high demand as it was (free action/death ward/lesser restoration). I think I did have a dispel magic on Nalia should have tried that...

Remove Paralysis is level 3, so it isn't really competing with anything (you need 1-2x Zone of Sweet Air, 1-2x Holy Smite, and everything else Remove Paralysis and/or Dispel Magic).

Also I'm not really a fan of Free Action unless there is a very specific situation that calls for it (Mind Flayers for instance); losing Improved Haste just isn't worth it, and having good saves + a lot of Remove Paralysis more than makes up for it. The Ring of Free Action is alright if you don't have a fix in place that prevents you from equipping it after hasting, but even so a Ring of Protection +2 or the Ring of Gaxx is usually a ring of free action with benefits if you're past the first few levels.

--

Also, don't forget about Dispel Magic; a lot of people think of it as a Remove Magic which hurts the party, whereas I think of it as a Remove Magic which dispels Chaos, Confusion, Stun, Charm etc. I like to have it on a multiclass (Aerie or Jan in vanilla), since most enemies with disables are relatively low level which means you have a good shot at dispelling negative buffs without affecting any buffs left by a single or dual class character.

--

The invisibility suggestion is also great. Don't be stingy with your money in a no-reload run, and don't bother memorizing any damage spells other than level 1 (on which there isn't much else), level 3 (skull trap is skull trap), and level 8 (ADHW); fighters can take care of most fights as long as they have mages with plenty of illusions, enchantments, and abjurations to back them up.

Modifié par PPewt, 14 mai 2012 - 01:02 .

[ussnorway]

I like putting my bard in charge of de-buffing with “Methild's Harp” but I always cloak with ‘Invisibility 10' Radius’: at the very least it byes you enough time to disarm the two nasty traps at the stop of both stairs.

[corey_russell]

My mages didn't have that spell either. : )

[PPewt]

corey_russell wrote...

My mages didn't have that spell either. : )

There are two spell shops in the very first area you enter after leaving Irenicus' Dungeon!

[corey_russell]

PPewt wrote...

corey_russell wrote...

My mages didn't have that spell either. : )

There are two spell shops in the very first area you enter after leaving Irenicus' Dungeon!

Yes I know. The issue as always is money -- money is why I was battling the guarded compound in the first place!

[Triaxx2]

Good reason I always head straight to Trademeet. Nice reward for a relatively small amount of work. Of course I don't play with many difficulty increasers.

[corey_russell]

I had already been to trademeet my game... : )

[corey_russell]

Note to EVERYONE:

I have updated the topic post (the first post). It includes some of the rules that we have been going by that weren't explicitly spelled out -- they are now spelled out. (such as if you wanted to restarted a failed character, it had to be a restart from a save made immediately after character creation)

In addition AGES ago (like a year ago?) some-one suggested that the list of trilogy no-reloaders be posted in the initial topic. I wasn't following the board at the time so didn't know about it until just recently as I was going through the old posts in this thread and saw that. I have actually done that.

I KNOW I am missing some people -- BBMorti's assasin for one, I know there are others. If people could PM me with the details I am missing that would be great - I could the update the topic post. See the topic post to see what info I need: character name, race/class, difficulty, any special mods affecting difficulty and of course person controlling said character. I know my own successes so I was able to list those...

Thanks in advance for your help.