15226 réponses à ce sujet

[Grond0]

Stur - human wild mage (update 4)

Nice to see the Avatars still going strong Serg!

Stur is also still plugging away and making some progress, though with the odd setback.  The first of those was when more gold disappeared - I'm really going to have to store all equipment before selling in bulk!  Just a note that this screenshot also illustrates part of Stur's standard preparation.  The idea is to always have at least one sequencer available at the start of each day.  I'm not allowing the spell trigger at the moment, but the spell sequencer and minor sequencer are both filled with chaos shields.  Casting one of those at the start of the day provides some protection while renewing sequencers and attempting to buff with stoneskin & spirit armour.  Casting the sequencer itself through NRD is not subject to a surge.  However, the next spell cast after this will automatically be a surge, so Stur normally uses Bhaal slow poison to trigger that.  Activating a sequencer after that can still cause a surge, but only at the normal 5% chance.

At the temple sewers Stur was lucky that some goblins provided 2 more charisma modifications in quick succession.  Now he's got a charisma of 25 he can put the Ring of Human Influence away and still make best use of the limited amount of gold he's able to hang on to!  The wand of fire accounted for the sea troll, but Stur spent ages trying to buff up for the rakshasa.  Eventually he produced a lightning bolt that went straight through the wall and hit Roger, so there's no nice potions on sale from him.  Finally I gave up trying to prepare fully and just attacked in melee - Stur's criticals triumphing before his stoneskin was worn away.

Tarnor's gang was much easier - a number of wand cloudkills finished everyone except Draug Fea (and a couple of sling bullets were enough for him).  That got Stur to level 12 and he then spent a while ferrying equipment away to find a shop (normally would have sold to Roger).  With the money earned he bought lots of MMM scrolls along with Animate Dead (succeeded) and Lower Resistance (failed).  Most importantly though, he successfully learned limited wish - which provides a possible means to extend his NRD spells without resting.

Had some more hard work to start the Unseeing Eye quest in order to open up access to the lich.  One nasty moment was when an ooze mephit appeared behind Stur.  He got put out of action for quite a while by the stinking cloud, but his stoneskins protected him long enough that he didn't have to rely on his contingency (which triggers after 50% damage) - the nearby shadows were all focused on an invisible stalker.  Against the lich Stur had a series of poor attacks, which meant it took 2 phantom blade spells to kill it - though he eventually finished the job with a nice critical.

While in the Temple District he picked up the Weather Mistress' amulet and stole a few things from the temple.  That was a bit painful when spell immunity (evocation) failed to protect against a lightning bolt trap.  The loot from the temple included a spell trap scroll, but Stur failed to learn that one.

He went to the Bridge District to buy a potion of power from Mrs Cragmoon, a couple of mind focusing from the temple and improved haste from the cutpurse.  He should now have all the equipment necessary to have a go at Kangaxx next time.  While in the area one of his spells resulted in his first cow surge - fortunately he had stoneskin already up (though I'm not quite sure why that should protect against a half-ton animal being dropped on you from a great height!).

[corey_russell]

Very interesting account Grond0. You sound real focused with this wild mage - perhaps this is the one?! By the way, SI: evocation should have protected vs. the lightning bolt, sounds like a bug, so if it killed you, you could have reloaded.

[Grond0]

I wouldn't have counted that as a bug. I think the way trap damage is coded in the game is a bit haphazard so that things that seem to be spell effects may be counted as non-magical (or from the wrong school). I was aware of that danger, so was ready to run when the trap triggered.

[Grond0]

Stur - human wild mage (update 5)

Stur continues to clear away hurdles and is not now too far away from being confident about taking on all comers.

For Kangaxx he used a potion of speed to help melee the lich form.  Then he tried to cast his chaos shield sequencer, but that held him.  When he was eventually released he tried the minor sequencer, then MMM and improved haste (which both worked) and took the potion of power.

Now attacking, he tried to get more MMM using NRD, but failed twice and was out of NRD.  I was dubious whether the 7 scrolls of MMM would be enough to kill Kangaxx from here, but didn't want to waste the scroll of undead protection and potion of power, so had a go ... and got lucky.  Kangaxx fell with 3 missiles left of the last scroll.

Flushed with success, Stur moved on to attack Rayic Gethras.  His buffs were successful for the mephits and MGoI and improved haste allowed him to take them down comfortably.  Then, trying to summon an invisible stalker, Stur did his best to petrify himself - I didn't have RoAC active here and he would have failed with a 1.  He eventually succeded and invited one of the golems downstairs to attack a couple of stalkers, while he cut it down with his staff spear.  Trying to prepare for the next one, once again he got a falling cow - this time the spell after getting stoneskin on.  I only just missed getting the cow in the screenshot that time - it's a very quick animation so difficult to do.  He failed to get any more summons, but decided that one invisible stalker would be enough (an advantage of stalkers is that the 9 hour duration allows you to rest without losing them) - which it was.

For Rayic, Stur moved into the corner before Rayic's true sight triggered.  I had a number of summons available from scrolls, but tried an NRD animate dead first - which produced a skeleton warrior (the variable spell casting level for wild mages means there's a chance of this happening before level 15)!  That managed to kill Rayic without any further assistance.  A MGoI protected against the fireball trap, while a vampiric touch on the berserk warrior got Stur to 85 HPs, which I thought would be enough to protect against the acid blob - it was.

There were no problems in finishing off Mae'Var's tasks - or, indeed, Mae'Var himself.  Reporting back to Renal got Stur to level 13.  That improves his saving throw against petrification, which I think has been the biggest danger to him in recent times; in addition, it gives him a 6th NRD per day, which will make a significant difference to how quickly he can make progress.

[corey_russell]

 Corey_Russell/Dogdancing Multi-Player no-reload
Bannen - dwarven fighter/thief
Wewa - dwarven berserker

The duo continues to do well. One interesting fact about this run, is there have been no deaths for Wewa, not even in BG 1. It was night-time so the duo tried to get some quests going.

Our next major hurdle was Rayic Gethras. Bannen decided Wewa would solo him with her Stonefire. He let her borrow his helmet of balduran (her save vs. spells is 5 normally) and his ring of air control for the improved invisibility  - she raged and charged Rayic - success! The next tasks, pick-pocketing Marcus and getting the dagger from the defecting shadow thief were no trouble. We got the evidence and did the turn in to Bloodscalp.

Something very odd happened when Wewa entered Maeva'rs guild - the thieves duplicated inside AND outside! Bannen didn't realize the problem at first, but the duo defeated the floor enemies and then Bannen spammed his silence ability (from Namuraa) while Wewa kept Meavar and other goons attention - Bannen then assisted in melee - success! We start looting the dead...

Bannen had looted what he wanted and went inside while Wewa was still looting - oh a fresh set of thieves! Bannen does lots of fighting and takes quite a while for Wewa to assist, but Bannen appears to be in no danger. While the thieves themselves weren't a problem, they made some commoners hostile, so we had to be careful who we killed, and worse made Xzar hostile! This means we can't loot harper's hold, so we lost out of a lot of items (and heal potions!). We also lose at lots of experience since the quest can no longer be completed. Corey_Russell had no idea on Xzar's spell book, so the duo hit Xzar hard as they could, with Bannen fighting at range, just in case - Xzar finally dies.

The duo wanted to do D'Arnise Keep, but there' so much ammo there we really need an ammo belt. So we buy 2 pro undead scrolls and clear out Watcher's Keep 1st level except the statues.

It was getting late, so we went and tried to talk to Bodhi, but she wouldn't appear?! Oh, that's right Bodhi doesn't let PC thief characters join her, I always forget that...it was getting late and we were getting connection issues, so we called it a night. Bannen is slowly starting to creep up in kills it's about 45% to 55% for Wewa.

Modifié par corey_russell, 05 novembre 2013 - 05:11 .

[corey_russell]

 Avenger entering BG 2 portion of his trilgoy no-reload challenge...
Traveling with: Korgan, Minsc, Jaheira, Yoshimo, Aerie

Avenger has defeated Sarevok and got captured by Irenicus.

Setup;
Vanilla BG 2
Throne of Bhaal Expansion
Official ToB patch
"gore" on (party members can be chunked)
Core Rules at all times

Avenger the Lawful Good gnomish fighter, standard Corey fighter potrait
STR 19 DEX 19 CON 19 INT 12 WIS 3 CHA 9

Avenger and his fellow prisoners escaped out of Irenicus with no problems, everything was done and even the vampire got slain.

We had a little extra time, so we obtained the +2 axe from the graveyard, and then the duo got hit with the Suna Suni ambush - Jaheira nearly got chunked but she spammed some heal potions and lived. The team then solved the circus problem, which was easy with magic weapons and true seeing, and recruited Aerie while we were here.

We intend to get Korgan, but decided to get items for him first:
1) Shield of the Lost in Umar Hills - one problem - though, Avenger accidentally sold it! Doh!
2) Full plate from Officer Dirth in the docks, doing this also triggered Baron Ployer's curse of Jaheira.
3) Looted theive's guild and got a DEX potion! Korgan will use when we do his quest in the crypts, that will help him a lot...
4) Ployer and his help defeated by Plague of Insects.
5) Recruited Korgan and stand by the entrance of the crypts, we will start our next session here.

Modifié par corey_russell, 05 novembre 2013 - 05:24 .

[Grond0]

Stur - human wild mage (update 6)

Another session down and Stur continues to move forward - even if it's 2 steps forward and one back!

The session started with him flush with money, so he went to spend it before it evaporated - particular purchases were the Robe of Vecna and Bracers AC3 (the Staff of Rhynn will have to wait for his next injection of funds).

At the Graveyard, Stur cleared the tombs using a scroll of undead protection and a couple of potions of speed.  The scroll wasn't really necessary, but I felt he'd earned the right to do something easy for a change after lots of hard graft.  However, after doing that things took a turn for the worse.  First, returning from the Graveyard to sell some loot proved costly when he lost a familiar for the third time:
- the familiar was out of his bag to allow him to carry more, but had used invisibility 10' radius before travel.  That meant they had the drop on some would-be ambushers and won that battle easily.
- to my surprise though, a second ambush triggered on the same journey and this time they were not invisible.  Stur initially dropped a sword and put the familiar into safety and successfully killed the mage with a wand fireball.  Rather than spend the time running and shooting though, I let the familiar out again while the berserk warrior distracted the thugs so that it could run them round.
- I didn't notice it happening, but at some point the familiar must have been hit as he was slightly injured when Stur finally got back to the Promenade.  The safe thing to do would have been to just rest as Stur's Bhaal healing ability would then be used without any danger of a surge.  However, he's well-named Stur (German for stubborn) and tried to heal the fairy dragon directly - the resulting fireball would have killed it even without any starting injuries.

Now down to 30 HPs, Stur was much more vulnerable to a direct damage surge than before, so decided it was time to ditch the Claw.  Selling a few heirlooms allowed him to raise enough money to pay Gaelan Bayle.  However, before doing that I had noted that his spell sequencer had stuck, i.e. it's not allowed as a spell choice on the grounds one is already present, even though it's not.  I think that's a bug that sometimes occurs when hit by dispel magic, so Stur tried dispelling himself a number of times - not only failing to restore the sequencer, but also destroying the money he should have passed to Gaelan Bayle!  Eventually I gave up that attempt and decided it was time to permit him the use of his spell trigger spell as a replacement for the sequencer.

In search of more money Stur went to Watcher's Keep.  There were no vampiric wraiths there so it was easy enough to loot the top floor - the golem manual and crimson dart being useful in addition to the money found.  However, I did inadvertently click twice on the lich's bed (without slippers), so there's a nasty surprise waiting in there for the future.

Back in the City, Stur went to the Copper Coronet to see if Llynis could help get the last couple of thousand for paying Gaelan.  After that he was still slightly short, but searching tables for a few coins he came across a cache left from clearing the slavers out.  That was worth about 5,000 so he quickly paid Gaelan and went to get the goodies from Aran Linvail - immediately casting remove curse after that to replace the Claw with the ring +2, to get a much more comfortable 50 HPs.

Back at the Graveyard he finished the tasks there, including successfully blocking Uncle Lester from getting to Nevin.  Downstairs he killed some spiders and then invaded the Southern Tombs.  The vampyre there made short work of the golem and berserk warrior, but didn't enjoy being attacked with a phantom blade.  The remaining enemies there were mainly darted, although the lightning wand was also used to speed things up a bit.  Finally, Pai'Na was hacked down by a skeleton warrior before she could summon any spiders.  The green ioun stone gets Stur up to a much more comfortable 58 HPs - it's giving 8 extra on top of his normal 50 rather than the expected 5 for 10% bonus.  I suspect that's a result of having lost 3 constitution points from dead familiars and the calculation assuming that they would have given extra HPs.

[corey_russell]

I see you got yet another interesting post, Grond0. Btw, Lucky almost never used his Bhaal healing, he always let Aerie or Jaheira take care of that, specifically for that reason to not get fireball surges. Being solo, though, you don't have that option...

[WaterMane]

 For my first no reload challenge I'll be adventuring as Tarax, a Mage/Thief multiclass, starting in SoA, whose group will also have Cerd and Keldorn as members. Heres my starting stats.


I'll be playing on Core difficulty but will be switching to Normal for leveling up and scribing mage spells.  Since it's allowed in the challenge I'll also be using a bag of holding from the starting dungeon. The mods that I have installed are the official ToB patch, Ascension and bonus merchants. Now to escape Irenicus's dungeon...

[corey_russell]

Welcome to the challenge, Watermane! Best of luck to your team. Almost any team with Keldorn is strong, guess we'll see if that's true for your team too.

[WaterMane]

 Tarax update:
My goal was to get through irenicus's dungeon solo for an early xp boost then group up with Keldorn and Cernd afterwards. All was going fairly smoothly until the second level of the dungeon. I was able to take out the mephit summoners without much difficulty. Then the spell casting clone hit me with a lightning bolt, I moved, to dodge the rebounding hit, only in the wrong direction. The second lightning bolt hit brought me to <10 life so I retreated to heal up. After cleaning up that clone it was onward through the right hand doorway where a clone is fighting a mephit. Both clone and mephit are slain and I continue up the corridor to be met with another mephit which stuns me followed volley after volley of goblin arrows which ultimately spells my demise. I forgot to screenshot, oh well, but to be clear, I died so its time to reroll.  
I'm still keen on seeing a mage/thief through SoA and ToB so I've rolled that again, only this time I will proceed with greater caution. For this second run I'll be using the same mods/rules as I listed before, but to recap them:

Core difficulty (except when leveling up and memorizing spells)
ToB official patch, Ascension mod, bonus merchants pack
Solo in irenicus's dungeon then will recruit Keldorn and Cernd to complete my party of 3

Adaes will now begin his journey.

[Grond0]

Hard luck with Tarax WaterMane. I hope Adaes will do better for you.

[Grond0]

Stur - human wild mage (update 7)

A generally more placid session this time saw Stur do Nalia a good turn.

The first action of the session was to deal with the kidnappers; Kitthix's web tangle meaning the summoned golem was overkill.  After picking up the ransom, Stur was on his way to store the pantaloons in the Promenade when he ran into an ambush.  Continuing on after that he was visible on arrival and was accosted by Tanova - having to save against fear before he could use the RoAC.  Once invisible, he broke contact and went to produce some summons, with the help of a genie refreshing his spells.  Two skeleton warriors and 2 skeletons proved enough to deal with Tanova and her 2 vampire companions, while Stur stayed out of sight to avoid the risk of being dominated.

He recovered 1 lost reputation point from the circus tent guard and then returned to the Bridge to do the Fallen Paladins.  A skeleton army allowed him to use a couple of wand scorchers that did most of the damage, before finishing things off with his sling (he got to level 14 during that fight).  Reporting back to Sir Ryan Trawl got his reputation back up to 20.

The next target was to get yet another familiar and Stur headed for the de'Arnise Hold to find a scroll.  Inside there he tried buffing up and was damaged for the first time by a falling cow - though he's got enough HPs to be safe from that now.  Kitthix's web allowed the servant in the first room to be saved.  Stur found the find familiar scroll and read that - the spell surged, but cast anyway.  HPs now up to the heady heights of 72.

Coming back to the City to sell some of the stuff clogging his inventory, Stur bought the Staff of Rhynn to improve his melee abilities further.  On his return there was an interesting surge when an animate dead spell cast with area effect.  That turned 2 normal skeletons hostile for some reason, but also produced 3 skeleton warriors!  Stur carried on through the Hold without any real problems, though it took quite a while due to the need for repeated buffing attempts.  He also destroyed his gold 3 times while doing that, though only lost a few thousand from those.  Back in Athkatla Stur sold everything he didn't need and was able to recharge the wand of fire and also buy back the wand of monster summoning for the first time.  Using that should allow him to speed up future progress a bit.

I noticed while reviewing his inventory that Stur is also appropriately dressed now.  He's been through loads of colour (and sex) changes, but is currently very much as I originally envisaged him.

[corey_russell]

Corey_Russell/Dogdancing Multi-Player No-Reload
Bannen - dwarven fighter/thief, controlled by CR
Wewa - dwarven berserker, controlled by Dog

The duo weren't sure what to do, so we tried to get the Sir Sarles quest to get illithium. But when we talk to the contact at the Temple of Helm, he says there's nothing for me to do. We apparently won't get any level drain immunity until Bannen gets 3 million experience (UAI and Amulet of Power). We did try to talk to the dwarf in the Copper Coronent, but he has nothing to say to us - no illithium for us.

So since were in the area, we completed the Lilacor quest. Only special things we did was to silence enemy casters and have Wewa enrage. Rest were pretty simple. Lilacor not much use to this team, so was just sold.

We also cleared out the enemies at the slaver ship. This too went by the book, Namuraa silence ability again heavily used. Bannen has decided to stay in thief armor, he gets -4 AC and he can also hide better if he keeps it on, gives more options, plus allows an opening backstab in a battle. Hendak was pleased by our freeing the children and this also gave the duo a level each. Wewa got a pip and Bannen said use warhammer.

The duo then went to Trademeet and solved the family feud there by giving the amulet to the Mayor, increasing our rep. We then bought the Belt of Inertial Barrier for Bannen and the Dwarven Thrower for Wewa - now she will always have a range weapon without having to worry about ammo. Bannen has a similar one with the Crimson Dart.

Dogdancing was getting real tired here, so we saved and ended our session here.

Modifié par corey_russell, 06 novembre 2013 - 05:20 .

[WaterMane]

 Adaes (Half Elf Mage/Thief) update 1:

Adaes spent over 3 days escaping from his starting zone but managed to survive Irenicus's dungeon. After a quick stop at a merchant in the promenade to free up some bag space, it was straight to the Temple district (after a mandatory stop at the Slums) to acquire Keldorn. Few monsters were met in the sewers on the way to Keldorn but our trek back up to the surface was stuttered momentarily by pathetic slimes and kobolds. Cernd was next on the list so we traveled to the city gates to get a current map of Trademeet. Part way through our 20 hour crawl to Trademeet we were "stopped" by a band of fools who were quickly dispatched by a hasted Keldorn, it really wasn't fair. We then completed the trip and promptly scooped up Cernd and paused to prepare for the many battles with trolls to come in the not so distant future. An 8 hour power nap later and we’re off to hunt us some trolls.

Druid Grove

The two hostile druid groups and the small troll packs leading up to them are taken care of with ease. More resistance is met within the troll mound however. Cernd seemed to have forgotten to wear his helmet so he was crit…twice and died. With a sigh Keldorn and I pick up Cernd’s gear and lifeless body and made our way back to Trademeet where it costs the group 800gp to get him breathing again.  We’ve decided to cut our losses for today and we'll set out again tomorrow.

Modifié par WaterMane, 06 novembre 2013 - 07:12 .

[Serg BlackStrider]

Welcome to the Crew and best of luck with your run, WaterMane!

[DeeKayNL]

Yesterday I tied my first No-Reload challenge... I failed miserably.
I played with the following shorty party:

Dwarven Barbarian
Dwarven Cleric
Halfling Fighter/Thief
Korgan
I wanted to pick up Jan and Mazzy

As soon as I (for the first time) got to the slums I did the slaverquest. I freed Hendak and he asked me to free the other slaves from the slavercompound. I succesfully aquired Lillarcor (nice money) and entered the slavers compound.

I really underestimated this fight. The enemy cleric got Korgan and my cleric unconscious. My fighter/thief died from the captain after bringing him to badly injured with a backstab. The Barbarian lasted the longest but got surrounded by all the enemies. I couldnt retreat and death followed.

What I have learned is never to underestimate a fight and utilize everything!! I never used the beserker rage and the barbarian rage. Take out the cleric first and mabye it was to early to do the compound.

I'm srry i dont have any printscreens. Next run will have them. I will probably do another shorty run (only problem is the short races cant be mages, except illusionist).

[WaterMane]

I know what you mean DeekayNL. Although I've too just started the no-reload challenge I've come to realize how much I would reload in my past runs through the game as I would frequently neglect to account for a potentially devastating aspect of an encounter. As for the slaver ship, I've found that entering through the slums directly, rather than through the sewers below the copper coronet allows for much more prebattle preparations as you aren't immediately surrounded by enemies upon entry.

[corey_russell]

Sorry to hear of that DeeKayNL. Those slavers can be silenced so having your cleric silence them is a good idea. Also, if you get the Namuraa from the Crypt King in the Graveyard, you can use that to silence as well. Keep in mind the Crypt King requires +3 weapons/ammo to hurt - you can always send a single person in protected by a pro undead scroll and have them take him out safely.

The other thing is hold immunity is helpful for that slaver fight - therefore, do enrages, kais, use Arbane in the off-hand, and Shield of Harmony would all be good things to use here. One spell in vanilla that is just amazing with all the enemies close together is chaos (level 5 mage spell) - there's no friendly fire with chaos which is what is nice about it.

Modifié par corey_russell, 06 novembre 2013 - 05:11 .

[Alesia_BH]

Hi all. I'm glad to see so much activity here. Best of luck to WaterMane, DeeKayNL, and of course all our regulars.

I just signed on to let everyone know that I'm going to be out of action for a while; I'm leaving for Ecuador in a couple days and since I won't be bringing my computer with me, that means I won't be able to play again until I return home in February. I still intend to follow the thread -and I may drop in to comment from time to time- but I won't be an active player.

Anyhoo. Best wishes everyone: I hope we'll have a few successes while I'm gone.

A.

Modifié par Alesia_BH, 06 novembre 2013 - 08:31 .

[Grond0]

Have a good trip Alesia.

Stur - human wild mage (update 8)

The session began by starting the Sir Sarles quest.  However, Stur had no money to pay the ore merchant so went to see Mekrath to get some more.  He went down under assault from MMM, while his umber hulks didn't like a web & cloudkill combination - that got Stur to level 15.

After seeing Sir Sarles disappear in a huff, Stur reported to the temple and undertook a new task for Lathander.  Then he went on to punish Neb for his misdeeds.  While in the area he also solved the skinner murders - his monster summoning wand saving time when his attempts to summon using his own spells proved troublesome.

Seeking some quick XP Stur went to watch Mook get killed at the Docks, before heading to the Bridge District to find the Guild Contact.  Unfortunately, I realised on arrival there that the spell trigger had disappeared in the same way as the spell sequencer, i.e. that the spell can't be cast on the grounds that it's already active (even though it's not actually available).  It seemed a bit too much to have neither of those available, so I did a bit of googling to find a solution - using ctrl+r.  For now I'll go back to using just spell sequencer and minor sequencer, although at some point I do intend to reintroduce the spell trigger as well.

After killing the Contact and reporting back to Aran, Stur seemed to have too much money - over 9,000.  He travelled to Trademeet to try and find something to spend it on before it got destroyed and quickly killed Taquee and the genies with the help of a couple of charges from the wand of monster summoning. That allowed him to buy the Belt of Inertial Barrier and Cloak of Displacement.

At the Druid Grove Stur made his way past enemies using summons and wand of fire.  The trolls that should fight the druids didn't initially spawn so Stur treated the druids to a web and a couple of cloudkills - which persuaded the trolls to turn up just in time to die.  There was a similar approach with Kyland Lin, though the efreeti threw in a stinking cloud as well.  However, Kyland broke free just before he died and managed to run away.  The spore colonies and final druids were taken down by a hail of skull traps while summons waited in reserve (using NRD there's no limitation on the number of spells per round so area effect spells can be lethal if they're all successfully cast).  That's a more aggressive tactic than I've used previously, but will probably be used more in future.

[polytope]

Alesia_BH...

I just signed on to let everyone know that I'm going to be out of action for a while; I'm leaving for Ecuador in a couple days and since I won't be bringing my computer with me, that means I won't be able to play again until I return home in February. I still intend to follow the thread -and I may drop in to comment from time to time- but I won't be an active player.

Have fun Alesia. You're going to be spending Christmas away from home?

WaterMane wrote...
As for the slaver ship, I've found that entering through the slums directly, rather than through the sewers below the copper coronet allows for much more prebattle preparations as you aren't immediately surrounded by enemies upon entry.

I think DeeKayNL is using SCS? My experience with SCS - in my current game anyway - is that the entire ship (except Haegan) gets aggroed if you go through the front door and you can end up fighting the pair of mages before you intend to.

So anyway, I didn't continue with my Skald, because I found it annoying to micromanage him and switchbetween song/spells/attacks; also, the Skald song can't replace Chaotic Commands because it doesn't grant immunity to sleep. Looks like I need a cleric.

I was curious how the Priest of Lathander -> fighter would've worked out, so made another.

Aleks is a twin of Salek, but with one more point of wisdom and intelligence (17, 17, 16, 10, 18, 13) this will hopefully prevent him making dumb mistakes.

Mods: Much the same as last time, although I uninstalled some components of 1PP (which add new items I don't want), uninstalled the SCS Irenicus dungeon with all the extra dueregar (tedious), installed IWD casting graphics (this might be an advantage in fighting mages, because the casting animation is much larger and more visible and it's easier to work out what they're doing... I don't expect it to make much difference though).

Completed most of CI with Immy. Assasins at the end of Irenicus dungeon (dangerous due to backstabs) were dealt with using web + minor globe and free action. One backstabbed Aleks, but did no further damage, collected a couple of potions of invisibility here.

Investigated circus while solo (hit level 9 here) recruited Yoshi (for scouting) and Nalia to go and get Keldorn. Freed CC slaves, Lehtinan killed Hendak (never seen that happen before).

Well, Hendak was grateful to have died a free man and promised us a discount through a medium.

Slave ship, the slave guards had a lot of nice potions, guess how many I managed to collect? Hint; it starts with a Z and it wasn't a zillion. I did however, manage to get the gnome wizard separated from the human wizard due to the tendency of SCS enemies to follow sanctuaried characters (PC in this case) leaving Nalia and Keldorn to deal with only that one, Keldorn's dispel failed but interrupted most of his spells anyway with crossbow bolts of lightning (brought them at Gaelan's house next door, money well spent IMO).

Fought the fallen paladins next, got Yoshimo killed here when some ex-paladins ran into the Balthis estate, following them inside and killing them there turned the guards hostile (fair enough, I suppose...) who pincushioned Yoshi before I could get him around a corner and hide in the shadows.

Harper quests are easy, Keldorn's dispel failed to remove Sanasha's buffs, but again, she was interrupted with bolts of lightning, Keldorn got lvl 9 here.

Hit level 10 in the Umar hills, which meant I was able to recruit Mazzy and Valygar at 9th level. Joined Mazy before the keep this time because it's dreadfully boring to switch to bow everytime I want to kill a troll. Fight against Torgal very easy after Keldorn succesfully dispelled both Yuan Ti mages buffs. A couple of earth elementals (found staff of earth in golem room) distracted the umber hulk. Having 9th level fighters instead of 8th level makes all the difference.

Returned to the city for Keldorn to visit his family and do some minor stuff. Had a close call here when the imp in the seven vales shot a chromatic orb at me (Improved Invisibility had worn off), I had time to drink a potion of stone form. Mekrath had some nice scrolls in his library.

Joined Cernd before taking on the shade lord to have some extra death ward and NPP spells available (and cure disease to counter blindness). Cernd also contributed a couple of call lightning spells, although it seems the shadows here are immune to electricity, unlike most shadows... Still, it was the easiest shade lord fight ever, NPP was still up when he fell and no one was even close to dying.

As in my last game, this got me lvl 11 and I dual classed. Disjoined Cernd and Mazzy so that I could level up faster. Now to do some easy quests that don't require a cleric: For Korgan's quest - my priest tries to think of this a crusade against undead rather than simple grave robbing - I used a couple of potions of freedom (paranoid of spiderwebs and stunning by mummies). Scroll of Mordy Sword found on the cleric of Korgan's old group.

Druid grove: Had another close call here when the Elder Earth elemental knocked both PC and Valygar unconscious with Earthquake. I'd tried to lure him to cast it on a stoneskined Nalia, no luck. Good thing I was invisble; Improved Invisibility wore off one round after the earth elemental went down (he also refused to attack my fireshielded mage and beat up Keldorn quite badly).

The druids were easy as always, but the Nymphs they summoned were awful, they blinded my entire party!



Turns out the staff of curing, although simulating a Cure Disease spell does not cure blindness. I had to return to Trademeet (how did we find our way back there, while blind?) and pay 3000 gp for 4 heal spells... Maybe doing this without a cleric wasn't such a good idea. <_< Made sure to slay the remaining druids quickly. Used a couple of potions of clarity for the horde of Myconids.

Randomized items: Found mostly the same items from my last game (though in different places) plus rings of air and earth control, rifthome axe and periapt of proof against poison; on the other hand, haven't found any unique magic longswords or strength enhancing gear; we've gone through quite a few potions of giant strength and agility (Keldorn). Current gold ~50,000 and Salek is lvl 8. It's tempting to do Planar Prison when PC hits 9th level to hopefully avoid Yuan Ti mage spawns... not sure about doing that without a cleric though, I might recruit Anomen even if it means splitting the XP five ways.

Modifié par polytope, 07 novembre 2013 - 04:32 .

[WaterMane]

Polytope what mods do you use to have encounters such as the earth elemental at the druid grove? Also is there a post somewhere describing common acronyms such as CI, SCS and NPP?

Adaes (Half Elf Mage/Thief) update 2:

Cernd's got a kid to raise, so I've decided to leave him to that task and have picked up Jaheira in his place. She is lagging in experience so we'll have to get her up to speed. Harper quests and the circus should be a good start. I have yet to start romancing Jaheira so right after completing the Xzar quest she is swept away by Meronia. With just myself and Keldorn remaining we set up camp on the streets in the Docks right outside of the Galvarey Estate. Jahira returned after a night of unpleasent dreams involving Irenicus. A harper fight within the nearby estate later and boom, Ring of Wizardry, delicious. 

Circus:
Keldorn's True Sight really shines here as he dispelled nearly all of the opposition. Thanks for the ring of human influence Kalah, now it was time to empty my bags at the nearest merchant and head to the adventurer's mart for a wardrobe upgrade. Adaes acquired the Robe of Vecna and a couple of master thievery potions. He required one more master thievery potion to obtain the spells he aimed for undetected. After a quick stop at Roger the Fence in the sewers for an additional thieving potion it was back to Waukeen's for some spells (1 copy of desired unscribed spells). Jaheira managed to level up whilst I was copying my new spells into my spell book, how she did that I do not know, osmosis maybe? 

Copper Coronet:
I've freed Hendak and still had some time left on my thievery potions so Adaes helped himself, via five finger discount,  to the higher level spells Bernard had to offer, luckily he didn't catch me. I agreed to help vanquish what remains of the slavers, we entered their compound through the slums directly, avoiding the sewers for the time being. On our way to tell Hendak of our success we picked up Lilicor for Keldorn.

Next the group traveled to the government district to see how we could aid Sir Sarles. He wanted illithium, 200 pounds of it. We had to bend over backwards and shell out of our own pocket, temporarily, for it but we got a hold of it in the end. We killed Neb in the process and turned in his slimy head for a cool 2500gp and a bump up in reputation. While we were in the Bridge district we pursued who was responsible for a series of murders in the area recently. We followed the tanner's trail down into his lair which was littered with decaying corpses and traps. Adaes successfully disarmed all but one trap, which he accidentally tripped while approaching to dismantle it. The lightning bolt released may have only singed Adaes but he was noticably embarrassed at his error. Adaes and company descended once again in pursuit of Rejiek. A couple of ghouls and novice thieves lay in wait but quickly met their end as the group appeared. We were expecting a Bone Golem but I guess it doesn't always show up? Reijek escaped for now, it smells like he went to Trademeet, we'll continue pursuing him at a later date.

Adaes was in need of a weapon upgrade so the group headed to the city gates to do battle with the resident lich. The lich summoned a pit fiend which followed the group out of the tomb. Luckily pit fiends aren't all too bright as it couldn't figure out how to prance past the bar to swat someone. His summoning duration expired and Adaes proceeded to lay a few traps while Keldorn re-entered the tomb to lure out the lich. Keldorn scrambled back to his group mates with the lich closely behind. Three traps trigger, though only one appears to hit, and the lich is finished off with the help of Lilicor and MMM. Adaes is rewarded with Daystar (purely for sunray) and a Rod of Terror. Sadly I forgot to take screenshots during this session, hopefully I can remember to do so next time.

[corey_russell]

@Polytope: If Keldorn is normally using his crossbow, then the firetooth crossbow is a good choice as it would also kill your trolls for you since it does fire damage and also requires no ammo, not to mention can hit anything requiring +4 to (Kangaxx Demi-Lich form, anyone?).

[polytope]

WaterMane wrote...

Polytope what mods do you use to have encounters such as the earth elemental at the druid grove? Also is there a post somewhere describing common acronyms such as CI, SCS and NPP?

Sword Coast Stratagems II (SCS) adds the Earth Elemental among other things, aTweaks gives the most powerful earth elementals (like this one) the ability to cast earthquake as well as better AI and some other improvements (magic resistance, THAC0 and damage etc.)

There's an acronym thread somewhere, anyway by CI I meant Chateau Irenicus (i.e. the starting dungeon) and by NPP I mean Negative Plane Protection.

Sounds like Adaes is making good progress, robe of Vecna is a real game changer.

corey_russell wrote...

@Polytope: If Keldorn is normally using his crossbow, then the firetooth crossbow is a good choice as it would also kill your trolls for you since it does fire damage and also requires no ammo, not to mention can hit anything requiring +4 to (Kangaxx Demi-Lich form, anyone?).

I'd like firetooth, but Item Randomizer has probably hidden it either deep in WK or somewhere in ToB. Keldorn doesn't usually use a crossbow - except for interrupting casters with bolts of lightning - unless strength spell and dexterity potions have run out because he's not very in good melee without buffs.

Modifié par polytope, 07 novembre 2013 - 06:49 .