15226 réponses à ce sujet

[corey_russell]

I've used invisibility in the past and found it not helpful.  I've also tried a long drawn-out approach of running and shooting, but that's didn't seem to be promising because Mel heals herself.

 

I think the most likely way to succeed as a fighter is to take an aggressive approach and try and kill her as quickly as possible.  The FoA is helpful for the slow effect - I think that makes it harder for her to heal herself while under further attack.  If you've found any arrows of dispelling they could be helpful in dealing with stoneskins.  I presume you also have Vhailor's Helm - that should make one of the battles pretty much a foregone conclusion.  You probably don't need to use any HLAs on the enemies in the intervals between Mel, although I seem to remember using one on a Marilith last time due to the difficulty of finishing one of them off with normal attacks while both of them were attacking.

Thanks for the quick reply! I have a reply to your reply:

1) My plan is definitely to kill her ASAP, and also if possible saving the GWWs for her

2) I think getting into melee range to do a FoA attack is too dangerous for Noywad III, as Mel's weapon has a dispel on hit, which would be dangerous for my character (he's going to use the flesh armor so he can get 100% magic resist)

3) I never found any arrows of dispelling in ToB, so won't have that unfortunately.

4) I personally find the Vhailor's Helm too cheesy and thus never use it.

5) I take the Marilith threat seriously, plan on a charm helmet and protection from poison scroll to be on the safe side

 

Too bad invisibility is of no use...

[Grond0]

Grit - elven wild mage (update 12)

 

Pocket plane challenge 4 was laughably easy for Grit.  She had huge spell resources she could draw upon, but they weren't needed - a planetar and mordy sword were more than enough since the Favored of Cyric were not quite favored enough to be able to damage either of those.

 

Pocket plane challenge 5 was a bit more difficult.  She tried a lower resistance, but that had no effect, so she settled in to throwing +4 bullets with the sling of seeking while keeping 2 mordy swords going (staggered so one was always active) for the enemies to focus on.  Despite her use of 2 each of mind focusing, oils of speed and potions of power it took a long time to wear the Ravager down and she'd gone through all her 10 mordy sword spells and her chaos shields had expired before he finally fell (she did have plenty of other summons available of course, as well as the odd mordy sword that could have been summoned from scrolls if necessary).

 

She will be going after Melissan shortly.

[corey_russell]

Noywad III the Solo Dwarven Fighter - FINAL Update

 

Noywad III buffs as much as he could then enters the Throne of Bhaal. He threw his +4 bullets as fast as he could at Melissan and won the first battle - this was encouraging.

 

The 1st pool battle was challenging but Noywad III kept Yaga's warhammer off-hand so he wouldn't get level drained. He used lots of heals but he got the job done. I didn't get a screenie, but Noywad III managed to win the 2nd battle with Melissan as well! The 2nd pool battle was tough, I didn't have good cold resists unfortunately - so Noywad III had to run and sling the greater prince elemental - once dead though, he was able to mop up the rest of the pool in melee.

 

3rd Melissan battle I forgot to summon my summons! I quickly summoned Ras as a distraction and tried to get Melissan but she ran away. Noywad III chased her and did a GWW - however, he missed when she said "Prases" and she did a time stop and killed Noywad III in melee.

 

This is the farthest I've ever gotten with a solo character. Noywad III may have not have survived, but he showed a lot of heart - I'm proud of him. Will get back to Koon II the bard now...

 

EDIT: some typos fixed

[Aasim]

Great job Corey, an exellent run. I didn't know vanilla Mel uses TS...

[corey_russell]

Great job Corey, an exellent run. I didn't know vanilla Mel uses TS...

She did time stop each fight actually - the first two she wasted time casting spells rather than engage in melee, which is why Noywad III survived the 1st two encounters. 3rd encounter she wised up that melee much better than casting magic at Noywad III...

[Serg BlackStrider]

Yes, impressive run Corey, even if not victorious.

[Aasim]

She did time stop each fight actually - the first two she wasted time casting spells rather than engage in melee, 

Ahhh...now I remember.... I haven't seen Mel in ages tbh.

[Grond0]

That's a shame Corey - seems like Mel's had a good day!

 

Grit - elven wild mage (update 13)

 

Grit's unlucky 13th update commenced with her buffing up in the pocket plane ready for Melissan.  After doing that she used wish spells (from NRD) until she had rememorised her spells.

 

On entry, she used a trigger with triple lower resistance on Mel and then tried to hit her with spell damage.  That proved harder than expected as her chain contingency triple improved chaos shield did not seem to be working in this area and all but 1 of her attempted NRD spells surged - and the skull trap that did succeed was negated by a heal surge!  Judging from later experience with casting something about the area had prevented the improved chaos shields from stacking; even with only a single one functioning though, the chance of a spell casting successfully through NRD is above 60%, so she was very unlucky with those opening attacks.

 

She then used a PW: blind on Mel, before producing a planetar to keep the minions busy while she cast improved alacrity.  3 skull traps, 4 acid arrows and 3 wiltings later (one of which surged) and I was beginning to think about what to use next after her obvious spell attacks.  However, as she was attempting another wilting with her final NRD, Mel decided a strategic withdrawal was called for.

 

The planetar and a mordy sword killed Yan-C-Bin and his crew before Grit used limited wish to regenerate NRD.  That only gave one spell back, but fortunately the next attempt produced a roll 4 more times surge - 3 of which cast normally .  Those genies restored all 6 of her NRDs between them and she was able to use those to wish-rest.

 

She produced some summons and a simmy before 3 more attempts successfully restored her spells again.  She then brought Mel back into play and, once more immediately used lower resistance on her.  The simmy was able to send off 4 acid arrows (having pre-cast improved alacrity) before both Grits were rendered unconscious briefly by the buffeting of Mel's arrival.  That had also triggered a triple wilting contingency though so that Mel was badly damaged.  Both Grit's then tried PW:blind via NRD - but both surged.  They tried again - and this time both connected.  The simmy then tried a few acid arrows, while the real Grit started casting improved alacrity.  When that eventually cast she reviewed the record of the fight and decided that Mel was probably immune to acid so threw in 3 quick skull traps to send her packing again.  Unsurprisingly that annoyed her remaining summons and the planetar chased her for a while until it unsummoned.  A fresh planetar was then too much for Cryonax before Grit rebuffed, produced more summons and then wish-rested again (this time that took at least a dozen wish attempts - requiring numerous cycles through limited wish to refresh NRD spells).  Eventually though she was ready to go.

 

Once more Mel was hit by lower resistance and then blinded.  Grit then tried various skull traps, though I'm not sure how many of them connected as Mel disappeared.  Even though she wasn't visible I knew where she would be and went after her.  Grit tried an NRD improved alacrity and fortunately was successful with that.  A wilting got Mel to near death, but slayer shadow hits disrupted her next 2 spells (although causing no damage).  She finally got an NRD skull trap away though - that disrupted Mel's attempt to heal and caused her to make another run for it.

 

Grit still had an angry planetar present, so needed to wait for that to unsummon.  That was considerably more difficult than it should have been as Grit's haste effects seemed inoperative (both from boots and spells) and the planetar thus had a significant speed advantage.  However, eventually it disappeared and she was able to bring in a new one along with a couple of mordy swords.

 

She then tackled the group with the fallen solar, but again that proved difficult.  I hadn't realised the planetar's weapon would be ineffective against the mariliths and Grit was still moving far more slowly than she should have, which meant run and shoot type tactics were not an option for her.  She tried using a teleport field, but again her slow movement meant she got no real benefit from it.  By this stage she would already have been dead, except that her buffs were preventing the fallen solar's arrows from doing any damage.  However, it's arrows were dispelling stoneskins, which meant she couldn't afford to let the mariliths into combat.

 

I tried using the solar as an obstacle to keep the mariliths away for the short period required to cast spell immunity: abjuration.  I thought that would allow her to keep a stoneskin up and give her a reasonable chance of taking out enemies one at a time.  She successfully manoeuvred in order to cast the spell, but she obviously got too close to the solar in the process and it switched from range to melee attack.  Despite her best efforts she was now only moving at a crawl and the solar got 2 rapid attacks in.  One final hit after this screenshot and she was dead - before her contingency even had time to trigger.

 

That was a shame.  The slow movement at the end was nasty, but I've come across that type of effect a number of times before (it happens quite regularly in Thaxy's cave).  The real killer though was my failure to prepare sufficiently in advance for that group.  That was partly because I hadn't realised planetars would be so useless against them, but also reflected a desire to get on quickly rather than spend yet more time in preparation (the fight at the Throne had taken nearly 3 hours to that point already).  If Grit had produced a simmy in advance and had more lower resistance capability memorised the fight would have been pretty easy.  I also suspect it might be possible to short-circuit it entirely by killing the fallen solar in a time-stop before it could summon any help (though that type of use of time-stops tends to be buggy anyway).

[Aasim]

 One final hit after this screenshot and she was dead - before her contingency even had time to trigger.

 

Condolences, I admire your peristence with Wild mages.

May I ask, what was the condition for contingency to trigger, HP at 50%? Any of HP-based contingenies have a "delay" until script block triggers unfortunately - making them virtually useless in combat, even more so when 3 hits will kill you...

[Grond0]

May I ask, what was the condition for contingency to trigger, HP at 50%? Any of HP-based contingenies have a "delay" until script block triggers unfortunately - making them virtually useless in combat, even more so when 3 hits will kill you...

That was the trigger yes.  I agree that there is a danger due to the delay on triggering, but none of the other available triggers are of any use at all in that type of situation (it's very strange that there is not a trigger set to operate when any damage is taken, while there's one set for 90%.  The idea that a mage will wait to trigger a contingency until they have a handful of hits left is laughable - most of the time a hit would do enough damage to bypass the trigger into death anyway).

[Serg BlackStrider]

I was hoping Grit will be the One, feel sad she isn't. She was so close...  

[corey_russell]

@Grond0: Sorry Grit didn't get it it done, she was so close...still, all things considered, getting as far as Grit did is still a fantastic result for a wild mage, nice work to get that far.

[Aasim]

That was the trigger yes.  I agree that there is a danger due to the delay on triggering, but none of the other available triggers are of any use at all in that type of situation (it's very strange that there is not a trigger set to operate when any damage is taken, while there's one set for 90%.  The idea that a mage will wait to trigger a contingency until they have a handful of hits left is laughable - most of the time a hit would do enough damage to bypass the trigger into death anyway).

It's even stranger than that - the game engine supports 11 kinds of different contigency triggers - including "took damage"...

Why one can't pick from those available when Contingency is cast I can't really understand. 

[coldflame]

It's even stranger than that - the game engine supports 11 kinds of different contigency triggers - including "took damage"...

Why one can't pick from those available when Contingency is cast I can't really understand. 

Just out of curiosity, is there a mod to address this?

[Aasim]

Just out of curiosity, is there a mod to address this?

No, I'm afraid.

[Blackraven]

I hadn't been on here for a day or two, had hoped to read different tidings from Grond0 and Corey. Sorry to Grit and Noywad III fall. My compliments for both anyway.
Best of luck with your new attempts.

[Gate70]

Sorry to hear that (both). Melissan doesn't play fair in my opinion, and the final pool group should never be under-estimated.

 

Grond0, maybe save after each part and split it into playable sessions. You've reinforced my view that a wild mage could do the trilogy though.

 

Corey, not sure what to say for Noywad as I suspect any approach will run risks and her 3rd encounter has caught me out before. FoA +5 would be my bet as I'd rather face dispels than a timestop. I've tried dropping a distraction summon just in time and that's hard to guarantee too.

[Gate70]

(just realised, think you said you have the big metal unit Corey). I'd use that too so her summons are less likely to hit and you can focus on her, maybe with Crom Faeyr offhand for an undispellable 25 strength. Then remove it for each of the pools.

[Grond0]

I would support the point about melee as the preferred route.  Hit her hard and often - preferably with the FoA - and you can pre-empt her use of timestops.  Also, next time make sure you bring along one of the elemental staffs so you can get a full set of summons for encounters after the initial one - they can help keep her summons off your back for a round or two.

[Grond0]

True - elven wild mage (update 1)

 

True has made a good start.  Thus far she's been lucky with surges given that I haven't been trying to virtually eliminate risk in the way I did with Grit.  There have been several potentially nasty ones which have occured in the right place, e.g. no-save hold with no enemies or fireball while no innocents are around.  Let's see if her luck can hold ...

 

In the dungeon True was reluctant to cast spells initially due to her poor saving throw making surges much more dangerous.  Instead she used her quasit familiar a lot in micro-managed melee to clear a path to find some equipment. Once she had got a ring of protection and the Claw of Kazgoroth she felt more comfortable and went back to clear out remaining enemies and fully loot things - getting up to level 10 in the process of doing that.  As with BG1 she has taken the benefit of consoling in a bag of holding.

 

There was one very dangerous surge when a cow fell on top of True.  I hadn't appreciated before that that does area damage, or would have moved the quasit out of the way.  There was a cloudkill spell operating among the duergar at the time, so True was desperately trying to block the quasit from running in that direction (it had only 2 HPs left so no surprise that its morale failed) - fortunately it didn't try too hard to get past her and it wasn't that long (though it felt it) until it recovered.

 

True successfully managed to block Ulvaryl on her route to get at the assassins, allowing her summons time to encircle the vampire - as it's scripted to attack the assassins that means it won't attack you.  A magic missile finished it off when it got to near death, before it could turn gaseous.

 

The XP for exiting the dungeon got True to level 11, meaning that spirit armour alone could now get her spell save down to 1.  That makes casting spells more attractive so she celebrated by destroying the cowled wizards with malisoned webs / stinking clouds / cloudkills.  That was a very clean operation: of the basic groups only a single enforcer managed to move far enough to spot True and she was immediately held again before she could take any action; in the final group Zallanora tends to dimension door away when almost dead, but a skull trap following on after 4 cloudkills was successful in preventing that this time.  She didn't get any huge prizes from them - spell sequencer and incendiary cloud are both useful spells, but are on sale in Athkatla anyway - but selling stuff netted a few thousand extra gold.

 

Before leaving the area True cleared the circus and used her loot so far to buy the Robe of Vecna and a few basic spells.  Then she reported in to Gaelan Bayle and handed the Copper Coronet over to Hendak (one of the bouncers provided a bonus with a mordy sword scroll).

 

On the way to Watcher's Keep she used a web and cloudkills on Suna Seni.  At the Keep she set up a skull trap sequencer, but there were no vampiric wraiths to bother using it on.  To save time she tried knocking a couple of containers using NRD and I thought this surge would be useful, but in fact the area effect knock failed to open anything.  Clearing the top floor got True to level 12.  There was a no save hold surge during that (which is probably the most likely killer for her in this run), but fortunately not when she was directly engaged with an enemy.  I was also not keeping a close enough eye on her stoneskin when she was trying to get a couple of statues to destroy themselves against her fire shield - and she then had to make a quick run to get out of range of the one with a bow before he could target her again.

 

Back in the City she saved Renfeld and used webbed cloudkills on Prebek and Sanasha before looting the Harper HQ.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 46 - (update 7)
Tweedle, dwarf fighter (Grond0) & Guarh, dwarf fighter (Gate70)

 

The dwarven lads had a decent session a couple of days ago that I didn't get around to writing up before this.

 

They started by accounting for Bodhi.  Two lots of sunrays left only her and a couple of grimwarders; she hit Tweedle quite hard, but was finished off before the situation could get serious.

 

A local dwarf forged a few weapons, but said we didn't have the necessary equipment to get Crom Faeyr.  A trip to Umar Hills provided a key to unlock the Planar Sphere and that was ransacked to get the gauntlets of ogre power.  The halflings mazed Guarh there, but not before he had eliminated the main resistance, and nothing else put up too much of a fight.  Similarly the illithid enclave was simple enough to get the hammer of thunderbolts - Guarh was sucked once by a critical in the first room and twice in the second, but could safely have taken another one.

 

The Guarded Compound was a less well-controlled fight.  Tweedle was initially backstabbed by Koshi, but he followed the duo downstairs on his own and stood no chance.  Back upstairs Tweedle was backstabbed again - by Ketta - and then, after finding the stairs impassable, backstabbed a third time.  Even his fighter HPs were looking vulnerable at that point.  However, Guarh was just finishing off the casters (and was then occupying the remainder of the enemies) and there were no further problems finishing them off.

 

After buying a few last pieces of equipment (dispelling arrows and shield of Balduran) to use up some of our extensive gold reserves, it was time to head for Suldanesselar.  Crom Faeyr was well-christened there dealing with lesser golems and trolls, though the adamantite golems still took some big chunks out of Guarh.  Raamilat also managed to maze him - resulting in Tweedle getting on his bike to stay out of range until Guarh returned.  Nizi failed to protect himself against magic weapons and quickly paid the price before the Avatar was raised in the temple to destroy the remaining enemies.

 

On the Tree Jon dealt with a few summons using his time stops and then mazed Guarh.  However, he had used all his protections in the process and Tweedle didn't need to wait for Guarh to return to finish things off.  There was a momentary concern about what would happen to Guarh, i.e. could he be dragged to hell from his maze?  In fact though the cutscene appeared to be scripted to allow time to pass as he returned straight away to follow Jon and Tweedle.  The Hell trials provided Tweedle with immunity to +1 weapons, +20% elemental resistance, +15 HPs and +10 MR.  In addition I inadvertently played nice with Sarevok and got extra wisdom and charisma - not a good trade for +2 strength!

 

The demons were taken down with throwing weapons before going after the Slayer.  There was an odd moment when Jon remained totally invisible even after his mislead was killed (and despite him casting spells).  However, he appeared once Guarh moved into melee range and was subject to massive damage from combined GWW assaults.  He made a final declaration - but was immediately proved wrong for the last time.

 

Moving into ToB Illasera's Reavers were smacked down before she was rendered vulnerable by a dispelling arrow.  In the pocket plane the first challenge was safely negotiated despite Elhan using missile reflection.  You can see the reflection effect in this screenshot, but the damage shown on Tweedle is from attacks on him a couple of rounds previously.  However, Elhan was not defended against Guarh's melee assault!

 

In Saradush the mage's spellbook was retrieved allowing the purchase of scrolls to upgrade a cloak of protection.  Tweedle then approached a vampire courtesan - expecting that an invisible Guarh would be brought along for the ride.  However, he was left in the inn and had to run to the prison himself - by which time Tweedle had finished the original ambushers off.  The rest of the vampires have been sent to their final rest and the duo will be moving on to tackle Gromnir next time.

 

Stats:

Tweedle, fighter 28, 175 HPs, 709 kills
Guarh, fighter 28, 174 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1010 kills, 2 deaths

[corey_russell]

I would support the point about melee as the preferred route.  Hit her hard and often - preferably with the FoA - and you can pre-empt her use of timestops.  Also, next time make sure you bring along one of the elemental staffs so you can get a full set of summons for encounters after the initial one - they can help keep her summons off your back for a round or two.

I think I should mention, somewhat surprisingly actually, that Melissan's summons were never a big problem. Summons didn't kill Noywad III, her timestop did. But I agree I should definitely bring an elemental staff along, especially for battle #3 with Melissan - this way she might timestop and melee a summon instead of Noywad IV.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 46 - (update 8)
Tweedle, dwarf fighter (Grond0) & Guarh, dwarf fighter (Gate70)

 

There was some decent progress today, despite various inventory problems.

 

The session started in Gromnir's basement.  After working through that the duo started up through the palace.  The first group encountered did plenty of damage to Guarh, but once the mage's magic protection ended, so did he.  After a pocket plane rest, and making the improved cloak of protection +2, it was time for Gromnir himself.  The plan was essentially to keep out of reach of the mages while smacking down everything else.  That worked pretty well, despite Mel's interruption when the job was only partly done.

 

The road to Yaga-Shura started by rescuing a merchant under assault.  Moving on to the Temple of Mir the Master Wraith's undead went down pretty easily.  However, the second group survived rather longer and Guarh had to run round to avoid an attack by an assassin with a poisoned dagger.  Once summons had persuaded the assassin to show himself the battle was quickly won and Nyalee gave directions to the Fire Temple.  The first battle there was nicely handled by Guarh standing in lava while tanking the giants and the next couple of rooms were also easy enough.  The third room was more difficult - partly because Tweedle didn't want to rest (despite both being out of HLAs) and partly because Guarh managed to find a spot of lava that was not attempting to burn him.  It's possible the encounter could have been fatal for Guarh, but he was saved by being charmed by an Erinyes (having equipped fire protection items his saving throw was rather poorer than usual) causing the attackers to leave him alone.  He also got scared by a burning man in the last room downstairs, but that was no problem with no enemies left in the area.

 

The upstairs bit of the temple saw Guarh again try and tank Berenn's group from a lava pit, but he took considerable damage and retreated through an archway (allowing giants to be shot at will) before coming back to deal with Berenn on his own.  After everything else was dead the duo advanced on Imix - only for Guarh to get scared and trigger a poison trap.  In attempting to save him Tweedle also got poisoned so had to run away to preserve his own skin.  Tweedle somehow clung on to life and came back to his senses still with a handful of HPs left and a bit of concerted missile fire showing the vicious damage possible with the Dwarven Thrower finished off Imix.

 

Nyalee was taught not to change her mind again before the confrontation with Yaga-Shura himself.  After wounding him, both dwarves went invisible to try and tempt the giant away from his supporters.  However, a mage got enough of a sniff of them to cast true sight, so they had to run round a bit before getting an opportunity to go for the coup de grace.

 

In contrast to the search for Yaga-Shura, the second pocket plane challenge was sweetly handled.  A pair of opening GWWs saw Tweedle's clone dead and others suffering and the dwarves only took one hit between them while finishing things off.

 

At that point the intention was to go to Watcher's Keep to look for an improvement to the FoA.  However, at some point inventory management must have failed as we didn't have the required stone to enter.  Instead the remainder of ToB beckoned - starting with a quick trip through the Oasis (stopping only very briefly to pick up the remains where Jamis had fallen).  In Amkethran another demi-lich bit the dust and the duo opened by access to the smuggler's shop - buying a couple of bits of equipment offering backstab protection.

 

The final action of the day was at Sendai's enclave.  The outside encounters were fully completed and a rest taken before dealing with the Woodcutter and his cronies.  Then there was some hard fighting through myconids, umber hulks and spiders before another rest was taken just before slaughtering Thelyn'yss.  To make things easier invisibility was used to bypass the slaves and go to see Odamaron.  He managed to buff with PFMW, but once that expired so did he (under GWW assault from the Runehammer and iMoD).

 

Stats:

Tweedle, fighter 33, 190 HPs, 879 kills
Guarh, fighter 33, 189 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1164 kills, 2 deaths

[Grond0]

True - elven wild mage (update 2)

 

True has continue to ride her luck this morning, but now reached level 16, which gives her a base spell saving throw at the moment of 1 - that means that she is no longer normally in danger from a petrification surge.   I'll try and play more safely now in order to give her a good chance of going all the way to the Throne.

 

She started the session by reporting to Xzar and watching him be assassinated.  This time I had arranged higher quality summons to trap Lucette and ensured MMM were to hand - that allowed Xzar to be revenged.  While in the area she did Mae'Var's tasks - Rayic concentrating on summons in one corner while gently dying from cloudkills and an ice storm.  She got to level 13 in the process of that before finishing Mae'Var off and then looting both thieves guilds.  With funds to spare, True bought the Staff of Rhynn and some more scrolls.  Those included spell immunity, which was immediately put to use to get the berserker horn.

 

While in the Bridge District True also solved the skinner murders - pulling enemies upstairs into waiting summons. She also finally got around to setting a contingency up (currently dispel magic if helpless - intended to save her from a no-save hold surge).

 

On to the Temple sewers where summons helped out Roger and collected a cloak from the rakshasa.  Tarnor's gang fell to a webbed cloudkill - although it took 2 attempts to get that going due to several surges occurring the first time.  Gaius managed to break free and attempt a spell action, but couldn't manage it from within the cloudkills and the rest of them died meekly.  True exchanged some of their equipment for the pick of Roger's potions before calling on Mekrath - he and his umber hulks were more web victims (level 14).  She started the Unseeing Eye quest to open up access to the lich and then used protection from undead along with a potion of speed and phantom blades to kill the liches.  I realised I'd forgotten to memorise improved haste for MMM used against Kangaxx's demi-lich form, but managed to cast one at the 3rd attempt using NRD.  None of True's MMM spells surged and she still had one in hand when Kangaxx fell.

 

As usual for my characters True made use of the Rod of Terror to maximise her charisma.  She then decided to go and complete the Unseeing Eye quest, but had to take a trip to a temple first when I forgot the level drain trap near the lich was still active .  On the way down I amused myself by sending some surging squirrels into combat with a yuan-ti mage.  Unfortunately one of them turned rabid and annoyed a skeleton warrior!  Further on and True walked blithely through a prismatic spray trap.  I had made sure she wouldn't fail a saving throw, but she took the maximum possible 60 HPs damage from the trap - which cut things a bit close!  Summons disposed of the beholders near the bridge after she unluckily failed with 4 NRD attempts to put up an incendiary cloud (each having about a 50% chance of success).

 

Working through the undead in the pit got True to level 15.  She had another close shave in the beholder hive when she cast an incendiary cloud at the 2nd attempt on a group of beholders.  As expected a gauth chased her, but I hadn't appreciated that a weakening surge on the first attempt had meant she was encumbered and slowed.  That meant the gauth was able to get within sight range and launch gaze attacks - and those attacks continue for a bit even after you leave sight range.  True was taken down to 24 HPs before the gauth left her alone.  Her summons went on to finish off the Eye without further trouble and she successfully produced an incendiary cloud for Gaal.  Reporting back to the temple left her just under level 16.

 

She got her level by talking to the Fallen Paladins, immediately before hitting them with a triple skull trap sequencer.  Two more skull traps left only Reynald mobile and pre-cast summons were waiting their signal to come and finish the job.

[Grond0]

Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 46 - (update 9)
Tweedle, dwarf fighter (Grond0) & Guarh, dwarf fighter (Gate70)

 

There was something of a struggle today, but a bit more progress has been chalked off.

 

In Sendai's Enclave Ogremoch's earthquake put Tweedle to sleep, but Guarh fought on - winning the contest just as Tweedle turned up.  Diaytha's crew posed no problems, although the Hive Mother surprisingly survived joint GWWs from the fighters - but not a second lot!  Capt Egeissag just survived a GWW from Tweedle, but one more hammer blow took him down.  The illithid rapidly perished to dwarven throwing weapons.

 

Sendai's statues put up a decent fight.  The thief did surprisingly well - successfully backstabbing Tweedle once and having a second attempt foiled by the Gargoyle boots, but still managing further attacks until Tweedle took a potion of speed.  That meant that Tweedle spent a while keeping out of trouble (helping out with the odd dispelling arrow or thrown hammer) and gently regenerating, while Guarh took on the main burden of the assault.  When the real Sendai turned up Guarh tried for a quick GWW kill, but ran into an implosion and died as a result.  Tweedle used the rod of resurrection on him while out of sight of a number of drow.  Guarh then made a dash for his equipment, but some of the drow were sitting on top of it and he was forced into running round for a few seconds.  Meanwhile Tweedle had connected on Sendai with a dispelling arrow and a GWW with his throwing hammer got her to near death.  Despite a drow moving to intercept him the opportunity for a kill was too good to miss and another GWW quickly finished her off.  He did suffer some damage from the drow during the ensuing cutscene, but nothing too serious and the duo were able to swiftly clean the remaining enemies up.

 

Back in the pocket plane they went to confront the Slayer.  He chased after Tweedle who just ran round rather than trying to fight.  Meanwhile Guarh was pouring in GWWs with his throwing axe and it didn't take too long for them to slay the Slayer.

 

Moving on to Abazigal's Lair, the duo confronted Draconis. His human form couldn't do too much damage to Tweedle and soon gave way to the dragon.  The intention was for Guarh to tank him (using acid resistance items), but Draconis buffeted him away and then chased Tweedle.  That was a problem because he disappeared off my screen, although Gate70 could see him closing in on his.  Partly as a result Tweedle got breathed on before a potion of speed and Guarh's intervention allowed him to break contact.  Tweedle got a bit of healing from using Blackrazor on a couple of invisible stalkers while Guarh distracted the dragon.  Tweedle then managed to drain Draconis 4 levels, which was helpful in both attack and defense and joint GWWs finished the job.

 

Stats:

Tweedle, fighter 35, 196 HPs, 909 kills
Guarh, fighter 35, 205 HPs (incl. 15 from ioun stone), 1188 kills, 3 deaths