@Corey_russell - Thank you, though it was going absolutely crazy for me. I didn't expect to face level 9 spells down there... Live and learn, I guess. I've managed to get to Spellhold thus far, faced Jon for the first time, but suffered another permadeath due to a certain spell...
Ismalin, Elven Archer, update 3
The first order of business is filling up my bags: I actually had more than enough space than I needed! We free the bards after that, and invite the Tiefling back into the party. The second point of order is grabbing two new team members. Since I'm going absolutely crazy trying to mitigate the potions of invisibility that all the thieves are constantly spamming, Keldorn is a must-have for his True Sight. I need one more melee as well, and Rasaad is picked up to fill out my team.
So we start the Unseeing Eye quest only to abandon it immediately, a slightly more experienced Inquisitor in tow. I'm not going back down there until I'm Beholder immune, which could be problematic since I have absolutely no idea where any of the equipment I need is. From there, we go to Trademeet to grab Rasaad, finish off those quests and check the merchants for a part of the Gesen bow or Tansheron's bow: no luck. The trolls and druids are handily killed off though, and we found the Water's Edge scimitar, a good +3 weapon for Rasaad for when we need the to-hit. I accidentally trigger the Rakshasha fight with Keldorn: I had no idea he would detect the evil from her! Even so, we kill off the genies to look for loot, and we weren't disappointed: we got the Ring of Regeneration, which has probably healed us for more health than everything else combined so far.
I want my stronghold now as well, as well as the randomized loot, so we finally head to Umar hills. This is where I first see the content for Wings: mechanically, this affected Aerie by giving her a familiar and thus 12 extra health. We make peace between an ogre and the village, got a couple sweethearts hitched, and finally off to the temple itself. Another bug manifested itself here as even though I had the wardstone and cast nothing but buffs in his room to prepare for the Shade Lord, Thaxxy made his attack speech and I skedaddled before I could see him. (I checked later in a I'm-not-being-serious-I-just-want-to-check-this-out moment where I died: he is indeed aggressive, which makes taking him down later is going to be really, really hard.) Without the improved Shade Lord part installed, the fight's over really quickly though I get no loot of any real benefit.
We do the first Ranger stronghold quest, and now I have 4 days to burn to get the next quest: obviously, I can't go do Spellhold at this point. So we do a couple quick things around Athkatla, freeing the slaves, returning a teddy-bear to a ghost and a bunch of tomb-robbing. It still wasn't enough; with the Ring of Regeneration and only 1 primary spell caster, we aren't running out of spells or health quickly at all. In Hendak's special wares, we found the gloves of dexterity, giving Keldorn a good AC (finally!) We're forced to do a couple quests to regain party-members: the murder of Acton Balthis to get Haer'Dalis back again, and Keldorn's personal quest to get him back again. Finally we kill Pai'na and travel to the southern part of the graveyard district. Had a scare here as, since I still don't have any sort of negative plane protection, Aerie is drained to level 1/3. A potion of invisibility and trips to a temple restores the situation, though. Delon spawned as we got out, but... he said he had a task for us and then he randomly walked off the screen. I checked my journal dates: it's exactly 4 days at this point since the last quest. But he's gone, and without talking to him, I auto-fail the quest, and I didn't DO ANYTHING to fail it.
Delon's CLUA'd back in. Interestingly enough, he does the exact same thing and walks off the screen. So I do it again and talk to him before he walks away: I'm right, the time's correct and he gives me the quest, but scripts are going crazy. We shot down all the marauders quite easily, and now we have 4 more days before I'm given the last quest... Sheesh. Somewhere around here I got the cloak of non-detection, going to Ismalin.
I'm still hunting down Tasheron's bow, and according to the spoilers for IR, most of the locations it could be at that I haven't visited are post-Underdark except for a few. One of them's in Firkraag's dungeon, one in the Vampire pool, one in the Illithid lair in the sewers, and one in the Harper hold (that I didn't know about at this point. It still could be there, but I can't very well check now.) Firkraag's first: I cheesed this dungeon so much. The first thing to overcome were those wretched golems: I have no ranged +3 weapons, so Iron golems are driving me crazy. The two stone golems are killed by the returning hatchet, and I end up just having Haer'Dalis melee the iron golem to death with Stoneskins.
Next hurdle is the ridiculous undead in the lair: again, no NPP and there's like 3 vampires or something Solution? Invis 15' radius and body-block off the doors while Ismalin shoots past them into the room. This worked so well that you'll see the same strategy used in Bodhi's lair. And in other various places as well. We made it through with only one level drain since one vampire needed +3 weapons for some reason instead of the +2 which I could easily supply. The guardians are all easy with Keldorn's 110% fire resistance, and the assassin squad is hit by two Silences and then melee'd to death. We kill Conster and surprise surprise, no bow.
Next spot: Illithid lair. I thought I could just use Chaotic Commands and kite them with Ismalin: how wrong I was. The ulitharids have some new ability called Ballistic shot that did 40 damage to me in a single blow. I high-tailed it out of there. Devon still hasn't spawned, with one day to go, and the last quest I feel comfortable doing is Rasaad's temple line. How wrong I was: everything was fine until the final battle outside of the temple where everyone fell besides Ismalin: Aerie's Stoneskins had fallen a long time ago and she died instantly to two simultaneous backstabs, Haer'Dalis lost his skins to an archer and fell soon after, and Rasaad, Yoshimo, and Keldorn just got mobbed beyond any hope of surviving. The rest of the battle is won solely by Ismalin stealth-shooting and later using the various elemental staffs to call elementals to tank for him. Two charges of the RoR later, Aerie and Rasaad are back up and the latter's commenting on all that just happened. We gather all the gear and head for a temple to raise everyone else.
Last Ranger quest is finished, and Cerberus is looking like a powerful companion indeed.
Vampire lair: same cheesy tactics of invisible NPC wall were used, and even Tanova didn't stand a chance. She seemed to become EASIER for me in SCS, though that might be because I was prepared and interrupted almost all her spells with well-placed arrows. She gave Keldorn and Haer'Dalis two negative levels, but still nothing that couldn't be fixed by a visit to the temple. Bodhi was tanked by a few summons and shot to death, and then we're off to Spellhold.
The labyrinth proves to be no trouble with no near-death experiences. The battle with Jon though... SCS should stop using spells that I'm unfamiliar with. >.> Haer'Dalis had just given me his talk about asking me to stop romancing Aerie when we went into battle; we didn't actually lose anyone in the battle itself, but the mop up proved fatal to the dear bard. Jon had cast a Sphere of Chaos, and it was still active: Haer'Dalis evidently failed a save fighting off the murderers and got disintegrated: I didn't even know that this was a possibility! Something in my install is causing deaths via disintegration to preserve items, so nothing's lost, but... I'm down to 5 men in the Underdark with no hope of getting a 6th.
Death list: Anomen, Nalia, Haer'Dalis
Currently traveling with: Rasaad, Keldorn, Imoen, and Aerie.
Retour en haut
. I was a bit more cautious after that, normally only taking on one enemy at a time, and Gracchus had no problems working his way through the remaining undead (level 19) - both 
Does it bounce? 
