49 réponses à ce sujet

[BelgarathMTH]

Brava, C.! An excellent chapter.

I applaud your use of present-tense narrative. When pulled off, a present-tense story has an increased sense of urgency, but it takes a lot of skill to do it - we are all so used to reading past-tense narrative, that it is all too easy to slip up and use past-tense where it should be present for consistency of style. You do a fantastic job wielding the present-tense narrative style with consummate writing skill.
 
I know from my own narrative efforts in my recently completed ToB run that it takes an enormous amount of extra effort to keep a novelization going; over time, you can find yourself drifting in style and winding up in a story that is inconsistent with the starting one. So far, you are avoiding that admirably.

Because of the extreme effort involved, I know that it begins to wear on a person's stamina to keep it up. Therefore, if you feel tired and want to make some updates that are in the usual shorthand, summary form common to challenge posting, please feel free to do so, and no one will hold it against you.

If you then feel like switching back to narrative because you are enjoying yourself, you can do so without preamble, because you are such a skilled writer that your readers will instantly know upon your first sentence whether you are choosing to update in narrative or summary form.

I know that I abandoned my own narrative attempt in favor of common summary form in my own posts about my run quite some time ago, because I tired of the effort involved in writing narrative.

So either way, I am enjoying very much following your run.

One mechanics question - you are facing cleric spellcasters - what are you doing to protect Pawn from Hold and Charm spells? It seems really risky for him if he has no protection at all.

Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 21 juillet 2011 - 09:55 .

[Carinna]

BelgarathMTH wrote...
it is all too easy to slip up and use past-tense where it should be present for consistency of style. You do a fantastic job wielding the present-tense narrative style with consummate writing skill.

Thank you, but I've noticed many such slip ups in what I've written.  A combined problem of publishing a first draft, writing too fast, and thinking the whole thing may be completely boring to many people as I'm describing very well-tread ground.  Thank you also for continuing to read and comment.

One mechanics question - you are facing cleric spellcasters - what are you doing to protect Pawn from Hold and Charm spells? It seems really risky for him if he has no protection at all.

So far, nothing except to take them out of the fighting first (in addition to any arcane spellcasters).  Fortunately, the vanilla clerics tend to cast group buff spells first, generally speaking.  And then of course there is always the reload  if held/charmed approach, since this isn't a no-reload game.  If I were to play a solo no-reload, I'd probably do it as a berzerker, since they have a natural defense for this kind of thing.

Continuing:

Note:  It's becoming very tedious trying to get to mage level 14 to regain the kensai abilities.  I'm wondering if it's even possible to do it before I leave for Brynnlaw.

Key in hand, Pawn decides to wait a bit before rushing over to see Aran Linvale - he has no idea how quickly the man might push him to begin the rescue.  In addition, he's suddenly had a flash of insight as to where the rakshasa might be located - near the druid grove, in the house with the oddly safe cow.  The only problem is, he currently has no +3 or better weapon that he can use and he'll need one against a rakshasa.  But a visit to a scroll seller soon solves this problem - he buys and learns Phantom Blade, then heads for Trademeet, where he plans to spend the night.  The following day, he finds himself at the door of the strange little house (having used another invisibility to navigate through the troll-infested bog).

In preparation for meeting a master-level spellcaster, Pawn casts several protections upon himself, starting with Protection from Magical Energy.  He is already Stoneskinned, and adds ghost armor on top of it, in addition to Protection from Fire, Cold, and Electricity (in other words, he empties out all his remaining protection scolls).  Then he enters, saving the Phantom Blade for the last minute, since it won't last as long as the others.  In his haste, he forgets to cast Spell Immunity: Abjuration, but it fortunately doesn't matter.  The spells he did remember to cast save his life, as the rakshasas (there are three in total) cast a large number of area of effect spells of a low enough level for they themselves to be immune; due to his protections, Pawn is also immune, and they quickly run out of things to cast at him and turn to swordfighting.  Unfortunately, he is not as good with the Phantom Blade as he was with a real blade as a kensai, and misses more often than he hits.  They are quite good, however.  He renews the stoneskin twice before running out of castings, and he ends up using the rod of resurrection to heal himself before he can dispatch Ihtafeer.  Once she is dead, he duels with one of the others for a short time, until his second Phantom Blade vanishes.  Since he can no longer cast it again, he grabs Ihtafeer's head (and a couple of other easy to reach things she dropped), and runs out the door.  For reasons of their own, which he doens't understand, they don't pursue him, but he doesn't worry about it since the djinn were specifically interested only in Ihtafeer.

As agreed, they leave town when he brings them her head.  And Trademeet pays and honors him - and more importantly, they open their shops again.  And then he is immediately used as a focal point by two warring families of the town.  With some trepidation, he heads to the home of one of them - the closest - but is interrupted on the way by a woman worried about her son.  He follows her, expecting to find a youngster and is somewhat confused when he encounters a man his own age.  With the information provided, he agrees to find the guy's girlfriend and in the process, discovers the serial killer from the Bridge District and a monster who wears suits of human skin.  He finally rids the world of them and restores the girl, who promptly runs back to her (spineless?) boyfriend.

The noble family wants him to recover something from an undead-infested tomb (where has he heard that before?).  As before, he decides to wait awhile on it (like until he can again use Daystar).

Back in Athkatla, he finally visits Aran Linvale, who now wants him to do errands for him before he will find Imoen.  15,000 gold for the priviledge of doing work?  Pawn is not pleased, but there doesn't appear to be anything he can do about it.  Evening is a long way off, however, so he heads back to the Copper Coronet to sleep, but starts talking to Anomen instead.  They walk outside, and this time someone appears and tells Anomen it's time to take his test.  He invites Pawn to come with him and so Pawn watches him become a knight.  They part again, and Pawn finally gets to rest.  When he wakes, it's still not dark, so he decides he might as well spend his time finding this Neb fellow who ran off with the dilithium ... um ... ilithium.  He finds the house indicated by the duergar, breaks down the door, and sees that it is in fact the same Neb.  The man vanishes with an invisibility potion, but Pawn stands in front of the door, casts Protection from Magical Energy on himself and then lays waste with his Cloudkill Wand until Neb finally dies.  Child spirits surround Pawn, but he's immune to their touch, thanks to an amulet Linvale had given him.  But when Neb dies, they thank him and cast Restoration on him before vanishing - though he doesn't in fact need it.  He grabs up the ilithium and anything else laying around (including Neb's head) and heads to the government district. 

His hunch is right and there was in fact a bounty on Neb, so he gets the reward for that and then delivers the ilithium to the artist.  When he takes the news to the temple they are so pleased, they shower him with riches he believes are somewhat disproportionate to what he'd been given to rid them of the Unseeing Eye, but who is he to argue?    By now, it's finally dark, so he heads to the Docks District to help Mook guard a shipment.  Unfortunately, Mook ends up dead instead and Pawn ends up facing a vampire.  He casts Phantom Blade (needing a +3 or better weapon) and manages to land enough hits to rout it.  But the amulet is what saves him and he knows it.  When he reports what happened to Linvale, he is sent - immediately - to the inn in the Bridge District, where he encounters three more men he has to fight.  For these, he enlists the help of Kitthix and an ogrillon from monster summoning I.    When he tries to leave the Five Flagons, he runs into another vampire fighting two men in the street.  Feeling completely out of his league, he decides the Five Flagons looks remarkably comfortable and retreats inside to a room until it's daylight.

The next morning, Linvale informs him that they are up against vampires (!)  Thank you Captain Obvious.

[AnonymousHero]

Carinna wrote...
Note:  It's becoming very tedious trying to get to mage level 14 to regain the kensai abilities.  I'm wondering if it's even possible to do it before I leave for Brynnlaw.

In Vanilla, it should be pretty easy -- you can even level to mage level 5 and then jump straight from level 5 to level 14 mage (to "preserve" proficiency options). The key is wands. Get a wand of fire and a wand of frost. Using the wand of fire and Protection from Fire spell, all trolls and nearly all spellcasters become complete jokes. (Generally use the "Agannazar" power of the Fire wand. Repeated application usually destroys spellcasters without them ever getting a spell off.) Use Improved Invisibility to avoid spellcasters being able to target you -- even if low level you can use the Ring of Air Control to get Improved Invisibility once per day.

Also: In Vanilla, you can easily beat beholders (for absurd amounts of EXP) by using the spell Polymorph Self:Mustard Jelly and then using a wand of frost (you'll want to recharge up to 50 charges beforehand) to actually damage them. That'll get you about 200K-250K extra EXP from the Unseeing Eye quest.

[Carinna]

AnonymousHero wrote...
Also: In Vanilla, you can easily beat beholders (for absurd amounts of EXP) by using the spell Polymorph Self:Mustard Jelly and then using a wand of frost (you'll want to recharge up to 50 charges beforehand) to actually damage them. That'll get you about 200K-250K extra EXP from the Unseeing Eye quest.

Well, doing the quest very early nets gauths in place of many beholders.  But I did go back to the area based on your information (see below).  Unfortunately, Pawn was already leveled to mage 12 before your post was written, so it's not really possible to go back to before he leveled up to 6 and wait (besides, I really can't think of a role-playing reason he would wait that long; maybe one or two levels if I originally constrained him to be able to level as a mage in only one location and he couldn't get to it for a long time, but not 8 levels (I'm open to suggestions, though).  Thanks for the info, however - I would never have considered it before (the waiting and the wand of frost, which I never use with a party as I always freeze one or more party members with it).

Continuing:

Note:  I messed up slightly on the previous post.  Regarding Ihtafeer, Pawn first goes to case the joint (still wondering what he can do for a +3 weapon), and meets Cernd again.  They strike up a conversation and return to Athkatla together where Cernd's lifestyle yields yet another episode of drama for Pawn.  Fortunately, Cernd leaves on his own at the end of it, so Pawn doesn't have to make up anything to get away.  He does think of a way he can hurt Ihtafeer, and continue with the original post from there.

Following the last post:
The bulk of Pawn's book studies tend to take place in the Temple of Oghma, and he wonders out loud how he can accelerate his learning.  One of the priests of Oghma hears him and mentions that all he needs to do is use the polymorph self spell to turn himself into a jelly that's virtually indestructible by magic.  While it's true that he can't cast spells in this form, he would still be able to use wands.  The priest supposes that there are still at least some beholders in the temple district sewers, following the routing of the Unseeing Eye (unless Pawn made sure to kill them all when he was down there, that is).  The priest helpfully adds that beholders are susceptible to wands of frost.

Pawn heads immediately to the Copper Coronet and buys back the wand of frost he'd taken off the lich he'd killed to get Daystar (by now he is fairly flush with cash).  It has 100 charges.  The spell itself is no problem - he'd bought it the last time he visited the Adventurer's Mart and memorized it.  Tonight, he memorizes it three times before going to bed.  The next day, he marches down into the Unseeing Eye's former lair, turns into a jelly (takes awhile to get used to), and lays waste with the wand.  Despite Helm's assurance that the cult would be eradicated, several blind priests are still hanging around down there too, and they fall to the same trick.  This done, he heads deeper, down to the broken bridge, and takes on the gauths the same way.  Some shadows and shadow fiends join the show; they aren't affected by frost, so he switches to fireballs.  The shadows drop easily, but the shadow fiends are immune, so he activates his invisibility ring and leaves them standing there.

He takes a different path on the way out of the sewers and runs into a gang of bullies.  With shapeshifting still on the meter, he again turns into a jelly (to avoid their mages), and fires away with both wands.  The mages drop on the first hit; the others take longer (and can hit him as they're using weapons, not spells), but he perseveres and they all die.   During the fight, he graduates to mage level 13.  One more level to go and he can use his swords again.

[corey_russell]

You probably already know about these Carinna, but thought I would mention them just in case:

* for a mage: Martial Staff is +3 not too expensive. Only trick is the merchant (who is really a fence I believe) is only available at night, just outside the temple above the Copper Coronet.
* For a Kensai: A lot of choices. But if you freed Hendak then Bernard will have the +3 long sword blade of roses.

[BelgarathMTH]

LOL, I love the way you work advice you got online into your story!

Congrats on clearing the beholder lair (or almost clearing it) and defeating the sewer party. If you can handle the Temple District sewers, you can handle almost anything. I look forward to reading about your first dragon battles.

[Carinna]

corey_russell wrote...

You probably already know about these Carinna, but thought I would mention them just in case:

* for a mage: Martial Staff is +3 not too expensive. Only trick is the merchant (who is really a fence I believe) is only available at night, just outside the temple above the Copper Coronet.
* For a Kensai: A lot of choices. But if you freed Hendak then Bernard will have the +3 long sword blade of roses.

Yes, I do know - Pawn didn't want to go buy a staff for a temporary condition.  He already had a perfectly good +2 one that did for most situations (he wasn't good with his THACO as a pure mage anyway).  As for the kensai, he's already got Daystar, which is +3.  Once the kensai abilities were restored this wasn't a problem.

Continuing:

Pawn has seen Jaheira hanging around the Harper building, and finally decides to go say hello to her.  Unfortunately, as soon as they strike up a conversation, she is called away by the Harpers (gee, they had her there all that time, but only call her away now??)  He waves goodbye and returns to the Copper Coronet for the night.  The next morning she is there and wants him to follow her back to the Harpers.  He agrees.  It's not a pleasant experience.  Apparently not all Harpers are created equal - this one - and his goons - want to use Pawn's status as the Bhaalspawn to further their own careers.  He's thankful that Jaheira sees through it, but it still leaves them facing several hostile "Harpers."  Pawn grabs Jaheira and runs back out the door.

This doesn't really solve the problem, though, so he goes through his pack and hands Jaheira potions of clarity (for their spells) and protection from fire (for his spells).  And he hands her Belm, which he is not using at the moment.  She chugs the potions.  He casts polymorph self, and they go back inside.  Jaheira zeros in on a rogue who has broken off from the main group.  Pawn uses his tried and true strategy of turning into a jelly and holding forth with wands of fire and ice.  The mages topple first, and finally the others go.  Jaheira finishes hers off just as the last one of Pawn's falls.  He did need to use the rod of resurrection once against Galvary, as Pawn was not immune to swords.  And distasteful as it may have been, Pawn gets a very nice ring out of the altercation (Ring of Wizardry).

Exhausted, the two of them leave the building and head for the nearest bar to cool off (and talk about the ramifications), but no sooner do they enter than Jaheira gets cursed by a former acquaintance.  Exasperated, they then spend the remainder of the night stomping around Athkatla trying to find the guy who did it, pay 500 gold to the wizard group he'd hired and corner him alone in a deserted house in the slums.  Pawn can tell by the look on Jaheira's face that the man will not survive the encounter, so he helps to hasten the process.  Recovery of a lock of her hair solves the problem, along with a 24-hour rest.  But by the end of all this, Pawn has decided it would probably be best for them both if they split up.  She takes it kind of hard and something she says makes him think she was developing a crush on him on the rebound.  Too weird for him; he knows he's making the right decision in going on alone.

He then decides that he's put off helping Nalia long enough (and getting away from Athkatla at the moment seems prudent), so he heads out to her hold, after having recharged his wand of fire.  He's not too sure how well it will work, and is surprised to find out how easily the trolls fall - not so much to the fire wand, but to the cloudkill one he just happened to have with him (they drop like flies - instant death).  He also discovers that he is somehow magically immune to the effects of the cloudkill, even without turning into a jelly (which is kind of nice).  Still the cloudkill wand doesn't have 50 charges on it, so he still ends up using the wand of fire on any trolls he meets individually.  As he goes through the building, however, he starts to wonder if he will need to return to Athkatla for a recharge, but he manages to make it through.  He destroys several golems by using Tensor's Transformation, then hurls Greater Malison and Lower Resistance at Tor'gal, before firing off the cloudkill.  Tor'gal falls dead instantly (note:  the fastest he's ever died for me!).  His assistant goons are harder, but Pawn turns into a jelly and their attacks can't touch him.  He, on the other hand can still fry/poison/freeze them to his heart's content.  Unfortunately he isn't in time to save Nalia's father, and she gives him some sob story about her life being over and worthless if he won't let her come with him.  He won't and she goes away with much drama, making him wonder why should can't just leave and save herself without him having to hold her up.  Sighing, he returns to Athkatla, somewhat dejected that he still has not leveled sufficiently to regain permission to use his kensai abilities.

Back in Athkatla, he decides he'd like a change from the Copper Coronet for awhile (especially since Jaheira was apparently buddy-buddy with the bartender there), so he goes to Waukeen's Promenade to an inn he saw when he was accompanying Keldorn.  It's not the same one Keldorn went to, but the one next door.  Unfortunately, he meets the nasty, trash-talking owner, along with some of the guy's friends, and is challenged to fight, four to one, and ridiculed when he declines.  Steamed, he buffs himself, and then fires a cloudkill into the room.  They attack, but he turns into a jelly and blocks the exit, while he calmly hurls fireballs and ice sprays at them.  One of them escapes regardless (he has no idea how, unless he managed to jump over Pawn while invisible or climb out a window), but the other three - plus a familiar - die.  A search of the bodies turns up the reason for the man's bad temper - a cursed sword.  Besides that, Pawn finds a useful cloak - for non-detection - but then leaves (he's killed the owner, after all), and heads back to the Copper Coronet after all, where he discovers that in all the commotion, he's gone to level 14, and once more has permission to use his blades.  To celebrate, he sells the staff he's been using to Bernard.

[Carinna]

Now fully able to fight with his swords once again, Pawn sets out for the Temple Ruins to take care of what's bothering the people of the Umar Hills. There he finds a wolfwere who explains that the Shade Lord has again taken over the location. She dies fighting the many shadows, but Pawn slices easily through them. Inside the ruins, he finds not only the bones of a prophetess, but also Mazzy, whom he frees. Before leaving, she explains the mechanics of moving through the Shade Lord's defenses in the place. He solves some riddles, kills a lot of undead (hello, lich!), restores Amanua's bones and receives a wardstone for the Shadow Dragon from her. Thanks to the wardstone, he decides to leave the dragon alone until he's defeated the Shade Lord. When he arrives outside, he sees the dreaded shadow altar and immediately throws a fireball at it from his wand, then throws himself at the Shade Lord to interrupt whatever spell he was going to cast. He pounds on him for a couple of rounds, then breaks off as he sees the shadow altar is still creating shadows, so he pounds on it instead. In the meanwhile, the Shade Lord busies himself casting buffs. When it finally dies, he turns on the shade of Patrick, and then concentrates on the Shade Lord, who was much more vulnerable than it apparently thought it was. When the Shade Lord dies, the sun comes out and Merella (whose body it was possessing) thanks him before dying. By now out of spells, Pawn decides to return to the Umar Hills to rest (and report the good news) before returning to finish off the dragon.

The next day, he enters the dragon's lair and buffs himself up, all the while unnoticed, thanks to the wardstone. When he is properly ready, he opens his attack with a Lower Resistance spell followed by a fireball (to which he is immune, thanks to pre-casting protection from magical energy). The combination immediately takes the dragon down to "injured" status. It takes a bit longer to get it down the rest of the way (and one charge of the rod of resurrection), due to the dragon's wing buffet constantly interrupting him. But he breaches its protection from magical weapons, finally pounds its stoneskin down, and stabs it to death with Daystar. For a prize, he goes up to level 15 (he also runs across some instructions it had for creating a magic weapon of some kind). Satisfied that he's back to normal for fighting (and superior at it now thanks to adding magic to the mix), he returns to Athkatla.

It's late in the day, but not yet dark, when he arrives there. He's disinclined to go to bed so early (due to conditioning about waking up while it's still dark with vampires around, though it really shouldn't matter now that he can use his sword again), so he visits the Temple of Helm as they'd mentioned they had another task for him if he wanted it. He's asked to go to the slums at night and retrieve a stolen ring. It sounds simple enough, and is, but when he's finally got the ring in hand, it's fully dark, so he waits until morning to return it.

He's now down to two quests he was asked to do: Clear out the vampires and rescue the tieflings from the planar prison. He's also got the planar sphere to investigate, but he didn't promise anyone but himself that he would, so he shelves that for now, and decides to focus on the planar prison, using it as a sort of practice run for rescuing Imoen.

edited:  can't type

Modifié par Carinna, 25 juillet 2011 - 03:04 .

[corey_russell]

Quick question: what are you doing for armor? that is, can your character use the AC 3 bracers that Ribald's has, or do you use the spirit armor spell? Or just taking the robe of Vecna AC?

[Carinna]

Kensai can't use armor, bracers, or helmets. Pawn is just using spirit armor combined with robe of Vecna and ring of Gaxx. That actually gives him an AC of -6, combined with his dex bonus.

edited:  forgot to mention that he's also got the girdle of piercing.

Modifié par Carinna, 25 juillet 2011 - 04:28 .

[Carinna]

Well, okay, I lied.

Pawn decides to first go remove the vampire threat because he's just so creeped out by them and tired of feeling threatened by them when he wants to go somewhere at night. As promised, Hez is down at the blue doors with a flesh golem. But when he orders it to break them down, four grimwarders come to life. They all go straight for Hez and Pawn isn't fast enough to save him (I've only ever saved Hez once in all my playthroughs and that took about 10 reloads done just to try saving him, and it was an unrepeatable fluke. I'd be grateful for any advice about how he can be reliably saved.) He stakes two vampires easily, then plays hide and seek with Lassal, finally finding him hiding behind a high-level spellcasting vampire minion (Tanova). Feeling somewhat gimped because he has not yet managed to find the spell True Sight, he simply casts polymorph self and becomes a jelly again, targeting her with his wand. But he doesn't have to kill her - she kills herself with a skull trap. Lassal tries to get him to come to the center of a very nasty-looking chamber, but he stays on the edges and the vampire finally can't stand it anymore - he attacks, and impales himself on Daystar. Third stake in - and Bodhi appears. His polymorph ability chooses that moment to run out, so he quickly casts haste and fends her off with Daystar. Fortunately, she seems overly focused on trying to level drain him (which she can't, thanks to Linvale's amulet), and finally gives up, and disappears.

Instead of reporting directly to Linvale, he decides to break into and out of the planar prison as a kind of test run for rescuing Imoen. So he rests the rest of the night to recharge his spells and then steps through the portal. He's immediately attacked, but makes some fortunate saves against some nasty yuan-ti spells (he's coming to dread facing their mages), and Daystar + Belm overcome them. As he's standing there catching his breath, a partially-escaped thrall explains how to navigate the prison and how to get to the warden. Pawn dons some boots of speed he finds on one of the now-dead bounty hunters, but then reconsiders: If most of the hostile people he meets in here are just thralls forced to fight by their collars, he really doesn't want to hack his way through them if he can avoid it. So he activates the invisibility from the ring of Gaxx and tiptoes through the hall, following the directions he was given. But when he reaches the Master of Thralls, his invisibility does no good, since the tanari'i can see through it. The tanari'i is not really accustomed to fighting, however, and goes down very easily. It takes a bit longer to disperse his two air elementals and the wyvern that was too nearby to miss seeing the fight. He uses his invisibility ring to carry the orb of mastery back to the furnace. The thralls all rebel as soon as their collars no longer work, so he stands still until the commotion is over (he doesn't want to get caught in the middle of the magic being thrown around). But when he finally threads his way back through, he's dismayed to see that the rebelling prisoners lost the fight. Still, he heads along to the warden's chamber, stopping just outside it to cast polymorph self and then cast a greater malison into the middle of the room.

The warden reacts by casting a spell; Pawn hurriedly becomes a jelly and it bounces right off of him. He grabs the wand of frost in one pseudopod and holds forth. The warden and his five yuan-ti mages get their spells interrupted (sometimes) and take damage. The only ones in the room that can hurt him are the sword-fighting yuan-ti and greater yuan-ti, but they fall to the wand as well. The warden finally falls - before three of his assistant mages - but they go down soon after. He searches for the key and oozes over to the chamber containing the actors. He's forgotten to change back to his original form, but they somehow recognize him anyway. Haer'dalis comes back to the prime material plane with him, but Pawn has no interest in a companion just adventuring for a lark, so they don't combine their efforts. Pawn finally changes back to his man-form, feeling somewhat successful (rescuing Imoen is still not going to be easy), and decides to rest the night before reporting to Linvale, as he has a sneaking suspicion the man will insist on leaving "right now" - despite all the delay he's caused so far.

The next morning, however, Pawn decides to first visit a house in the Bridge District he's noticed a couple of times as being in some way odd. It's still dark as he approaches the door, however, and one of the shadow thieves runs up to him screaming for help. Pawn looks around and sees - 3 vampires! - rushing them. Didn't he just clean out their lair? Nevertheless, he draws Daystar and wipes the floor with them. The shadow thief thanks him profusely and runs off. Pawn returns his attention to the house, and enters it.

He senses immediately that the place is heavily trapped. From the number of traps that must be there, he suspects they are - at least mostly - magical in nature, so he casts polymorph self and changes to a jelly to explore. Sure enough, he sets off a trap when he opens a bookcase, and another when he approaches the stairs. The stairs are not something he can navigate while in this form, though, so he hopes they are not trapped (they aren't) and lightly treads up to the next floor, where he again turns to a jelly. Traps abound here; none on the floor, apparently, but on every container in the room. Most, as the one below, contain nothing of real value (not to warrant this level of traps), but one chest, which sets off an ominous snick of a trap when he opens it, contains an odd-looking old horn. There's an inscription on it in a script he can't read, so he uses the glasses of identification and discovers it's a horn of Valhalla.

He previously met a merchant in Waukeen's Promenade who told him he worked on horns, so he totes the thing over and the man upgrades it with a diamond Pawn was keeping. Then he upgrades it again using the bejuril gem Pawn got from a farmer in the Umar Hills. Putting it back in his pack, Pawn finally decides he's ready to go see Linvale. As predicted, when he gets there, Linvale wants him to leave immediately.

[Carinna]

Pawn arrives in Brynnlaw and is promptly betrayed by the ship's captain, despite Linvale's best efforts (although Sime doesn't do very much except stand and watch the proceedings). He then goes to the tavern, as instructed, and his contact gets murdered right in front of him by an assassin hired by the local madam. He heads down to the brothel and hires a girl to get inside without suspicion. While looking around, he wanders into the kitchen and meets the cook, who tells him where the key to the cells is located, but she refuses to help him in any way (and he was wearing the ring of human influence, too, just to help persuade her). So he heads to Galvena's luxurious chamber and helps himself to the key - after dispatching her guard, and the two additional guards outside the cells (she must really think this Claire girl is some threat). Out of curiosity of what it will do, as much as anything else, Pawn throws a Chaos Field spell between Galvena and her mage (the description says it only targets enemies, so he thinks Claire should be safe). Galvena passes out, but the mage saves and starts to cast his own spell. Pawn turns to a jelly (he'd pre-cast it as he usually does if he's going into a potentially threatening situation) and lets go with the frost wand. End of mage (and Galvena). Unfortunately, he can't give Claire good news, but she helps him anyway. Of the two methods described by her captain friend, Pawn chooses to get the access stone from the cowled wizard (he's going to be facing cowled wizards sooner or later anyway, he thinks, so might as well start now - plus, he really isn't keen on entering the prison as a prisoner).

Unfortunately, the wizard begins acting strangely - even for a cowled wizard - and attacks Pawn instead of talking to him. It almost seemed as if he'd been dominated, but there's no one else around (not even a talking sword), and he doesn't come to his senses when near death, as the Umar Hills ranger did, either. Pawn relieves him of the stone, and a spell book of some kind, though when he leafs through it (the first spell is Fireball, which Pawn can easily get with the fire wand), he goes immediately to Burning Hands and it won't change after that, so he ends up selling it to the store on the island. Too bad, he was hoping for True Sight, but he still has not found it.

On his way to the asylum, he meets another streetwalker, though this one gives him a sob story about being forced into the trade. Pawn backtracks to where he's seen a tough loitering about, asks him his name (it's the right one), and kills her pimp. Then he books passage for her on the next ship, before really getting on with his job.

Unsurprisingly, the asylum is guarded by monsters, both mundane and magical. He cuts through the lot and enters, then is taken on a "tour" by the "administrator" who spouts a lot of nonsense about Imoen really needing their "help." At the end of the tour, he unveils himself as Irenicus, but Pawn isn't really surprised. What does surprise him is that Irenicus had him drugged - by that infernal ship captain!

When he wakes, he's in the kind of giant bell jar that he'd freed some poor guy from back in the dungeon. Irenicus makes a speech and Pawn passes out, has a weird dream, and then wakes up in another dungeon with Imoen. Bodhi taunts them, then leaves. Imoen asks to join up, but he again refuses, not entirely sure she isn't some plant by Irenicus. In any case, she's as free as he is right now, although the rescue certainly didn't go the way he though it would - if it went at all. She's upset, but leaves.

[AnonymousHero]

I realize it's way too late now, but re. a +3 weapon: There's also the Enchanted Weapon mage spell which provides a "real" (as opposed to "stuck to wielder's hands") +3 weapon (from a set of choices) for 8 (or 24?) hours. I think the only time I've ever used it was to kill Ithafeer & co.

[Carinna]

@AH: I didn't know about (or didn't think about) enchanted weapon, as I've never used it. Normally I play with a full party and by the time that spell is available, I'm swimming in +3 weapons anyway. But I'll remember it now for future reference.

Pawn heads up the stairs to his left (he has no idea what direction he's facing) and finds two rooms of riddles. One yields an odd gem and the other a regeneration ring, which is inferior to the one he already has. Another room is filled with mephits and another rakshasa. When he's cleared them all out, he sees it has a portal as well, but it's not an exit, but an entrance; an angry wolfwere appears when he touches it (and the gem he got disappears). After killing it, he returns to the central chamber and tries the stairs that were previously straight ahead.

He dispatches a golem and discovers a bag of holding. That would be an excellent thing to find here, but he's got one already, so he leaves it for the next occupant. He descends some stairs and encounters a room with a hostile spirit. Continuing on, he finds mummies and a lich. The lich is not difficult to kill with Daystar (nor are the mummies), but he wonders what might have happened had he failed a save against whatever it was casting. When they're all (permanently) dead, he sees that there are several scrolls lying around, as well as an entire library room. Going through it yields several spells he hadn't yet run across, but still no True Sight!

The room beyond that one contains a vampire - the man who in life was apparently the overseer of this little hellhole. Pawn subdues and stakes him - and the man's spirit appears briefly to thank him. He takes his hand (apparently part of what is needed to exit the place, though he hasn't yet found the door), and retraces his steps. When he nears the stairs, he sees a secret door he missed on his way in and encounters a horde of kobolds worshipping a crystal (the vampire had mentioned something about this). He tries to take a shard, but more appear to try to stop him and he has to kill them all.

Before he leaves the lower level, he investigates a small stand with a book on it in the center of the room. When he turns a page, a raging kobold appears. He kills it, then turns another page; this time he encounters a spider. Curiously, he stands guard as he turns yet another page, and has to save against an Umber Hulk glance (but he makes it) and then kill the ugly thing. Wondering what is next, he discovers a mind flayer*, who rather shakes him up - having your brain devoured is not enjoyable. He stands there for a moment, recovering his wits, then decides he'd better buff against whatever the next thing is since they're obviously getting harder. He casts polymorph self and turns the page. And gets a beholder. And immediately turns to jelly - literally. But as with the ones in the Unseeing Eye's lair, this one is quite simple when he's immune to its attack and can strike back with a wand of frost. When it dies, he remains in jelly form and turns the page again. Nothing appears, but his pack gets dislodged slightly. He looks in it and finds two scrolls and a ring of free action. All these rings make him wish he had more hands...

Back upstairs, he takes the stairs that previously were behind him - and promptly finds a group of yuan-ti, accompanied by several of their mages. His polymorph spell is still active, so he drops back into jelly form and aims the frost wand at the mages. In the meanwhile, the regular yuan-ti pound away at him, but they're affected by the wand, too. When the mages finally all drop, he returns to his normal form and finishes off the rest. A giant head opens its mouth as he nears it, revealing stairs to an upper level.

In front of him are two doors. Behind door number one are - more - yuan-ti plus mages. It takes him a moment to cast polymorph self again, but he makes it, thanks to the robe of Vecna. Again, they surround him and again he takes a beating but comes out superior. There doesn't appear to be any way out of the room other than the door he entered by, however.

Behind door number two is a room full of minotaurs. When he finishes them, he finds a small room off of that with a fountain inside - and the smell of traps. Still polymorphable, he turns to a jelly to remove some pictures there which resemble markings on the wall of the dead-end chamber he was in previously. He returns to that room, and finds open-able doors in it now, all with the depicted beast beyond them. The chamber with the Umber Hulk has a passage beyond it.

Beyond a group of wolfweres is a room with a neat little shoe-making machine. He's tempted to try it, but doesn't want to waste time hunting down tokens when he's perfectly satisfied with the boots he's already got. Another chamber is so obvious a trap an ant could see it, but he goes ahead and springs it anyway to see what is being kept there - turns out it's the string for the Gesen Bow (of which he already has the shaft). Too bad he can't use a bow ... He also picks up an odd looking horn in this part of the dungeon.

Retracing his steps past the minotaur room, he comes to a strange room full of what appears to be basins of holy water, and then finds Bodhi (or she finds him). He sees a door behind her, which he guesses must be the exit - he should have known she'd never really let him escape. Anger boils up at being duped and he looses complete control over himself; the colors in the room change, the smells increase, and he seems to loom over her, ready to snap her delicate little neck. She stares at him, astonished, mutters something, and vanishes. He fumes and stomps around, looking for something, anything, anyone to break into a million pieces ...

And then he cools off, the colors and smells recede, and he realizes something very weird just happened to him. He thinks he needs to sit down for a moment, but knows he doesn't have the time. She could come back any second. Unfortunately, the door is locked and won't yield to a knock spell. He looks up at the statue and realizes it's missing its horns - horns like the one he found. Maybe if he could find the other ...

There's another corridor leading from the room - he runs along it, finds another room of minotaurs at the end, and a pot with the horn in it. Back in the exit chamber, he affixes the horns to the statue, and the door pops open. Quickly, he ascends the stairs beyond.

* edited to say:  I probably forgot one of the things he fought, sorry.

Modifié par Carinna, 28 juillet 2011 - 01:06 .

[corey_russell]

No worries Carrina. The thread title is after all "roleplaying a power game" and you did that - not that there's very much role-playing to do until you can get yourself out of the spellhold maze. Off-hand, looks like you didn't mention the mind flayer behind one of the doors, the genie behind one of thee doors, a spirit troll behind another door, (all these doors you open via the paintings you get that are trapped) the trolls that you have to get to by getting past a locked door then turning some gear (or something), about 4 trolls there, and finally the troll you encounter just before you get to Bodhi.

[Carinna]

The stairs lead to a circular chamber with a tribe of kobolds, all shooting at him with fire arrows. He cases shield, then runs around and kills the ones he can reach. There doesn't seem to be any exit from the room, but then he's running around a lot, so thinks he might just have missed it. The remaining kobolds are up on high platforms, too high for him to reach with his sword, and he has no missile weapon with which to get at them - until he thinks about the wand of fire (even though he'd just used it to finish off a couple of trolls in the previous dungeon). A couple of charges later, the room is cleared and he's right, there is no exit. Just as he's considering jumping down the center pit, a mage of some kind appears, says something about his "treatment" and teleports him to another location - this time a circular room full of fungi. Naturally, some of the fungi are the aggressive type, so he kills them as well, then is teleported again. Now to a troll cave. One of the trolls rushes him, screaming for his head and the others follow. He's had a lot of experience killing trolls by now, so they aren't much of a problem. When he's done, the mage is again waiting, but this time by a door. As he nears it, he passes an interesting looking altar, so he asks the mage to wait (and he does!), goes back and gets one of the trolls' heads and puts it on the altar to see what will happen. As he does, there's a flash, and the head turns into a bone club. Though he's not really interested in using clubs, he puts it into his bag to examine later, and then exits through the door.

He's now in a large conference room full of mages who repeatedly ask him riddles. After he's answered a few (they aren't difficult), they judge him to pass, he teleports again and finds himself on an outdoor platform back in what he recognizes as a part of the asylum. He rushes up the steps to get back inside, and finds himself in a corridor facing Saemon Haevarian. He draws his sword, intending to get the man's head, but Saemon forstalls him with what is a really good idea - get the other inmates to help him overcome Irenicus. Agreeing, he runs upstairs, pulling off the ring of Gaxx to replace it temporarily with the ring of human influence, and is able to convince the caretaker to help him with the plan. The inmates gather and are not difficult to convince. The only difficult thing to do is prepare in the short time before Wanev's almost instantaneous teleport spell lands them in front of Irenicus. Pawn just barely manages to replace the ring of Gaxx.

It doesn't seem to matter - the others keep Irenicus so busy casting spells of their own that Pawn is easily able to wear Irenicus down with his sword alone - in fact he's almost got the man, when Irenicus suddenly teleports away, dropping a spell that kills everyone - except him (!) - in the process. Before he can gather his wits and leave the room, however, he's beset by invisible (former) shadow thieves. By the time he's finished them, he knows Irenicus is far away.

[BelgarathMTH]

Congrats on finishing Spellhold, C. Good luck with Sahuagin City and Underdark.

[Carinna]

In the hallway, Pawn finds a locked door which won't yield to a knock spell; he's sure the route Irenicus took must be beyond that door. Rushing back upstairs to go through the warden's rooms, he again runs into Saemon Haevarian, who suggests that they take his ship back to Athkatla. He seems to believe Irenicus has fled to the Underdark (and considering he was working with him previously, maybe he knows something). Pawn is of two minds - on the one hand, he doesn't feel quite ready to handle Irenicus just yet, given what has just transpired. On the other hand, he feels he should follow him right away since the way to the Underdark is very likely beyond that door and Pawn really doesn't know any other way in. He decides to play both ends - he tells Saemon he will travel with him, but still plans to look for the key to the door. Saemon seemingly takes it out of his hands momentarily by teleporting them both outside the asylum (it feels heavenly to be back in the sun), but then, as Saemon goes to ready his ship, Pawn slips back into the asylum. And in the warden's office, he finds a diary and a strange looking key. Saemon was right; Irenicus is headed for the Underdark. A quick trip back downstairs and he gets the door unlocked. Behind it is a powerful portal (he can tell that just standing nearby will get him in danger of being sucked inside). And then he gets cold feet.

Telling himself he can still decide to use the portal at any time, he heads back to Brynnlaw only to find out that Saemon's ship has been scuttled and the man wants him to help steal the Pirate Lord's ship (no doubt he knew about his ship and planned the theft all along ...). Pawn finds himself agreeing to steal the horn from the Pirate Lord, less than from a desire to steal the ship, but more from a wish to still have two avenues open to him. But when he brings it back to Saemon (having lifted it under cover of invisibility), they are beset almost at once by the Pirate Lord's men and the choice of whether or not to go or stay is taken away from him; Saemon casts off as soon as the first wave of men is beaten back.

He's almost accepted returning to Athkatla when the ship is attacked by githyanki who demand a sacred sword be returned to them. Pawn rolls his eyes, knowing they almost certainly mean the sword blade Saemon practically tied onto his hand in "payment" for help with the theft. Resigned, he readies himself to fight the githyanki (knowing they are not going to accept "he gave it to me" as an excuse), vowing to cut Saemon's throat at the next opportunity. But then the ship is again overcome by sahuagin who have come to fight the githyanki and the whole thing capsizes. The last thing Pawn remembers is the taste of seawater before slipping beneath the waves ...

... and waking up in a great cavern full of strange architecture, with a monstrous fish-face staring him in the eye, spouting gibberish, which he gradually begins to actually understand. Somehow he has made it to the sahaugin city, and now becomes embroiled in court intrigue. Feeling he has no other option, he agrees to kill the prince for the king, and then agrees again to kill the king instead of the prince for the high priestess. She directs him to an old part of the city once used by the drow, still heavily trapped. In the main room are two goofy imps who almost force him to play a game with them - and the room is so heavily trapped with deadly spells that he gets dizzy changing from human to jelly and back again (so he can talk) repeatedly. Finally, he solves their riddle and they go away. And then he meets a personable beholder. The beholder is guarding a chest, which Pawn is sure has what he needs to unlock a sealed door in it. The trouble is, the beholder is so nice, Pawn really doesn't want to kill it. So he drinks a wisdom potion hoping that will give him some insight into what course to take. Once swallowed, it doesn't take him long to come up with a plan to convince the beholder that he's only guarding the chest, not the contents of the chest, and gains the prize. In the process, he also frees the beholder from guard duty because it agrees that it makes no sense to guard an empty chest.

The sahaugin prince is just a power hungry as the old fish, but not as looney. With some trepidation, Pawn helps him into power and then leaves quickly before Villynaty can change his mind. Pawn wonders briefly whether he shouldn't have killed them all, but decides they're better left in place as a check on the other nasty races of the deeps. So he shimmies down the rope, finally arriving in the Underdark after all his prevarication.

[Carinna]

It takes awhile for Pawn's eyes to adjust to the darkness, and even then it's difficult to make out details in his surroundings. He knows this puts him at a disadvantage and tries to move more slowly; unfortunately, he's thrown out all his boots except the boots of speed and doesn't want to go barefoot. That said, the first beings he encounters are some duergar merchants. He takes a look at their wares and finally FINALLY finds ... a True Sight scroll. 3500 gold! Nevermind, he hands it over and the spell it his; he memorizes it immediately before he's tempted to use it up as is (the duergar only have the one scroll of it). In talking to them, he discovers that a mage (besides Irenicus, who evidently went to the Drow city with his sister) has been imprisoned nearby. Since the duergar also describe the man as friendly and "willing to share," Pawn takes another look at their spells and finds a Freedom scroll on sale - or at least at a very low price, perhaps for this particular use? Anyhow, he buys it, walks a short distance in the direction they mentioned, and casts it. For a moment, nothing happens and he's sure he didn't walk far enough away (though he doesn't want to disturb whoever imprisoned the man), and then the spell takes effect and he appears. As might be expected, he's quite happy to be freed and offers to share the loot he was looking for with Pawn, if Pawn will help him a bit with the elemental portals ... and retrieve his lost spellbook. He mentions that some gnomes may have taken it.

Pawn heads off in the direction indicated. He's only gone a short distance when he hears the distinctive sound of protection spells being cast, though he can't yet see whoever is casting them (not in this darkness, anyway). But no attack spells come to get him so he assumes that either they are fighting someone else (though he hears no sound of combat); or that whoever it was might have heard him talking to the mage and is preparing to fight him shortly. He takes his own precautions - he casts polymorph self and then walks forward to see them.

Sure enough, there are a group of Drow on a small rise next to an odd structure, and they're all bristling for a fight. A couple of them start to cast, and he drops into jelly form and whips out the wand of frost. It takes awhile, but he whittles them down until only a fighter sort is left, and then he turns back to his own form and finishes the man off. The wand is starting to get low on charges, however.

He eyes the structure curiously, but has no idea what it is or does, so he continues on his way, and runs into a fungus. He slices it dead, but there are others nearby and they multiply quickly. Confused, he hacks furiously at them; most fall, but he gets turned around and wanders off, though he knows in the back of his mind that he could wander into danger before he knows it. Finally, he snaps out of his stupor - the things must have used some kind of spore attack on him - and returns to finish them off. When done, he wipes his hands briskly on his clothes, hoping he won't accidentally breathe any more in.

Finally, he reaches the gnome outpost, where he speaks first to the chieftain, who tells him he will get him in to see someone who can help him enter the Drow city - for a price. The price the man wants it for Pawn to kill a demon (can't be anything else, from the description). Pawn agrees (there doesn't seem to be any alternative other than staying in the Underdark indefinitely, which isn't a pleasant prospect). But he wants to rest before he does it, so he heads next door to the inn and store - and finds the store owner's son has gone missing. Since he will be tramping all over the area, he offers to help find the boy, but the man doesn't seem to hear him. Pawn vows to do it anyway before bedding down for the "night."

[corey_russell]

Carrina: There are number of True Sight scrolls that drop in Chapter 2. I wish I could remember exactly where, but I think one even dropped in an ambush. Maybe Prebek has one, his house has a ton of scrolls, and I know a number of them were 6th level.

I don't know if this has happened in your game, but I have had creatures get frozen solid then destroyed, losing any loot they may have had (kind of like getting petrified then somone destroys the statue with an attack, no loot).

[Thrar]

Nice read, surprisingly logical for an optimized run. Is this game still going on?

[Carinna]

Thrar wrote...
Nice read, surprisingly logical for an optimized run. Is this game still going on?

I haven't given up on it, just haven't had the time to play much lately. 

@ Corey Russell - I have had a lot of frozen solid>chunk from using the frost wand.  Didn't think about stuff they had getting destroyed.  You're probably right in that's the reason I haven't found a True Sight scroll until now.

Continuing (this is where I got to right before I left off as I rented a dumpster to throw all the construction debris in from remodeling my front porch and had to finish up within a week):

After thinking about it overnight, Pawn decides to revisit the location where he killed the drow party .  He feels certain that if the gnome boy came to harm, the drow were probably responsible, so he hopes he can get a lead from there.  He's disappointed when he first gets back; there's not much except the corpses left; he already took anything of value.  But then the odd structure catches his eye again - it's too small to be a dwelling, except maybe for a very poor gnome, and doesn't seem to have a door.  On closer inspection, he notices several valves set into the side of it.   He's cautious about turning one; he already has stoneskin active, but it won't protect against a magic backlash, so he casts polymorph self only to find that he's unable to manipulate the valves with a pseudopod.  Irritated, he flips back to human form, grits his teeth, and turns a valve.  There's a whooshing noise, and a man suddenly appears and begins talking in mid-sentence.  Pawn has a word with him and he becomes much less hostile, explaining that he must have been imprisoned, before running off in search of the party he was with.  So, Pawn thinks, the structure is some sort of imprisonment jar.  Imprisonment must be a common method here of dealing with anyone the drow don't like.  He turns the valve a second time -- and a gnome boy appears.  He mentions his father - this must be the missing boy.  The kid heads home; Pawn, however, is now fascinated by the concept of freeing imprisoned souls.

Unfortunately, the next resident is a lich, and one of the meaner, nastier variety.  Fortunately, Pawn still has polymorph self active; he splats into jelly form just in time.  The lich buffed himself with a spell trigger, so the wands are unlikely to work against him for a few rounds; no matter, Pawn can just stand (well, lie) there and watch as the lich empties his spell book.  It takes awhile, liches being high-level casters, but finally the bag of bones starts beating him with his staff.  Pawn flips back to human form and slices him dead with Daystar.  As soon as he dies, polymorph self runs out - that was close!

Warier now, he casts polymorph self once again before turning the next valve.  But he doesn't need it, even though the man is hostile; he fights with a sword, very straightforward.  Pawn is just better at it.  For the one after that, he again flips to a jelly, but this time he uses some more charges from the wand of frost.  Unfortunately, this and all the remaining imprisoned people have all gone mad from being alone for so long.  At least, he thinks, he was able to end their living hell for them.

Suddenly he remembers he's supposed to meet the wizard and give him his spell book (he had to buy it back from the gnome for 300 gold).  So he heads on down to where he was told to meet the man.  The mage asks for his aid while he enters some elemental portals, and Pawn battles earth, fire, and air elementals.  He's pleased that none of them seem to tax him.  Finally, true to his word, the wizard gifts him with a magic rod that provides spell protection.  Pawn will need to recharge it before use, so he heads back to the gnome village, where he meets the merchant, who gives him a special weapon for rescuing his son.

Modifié par Carinna, 09 août 2011 - 11:05 .

[AnonymousHero]

corey_russell wrote...

Carrina: There are number of True Sight scrolls that drop in Chapter 2. I wish I could remember exactly where, but I think one even dropped in an ambush. Maybe Prebek has one, his house has a ton of scrolls, and I know a number of them were 6th level.

AFAIK there is no guarantee of any True Sight scroll dropping at all in SoA. However, they may be part of random drops.

You can buy it in Trademeet and off the guy who only appears at night in the Bridge District. (They have exactly the same inventory, but the Bridge District guy is available regardless of any quest.)

I don't know if this has happened in your game, but I have had creatures get frozen solid then destroyed, losing any loot they may have had (kind of like getting petrified then somone destroys the statue with an attack, no loot).

Turning off "gore" in the game options prevents this. (There are also various mods which attempt to rectify it, but none that works all of the time, AFACIT.)

[Thrar]

It seems to me that your K/M plays out more like a regular Kensai that can polymorph into a jelly and use wands if needed. How come you're not using spells more often, or are you just not writing much about them?
Most people playing a F/M type character seem to focus more on overpowering their enemies quickly rather than waiting them out. Of course that takes a lot more spells than a single 4th level one. Are you trying to save spells so you don't need to rest too much?

[Carinna]

Thrar wrote...
Most people playing a F/M type character seem to focus more on overpowering their enemies quickly rather than waiting them out. Of course that takes a lot more spells than a single 4th level one. Are you trying to save spells so you don't need to rest too much?

No, not trying to save, except possibly the true sight spell.  I suppose "real" power-gamers (i.e. not me) are able to handle that lich with spells.  I myself am not.  However, most of what I've read on power-gaming a kensai/mage involves using the spellcasting abilities for buffs and the kensai abilities for the actual fighting.  The buff here was the polymorph self spell.  Since the wands can't hit the lich (too low level, I think, plus he had his own buffs), waiting worked.  I took no damage at all and the lich died.  It just wasn't heroic.  Keep in mind that I don't have a spell trigger (not high enough level) and I am role-playing and therefore not pre-buffing from metaknowledge.  Most power-gamers use metaknowledge extensively.  I could not have "quickly overpowered" this lich as I would have needed more than a round to remove his buffs (one round for true sight, the next for buff removal).  In that time, he would have cast a time stop and wiped the floor with me (because I couldn't spare more rounds to buff myself).  The only pre-buffing Pawn did was prior to handling the first valve, and any combat buffs would have worn off by the time he got to the lich. 

All that said, I would very much welcome any advice on how to handle this lich without prebuffing from metaknowledge.