20 réponses à ce sujet

[The Fred]

So, it turns out Steam sales are pretty cool. On the upside, I can now add overland maps and custom classes to my campaign. On the downside, non of that is going to happen until after I've finished playing SoZ, MotB, Legacy of White Plume Mountain, Misery Stone, and everything else ever released.

So far I've only just done the first bit, and things are going OK. My party consists of three yuan-ti - a Rogue/Ranger, a Wizard (with a view to dualing to Swashbuckler and thence Eldritch Knight), a Bard/Swashbuckler (with a view to taking RDD levels) - and a Druid/Monk Grey Orc. The party is Chaotic Good and Neutral, but also made up entirely of "monster" races, which I would have thought people would have noticed more. Then again, I guess you're not supposed to be able to tell whether people are yuan-ti or not just by looking at them.

One thing I did find slightly... odd... is the fact that the Samarach guardswoman had an American accent - especially when the captain didn't. 

[kevL]

gratz Fred

i really enjoyed Soz, so much freeddom to wander ..

[Axe_Edge]

Cool! Try to fix the caravan bug soon to save some headaches.

[kevL]

Caravan from Leilon to Crossroad Keep defunct

1. confirm
2. implement
3. ???
4. Profit!11

[The Fred]

I've not gotten that far yet. I was killed by an EL 8 Batiri tribe and had to redo the whole shipwreck bit. Didn't take too long, but it's annoying. I also think with hindsight that an elven Eldritch Knight (probably drow) would have made more sense, for the favoured class, since my character is now going to have to go Wiz5/Swash4 and consequently lose a level of spellcasting (at least initially).

Any tips for a new SoZ player, or even interesting anecdotes? What parties did everyone else use, by the way?

[M. Rieder]

I soloed. Wizard starting at lvl 4. Had a blast (excuse the pun, please). The balance was a little strange for soloing since overland encounters distribute experience based on party size. After just a few encounters you can level up.... of course playing a solo character it is often well-deserved.

Toward the end I became overpowered due to the overland encounters and their large XP, but it was fun the whole way through, I thought.  If I were to play again, I would avoid doing so many of the overland battles.  I think if I had focused more on the quests and less on just running around the wilderness blowing up monsters I would not have been overpowered at the end. 

Modifié par M. Rieder, 30 novembre 2011 - 06:35 .

[Axe_Edge]

I played a yuanti ranger duel wielder, recruited the drow rogue i played the OC and MotB (deleveled), a paladin and a wiz. I got tired of so many overland encounters I used the override to cut the frequency to 33%of normal. Due to ECL, i was only level 14ish near the end and had to farm xp (I didnt want to give_xp the first runthrough). I enjoyed the change of pace SOZ offered. I was one of the players who hit a major bug When entering Portlast and i did not have a recent save. I had to replay about 90 minutes. Save before entering cities. The bug may have been fixed by 1.23.

I liked SOZ a lot.

[Axe_Edge]

I should have mentioned that taking a ranger is a good idea. They provide a few benefits when on the OM when you posses them.

[kevL]

I did it with a Paladin + party and the decisions toward the end are a dilemma ..

- just did standard Cleric + Thief + Wizard (from the pre-rolled characters) and adopted a couple of locals from Samarach. For the first half of the game I tried clearing out those wandering monsters and ended up overpowered like MR (see .sig), and was a bit choked because nothing was getting actually cleared out! Personally i would have transparently divided the OL into zones based on cities and so after cleaning up around a town then returned to said town to be feted

- then used this as 'honor points' to regain rep in Samarach with the officials ..... Turning down the spawn frequency like Axe did is a great idea. I'm a leisurely player when not in combat, and so when i finally got that done the expansion was *way* more enjoyable - it's just too easy to get side traked by loading screens otherwise,

- ended as level 21, pure Pally. ( but put a lot of effort into improving the recruited ranger to lead on the OL )

[The Fred]

My first char is a Yuan-Ti Rogue/Ranger. I think I had planned on getting 3 rogue levels (a nice breakpoint for Sneak Attack and Evasion, plus it offers a reasonable number of skill points in Open Locks, Find Traps, etc) and going Ranger from there, maybe taking some PrC later.

The other characters are all using slightly wacky multiclassed builds, which is a little tough atm since between that and the LAs they still don't have 2nd level spells when they could have 3rd (ECL 5 now, maybe 6). I haven't really had any trouble with the OM encounters around Samargol, though. I did die in a cave to the east and of course to those Batiri earlier on in the game but otherwise I seem to be fine.

[Arkalezth]

Always make your first created character the OM leader, or you may find yourself into some underserved fight.

I like a rogue/ranger archer as my OM leader, and warlocks are very useful for the quick fights in SoZ (make sure to take Flee the Scene if you have one). They also make good enchanters if you're into that (SoZ has the easiest enchanting system IMO, I didn't take the time to enchant in the OC or MotB). Healers, bards and wiz/sorcs are also advisable. A druid could work both as a healer and a scout, monks make good scouts too.

For a first playthrough, I'd take Leadership with some character and recruit two henchmen, ending with a six-person party (or just modify some file and create your own six). Henchmen don't have much conversation, though.

As for quests, there are a couple of them that consume too much time for nothing, I'd skip those. Without many spoilers, I'm refeering to one given by a genasi and another given by a gnome who asks you to kill spider constructs (I think, it's been a long time).

Modifié par Arkalezth, 01 décembre 2011 - 03:14 .

[MokahTGS]

 Congrats Fred!  Welcome to the best part of the game.

Here's hoping you get inspired and work with the OM UI, as that part bugging out is what currently has Jabberwocky on hold.  The OM is great but totally proprietary to the SoZ campaign and has some really weird things happening in custom mods.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

Arkalezth wrote...
Always make your first created character the OM leader, or you may find yourself into some underserved fight.

Does being first really matter? I thought that the skills of the party member you are controlling on the OM are used, regardless of whether they are first in the party or not.

Regards

[The Fred]

The Druid/Monk is my only divine spellcaster, so healing is a tad tough. Luckily the Bard gets a couple of spells too, but nothing which will be worth writing home about after we've gained a few levels. I suppose the Ranger will get some basic ones eventually as well. Otherwise I like the way my party is going, though I think it could use some more magic (only the one Wiz/Swash as well). It's probably a good job melee is so powerful in NWN2.

MokahTGS wrote...
Here's hoping you get inspired and work with the OM UI, as that part bugging out is what currently has Jabberwocky on hold.  The OM is great but totally proprietary to the SoZ campaign and has some really weird things happening in custom mods.

I really want to get delving into that OM code and wire up some cool stuff with it, because I see a lot of potential there even beyond what SoZ has. However, I'm not actually sure whether an OM is such a great idea, at least to start off with, because I don't want to give people that much freedom right off the bat. I wonder whether it might be possible to make a point-and-click version of the OM (an OM which functions like an old world map) and use the same base for a real OM later in the story.

[Arkalezth]

Kaldor Silverwand wrote...

Does being first really matter? I thought that the skills of the party member you are controlling on the OM are used, regardless of whether they are first in the party or not.

Yes, but sometimes, when you transition to the OM, the control switchs automatically to the first created character. If that character has no Hide or Move Silently, nearby enemies may find you and attack.

BTW, Fred, as far as finding and hiding from enemies in the OM goes, you only need one from Hide/MS, and one from Spot/Listen. You'll still need both Hide/MS if you want to sneak in dungeons and combat.

[The Fred]

Yeah, I realised that and stopped plumbing points into Listen. I think that's one obvious thing which could be refined about the OM. Personally I'd cache all the relevant skill points, taking the highest score between the party in each one, when transitioning to the OM, so it didn't matter who was leading. Or something like that.

[Dorateen]

I didn't make the OM leader the first character in the party, and as mentioned, upon transitioning from dungeons or encounter areas, we would sometimes attract hostile forces right on top of us.

But I wanted to add that sometimes it could be helpful to switch from the OM leader to another party member while exploring. For example, our mage and cleric with their crafting feats and lore skills, sometimes discovered new locations or items that were missed by the OM leader. The map does not just use spot and listen checks for these discoveries.

Of course, switching to anyone else naturally set off alarms to all the nearby critters who would come swarming for us, until I switched back to the OM leader and made a fast getaway.

Harumph!

[Arkalezth]

Dorateen wrote...
The map does not just use spot and listen checks for these discoveries.

Yes, I was strictly speaking about finding enemies. Many other skills are useful to find other things (though after my first playthrough I noticed that most of these discoveries weren't all that impressive, finding or skipping them won't make a big difference).

If you want many skills with a character, Wizards/ATs are also good candidates for skill monkeys, you can take virtually every used skill, and they can fill both the OM and arcane duties in the party.

[kamal_]

Spellcraft will produce a good number of OM locations.

[foil-]

So much fun. Not a theatrical masterpiece but just so much more D&D adventure like than their previous installments.

Carefull with the multiclasses in this one. Especially magic wielders. I had dual classed a cleric (one of the companions if I recall) and she was fairly ineffective in the tougher later or end battles.

[The Fred]

Yeah, I'm definitely feeling that. I sort of went off it again for a bit feeling as though I had no real direction (open ended is cool but you need a little something to motivate you) but when I went back to Samargol, Sa'Sani had the next bit of quest ready for me so it's all good.