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Wizard Styles posted:Next up, the White Queen, which I've already finished. Was supposed to go into this update as well but this post is fairly long already and the White Queen is a big enough mod for its own one. Interested in your thoughts on this one. There were aspects of it that I liked and...other aspects.
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Mar 19, 2019 11:28
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Arnaldo the Shaman vs the White Queen The quest is accessible as soon as you find or buy a book giving a first glimpse of the story:  Afterwards, you can travel to the Lonely Swamp area, which like all Colours of Infinity mods has its own narrated intro screen:  Once we arrived, I immediately had everyone go through the requisite long-term buff and summon routine and moved out. The Lonely Swamp, as it turns out, is full of BG1 throwback enemies. There are Sword Spiders, Green Slimes, Ghasts, and a slightly tougher Hamadryad:  After some time of watching our Skeleton Warriors and Fire Elementals cut down low to mid level enemies, we find a mostly deserted village populated by a lone Druid. (The map looks quite nice, by the way. If you've played all of the IE games you'll recognize where particular bits and pieces came from but it's a well-made map and nothing looks out of place.)  Before following him into his tree hollow, we continue cleansing the area of harmless enemies. In addition to Ghasts, the village has some Skeleton Archers in store. They still accomplish nothing. Then our Fire Elementals are suddenly petrified. At which point I am very glad to have summons to spearhead our advance. I also decide it's time to talk to that nameless Old Druid.  Going into the mod, I assumed there would be a chess theme. I would have bet money on the Durlag's Tower chessboard room being reused at some point. But right here I was, for a brief, horrible moment, afraid it would turn into a hamfisted commentary on racism and ethnic cleansing. Neither is true, as it turns out:  So at this point I'm expecting a vampire. The branch is just a regular club, by the way:  We continue our way through the village, now no longer at risk of being petrified, and find another, better club just lying in a barrel or chest, as well as the White Archer, the first of several servants of the White Queen we'll have to fight.    He can turn invisible but apart from that, Jaheira manages to more or less solo him. I sent Jaheira in alone because she has the branch and I wanted to make absolutely sure nobody gets turned to stone and smashed. Afterwards, we can finally invade the White Queen's residence. Inside, we have to fight White Servants (who scream "Whiteness, let me live!" when their HP get low  ). Jaheira gets confused and attacks Nalia, who is without Stoneskin at the time. With interesting results:   We also find a demon that wants to make a deal with us. That doesn't seem like a wise thing to do in an ironman run so we just kill the demon.  And here is the Necromancer we have heard about. Apart from the above he doesn't reveal too much but does make some remarks about his sister losing a child.  A fight is inevitable. And tough. Everything so far has been straightforward, at lategame BG1 level at best, and then this guy starts with a dozen spells cast previously and throws around level 8 spells. He also has Mirror Image, Greater Invisibility (and Spell Immunity: Divination I think), because the Necromancer is not, in fact, a Necromancer but a Conjurer. I feel bamboozled. I mostly have the party hang back and bombard him and his helpers, especially since I need to buff during the fight. At some point the Necromancer fully heals himself, and then before I can do anything kinda just disappears into the fog of war.  We find him again one area transition later, although he doesn't appear to have announced his present to this Enchanter. Anyway, this time he is visible and starts in melee range and without most of his protection spells, so after a few attacks he quickly gets hit by a Power Word: Stun. Of course, he is not the real threat here.   The real threat is a Lightning Bolt cast in a small room.   Further exploration of the castle sees us fight two more loyal pawns of the White Queen. Both of them seem to be Fighter/Mages of some sort, neither one of them accomplishes anything. We also kind of randomly find the Claw of Kazgaroth, continuing the BG1 reprise that seems to be a part of this mod.  And then, it is time for the White Queen herself, who divulges the full backstory, including the role the Old Druid who told us to kill her played:  The fight itself is over almost immediately:  Korgan gets hit by one of the golems once but the White Queen herself (who is a high level Thief) does nothing. The most notable item she drops is Death in One, one of her two Scimitars (One in Death being the other):   This mod has been pretty good to Jaheira. There's only one loose end left to tie up:   Pictured above: a Spell Sequencer containing stacked Vitriolic Spheres (from IWDification) does nearly nothing because the Old Druid resists acid.   He also has no spellcasting delay, so at least the sequenced Spheres interrupt multiple spells. Considering he can in theory keep casting spell after spell, we just rush him. Korgan takes some damage but overall it's a straightforward fight. When he and his summons are dead, Shaneelah the Green Hag he was trying to call makes her appearance at last:  ...okay! And that concludes the White Queen mod. I have no idea why she got "obsessed with whiteness", or what white and black were really supposed to stand for. I guess both might have been death, but different? I'm also not sure what about the White Queen inspired the loyalty of all the servants we killed. Or really what she was. That's really the biggest problem with the mod, the writing is meandering and unclear, taking too long to reveal too little. Some of the fights were challenging, most complete walkovers. The White Queen herself didn't even get a backstab off. There's a definite lack of balance here. There's also too much loot. I didn't show off many of the items we found but there's a lot more to find here than in the De'Arnise keep, for example, probably more than twice as many items. I'll still install it at least one more time for a non-Ironman run, though. Some of the fights are fun, and the maps are nice. I also want to deal with the demon and see if there are different ends to this - I just killed everyone but maybe you can actually side with the Queen. You can definitely let the Druid have his victory after killing the Queen. So I can't say that I disliked it, I'm interested enough to revisit it, but overall, eh. Next up is Neera's quest, and then booking passage to Spellhold. e: I could also do the Innershade mod, which is also a part of the Colours of Infinity series, but at this point I probably won't. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 10:20
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Celeste the solo Blade has killed Yaga-Shura and reached Amkethran.  After the welcome distraction of Watcher's Keep, it was time to continue the plot of ToB. The Master Wraith was first, even with minimal buffs it was little trouble to deal with.   Finally got a Planetar kill. After it used its 3 Heal spells, it was no longer able to stand up to Celeste's 7 APR. Also a fine example of ToB's terrible random spawns in action there, how are Mummies and Ghasts remotely a threat now? Eventually, the mage ran out of defensive spells and fell to the Mace of Disruption.  On to the Marching Mountains, the Fire Giants here were dispatched easily enough thanks to PFMW.  This place gets changed a little with SCS. A Lich is added to one of the rooms here (The lower left one to be precise), although it's not too much trouble if you know it's coming.  The 2nd area is made extremely simple thanks to the Giants being unable to fit through either this gap, or the one on the other side. Berenn's summons can though. Luckily Devas are not as threatening as Planetars.  SCS also adds a red dragon, but it has the same issue as the Giants and is not a big threat. Maybe if the door was open this would be a challenging area.  Imix and his small entourage were easy to deal with.  Nyalee was fairly simple to kill. Her summons were not an issue and once she was alone it was a simple matter of getting through her Ironskins and finishing her off.  On to the main event. I'm not sure "Terror of the Sword Coast" is an accurate description of Celeste's adventures, but it sure sounds good.  Unfortunately, Yaga-Shura was a complete pushover. All that build up leading to such an anti-climax is pretty disappointing, but that's ToB for you.   Heading straight for Amkethran, Quest Pack allows you to talk your way past the army at the Oasis, so I did. Unfortunately, the smugglers are no longer a way to get infinite money, but I should have enough to get by.  If only all Liches could be this reasonable. Next up is Sendai.
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Mar 24, 2019 16:55
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Arnaldo the Shaman is reunited with his sister. Short update since I got a little burned out on IE combat and haven't been playing much.  Neera's quest needs to be taken care of before we leave for Spellhold, in part because I found out her romance won't progress otherwise.   I took a long time to do all the random quests for the Wild Mages in the sanctuary Neera set up for them, so I am again overleveled. That's okay, though, because these are Arnaldo's glory days. Insect Plague and Nature's Beauty combined are devastating in fights like this and we are not yet at the point where other caster classes will probably just leave the Shaman in the dust.  It turns out that powers greater than hers are any Mages that can cast level 7 spells:  Well, that's that, then.  Before taking on Bodhi, Korgan solos a Lich because that's how Korgan has fun. The party is prebuffing a room over but not actually needed.  After making it so far, my goal for this run now is to make it back to Athkatla and probably die to the fully beefed up SCS Bodhi when we fight her again. The first meeting is not particularly challenging, though. Jaheira, Anomen and Korgan are all immune to level drain when they want to be and the Vampire Mage down here falls to insects like her living colleagues. For now, Brynnlaw awaits.  One thing the quest pack does here is allowing you to save Sanik. There's nothing to it beyond that, it just means your party doesn't have to watch on like idiots as a low level Thief murders your contact. Which is very much appreciated.  I think this may actually be the first death so far? Maybe not, but anyway, I'm half-assing this fight and Jaheira dies to a Horrid Wilting. After resurrecting Jaheira, Nalia is asked to get herself a boat and row back to Athkatla to wait in the Copper Coronet, and we move on to Spellhold.  Irenicus steals Arnaldo's soul, which is bad, but on a more positive note Arnaldo learns that his beauty is so overwhelming it can blind the essence of a dead god. Win some, lose some. And after that, we find ourselves in Spellhold. Were Imoen rejoins the group as a level 24 Mage, strangely enough. If this wasn't an ironman run I'd keep her at that level until after the Irenicus fight so she could get some payback against him, but Next up, Spellhold Dungeon, fish people and the Underdark.
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Mar 25, 2019 04:51
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Great stuff Wizard styles! Also liking the the IWD run.
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Mar 25, 2019 19:52
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Arnaldo the Shaman has discovered that the Underdark is not the place for him. For the record, Imoen has been edited to be a level below Neera instead of level 24 before we set out to escape the Spellhold Dungeon.  This ends up being the most dangerous fight. It's not actually threatening Arnaldo's or anybody else's life but there are lots of aTweaks-enhanced Mephits inflicting short term Blind effects, doing small amounts of damage ignoring AC that do add up and gating in more Mephits doing the same. Irenicus doesn't worry me overly much. He's essentially got innate Death Ward, Free Action and Chaotic Commands, but he is not immune to Deafen/Anomen yelling a Holy Word and Blind/Nature's Beauty exemplified by Arnaldo.  Neither Holy Word nor Nature's Beauty turn out to be needed because Neera and Imoen chew through Irenicus' protective spells just in time for Wanev's Time Stop. Wanev proceeds to tear Irenicus apart basically on his own; I think Korgan got one hit in.  I have seen more than one online discussion going into the nuances of supporting a mad despot vs strengthening a nation of evil fish people. But the only thing that really matters here is that the king thinks Arnaldo is just delightful and promises him the pick of his treasury while the prince is kind of a dick. And so he must die.  Something tells me that line should only trigger if you use the portal in Spellhold.  A Drider added by the Shaman stronghold mod. (The boss of the stronghold quest line uses the Drider sprite, so I think the modder just decided to get some extra use out of it.) A purely physical attacker, all on his own, but somehow gives you 12,000 XP. He's not worth half that, but eh. With the amount of XP that get thrown around at this point it's not like a couple thousand more or less matter.  Kuo-Toa have sometimes given me trouble because I always tend to forget one or two things out of their weird grab bag of abilities - in this case it was their 90% Magic Damage Resistance - and sometimes get half my party stunned or held as a result. Not so in this case, but it's the first time Neera got to cast Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting and it's slightly disappointing to see it reduced to this. Anyway, first stop in the Underdark is the Beholder hive because a random game over in the first room is not totally out of the question, despite getting Arnaldo's saves as low as I can. He never gets targeted, though, but Neera dies and is instantly brought back to life by Arnaldo. Having a Raise Dead equivalent on a spontaneous caster is nice.  I did not let SCS improve the Beholders because gently caress Beholders, so the rest is all Korgan enjoying life with the Shield of Balduran. Occasionally also using his Berserker Rage against the invading Mind Flayers.  When his bloody work is done, he also finds a fly of sufficient size to present to the giant spider Arnaldo befriended during the Shaman stronghold quests. After the effortless eradication of the Beholders, the party enters another tunnel, and immediately gets captured.   Come on, Neera, you've only died once so far and Arnaldo has Chaotic Commands on tap, so this is fine.  See? No giant brain can stand against us. With that taken care of, it's time to free some imprisoned souls.  Pictured: Korgan polymorphing into a glob of slime and antagonizing a Lich, as he does. Not pictured: Imoen suddenly dies and everything goes to hell. So, what happens is that I retreat the party to a presumably safe distance nad leave it to Korgan and some summons I periodically send in to exhaust the Lich. The party, that I am not watching at all, gets attacked by three Mind Flayers. I think they must be the ones close to the entrance to the Underdark. I had killed them before, but I guess they respawn. I'm not sure what alerted them to the party's presence, either. My best bet is a summon that got hit by the Lich's fear aura got to close to them while running around panicking and lured them to the party. Anyway, Imoen is dead. Everybody else immediately gets hit by psionic attacks. Anomen dies shortly afterwards. Jaheira gets dominated and chases a fleeing summoned Fire Elemental into sight range of the Lich, who imprisons her. Neera likewise gets dominated, then immediately fails her save against the fear aura when it wears off. I'm trying to retreat Korgan but his Berserker Rage ends at an inopportune moment and he fails his save against the fear aura as well.  At this point, almost all hope is lost. The only way of getting through this is for Arnaldo - who has been hit by every status effect possible and lost part of his brain to the appetites of the Mind Flayers - to regain his senses, not immediately fail the next save, pop an Oil of Speed and run away to rest and resurrect his fallen comrades. That turns out to be a little too much luck to ask for, unsurprisingly. The moment Arnaldo switches back to my control, a Mind Flayer that has just been standing next to him instead of going after one of the other surviving party members goes in for a slurp and claims the rest of Arnaldo's intelligence as his dinner. And it's game over. Lost his soul, lost his brain, it's not a good week for Arnaldo. Next up, I reload because I want to see what Arnaldo gets for delivering a fly to his spider buddy in the Shaman Stronghold. Also, I want to do the Back to Brynnlaw mod before I lay Arnaldo to his soul- and brainless rest. I'll post about the mod the Games thread if anybody is interested. In this thread, more Icewind Dale. Also, my thoughts about the Shaman now that I played one for some time: BG1 is rough in a lot of places. The Shaman starts out decent enough. Cure Light Wounds and all the ranged weapon proficiencies you could want, whether it's bows for a Half-Elf or daggers, slings or even axes for a 19 Strength Half-Orc. The Shamanic Dance also gives you a lot more staying power early on. It's far more annoying to use than it should be but luring enemies into summoned spirits is easy enough in the open wilderness areas of BG1. But then you level up a little and realize how bad levels 2 and 3 of the Druid spell list are. And you are stuck at them for a long time in BG1. Once you get level 4 spells, things are looking up, but a Druid would simply be better (Jaheira was at least Arnaldo's equal as a caster throughout BG1). A lot of the Shaman's better spells are also AoE damage, which isn't particularly relevant considering the sheer amount of consumables you get that can fill that niche. In SoD, the Shaman gets better. Reaching level 5 spells is a big deal, and while you've got all the consumables you bothered to carry over they often won't be enough on their own and there are so many fights against big enemy groups in SoD that you will probably get good use out of the Shaman's AoE damage. BG2 was good to Arnaldo. Insect Plague, Fire Elementals and Nature's Beauty are amazing. I didn't use the Shaman's Maze variant a lot because Nature's Beauty is usually better but it's good to have as a level 7 spell. Having status heals available to cast without memorizing them is also nice. I think I used the Shamanic Dance precisely once in BG2, but as a spellcaster Arnaldo was definitely pulling his weight. He also continued to do decent auto-attacking damage thanks to his high Strength and Shamans getting good weapon proficiencies to pick from. I think Arnaldo definitely quit while he was ahead, though. When he died, Neera had unlocked level 8 spells and Imoen would do the same soon. Arnaldo, who levels just as slowly as them, would forever be stuck at level 7 spells. And at some point, Anomen and Jaheira would have ended up with just as many or even more spell slots than Arnaldo. Not that Arnaldo ran out of spells a lot, but it would have diminished the benefits of spontaneous casting. As for mods, the Shaman stronghold was nice. It didn't have a real narrative to it, which makes it weaker than most the vanilla strongholds, but overall it's a good stronghold. The fights are very easy but that's not something I really hold against it. I would never play a Shaman without IWDification installed. It would make the early levels even worse. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Mar 29, 2019 |
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Mar 29, 2019 10:25
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RIP Arnaldo, that was a very unfortunate way to go.
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Mar 29, 2019 10:43
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Aw hell, death by mindflayer. Gotta happen to a couple people every year. Good to know Shaman is useless without IWDification, though.
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Mar 30, 2019 17:39
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RIP Arnaldo, that was very unlucky. In other news, Celeste the solo Blade has killed Sendai.  After a bit of testing with spare scrolls, I discovered that the Robe of Vecna does speed up scroll casting, so between that and normal weapons being as good as nonexistent from this point forward Celeste will be wearing the robe from now on. Insta-cast PFMW is an amazing perk. As for the 2 groups of enemies here the Woodcutter tries to ambush you with, they weren't much trouble. The Hive Mother just cast Anti-Magic Ray over and over, which was more annoying than threatening.  A 2nd Planetar kill, and with it dead the rest of this group were dealt with fairly easily. Sendai's Enclave is changed a bit in SCS, it's actually quite tough in places now. The first change is in front of Odamaron's Tower, a fairly large group of Drow with a pair of Glabrezu for support is guarding it. A 2nd group with Beholders instead of demons is waiting for you once you have killed the Lich. Neither are all that threatening if you know they're coming, especially if you target the demons/beholders first.  Oops, I missed one.   The fight with Odamaron is changed a lot, he gets some friends to help him, including a generic Lich and a roughly Tanova level Vampire mage.   2 more dead Planetars. The 2nd one was not quite as risky as it looks, its almost immediately after PFMW wore off. As for other Mage HLAs, Dragon's Breath is incredibly easy to avoid with its very long animation, and Comet, which will never miss its target, can be blocked with Magic Resistance. (I think Celeste had around 50% MR with her equipped gear here) Both are reduced/nullified by fire resistance if they actually hit you, so they can be dealt with. Some of the various demons were easily dealt with to thin out the enemy numbers a bit, and after a little while I was able to kill the Vampire and the generic Lich with the Runehammer.  Odamaron was killed a little later, and the various demons and undead were mopped up easily. This was easily the best fight in ToB so far, it's exactly the kind of thing I use SCS for.  God, I hate this bitch so much, she's such a loving coward.  Moving on, its always surprising to find out things are vulnerable to vorpal hits.  I have no idea what the gently caress happened here. They just started fighting each other, seemingly for no reason. I'm not complaining about the result, mind you. Hive Mothers are weird and annoying.  Sounds good to me. I didn't get any screenshots of the Mind Flayers, but SCS increases their numbers a bit. They aren't too dangerous with PFMW up, though.  SCS also makes more changes to the fight with Sendai, although only the first phase with the 7 statues is affected by the specific Sendai component. The statues (1 Cleric, 2 Thieves, 1 Fighter, 1 Archer, and 2 Mages, though only the 2nd Mage to activate has HLAs) activate once per round, regardless of whether the previous one is dead, and the Drow reinforcements (Mainly fighters with HLAs, but there's a couple of level 17 mages too) arrive once per round as well. Fortunately, the reinforcements are not infinite. It's a fairly hectic start, but as long as you kill the 1st statue (A Cleric with HLAs) fairly quickly, you can deal with the reinforcements without too much hassle, just keep PFMW up, Stoneskin isn't good enough for fighter HLAs. Once the reinforcements are dead, the rest of the statues can be dealt with. Most of them are not too dangerous, and I happened to leave the HLA capable Mage for last which made things a little easier.  Sendai herself is a lone Cleric/Mage, albeit a very high level one. Despite being able to summon both a Deva and a Planetar, she wasn't too tough to deal with overall. It didn't take too long for her to die after her Planetar unsummoned itself, I couldn't fight it because I was running low on PFMW scrolls by that point. Next up is Abazigal and Balthazar. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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Mar 31, 2019 16:34
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Arnaldo is back from the dead, and also back to Brynnlaw.anilEhilated posted:Good to know Shaman is useless without IWDification, though. It's just that without the mod, the Druid spell list has next to no good low level offensive spells. And the Shaman gets past those low levels a lot slower than the Druid. That's mainly why I wouldn't want to play one without IWDification.
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Mar 31, 2019 20:00
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Sorry for being away so long folks, OP updated to here! Wizard Styles, I hated to read Arnaldo meeting his (beautiful) end in the Underdark due to the freak mind flayer activation. That is a hard way to go, but reading along to your shamanic quest has been a treat. I never played that class. biscuits and crazy, I don't want to jinx you, but Celeste may just go all the way and be our first true Irongod this year! You go!
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Mar 31, 2019 20:26
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No pressure then! Since I'm here, may as well post an update. Celeste the solo Blade has killed Abazigal and Balthazar. The Five are no more.  Unfortunately, the SCS component that changes Abazigal's Lair failed to install, so I had to make do with the terrible vanilla version. First thing to deal with is of course, Draconis. He's a decently powerful mage in human form, but Celeste has killed dozens of those. You just have to be a little more frugal with spells than usual, because of the whole dragon thing.  A 5th Planetar kill. I believe this is the last one I'll face in the game, I don't recall Melissan summoning any the last time I faced her. Just get on with it, you daft tit.  As a dragon, Draconis was utterly useless, and died very quickly.  At least Bondari is a nice bit of light relief from the tedium of running over everything in the lair like they weren't even there.  I don't know why I bothered to fight these Elder Orbs to be honest, but they didn't do much.  I let this dragon live, I couldn't be bothered fighting it. The ring you get for beating her is pretty nice, but I'll make do without it.  I massively over-buffed for this, as it turned out. Abazigal was even more useless than his son.  There's only one pathetic fool in this picture, and I'm 100% sure it's not the bard.  You know, I think Yaga-Shura has a point. That much power would be quite tempting, I reckon.  Since I killed Venduris and co. in Athkatla, Cyric decided I didn't need to be tested after all and killed his minions for me. Not that they would have been difficult or anything, but I'll take it.  Upon returning to Amkethran, Celeste was promptly ambushed by Balthazar's army. So, I made something special to deal with them. Fear the might of Mecha-Celeste, puny one!  Eventually, the spawns stopped, and Mecha-Celeste was victorious. This was quite satisfying to do.  I then entered the Monastery, and accidentally triggered Balthazar before I cast any buffs.  It made no difference, and thanks to PFMW and Improved Haste, Balthazar died within seconds. The monks here were hurt by Balthazar's Sunfire power and turned on him briefly, then tried to heal him when he got close to dying. It was quite weird.  Melissan finally reveals herself. Its almost time for the main event. Next up is the Throne of Blood.
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Apr 6, 2019 20:38
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Back to Icewind Dale Last time, we killed the demon Yxunomei, self-proclaimed goddess of the Yuan-Ti and the first major boss of the game, and looted the Heartstone Gem from her. Our first major success, actually, after everyne we traveled to Kuldahar with got killed by an avalanche, we fought our way through the Vale of Shadows only to find out that the evils within it were not the evil we seek, and went to retrieve the Heartstone Gem from a cult in the mountains only to find out that Yxunomei's agents had already stolen it.  And we still can't catch a break, as we find Kuldahar under attack as we return. These Orogs are entirely non-threatening, though, and won't even go after the villagers. They mostly just stand around and then die as soon as the party attacks them. In one playthrough I found one of them just wandering around weeks after this when I returned to Kuldahar for the last time before the point of no return. Anyway, we need to report to Arundel.   Who turns out to not be Arundel at all, but Yxunomei's ancient enemy.   With the real Arundel dying, we need to find someone else to divine the location of his killer. Anyway, it's been a while since I posted about Icewind Dale, so let's quickly go over the party members now that we're moving on to a next chapter. Especially since I don't expect anyone to remember who is even in this party.   The main character, which means when she dies so does the playthrough. Also the killer of Yxunomei, who is worth 46k XP, meaning she alone accounts for about a third of the XP value of Cordelia's kills. Cordelia needed a while to get going. She always was a good archer thanks to her Spin abilities but her spellcasting has only really been up to par for a short time. Now that it is, though, she can get into melee for extended periods of time and will only get better. Her next level will see her unlock level 4 spells; she already knows Minor Sequencer (which the EE makes purchaseable) and we're guaranteed to find a Stoneskin scroll soon. She's well-equipped, too, using a +1 APR bow and dual-wielding two decent maces in melee. The only thing she's really missing is elven chainmail, of which only two suits exist in the game. I mention this because both of them are in the Severed Hand, our next destination, but both of them are random loot so we may very well never get any armor for Cordelia at all.   Well, what is there to say? He tanks, he spanks. The Dwarven Defender is really strong in Icewind Dale especially since there are several items giving extra damage resistances. I'm pretty sure it's entirely possible for a Dwarven Defender to become immune to several physical damage types subject to random loot drops. I haven't gotten any of the possible random loot items giving extra damage resistances so far, though.   I've usually just treated Thieves in IWD as I would in BG1, meaning I'd usually try to minimize Thief levels while still covering traps and locks. But I'm coming around to multi-classes Thieves thanks to the optional 3E Sneak Attack that I have enabled. Last playthrough I had a F/M/T in the party and he was surprisingly strong. Brianna is also definitely getting there. Without the self-buffs the F/M/T had she needed some levels and gear to get ready for melee but ever since she switched to primarily stabbing people with long swords instead of slinging bullets at them she has been chunking fools left, right and center. e: A few extra Thief levels are also nice to have since you can pickpocket some decent items. There are not that many people in IWD that you can pickpocket in general but you can get two Rings of Free Action in Kuldahar.   6% of the party's kills is a shameful display for a priest of the god of war, it has to be said. Clerics are useful in IWD, though, there are some large dungeons throwing nothing but undead at you and every major dungeon has at least one level full of them. Their buffs are also good; they get a few extra ones in IWD. Also, Chaos of Battle, the unique ability Rodolf gets as a Priest of Tempus, has turned out to be very useful since it is cast instantly and has a huge AoE.   Arnaldo may be Mind Flayer food but at least Galene has been doing well. I don't think there's much of a reason to play a Shaman if you're looking for the best party possible; a Totemic Druid would offer everything the Shaman does but do it better and IWD mercifully ends before the Druid's leveling curve flatlines. But with IWD pitting you against huge groups of enemies and giving you a lot less consumables, especially wands and explosives, the Druid spell list in general has a lot going for it in this game. Currently known spells apart from the automatically learned Shaman spells: Level 1: Armor of Faith, Cure Light Wounds, Entangle (doesn't give a save bonus in IWD), Remove Fear, Sunscorch Level 2: Alicorn Lance, Barkskin, Charm Person or Mammal, Cure Moderate Wounds Level 3: Mold Touch (gave it to her for fun, it's bad), Moonblade, Spike Growth Level 4: Call Woodland Beings, Giant Insect There are some differences between the IWD and BG Druid spell lists. For instance, Galene knows Remove Fear which would have been amazing for Arnaldo but is less relevant in IWD. She also unfortunately couldn't learn Defensive Harmony as one of her level 4 spells, but Giant Insect makes up for it as Bombardier Beetles are amazing summons you can drop into almost any fight.   I think Favorite Weapon: Fist may be inaccurate. Flavia is not, in fact, a muscle mage. She's actually going for a themed spell list focusing on Enchantment, Necromancy and Illusion. Known spells: Level 1: Charm Person, Chromatic Orb, Magic Missile, Shield, Spook Level 2: Blur, Mirror Image, Ray of Enfeeblement, Web Level 3: Invisibility 10' Radius, Skull Trap, Slow Level 4: Emotion: Hope, Greater Malison Mainly a buffer and debuffer and quite good at it. The Emotion buffs are some of the better spells available in IWD. Starting to do a bit more damage as Magic Missile and Skull Trap become more powerful as well. Ray of Enfeeblement is a single target spell allowing a save but has still been surprisingly good - it's not an amazingly powerful spell but there are a lot of enemies in IWD that just hit HARD. I'm starting to use the party-wide invisibility spell a lot to enter areas with the party invisible to angle for a good position. It's not a spell I tend to have my characters memorize a lot in general but I'm starting to appreciate it more. Anyway, that's the shape the party is in as we depart for the Severed Hand:  Next up, exploring said Severed Hand. I'm already halfway through it so expect the next post tomorrow. I just wanted to cut it off here because there's a lot to read in this update. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Apr 8, 2019 |
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Apr 8, 2019 18:35
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biscuits and crazy posted:
 A beautiful sight to behold.
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Apr 8, 2019 18:36
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Cordelia the Blade and her party enter the Severed Hand The first thing you see as you approach the Severed Hand is a sending of Larrel blasting a squirrel with a fireball after accusing it of being a Dwarven intruder. Which certainly bodes well for our attempts to get his help. You see Larrel's sending again inside, but when it appears it's always in an in-engine cutscene and for whatever reason neither the game's nor GOG Galaxy's screenshot hotkey work during those so I can't show it.  The Severed Hand itself is essentially a battlefield frozen in time. Also my favorite dungeon of the game. The lower levels are mostly populated by Shadowed Orcs, Goblins and occasionally Ogres and Worgs, the remnants of a greenskin horde that overran the Hand a long time ago. They have some spellcaster backup and come in numbers. They're also classified as Spectral Undead and have the immunities that come with it but can be turned.  They also really like ambushes.  The most dangerous enemies among them overall are Shadowed Goblin Marksmen. Partially because their offense is decent; they attack 3 times per round at an effective THAC0 of 11 thanks to having a +2 bow. It can also be hard to reach them, partially due to IE pathfinding being what it is, but mostly because the place is designed to make it hard. The Severed Hand lies in ruin, there is debris everywhere, and some bridges and stairways are broken. Well-armored characters can get into sniper duels with them; they are squishy and 11 THAC0 is respectable but definitely not impossible to defend against. You can also drop summons on them. The Severed Hand in general is a good place for summoners.  There are also several groups of more generic undead enemies. These include Shattered/Severed Souls which essentially redistribute HP. They can drain them from the party and have an ability called Shadow Pact that deals 10-20 damage to them but gives a friendly target 10-20 extra HP. There are also Burning Skeletons that cast Fireball without pause or any fucks given about friendly fire. Webbing them is advisable.  A notable non-randomly found item. Its bonus against Elves is actually fairly relevant and will soon come into play for the first time. As we ascend, we reach the parts of the Hand that held out against the invading Orcs and Goblins. The Elves, as it turns out, are also bound to the place as shadowed versions of themselves. Some of them are more aware of this than others:    We also learn that, when it became obvious that the Elves were fighting a losing battle, they started taking desperate measures including blowing up one of the five towers - or fingers - of the hand to prevent the greenskins from getting the magical weapons and armor stored within. Also, most of the Shadowed Elves we meet...    ...are so far gone they require the capable hands of a band of murderhobos.  The game doesn't hold back with XP. Kaylessa, by the way, drops Boots of Speed in addition to the plot-relevant item she promised earlier. And a random item, which can be an enchanted suit of Elven Chain Mail. We get her bow instead, which is unfortunate especially since I have nobody besides Cordelia who uses bows and she already got a better one in the Dragon's Eye.   While further exploring the Severed Hand and putting down Shadowed Elves (of the arcane caster variety in this case), we find the diary of Larrel's daughter. It sheds some light on what happened to the Hand and why Larrel would blast a squirrel that looks a bit like a Dwarf to him, and will be important later.    Also, very easy to miss foreshadowing. (The main reason to visit this library is to get a book called Mythal Theory for Orrick, the resident Mage in Kuldahar, who gives you a decent - random - item in return.)  This game taught me what an astrolabe is when I first played it as a kid. It's a very educational game. Anyway, we find Larrel at last. He doesn't throw a Fireball at us despite the two actual Dwarves in our party, which is nice since we're not quite powerful enough to survive an attack by an ancient Elven Lich. He also isn't exactly in any condition to help us with the Heartstone Gem, though.  We need to repair the astrolabe to snap him out of it. To do so, we need to find three more pieces of machinery that were scattered throughout the Hand when part of it got blown up. Next up, we do just that. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 17:51
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Question about IWD's somewhat vexing random drops... do any items ever get rerolled? By that I am asking if randomly-rolled items ever have another chance of appearing later in another randomly-rolled opportunity, or if every item is "one and done".
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Apr 9, 2019 23:54
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Each drop has its own list of five items that can drop from a given source, and all the items are afaik unique.
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Apr 10, 2019 00:34
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Celeste the solo Blade has defeated Amelyssan and completed Throne of Bhaal. Before fighting the Ravager, I took the time to prepare some crucial scrolls for the fight with Amelyssan. This turned out to be much more than I needed, but no matter.   Ultimate expression, indeed. The power of insta-cast PFMW really cannot be overstated, it's insanely good.  Not the most useful Bhaalpower for a solo run, but whatever. Also, Imoen apparently died at some point. RIP.  The pre-final battle stats. Over 6,100 kills over both games in total, quite a respectable haul.  Into Chapter 10, lets do this.  At least she's polite, which is more than can be said for Irenicus.  Round 1 didn't take too long, Amelyssan is primarily a physical attacker, though she does have some magic. It seemed to be primarily defensive in nature (Stonekin, True Sight, Heal etc. and I'm fairly sure she has Time Stop) although that may be because the SCS AI is reacting to a fully buffed Celeste, who is immune to just about everything.  The elementals here were more troublesome than I expected, due mainly to their ability to go invisible at will. Still, it wasn't too bad.  Round 2 went the same way as the 1st, she can't really do much if you've got PFMW up.  I was basically out of buffs by this point, so I switched my equipment for a setup with more physical damage resistance. It didn't take long to win here.  I got lucky with my 2nd Wish scroll, and got the option for the full rest. Just what I needed.  Round 3 was similar to the earlier ones, only with more Glabrezu to mop up afterward.  For the final pool, I got the attention of the demons, and lured them away easily, taking advantage of the aTweaks Demon AI. Mecha-Celeste made her triumphant return for this, and beat the demons and the now lone Fallen Solar fairly easily.  The final round with Amelyssan. It went the same way as the 1st 3, with only a brief delay to kill a Marilith summoned by a Glabrezu.   Mecha-Celeste wins! It's nice to be finally done, it's been a long run.  Who needs divinity? Celeste will remain a mortal, she's more than earned a quiet retirement from celestial bullshit. Honours earned: Irongoddess, Tactician, Double Damage, Honourable Trader, Helm's Champion, A God Among Men.* *If using Rasaad to claim the Purifier sword invalidates this, then feel free to ignore it. biscuits and crazy fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 20:48
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I'm very glad that you managed to go from the very beginning to the very end, biscuits. A great way to cap off (minus the IWD playthrough) Ironman Season 2019.
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Apr 13, 2019 22:06
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Congratulations! You drat well earned it.
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Apr 15, 2019 01:00
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A great run, worthy of being the only real winner this year.
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Apr 15, 2019 08:15
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I think at this point the thread is done, especially with Celeste being our first true Irongoddess and racing to the end of it all! Congratulations, biscuits and crazy! However, if any existing heroes (or fresh meat) wish to give this 25-year-old game a whirl and do so ironman style, then get in here! EDIT: Some folks are still discussing ironmanning in the general BG thread. Get in here! Olive Branch fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Sep 4, 2019 |
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May 20, 2019 23:49
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