IAv5 experiences Options

[Shadan]

As Ryel asked, I will write about my party and my game also here. I was not able to resist to start the game, despite of I wanted to start only in some weeks, when I will have more time. smile.gif
I hesitated alot with my party selection. I wanted 5 man party earlier, but after reading Sikret's progression, I changed my mind to 6 man party. I wanted to use at least 3-4 custom NPC, but hesitated abit on 1-2 bioware NPC also. Since I am an attribute fun, at end I started with 6 custom made chars. Maybe in v6, I will do with Bioware NPCs again, and it seems druid protagonist. smile.gif

So my party:
Human vagrant (as usual:)):
I gave long sword **, axe, club, flail * and 2weapons *** to him. Luckily I pickpocketed an Enchanted Weapon scroll for my mage, so in dire situations I am able to give him +3 long swords and +3 maces to my cleric. I have The Root of the Problem and Flametongue now, so at lvl 9 I put 2nd * in the club. And I think I will increase his flail skill at lvl 12.

Human swashbuckler lvl 10 - fighter:
This character gave the most thinking to me. Finally I chosed staff** and 2handed weapons ** for him. At lvl 10 I changed him to fighter. Now he is lvl 8 and has halberd **** and 2handed sword **. He will be very versatile character in damage type (halberd - piercing, staff -crushing, 2handed swords - slashing). I chose him to handle locks, traps and illusions, so he has 100 % pick lock, find trap and detect illusion. I want to buy Harmonium halberd for him, if I will have money for this, since 19 Str is huge upgrade considered to pure 18.

And the four sisters:
Half-elf blade
I liked Haer'Dalis in my 4.2 run, so I chose blade again. Reasons are in this topic in my former post. I hesitated alot between Haer and custom NPC, I chose custom cause of better attribute distribution and earlier join, but I lost easy upgradable Chaos Blade and ** in short sword. I started her with scimitar, katana *, 2weapons: **, but since I haven't found any magic weapon for her, she used Melf's Minute Meteor in fights. Sadly it is bugged with offensive spin as I wrote in bug report topic, but she was very good with MMM anyway. Now I have got Rashad's Talon which is a great weapon for her. She has 18 charisma and with a Friends she has 24, which means almost best buying price.
There were no need in good tanks so early in the game as I am now, but later she will be the best tank ever. smile.gif And she did a wonderful pickpocket tour at start, and I am planning to do it again after I get back to the city.

Human ranger 7 - cleric:
I dualled her immidiately after start. She started with 2weapons ***, warhammer**, shield and sword **, flail *. As cleric, I chose mace *, sling *, club * and put 2nd point into mace at lvl 8. The main reason to chose her above Anomen (who was great in my 4.2run) is Ironskin, better attributes, and some druidic summon at start. Price was loosing the option of 5* proficiencies, Anomen’s doesn’t have any good improveable item. She will use the usual maces, hammers mostly.

Elf sorcerer:
She is the 6th member who was not in my original party conception. She has the following spells (* means she had that spell at start):
lvl 1: Armor*, Shield*, Spook*, Magic M.*, Larloch’s M. Dr.*
lvl 2: Melf’s AA*, Horror*, Mirror Image*, Vocalize
lvl 3: Flame Arrow*, Skull Trap*, Vampiric Touch, Slow (Remove Magic planned)
lvl 4: Emotion, Spider Spawn (Ray of Fragmentation and Stoneskin planned)
lvl 5: Breach (Lower Resistance, Sunfire planned)

Half-elf summoner:
I hesitated alot between Nalia and custom NPC. Nalia has a nice upgradeable ring, but a specialist mage is better at start. Decision was made since I WANT to cast that damned Wish with her.

I am basically following Sikret’s quest order. Well, more or less and mostly only at start. I did some pick pocket tour after circus (I was lucky to get a Spell Trap Scroll, 2 Mord. Sword scroll and some others, but no manual or Perm. Scroll), then I went out to Umar and Trademeet. I encountered with Suna earlier, and she suprised me, but after reload and some spell casted before map change, I easy managed them. Fladorn was a bit hard, but when I killed her, I made 1st challenge immidiately after rest. It was funny, since I thought I am itemless again, and started my usual Faldorn tactic, after 2 rounds I realized I have weapons, so beat that druid very fast. smile.gif Rakshasa in the tower were not too big challenge. I went back to Trademeet for rewards. Now I will go back to the city, and will do some minor quests when I have time to play again. At this time I won’t follow Sikret’s order, but mostly I will do those quests what he did, just not in that order.
My only big concern are Crowled Wizards. In my 4.2 run I didn’t pay to them. I killed their members easily, but the last fight was very very hard. I was able to kill them only just before I went to Spellhold (I did all available quests in chapter 3 in that game as well as WK 1st and 2nd lvl). I was not allowed to cast arcane spells on the streets, but as far as I remember this was not so big problem in that game, not too many fights are on the street. Now maybe Anarg and his followers could cause problem. My only headache was Borinal, since it was a very hard fight with new enemies in my 4.2 run, and I was not able to cast defensive spells before his door, so I had to go to Oghma temple for casting. Now I don’t know if I should pay, or suffer a bit hindrace sometimes while I am not able to kill their lasts members.
End of my report now.

New part
I was not able to resist playing a while yesterday. I pickpocketed a large part of the city and I've got a Helm of Glory. (If it is a cheesy, I can tell the location, Sikret.) Well I can do a paper armor from Identify and Shocking Grasp scrolls what I pickpocketed. smile.
I also killed Valeria and her goons. They surprised me, when I went in with badly injured chars while Iexplored the city and did the pikcpocket tour, so I had to reload. smile.gif) And did the tanner quest.
End of my report now.

This post has been edited by shadan: Jan 14 2008, 05:48 PM

[Shadan]

I finished the Underdark. The 2 drow ambush were the hardest battles for me. I wrote about 1st one earlier, 2nd one is hard cause of
SPOILER!

all buffs are dispelled at start.

Master Brain was not too dificult, but I encountered with a strange thing:

SPOILER!

My goal was to kill as many golems as I can. So I waited all summons from elemental golem, then I wanted to kill him. I refreshed haste after every dispel from master brain. I thought when haste is dispelled, it doesn't cause fatigued statement. Well this was not true, my chars became fatigued after a while. What else I was not able to kill elemental golems because my fighters were not able to hit them. When I checked combat text why, I found roll-(5-10) instead of the usual roll+(6-12) numbers. So it seems fatigued penalties from different hastes are cumulative. Does anyone know what is the exact penalty from fatigued condition?
I reloaded, did the fight without haste at all. I killed elemental golem, and I realized brain golems spawn endlessly if I don't kill the Master Brain. Sadly my game was slowed down very much cause of corpses, and it was so slow to wait for next brain golems so I lost my patience, and killed the Master Brain after appr. 6-8 brain golems.

Dracolich was not too hard, imho was very good fight. Took 3 reload to understand fully all details of this fight, then I killed him. Happily my sorcerer and conjurer have got their 1st HLAs just before the dracolich, so I started Improved Alacrity with them. Summons were very handy in this fight.

Demonknights were not easy, but I used the brave method: charge and kill as many as you can with your fighters.
SPOILER!

I was not really able to spot which one has hardiness and which one hasn't, since their other buffs caused many graphic animation. So I killed the nearest 1st. There was 2-3 tries, when my buffs was dispelled, and they killed 1-2 of my chars with a single trigger. If any character dies, game over for me, I don't use Raise Dead. I use it only if I had 20+ reloads in that fight and for example one chars died at 21st attempt. It was only 1 fight of this type in 4.2 run, and none in v5 run.
So I killed them apprt. at 4th try. The end was very annoying, since last one feared my vagrant with a symbol just before he died. My Vagrant had appr. 20 HP, there were 2 Inc. Cloud on the field, and my only character (the conjurer) who still had a Remove/Resist Fear was behind Inc. Clouds with less than 10 HP. My vagrant started to run in the room like a crazy, and I just was able to watch when he kills himself. Happily fear and Inc. Clouds faded soon and the battle was victory.

So I left Underdark, talked with elves, and oh well 3 messangers waited for me from my keeps (mage, warrior, bard). When I traveled to the city, gyths attacked my party. I was without spells, low HP etc. so end came very fast in this battle. So I reloaded, rested, memorized and went to sleep, since there was midnight.
I am eagerly waiting to kill those gyths and forging some new cool equipment.