Critto's v5 journal Options

[critto]

Okay. Really, the mod is totally fun and pleasure, but in the name of all that sacred, next version should ease up on spiders a little bit.
I thought 2 drow ambushes were hard to beat with those annoying spiders being everywhere. Apparantly, I was mistaken.
Deeper underdark. Cave with an instant supply of whisper spiders (where they just keeping coming from nowhere). Really, how can I beat this thing? They dispel everything, they somehow draw characters from place to themselves, and sometimes they just kill chars instantly. Why is that? Why no info about the damage being done or save-throw being made (dwarf-kensai, instantly dead. huh?). And, finally, there are just TOO DAMN much of them, my characters can't handle them, even though I have a fighter-heavy party (vagrant, kensai, blade, berserker-cleric, sorc, thief/mage). I am doing buffs, of course, but they are being dispelled very soon and there is no point and time in refreshing them. Summons doesn't help much too (tried 5 hasted mordy swords). Tried magic (adwh, chain lightnings), but they are magic resistant, as it seems.
I am no great tactician, but how am I supposed to win that battle? :) Just keep reloading and hope for better save-throws and no instant-kills? I would be really glad to have some advices on that battle. This is the first one in the game which makes me feel annoyed, instead of being interested, having fun and searching for better tactics.

[critto]

Sikret, sorry about the spoiler about 48-sided gem. I've tried to make it as spoilerless as I could. The problem I described is not solved yet, so I would be very grateful if you'd give your comment on it (maybe, via PM).

Okay. Now, the battle with Orcus. Today I won it without reloads! So I figured i write a 'little' report about it.

SPOILER!

Prebuffs included protection from level drain (have 10, used 5, since protagonist has an amulet of power), potions of storm giant str for kensai and blade (usually my blade wears crom fayer, but in this battle I gave crom to prot-vagrant, who has boots of ranger lord, and left blade with FoA +4), 2x barbaric essense for prot and kensai. Prot and kensai also use their HLA hardiness. Kensai's AC boosted with spirit armor.
Blade has maximum amount of mirror images, stoneskins and PfMW memorized. Also max amount of Delayed Blast fireballs to kill the vampires. He also has about 15 scrolls of PfMW. Uses one before entering the lower crypts (casting from scrolls takes time, and from spellbook it is done immediately due to Eternal Melody armor and Melodic Fury ring).
B-cleric casts regeneration, she also has a ring of gaxx for an additional regen. Her task is to kill grandlord who spawns on the left side of the battlefield very quickly and run away there with thief/mage and sorc. They need to stay alive and help kill vampires with fire damaging spells. Sorc's job is also to Wish and refresh imp. haste if needed. b-cleric is too weak for such an amount of grandlords, so she stays off the battlefield and casts greater restoration until they are dead, then she joins the fight with the leftover vampires and skeleton lords.
So, the party enters the location. Game is immediately paused, I command vagrant, cleric and t/m to summon greater swanmay, spider and lion into the location where the most of grandlords are going to be spawned. That should give us a little time to regroup properly. Skeletons appear. Cleric rushes for the left skeleton; prot, kensai and blade dive into the center, positioning blade in such a way so that he could be the target for the most enemies. Meanwhile, sorc casts haste to improve his and t/m's speed (forgot to do it while pre-buffing).
B-cleric disposes of the skeleton and rushes downwards. Orcus is still on the south of the battlefield, so there is no chance that his second wave of summons will spawn near my mages. I decide to leave them there, near the entrance to the crypt. Prot, kensai and blade have already killed 2 or 3 grandlords, so about 4 or 5 are still active.
Orcus calls his wave of vampires and skeleton lords. Sorc immediately cats two dragon breath spells, one after another. t/m helps with fireball and blade with sunfire. Vampires are badly injured, as well as some skeleton lords (it seems, that the fire sometimes hits them too, as I gathered). On skeleton lord is throwed away by DB right in the direction of cleric. He engages in battle with her, Orcus comes to help (uh-oh). Sorc casts Wish, and I get "Hardiness on the entire party". Wo-hoo! That was really lucky. Now my cleric in less danger.
Also it really boosts up my frontliners' defensive capabilities. They quickly dispose of the grandlords and vampires, and run to help cleric. They get the Orcus to the "injured" state, and he starts to protect himself with PfMW, which we have no way to dispell from him, as I figured.
So here begins the second phase of the battle: we have to survive the new waves of Orcus's summons. He soon calls the second one, and we start beat them. Sorc, blade and t/m damage vampires with fire spells, fighters are disposing of skeleton lords. My party was severely wounded here, and blade was running out of protection spells. So b-c casts Greater Restoration and sorc wishes one more and (wo-hoo! again) gets "make if rested". That is really lucky, I must say. Fighters immediately refresh their hardiness, blade - his magical buffs. Somewhere in between these actions Orcus's PfMW wears off and we manage to him once or twice before he casts another one.
With the third wave comes another problem: protection from level drain has weared off. Unfortunately, kensai, though he has nice AC and hardiness, gets drained to death. Prot has amulet of power, blade - PfMW and other buffs, b-c usually gets charmed, so no harm comes to her and she just stays that way till we kill all the vampires After that "remove magic" and she's back with us. Tactic is being the same: vampires are hit with fire spells, skeletons are quicky disposed off in melee combat (those boots of ranger lord are quite useful, I must say). After two (I think) such waves Orcus is left with no PfMW and he's down. Vagrant made the last hit. Though her "most powerful enemy disposed" is still bodhi. But they kind of the same really, if we wouldn't count in the mighty escort of Orcus.
The only weak link of this whole tactic is the Wish spell, I was very lucky to get such responses with only two castings. But, things weren't that bad so my party maybe would have a chance even if sorc didn't get such an excelent results from the first cast. But again, careful planning and control was very important. Without it, my party lost the fight in previous runs even with sorc casting several successful wishes.

Still, it was very enjoyable battle. IA is brilliant in the way of presenting such challenges that allow you to spend some time on researching its' aspects, then come up with effective strategy and, of course, receive the satisfaction of implementing it successfully.

This post has been edited by critto: Feb 25 2009, 06:30 PM

[Sikret]

Sikret, sorry about the spoiler about 48-sided gem. I've tried to make it as spoilerless as I could. The problem I described is not solved yet, so I would be very grateful if you'd give your comment on it (maybe, via PM).

No problem. I sent you a PM.