Necro Run - thoughts Options

[conqueror]

Had a lot of fun doing this mod with a necromancer PC (much easier than my first run through with a vagrant).

My party was heavily warrior oriented:

Necromancer
Riskbreaker
Riskbreaker
Assassin/Fighter dual
Kensai/Mage dual
Ranger/Cleric multi

Riskbreakers are definitely better in two's, and I suspect even three would have worked well.

The Assassin was dualed once getting the Use Any Item high level ability. (Interestingly, it appears Fighter/Thief multiclasses don't get it in this mod?!). He was my most interesting character by far. Most IA items don't work with UAI, but Cernd's Cloak and the Scarlet Ioun Stone are two exceptions that I enjoyed. UAI follows your dualed fighter, so you are definitely a useful character well before you get your thief levels back. In fact, getting your thief levels back gets you basically nothing (poison weapon, yay) and maybe the +1 to hit and damage from being an assassin. I tried to focus on Physical Resistance items on this character, theorizing that I could get up to 95% once I hit HLAs on the fighter half and could choose Hardiness. But this involved some bad items (Warblade, Master of Disciplines un-upgraded). I much preferred to use the Royal Elemental Staff, which allowed for Tenser's Transformation to give me another 100+ HPs, with no loss in functionality - you can still use scrolls and such while transformed. I was bummed to see how poorly Backstab works in this mod, especially since the marquee thief dagger grants it as an ability. You can basically backstab spiders and vanilla creatures only. The hard foes - all golems, rakshasas, dragons, etc., looked to be immune.

Kensay was dualed at level 15, figuring that the +5 to hit would give it the same Thac0 as a level 20 warrior. The down time was rough, but it largely overlapped with my Assassin being dualed to a fighter, so I was basically a 5-person party up until around 7M experience.

Ranger/Cleric seems to classically be dualed here, and if I remembered that Holy Power spell which would give you fighter Thac0, I might have gone that route. I really just wanted this character to be a competent fighter the whole time, but more than half the time she was out of combat casting healing spells anyways.

Overall, the Necromancer is much easier than the Vagrant PC, with a much better storyline and side quests (in my opinion). Being un-silenceable against some big dragons is hugely important, and many castings of Recast Vital Energy help warriors stay in fights and dish out damage fast.

One thing I was surprised about was how journal posters somewhat gloss over the end part of the final battle. I have a very hard time with the Prince. In particular, I was off to a bad start when the Ultra Golem engaged with Pasha caught sight of me and gated in an Amber Golem. Via Farsight, I saw Pasha switch to fighting the Amber, and his health fell fairly fast. Still, my fighters did very well against the Supreme Golem and his Elemental, and right when they fell the NW Ultra finished off some summons so I could immediately engage him. My Necro was level 34 so I could easily Remove Magic the protections of the Nobles and Horrids, and drop them fast. Pasha unfortunately fell (was scared to check on him and heal with my R/C for fear of making things worse with another Amber gating in), so it was up to me to do most of the damage the third Ultra as well.

Finally got to focus on the prince, I think he used one AI, and then gated his last Noble, and then it was just me vs. him. And frankly, with 5 characters of Thac0 -12 to -16, I had a real tough time damaging him. I think I put way too many HLAs in Hardiness, versus Critical Strike... my ratio was like 12 to 6 or so. In hindsight, should have been more like 5 Hardiness, 13 Critical. His regen rate is insane. I have no idea how other parties (i.e. the journal with 2 Riskbreakers and 4 mages) could deal damage fast enough to get him to use his AIs. He casts Greater Malaison frequently... I rain out of yellow potions of magic shielding quite quickly... and so basically every hit I was getting repulsed away. Only thing I could think of in hindsight was Spell Immunity: Invocation. I assume that would block the effect of his field, so my Kensai/Mage could cast it and my Assassin/Fighter could cast it via scroll. As it was, with that many fighters, I still had to wish rest at least twice, just in this final portion of the battle. Maybe I should have used some level 9 spots for Monster Summoning? I just have no idea; unless they're immune to the field of repulse, I don't see how they'd help. I also assume they'd only be hitting on 19's and 20's. Or maybe missing Pasha was critical there. He's a great fighter and has great resistances, so wouldn't take much babysitting if he got involved.

Anyways, enjoyed it a ton, the last battle was indeed the hardest (for me at least) and I enjoyed the story line of the necro protag quests.

This post has been edited by conqueror: Jun 10 2014, 03:15 PM

[conqueror]

I say this not to brag, but it was literally my first attempt at the EDE in which Pasha got killed, and things were otherwise going OK, so I figured I'd just roll with it and see how it went. Additionally, in a few run-throughs beforehand, where I was just seeing where the enemies were placed, it seemed like they were more clumped together in the middle with me, which would have been horrific. So in my first real try, they were all spread out, and I did manage to get the two Ultras offscreen and only summoning one Amber before I eliminated the Supreme and a few Noble Rakshasa's. Wasn't sure I'd be able to do that again if I reloaded when Pasha died.

As for experience... for the most part, I was able to let things like Elemental Golems drain themselves of summons. For example, the 4 Elemental Golem party in WK5. My team by then had 5 very good fighters, 4 of which with grandmastery. Additionally, I found 3 battles in which there is an unlimited amount of experience-bearing enemies:

- Azamantes in WK5 - summons 1 grandlord and 1 greater bone golem every few rounds
- Odamaron in Sendai's lair - summons 1 grandlord and 1 bone golem
- Ravager - infinite supply of Bone Blades at 2,500 experience each

I definitely gained one full level worth of experience from Azamantes, and maybe a half level in each of Odamaron and Ravager. Definitely could have gotten more out of Odamaron and Ravager. In fact, if I were to Wish Rest, I think I could have gotten all the way to the level cap. But it seemed unsporting.

Why do you say R7/Cleric is so much better than the multi? Higher level spells, sure, but having an additional fighter with Thac0 -12 without buffs was quite nice. My R/C alternated between the Flail of Ages + Ice Star. She ended up with around 12% of kills and experience. Final tally was something like:

Necro - 5%
Riskbreaker - 23% (Phosphorus/Foebane)
Riskbreaker - 30% (Crom/Truth)
Assassin/Fighter - 12% (Royal Elemental Staff, Staff of the Magi)
Kensai/Mage - 18% (Dragon Breath, Wave, Staff of the Ram)
Ranger/Cleric - 12% (Flail of Ages/Ice Star)

The biggest thing that would have drawn me the way of the dual would be the Holy Power spell; that would have gotten me the Thac0 I wanted, and due to cleric level it would be hard to dispel. But I'd miss the half attack from the Ranger level 13 (becoming full with Improved Haste), as well as the Critical Strikes high level abilities.

This post has been edited by conqueror: Jun 11 2014, 02:27 AM

[nicoper]

I say this not to brag, but it was literally my first attempt at the EDE in which Pasha got killed, and things were otherwise going OK, so I figured I'd just roll with it and see how it went. Additionally, in a few run-throughs beforehand, where I was just seeing where the enemies were placed, it seemed like they were more clumped together in the middle with me, which would have been horrific. So in my first real try, they were all spread out, and I did manage to get the two Ultras offscreen and only summoning one Amber before I eliminated the Supreme and a few Noble Rakshasa's. Wasn't sure I'd be able to do that again if I reloaded when Pasha died.

As for experience... for the most part, I was able to let things like Elemental Golems drain themselves of summons. For example, the 4 Elemental Golem party in WK5. My team by then had 5 very good fighters, 4 of which with grandmastery. Additionally, I found 3 battles in which there is an unlimited amount of experience-bearing enemies:

- Azamantes in WK5 - summons 1 grandlord and 1 greater bone golem every few rounds
- Odamaron in Sendai's lair - summons 1 grandlord and 1 bone golem
- Ravager - infinite supply of Bone Blades at 2,500 experience each

I definitely gained one full level worth of experience from Azamantes, and maybe a half level in each of Odamaron and Ravager. Definitely could have gotten more out of Odamaron and Ravager. In fact, if I were to Wish Rest, I think I could have gotten all the way to the level cap. But it seemed unsporting.

naughty boy!

Why do you say R7/Cleric is so much better than the multi?

to make it short:

- high level priest spells early (one 7th level spell end of chater 3)
- insane AC (plate, rings, belts, DH, prot from evil, aura of flaming death, foreknowledge,....) for a dual-wielder
- level-up fast (multi level-up is so slow in IA), allows to dispel enemies, have buffs (prot from fire, Death ward,....) which enemies cannot dispel mid-late game (grave liches, dragons, demilich,...)
- more spell slots ! (summons, GR, regen, mass heal, buffs,....)
- perfect tank in EDE for Prince with boots of ranger lord/ring of free action while party gets rid of acolyts

thanks to clerical buffs, AC, stoneskin, strength bonuses (DUHM, weapons,...), I never miss hardiness and critical strikes that much...

sidenote: dual Berserker/cleric is good too (with +++++ in flails!)