The Journal of the Insane Kensai, Playing a Kensai on Insane, spoilers and whatnot. Options

[pekkae]

Welcome. Again.

So we succumbed into "Insane".

We are looking to obliterate, again.

Our last crew with Vagrant spearheaded by Riskbreaker & Kensai was quite OP, except for the most difficult fight(s) as in the demogorgon-fight, which was extremely difficult. In the end H2H rules in almost all fights. However we botched our approach as in we didn't read the rules clear enough, so we managed to inflict quite a lot of pain for ourselves in the early parts of the game most notably in chapters 4-5, but we wanted to "play by the rules". In the end we obliterated though. That was the plan and it worked for some (most) parts at least. But in the end we weren't completely happy with our crew though.

However, we managed to dig a hole for ourselves forcing to re-think strategies and to survive, with very, very sub-optimal setup for good parts of the game. Managing to do this though, we think we have enough not to play on Core anymore - we can do it and do it easily. So we will up the difficulty. However, we think that with increased difficulty comes slightly different challenges. For example we think in we can't really tank with anything else than skinned characters, besides the DD ofc since it has about 50% physical resistance quite early. In that way it's about similar to tanking with a regular fighter on core rules, the result should be about the same. And since we did that already, we think we should be quite Ok tanking with a DD (with quite the increased divine spellcasting power that is)

But everyone else we need to protect we think. And we really need CS's, in the few difficult fights. So how do we construct a crew that has max skins, CS's, extreme spell casting capabilities together with great H2H (APR's & Thac0's)?

We think we have this solved. Ahem. Again.

The Rules

- No non-protagonist related drops & forging, though ...
- We get to forge MotA (as we don't get to forge anything else and it actually isn't even a drop, as we'll get the required items)
- We have 91 pts to distribute with the custom character we have
- We have the tomes from bg1 to spread among the crew
- Protector of the Woods is fixed to be usable by a Druid as well (it also fits the lore and it would be a shame to let it unused, since it's such a great item for a druid)
- Max HP's for NPC's
- We'll bend the rules just a little bit regarding a specific item later on in the game, but we are a bit hesitant to call it "cheating", since we can actually do it within the game's rules & it fits the lore as well. We won't abuse it though.
- A few (2-3) non-IA bonus items, to supplement item classes that don't have a lot of choices (two amulets & a belt).
- Rotating crew of party members in early chapters, as usual

***

Voilá our crew, we'll end up with:

Kensai (PC), the best damage dealer in the game we think. Needs to be protected, as otherwise will be toast immediately. Kensai gets the nod over Riskbreaker because it can use staves, so we can actually protect it in the early chapters, when RB is limited to dual wielding without range thus being subject of constant near-death experiences (due to myself being not that good of a player perhaps). Will get JD for dual wielding purposes later in the game for game breaking damage dishing. Will have skins in the end through JD. Gets the PC slot for early game superpowers. Played as Half-Orc with maxed stats from the beginning: (STR 19, DEX 18, CON 19, INT 9, WIS 18, CHA 9)

Korgan the Dwarven Defender. The only character that can tank in the game throughout all of the chapters, sort of. Is able to get about 40-50% physical resistance quite early in the game though abilities + innate physical resistance. This type of resistance also cannot be dispelled nor breached - a major, major bonus over any other type of (phys. resistance) tank. Combines very low AC with up-to 70% resistance to physical damage, which should keep him quite safe until the very end. That and 250-300 HP's with 100% fire resistance and so on. And ofc some timely healing from Cernd. Would play Korgan, but we don't like him so we take Minsc with Korgan's stats. So essentially we're playing a Korgan, who's nice and who carries a miniature giant space hamster around. We'd love to see that hamster in a fight one of these days.

Jaheira the Avenger. The best early game (H)2H damage disher. Amazing complimentary items and abilities, able to get to 6 APR with staffs / spears in chapter 2/3. Gets to summon the Clan Spirit. Gets Critical Strikes. Plays like a fighter, but with superpowers in the early game. Can tank in almost all fights and the one where she really can't, we have a plan for that fight. Gets the Golem Slayer, for... well, golem slaying purposes.

Imoen the Sorceress. Our archmage for top-notch arcane spellcasting superpowers. Will get MotA. A Necromancer gets +1 spells per level through levels 1-7 somewhere around level 30 or so we are thinking about giving her the same bonus spells. Can be silenced, so that's a big minus. Early access to amazing difficulty breaking spells though. We'll use them fully!

Cernd the Auramaster as the ultimate divine spell caster for prebuffing, debuffing & tanking golems and for summoning greater elementals, anacondas and the Smilodon. Will dominate encounters especially in chapters 4 & 5. An amazing healer & lich-killer. Insane amount spell slots. In later stages it will be Cernd's job to disable enemy casters and keep the crew alive with heals, regenerations & natural restorals. Especially those regen's will be in high demand, we think. Also, by the end he will be arguably the most powerful spellcaster in the realms, on par with a Necromancer, a lot better in a number of encounters, as powerful as a demi-god so a very worthy companion for a realms-roaming bhaalspawn.

Up to this point the crew is quite "conventional", as in nothing special besides the choice for the PC & the double-druid perhaps, though very, very powerful and almost solely NPC's with their original (IA) classes. What we are still lacking is H2H capabilities together with casting capabilities. We think there's only one character that we can use for this. Gets to cast everything besides ADHW, which it wouldn't cast anyway. Gets +1 spells per level. Gets critical strikes. Gets fighter Thac0's. Gets amazing equipment. Doesn't have great hit points but it's offset by being able to tank with skins & pfmw's & mirror images. Can also chain contigency properly & use triggers. We think she'll be great! Doesn't get IA but then again, without minuses in casting time IA is almost useless. Can also breach and tank enemies like a boss and is able to summon powerful allies for help. So a custom made gnomish Fighter/Illusionist, welcome! We think she'll be great! (STR 13, DEX 18, CON 18, INT 17, WIS 12, CHA 13).

So in the end ...

=> 5/6 are able to skin up (6/7 if we count the Clan Spirit).
=> The one that can't skin up has the best physical resistance & about the best AC in the game
=> 4/6 can go about critical striking awee'
=> 2/6 can clense auras with tremendous casting time bonuses (aura clensing without casting time bonuses is well, pointless)
=> We have the best casting ability both arcane & divine in the game
=> Effective use of the most powerful gear in the game

We think we'll break it, even on insane!

****

A few abbreviations we use in this Journal

Spells:

MS Minor Sequencer
SS Spell Sequencer
ST Spell Trigger
MS7 Monster Summoning 7 (7th level spell)
MS8 Monster Summoning 8 (8th level spell, troll)
MS9 Monster Summoning 9 (9 the level spell, greater yaun-ti)
CS Clan Spirit, Jaheira's summon
CC Chain Contigency (9th level arcane spell) / Chaotic Commands (5th level divine spell)
PfMW Protection from Magic Weapons
PfME Protection from Magic Energy
PftE Protection from the Elements
PfE PRotection from Energy
PfF Protection from Fire
PFL Protection from Lightning
PfC Protection from Cold
PfA Protection from Acid
GOi Globe of Invulnerability
ST Spell Truning
PO Polyomorph Other
IH Improved Haste
GM Greater Malision
DUHM Draw Upon Holy Might (Bhaalspawn ability / 2nd level divine spell)
IA Improved Alacrity (the 9th level arcane spell)
RRoR Ruby Ry of Reversal (the level arcane spell)
ADHW Abu Dalzim's Horrid Wilting (8th level arcane spell)
CoC Cone of Cold (5th level arcane spell)
AA Acid Arrow (2nd level arcane spell)
MM Magic Missile (1st level arcne spell)
SoA Shield of Archons


Stuffs & other's

AoP Amulet of Power
CF Crom Fayer
DoE Defender of Easthaven
CotW Circlet of the Woods
CotGF Citclet of the Golden Flowers
MotA Memory of the Apprenti
CS Critical Strike (Warrior HLA (high level ability))
F/M Fighter Mage, our custom made gnomish fighter/Illusionist
F/I our F/M
DD Dwarven Defender
OoR Oil of Resurgenrece

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 19 2022, 08:03 AM

[pekkae]

We agree to try once more. If no progress, we'd try another tactic but once we make it through the beginning, we make it all da'way!! On insane.

I can't believe it.

SPOILER!

Max summons, so 2xGreater Yuan-Ti, Greater Djinn, CS + Sunnis. Greater Yuan-Ti goes for Belcheresk, the other goes for Kazuyl, ditto for Sunnis, Greater Djinn takes Rozvankee and CS goes for St Kargoth (under IH, PFME, Skins + regen). The rest are just hasted. The micromanaging required here to make everything work makes us insane.

Max prebuffs. Including barbarian essences for both Kensai + DD. CC 3xRRoR "on hit" for F/M. She also takes 5 barbarian essences, shield of harmony (we switch with supreme shelter every now and then), Peridan, boots of the north, ring of gaxx and improved dragon helm. Protection from level drain scroll to, well, protect from level drain. Start, launch trigger with llarloch's minor drain to debuff Nulonga & then F/M moves to whack demo, once she gets aggro we move her to near St Kargoth. Once St KArgoth is whack-able she whacks and then she tanks Demo + Rozvankee through the fight, all the way to the end. And at one point she tanks 5-6 Vargouilles + a bunch of Mariliths. She also has potions of cold resistance (2-3) and potions of fire resistance (5-8) we keep quaffing potions of regeneration in the beginning, she must've taken perhaps 10 or so. She gets stunned once & once she gets held. Doesn't matter, she's quite difficult to hurt with everything that she has. Plus we take 3 or so RvE:Regen's throughout the fight. While stunned/held she only takes fire damage.

Imoen is the class in the beginning, she goes IA, Breaches Nulonga (Who is then whacked into oblivion by IH'd Kensai & Jaheira under CS, though we have to use 2-4 breaches here), then she debuffs Belcheresk, breaches, lowers it's resistances (ST 3xLR) and then drops 12 Magic missiles on it with about 15 acid arrows (10 + both sequencers). Cernd aura clenses and then drops 2-3 unleash energy's on Belcheresk, which then falls. Then we 3xRRoR St Kargoth,3xLR + Breach and drop 30 flame arrows on it + our remaining acid arrows. Jaheira, under SoA + PfME goes to give it a whack. Unfortunately CS falls here, it was on St Kargoth, otherwise we could have natural restored it to full health.

Next up is Kazyul, who is battling Sunnis & Greater Yuan Ti (greater elementals don't get knocked back, that's why they are really good here - for the fight is much more manageable that way). Imoen breaches and Cernd summons another greater elemental to help our summons. DD whacks the spawning Vargouille (just one, under CS) and then moves to whack Kazuul. Then rest of the frontline moves in, it activates "hardiness" and we can't hurt it. We're out of breaches. F/M is tanking demo + rozvankee so she's no help.

At this point Imoen is out of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and almost out of 7th level spells so we start wishing. We get Wish:Rest maybe after 8 tries or so we follow-up by re-casting IA and then Breach (x2 perhaps) Kazuyl, which falls quite quickly once it gets targetted with 26 APR with natural 20 rolls. De-breching with -5 and coordinating Criticla Strikes is deadly. Imoen follows up by starting to summon.

Then it's just Rozvankee + Demo.

F/M moves near the staircase to try and feed some spawns to the rest of the crew, since they can't attack her as they can't all fit, but they just stick around her. Demo launches lower resistances + fire storm so we are in a bit of a pickle for some time. But we are prepared, as in we have active regen + batalista's passport + supreme shelter to temporary up the fire resistance for further 75% Plus the potions. She gets stuck there, with Rozvankee & Demo below (+ Mariliths), Vargouilles on top. Her HP's drop quit fast so Cernd moves in and heals with natural restoral. It's enough. Fighters move in from the top, clear out the Vargouilles (one of DD, Kensai or Jaheira is always with CS (three capable fighters with one using CS the Vargouilles don't last for long) and once cleared move to the center we go where we whack the Mariliths, Imoen mostly breaches them (from scrolls).

We dodge fire storms a little bit and a few "lower fire resistances", whack a few more waves of Vargouilles and Mariliths. We give our best shot to separating Rozvankee & Demo here (using summons to tackle Demo) but it doesn't work, however Demo is quite conveniently single mindedly aggroing F/M, even after it's distracted by a summon. Rozvankee runs out of SI:Divination. We true sight & whack it immediately (it doesn't launch a trigger, though our frontline had PFME's active, probably from the Wishes in the beginning of the fight). Then it's just Demo. Debuff (not sure if it works but we do it anyway) and towards the end Imoen doesn't have anything worthwhile to cast and frontline is almost out of Critical Strikes so she Wishes and we get our rest #2. Yay!!! At this point the fight is won, we are only down a lot on fire resistances but with our capabilities the renew spells will easily carry us until the end. We re-up fire resistances as much as possible (Cernd aura clenses and runs around casting protection from fire & resist fire & cold's) and front line whacks demo with CS. Cernd drop CC's for whole frontline together with resist fear (from Imoen) so F/M switches to Githzerai Blade (she has 5 Critical Strikes). Demo against 30 APR with natural 20 rolls doesn't last for long, still it's perhaps 3 rounds or so. It's quite tanky. It seems like it takes forever. In the end we give Noble Staff of Fire to Jaheira, so in a pinch she can equip it to dodge fire damage (she's at -10% or so without the staff). Doesn't matter. We hear the sweet sound of Demogorgon's wail while our group of mostly mere mortals thusfar whacks it into another plane. Then we finish the remaining mariliths. F/M, who's been taking the damage takes giant strength from Jaheira & belm off-hand and goes on a Marilith whacking spree.

We get our superpowers. We check the difficulty setting 5 times. Yes. It's on "insane". This took about 4 hours of constant micromanagement.

Our whole crew including PC gets Blessings(?!?!?). On my other runs PC just gets the ring. Well, we don't complain.

****
We re-install simplified economy here. It's too much to ask to gather & sell the swords & armours from the next fights. We forge Phosphorous (finally) for F/M together with Helm of Clarity for Jaheira. Now we have a little bit more flexibility.

No more milking, we're just going to enjoy the rest without the annoying prolonging of the fights. We're actually looking forward to these!
****

This post has been edited by pekkae: May 27 2022, 04:16 PM