Journal of 6.6, Max new stuffs Options

[pekkae]

Welcome. Again.

I decided to change the format of the journal, so that it would be as easy as possible to follow. That's why we are dismissing our previous journa-thread and moving all thoughts to this thread. We'll pretty much post all chapter as their own posts after the initial post (so this one). Then if there are comments / discussion, they are after the actual journal. I hope this makes following the journal a little bit easier.

***

We like our crews themed and the "theme" for the crew isn't to maximize H2H, it's to maximize new stuffs in the game. (there's new stuff in IA as well, right?) So we're going to try the new kits, new stuffs & some new adventures (for us at least).

So we'll take all of the NPC's we don't usually use along with some new kits we haven't played in order to maximize "freshness" (to an extent). We'll also install the Tower of Deception - mod, as it's supposed to work fine with IA. So we have a bunch of new things to try out. We'll do ToD before moving to Spellhold.

Then again, as our most fun thing to do is to develop absurdly OP crews and characters, certain choices rule out other choices, as we don't want to have two characters competing for the same stuffs. They play such a big part in what makes a character useful. Unfortunately some choices will rule out the most OP characters (we think), but we're hoping that we can develop our crew to extremely OP levels nonetheless.

We'll most likely end up with the following:


PC Necro,

As it's still the most OP character. We'll see how OP we can make our PC, as we'll balance the stuffs a little bit. Having a Necro though rules out Cernd. Once you've played with the -5 Cernd, the -4 version is just not going to cut it. We promise to exploit the Necro superpowers to the fullest extent.


Shaman (Minsc)

it's amazingly effective in the early parts of the game. Has unique superpowers from the early game on. Gets spirit shift for casual late fight whacking. But there's a "but". Having a shaman rules out Jaheira though, as in one of the most powerful NPC's out there. That is because we want to make the most diverse & competitive Shaman so it needs to use the most OP equipment. Unfortunately for us, that equipment is normally reserved for Jaheira (/Cernd). We're not sure how useful a Shaman is towards the end of the game. Though it's "competing" for the sport on the team with Jaheira/Cernd, both of whom are not that great in the most difficult fights in the game.

Minsc works nicely for this as the dialogues are exceptional and he's quite nuts. And carries around a guiding spirit animal of his own.

Stats: Str 19, Dex 18, Con 19, Int 9, Wis 15, Cha 7


Hexxat

From our tiny bits of playtesting she looks like she can be developed to "hilariously OP" - levels. Shall get Waters Edge +4 to maximize her potential. So that means we won't take a RB/Kensai with us, as they compete for the same equipment. Insanely effective and as a bonus she has what's like undispellable continuous berserking on steroids.

I can't believe I didn't figure this out before.

Though we'll cheat a little bit and and get her the cloak from v 6.5.

We should be able to drop her effective AC to around -40 after midpoint of the game. She should be quite safe. Not CERND-safe, but safe.


(Kel-)Dorn

The undead hunter. Gets undispellable useful bonuses and gets to cast clerical spells. Especially access to remove paralysis is very welcome addition. So Dorn who gets Keldorn's stats & equipment. Should be play-wise be ike playing with KelDorn 1:1.

So we'll turn Dorn into an undead hunter and give him Keldorn's stuffs. Why? Keldorn's new stuffs are amazing and we've never played with Dorn. So in principle we are playing Keldorn, but with an additional quest and perhaps a little more interesting dialogue. The reason we take a Pally is because we took Hexxat and they compliment each other very well. With this setup we can max our APR's quite effectively. Shall get JD for maximum OP strength later in the game. Pally is the only character that can reach 9 APR without Water's Edge (/Belm) or gauntlets of extraordinary specialization.

it's a little bit of a shame that there isn't an "off hander" weapon, that would compliment the main weapon extremely well. Oh, besides Water's Edge of course. And Belm. FoDW would be amazing, but we have forging restrictions in place. So there's an off-hander. Oh. Well. So. Never mind.


F/I

Custom made gnomish fighter/illusionist. We'll max the stats and use a NPC as a template. Might use Neera for this as we really like her quest in ToB. The one character that keeps us in the game in the early parts. Gets +1 spells per level. Gets fighter Thac0's. Gets fighter HLA's. Gets amazing equipment. Can prebuff & debuff. etc.

Amazing tank + damage disher. Has everything besides high hitpoints. Though we can probably circumvent that a little bit. Shall use the Hammer of Thor & Githzerai blade late game. Oh and most likely the 0.5APR gauntlets so shall have 8 APR under IH. And after midpoint in the game also has nice amount of Critical Strikes.

Stats: Str 18/95, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 18, Wis 11, Cha 9


Priest of Tempus (Rasaad most likely)

We have to calculated and balanced now that we get the actual descriptions, abilities, items & everything. We were pondering for quite the long time between a multiclassed ranger/cleric (with access to druidic spells) and a proper cleric kit.

Why Tempus? For the undispellable holy power & righteous magic. We should do quite well with this character because of them. Even though we're lacking CS's + APR's (we can reach 5 APR with IH). We can drop AC to quite low levels though and we're looking forward to trying out the new spells & etc.

We'll probably use Rasaad here as a Monk & a Cleric are like brothers (or at least distant cousins). Plus we want his extended quest in ToB, as we've never done it.

Stats: Str 18, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 9, Wis 18, Cha 12

Should hover around -26AC ... -29AC mid game with Ok'ish combat utility, though we're a little bit worries that he'll be lacking in power when compared to an R/C (nevermind the avenger). I'm quite unsure how a cleric is able to protect itself in the fights, but ... we'll see how it turns out, in actual action.

***

So our frontline should be quite safe, at least from mid-game onwards. We should have enough APR's (We'll end up with 26 APR // 3 characters + cleric & shaman). We'll be lacking a little bit in Critical Strikes, though F/M & (kel-)Dorn will probably only focus on CS's. Hexxat has 3. It's a little low. We could fix this easily by switching Shaman with Jaheira and Cleric with R/C multiclass or a F/C multiclass. Though we're not sure if the F/C multi has enough to cut it on insane.

***

Changes & The Rules

- Max HP's for NPC's
- We have 92 pts to divide between the custom characters we have
- Forging restrictions in place
- We have tomes from bg1 to spread among the cew
- Console in trinkets for items
- Hexxat's cloak is revered back to the 6.5 version (for the most op version)
- We'll get a club +5, which we otherwise wouldn't have (and possibly 1-2 other items, we'll decide later)
- All spells are learned automatically
- We'll make a few items available for a cleric at later stages. We're just not sure about which ones.
- We'll skip most of the mundane stuff as in spider-fights (etc.) if we've managed to beat a similar squad before. Ditto for some of the golem encounters, even though we have previously been much fond of em.
- Insane all the way

This post has been edited by pekkae: Jan 18 2023, 08:24 PM

[pekkae]

Chapter 3 (part 2 - "uncharted waters").


***
The crew is in it's final form (or what is most likely the final form ).

So we enter some unknowns from this point onwards. While the quests are known, our capabilities nd their limits are not. Our estimation is that it's going to be quite tight with the setup that we have. We'll be missing some extraordinary superpowers with this crew and are a little bit unsure about how we can maximize our current crew's potential.

I'm not sure how this is possible but Necro has 24%of total kills in the party(?). MVP is Hexxat with 32% in kills. We're getting quite adept at protecting her from aggro of big monsters. With IH she's at 5 APR. That's pretty good with 19 STR atm.
***


Helping Tiris in trademeet
Kalah & Circus tent
Return Neb's head
We were saving these to max reputation. Before these we visit a temple and buy as back up to reputation of 16. After these we're back p to 18. A few more to go until we're at 20.

Rasaad's quests
Skipity-skip.

edit: Ooh. We get an item from these which we have dismissed every single time we've played the game. But now we have a wy of circumventing the disabilities. Hmh. This gives us ideas.

Neera's Quests
Just whack everything

Temple Ruins
Shdow Dragon goes quite smoothly. Max prebuffs ofc. Max summons. Max prebuffs for summons. We first start with 2xsecret word, but they don't seem to work so Necro spellstrikes (scroll), F/I breaches. Thaxll'ssillyia usually silences our priest, then PFMW's as much as possible. We double breach, so Necro breaces, then F/I, then Necro. Once it's down to "badly hurt" we spirit shift Shaman & coordinate frontline. It works and Thax falls before first heal is out. We have just enough APR's & DPS to make it.

PoT should be quite ok quite soon. Even though he's lacking in APR's the ability to get 25STR is really good in the early fights. (That's why the half-orc Kensai is insanely effective in the early parts as natural 19str + DUHM is really powerful combination early on on a full fighter and Kensai especially).

***
We don't finish shade lord though. It's too difficult for now. It's really hurting here that F/I doesn't have a crushing weapon +3. That and our 6th level spell slots, which are limited to 3. We'll be soon back, we just need to pick up a little bit of exp before in order to get additional 6th level spell slots + a warhammer +3 for F/I.

We're somewhat behind in terms of DPS + combat protections compared to where we could be at this point. The early game Swashbuckler isn't really a force, it needs a lot of babysitting. Ditto for kel-Dorn & Priest of Tempus. Their superpowers will come a lot later on and we'll have to find some way of managing until then.

***

Planar Sphere
For halflings we summon 3 invisible stalkers, then rest. Summon anaconda + max prebuffs. Summons + F/I take the casters + entourage. The halfling with the bow targets Hexxat so Shaman stays near hear and just heals away while everyone free pounds the halfling with the bow. Necro drops a few emotions + a gm near where F/I is. F/I also drops an emotion. Shaman rescues Hexxat, as always.

1st golem ambush goes very smoothly. Shaman is really good at tanking and because we have the Half-Orc version (with 19tstr) + paws + shaman circlet we can do some damage as well. Anyway max buffs, max summons, 1 coin for necro, 1 for shaman, 2 gems for F/I (who has -22 against crushing). Send summons to battle the bone golem. Whack one gem, PoT + Kel-Dorn go to whack the bone golem, then 2nd gem. Then coins. Shaman recalls some skins at some point. We easily have enough skins to do this thanks to Wonderous recall of Shsman + really low effective ac of F/I.

Lavok. It's quite tricky. But we have just enough tanking with an Anaconda to do this. We max prebuff, enter, F/I takes 2 gems (she can do it easily), 3xstalkers + anaconda + the rest take the Skeleton Lords. Skeleton Warrior goes for Lavok. When Lavok death spells we just summon the berserker warrior to block Lavok's path. Once Berserker is down, we summon another Skeleton Warrior (PoT has like 6 or so). Necro takes one lord, summons take one lord, Shaman takes 2 lords. The tricky part is getting the first lord down for Shaman can easily tank one lord. After 1st lord is down, we pound the Lord who's dismantled stalkers and who is anaconda. Then Shaman heals our Anaconda (it's really good here). Then we dismantle the rest of the lords, dismantle the gems and then we coordinate a few RRoR's (we use 4 here) + breaches. F/I whacks Lavok in the end, she has SI:Abjuration + PFME active (PFME from a a scroll).

Engine room. Enter through fire chamber. Necro & Shaman take coins, F/I takes gem. We pound a gem first with the rest, then Necro's coin. Before we can drop Necro's coin Shaman has whacked it's own coin, he can most definitely dish out the hurt too. Shaman is a little bit like our F/I as in it really shines in these fights. He has 6 skins + 6 wonderous recalls (or so), so the Shaman can tank golems until the end of time ...Halfway through the engine room Necro, F/I + Shaman all make levels. Great. We get some superpowers.

The Tanar'Ri are nasty for we lack DPS. a lot. Anyway, we max prebuff, max summon, Necro vocalize (we took it at the start) + we have the amulet of whispers. We can heal + regen anaconda a little bit and knock back one of the maurezhi. Still, it's a mess. We use "demon hunter" here, but we're not sure about it's effect. PoT / kel-Dorn / Hexxat can't relly tank at all here, so we're mostly down to F/I + Necro/Shaman tanking. F/I runs to the middle of the pack with ridiculously low AC as usual. She wins the fight for us. Necro can also dish out damage is in triple minor disruptor sequencer.

***
We visit cromwells and forge harper's ward. we're going to give it to our cleric. We also get the 2nd spell sequencer from Lavok. How nice. It goes to F/I (who can use it around underdark or so, lol).

We are some much behind in terms of combat efficiency where we could be. Switching Swashbuckler to a RB would help tremendously (also with our lacking IH capabilities). Necro has quite the limited IH capabilities (only 3), while a sorcerer would have 5 at this point. And our PoT has 1,5APR's. While he'll eventually catch up, he'll get to 5 APR only at a very late stage.

Our crew would benefit enormously from few bonuses as in giving a kitted cleric +1 spells per level. Also giving "Giant Strength" to the kitted clerics would be extremely welcome to make them more appealing. For balancing purposes making giant strength a (kitted) cleric only spell would be a welcome addition. And it would sort of make sense as well.
***

Shade Lord

Try #2. This time we are equipped. Tiny improvements make big waves. We max prebuff, enter, debuff shade lord and summon (berserk, hexxat, anaconda, aerial servant)+ whack. F/I, who still doesn't have crushing weapon +3 (she does have a katana +3) goes to whack the lords with -22AC against slashing. The access to 7th level spells makes a big difference here as now we can use a 3xminor disruptor sequencer on one of the skeleton lords, once it's a little down on HP. it's a nifty way of getting rid of a single Skelly. That and some timely healing from Shaman to keep our summons alive, an anaconda and the aerial servant #2 make it all the way (thanks to healing ward & mend body from shaman). We have an Ok margin, it's not particularly close. After debuffing shade lord we 4xLR + GM + Doom + feeblemind it. At some point cleric goes "spare the dying" (if we're hit with dragon's breath or so). We're not sure if feeblemind works, but it doesn't use any of it's abilities as in triggers, dragon's breaths or adhw trigger. Just seems to stand pat there. We make it on the second try.

We visit our friend the spirit near the cabin and get the long awaited death spell. Time to meet Pai'Na soon (F/I has SI for we gave her some of the same spells that Nalia has).

Hexxat's Request part 2
Whack everything.

Paladin part 1
Ranger Stronghold part 1
Paladin part 2
Paladin part 3

Founder of Trademeet
We have a date with him. Hoping to get Staff of Rhynn here. But when we enter the area Tempus'undispellable holy power + righteous magic gets dispelled. We tinker a little bit and while other non-dispellable spells are not dispelled, these ones are. We level up out Tempus to 20 to make sure they are non-dispellable. They still get dispelled.

Hmh.

***
Back to the drawing board & tinkering for a little bit. That the hp + rm get dispelled is a dealbreaker for us. This is the sole reason we took this character with us.

The most likely character that would be a great with fit our needs is the multiclassed r/c with full access to druidic spells. It has great Thac0, great APR and gets access to critical strikes (+ has ranger HLA's!). But we've played that kind of a character so many times and it's sort of a double cheat, as in getting druidic spells makes this character a force + we would be multiclassing a kit. And this run is mostly about maximising new stuffs instead of maximizing our crew. But we do need combat powers.

So what we do is we take a fighter and we dual class him into a cleric of talos. That way we can cast those combat buffs quite fast and combat wise we're pretty close though we have an edge in the early game APR wise. And we have a little bit of better casting ability in the early game. It's a cheat, so we feel quite bad, but we're not looking to abuse this (unlike necro powers, hehe).

***

Founder of Trademeet (continued)
SS 3xminor disruptor, contigency haste. triple giant strength pre-fight for F/I, kel-Dorn & F/PoTyr. Start with horn of blasting, then sequencer on on founder (3xminor disruptor) & F/I + kel-Doen whack the founder into oblivion, takes less than 1 rd or so. If it gets nasty, we could've mass healed from Shaman but no. Staff of Rhynn is here. How nice.

Ranger Protector Part 2

***
We go to Crooked Crane and meet with Tian. Ooh. We're all excited!
***

Tower of deception
Level 2 seems little bit too much. There's potions and spells including a scroll of spell immunity. We could get one from Pai'na but here we are. We fight some lizard men etc and run through the mod. We get 50k per character in exp afterwards. It seems like a completely overblown reward. Well, the fight with the guardian is a little tough. Then we get a sword +5 here. We stash it away as we do not have anyone who could even use it and it's comprehensively overblown in it's abilities and capabilities.

Ogre's tower
Full on buffs for everyone including free actions, CC's etc. Enter & obliterate. Hexxat gets Belm.

Sewer party
It's been too long since the last we were 'ere. While it is problematic at lower levels, we are too far ahead for these guys to be a problem. Max summons, max prebuffs. As usual, F/I runs to the middle of the pack and tanks. At some point she misses skins and Shaman rescues her, though she gets whacked just like a round after that. Shaman's healing power is extreme, even on insane.

Planar Prison
This is much harder than previously. But with double anaconda + triple aerial servant is very doable. Aerial Servant is really good at this stage. And lasts for ages. Shaman really shines here as we have oodles of chaotic commands + skins. And we can spiritual clarity away when necessary. F/I is yet again a key character for the tremendous tanking ability + low AC. We get some really nice stuffs here as in a missing improved haste scroll, now F/I has it as well. We also get elven ancestor's legacy, which will go to use immediately. Olé!

***
We're at 2,15MEXP. Just a few quick things before heading out to spellhold. We haven't visited watcher's keep or really even started the fighter stronghold yet. F/I can't use the elven ancient expertise for some reason. We console in the exp and drop the potion.
***

Screaming Statue
Prebuff. Anhilate. This has never been this easy. We try "false dawn" here, but even the tweaked version doesn't really look like it's worth it. As in our priest with 25STR + 4APR does more damage in a round with weapons. Sunray just does little bit of damage, it's difficult to cast for the very long casting time plus it really doesn't have that good range. Hexxat tanks the master vampire with Shaman's healing & ac of -26 against crushing. We are sort of supercharged for this fight. F/PoT works very well here, for it has oodles of skeleton summons, can drop ac really low & ofc. we shield of archons for the last wave. A barbarian essence within the loot. We know of a fight where we can use one.

Samia
We fail this a number of times, due to being a little bit ill-prepared. Mostly because Necro doesn't protect it's SI:Abjuration, so it keeps getting dispelled so Necro's PFMW gets dispelled. We have a terrible time with Kaol, who almost whacks Shaman and F/I, they escape only barely. Hexxat gets whacked. We forget that we have "weaken undead" - doesn't matter since it's very doable without. This isn't that tough of a fight though, once one gets the hang of it. Lots of goodies in the loot.

***
PC at 2.215Mexp. Time to go to spellhold. We do a little bit of forging before we go as in we forge water's edge +4 and some boots of speed. We also do some minor quests, finish mage stronghold and a few fighter / bard quests. We leave to Spellhold at 2.25Mexp or so.
***

A little recap.

Our cheated* Fighter -> Dual classed into a cleric works quite nicely. Of all of the new stuff the improvements on "sword and shield" - style seem like the ability we use the most. A super easy way to drop AC really low really early. As would the improved holy power + righteous magic of Tempus, if we still would have him. We also use the improved defensive harmony as well as reworked "aid" quite a lot.

(* compared to Priest of Tempus we're 0,5APR + 4pts of damage per hit ahead. And some hitpoints. So not that far)

As we're trudging along on insane we haven't had chances to try out "protective chant" as we don't want to rely on it protecting us. Once we can get 75% (+ a some additional bonuses) we should be able to survive with it.

We haven't needed the improved abilities that much. Then again we can't rely for example on "guardian angel", as if our cleric gets hit it's dead anyway after 2-3 hits (in a golem fight) so it's not going to make that much of a difference, at least thus far. We try stacking it once or twice, but it doesn't seem to stack.

We've cast heavenly shield once or twice but as there's a number of clerical buffs that last for 1 turn, which isn't a lot, so it's sort of competing a little bit with them. And if we max buff our cleric, it has a few buffs that last only 1 turn (or less) and if we have 3-4 of 'em, once the action begins the cleric will just run out of buffs very fast. We usually holy power + righteous mahic + duhm + aid + SoA + defensive harmony (start with protection from evil 10" as it lasts forever). There's a little room for additional buffs, as ie. DUHM + SoA are really effective in the character + new defensive harmony is as well.

Usually we prebuff with the most powerful stuffs and/or buffs we can sequence nicely. And we have a little bit difficulties fitting in heavenly shield, hopefully purify aura will fix this later on. At later stages we can most likely Wish:hardiness, AoF + Entropy Shield + Defensive Harmony, which should give us enough phys % to make this usable and possible quite fun.

Cleric is our best summoner at the moment. Aerial Servant is really good and anaconda's work quite nicely. All 6th & 7th level slots have been reserved for them for some time, blocking out rest of the spells. As an anaconda is most likely quite a lot useful than "sunray" for example, which is sort of a shame since it rules out other strategies than *summon to the max* + *prebuff to the max* -> anhilate to the max.

Neither have we even spiritul linked. We'll try that once our casting improves. Demon hunter we've tried once (or twice) but we're not sure about it's effect. Spare the dying is nice, as a way to protect from dragon's breath or so. But it seems to get dispelled, so we're hesitant to rely on it. And we always do know what we get from an anaconda.

All in all our F/C works out quite similarly as a 6.5 version would, in most fights at least. We've tried the improved cause-damage spells but they too seem like a little bit too soft, for a properly buffed cleric hits like a truck even in the early game (hello 25STR). And once the cleric has like 4 APR's, it can dish out a 100pts of damage in a round without casting spells by the way of "whack away".

->

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 21 2022, 12:26 PM