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 6

Kruin

Separate elementals, then just drop them and wait out Kruin. F/I & Shaman tank here + Cleric tanks goins + gems. His AC is low enough so he can manage quite easily (with a regen to mitigate to sporadic damage that is)

King Sthrom's Guardians
Because we forgot before

Pirates
We can dispel the coordinator so this is trivial

***
We forge improved armour for kel-Dorn, supreme shelter for F/C and Hexxat's cloak. We have a scroll of "ray of fragmentation" to go to get the golem slayer. Hmh. Where is it?

A note about the "warblade of twilight". It's a really nice item to circumvent the superbly annoying feature where our F/I gets hit and if she immediately renews skins sometimes the spell fails (gets interrupted). I guess the engine thinks that the hit and the spell were at exactly the same time. In those instances we just equip the warblade and cast skins again, as it clenses aura. We don't use for anything else.
***

Bodhi

We're a bit early to be here. Those Skeleton Grandlords are problematic, for we have only staff of rhynn & soul reaver, that are of some use against them. Then again, Shaman + Necro have amazing tanking capabilities. The start is trivial for everyone is NPP'ed. Whack Bodhi as fast as possible. We get Yamato + Cutthroat here, so that's quite nice. Now we can hit Spider Queen.

**
We forge Equalizer, indigo ioun stone, necro's amulet and the vorpal sword. Gold at 15k. We're still looking to forge the staff of strength, but we don't want to use 2 permanency scrolls for it. Luckily we know where we can find a staff +3.
***

Ancient Priest

Normal prebuffs, CC 3xSwords. Hexxat also takes a potion of fortitude, which we have been piling up & takes AoF from the cloak of atonement. It works like a charm. Even without upgraded armour she can reach 65% physical resistance (40% hardiness, 10% AoF, 10% entropy shield + 4% defensive harmony). That + a healing ward is easily enough. Whack away and pick a staff +3.


***
We visit Cromwells and turn staff +3 into the adamantite staff of strength +4. We should have done ancient priest before bodhi, it would have been much easier. I think we are ready for Firkraag, sewer geg & Watcher's Keep
***

Firkraag

It's not that difficult, for some reason Firkraag doesn't aggro us with physical damage, to which we are vulnerable to. THough we keep him busy with RRoR's, death spells, remove magic's etc. Cleric + kel-Dorn + Hexxat can easily & fast take down those Skeleton Warlords + Necro has all triggers loaded with minor disruptors.


Alhoon

Ambush. Draw everyone to the corridor where we whack 'em. They neatly stuff themselves in the corridor so NEcro drops two comets on them. It isn't very difficult. F/C has nondispellable -36 aginst slashing for the skeletons. Very doable so. We forget we have "weaken undead" again.

Max prebuffs. We run with Necro to take the dispel + ADHW under alacricity (cc: PFME, PFMW + ST, contigency: GOI) on hit. Launch trigger after dispel hits us to be safe with minor drain. Rest take out illithids + entourage.

Lure geg to the southern part of the room / corrior where we take it out within a span of a few rounds. We have about 20 APR with 24-25 STR under CS (Hexxat, F/I+ kel-Dorn) + F/C's & Shaman's damage. It's enough. If we get dispelled, we'll lose. Geg spawns 2 coins. If they target Shaman / F/C we're good, as they can take it easily. (we could have fixed Hexxat as a 3rd tank with hardiness + AoF + double regen pre fight, but we forgot). Alhoon is battled by Necro under alacricity, pfe + pfme plus random spawns, mostly skeleton warriors and berserker + spider.

In addition to our norml prebuffs we give hexxat & shaman giant strength, F/I takes potion of storm giant strength + kel-Dorn takes potion of cloud giant strength pre-DUHM. They make a big difference here.

It doesn't go smoothly, like at all. But we think it's an ok price to pay for Wish, MotA + Crom Fayer. no milking so we lose a lot of exp here.

***
We go to Cromwell's to forge and come away with MotA, Golem Slayer, Crom Fayer and a few rings of protection +2. We're beginning to look frightening. Money at zero. Sellable stuffs at zero.
***

Treasure in the Ice

We forgot that the ice golem can dispel combat protections. Argh. The only one of our characters who has hardiness is hexxat and she's got only one, since we're heavily focusing on critical strikes. She goes to tank but hardiness gets dispelled. F/C can take 2 punches, hexxat can take 1. Luckily Shaman had foreknowledged pre fight and the ice golem doesn't hit hexxat twice in a row, so Shaman mend group x 4 (it's instant) and we're back in full health. 2 rounds is enough with our H2H capabilities to whack the ice golem into oblivion.

The elemental is *meh*. Re-up some lost elemental resistances + tank. Necro tries to turn spawns into chickens but no luck. Well, lower resistances still works together with vampiric touches. And the spawns aren't terrible at all with our tanking.

****
Since spellhold we've really learned how to use our (F)(Cleric quite efficiently. We usually bluntly max out his AC by selecting a proper armour + girdle + buffs. We keep casting defensive harmony in almost all fights. Heavenly shield is really good. Especially combined with 25STR. I'm assuming that the heavenly shield adds 1 attack per round so our Cleric, 2,5APR + heavenly shield should be at 7 APR under IH. That's really good with fighter thac0's & the very early access to 25STR. But we do think our Cleric's combat efficiency will diminish, so we're hoping to get more out of the cleric's spell-casting in the upcoming encounters

We tried unsuccessfully to finish Marvella here but since we can't dispel the rakshasha's yet, we'll probably be off to Watcher's Keep next.
***

WK Level 1

Haha. The fireplace room has 5 golems and a bunch of skeleton lords & grandlords and whatnot. The only problematic is the bone golem, but kill-Dorn and F/C both have "remove paralysis", so even if we get stunned we have an escape. Necro with normal 2 x 3xminor disruptor sequencer/trigger, F/C takes skellys for he has both weaken undead + -39 AC against slashing. With a healing ward it's enough. Even on insane. It's nice.

Spider queen we summon swords, they work tremendously well here. Nothing that special. Dodge first web, whack, cleric casts a few free actions and we surround the queen with swords & skeletons (animate dead from cleric). they don't take damage at all from the queen and when they are a little bit down on hp Shaman heals them. We're not sure if we get all of the spawns as we accidentally kill the queen.


Wk level 2

We whack everything and milk everything, besides Chromatic Demon + entourage.

***
PC is 70k away from level 22, which we'll give us the ability to properly dispel rakshashas. Properly dispelling rakshahas is the key to geetting foreknowledge. So we go looking for some exp before going for chromatic demon. We do minor stuffs as stronghold quests & limited wish quest + pre kangaxx liches here.
***

Troll mound

We're quite op for this already. Enter, death spell. Buff with everything incl. fireshields, st:abjuration + goi + st for both Necro and F/I. F/I & Shaman runs to meet king & queen (we're trying to avoid dispel), Necro goes IA. Then Necro drops queens protections and drops her with AA's & CO's. Queen hits Necro with the storm of vengeance and Necro's CC of 3xADHW triggers. it hits the rest of the trolls. Swords & Critical Striking take care of the vengeance trolls. Breach king & whack. Cleric tanks the king for he has -39AC against crushing. We get Monster Summoning 8, we were wondering a little bit about where it was.


Marvella finale with Pasha

25 tries. Only because our chain contigency (st, goi, pfmw on "see enemy") doesn't trigger. Other than that, we can dispel the noble rakshasha so no problem. Hexxat & kel-Dorn blow through demons & rakshahas like they were butter (CS overpower). We demon hunt here, but we're not sure about it's effect + it's competing with essential buffs for Cleric. We milk some golems and high five Pasha on his way out.


Chromatic Demon

Necro goes full retard here and pretty much soloes with only -4. Turn everything into chickens and finish them. Post-fight we notice that we don't even get exp for the entourage. Bummer. We try pw:stun & pw:kill here on the etourage but no luck we think. Also Chromatic Demon the chicken is immune to power word:kill. We think that's a little bit too much.


Green Wyrm

Drop protections. Lower resistances. Then Necro yet again soloes & whacks it with with magic missiles, scorchers, flame arrows, ice storms, cones of cold, fingers of death. We also had a CC 3xADHW on hit, which launches midway through our spell hurling but I don't even check how much damage it does. Probably something a little. Necro is out of spells and Wyrm is near death but our 4x Comet arrives just in time to put the beast to permanent rest. Our pw:stun doen't work here either. But it's quite nice, we use 2 spells here we've never cast before in IA as in Ice Storm and Agannazar's Scorcher.

We find blood of a green wyrm. This is new.


Wk Level 3

We're so good in H2H we don't have problems here. Plus we have 3 characters with permanent confusion immunity. The only problem is getting away RROR to take out hybrid tiefling (it's whacked by F/I with PFME). We think the slave wrath fight is the hardest one, but for that as well we can prepare with triggers and sequencers and non-dispellable buffs so we have non-dispellable level drain on almost everone, so no problems. F/I whacks the slave wraith, though she gets level drained. The Skeletons are fun, (f/)Cleric tanks (3 of) them with -41 against slashing (gorgon plate + slashing girdle + defensive harmony + SoA + entrophy shield) and a helaing ward.


Danger at the harbour / Limak the Mastermind

We resort to cheesy behaviour. Our favorite method of beating Limak is sneaking in a Khelben's Wharding Whip for the SI:Divinations, then whack. But it works only rarely. So.

SPOILER!

We whack him when he starts to materialize and finish him before he gets protections up.

We didn't know that was doable before.


Kangaxx

Since we're here already. It gets one imprisonement away. We get the ring of Gaxx. How nice. Now Necro has 45% MR. That's pretty good.

***
We go and sell pretty much all of our sellable stuffs, besides some arcane scrolls, which puts our monies to 450k or so. Time to go to cromwells to forge Swashbuckler's armour (puts us to -20AC + 20% against crushing), Paladins bracers, Githzerai Blade, Ring of greater djinn summoning, Noble Spider figurine, Improved Dragon Helm, Rimed Club and Club +5*. Monies at 0, but power is UP. a lot. Our club +5 here, a non ia item (we've never played with it before)).

Club +5 "Pitchwife"
Damage 1d6 + 5 + 5 acid damage + slivers add 3 points of extra damage for 4 rounds
Thac0 +5
Acid resistance +25%

Gnasher
Blackblood
Manual of elaboration
50.000 GP
***

Story of the old ones

We're so adept at whacking liches with Necro it causes no serious headaches.

***
We finish everything besides golems & supreme leader at WK Level 4.

We get our scroll of Recast Vital Energy and we go searching for a scroll of "time stop", to activate the time machine. So Chapter 7 'ere we come.
***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Jan 3 2023, 09:40 AM