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]

TOB

Illasera

Meh. Whack the crew + we stun+hold/emotion Illasera. Then milk all of the spawns. Feels like vanilla content a little bit. This could be spiced up a lot.

***
We go to pocket plane, finish first quest and we forge improvised blend (or actually we console in the item and drop the items required to forge improvised blend).

So Hexxat can reach up to -24 Thac0 and does up-to 46 pts of damage per hit + the Swashies on-hit effects. She has 9 APR. I'm quite confident in saying that the only thing in this game coming even close to those numbers is the Kensai. She looks like she's far superior to almost all fighter classes in the game. And it's not even close. And she can tank, oh boy she can tank, better than pretty much anything in the game (depending a little bit what we are fighting). And to top it off, she has oodles of rare innate permanent immunities including poison, disease, fear, level drain and hold. Oh, and almost 200 HP. It's completely bonkers. One the most devastating / deadly characters in the game and one of the most overlooked ones I think. It's actually competing with a Kensai. And Hexxat has amazing stats for a fighter. After quite a lot of babysitting in the beginning, she becomes an almost non-stoppable killing machine by the end. Would love to have her and a Kensai (/RB) in the same group. The only minus, as far as I can tell, is the lack of more critical strikes, as she's got only 3.

kel-Dorn is also so effective it's bonkers. He does up to 90+ pts of damage per hit while CS'ing and has 9 APR. Since he's got JD we just have critical strikes. And Undead Hunter works nicely here, it gives out additional bonuses and those clerical spells come in quite handy. Especially Draw Upon Holy Might is super useful for a fighter and remove paralysis has been a lifesaver on a few occasions.
***

Gromnir

Well, Karun the Black is a problem with a Necro. Not so much if we are using a Sorcerer. But since we improved a cloak of proctection +2, we can get improved invisibility from that so we SI:Divination + II. And then we can cast a little bit. Anyway our frontline whacks away the opposition almost immediately (through their hardinesses as well), Shaman is in trouble but we have his rite active so we get an automatic instant re-up. We can't dispel Karun, so we just wait it out. I don't know how we could powermove our way out of this so.


Destroying the order of the eight staves

A lot of unused potential here. The mages scripts are terrible + there's supposed to be one of the most powerful necromancers in the realms here in Szass Tam, whom we get to beat instantly to bloody pulp for it's rather clueless on how to defend itself.


Marching mountains

PfF for everyone and whack away. We drop some EFG's with ice storms & acid damage. This is like a tutorial on "how to whack EFG's"


Rasaad's journey

The drwarven clan-thingy. A lot of unused potential here as well. There's a shadow dragon among other things here and it's just random whack'n'slash without buffs even. Even the shadow dragon is just whack, whack and whack - so completely pushover.


Dorn's bloody path

Well, we whack the silver dragons. But we do add Saemon Havarian's name to the scroll of retribution. We whacked him earlier, so we don't know if we'll see him but.


Yaga-Shura

Well, EFG's we remove magic + deal with acid damage (2x), two ones we just smash. Usually we use hexxat as our frontline for the smite effect is annoying. Though the smite effect is only there if an EFG can hit you. If they can't not so much. Drop bodyguards by debuffing. Cleric is in trouble here for a little bit even though he's somewhere around -34 AC vs. crushing for most of the fight, when targetted by Yaga-Shura. Shaman rescues him. For Yaga-Shura then we 4xpierce shield + gm + doom + Hexxat whacks it with Short Sword of Mask, entangling him in place & both F/I & kel-Dornactivate "Smite". Yaga-Shura ends up stunned. Haha. Oh and Shaman deals oodles of lightning damage with call lightnings. We like this fite a lot.


The Oasis

Hexxat tanks 10(?) or so gems. Tombhelten's smite effect is nice so we have to use RvE to disable the effect (twice). Also Tombhelten can hit both Hexxat & Cleric at least from time to time, luckily our healing abilities with cleric + shaman are extraordinary. Other than that the only problem is when an elite bodyguard decides to target Hexxat who doesn't have PFME active (and we miss with potion of magic shielding), so she drops to 5 hp's or so. We don't actuallylike to use RvE in the fights. One thing is that we have enough of healing capabilities to manage without and the other thing is that it isn't so helpful. Cleric starts the fight with holy power + duhm + soa and uses all of his purify aura's here.

***
We just have a few more fights to go. We're thinking about doing Sendai's Enclave the first.
***

Feedback

Shaman

Shaman is extremely powerful and has an important role in almost all of the fights. The early game entropy shield is superb and those shaman-specific superpowers are great. We played our Shaman quite differently than badgerlad in his journal as in our game Shaman isn't just a bystander, he took active role in combat all the time. As you can giant strength + circlet of lost souls + foreknowledge + bless and you can reach -8 Thac0 with 4 APR. That's quite decent against majority of opposition you are facing, You can go a notch deeper with activating tenser's from the noble/ royal staffs, but I'd like to then dual-wield for maximum efficiency but unfortunately belm isn't available. This would be competing a little bit with Spirit Shift, which we didn't use towards the end anymore as you can't switch the weapon so it's use cases are very specific.

A little bit unbalanced in the beginning but not completely over the top, loses the OP element towards the end of the game. Though the healing remains super useful & powerful until the end.

The only ability that wasn't useful (for our party) was "impervious sanctity of the mind", which didn't work on Hexxat when we tried it but other than that, everything the Shaman has we found a way to use it. Oh, and we never danced after Irenicus's dungeon - part ...


Some notes

- Shaman's foreknowledge can be dispelled (ultra golems purge magic at GBU, he had giant strength + foreknowledge and giant strength stayed while foreknowledge was dispelled). Probably the same is true for Cleric's. We don't know as we didn't take it.

- Shaman can't use belm, a major drawback as with tenser's transformation + circlet of lost souls + belm + treefok's fury + foreknowledge + giant strength + bless we could have 8 APR with -12 thac0 with Shaman. Then ofc we would need to babysit him all the time but still that would be pretty good.

- Shaman can't use almost all arrows, so arrows of fire, ice & acid etc. even though Shaman can use shortbow.

- Aura of flaming death would be a welcome addition for Shaman. It lasts for ages and the bonuses are great.


Cleric

Haha! while we initially were quite clueless on how this would go having a cleric (especially one supported by Shaman) makes some of the originally very troublesome fights quite straightforward and easy. A kitted cleric has a clear role in almost all of the fights and while it will dominate from time to time, in other instances you are going to need to babysit your Cleric.

The released new abilities & tweaks are almost all very useful and they have a clear role, pushing the Cleric's ability to help party to new levels. We used almost all of the extensively. Though Cleric would play since the beginning in almost identical ways in throughout the fights, as in we prebuff with almost identical setup all the time, which makes it a little bit monotonic towards the end. The only abilities we didn't use were spare the dying & guardian angel, well we used GA for only one fight and we're not sure about it's effect in that one. Also the "cause X wounds" - spells we're sort of eft out, as our Cleric did more damage with Flail of the Ages without needing to cast spells.

As for False Dawn & Sunray, they seem to do way too little and with an enormous cost, as most of the cleric kits have decent apr they do more damage if you just whack away. Plus those 6th / 7th level spell slots are quite tight so these spells just didn't make it. We tried both once or twice but didn't feel like they were worth it. Bolt of Glory we used when needed to whack liches, as a way of dealing additional damage if we didn't have enough disrupt undead's. Good call with the ranged disrupt undead, it wouln't be useful without the range.

In chapter seven Cleric starts to lag a little bit, as it loses it's edge and other characters take over the frontline duties the cleric moves into a prebuffer & supporting character in combat. At least that's how we played it. Though for example it's great at tanking marilits & excorts in the demo-fite, as the innate uber-low ac + exactly right buffs will make the cleric a great tank in some of the late fights still.

The most where the Cleric is lagging a little bit is in HLA's, as almost half of the cleric HLA's are a wasted a little bit. Fixing the HLA's to support the character better + having some sort of a combat boost would be very welcome. Oh, and it definitely needs a summon (improved animate dead, that can summons a Skeleton Lord(?)) And the cleric definitely needs a few more spells lots in the early game, an additional 6th and an additional 7th level spell slot would be enough and ofc. Talos could have extra slots.


Some notes & suggestions

- Even though we had the "priest of Talos" (we mislabeled him as Priest of Tyr before, sorry about that) the casting ability wasn't very strong. You get a little bit faster prebuffing, which is welcome and in some cases combat / damage dealing spells a little bit faster. It is far from OP if the mod would introduce the 6.6 Talos's casting ability to all kitted cleric's and pushing Talos's casting ability further still, further improving Talos's casting. As Talos lags essential combat buffs (as in APR's) it needs to be heavily compensated if it is to be balanced with the other Kits.

- Tempus with undispellable improved Holy Power + Righteous magic is a great call

- Heavenly Shield is great. If my calculation is correct it sort of gives the character an additional APR, so you can actually get 7 APR under IH with the Cleric. And you can even hit protected enemies with it. But I do have a suggestion to "improve". Decreasing heavenly shield's casting time to 3 would be in line with other "combat buffs" the cleric has like DUHm & Shield of Archons. We feel 5 is a little bit too much. Also, heavenly shield doesn't trigger an icon (on the portrait) so we don't really know when it's out that well.

- About the new HLA's: Purify aura is nice, so is divine intervention, though we sort of keep forgetting that we had it. We used divine intervention maybe once during the game. Purify Aura gives our character the "tired" icon even after level 30 where it's supposed not to have it. Purify aura we use in 30% of the fights maybe. But very useful still.

- Two of the very best cleric HLA's as in foreknowledge and aura of flaming death seem somewhat useless on a cleric as AC bonuses are most likely wasted (because of the new changes introduced) a major component of the power of the spell. Cleric with a normal armour of -1 AC reaches -20 AC (without dex bonuses) with two rings of protection, cloak +2 and supreme shelter, protector/gauntlet of blessed might + defensive harmony and a helm that gives -1 to AC. So about the same time as one get foreknowledge / aura of flaming death.

- A few suggestiions: replace aura of flaming death with improved elemental shield (or something like that). So a spell that combines fireshield red + fireshield blue, and has "lightning shield" as well. Gives +55/60% resistance to fire/cold/lightning. Elemental damage on hit. Cannot be dispelled. Duration 15 rounds. (With supreme shelter this would set elemental resistances to 90/95%, meaning some elemental damage would come through. Meaning this would work very well with Guardian Angel as well.

- We didn't find a good fit to use the new Guardian angel. It looks like it's best used to mitigate damage i.e. if a character is hit without elemental resistances but does have skins. The problem with it's focus on self is that that once you are hit with splinters you can't cast guardian angel anymore, same with poison. But this could easily be calibrated (I think). How about making this a ranged spell that heals 2/3/4 (or 2/4/6) pts of damage. This is a sort of low-level regen, which you can then use to mitigate for example elemental damage / splinters / insect damage and it would work hand in hand with a regen & even without it a little bit. This way the spell would have oodles of places where it's useful.

- Regarding some sort of combat HLA: Rework foreknowledge for (kitted) clerics or remove it and give kitted cleric's a combat boosting HLA. Something like +2 thac0 +2 damage, -2 armour class (not the base class) and increase in critical hit range by 4 (so you can hit a critical hit with roll of 15). Alternatively this HLA could be just demon/undead specfic or stack with demon hunter / weaken undead?

- Instead of making a deva more powerful, it could be made more situation specific. Say you have 3 different DEVA's to choose from. Maybe one can tank, one can heal and one can dish out damage(?). Or something like that. It would also fi the deva's descriptoin (there's three types of Deva's https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Deva)

- A nifty way of suporting Tyr's spell casting would be to give it an item with +2 caster levels. That way its truly a force (read: non-dispellable clerical buffs in chapter 6/7). Also adding "remove magic" to Tyr's repertoire would be a welcome change.

- Spiritual ink could be made non-dispellable.

- A HLA that is "SI:Abjuration" + death ward". Lasts for 5 rounds. Non dispellable. Casting time 1.

- High level cleric's should be immune to "grave silence", at least Talos should. It would make sense as they should be able to overpower liches with just turn undead.


Other things noticed.

- Sometimes confusion graphics stay even though the spell is dispelled (with spiritual clarity / divine intervention)

- Black Blade of Disaster doesn't give grandmastery. The APR bonus is missing as well as the damage bonuses.

- Hexxat is a little bit broken. She doesn't immediately turn into a mist when she's dropped to 1 hp. You have a short window where you can heal her. Don't think there's much to be done regarding this.

- Couldn't get back from green wyrm's lair the mechanism was broken (it just didn't work).

- Undead Hunter's Protection from Evil "10ft doesn't last for 1 turn per caster level. More likely it lasts for 1.5 - 2 turns or so.

- Avoid Death (Rogue HLA) doesn't protect from imprisonment

- (High level(?)) Cleric's AID also gives out bless thac0-bonus. This is cumulative with bless, so your whole crew can get +2 thac0 with casting both AID + Bless.


Our "cheats"

***
We dual classed a fighter into a kitted Cleric. While it gave us a bonus thac0 + damage + APR's our Cleric was quite close to Priest of Tempus throughout. In the most difficult fights it would have been better to have Tempus with us.

We had the drow elven chainmail from underdark after our escapades in the underdark. it's a great item for a multiclassed mage.

We gave our Cleric Jaheira's pin / amulet. It worked extremely well and was kind of spot-on item. Though a cleric specific item would be nice.

We had a few bonus items, as in boots that give +2 additional level 1 and +1 additional level 2 spells. Shaman mostly used this. Our club +5 with splinter damage for 3 rounds turned out to be extremely effective against elemental golems. Looking at IA items the flail of defending and wounding seems ridiculously effective now that we understand how this works. And we had an amulet that gives +10HP, +1AC +10% cold resistance.

We took the grandmaster armour from ToB and gave it to Shaman. It lets us wear boots, otherwise it's similar to Shadow Dragon scale.
***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Jan 30 2023, 12:49 PM