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 4 & 5

(edit: bundled these together for there aren't that many noteworthy encounters)


Brynnlaw

Do all minor things. Milk a few coins out of Perth.


Spellhold

There's an elemental + a bone golem in the ambush. And the Rukh. And mephits. I'd say as such, it is too difficult of fight without properly developed party without resorting to cheesy tactics. It's annoyingly difficult. We stash cleric + summons in a room, F/I runs to the ambush, then runs back to the centre area.

F/C + summons they go for the bone golem & Rukh, they should be the last ones to leave. Then we separate the rest. Elemental for Necro, 2 golems for shaman 2 for F/I. One mistake and we're dead.

We have just enough room to pull this off, but our margin is very slight. We resort to jogging around a little bit in order to save some skins in the start. It's cheesy, we know.

(Edit: We had ample room to pull this off, but we just didn't have the right tactic)


Crystal shard kobolds (edit: added this at it was missing for some reason)

We summon to the max,prebuff to the mx. And we prepare a sequencer of 1xGM + 2xPO. Start with lightning protections. Whack kobols shamans, then the guardians. One amber is tanked by summons, one by Shaman, on by Necro. Hexxat + kel-Dorn whack Shaman's amber, F/I + F/C go for witch doctor (F/I has PFME and F/C has 50% resistance to magic damage by amulet + BoiB).

Once doc is down, F/I starts casting LR's. We storm shell Hexxat pre-fight, but Hexxat's lightning damage resistance still gets lowered. We were looking to "go full retard" (as badgerlad puts it) on an amber, but we finish it the traditional way of whack 1 amber and turn 2 into chickens.


***
The 3x coin golem room with the drop of scroll of memory boosting is broken. We just get infinite scrolls of memory boosting added to our inventory, so we can't do that part.
***


Mithril Golem

Well, well, well ... what do you know.

It turns out that our F/C with AC of -35 against crushing is very hard to hit. IH's for everyone. Then 10 potions of regen, 5 potions of rejuvenation + hp + rm + guardian angel + duhm + soa + doubel regen for F/C. Then we start the fight with Shaman behind him spamming heling wards / heals + entropy shields. Necro limited wishes some minor globes + both NEcro & F/I have extra IH's, just in case F/C gets slowed. Necro summons, Shaman heals and (f/)Cleric tanks. Everyone else whacks away under IH + limited wish:globes

It's not even close. I guess the 7xregen is quite the difference maker here. We do have 2 barbarian essences, in case it wouldn't have been doable without. i

***
We take the boots. All of the boots. We're thinking about giving our Shaman etiher the Grandmaster Armour or the Studded leather of Thorns from ToB, mostly since we've never played with those items. Grandmaster's armour lets Shaman wear boots. Se we could select between +50 cold resistance and +50 lightning resistance. It would be good if the mod had a few more boots. Nothing overly powerful.
***


Irenicus

Well, well, well... what do you know. F/C is our best tank, and it's not even close.

It's quite fun like this.

So our F/C yet agin drops his effectice AC to -35 against crushing. Shaman drops a healing ward on him. We start with normal contigencies on "see enemy" for gm + emotion. Then drop sequencer of emotion + confusion + contagion. Shaman drops a creeping doom. F/C has pfe 10", hp, rm, duhm + we use the "heavenly shield" here. It seems to work quite nicely. And also entrophy shield from Shaman.

F/C rules this fight completely. He's completely OP. This has never been so easy. He tanks 1-2 golems throughout the fight and gets hit like 5 times. We're very safe casting spells as well, even though they don't have a casting time of 0. And with AoF + Defensive harmony + entropy shield F/C has even quite the DR in place almost throughout the fight. But even without the DR we would be easily safe enough with a simple healing ward in place. The golems can't hit him at all. Haha.

Completely different than what I'm used to. The (f/)cleric absolutely dominates this fight, when played like this.

When golems are done we are at full health, enormous amounts of spells left.

(Should have probably used him like this in the golem ambush, where we had tremendous difficulties. Dammit!).

***
In Brynnlaw we buy some potions and then visit Pirate Lord (at his house) and whack him, go to pick up the horn, meet Saemon and then whack the Pirate Lord again. We whack Simon when he tries to escape. That's like 35k of addition experience.
***

Sahuagin

We initiate fight at prince Vinyardi's.

F/C goes to tank with AC of -30 against piercing. Like only -30. He tanks the prince + the vipers almost throughout the fight. He gets hit 4 times. Or something like that. It's a little bit ridiculous.

We now know how we can protect the cleric in the fights, without skins & DR. It's pretty obvious.

Heavenly shield works wonders here.

Our Cleric is OP.

***
We hop to the next chapter. We gree to give either the grandmsater armour or the studded leather of thorns in underdark for our Shaman.
***


Chapter 5

1st drow ambush

Goes quite smoothly. Max summons, max prebuffs, F/C and F/I tank (F/I has si:divination, ii, both fireshields & oodles of stonekins + perma immunity to confusion). F/C with normal buffs. We also have 2xAnaconda + 2xAerial Servant +Sword.

We also CC our crew, at least everyone who doesn't have perma-confusion blocking. We win it if we don't get webbed.

***
Since Shaman made a level before the Ambush we're going to see Dracolichy next. As we want to leevl him up bt we don't want to fight the post-hla dracolich. As we don't even have the uber HLA's, since we don't have a sorceror with us.
***

Beholder lair

Sequencers of gm + emotion + emotion drop beholders.


Dracolichy

Well, we don't have anyone who can tank. Or so we think. Normal start. (kel-)Dorn with Azuredge and we aggro with Hexxat (she can't perma die but can tank for one hit. argh). Send in summons in waves, we use minotaurs, spiders, anconda's and aerial servants. Nullify clouds with cleric / shaman.

Once it's out of death fogs we start summoning skeleton warriors (cleric). At some point we notice that they are pretty good at tanking here. Like, exceptionally good. So ... we have oodles of spells left so Shaman drops a healing ward on a skeleton warrior (it has 50 resistance to piercing + immunity to cold). What do you know, a single skeleton warrior can tank dracolich until the end of times with active regen (and 1 mend light wounds every 3-4 rounds or so).

Cleric gets the kill. We forget again that we also have Spirit Shift for the late-fite hackathon.

(edit: We tinker with this for a few fights. As we didn't use our limited wish:cc on irenicus fight, where we usually take it we could drop dracolich's MR with triple pierce shield here. Our plan was to to drop MR & then turn it into stone / disientegrate but we can't get it to work. It would have been quite nice wy of overpowering the obnoxious drake but ... no luck)


2nd drow ambush

Summon a few swords, skeletons + smilodon. F/I goes to the top to take out the two warriors (with pfmw), Necro takes improved web & dodges it. Swords for spiders. Shaman starts with 3xhealing ward (a sword last for ages with a simple healing ward against the spiders). Smilodon kind of breaks this fight for it has f

Done and done.


The last ambush (N'ashtar)

Max prebuffs. We are a little bit in trouble with Boz for Cleric has sub-optimal AC. But Shaman healing wards & entropy shields him and that's pretty much it.


Ust Natha

Just breeze through everything here. Deirex we bolt of glory + disrupt undead (would have used purify aura but the casting time is so long it doesn't make a difference), we have enough to do it with Necro & F/C. We fail on the first try for F/C gets the ADHW trigger with 50% magic damage resistance (harper pin + boib) and get whacked. This means that our assumption of "we can't rely on protective chant in the beginning" was correct. Clerics revamped disrupt undead works very well here.(kel)-Dorn makes level at House Jael'lat, wetake power attack ofc - conveniently we level him up mid-fight so we can stun the one Jael'lat we always have trouble whacking. Before returning eggs we whack the whole city on the way out, as usual. Then whack thedrow near the entrance. Then return.

Mage's proposal
Demon Knights

Proper prebuffs and we're all good. Shaman takes the centre stage and heals our summons so the knights can't drop 'em. Shaman is tremendous here. Cleric tanks and gets hit once (with -32AC or so). We power attack to stun a few knights. In the end hexxat critical strikes. It's not even close.

Master Brain

With buffing our cleric can tank here. How nice. Sharing duties between necro / F/I / shaman and Cleric splits the damage nicely, Cleric doesn't even get hit that much. The extra HP's from warrior classes are really useful here. We milk 4 spawns out of the elemental, or something like that.

Ancient Golem

We resort to jogging around as we it's the easiest that way. We can destroy the spawns easily.


***
Crew at almost 4Mexp. And off to the next chapters we roll!
***

This post has been edited by pekkae: Jan 17 2023, 12:13 PM

[pekkae]

***
The 3x coin golem room with the drop of scroll of memory boosting is broken. We just get infinite scrolls of memory boosting added to our inventory, so we can't do that part.
***

Forgot to report this yesterday. Just going to highlight it here.