Journal with some details & tactics (hints for beginners & spoilers), Necro, Kensai, K/T, Cernd, Neera + DD Options

[pekkae]

Nice progress! Good luck with Demogorgon.

Where did some of your items come from? There are a few I don’t recognize that seem to be from PS:T.

Also, how much of your healing late game is from Cernd vs RVE? Seems like you had an easier time with Supreme Leader than most.

Thanks! I already did it, but I've just been occupied with everything else to write a report on it.

Items

I have an additional item pack, it adds some nice items that I don't think are overpowered but complement the items in IA quite well. they might be from PS:T, but I wouldn't know as I never made it that far with that game.

The extra items I currently have / have used during the game

Bracers of Icelandic Pearl (Bracers, +50 cold resistance, cone of cold 1/day, adhw 1/day)
Dread Bond (Bracers, +1str, immunity to panic)
Tymora's Gift (Belt, +10 MR, +3 to luck)
^ This is a great fit for Neera and even the graphics match her Robe. With GRoI + Amulet of greater protection + machine of lum the mad's 5%MR + Tymora's gift Neera is up to 50% in MR
Clasp of Bron's Cloak (amulet, +5 Physical resistance)
Amulet of Ilmater (amulet, +1 AC, +3 Saves, immunity to poison)
Aegis of Torment (amulet, +3AC, +2Con, +15HP)
^ This is super powerful and probably among top 5 most powerful amulets in the game. In my game Cernd equips it. We also gave Cernd + 1Con from machine of lum the mad bringing his CON with the amulet to 16.
Black Wolf talisman (amulet, +10HP, 10Resistance to cold)
Girdle of Glory (belt/girdle, +3AC)

Especially the belts/girdles & bracers are nice and I think compliment the items in IA quite well without being op. The only very powerful item is the "Aegis of Torment" and even that pales in comparison to IA's amulets.


Healing Cernd vs RvE

Well it depends quite a lot. There's a few heavy battles before Demogorgon (JD & orcs mostly) where relied heavily on RvE. Also with Ancient Dragon we used RvE because Cernd was out through the whole fight since his job was taking care of the Nishruu, thus no regen. And ofc in the demogorgon fight we are very relient on RvE + Wish.

But because we did Demogorgon quite early we have been completely OP since then so we haven't really needed healing that much. The fights we had left in SoA parts of the game felt like vanilla content. We could easily afford to play around even with orcus & milk all spawns/summons out of it.


Supreme Leader

Since DD had Crom Fayer & K/T had "Golem Slayer" the supreme leader fight becomes easily doable. They both have Thac0's of around -16 or so and both have 9 APR under IH. With CF's insta kill of stone & clay golems and golem slayers effectiveness against gem's especially they don't really have a chance. And ofc we have Kensai with 9 APR & -23 Thac0 (buffed) to take care of the inquisitor's (or what's their name). By supreme leader fight Kensai also had 5 critical strikes (0 Hardinesses) and she dishes out 35pts of damage per hit, so about 280-350pts / round without CS. The front line is very well optimized for this fight.

[pekkae]

Demogorgon

Max prebuffs (PfF, PfC, PfME, GOI, SI:Abjuration, IH's, skins, mirror images, perfect camouflage etc.), max summons (greater djinn, smilodon, greater yuan-ti & noble spider + IH's on them) and mental agility for N&N N&N cc Foeknowledge+ST+PfMW. DD takes barbarian essence + protection form level drain. DD equips Dread Bond, Shield of Harmony + Defender of Easthaven. We divide potions of barbarian essence a few potions of storm giant strength + potions of fire resistance among the crew. K/T also get stonesking, pfmw + SI scrolls.

Initate. Summons go for Kazuul, except greater Yuan-Ti which goes for Kargoth. DD attacks Demogorgon, then backs away to attack Rozvankee. Necro, Neera & Cernd go aura clensing. Once IA is finished Necro debuffs Nulonga (3xRRoR + Breach), then Belcheresk then Saint Kargoth. If Kazuul activates smite we immediately breach. After Nulonga's protection are down Necro IH Kensai, who CS and together with K/T obliterate it (it might get PfMW up and if so then we need to breach again). Necro ST 3xLR on Kargoth. About here Neera's IA activates and she immediately ST 3xLR on Belcheresk. Cernd bark skins, then dooms after LR's hit targets and then flame arrows (11x or so) Kargoth, who is immune to fire damage but takes piercing damage. N/N both SS 3xAA, then MS 2xAA, then drop 20 chromatic orbs + 20 AA's on Belcheresk. Nulonga dies to pounding, Belcheresk to acid damage. N&N then drop all 3rd level spells in flame arrows to Kargoth. Cernd moves away from Flame Arrows to casting implosions / nature's fists on Kargoth. After Nulonga dies K/T switches to Noble Staff of Air and goes to help greater Yuan-Ti, which is almost dead. Kargoth dies soon after. Kensai goes for Kazuul. We re-arrange our spellbooks (remove /dispel magic's, summons and any spells that allow protection from fire (fire shield red's, PfME, PfEs etc.)Necro LR's, pierce magic's, greater malisions + PO's Vargouille into a chicken then starts summoning trolls & RvE's while Neera LR's, summons and then goes on to wish:rest. (We get it after 5 tries). Kazuul dies soon after, as nothing can take Kensai's pounding.

Then the real battle begins. DD tanks demogorgon & Rozvankee, while the rest of the crew do their best to survive while dismantling Vargouilles and the unending waves of abyssal escorts. Keep up fire resistances, concentrate attacks on minions. CS helps immensely against Vargouilles. Immediately when Rozvankee's SI expires we IA, true sight, RRoR & pound it into oblivion.

We try to setup our crew so that everyone has a way of protecting themselves if they find themselves in a pinch. That's PfMW scrolls for Necro, Neera & K/T. Cernd, DD & Kensai take barbarian essences. At one point Necro is surrounded by 5 mariliths / abyssal escorts and she stands pat while casting and then renewing PfMW's from scrolls when necessary ( maybe 8-10 PfMW's from scrolls all in all ). In the end K/T still almost dies (since he forgot to renew PfMW).

We use maybe 8 barbarian essences, 5 protections from level drain, 20 scrolls of remove/dispel magic, 20 scrolls of PfMW, 5-10 potions of fire resistance and a few potions of storm giant strength, 4-5 potions of agility and a few scrolls of protection from poison. And probably something else I forgot.


Post-demogorgon fights

(We forge a bunch of stuff incl. noble staff of earth, great wyrm plate, supreme shelter, girdle of lordly might, necro's robe, staff of strength etc. )

Rune Assassins (Windspear Hills)
Grandfather of Assassins
Guarded Compound
Improved Theshal
Good, Bad & Ugly
City Gates Lich
Viper Queen
Orcus
Irenicus

We are so insanely powerful after the Demogorgon fight that tactics for these fights become trivial. And we have soooo much fun with these. Our "tactic" boils down to enter, activate aura cleansing & obliterate. If unsuccessful, repeat. For example the rune assasins @ windspear hills (the first post-demogorgon fight we do) our crew hardly gets hit. We empty our spellbooks and then re-up through wish ( it isn't needed, but it's much fun ). We enter, CC's launch with Foreknowledge, ST + GOI. Everyone goes aura clensing. Neera takes mental agility. Then we dump remove magic's, LR's, pierce magic's, GM + Doom's + slow's, 2x triggers of 3xCone of Cold's (both Necro & Neera), dispel magic's (for enemy mages) then 10 emotions (from cernd), 10 chain lightnings, 10 dragon's breaths, 10 Power word: stun's with implosions &unleash energy's & finger's of death and so on. At some point we RRoR & breach the mages, drop AA's & flame arrow's, then LR + Stun. Anything left standing is obliterated by turbocharged Kensai. K/T whacks the golems while others are busy.

There isn't even much we need to prepare, besides the Orcus fight where we need a number of NPP's & some prebuffs in summons and foreknowledge in CC. but even in that fight we can easily afford to milk all summons our of Orcus & just play around with it. Dismantling a wave of vampiric summons is completely trivial. No protections from level drain - scrolls are even needed. Cernd just drops 2-3 NPP's and possible casts shield of archons for himself. We also seems to be able to dispel Orcus (and we have 4-5 implosions / 7 nature's fists & 12+ bigby's crushing hands as well if we need to dish damage by spells) so it's PfMW's are useless. GBU's final fight we use double regen for the Inspector and finish it without too much milking, hence we can't control the good inspector.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 20 2021, 10:05 AM

[pekkae]

Illasera

Debuff, anhilate. Strip enemy spellcasters of protections with (nx) RRoR & Breach, interrupt casters with flame arrows / nature's fists from Cernd. K/T activates assasination just because it's fun. For Illasera we lower resistances (with LR & Pierce shield) + GM + Doom + whack and then stun / hold person + emotion. Then milk all 10 spawns.

Gromnir

Normal buffs. K/T goes "assasination" for the spawning enemies @ west. Everything else is quite straightforward. We can't dispel Karun the Black but they still do not stand any chance. We try to hit it with creeping dooms / insect plagues etc. but none work. Still, Karun goes about mostly trying to unsuccessfully debuff Necro (a battle which Necro dominates due to low casting times & oodles of spells). Once it's SI:Divination runs out we just true sight, debuff & Karun the Black falls. DD tanks Gromnir etc. with natural restoral & a timely Regen. We also summon a skeleton lord & IH it, it's amazingly effective.



Marching mountains

Off to the marching mountains we go where we mostly PfF's for everyone & whack away and/or use acid damage which works very well here.

**

After Marching Mountains we do some counting. We have manuals of elaboration left, as well as permanency scrolls and even two scroll of memory boosting. What we want to forge still is, improved cat figurine, one maybe two rings of protection +4, maybe Cernd's staff, possibly flail of defending and wounding (but even of we don't have it, we are completely OP), nature's gift. But that's pretty much it. We do not have anything else we could make.

**

Yaga-Shura

We are still so completely OP that we do this fight with only 1 level 9 spell besides IA's (we wish for rest and get it on the first try). And even the wish:rest is mostly because when initiating the fight Cernd had only 1 call lightning memorized and we're too lazy to reload & change memorized spells. We enter, Yaga-Shura runs, whack 1 EFG and Yaga-Shura returns. Then we have our fun. Again. Elite Fire Giants are taken down with 10xCO + 10XAA (and a few whacks or so), Yaga-Shura's resistances are lowered with pierce shield. Elite bodyguards (or what's their name) take 3xRRoR + Breach + LR's / pierce shield's. Theya re mostly met with K/T, who in a pinch can equip Carsomyr for 50% MR (60% all in all with Ring of Gaxx). Then it's just a never ending continuum of anything that can hurt them (mostly chain lightnings, vampiric touches, flame arrows & emotions, whic don't work on EFG's though). Cernd loads up with call lightning's (after Wish) and dumps about 10 of them on Yaga-Shura (and it's minions). A single call lightning can do about 100pts of damage per hit (well, Yaga Shura has about 80% resistance but is still hurts because it lasts for such a long time). At some point Cernd drops a natural restoral on DD. We dump our whole spellbooks on the enemies. We also try PO's, contagions, hold monsters etc. but none of them work. I wish hold monster would work on EFG's.


The Oasis

We are planning on scrapping RvE from our spell selection but we forget the nasty unbreachable smite the General has. Luckily we had a few RvE's momorized when entering because we are forced to RvE:Regen at some point. (mostly because "remove disabling effect" didn't work) Anyway, the fight is much fun, if we could, we would have wished for tougher enemies. K/T tanks all of the gem golems. Yes, all. Spellcasters go IA and lower resistances (mostly LR's & pierce magics), doom, gm's, turn golems into chickens with PO and humans unconscious with emotion, while trying also every spell that we have on the general. I recalled that implosion would work on him but it doesn't seem to do that much of anything. Anyway once we've lowered resistances and the gem-situation is under control we chain lightning away and activate "resist magic" when the bodygurads (or whats their name) with 3xadhw triggers appear. In the end the General's abilities (apparently unbreachable hardiness + regen) keep him abit safe but we still manage to get it to badly injured status (by 5 continuous CS's from Kensai & DD) and surrounding the general with 3 greater Yuan-Ti's & Skeleton Lord (all under IH). In the end the General focuses on attacking Cernd which is fine since he has 14 iron skins or so, so General's efforts are pretty much completely wasted. Once the "hardiness" or what's it called runs out, the General is toast in half-a-round or so. Cernd has 6 iron skins left.

*

No tactics necessary.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 23 2021, 11:22 AM

[pekkae]

Cernd

If you have been following this journal you might remember that we gave Cernd the tomes from bg1 + wisdom from machine of lum the mad + wisdom from deck of many things + upgraded circlet of golden flowers pumping Cernd's wisdom to 25.

With the bonuses in Wisdom and stuff we've gathered we have an abundance of spell slots. Currently our level 35 Cernd has the following spell slots.

7th 16
6th 18
5th 16
4th 16
3rd 14
2nd 15
1st 15

In addition to those we have 3 natural restorals and 10 nature's fists. After the demogorgon fight we could have pushed through a number of encounters with only Cernd's casting as for example he's quite adept at killing liches (with any combination of nature's fists / implosions / unleash energy's). With auramaster's natural abilities + equipment + bonuses, we have constant bonuses to casting speed that make an enormous difference in the fights. Even "nature's fist", which is quite useless on a regular Druid becomes a formidable weapon, that can take down a single powerful enemy in a round or so as we can drop all of the memorized nature's fists within a single aura clensing. With the abundance of 7th level spells we can easily afford to take 3-5 aura clensings which means that we can empty Cernd's whole spellbook within the span of a few rounds (or within the duration of 2 aura clensings or so). Also in a number of fights Smilodon is a great ally; Cernd summons a smilodon & drops a regen on it, while Necro drops IH & PfME on it to make sure it's safe. I'm unsure of the stats it has but it seems to be able to take down a gem golem on it's own. Also greater elementals work wonders until the very end, especially Sunnis with its iron skins.

The only thing Cernd doesn't do well is h2h, but even in h2h we can drop Cernd's effective AC to around -28 & skins & mirror images so Cernd is quite safe against everything except bosses and a few rare regular enemies. In the demogorgon fight Cernd can't be really used against Vargouilles, except with barbarian essences, because he'll get annihilated too fast. But other than that, Cernd is amazingly effective.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 26 2021, 08:27 PM

[pekkae]

Sendais enclave

We don't really have any troubles here. Our spellcasters are way too effective, our spell slots way too many. The only thing that takes a reload or two is the lich, as we can't dispel it (even with level 35 (or 36 or so) Cernd, so we try to find a way to trick the disple with Khelben's Warding Whips for example. Our tricks do not work so we have to wait out and feed it summons. At some point it imprisons K/T, as we forget that "avoid death" doesn't help against imprisonment. We milk some spawns out of it & cast freedom after we're done.

In Northern tunnels we dump incendiniary clouds and fire storms and let enemies run into them where they are met with DD who has 100% resistance to fire. Kensai takes care of the spawning enemies on east.

The finale with Sendai is quite straightforward as well. On of the statues (or what's their name) take 3 RRoR's. The invisible statues are dealt with Skeleton Lord, which we IH & regen so no "True Sight" necessary because it can see invisible enemies. No RvE regen's cast. Webgolems are turned into chickens & finished with MM / AA. Sendai's pet is quite troublesome though it is tanked by Smilodon with regen throughout the fight.


Abazigail's lair

We waltz in and forget that Draconis can silence Neera, who has all of our breaches. Draconis manages to get the 3rd PfMW up and Necro runs out of breaches (she had only 2) So Cernd goes Aura clensing and drops 10 nature's fists on Draconis while frontline swithces to nonmagical weapons & they activate "critical strikes" for both DD & Kensai. Draconis drops within a single round.

In Abazigail fight we try to whack the golems first, but they seem to be death proof (it takes 1 round or so to get an elemental to "near death", where it stayed for 5 rounds or so). So we lower abazigail's resistances with LR's & Pierce shields, then breach, then both Neera & Necro renew IA's, Neera walks in and they 20xMM, 20xAA, 20xFlame arrow while Cernd drops 10 nature's fists or so ... and Abazigail is toast half way through before silence hits Neera. No RvE:Regen needed again.


** Status before EDE (unbuffed) **

Necro (PC): Level 35, 144 HP, AC -10, 40% resistance to magic, 55% resistance to magic damage + minor resistances
STR 9, DEX 18, CON 16, INT 19, WIS 19, CHA 20
Stuff: MoA, Bracers of icelandic pearl (+50 cold res), circlet of netheril, lord of the underworld, cloack of arcane immortality, belt of inertial barrier, paws of cheetah, guard's ring & ring of greater djinn summoning. Martial Staff / Sling of Everard.
Spell slots: 1st/12, 2nd/13, 3rd/13, 4th/12, 5th/12, 6th/13, 7th/16, 8th/13, 9th/11.
MPV: Ancient Golem, 5% exp in game / chapter

DD (Minsc with Korgan's stats): Level 39, 245HP, AC -22 (effective -25 / -26), Thac0 -17. APR: 3, 25% phys resistance without buff & 110% resistance to fire + minor resistances
STR 25, DEX 18, CON 19, INT 10, WIS 9, CHA 7
Stuff: Hammer of Thor, (Axe of Unyielding +5, Runehammer +5), Great Wyrm Plate, Gauntlets of Extraordinary specilialization, Helm of Balduran, 2xRoP +2, Clasp of Bron's Cloak (+5% physical resistance), Supreme Shelter, Girdle of Bluntness, Improved Cloak +2.
MPV: Limak the mastermind, 17% exp in game, 21% in chapter

Imoen (Kensai): Level 390, 277HP, AC -6, Thac0 -29/-24. (Damage: 39-53 / 34-41) APR: 5, 20% phys resistance without buffs
STR 25, DEX 18, CON 18, INT 9, WIS 18, CHA 10
Judgement Day / Waters Edge +4 (staff of strength +4 / Ravager +6), Indigo Ioun Stone, Amulet of Ilmater, Helm's gift, RoP +2, Cloak +2, Paws of cheetah, Cloud giant girdle
MPV: Ancient Dragon, 32% exp in game, 30% in chapter

Cernd: Level 39, 165P, AC -5, 45% magic resistance, 40% magic damage resistance (gains up to 75% MR if "magic restance"is cast)
STR 22, DEX 9, CON 16, INT 12, WIS 25, CHA 17
Stuff: Noble staff of Earth, Paws of the furious cat, Circlet of golden flowers, Aegis of torment (+3 AC, +2 Con, +15HP), Heartwood Ring Imp. ring of gaxx, Fire giant girdle, Master of high forest, girdle of bluntness, Paws of the cheetah
Spell slots: 1st/16, 2nd/16, 3rd/15, 4th/17, 5th/17, 6th/19, 7th/16
MVP: Draconis, 6% exp in game / chapter

Neera: Level 34, 104HP, AC -6, 105% resistance to fire, 50% resistance to magic, 100% to poison
STR 11, DEX 15, CON 16, INT 10, WIS 18, CHA 11
Stuff: Noble Staff of Fire, Greater Robe of Invocation, Bracers of defense AC3, Obsidian ioun stone, Talisman of Greater Protection, Rop +2, Cloak +2, Sorcerian Ring, Tymora's Gift (+10 magic resistance, +3 luck), paws of the cheetah
Spell slots: 1st/11, 2nd/11, 3rd/11, 4th/11, 5th/11, 6th/12, 7th/12, 8th/11, 9th/10
MVP: Green Wyrm, 3% exp in game / chapter

K/T: Level (13)/39, 293HP, -22AC, Tac0 -15 / -8, 45% phys resistance (55% against crushing / 70% with golem slayer), 10% resitance to magic
STR 23, DEX 25, CON 19, INT 13, WIS 14, CHA 12
Stuff: improvised blend & defender of easthaven (or Golem Slayer / Noble Staff of Air), Enhanced Armour of Stamina, Gauntlets of Blessed might Necro Ioun stone, Protector of the woods, Ring +2, Cloak of Daywalker, Boots of Ranger lord
MVP: Demon Prince, 35% exp in game / 32% in chapter

Neera's Spellbook:

Lvl1: magic missile, chromatic orb, protection from evil, charm person, nahal's reckless dweller
Lvl2: blur, glitter dust, self's acid arrow, mirror image, resist fear,
LVl3: flame arrow, remove magic, slow, vampiric touch, dispel magic
Lvl4: greater malision, improved invisibility, polymorph other, stoneskin, fire shield (red)
Lvl5: breach, lower resistances, spell immunity, hold monster, cone of cold
Lvl6: improved haste, protection from magic energy, protection from magic weapons, goi, chain lightning,
Lvl7: mordekainen's sword, power word: stun, spell sequencer, spell turning, finger of death
Lvl8: Monster Summoning 8 (MS8), Spell trigger, foreknowledge, bigbys' clenched fist, pierce shield
Lvl9: RvE, Wish, CC, MS9 + IA, comet, dragon's breath, energy blades, summon planetar

**


EDE

Prebuff; PfE / PfME / PfL & PfF on front line. Summon Joolon, Moon Dog, Berserker & Greater Elemental

We are still so completely OP that it doesn't cause significant problems, but we do have to tinker a little bit with our spell selections & optimize. In the start we send Joolon, Berserker, Moon Dog + greater elemental on an Ultra. Pasha to 2nd ultra and the rest of the crew to the supreme golem.

We first take out the supreme golem (it takes 1,5 - 2 rounds or so, with Kensai's CS, DD's CS & K/T under TT (from Noble staff of Air). Then we whack an Ultra. Pasha is on the 2nd Ultra (we drop PfME, IH & Regen on him in the start). Once our crew gets our ultra to "near death" Pasha has dismantled his Ultra. He's quite effective. Then it's just a marathon of waiting our the absolute immunities and whacking a few waves of raksasha summons. At some point we take a magical rest. We use maybe 10 barbarian essences and a few potions of fire resistance and 2 potions of magic shielding, because we want to make sure Necro is safe when she's hit with ADHW's. By the end we have so many barbarian essences left we could dump them in a pool and go for a swim.

We don't know how many waves of Raksashas there are so unfortunately Pasha gets killed when the last wave hits us. Damnit. The Prince dies within the next few rounds. Would have liked to see what he has to say after the fight. Naturally we can't raise him.

We go for the throne straight afterwards to see how that fight is but even with our quite depleted crew we win the fight on the 1st go. We spare our spells and during the last round our casters go IA and unleash everything in our spellbooks.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 28 2021, 03:57 PM

[pekkae]

a few final thoughts

The K/T is an insanely powerful character. While we sort of cheated as we got the Swashbucklers armour for the K/T even without it it's just nuts. We can reach thaco of -22 (or so) with him while having a continuous 40% phys resistance (50-60% with Swashbucklers armour). But the best part about the character is that we can utilize a wide variety of gear that otherwise wouldn't be available for us. The 2nd thing is that since he can cast spells from scrolls, it brings a whole new dimension to what we can do in the game. While we didn't have to use it, the limited wish time stop would be an interesting choice since with an APR of 10 (and a Thac0 of -17 or so without TT), it's probably an extremely effective combination against pretty much anything else than a boss that is immune to time stop.

The K/T was the first character max out levels which it does somewhere midway through ToB. So there's quite a lot of room for that character to improve by just dualclassing the character later. The fighter side can be easily developed into level 15 or perhaps even into level 18. The first place I see where it might be a problem is the orc fight, where you'll probably need UAI or else it will be very, very much micromanaging. Though for the JD fight the UAI is a near must, if you do like I do and do the fight as fast as possible. A level 15 Kensai would give the character a base Thac0 of 1 (with Kensai's bonuses) or so and a bonus of 2 with TT. In the end that's +1 ThacO when under TT which the character will be for most of the time during the most difficult fights.

I was trying to max out our exp in order to get Cernd to level 14 for the Kobold fight in Spellhold but I realized at some point during the game that I could have easily just used a manual of elaboration and 50k for nature's gift which would have solved that nasty business completely. In the end it wasn't (and isn't) needed because with the right tactic the fight isn't even a tough one.

The Demogorgon fight was easily the most time, energy & resource consuming fight in the game. But also one that is definitely worth it. Doing demogorgon as fast as possible makes the crew insanely powerful and while one can easily breeze through pretty much the rest of the game (well, besides EDE) it's still so much fun.

For the demofight I might try it at some point as it was meant to be played, so without the extra items I had + without the Swashbuckler's armour. Though the only item that really helped in the fight was the "dread bond" since it gives immunity to Panic. Alternatively I could have probably just used the Peridan for DD, and optimize a little bit further. Doing this again I would definitely forge the hammer of thor for the fight and made sure one of my characters could use it for it, together with Royal Elemental Staff help quite a lot in the fight.

Neera really gets to another level after the demofight becoming a true force to reckon with. In my game mages roles are Necro RvE's and Neera Wishes / uses her tremendous selection of 9th level spell to whatever the situation needs.

We didn't get to forge everything we wanted to as we were, in the end, one ring of protection +4 short, as well as a Halberd (either one of the uber powerful ones), which we never seem to able to afford. Though in the end we have an abundance of resources left including 5(?) manuals of elaboration, 10 or so permanency scrolls and 20 barbarian essences / potions of magic shielding/ potions of magic resistance with 100 oils of resurgence + 300 potions of superior healing (we never really use those).

As a final note, I've said this a number of times but this mod is amazing. It's extremely well balanced, super fun and I've spent more hours on this than I care to count. Thanks a lot for making my favourite game of all time so much more enjoyable!

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 26 2021, 09:49 PM

[critto]

Congrats on finishing the run! I wouldn't go as far as to claim the mod *extremely* balanced, plenty would disagree with that assessment :-) Nonetheless, glad you're enjoying it so much.

I have recently started a run of my own (which almost immediately went on hiatus for various reasons), but I did manage to remember how fun IA could be. With luck, I'll be able to experience the mod anew somewhere during the next five years or so

[lroumen]

Nice job! You did it so quick in my experience.
I followed your progress over the last month and it just seems like a smooth ride most of the time. I also never thought of using polymorph other on enemies like golems. I generally hit them with the relevant damage time and endure them, but I guess disabling them them this way also just takes them out.

I am a bit confused on the kensai thief. Did you replace him with kensai Imoen and dual Imoen at the same level 13?

Overall I agree that any type of fighter mixed with thief is very good to have. Kensai thief is an obvious damage bringer
I also found that mod introduced items help a lot with bonuses and immunities that are virtually absent on IA items. Like panic protection or early negative plane protection.

This post has been edited by lroumen: Dec 28 2021, 12:09 AM

[pekkae]

Congrats on finishing the run! I wouldn't go as far as to claim the mod *extremely* balanced, plenty would disagree with that assessment :-) Nonetheless, glad you're enjoying it so much.

I have recently started a run of my own (which almost immediately went on hiatus for various reasons), but I did manage to remember how fun IA could be. With luck, I'll be able to experience the mod anew somewhere during the next five years or so

Thanks. Ofc ppl are free to think that . What I mean by extremely well balanced is that everything in the game is doable with the right tactic & depending on your party composition while utilizing your strengths. Assuming the party is balanced. But for sure it takes some time to get to know the various details & aspects (and the easy possible sequences of events) while if one misses some key aspects things get really difficult like my first run where we went to spellhold while our party had 1,6Me exp.

Why did your run go hiatus? And that sounds great, if you find the fun in the game again. I finished the game yesterday and I planned a new party a little bit already (since I want to try Jaheira & finish Vagrant's quests) but I don't think I'll do it right away. Maybe after 12 months or so.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 28 2021, 12:28 PM

[pekkae]

Nice job! You did it so quick in my experience.
I followed your progress over the last month and it just seems like a smooth ride most of the time. I also never thought of using polymorph other on enemies like golems. I generally hit them with the relevant damage time and endure them, but I guess disabling them them this way also just takes them out.

I am a bit confused on the kensai thief. Did you replace him with kensai Imoen and dual Imoen at the same level 13?

Overall I agree that any type of fighter mixed with thief is very good to have. Kensai thief is an obvious damage bringer
I also found that mod introduced items help a lot with bonuses and immunities that are virtually absent on IA items. Like panic protection or early negative plane protection.

Thanks. It was quite quick I think.

I've played through almost every encounter already a few times so for the toughest fights I knew quite well already. The plan was to make it as easy as possible by just overpowering the enemies in all encounters and it turned out quite well, the most troublesome fights were liches in temple ruins & the first drow ambush.

PO works great with golems and if my calculation is correct, it's also less spell-slot consuming than dismantling them with Ray of Fragmentation / Hand of Undoing. Also since we can use triggers & sequencers for LR's / PO's, the process is quite smooth quite early.

I was planning on replacing Yoshimo with Imoen as the K/T but didn't because of Imoen's pendant, which is super useful for a Kensai. Also, coincidentally Imoen has almost perfect stats for the way I play a Kensai. So when Yoshimo left us & Imoen joined us I dropped my custom made half-orc Kensai for Imoen the Kensai and Yoshimo for a custom made K/T. In the end we didn't even use Imoens pendant so we could have easily just used Imoen as the K/T. We would have been a little bit more powerful that way since the custom made Half-Orc Kensai is more effective than Imoen the Kensai.

Pre-spellhold -> Post spellhold

Necro -> Necro
Neera -> Neera
Cernd -> Cernd
DD -> DD
*Kensai -> Imoen the Kensai
Yoshimo -> K(13)/T (Custom)

*Custom made Half-orc with 19str & 19con

I do not use the items I consider are OP / that give you huge immunities early on (like permanent NPP). I listed the items I used in a previous post and I'm going to reduce the items I use even further in next possible runs. And it is exactly like you wrote the a permanent NPP is very powerful that's why we were really looking forward to getting Imoen's extremely powerful pendant. I mostly use the pendants & belts from the packs since they compliment IA's items very well. For example without Tymora's Gift we don't really have any choice to give to Neera, besides a strength-enhancing belt which is practically useless since Neera doesn't do h2h in my games.

If anyone is interested the item packs are "Item Pack by Daulmakan 1,8" & "Item upgrade mod pack by Westley Weimer v 4.0". But they do introduce a few items that are completely OP, which we did not use & new ways of forging (like rings of protection +2 for 5k), which we did not use either. And yes, the "dread bond" with it's immunity to panic is super useful in Demofight, though we could have used Peridan for that as well.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Dec 28 2021, 09:07 AM

[pekkae]

Neera's Spellbook:

Lvl1: magic missile, chromatic orb, protection from evil, charm person, nahal's reckless dweller
Lvl2: blur, glitter dust, self's acid arrow, mirror image, resist fear,
LVl3: flame arrow, remove magic, slow, vampiric touch, dispel magic
Lvl4: greater malision, improved invisibility, polymorph other, stoneskin, fire shield (red)
Lvl5: breach, lower resistances, spell immunity, hold monster, cone of cold
Lvl6: improved haste, protection from magic energy, protection from magic weapons, goi, chain lightning,
Lvl7: mordekainen's sword, power word: stun, spell sequencer, spell turning, finger of death
Lvl8: Monster Summoning 8 (MS8), Spell trigger, foreknowledge, bigbys' clenched fist, pierce shield
Lvl9: RvE, Wish, CC, MS9 + IA, comet, dragon's breath, energy blades, summon planetar

We tried to select a little bit unconventional spells for Neera but the tactic wasn't very successful. So we have some spells in our spell book that weren't used almost at all. Would definitely change the following for the next run for a sorceror:

Lvl3: slow -> lighting bolt, dispel magic -> protection from fire
Lvl4: improved invisibility -> emotion, fire shield (red) -> rminor disruptor
Lvl5: hold monster -> shadow door
Lvl7: finger of death -> protection from elements
Lvl8: bigby's clenched fist -> adhw

[critto]

Why did your run go hiatus? And that sounds great, if you find the fun in the game again.

The usual reason – RL stuff happens.

[lroumen]

Ah, you had a kensai and a kensai thief. That is confusing

[bulian]

It seems feasible to get a Kensai(21)/Thief dual by very late SoA, I think. It seems UAI is still in the game, so that would mean that the character could (a few times) cast IA from a scroll followed by Kai, CS, and Backstab. Yikes!

I thought we had fixed the Swashbuckler armor and gem to always drop in one of the tweaks mods but I haven’t looked at the game and certainly not the scripts in quite a while. If not, we probably should do that modification at some point. There is some chatter about a couple of other tweaks to add before v7 comes out, but we’ll see.

Pekkae, What are your thoughts on Kensai (pure) vs Riskbreaker in terms of damage output, survivability, and overall utility?

[pekkae]

It seems feasible to get a Kensai(21)/Thief dual by very late SoA, I think. It seems UAI is still in the game, so that would mean that the character could (a few times) cast IA from a scroll followed by Kai, CS, and Backstab. Yikes!

I thought we had fixed the Swashbuckler armor and gem to always drop in one of the tweaks mods but I haven’t looked at the game and certainly not the scripts in quite a while. If not, we probably should do that modification at some point. There is some chatter about a couple of other tweaks to add before v7 comes out, but we’ll see.

Pekkae, What are your thoughts on Kensai (pure) vs Riskbreaker in terms of damage output, survivability, and overall utility?

I don't think there's a scroll for IA, as it's a "quest "level spell. But limited wish timestop with assassination should be possible while having 10APR & CS. But it'ss just one-off where you can use it. And the biggest bosses are immune to time stop, and even if they're not they are probably immune to backstabbing. I didn't even try backstabbing bosses, as it's so rare where it works. It's fun when it works though.

K(21)/T(23) should be doable late SoA yes, as it's 7,4Mexp points. The character would be "ready" for final-seal level fights in WK. Should be quite the beast that one. But it does lose out the ability to use Royal Elemental Staff's TT (as it drops Thac0) and it takes such a long time so I'm not sure if it's worth it.

I haven't played Riskbreaker that much, just one game so I wouldn't know. But Kensai I think is quite the straightforward character, it's biggest drawbacks can be easily handled by correct positioning pre JD and after you get JD it will almost completely nullify the drawback of not being able to wear an armor. In the game up above my Kensai didn't even take "Hardiness" 's (only 2) so only critical strikes. By the end it has a thac0 of -30, so it should hit on every hit except a critical miss with 10APR under IH. I could easily drop an IH on Kensai and leave it alone with an elemental golem, once you get either skins / pfmw your Kensai is safe. And because of JD the character is even self-healing.

But I'll probably give the riskbreaker another chance as I'll succumb into trying hard / insane at some point.

[bulian]

Good point on IA being a high level ability and not a scroll. Whoops!