Critto's v5 journal Options

[critto]

Okay. Really, the mod is totally fun and pleasure, but in the name of all that sacred, next version should ease up on spiders a little bit.
I thought 2 drow ambushes were hard to beat with those annoying spiders being everywhere. Apparantly, I was mistaken.
Deeper underdark. Cave with an instant supply of whisper spiders (where they just keeping coming from nowhere). Really, how can I beat this thing? They dispel everything, they somehow draw characters from place to themselves, and sometimes they just kill chars instantly. Why is that? Why no info about the damage being done or save-throw being made (dwarf-kensai, instantly dead. huh?). And, finally, there are just TOO DAMN much of them, my characters can't handle them, even though I have a fighter-heavy party (vagrant, kensai, blade, berserker-cleric, sorc, thief/mage). I am doing buffs, of course, but they are being dispelled very soon and there is no point and time in refreshing them. Summons doesn't help much too (tried 5 hasted mordy swords). Tried magic (adwh, chain lightnings), but they are magic resistant, as it seems.
I am no great tactician, but how am I supposed to win that battle? :) Just keep reloading and hope for better save-throws and no instant-kills? I would be really glad to have some advices on that battle. This is the first one in the game which makes me feel annoyed, instead of being interested, having fun and searching for better tactics.

[Kerkes]

Spider drain stats like Inteligence and Wisdom, much like Mind _Flayers. You'll have a hard time if your characters have low INT and WIS scores. If a score reaches 0, insta death occurs.
SPOILER!

Try prot evil, def harmony, low AC is good here.
As I remember, mages are also very good here, try malison + Emotion on them.
ADHW should work I believe.
What I would do is try to get a very low AC on Blade (def spin, some buffs from Cleric) and use him as a decoy, while the rest of fighters do the beating.
I didn't use summons here.
For preventing confusion, just equip kensai with Lirarcor, Vagrant with Harmony shield, ber-cler Enrage, go to work under imp.haste and hope for some critical hits

[Sikret]

Whisper Spiders don't have the ability to instantly kill characters, but they have a chance per hit to drain INT and WIS. Do your warriors have low INT and WIS? If so, it can explain why they die fast against these creatures.

Also, their ability to pull/draw your characters is due to the "Web Lariat" they throw and you should see the message on the screen when any of them throws a lariat.

To be honest, I don't remember having any problems defeating those spiders in the deeperdark dungeons; so, I can't think of any particular tactical advice except the usual standard buffing (Chaotic Commands + Improved Haste), attacking, etc... Potions of Clarity can also be used to instantly refresh immunity to confusion if the CC is dispelled.

As for a magical approach, you can use spells which bypass MR, or alternatively you can cast "Lower Resistance" spells on a few of them before casting offensive spells.

EDIT: LOL, Kerkes was faster than me to tell you the essentials. It's very good to see that I don't have to worry about questions remaining without a reply here. Thanks!

This post has been edited by Sikret: Feb 11 2009, 07:56 PM

[critto]

Spider drain stats like Inteligence and Wisdom, much like Mind _Flayers. You'll have a hard time if your characters have low INT and WIS scores. If a score reaches 0, insta death occurs.

Whisper Spiders don't have the ability to instantly kill characters, but they have a chance per hit to drain INT and WIS. Do your warriors have low INT and WIS? If so, it can explain why they die fast against these creatures.

Well, that certainly explains things. Even I don't understand the logic (how spiders can drain int and wis?), it now makes sense. My dwarf-kensai is not a wise fella indeed :) You know, actually illithids were annoying too because of their INT drain. But that is maybe just me being lame tactician. In fact, I used to "buff" my fighters with intelligence potions in non-IA games before fighting any illithids (maybe it is even more lame by IA standarts, but in fact I don't see any harm or cheating in such pre-buffs). Anyway, at least with illithids we can see who's been drained with help of special pictograms on character portrait. Maybe it's possible to add such a pic (or a message in the log) in case of the spiders? What do you think, Sicret? :) That'd be helpful, I think.

2 Kerkes:
No, ADHW didn't work, because of magic res. Btw, how exactly high is their resistance? Because, it seemed pretty much pointless to me to try and low-res all those spiders. If they have high MR, then it is totally not the right tactic here. Thanks for the other hints, I will try them out tomorrow.

2 Sikret:
Thanks for the info about lariat. I don't know how I missed messages in the log. Still though, that ability creates the main problem in this particular battle, because with every new spider some character (usually, the same one) is being dragged. This is bad for two reasons: a) he's constantly out of action, only takes the beating; b) he's being rounded by spiders which means he's going to be killed very soon. Is it because spiders think that character is trying to run away?

Also, spells that bypass MR - it is a sunfire and fireball, if I am not mistaken (too bad my sorc doesn't know them; we'll see what t/m can do, I guess)?

Well, thanks for your help. I will try another take on them tomorrow :)

This post has been edited by critto: Feb 11 2009, 08:27 PM

[Sikret]

Well, that certainly explains things. Even I don't understand the logic (how spiders can drain int and wis?)

Well, Whisper spiders are mainly defined as creatures with offensive "mental" abilities.

Anyway, at least with illithids we can see who's been drained with help of special pictograms on character portrait. Maybe it's possible to add such a pic (or a message in the log) in case of the spiders? What do you think, Sicret? That'd be helpful, I think.

Their INT and WIS draining ability already adds an "ability score drained" icon to the target's portrait. Haven't you noticed it? The reason you didn't notice the icon can be that your character dies too fast (due to his low stats) before you can even notice that the icon was added to his portrait.

Also, spells that bypass MR - it is a sunfire and fireball, if I am not mistaken

Fireball doesn't bypass MR. Sunfire, Dragon's Breath and Vampiric Touch do

SPOILER!

Vampiric Touch is not an area affecting spell. It can only be cast on one taret and requires touching the target, but on the other hand, it will inflict more amount of damage than Sunfire to those spiders.

Well, thanks for your help. I will try another take on them tomorrow

You are welcome. Let us know how you defeat them on your next try.

[Raven]

SPOILER!

Try prot evil, def harmony, low AC is good here.
As I remember, mages are also very good here, try malison + Emotion on them.

Emotion doesn't work against Whisper Spiders. But you are right, good AC is useful because the Spiders' THAC0 scores are not that good. They hit automatically if you are unconscious from the Web Lariat, of course. Fortunately the unconsciousness can be prevented by Chaotic Commands, even though the drag effect can't.

This post has been edited by Raven: Feb 11 2009, 09:16 PM

[Kerkes]

yes, emotion works on the other type of spiders, sorry, my mistake, same for ADHWs and magic. Go melee on these, or alternatively try Vampiric, Sunfire if you like, but I recommend melee one at a time

This post has been edited by Kerkes: Feb 11 2009, 09:55 PM

[critto]

Well, I finally managed to beat those things. Used the melee tactic, of course. Blade really helped by being a low-AC decoy. But the spiders killed my b-c and t\m. Thankfully, I had the scroll of raise from the dead to resurrect my cleric. Thanks for the hints on that battle, again.

I have one more question. As I remember, one of the parts of the Wabe halberd was in posession of Sahuagin Prince. Does he still carry that part around? I didn't fight him so it means I have no way to acquire that part of the halberd (thus, I have no chance to forge Poseidon's Wrath)? Or maybe part of the halberd participates in item randomizer program, so I still have the chance?

And one more question. Is there any way to protect chars from deep shadows' strength drain?

This post has been edited by critto: Feb 12 2009, 09:02 AM

[Sikret]

I have one more question. As I remember, one of the parts of the Wabe halberd was in posession of Sahuagin Prince. Does he still carry that part around? I didn't fight him so it means I have no way to acquire that part of the halberd (thus, I have no chance to forge Poseidon's Wrath)? Or maybe part of the halberd participates in item randomizer program, so I still have the chance?

SPOILER!

I'm afraid, you have lost the chance to forge it in this run-through.

And one more question. Is there any way to protect chars from deep shadows' strength drain?

No, except for 'not being hit' and/or 'killing them fast'.

[critto]

2 Sikret:

SPOILER!

I'm afraid, you have lost the chance to forge it in this run-through.

Well, what are you gonna do, huh? I'll forge it another run then. There're still some interesting items I can consider, anyway.

No, except for 'not being hit' and/or 'killing them fast'.

Yeah, I figured so Had to drink strength potions in the battle with this things, but it was fun. Now I'm trying to figure out how to beat 'The Mighty One'. Very tough fella, indeed.

[matti]

He's really not that bad compared to Green Wyrm, not to mention Ancient Dragon (shivers) and other ToB dragons.

[critto]

Heh. Finally finished off The Mighty One. Tried unsuccessfully several days earlier (mostly studying the beast's behaviour), and today I defeated him. The most annoying thing about him is his wail, which sometimes kills chars instantly unless they are protected with DW or succeed a saving throw. It was so fun, and I want to congratulate Sikret once again for creating such an interesting and challenging mod. I also enclose a little report of my victory, so maybe more experienced players could comment on that. Also, I've mentioned one nasty bug, nature of which is a mystery to me.
SPOILER!

My initial plan was the following: give draco somebody to kick around, in my case: blade with couple of different protections and potions, kensai and two swanmays. Meanwhile, mages and clerics make draco to waste his death fogs on summoned elementals and using Zone of SA to get rid of the nasty effects. Then I summon some skeleton warriors and mordy swords, 'haste' them and throw into the battle. It happens just about time when dracolich's out of stoneskins and PfMWs. The hardest thing is, as I mentioned earlier, to keep chars, especially mages, alive with DW.
I've made about 5-6 tries and succeed.
The first time around today I nearly managed to beat him, but he killed my prot when we were 2-3 rounds away from victory. It wasn't a good try anyway since dracolich also managed to kill my cleric, which means no resurrection until we go back to the surface. So even if it was a success I still might've reloaded.
Tries 2-4 were doomed from the beginning because dracolich managed to silence my cleric, thus taking her out of action for a long time and leaving us without ZoSA and DWs (vagrant have a couple of the first ones, but that's not enough).
In my fifth try I've experienced very funny problem: when the party was about to finish off dracolich (my plan was going quite smoothly, 4 characters and couple of summons were hitting him), very strange bug has happened. I suddenly lost control of my charaters, and the area switched! I couldn't see the dracolich area anymore, but I could observe the beholder's lair! And the battle seemed to be over, since no messages were being added into the log and I could save whenever I want. Very strange how it's just happened. I haven't used any console commands or keys, in fact, the debug mode was off. And, of course, I've had to load the game, which was the saddest thing of all.
And the six try was the successful one. All the characters held on for a long enough time, so I managed to execute my plan more or less smoothly. Sadly, about the time when the final phase should've begun (draco has no more protections, so we beat him hard), he wailed to death both my mages and the blade. Thankfully, cleric survived this hit (maybe it was due to the last DW I placed on him), summoned a couple of skellies and we finally killed the damned beast!

The good thing about this battle is that, due to the defensive nature, it teaches how to play in 'chess match' mode, making decisions every time the game pauses and not leaving any detail missed.

This post has been edited by critto: Feb 19 2009, 03:38 PM

[Sikret]

Congratulations, Critto!

These are no longer "random questions"; so I collected and split them into a separate topic for you.

[critto]

2 Sikret:

These are no longer "random questions"; so I collected and split them into a separate topic for you.

Indeed, they are not. Thank you for creating a separate topic I will try and write some more if anything interesting will happen in course of this adventure (and, I'm sure it will).
By the way, have you read about the bug I've mentioned? What do you think is the nature of this bug? I have never experienced something like that before.

This post has been edited by critto: Feb 19 2009, 04:59 PM

[Sikret]

By the way, have you read about the bug I've mentioned? What do you think is the nature of this bug? I have never experienced something like that before.

I just checked and didn't find anything which might have caused such a thing. Had you possibly attacked the Cursed Ghost in the first area of the maze? Even if so, what you have experienced was not a bug. I will explain what has happened if you tell me that you had attacked (or tried to pickpocket) the Cursed Ghost.

[critto]

I just checked and didn't find anything which might have caused such a thing. Had you possibly attacked the Cursed Ghost in the first area of the maze? Even if so, what you have experienced was not a bug. I will explain what has happened if you tell me that you had attacked (or tried to pickpocket) the Cursed Ghost.

I certainly never attacked him, of that I am sure. But, to tell you the truth, I do not remember about the pickpocketing. I might have tried out of pure curiosity. Though there were many reloads while I was fighting my way through the maze, so I am not sure that I've saved the game exactly after pickpocketing. Have I done something wrong by trying to pickpocket him? So what exactly has happened there? Why did it occur only once?

This post has been edited by critto: Feb 19 2009, 05:40 PM

[Sikret]

As I said, even if you attacked the Cursed Ghost, it wouldn't be a problem. It's abosolutely impossible to leave the final area of the maze without killing Dracolich. So what might have happened in your case is this: While one of your characters were standing at the rear end of the area near the exit, Dracolich has indeed died and you had clicked on the exit without noticing that Dracolich had fallen. The exit in that area doesn't require all of the party members to be close to it. Even if one character is close enough to use it, it will teleport the entire party to the beholders lair provided that Dracolich is dead.

If the Cursed Ghost had not been attacked and left, he would also appear to give his thanksgiving dialogue (that's why I asked about him). Did he appear in your successful run?

[critto]

As I said, even if you attacked the Cursed Ghost, it wouldn't be a problem. It's abosolutely impossible to leave the final area of the maze without killing Dracolich. So what might have happened in your case is this: While one of your characters were standing at the rear end of the area near the exit, Dracolich has indeed died and you had clicked on the exit without noticing that Dracolich had fallen. The exit in that area doesn't require all of the party members to be close to it. Even if one character is close enough to use it, it will teleport the entire party to the beholders lair provided that Dracolich is dead.

It seems like a logical explanation, but there were no messages of the draco dying in the log (or maybe I missed it?) and, what's most important, I do not remember seeing a loading splash-screen. It just went dark, I pressed 'm' key to open the map and saw the beholder's lair. None of my characters were in that area.

If the Cursed Ghost had not been attacked and left, he would also appear to give his thanksgiving dialogue (that's why I asked about him). Did he appear in your successful run?

Yes, he appeared after the battle and gave some exp to my party.

This post has been edited by critto: Feb 20 2009, 05:43 AM

[critto]

I have two questions.

1. About the Shimmering Light quest.
SPOILER!

I have found the note on the elite doppelganger body, took it to the knight and got 1 piece of the crypted note. It is my understanding that I should find the second part of the note somewhere myself in order to resume the quest, right?

2. About the battle with the guildmaster of the rune assassins. Trying to figure it out. The concept of it reminds me of the battle with Lord Roenall. What I wanted to ask is,
SPOILER!

those simple assassins (rune and elite rune) keep spawning until all the masters and the guildmaster are dead? Or should I dispose of coordinators as well in order to stop them from spawning? The battle is quite messy because of them so my first priority is to prevent them from reappearing.

[Sikret]

1. About the Shimmering Light quest.
SPOILER!

I have found the note on the elite doppelganger body, took it to the knight and got 1 piece of the crypted note. It is my understanding that I should find the second part of the note somewhere myself in order to resume the quest, right?

Yes, just play all other IA quests normally, you will find it.

2. About the battle with the guildmaster of the rune assassins. Trying to figure it out. The concept of it reminds me of the battle with Lord Roenall. What I wanted to ask is,
SPOILER!

those simple assassins (rune and elite rune) keep spawning until all the masters and the guildmaster are dead?

Yes.

SPOILER!

Or should I dispose of coordinators as well in order to stop them from spawning?

No.