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

Chapter 1
Join Yoshimo (the bounty hunter for we have traps & locks in the game).

***
There's new stuffs at Irenicus's dungeon as well!! The lesser earth elemental hits for 70pts of damage, which seems like a bit overblown at this stage. We manage though we've never slept this many times in the dungeon on previous runs.
***


Chapter 2

Visit Copper Coronet & Join Nalia
Get Jan Jansen out of trouble (don't join Jan)
Free Viconia (don't join Vic)
Enter De'Arnise Keep
Clear some trolls from 1st floor. This is just so that Nalia doesn't leave.

There's what in their chicken
Madaufl wants to make peace with the village
Juggernaut Golem
(Shaman dispels the umber hulk's confusions)

Start Animal trouble in trademeet (join Cernd)
Start Dealing with trdemeet geanies
Faldron
she falls to hold monster + 4 vampiric touches

Adratha's cottage
Max prebuffs. Summon CS upstairs. CS whacks the spawning Rakshahas upstairs and Shaman tanks "Adratha". Cernd zone of sweet air's. No problem.

Heeding the Spirit of the Grove Part 1
Nalia makes a level so now we can use her in combat as well. Great. Now we have a little bit of combat ability. We don't have a single single class fighter with us.

Return Adratha's head
Heroes of Trademeet
Suna Seni
drop everyone with emotions (Cernd + Nalia), secret word + breach for mage. Shaman dispels confusion/chaos (spiritual clarity works here very very well).

Mae'Var questline
Mae'Vars crew falls to spirit fire + gm + emotion + emotion. Mae'Var is whacked by buffed up Jaheira + Spirit Shifted Shaman.

***
We don't really need a fighter in the beginning. Our multiclasses / dualclasses + Clan Spirit + Shaman's Spirit Shift is easily enough. In the early parts. Yoshimo the Bounty Hunter is completely useless. We'll need to get Hexxat quite soon in order to improve the squad. Shaman is a real difference maker herein the early parts. For we have really good ability to skin-up and if we miss skins Shaman is there to mitigate the damage and keep everyone alive. Confusions are no problem because Shaman's spiritual clarity. And in the few fights which need a lot of H2H we can use spirit shift.

Crew: Necro, Shaman, Jaheira, Nalia, Yoshimo, Cernd


***
We go to slums, pay Gaelan Boyle and hop to Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Return poisoned man (spirit fire + emotion knock down anything)
Prebek's
We death spell

Xzar & Montaron
Find caretaker quest at graveyard

Sleep at copper coronet, Jaheira comes back

Jaheira returns to the Harper Hold part 2
Ployer
We prebuff & spirit shift and whack the mages before they materialize

Wellyn
Free Hendak & the slaves
Beastmaster (goes very smoothly with breach + spirit fire + flame arrow. In the end Shaman spirit Shifts and whacks Tabitha together with Clan Spirit.

Neb (prebuff with true sight, then whack) Cuttpurese has a few minor squencers for sale. We buy 'em.
Finish Sir Sarlers
Fallen Paladins
Solve Skinner murders
Shaman Spirit shifts for the abomination

Find the kidnappers who buried Tirdir
Mook
One of the vampire-encounters is triggered on our way to Mook. How nice. We were expecting to fight vampires. We summon berserker warrior, they go after him so we are free to whack away.
Shaman's spirit shift works wonders here as well.

Clear Sewers below CC

***
Yoshimo is so useless that we decide it's good time get rid of him. So we join Clara to the crew
***

Hexxat & Dragomir
Join Hexxat the Swashbuckler

Riddle in the Sewers (
We buy the Spear of Kuldahar for this. we can drop Nalia's effective AC to -22, it helps quite a alot. Shadow Lover whacks Hexxat though, I thought she couldn't be stunned. Oh well.

Investigate and destroy cult of the eyeless
Drop gauths with spirit fire + emotion combinations. it works tremendously well.

We don't get the cleric stronghold, for some reason.
(the reason is we didn't have multiple strongholds installed )

Slaver Stockade
We go to visit Slavers where we prebuff to the max incl. PfF + free action for Hexxat. Then we just interrupt cleric (MS from Nalia), gm, 2xweb cleric (minor sequencer), Haegan taken down by Nalia (who has -16AC against slashing) + Jaheira + CS. Breach cleric, whack and the rest we just whack away, use some cloudkills and fireballs. The mage we gm + emotion.

Crypt king & queen
For we want enchanced cloak of dragomir. Goes very smoothly even without Spirit Shifting shaman. Crypt queen targets Hexxat at the end and Shamanrescues her. As always.

Guild Contacts
Goes quite smoothly. Shaman rescues us by healing the stunned Hexxat. Buffed up Nalia (Shield of Harmony + flame tongue) with Skeleton Warriors whacks the spawns.

Cernd's Child
We let go of Cernd, pick up Dorn and switch Nalia with our custom made F/I. So now we are almost in final form.

Dorn's bloody path part 1
Mencar Pebblecrusher (takes a few tries for Dorn keeps getting backstabbed)
Hidden refuge quests (partly)
We want to do the "where's wilson" but we'll need to wait until we can drop Jaheira. So, maybe for the dawn ring thingy next?

Hexxat's request
Claw of the black leopard thingy). Whack all the ghost monks for max exp.

Clear Spiders from graveyard
Graveyard lower levels

***
Shaman is probably our MVP at this stage. Even with an avenger in the party. Has oodles of skins, spirit fire is really useful we actually have a working mechanism for healing our creq pre-regeneration. And the Shaman can spirit shift for late-fight hackathon.

***

Dawn Ring
Enter with max prebuffs ofc. We turn the amber into a chicken, then whack Borinali. He's quite tough for we are lacking both IH (we have just 2) capabilities and DPS. Kel-Dorn the undead hunter is in trouble here all the time as he's very vulnerable to backstabs. Hexxat gets whacked. Then we just wait it out for a little bit she's back up. Great. No Water's Edge?!? I was looking forward to supercharging my Swashbuckler. We'll just have to use Belm, once we get it.


***
We're having a little bit of second thoughts about our Kel-Dorn the Undead Hunter. While he'll improve, he's a terrible fighter at this point. And a RB with access to "Pendnt of recovered light" is equally protected almost with perma-NPP but with a lot better AC & phys. resistance. Hmh. It takes a long time for Kel-Dorn to reach his potential
***

De'Arnise Keep
We go to the De'Arnise Keep, but we can't win the Tor'Gal fight. We don't have death spell to insta'kill giant trolls. Shaman can't use arrows of fire to finish the trolls and we're missing weapons +3 as we can't hurt noble trolls without em. So we load up the auto-save before the fight and go searching for additional troll-whacking capabilities elsewhere as in we go to Trademeet and buy Martial Staff +3 (it goes to kel-Dorn).

Luckily, we do know of a fight with oodles of exp available and we're sort of supercharged for it.

So:

Bodhi
The basic vampires are a breeze, muahah! There's nothing they can do against 3 characters with perma-NPP. Tanova causes big headches and 5 reloads. Finally we just summon CS + 4 skeleton warriors. Prebuff to the max incl PfCold. Haste everything then send summons & Jaheira to whack Tanova while the rest take out Vampires one by one. Shaman rescues Hexxat once again with timely healing. The ambush is super easy, ditto for Lassal & Bodhi - just whack away. (max prebuffs & summons though). We get some levels and a +3 weapon for F/I.

Tor'Gal

It's a complete mess. We comprehensively buff our F/I, drop her AC to -20 against crushing, potion of cloud giant strength, with both fireshields and IH etc. Then she takes SI:Abjuration. She's very safe as Tor'Gal doesn't have RRoR and she's safe from dispels. F/I runs to the middle of the pack to take as much aggro as possible. She wins the fight for us. Jaheira + Dorn take the gem. Then we try to separate them trolls much as possible and have complete fits over finishing the Noble Trolls, as they seem to require 2-3 CO's /AA's or so.Takes forever. Dorn gets whacked by the 2nd last noble troll, we raise him & insta heal from Shaman. In the end, it's haste, dispel, haste etc. Once we (= mostly F/I). Just before we're about to get Tor'Gal it turns Hexxat(?). Then we "impervious sanctity of the mind" - her but it doesn't do anything. A few whacks, Tor'Gal drops to "near death" Shaman spirit shifts and Tor'Gal falls. We run around the compound for a little bit for Hexxat to regain her composure.

Windsper Hills
Rukh Conjurer: fully buffed up F/I tanks throughout. First golem ambush is handful. We seprate them, Shaman + CS take coin + gem. Necro takes a coin. The remaining gem + bone golem is whacked by Hexxat, (Kel-)Dorn, F/I and Jaheira. We whack a golem, Jaheira wonderous recalls, whack another, Jaheir wonderous recalls again. Whack the bone golem first, the rest is just mechanics. We are very unsure though how this could be played out without 4 (+1) skinned characters. We're also lacking some weapons +3 and IH capabilities, at this stage. Necro makes a level giving us an additional IH, a very helpful thing. So does the Shaman, who gets wonderous recall. Now he can tank for ages. Also Jaheira makes a level giving CS +3 weapons + additional skills. I'll miss her when she's gone. For Conster we summon invisible stalkers (where Lords spawn), sleep, summons CS & buff it a little bit. Go downstairs, have the talk, prebuff to the max,back upstairs where we have CS + 3 Invisible Stalkers waiting. Conster we 2xRRoR, spirit fire + Gm + hold monster. Then milk all lords. Then whack Conster

Dorn's bloody path part2 (the resurrection tree thingy)
Dorn's quests don't seem to drop our reputation, as they should. We tinker a little bit and find out that since we gave Dorn Keldorn's stats the charisma increase from 16->18 makes a big difference. Haha. Anyway. We don't really like this quest. We get the Visage though, it's nice

***
Then we're at crossroads. We sleep outdoors & Jaheira leaves. As in the most effective fighter we have and the best summoner we have. It's terrifying. We pick up Valygar, open the sphere and drop Valygar ad then pick up Rasaad the Priest of Tempus ... we have no idea how this will turn out.

****

Chapter 3 (part 2 - "uncharted waters").


***
The crew is in it's final form (or what is most likely the final form ).

So we enter some unknowns from this point onwards. While the quests are known, our capabilities nd their limits are not. Our estimation is that it's going to be quite tight with the setup that we have. We'll be missing some extraordinary superpowers with this crew and are a little bit unsure about how we can maximize our current crew's potential.

I'm not sure how this is possible but Necro has 24%of total kills in the party(?). MVP is Hexxat with 32% in kills. We're getting quite adept at protecting her from aggro of big monsters. With IH she's at 5 APR. That's pretty good with 19 STR atm.
***


Helping Tiris in trademeet
Kalah & Circus tent
Return Neb's head
We were saving these to max reputation. Before these we visit a temple and buy as back up to reputation of 16. After these we're back p to 18. A few more to go until we're at 20.

Rasaad's quests
Skipity-skip.

edit: Ooh. We get an item from these which we have dismissed every single time we've played the game. But now we have a wy of circumventing the disabilities. Hmh. This gives us ideas.

Neera's Quests
Just whack everything

Temple Ruins
Shdow Dragon goes quite smoothly. Max prebuffs ofc. Max summons. Max prebuffs for summons. We first start with 2xsecret word, but they don't seem to work so Necro spellstrikes (scroll), F/I breaches. Thaxll'ssillyia usually silences our priest, then PFMW's as much as possible. We double breach, so Necro breaces, then F/I, then Necro. Once it's down to "badly hurt" we spirit shift Shaman & coordinate frontline. It works and Thax falls before first heal is out. We have just enough APR's & DPS to make it.

PoT should be quite ok quite soon. Even though he's lacking in APR's the ability to get 25STR is really good in the early fights. (That's why the half-orc Kensai is insanely effective in the early parts as natural 19str + DUHM is really powerful combination early on on a full fighter and Kensai especially).

***
We don't finish shade lord though. It's too difficult for now. It's really hurting here that F/I doesn't have a crushing weapon +3. That and our 6th level spell slots, which are limited to 3. We'll be soon back, we just need to pick up a little bit of exp before in order to get additional 6th level spell slots + a warhammer +3 for F/I.

We're somewhat behind in terms of DPS + combat protections compared to where we could be at this point. The early game Swashbuckler isn't really a force, it needs a lot of babysitting. Ditto for kel-Dorn & Priest of Tempus. Their superpowers will come a lot later on and we'll have to find some way of managing until then.

***

Planar Sphere
For halflings we summon 3 invisible stalkers, then rest. Summon anaconda + max prebuffs. Summons + F/I take the casters + entourage. The halfling with the bow targets Hexxat so Shaman stays near hear and just heals away while everyone free pounds the halfling with the bow. Necro drops a few emotions + a gm near where F/I is. F/I also drops an emotion. Shaman rescues Hexxat, as always.

1st golem ambush goes very smoothly. Shaman is really good at tanking and because we have the Half-Orc version (with 19tstr) + paws + shaman circlet we can do some damage as well. Anyway max buffs, max summons, 1 coin for necro, 1 for shaman, 2 gems for F/I (who has -22 against crushing). Send summons to battle the bone golem. Whack one gem, PoT + Kel-Dorn go to whack the bone golem, then 2nd gem. Then coins. Shaman recalls some skins at some point. We easily have enough skins to do this thanks to Wonderous recall of Shsman + really low effective ac of F/I.

Lavok. It's quite tricky. But we have just enough tanking with an Anaconda to do this. We max prebuff, enter, F/I takes 2 gems (she can do it easily), 3xstalkers + anaconda + the rest take the Skeleton Lords. Skeleton Warrior goes for Lavok. When Lavok death spells we just summon the berserker warrior to block Lavok's path. Once Berserker is down, we summon another Skeleton Warrior (PoT has like 6 or so). Necro takes one lord, summons take one lord, Shaman takes 2 lords. The tricky part is getting the first lord down for Shaman can easily tank one lord. After 1st lord is down, we pound the Lord who's dismantled stalkers and who is anaconda. Then Shaman heals our Anaconda (it's really good here). Then we dismantle the rest of the lords, dismantle the gems and then we coordinate a few RRoR's (we use 4 here) + breaches. F/I whacks Lavok in the end, she has SI:Abjuration + PFME active (PFME from a a scroll).

Engine room. Enter through fire chamber. Necro & Shaman take coins, F/I takes gem. We pound a gem first with the rest, then Necro's coin. Before we can drop Necro's coin Shaman has whacked it's own coin, he can most definitely dish out the hurt too. Shaman is a little bit like our F/I as in it really shines in these fights. He has 6 skins + 6 wonderous recalls (or so), so the Shaman can tank golems until the end of time ...Halfway through the engine room Necro, F/I + Shaman all make levels. Great. We get some superpowers.

The Tanar'Ri are nasty for we lack DPS. a lot. Anyway, we max prebuff, max summon, Necro vocalize (we took it at the start) + we have the amulet of whispers. We can heal + regen anaconda a little bit and knock back one of the maurezhi. Still, it's a mess. We use "demon hunter" here, but we're not sure about it's effect. PoT / kel-Dorn / Hexxat can't relly tank at all here, so we're mostly down to F/I + Necro/Shaman tanking. F/I runs to the middle of the pack with ridiculously low AC as usual. She wins the fight for us. Necro can also dish out damage is in triple minor disruptor sequencer.

***
We visit cromwells and forge harper's ward. we're going to give it to our cleric. We also get the 2nd spell sequencer from Lavok. How nice. It goes to F/I (who can use it around underdark or so, lol).

We are some much behind in terms of combat efficiency where we could be. Switching Swashbuckler to a RB would help tremendously (also with our lacking IH capabilities). Necro has quite the limited IH capabilities (only 3), while a sorcerer would have 5 at this point. And our PoT has 1,5APR's. While he'll eventually catch up, he'll get to 5 APR only at a very late stage.

Our crew would benefit enormously from few bonuses as in giving a kitted cleric +1 spells per level. Also giving "Giant Strength" to the kitted clerics would be extremely welcome to make them more appealing. For balancing purposes making giant strength a (kitted) cleric only spell would be a welcome addition. And it would sort of make sense as well.
***

Shade Lord

Try #2. This time we are equipped. Tiny improvements make big waves. We max prebuff, enter, debuff shade lord and summon (berserk, hexxat, anaconda, aerial servant)+ whack. F/I, who still doesn't have crushing weapon +3 (she does have a katana +3) goes to whack the lords with -22AC against slashing. The access to 7th level spells makes a big difference here as now we can use a 3xminor disruptor sequencer on one of the skeleton lords, once it's a little down on HP. it's a nifty way of getting rid of a single Skelly. That and some timely healing from Shaman to keep our summons alive, an anaconda and the aerial servant #2 make it all the way (thanks to healing ward & mend body from shaman). We have an Ok margin, it's not particularly close. After debuffing shade lord we 4xLR + GM + Doom + feeblemind it. At some point cleric goes "spare the dying" (if we're hit with dragon's breath or so). We're not sure if feeblemind works, but it doesn't use any of it's abilities as in triggers, dragon's breaths or adhw trigger. Just seems to stand pat there. We make it on the second try.

We visit our friend the spirit near the cabin and get the long awaited death spell. Time to meet Pai'Na soon (F/I has SI for we gave her some of the same spells that Nalia has).

Hexxat's Request part 2
Whack everything.

Paladin part 1
Ranger Stronghold part 1
Paladin part 2
Paladin part 3

Founder of Trademeet
We have a date with him. Hoping to get Staff of Rhynn here. But when we enter the area Tempus'undispellable holy power + righteous magic gets dispelled. We tinker a little bit and while other non-dispellable spells are not dispelled, these ones are. We level up out Tempus to 20 to make sure they are non-dispellable. They still get dispelled.

Hmh.

***
Back to the drawing board & tinkering for a little bit. That the hp + rm get dispelled is a dealbreaker for us. This is the sole reason we took this character with us.

The most likely character that would be a great with fit our needs is the multiclassed r/c with full access to druidic spells. It has great Thac0, great APR and gets access to critical strikes (+ has ranger HLA's!). But we've played that kind of a character so many times and it's sort of a double cheat, as in getting druidic spells makes this character a force + we would be multiclassing a kit. And this run is mostly about maximising new stuffs instead of maximizing our crew. But we do need combat powers.

So what we do is we take a fighter and we dual class him into a cleric of talos. That way we can cast those combat buffs quite fast and combat wise we're pretty close though we have an edge in the early game APR wise. And we have a little bit of better casting ability in the early game. It's a cheat, so we feel quite bad, but we're not looking to abuse this (unlike necro powers, hehe).

***

Founder of Trademeet (continued)
SS 3xminor disruptor, contigency haste. triple giant strength pre-fight for F/I, kel-Dorn & F/PoTyr. Start with horn of blasting, then sequencer on on founder (3xminor disruptor) & F/I + kel-Doen whack the founder into oblivion, takes less than 1 rd or so. If it gets nasty, we could've mass healed from Shaman but no. Staff of Rhynn is here. How nice.

Ranger Protector Part 2

***
We go to Crooked Crane and meet with Tian. Ooh. We're all excited!
***

Tower of deception
Level 2 seems little bit too much. There's potions and spells including a scroll of spell immunity. We could get one from Pai'na but here we are. We fight some lizard men etc and run through the mod. We get 50k per character in exp afterwards. It seems like a completely overblown reward. Well, the fight with the guardian is a little tough. Then we get a sword +5 here. We stash it away as we do not have anyone who could even use it and it's comprehensively overblown in it's abilities and capabilities.

Ogre's tower
Full on buffs for everyone including free actions, CC's etc. Enter & obliterate. Hexxat gets Belm.

Sewer party
It's been too long since the last we were 'ere. While it is problematic at lower levels, we are too far ahead for these guys to be a problem. Max summons, max prebuffs. As usual, F/I runs to the middle of the pack and tanks. At some point she misses skins and Shaman rescues her, though she gets whacked just like a round after that. Shaman's healing power is extreme, even on insane.

Planar Prison
This is much harder than previously. But with double anaconda + triple aerial servant is very doable. Aerial Servant is really good at this stage. And lasts for ages. Shaman really shines here as we have oodles of chaotic commands + skins. And we can spiritual clarity away when necessary. F/I is yet again a key character for the tremendous tanking ability + low AC. We get some really nice stuffs here as in a missing improved haste scroll, now F/I has it as well. We also get elven ancestor's legacy, which will go to use immediately. Olé!

***
We're at 2,15MEXP. Just a few quick things before heading out to spellhold. We haven't visited watcher's keep or really even started the fighter stronghold yet. F/I can't use the elven ancient expertise for some reason. We console in the exp and drop the potion.
***

Screaming Statue
Prebuff. Anhilate. This has never been this easy. We try "false dawn" here, but even the tweaked version doesn't really look like it's worth it. As in our priest with 25STR + 4APR does more damage in a round with weapons. Sunray just does little bit of damage, it's difficult to cast for the very long casting time plus it really doesn't have that good range. Hexxat tanks the master vampire with Shaman's healing & ac of -26 against crushing. We are sort of supercharged for this fight. F/PoT works very well here, for it has oodles of skeleton summons, can drop ac really low & ofc. we shield of archons for the last wave. A barbarian essence within the loot. We know of a fight where we can use one.

Samia
We fail this a number of times, due to being a little bit ill-prepared. Mostly because Necro doesn't protect it's SI:Abjuration, so it keeps getting dispelled so Necro's PFMW gets dispelled. We have a terrible time with Kaol, who almost whacks Shaman and F/I, they escape only barely. Hexxat gets whacked. We forget that we have "weaken undead" - doesn't matter since it's very doable without. This isn't that tough of a fight though, once one gets the hang of it. Lots of goodies in the loot.

***
PC at 2.215Mexp. Time to go to spellhold. We do a little bit of forging before we go as in we forge water's edge +4 and some boots of speed. We also do some minor quests, finish mage stronghold and a few fighter / bard quests. We leave to Spellhold at 2.25Mexp or so.
***

A little recap.

Our cheated* Fighter -> Dual classed into a cleric works quite nicely. Of all of the new stuff the improvements on "sword and shield" - style seem like the ability we use the most. A super easy way to drop AC really low really early. As would the improved holy power + righteous magic of Tempus, if we still would have him. We also use the improved defensive harmony as well as reworked "aid" quite a lot.

(* compared to Priest of Tempus we're 0,5APR + 4pts of damage per hit ahead. And some hitpoints. So not that far)

As we're trudging along on insane we haven't had chances to try out "protective chant" as we don't want to rely on it protecting us. Once we can get 75% (+ a some additional bonuses) we should be able to survive with it.

We haven't needed the improved abilities that much. Then again we can't rely for example on "guardian angel", as if our cleric gets hit it's dead anyway after 2-3 hits (in a golem fight) so it's not going to make that much of a difference, at least thus far. We try stacking it once or twice, but it doesn't seem to stack.

We've cast heavenly shield once or twice but as there's a number of clerical buffs that last for 1 turn, which isn't a lot, so it's sort of competing a little bit with them. And if we max buff our cleric, it has a few buffs that last only 1 turn (or less) and if we have 3-4 of 'em, once the action begins the cleric will just run out of buffs very fast. We usually holy power + righteous mahic + duhm + aid + SoA + defensive harmony (start with protection from evil 10" as it lasts forever). There's a little room for additional buffs, as ie. DUHM + SoA are really effective in the character + new defensive harmony is as well.

Usually we prebuff with the most powerful stuffs and/or buffs we can sequence nicely. And we have a little bit difficulties fitting in heavenly shield, hopefully purify aura will fix this later on. At later stages we can most likely Wish:hardiness, AoF + Entropy Shield + Defensive Harmony, which should give us enough phys % to make this usable and possible quite fun.

Cleric is our best summoner at the moment. Aerial Servant is really good and anaconda's work quite nicely. All 6th & 7th level slots have been reserved for them for some time, blocking out rest of the spells. As an anaconda is most likely quite a lot useful than "sunray" for example, which is sort of a shame since it rules out other strategies than *summon to the max* + *prebuff to the max* -> anhilate to the max.

Neither have we even spiritul linked. We'll try that once our casting improves. Demon hunter we've tried once (or twice) but we're not sure about it's effect. Spare the dying is nice, as a way to protect from dragon's breath or so. But it seems to get dispelled, so we're hesitant to rely on it. And we always do know what we get from an anaconda.

All in all our F/C works out quite similarly as a 6.5 version would, in most fights at least. We've tried the improved cause-damage spells but they too seem like a little bit too soft, for a properly buffed cleric hits like a truck even in the early game (hello 25STR). And once the cleric has like 4 APR's, it can dish out a 100pts of damage in a round without casting spells by the way of "whack away".

->

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!
***

Chapter 6

Kruin

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

King Sthrom's Guardians
Because we forgot before

Pirates
We can dispel the coordinator so this is trivial

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

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

Bodhi

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

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

Ancient Priest

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


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

Firkraag

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


Alhoon

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

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

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

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

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

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

Treasure in the Ice

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

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

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

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

WK Level 1

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

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


Wk level 2

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

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

Troll mound

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


Marvella finale with Pasha

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


Chromatic Demon

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


Green Wyrm

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

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


Wk Level 3

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


Danger at the harbour / Limak the Mastermind

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

SPOILER!


We didn't know that was doable before.


Kangaxx

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

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

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

Gnasher
Blackblood
Manual of elaboration
50.000 GP
***

Story of the old ones

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

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

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

Chapter 7


Suldanesselar

We start using protective chant here. It seems to work very well against the Rakshashas. We either have Protection from Energy or protective chant.


Nizidramanii'yt

F/I walks in with sense of Limbo. Greater Djinn & Hexxat tank the golems. They seem to have hard time hitting Hexxat, who has 74% DR + -40AC against crushing. It's easily enough. We turn 2 golems into chickens (for we botched our chain contigency) and find out that apparently spell turning doesn't work on the insect plague the Wyrm is casting. The Wyrm itself is half-a-round whack with triple CS & 21 APR's (with 24/25 STR) after a succesful Breach.


House of the Harpist

Enter,F/I takes initial purge alone & triggers PFMW + PFMW + IH. Necro comet's Rakshahshas to interrupt. We leave rakshahas battling trolls, noble spider + greater djinn. A mistake, since while we're whacking the GEG they drop a remove magic (F/I had cast a few Protection from Energy's so they are dispellable with Rakshashas levels). Hexxat tanks, unfortunately her PfE gets dispelled so she gets whacked by an ADHW. Anyway, we whack GEG before it gets the 2nd dispel away. Then we whack the entourage.

Hexxat is back up again in full health after a while. She's sort of great in that sense as well, as we can take much more risks with her for the immunity to permanent death.


Assassin's at bridge district

Whack away. Necro at -4 dominates. We happily CS away and they are immediately toast. We prebuff with PfE (Protection from Energy) all the time, here as well. No RvE's cast here.



Golems (3x elemental + 3xbone golem) at Wk level 4

Breeze through. We are superbly overcompetent already.

We giant strength + ih + regen + pfe our Smilodon. It does real damage after buffs. This gives us ideas. I don' think our F/C gets hit even once, even though he's whacking away with a flail (= standing right next to the elementals)


Twisted Rune

A little bit boring even perhaps. We come badly prepared. Hexxat whacks Revanek (just herself) while most of the summons go for Shangalar, Shyressa is whacked by a troll & CS'ing F/I + kel-Dorn. Then we true sight and whack the mage. Cleric dispels Vaxxall and we drop a wharding whip on it (to keep it from renewing SI:Divination). We get badly miscast magic'ed but manage to breach still. We've PfE'd before so we can whack away. Shangalar takes a little bit of time but a few summons at frontline + kel-Dorn (who has 50% magic resistance + 60% magic damage resistance or so) is very safe, even from the triple ADHW. We play a little bit with RvE here as in we summon a skeleton lord to whack Shangalar. We double check the difficulty meter, yes it's on insane. hmh.

For some reason Vaxxaal kep casting "soften target" on Cleric? Shaman got initial grave silence, a good call from the enemies. We don't get the mage's scripting. She seems to stand pat mostly, waiting for us to dispel her so we can whack away. An erroneous script perhaps? It has always been like this.


Ancient mage

Haha. Hexxat drops to -40Ac against crushing (start with entrophy shield, but then continuous due to the on-hit effect).

Hexxat can tank 2 elemental golems easily and milk & whack all of the coin/gem spawns. By herself. Like ... no problem. We just need to make sure she's protected from elements & drop a healing ward / regen every once in a while (if you get hit 4 times in a row, which is highly unlikely) and that she has active IH & giant strength all the time. Support with blesses's, chants, protection from evil 10" and defensive harmonies.

It's a little bit ridiculous. Completely OP. We check the setting 2 times and yes it's on insane.


Guarded Compound

We were hoping that Usuno's blade was here, but no. Golems are a breeze, Hexxat needs to warm up a little bit and they are practically weaponless against her (with 74% DR & AC of -30...-40 vs crushing). We find the holy scabbard though. Ancient lich we kill accidentally, again. Geg we can control a little bit and Hexxat whacks the spawns (yamato, club +5 or spectral brand).


***
We sell some stuff, for we're looking to forge some stuff but we don't have the 48 sided garnet, as we were mostly looking to get the holy avenger. And ofc. we were looking for the holy avenger for it can dispel supreme leader, IIRC. And kel-dorn has oodles of critical strikes. Well, I guess we're off to have a date with some assassins next. Anyway, monies at 400k or so. That should be about enough for our needs in the near future (judgement day, the truth, girdle of lordly might, belt of cloud giant strength as the main things. if we have money still, we might also forge noble staff of air/fire as well).
***

Mystery of the shimmering light

For some reason the elite doppleganger just targets PFMW'd F/I. Well, it's options are cleric with -39AC or F/I. We CS and it's over in a round or so.


TheShal

We usually do this post-demogorgon (for maximum easyness), but since we need to kill some time before our keys are ready we decide to to go for a whack.

Cleric tanks the skellys with -40 vs slashing. Hexxat domintes. We don't have a Cernd to implosion the lich so it falls to Necro, luckily remove magic works and kel-Dorn + hexxat (under pfe) whack it. I don't think Cleric gets hit even once. We find the girdle of fortitude here, how nice. Now we can get the girdle of lordly might.

***
So to forging we go. We forge The Truth, Girdle of Lordly Might (hexxat),
***

Lavok's postmortem request

RRRAAAARRRGGGHHHH. We have tremendous difficulties here. It's a fight that is very, very difficult with our strengths and weaknesses. Here's where Tempus would be tremendously useful, with the non-dispellble buffs, but we don't have it. So Cleric is out, through the most intensive parts. The bone devils have great Thac0 so they'll dismantle kel-Dorn immediately if he gets targetted. And the lesser force destroys summons on hit (at least on some hits). We can't really CS with F/I, for she has to be ready to skin up when needed. Hexxat can take a punch though, but her hardiness keeps getting purge magic'ked. Necro has 2 IA's, we can use a little bit of timing to max effectiveness and if we can dodge a purge with greater djinn we have a chance to make it. This one took hours and hours, probably 30 tries or so. Missing one detail means we're screwed. We use potions of magic shielding for Hexxat, for she keeps getting stunned from hideous laughters. And we can't afford to lose her mid-fight. We use RvE:regen here throughout the fight. The only fight so far where we've needed it.


Assasins at Windpear Hills

Prebuff. WE 3xADHW on hit both F/I & Necro have ST 3xchain lightnig. So we enter, Necro IA, gm, launch trigger (with llarloch's minor drain) and launch both spell triggers. F/I CC's in 3 trolls & Necro has MS6 on contigenc. Then whack the rest. Hexxat hardiness + acobatic combat + evasion's,so she starts the fight at -36 vs crushing. it's enough not to get hit. In addition to normal buffs we 3 true sight before entering, to avoid backstabbing (the truth, book of infinite spells + F/I cotigency trigger).



Grandfather of Assasins

Use same stuffs as described up above. In addition we have noble spider + smilodon + 2x greater yuan ti's with IH. We finish all of them within a span of 2 rounds.

***
We sell some suff as in our excess scrolls (we have a lot), some weapons + potions (they were worth 100k!). We forge a ring + Necro's ioun stone. Time we can perhaps try the tenser's partial transformation a little bit. Monies at 400k. Next we're going to get stuffs for Carsomyr upgrade and after that it's time to have a date with the Supreme Leader.

From the start of this journal we promised to exploit the Necro superpowers to the fullest extent but here we are. We haven't even used wish anywhere. We gotta start wishing pre fight.
***

GBU

Well. Since Viper Queen wasn't there yet. So we kill some time and do GBU.

We don't like the ending of this. Keeping Auriel alive with a shaman isn't very difficult but positioning is horrible here, as in if Auriel moves it's an automatic realod, since kel-Dorn can't take a punch. At all. We prepare for the purge by mostly dodging the 1st one, it just get's F/I who's prepared. Then instant re-up of protections and everyone else follows.

We RvE:Regen, RvE:Rest + RvE:+50%HP here.


Viper Queen

Max prebuffs, max summons & whack away.


Supreme Leader

Goes very smoothly. One RvE:Regen used here. Run to the blacksmiths s fast as possible while PC + 5 trolls stay in the 2nd chamber and fight supreme leader + githyakis. Just IA away, then remove magic + gm + emotion + a few chain lightnings, slow's etc. Whack githyaki with (hasted) trolls. Everyone else with max buffs take out the golems + one blacksmith at a time. Supreme Leader part is quite fun. We surround it with a few swords and Shaman keeps healing them (Soothing fog is awesome here!). Then Cleric drops a regen on one of them, which looks like quite a permanent solution until they get death spelled. Doesn't matter at ll. We can protection from lightning quite well since Cleric is 4 levels ahead of supreme leader's dispelling capability already, so it can only breach. Plus Cleric has permanent 100+% resistance, kel-Dorn can takeimproved dragon hat + we have boots of grounding for hexxat. Plus potions & spells. Necro drains leader's RROR's in the start of the fight so F/I can just Protection from lightning + SI:Abjuration, and there's nothing the good'ol'leader can do. Inquisitors aren't a problem at all. I remember them being tough, but CS'ing kel-Dorn with Carsomyr just overpowers 'em together with F/I. We also have a double 3xhain lightnign trigger so when the inquisitors appear (netly 3 really close by), we remove magic x 2 (just to be sure) and relese 6x chain lightning. It's nice. It does some damage.

Good fun.


Saladdrex + demilich

We forget the triple ADHW. It whacks everyone else besides hexxat & kel-Dorn. Luckily not permanently so they whack Saladrex, use one raise dead scroll to raise shaman and he recalls the rest.

***
We prepare for the demilich by taking spirit link, but even with it Cleric is sort of useless here for after the dispel we start immediately renewing deat wards and cleric still gets imprisoned. I don't there's anything else we could have done here. This most likely means that this part isn't doable with a Cleric PC unless you have Cernd with really good casting time bonuses with you.

We whack rock & garrock and find a beljuril. We didn't count the trinkets but it might be that we're supposed to get kel-Dorn's armour only now? Anyway, we've had it for quite some time. Oops. Oh well. We've had a lot of fun.

We also find the -3 slahing girdle here. Superb. It's a great item for skellys, as Cleric then can have -30AC without buffs vs. slashing. With defensive harmony, duhm + SoA we can drop additional -8, so -38AC without a Shaman. That's pretty good.

Way count our wares a little bit and we will soon face a dilemma. Should we take the Royal Elemental Staff + treefolk's fist +4 + staff of strength +4, or should we take noble staff of fire +4, treefolk's fury +5 and adamantite staff of stregth +5. Hmh.
***

4x elemental + 2 bone devils at final seal level

Prebuff with elemental resistances (for F/I, Necro + Hexxat). Whack devils. Hexxat, with a little budge every now (occasional defensive harmony, bless, chant, protection from evil, entropy shield or so) and then, whacks 3 elementals by herself. And almost all of the spawns.

***
Out of all of the tanks I have played (so Barbarian, DD, Vagrant, Berserker, Fighter(9)/Druid, RB, Avenger, Cernd ...), Hexxat is easily and by far the best tank in the game. There isn't even any competition to it. We acrobatic combat every now and then (when we get unlucky and her innate abilities don't max AC) and Shaman drops a few entrophy shields. At one point she runs out of regen and we don't even notice, because she doesn't get hit. Her AC stays between -35 to -45 throughout the fight.

Necro tanks the last elemental. We start the fight with her having 80% DR + "long lasting regeneration from RvE". If we had the Necro amulet, we would be at 90%. With entropy shield at 100%. I think this is the way Necro was supposed to be played. We don't need skins in the beginning, we start using skins only after hardiness runs out
***

Globe Machine

We breeze through the purple ones, since cleric can dispel liches and we are overcompetent versus vampires. Then we breeze through the green ones (we don't get webbed even though we don't have free action). hmh. One IA and we're done with blue ones.

Then it's just the red ones. The double ice golem + elemental we just dodge dispel (F/I takes it with a trigger pfmw + ih + pfc). Then we attack with 5xgreater yan ti (ih'd), smilodon (ih'd + giant strength) + our max buffed crew critical striking. Necro goes IA and drops 18 rays of fragmentation on the first one and 4 hands of undoing on the 2nd one followed by 12 vampiric touches. Hexxat takes out the elemental, we don't even bother to cast elemental resistances on her, as it doesn't make a difference. We have to heal the elemental 3 times with mend body to maximise Since we don't have anything else for 2nd level spells for necro, we take luck so in addition to all else we cast luck on everyone. The ultra + geg encounter we again summon to the max + prebuff to the max + prebuff our summons. We dodge the initial purge with F/I, then full on assault on Ultra. We finish it just after it gets it's own purge away. We were trying to avoid the dispel, but no luck. We have spells still, thanks to IH'ing our crew with limited wish. Necro turns a few ambers into chickens but since we have a shaman we just storm shell hexxat who happily whacks away the Ambers. Hexxat can even tank the geg, with a little help. We summon 4 hordes of rabbits (or so), end up with having to take one magical rest (RvE:Rest) and have to run around a little bit since at some point geg decides it's not following a knocked back target and decides to go for shaman, who has skins but no elemental resistances. Anyway, we think we get all of the summons - besides ultras summons as we just whack it as fast as possible.

***
We find Usuno's blade. Perfect. We can soon forge numerous maximum op strength items!
***


Ancient Dragon

We comprehensively overpower the (once-a-)mighty wyrm. Whack entourage with acid damage from Necro, Nishruu with CS's. Initial silence on cleric. Our problem is that Shaman spirit shifts (to whack nishruu) and it lasts for ages after Nishruu is gone. We RvE:Rest, to re-up Necro but we get a skelly. Then the skelly almost whacks Shaman, for it can't skin up because of the spirit shift. Well, F/I rescues him.m Also, we cant whack with F/I for Shaman needs to drop sense of limbo on her. Anyway, it's over for NEcro drops her entire spellbook on the Wyrm with 6xbreaches (or so) and Hexxat, kel-Dorn + Cleric whack it into oblivion.


Demon Lord (JD Part 1)

We can dispel it so it's rather easy. We milk some spawns here.

***
Monies as 600k. Then we forge Great Wyrm plate (for cleric), JD for Pally and Hammer of Thor. Pally get his superpwers. We have 8 APR with weapons +5, very effective ones. We have just a few fights left in SoA, as in JD fight, "nasty orcsies", Demogorgon and Orcus. We'll probably do these in this order.
***

Demon Prince (JD Part 2)

It goes rather smoothly, after a rough start. We take one Wish:rest in the middle of the fight but we're not sure if it was needed, probably not. But since we get it, we don't complain. Cleric can already dispel the prince so it's immunity to breach doesn't matter that much. We use soothing fog here extensively, as we keep summons on prince and they are constantly fighting in the fog. It's a superb way of heling swords. Once it's out of spawns it really starts to doom / lower fire resistances, but we mostly keep to dispelling it and once it's out of absolute immunities (we miss on our first try and for a brief moment it looks like we lost as we get remove magic + lower fire resistances, which hits our whole frontline) we triple cs for 2 rounds, then double for 3 rounds or so and the prince falls. We're counting the corpses a little bit and there's 7 noble mariliths/abyssal escorts, 4 death lords, 3 gems, 3 coins and 4 elementals, or something like that. Not sure if we have all of the spawns, at least we're very far away from having all of the (elemental) golem's spawns. We didn't get a single "burn mortals" though. kel-Dorn gets whacked at some point by an elemental (pfmw & skins runs out and we don't get lucky enough), luckily not permanently so we raise him mid-fight (recall spirit from Shaman).

We start with Hexxat on the elemental and the rest of the crew whacks away together with summons. Swords are again pretty good here. Towards the end we're trying demon hunt but the prince falls before we can cast it.


Horde

Well, 1st time's the charm. This time it's not so bad. Low AC works tremendously well here as well. Cleric is very safe throughout the fight with almost no buffs. Hexxat needs a healing ward every now and then. We first summon the Smilodon (and ih + regen it), when it's out we summon the greater djinn (and IH + regen it) and when it's out we summon the noble spider (and IH + regen it), and when they are out we are done. We pick up almost 2600 arrows +3. Half of our crew takes a potion of magic protection pre fight + we have a death ward on Hexxat almost all the time.

Shaman is really good here as well. Whenever we get unlucky & get hit, Shaman is there to rescue us. We drop his AC to -15, (-25 vs missiles with paws of the cheetah + ox-tail belt) pre fight. We load up with dispels, web's, emotions, chaos's etc. Web + limited wish globes work really well here.

This fight took 5 hours in real time. Sheesh. We made it without RvE:regen, though we did take a RvE:rest since we got it.

***
Demo & Orcus to go. We can't forge lord of the underworld, for we are out of manuals of elaboration.
***

Demogorgon

Well, Cleric can dispel Rozvankee (!?), muah!

So we whack Nulango with Cleric + kel-Dorn (start wit magical end up with normal weapons), F/I with storm shell + a troll + 14 magic missiles take out Belcheresk, St. Kargoth we drop with AA's & flame arrows with a troll and a greater yuan-ti. Greater Djinn & Sunnis take Kazuyl who we breach, breach, breach and then take out with the crew once the first 3 are done.

Hexxat tanks demo throughout the fight. It's nice since she can actually wield weapons so necro dispels marilits & escorts and hexxat whacks. I think she whacks 5 demons by herself. Vargouilles we storm with summons & frontline. Once we have a clear moment we dispel rozvankee & whack it into oblivion with F/I, kel-Dorn & Hexxat.

Demo takes forever, as we forgot it's pfmw's. Luckily hexxat can also tank forever. In the end we cast a wish for a magical rest. If we had optimized spells better we wouldn't have needed it. Well, we don't complain.

This was nice. Hexxat and kel-Dorn become all the more powerful now. Also Shaman's blessings are nice. We use 5 barbarian essences here, hexxat takes all of em.

Cleric is really nice here as well. He starts with -31 undisppelable vs. slashing which we can drop to -35 / -37 with SoA & DUHM. He can tank demons for ages.


Orcus

Dodge the silences a little bit. Necro can dispel, so we remove magic and whack orcus after the 3rd wave. Since we can sense of limbo with Shaman we can just nullify silence pre vampire wave to Shield of Archons + Weaken Undead. No tactics needed that much, well, besides dodging the silences a little bit.


Irenicus

Necro soloes with -5, it takes a few tries though.


Hell

Meh. We are overcompetent (by far) already.

**
Next to ToB, which we'll leave for later
**

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.
***

A very nice and readable way to structure your journal, I like it and can't wait for more input from your side good luck and I hope you will still find the game fun with less-than-optimal party composition. Though as I see from the initial posts, Shamans are a really nice addition to the party, powerful and versatile!

There's a bit of new content, but I have to warn you that some of that is completely untested, so proceed at your risk. It shouldn't break the flow of the game, but no promises that it provides a smooth and satisfying experience.


What is the actual limit to how low the AC could go?

Is this new content listed somewhere, as in a new fight that isn't completely tested that is potentially unbalanced?

Yes, there's a new encounter in the underdark, it should be listed in the relevant section of the readme. There are also some changes and improvements in the Irenicus' dungeon, but they are tested (somewhat).

I think that "general" AC can go down to -20, weapon styles can decrease it even further, but there's no limit (or there is but it's very high) to AC to specific damage type and Swashie's hits decrease just that, not "general" AC.

Yup. We'll see how low we can go with this, but I think we can pretty much shatter my previous low point of -35.

The new stuffs in the dungeon were quite nice. But they do make the dungeon a lot more difficult.

edit: updated journal

How was it dispelled? By some kind of remove/purge magic? Or at the start of the fight, due to dead magic, or something like that. Could you check if 40th level dispel magic removes those spells from your priest?

I will prepare a fix tomorrow or on Monday.

Hey!

When entering the area, all buffs get dispelled. Except for the non-dispellable ones.

For example giant strength doesn't get dispelled here. Level 40 doesn't help Tempus

Here's what it says (attached a screen capture here)

And does righteous might get dispelled by a standard high level remove magic? If it doesn't, then that means that some other mechanism is responsible for dispelling it.
I will take a look at it, when I have access to my PC

Sorry, misread your original question. So we levelled up the priest of tempus to 20. Levelled up Shaman to 38 (can't level up any more)

-> Shaman can't dispel tempus's Holy power + righteous magic.

Update journal.

Had some cleric fun.

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

Hmm, do you have IA tweaks installed? I think there was one that changed rewards in Spellhold...

Also could you please let me know what's the value printed by this command:
C:GetGlobal("Iaitem", "AR1514")

Yes. I have IaTweks.

It says GLOBAL: IAITEM AR1514Does not exist

Thanks, so it's an IATweaks issue, as standard behavior is still OK. I will inform bulian about that problem.

Yes, there's an issue with the component "extra rewards", it is not updated to take into account changes to scripts made in v7 branch. I can suggest a local fix - manually add a scroll of memory boosting with the console and then set the aforementioned variable to 1.

This will only be fixed systematically when v7 is released.

Thanks!

Can you help me out with this? Where's this new encounter?

SPOILER!

Thanks!

I think I missed this, unfortunately.

ps. Aid doesn't seem to include "bless", even though it's supposed to.

I think that IA did no changes to original spells' effects or their descriptions and it's the descriptions that are a bit misleading. You can read more about it here:
https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/1...-aid-and-chant/

Thanks. That explains it.

Updated journal a little bit.

I must say that the changes introduced to the Cleric make it powerful a really worthy companion to the party. And the changes are not even that major. I tip my hat dear sir! amazing job! And it amazes me that even a somewhat experienced mod-dweller like myself finds completely new aspects to the game. And they are ably balanced!

I've enjoyed this run very much after we learned how to use the abilities & possibilities.

I'm currently playing one fight-a-day pace, so no much progress. But the latest fights have all been extremely nice.

Found out where the limits are.

The "general" AC has a limit of -20. Plus you can get the dexterity bonus, so it's up to -27 (-20 base AC, then -7 from dex). In addition, you can get "weapon style bonuses", up to a maximum of -20 . This issort of annoyingly low, as a midgame Swashie reaches this easily, even without acrobatic combat - diminishing usefulness of acrobatic combat somewhat.

So combined the absolute lowest point you can get is -47AC.

Hmmm, are you sure? Don't those bonuses like "-3 to crushing" add up, even if you already have -20 AC on your character sheet? Or are they just there, but not make any difference? I thought that it's the reason why Acrobatic Combat puts emphasis on "bonus to AC against all weapon types (not the base AC)".

Btw my idea for "decreasing chance to critical hit" on Weaken Undead spell had such tanking through high AC in mind. You don't need any skins, if the enemy can't hit you without critical hit and he can't even roll one. However I did not test if it really makes critical hits impossible...

I'm quite sure. Yes, those bonuses, lets call them "AC bonuses vs. specific damage type" do add up but there's a limit.

So Hexxat reaches, in addition to her regular AC of -18 (or so), -19 'AC against specific damage type (crushing) quite easily and activating acrobatic combat drops it to -20. The AC cs specific weapon type doesn't go lower. But with that effective -40AC (or so) elemental golems can't hit her at all and she can easily go about -5 or -6 AC points lower still later in the game with innate abilities + girdle of lordly might + evasion + improvised blend.

Acrobatic combat works nicely, for example in the start of the fight where you don't have the on-hit effects yet and you get the Thac0 bonus, but mid fight the AC effect is most likely mostly gone.

I'll definitely have to try the weaken undead, but in practice Cleric with gorgon plate + girdle + SoA + entropy shield is quite unhittable in any case. As it has AC of -40 or so against slashing. But I'll try with weaken undead, probably at least the Necro/Lavok quest had a bunch of skellys IIRC.

ps. Hexxat is so effective it's nuts.

Well, now you know why we lowered the bonus to APR from her item

Yup. I don't think players in general have realized how effective she is. I don't recall seeing even one play-through with her in the mix.

But anyway, I was kind of hoping the (most) op item would come back .

I think the Marilith's / Abyssl Escorts spell turning(or so) does something funny with demon hunter?

I don't think this is supposed to happen?

If we cast demon hunter, it causes damage for our crew.

It says

Rasaad: Critical miss damage: Rasaad
Rasaad: Critical miss damage: Rasaad
Rasaad: Critical miss damage: Rasaad
Rasaad: Critical miss damage: Rasaad
Rasaad: Critical miss damage: Rasaad
Rasaad: Damage Taken (16)
Rasaad: Damage Taken (16)
Rasaad: Damage Taken (16)
Rasaad: Damage Taken (16)
Rasaad: Damage Taken (16)
(Rasaad: Death)

Hahh, so the hunter becomes the prey Yeah, we definitely didn't want for something like that to happen, I will need to fix it when I have the time. Could you please clarify, which part was really reflected? Only that one, which deals damage, or whole "Prey" subspell, which made your Rasaad get hit when he critically misses? Also why is this damage dealt 5 times? Did you stack the spell?

Looks like it

I'm not sure which part was reflected, but I'll have a look again with demofight.

The spell was not stacked (I didn't think we could even stack it). Probably 5 times because there was 5 escorts/mariliths near him? or so? I'll have a closer look in the up & coming fight.

ps. does demon hunter work vs. vargouilles?

Thanks!


It shouldn't, that's why I was surprised that there were 5 messages.


They have no race in IA for some reason, though they're fiends by D&D rules (and demons is a subtype of fiends, so DH should work here). I will discuss a potential change here with critto.

I didn't dare cast this again, as I was 2 hours into to the fight. I'll have a look at some point though.

Than you for your feedback! There are many things that I could address and I probably will, when I have some more time. For now just the basic stuff:

It's never stated anywhere, but this "axe" actually deals slashing OR crushing damage, I think that the game looks for enemy DR to specific type and then decides which type deals more, but I never tried this (in original EE halberds have "piercing or slashing", which was reverted in IA, as it would make them too powerful)


How so? It should give a bit less damage than 1 hit and even with IH it still should apply its effects only once per round.

What do you mean? Can you hit enemies that are under PFMW for example? This will need to be changed, sorry


I created many icons, and was just a bit tired to be honest... IIRC I added some glow to the spell, which lasts for its duration, but as I think of it, many spells do so, so it might be indistinguishable if you have more buffs. I will add that icon for clarity.

No problem, my pleasure!

Thanks for making the changes. I had a lot of fun and different adventures than what I'm used to. I'll probably take a break now from this, I need it. Honestly I don't think I could have made it through with this play-through had we struggled but it was a lot of fun. Hexxat & Cleric in the end sort of saved this run for me. We had a blast. Even the demo-fight was great.



Yup I seem to recall this being so. Ok, that would change things a little bit. Though giving the spirit shifted Shaman range would be welcome, as it can't skin up so it'll be dead quite soon if it gets targetted by a heavy hitting enemy.

I think I got up to 30 pts of damage, which is good. I thought the damage was once per round, meaning 2 with IH (but that's my assumption). Anyway, if it's only 1 hit per round on top of regular damage, that's fine as well. It would give Cleric 6 APR (5 "regular" ones under IH + heavenly shield). That's pretty good, considering the insanely low AC of the Cleric.



It seemed to go through PFMW on a few occasions (noticed this with the demofight & mariliths). It didn't make a difference though but it's of course open to abuse if it works like that. We didn't abuse it though.



That would be great, thanks!

And thanks again for making the mod fresh again, I've had oodles of fun with this.

Might give Swashie a run on my next playthrough.

Surprised it could tank Demo.

Take Hexxat, she's more effective than a custom made Swashie. Much more so in fact.

Hexxat's demotanking capability is based on her having immunity to level drain, hold, poison & fear making her easily and by far the best choice for demogorgon tank - though you'll need to spiritual clarity / cc every now and then.

Yep gotcha, only thing to worry about would be disease if Demo can hit though

When's the big powerspike for swashies? Water's edge?

She has poison immunity as well, forgot that one .

Demo's gazes are a problem though, but it's easily solvable if you have Shaman / Protector with you. Most likely you can use Chaotic Commands as well, but I'm not 100% as I didn't try it.

I'd say the power spike is after you get the armour, then after you get girdle of lordly might.

In my game hexxat has almost 200HP. That's pretty good, for a thief.

Hmh.

I think I found another one,

Defensive harmony breaks AC limit -> We can drop cleric's "base" ac to -22 with it, -28 with dex bonuses (with draw upon holy might). It doesn't work on other characters, so only the cleric. And it doesn't matter who casts defensive harmony, if our Pally casts it it can still drop cleric's ac too low. Hexat's AC isn't dropped, it stays at the limit.

(Base AC as in AC without dex bonuses and without AC. vs specific damage type bonuses)

I've mentioned a few times in the journal that Hexxat is quite good.

Well. Have a look.