Adventure X (Glangnam Style)
lolien
Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 3,108
I didn't try out Black Pits so far, what is a shame. So i thought, that i jump in the fray, and have some fun!
I will role-play this, but just for a low extent. I imparted some of my character ideas, which weren't come true another way, than in the Pits of the Black.
The characters:
Glolien Grolio, halfling shadowdancer
This halfling girl is part of BeamDog next project, the Adventure Y, so her biography is secret at the moment. The fact, that Baeloth can summon her in the Pits represent the drow wizard's power all too well.
Jim Raynor, human fighter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Raynor
He represents Baeloth magical might too: he was summoned in the Pits from a totally different universe!
Alveus Malcanter, human first level mage
Marthur Malcanter, human cleric
I will role-play this, but just for a low extent. I imparted some of my character ideas, which weren't come true another way, than in the Pits of the Black.
The characters:
Glolien Grolio, halfling shadowdancer
This halfling girl is part of BeamDog next project, the Adventure Y, so her biography is secret at the moment. The fact, that Baeloth can summon her in the Pits represent the drow wizard's power all too well.
Jim Raynor, human fighter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Raynor
He represents Baeloth magical might too: he was summoned in the Pits from a totally different universe!
Alveus Malcanter, human first level mage
Yes. Baeloth can summon persons from video shows too! Do the universe explode if the longest living first level mage levels up? Hope we won't find out!
Marthur Malcanter, human cleric
His summon in the Pits is an accident. To summon Alveus Malcanter Baeloth needed a unique variation of a powerful spell, and such magic is always unpredictable. How can Uncle Marthur keep himself sober enough for the fights in the Pits, and still drink enough not to get mad: the fact that he know this shows his attractive wisdom!
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The resultant singularity caused by @AlveusMalcanter leveling up would rip apart reality as we know it. not even @elminster would survive...
(I was wondering that myself, actually)
The fighting party made the first two challenge without problem. The ferocius taslois was defeated with the help of the powerful sleep spell from Alveus. Than i bought a battle gear for Jim, and with the zerg-distroyer captain holding up the starving gibberlings without much effort, the company exterminates the furry monsters.
"Now, that we are such a shakedowned and effective fighting team, we should choose a proper name for us. How about: The Wanderers of the Pits? I need to work on this one... And did you see that Baeloth fellow? He is a charming person don't you think? -On the other side Jim!- Maybe his stately voice do this..."
(Alveus thinking loud while he monitors the battle from a safe distance.)
After the gibberling fight everyone reach next level (Glolien maybe third?). However Alveus refused to level up, of course.
Yeah, and the potion brewer character is pure win!
I knew he had a brother, Marthur, I knew it!
Then comes the first serious battle against another adventurer party with six members. Alveus cast his useful, and only memorized, spell: Sleep, what worked like a charm ; )
They managed to kill the gnoll and the halfling in sleep, and hurted badly the dual wielding fighter. After that mostly Jim done all the succesful hits, however he needed a healing potion.
And here come two custom soundset, what i use for this run. Just unpack the zip in the sound folder, if you want to use it too. I have the text too, but didn't manage to make it work properly (text shows up, but sound is mute).
In the arena their opponents were...
A pack of punchy hobgoblins!
Now this was a challenge, what kicked Jim and Marthur out!
Fortunately the hobgoblin wizards were not a foe, what the marvelous Alveus and his wonderous wand can't handle:
Never underestimate the power of a first level wizard!
"You did good work buster, but next time be more scrimpy with the fire wand charges. Imagine how much mushroom water can brew me that myconid fellow on that cost!"
(Uncle Marthur to his cousin)
After Jim and Marthur fall, the hobgoblin wizards kept casting lightning bolt on them corpses, which seemed a little bit buggy for me. Otherwise Alveus saved the day!
Edit: Uncle Marthur's hold spell was useful too.
After seeing the hobgoblin wizards efficiency, Marthur memorized one silence spell amongst others.
And the next battle was against a mage too: a necromancer!
However Uncle Marthur's silence spell was inneffective, his second hold spell won the battle for the party, this time without casualities.
Glolien: "I feel myself so unhelpful amongst you. I mean: you are strong man and all, while i'm just a weak halfling girl!"
Alveus: "Strenght is not so important than survival. Follow my advices and you can avoid horrible and agonizing death in the pits. You can trust me: I'm Alveus Malcanter, the greatest first level mage who ever lived!"
So the ogre mage was handled with a silence spell from Marthur, part of the ogres get feared from a wand from Alveus, then Jim and the party routed slowly the ogre's forces.
Jim sacrificed himself in the process, but the ogre kept hitting his corpse.
After the silence spell run out Alveus blinded the Ogre mage, preventing it from being a further threat.
After this i tried the option and fight a previous battle again. I chose the Necromancer with the skeletons, because that was the easiest for the party. As it turned out it was easier, than i expected, because the skeletons dies instantly as the combat starts. (I think this is a bug.) So i farmed some xp and gold with the repeated killing of this Necromancer.
And with this Alveus can have a fully charged wand of fear:
"wands, i just love them!"
In the cages there was a talktive beholder:
The first hint gave me not too much help.
Also one of the other prisoner gave me a note:
I don't know who you are unknown illusionist, but hey! Happy birthday, if you read this!
Then came the ending Tier 1 battle with the adventurer party from the cages. Marthur and Alveus disabled the enemy spellcasters (and most of the other members too) with silence, fear and hold person, and after that the battle was a cakewalk.
And so i became famous in the pits, and it seemed that Baeloth didn't like this:
"
Alveus: - I think, that five funeral ceremony will be enough, Uncle.
Marthur: - Nonsense! I reserved this dwarven ritual to our little pretty lady!
Jim: - She's a halfling Marthur, not a dwarf, this even i can pick out!
Marthur: - Are you sure, man from the space? Anyway, a shorty is a shorty.
Glolien: - Thanks Uncle Marthur, it's very kind of you! You really know many culture! I never would thought however, that there's so much drinking in the various funeral rituals!
Marthur: - Alcoholic beverages play divine roles in the faith of every thinking folk, my dear.
"
The party can learn some further insights from the life of the fungus man:
Did i say how i like this wonderful expansion?
The first Tier 2 battle have some bugs also : )
After i learned from the first battle's defeat, i bought two boots of speed for Alveus and Glolien, and memorized sleep spell with Alveus and command spells with Marthur Malcanter. The sleep spell worked well on the Rabid Ankhegs, and the command spell kicked out automatically one bug for one turn. First i tried the burn out strategy on the bugs: with Marthur's fire protective spells i granted 100 % fire immunity for him and Jim, they fought with the critters, while Glolien and Alveus used they fire wand and ring of energy. The tactic worked, but it was quite rescourse consuming.
After that i started farming Rabid Ankhegs, and with pumping up (or i should rather say down) the frontliners AC with two full plate mail, and strenghten them with my war-priest's pre-buffs i brought the party's bug killing ability to perfection.
The wand of fire went to the end of it's charges, so i sold it back to the illithid. The beholder prisoner gave me the information from an owerwhelming horde, so i wanted to by back the firewand before continuing the battles. It was more than bug-hunt, the party really earned the exterminator title ; )
The minor arachnids and it's leader burned in the starting explosion, the two remaining (injured) spider was not a threat to the party, even with some of them was held:
Meantime the cages was filled up with fresh adventurers:
The beholder next tip:
Undeads. I hoped, that fire will work with them too : ) However, the difficulty of the next battle were not the undeads, but the traps, what the thieves prepared for my party. First the thieves finished my party, i activated some damaging, and a stinking cloud trap. I learned from my first attempt's failure, switched to missile weapons with Jim, Marthur casted spells, and my second try went without problem.
Best way to avoid traps: don't move!
The words of my advisor promised nothing good:
I count on a nasty battle:
And sadly, i was right.An ogre mage, quasits, wraiths, golems and slimes. On my first try Alveus was flatted by a flesh golem. 4 hp is slim, when a meatmountin wrap you:
Next try went better, and i could eliminate the portals in time (and there were no flesh golems this time):
Here i must mention, that Black Pits opponents have the nice ability, to target your weaker party members with good efficiency, what the vanilla AI lacked. Not an SCS, of course, but nice. Nevertheless, there are bugs, like enemy spellcasters targeting the corpse of a dead party member, or under 1 hp damaged character don't die intantly, what makes the fights easier.
It seemed, that the next battle would be an enemy adventuring party again:
The beholder words were very mysterious, but i thoght, that it confirms the battle with the caged party:
And i was right:
Baeloth had high expectation for the thayan party, what they didn't match:
For some reason the victory of my party infuriated Baeloth:
And with this the Tier 2 battles ended.
It seemed, that the final Tier 3 battle would be a fire giant. But there was some other battles first. The beholder's shady words made me think that trolls will come next, and my bet became correct.
With the trolls came some extra slimes just for the fun. Yeah, slimes are mighty foes, am i right @Kamigoroshi?
But fire with a good hammer is enough 99% of the time.
Next the floating orb mentioned enchanted weapons, so i feared that golems will come. And they came. I thought that i farm some more and buy the gargoyles boot for tanking them, but then i rather bought the belt that increase AC against crushing and a fire giant strenght potion.
Jim needed some healing, but he do the job perfectly.
Winter was about to come.
So the wizard presented us some lizards, but without wonderful white wings:
Hogarl, the caged fire giant was in bad mood, when the party arrived back from the battle.
According the words of the slave beholder it was highly probable, that Hogarl would have the opportunity to channel his angry emotions by the next battle in the pits on the party.
Hogarl was angry, and he brought his burning buddies with him.
The fire giant taught some respect for my party, knocking out almost every member.
Alveus: - Wands! I just love them!
After this came the final battle with Baeloth himself. From the conversations before the fight i assumed, that Baeloth would bring the traitorous duergar and the rakshasa with himself, but i had wait for a chance to battle with his pet beholder in the pit first.
Before the final battle i buffed up as hell, i bought some scroll and a lot of potion for the battle. As @typo_tilly would say, Jim and Marthur peed myconid body-fluid after this buffing.
The battle with Baeloth turned to be an easy one finally, Jim was a killing machine with this preparation. He killed the rakshasa and the duergar first, while Glolien dispelled Baeloth's illusions with her detecting ability, allowing the rest of the party to interrupt the drow in his spell casting. The battle was disappointedly short and easy.
In the end, i amused myself and Alveus with suffocate the duergar clan in gas:
I enjoyed this ride a lot!
Eat that, Baeloth, the so called "one of the most powerful wizards". The most badass level-1 mage has beaten you : )
The screenshots where only Alveus stays alive are excellent!
So, on to Black Pits II now? Pretty please? : )