Tha Black Pit Diaries - As promised
Yannir
Member Posts: 595
So, I finally got around to starting with this group. There were still a few hiccups. I rolled all the characters correctly only on the third attempt, the Kendruid proving the most difficult to get right.
So here's the group:
Alyssa - Human Undead Hunter
STR 18/95, DEX 10, CON 18, INT 9, WIS 13, CHA 17
Dual-wielder with 2 pips in Bastard Sword, Warhammer and Axe.
Pros and cons: The class is solid, paladins have a lot of utility with spells. AoF+DUHM is the standard before diving into melee. Dexterity could use some improvement but that can be remedied in tier 2.
Goroth - Half-Orc Swashbuckler
STR 19, DEX 18, CON 19, INT 9, WIS 7, CHA 12
Also a dual-wielder with Long Swords and Short Swords. For Kundane ofc.
Pros and cons: This far he has been very boring and pretty average on everything. Not even able to cast spells, he just runs into melee as fast as possible. I suppose UAI will bring much more to this class but so far I'm not impressed.
Lauren - Human Conjurer 11 -> Fighter
STR 18, DEX 18, CON 18, INT 18, WIS 9, CHA 10
Grandmastery with quarterstaffs, slings as a missile weapon.
Pros and cons: Importing screwed this one up a bit. She was alrdy dualled as an export and that dropped her hp to 30 at the start. Now she's at 45 and still very squishy. But I'm not restarting because of 1 hiccup.
Regardless of that, she is pretty awesome. She skewered 2 lizardmen while the rest of the party was chasing their tails in panic because of an Insect Plague. I did have to reload that fight anyway when her Stoneskin ran out. That Insect Plague pretty much destroyed me.
Zen Rayne - Human Kensai 12 -> Druid
STR 18/72, DEX 10, CON 16, INT 10, WIS 18, CHA 18
Grandmaster of Scimitars, dual-wielding them. Plan on using Belm+Yamato possibly. Proficiencies in all 1-handed druid weapons.
Pros and cons: After completing the dual, this guy really started to shine. Summon some elementals, cast Iron Skins and hit the enemy like a truck. Poor AC but Barkskin can remedy that. Besides, he has enough hp to take some beating.
Andalia - Elven Wild Mage
STR 9, DEX 19, CON 17, INT 18, WIS 7, CHA 10
Well whatever goes here, she is hurling the Boomerang Dagger around if her spellcasting is disabled.
Pros and cons: Nothing major to say here. But MAN those scrolls are a MONEY DRAIN. No major surges yet, only lost 500g and a stoneskin turned into a fear-spell which had the intended effect anyway.. That's, not getting hit.
Dante - Human Berserker 10 -> Mage
STR 17, DEX 15, CON 16, INT 18, WIS 9, CHA 15
Grandmaster of Katanas, wields a dagger in the off-hand.
Pros and cons: He has become the official tool for dealing with spellcasters (Dagger of Venom). I haven't afforded to buy him a terribly lot of spells, he doesn't even have any lvl 7 spells yet even though there are slots open. But this is a tried and tested class known to be strong. Time is what it takes.
The orc-fight went pretty smoothly, although those archers are pretty annoying when low level. Just have to kill them fast. The 2nd fight was much harder. I had accidentally neglected all illusion-dispels so those thieves were pretty free to backstab anyone they wanted. The kensai was the only one to survive that fight in the end, thanks to the Shield Amulet. Regardless, it went through on the 1st attempt.
As I mentioned earlier, the 3rd fight I had to reload once. On the 1st attempt, I tried a time-tested strategy of bombarding those lizards with AoE until they are soft and tender, accompanied with web- and entangle-spells. That was going well until I saw an approaching swarm of insects. I had totally forgotten the shaman!
At that point everything went to hell. 5 out of 6 characters were running around panicked and bitten by bugs. They were getting hit by my own AoE's as well.
When I regained control over the situation, 2 (Goroth and Andalia) were dead and 3 others were close to dead as well. The AoE-hold spells had run their course and there were still 4 lizards left, including the shaman. The shaman got 2 more of my guys with Call Lightning. Zen got overwhelmed by the melee lizards.
Lauren miraculously had avoided the Insect Plague, and was still at full health and behind a stoneskin, but running out of spells and unable to hold off 3 pumped up steroid lizards who were backed up by the shaman.
She did manage to stomp the shaman and another lizard before finally going down. PW : Reload.
On the 2nd attempt, I took an another approach, summons. A fire elemental and 4 skeleton warriors got the melee lizards occupied and meanwhile I was looking for the shaman, who was under the effects of an invisibility potion. A Remove Magic and a Glitterdust took care of the invisibility, then I threw a Dolorous Decay and an Insect Plague of my own on the shaman. The rest was pretty much hack-n-slash. The same tactic prevailed on the Umber Hulks as well.
I'll be collecting the prizes from the 1st 4 fights of tier 1, before moving to the harder-than-it-should-be drow-fight. More on this later! And I'll try to make it shorter too!
So here's the group:
Alyssa - Human Undead Hunter
STR 18/95, DEX 10, CON 18, INT 9, WIS 13, CHA 17
Dual-wielder with 2 pips in Bastard Sword, Warhammer and Axe.
Pros and cons: The class is solid, paladins have a lot of utility with spells. AoF+DUHM is the standard before diving into melee. Dexterity could use some improvement but that can be remedied in tier 2.
Goroth - Half-Orc Swashbuckler
STR 19, DEX 18, CON 19, INT 9, WIS 7, CHA 12
Also a dual-wielder with Long Swords and Short Swords. For Kundane ofc.
Pros and cons: This far he has been very boring and pretty average on everything. Not even able to cast spells, he just runs into melee as fast as possible. I suppose UAI will bring much more to this class but so far I'm not impressed.
Lauren - Human Conjurer 11 -> Fighter
STR 18, DEX 18, CON 18, INT 18, WIS 9, CHA 10
Grandmastery with quarterstaffs, slings as a missile weapon.
Pros and cons: Importing screwed this one up a bit. She was alrdy dualled as an export and that dropped her hp to 30 at the start. Now she's at 45 and still very squishy. But I'm not restarting because of 1 hiccup.
Regardless of that, she is pretty awesome. She skewered 2 lizardmen while the rest of the party was chasing their tails in panic because of an Insect Plague. I did have to reload that fight anyway when her Stoneskin ran out. That Insect Plague pretty much destroyed me.
Zen Rayne - Human Kensai 12 -> Druid
STR 18/72, DEX 10, CON 16, INT 10, WIS 18, CHA 18
Grandmaster of Scimitars, dual-wielding them. Plan on using Belm+Yamato possibly. Proficiencies in all 1-handed druid weapons.
Pros and cons: After completing the dual, this guy really started to shine. Summon some elementals, cast Iron Skins and hit the enemy like a truck. Poor AC but Barkskin can remedy that. Besides, he has enough hp to take some beating.
Andalia - Elven Wild Mage
STR 9, DEX 19, CON 17, INT 18, WIS 7, CHA 10
Well whatever goes here, she is hurling the Boomerang Dagger around if her spellcasting is disabled.
Pros and cons: Nothing major to say here. But MAN those scrolls are a MONEY DRAIN. No major surges yet, only lost 500g and a stoneskin turned into a fear-spell which had the intended effect anyway.. That's, not getting hit.
Dante - Human Berserker 10 -> Mage
STR 17, DEX 15, CON 16, INT 18, WIS 9, CHA 15
Grandmaster of Katanas, wields a dagger in the off-hand.
Pros and cons: He has become the official tool for dealing with spellcasters (Dagger of Venom). I haven't afforded to buy him a terribly lot of spells, he doesn't even have any lvl 7 spells yet even though there are slots open. But this is a tried and tested class known to be strong. Time is what it takes.
The orc-fight went pretty smoothly, although those archers are pretty annoying when low level. Just have to kill them fast. The 2nd fight was much harder. I had accidentally neglected all illusion-dispels so those thieves were pretty free to backstab anyone they wanted. The kensai was the only one to survive that fight in the end, thanks to the Shield Amulet. Regardless, it went through on the 1st attempt.
As I mentioned earlier, the 3rd fight I had to reload once. On the 1st attempt, I tried a time-tested strategy of bombarding those lizards with AoE until they are soft and tender, accompanied with web- and entangle-spells. That was going well until I saw an approaching swarm of insects. I had totally forgotten the shaman!
At that point everything went to hell. 5 out of 6 characters were running around panicked and bitten by bugs. They were getting hit by my own AoE's as well.
When I regained control over the situation, 2 (Goroth and Andalia) were dead and 3 others were close to dead as well. The AoE-hold spells had run their course and there were still 4 lizards left, including the shaman. The shaman got 2 more of my guys with Call Lightning. Zen got overwhelmed by the melee lizards.
Lauren miraculously had avoided the Insect Plague, and was still at full health and behind a stoneskin, but running out of spells and unable to hold off 3 pumped up steroid lizards who were backed up by the shaman.
She did manage to stomp the shaman and another lizard before finally going down. PW : Reload.
On the 2nd attempt, I took an another approach, summons. A fire elemental and 4 skeleton warriors got the melee lizards occupied and meanwhile I was looking for the shaman, who was under the effects of an invisibility potion. A Remove Magic and a Glitterdust took care of the invisibility, then I threw a Dolorous Decay and an Insect Plague of my own on the shaman. The rest was pretty much hack-n-slash. The same tactic prevailed on the Umber Hulks as well.
I'll be collecting the prizes from the 1st 4 fights of tier 1, before moving to the harder-than-it-should-be drow-fight. More on this later! And I'll try to make it shorter too!
2
Comments
Also, when the combat ends, and you win, the audience will cheer up and all traps/corpses in the arena will dissapear. You have a few seconds window to set a trap before Denaton talks and congratulates you and sends you on your way. If you set a trap at that exact moment, the trap will stay there when you try the fight again, or have a new fight in the same area. Very useful trick. I set the trap near where enemies appear and at the start of next combat, every enemy takes some damage and gets poisoned.
And then, with pickpockets, your swashbuckler can net some very good potions and items from the guards and weapon merchant himself. Lots of giant strength, invulnerability potions and tons of extra healers to last you till the end of the game.
You see, swashbucklers and thieves in general have their uses. When he gets use any item he will be even more versatile and fun.
To save money, you can get the enchanted weapon spell and create +3 weapons with your wild mage, when you are near your beds in the barracks. Don't spend 4th lvl slots, nahals reckless dweomer produces enchanted weapon spell normally, with only the regular %5 wild surge chance. (Same goes for all spells that open up sub menus, like spell immunity, and also all contingencies and sequencers can be casted vis reckless dweomer) (yeah I am kinda a cheese expert with the wild magi)
Keep on playing BP2 is tons of fun!
I've only tried multi- and dual-classed thieves until now. Except for one failed party that had a pure Shadowdancer in it. Honestly, traps didn't even come to mind.
You may even try bountyhunter next time, special traps are badass as they can be thrown to the enemy from far away, as long as they can't see you. Traps are very powerful tools for thieves. Hla traps are even more powerful, nearly broken! During the final fight in the pits you face Ravager, and he has so monstrous resistances that even kensais do a scratch every time they hit it. However, spike traps fix the Ravager nicely, doing very high damage! Veteran thief players have a saying 'When in doubt, set traps!'
After a round of pickpocketing the guards, I have enough healing potions to go around now too. And the weapons merchant was kind enough to give me the Ring of Fire Control! No strenght potions though, guess I have to redo this with more skill.
Alyssa is wielding Stonefire and Ashideena atm, Goroth has Adjatha and Varscona, Lauren is swinging Serpent Shaft/Staff of Fire for elementals, Zen has dual +2 scimitars and Dante's got Malakar+Pixie Prick. Alyssa is undergoing training to learn flails, and Goroth has started to enjoy muggings, thus waving his newfound club at everybody looking at him the wrong way.
Alyssa, Goroth and Andalia have learned their first HLA's. I picked the celestial summonings for the girls, and Goroth has his head filled with all kinds of funky ideas on how to utilize UAI.
Wasting that drow war-party was surprisingly easy. Poisoned arrows and tiny little spiders don't do much against Skeleton Warriors or against the tough shell of an Earth Elemental. That mage of theirs did last for a number of turns after the others were annihilated, putting up a stoneskin after another, and at times going invisible. A game of mouse and 6 angry cats, you can guess what happens to the mouse at the end.
Alyssa pretty much soloed the vamp-fight. Being an Undead Hunter and all. The Planetar I summoned might have helped a little. At best, 3 of my people were under Domination. Zen, Alyssa and Andalia managed to avoid all attempts at Domination, and the vamps fell one by one. The warrior vamps vanished somewhere in the middle of a heap of elementals, skellie warriors and a planetar. Was a huge fuss but in the end everybody made it without even being level drained.
On to some easy fights next, news will come when there is any!
She underwent a wild magic "mishap", although I suspect she planned the whole thing beforehand. So she is now a he.
Oh, the ease of sex change operations in the lands of magic and sorcery.
BTW, are there ANY items that give extra 1st level spells? Would like more NRD's to play with.
In another instance, she accidentally Gated in a glabrezu. I rapidly evacuated everyone to the other side of the arena, and had Alyssa cast PfE 10-radius. All ended well, and truthfully, demons aren't that challenging anymore.
The surges bring a random-factor to the fighting that always keeps things interesting. Never having the same fight twice is pretty refreshing. Most of the time the surges don't have a large impact but sometimes you gate in a frigging demon!