@BelgarathMTH , yay for the Lightbringer who destroyed the evil lich! But what a fearsome opponent, those are very, very nasty spells, and lots of them. Poor Tomi.
And level 11 already, wow.
Yes, yes, message understood about the chests, LOL. I was going to take screenshots of every chest that I did *not* touch, just to prove that even I can still learn that
The Stone of Recall portal wants 150 gp per transport now. I'm always walking back after using it.
I'll second (or third) what the two of you said about companion AI. I got killed by the second werewolf boy because of it. We were fighting trolls, me in melee and Tomi with a bow, and suddenly there was that wolf boy. "Stand your ground" doesn't work if he's in sight and his bow is equipped, hevstarts firing again after a short moment. I had to fight the werewolf after being down to Injured because of the trolls, but I had to keep hitting that command to make Tomi stop firing, in case of an arrow in the air once the boy turned blue. So, while constantly trying to bat his hand away from his bow, worried that he'd accidentally kill the boy, I didn't pay attention to my health bar, took a critical hit and was gone.
Also, if he starts firing at enemies from a distance, they run for him, and that's annoying, too.
I was wondering about the traps, can you trigger them by shooting them with a ranged weapon from a safe distance? At least the traps on containers?
Edited: Why does the combat log say "Immune to mind affecting spells"? What are you wearing that does that?
@Arvia , not exactly. If you have something like a Wand of Frost, you can nickel and dime trapped chests to destruction from a safe distance without triggering any traps. Bows or other ranged weapons work for that, too, although they usually do such puny damage, you may or may not be able to gradually destroy the trapped chest over several minutes.
Cards in the Needs More Discussion list are features that we have started to investigate but we need more details or feedback from the community to further action the request. That said, the discussion around that feature request has been done a long time ago, and all the features of NWN:EE wait till the work on the renderer is done.
@Arvia i believe he is wearing the helmet that you can buy from the wizard store in chapter 2, it makes you immune to all mind influencing attacks, probably the best helmet in the game
This is going to be just a summary, no stories or anything, I'm the beginner, you all know what's going on in Port Llast and I don't feel like writing today.
I didn't meet an elf who wanted to construct a scepter, @BelgarathMTH , you had mentioned it, but it doesn't seem to be important anyway.
This is what we have resolved of the bigger issues until now:
In Port Llast, we had talked to the mage, the druid, the priest in the temple of Tyr, the boy who survived the werewolf issue, the bounty hunter, and we convinced a ship captain to accept a cargo of relief goods for Neverwinter instead of choosing the more profitable route.
We took the North Road first and accepted to look for the farmer's wife Leah.
We discovered the caves, found them swarmed with kobolds, orcs and bugbears, and found out that someone was using them, making them fight against each other and taking the strongest ones away for an army.
The orcs especially were a problem with my AC 28, we had to travel back a few times to get healed, sell our loot (heavy!) and buy healing kits. We freed one bugbear from a prison and later again from his own people, and he told us about the "master" behind all this. We let him run away.
Here's the fight with the minotaurs and the orc chieftain. Im keeping Tomi out of it.
Even with barkskin I needed 3 healing kits (with good rolls) to survive the orc chieftain, and only because I was using the entrance as a choke point. I'm glad I sometimes remember not to rush in.
Then the bugbear chief followed (the kobold chief, too, but that was not such a big issue and I didn't take pictures), and somehow Tomi managed to get caught between them. He got knocked down twice, but I could keep him alive.
Then I went in to kill the remaining enemies and walked into a level drain trap. Ouch.
Finishing this fight made me reach level 8. The point went into strength, of course, to get the +3 bonus.
I got a level 2 spell slot. I'm using Protection from Evil and Bless for level 1, and Bull's Strength for level 2.
I'm worried about Aribeth. I hope I can help her somehow.
All those issues are a great subject for roleplaying, but as I said, I don't feel like writing stories right now. But I doubt this is the last time that she talks to me about things.
We went back, healed and rested, to face Dergiab. He hit me with two fireballs before I could run back into the doorway. The monk Ganon was the strongest of Dergiab's "followers". Dergiab himself was the last one to die, but he had already used his best spells when I met him face to face.
Unfortunately I didn't get any lucky drop, just stuff to sell. No Large Shield +3 for me
But at least I had enough money to get a magic bag of 80% weight reduction.
After giving Ganon's journal (which told us more about the cult, and that Ganon had been Dergiab's superior, not his follower) to Aribeth, we went into the outlying farmhouse in the south, confronted the angry parents, fought and saved the first werewolf boy.
We met the second one on the East Road, when he suddenly appeared next to us (and in the broad daylight, too, with no wolves in sight) while we were fighting trolls (who can hit very, very hard). And suddenly I was trying to stop Tomi from shooting at him and got killed.
Ouch, the loss of 400 XP and 362 GP was very painful.
We went into the troll caves and again I consumed all my healing supplies (several potions, too), just to kill the troll chieftain and his entourage.
When we went outside to rest, we entered the archeologists' camp. One of them wanted the chieftain's head, because his friends had been killed by trolls. We gave it to him. We met the not-so-smart boy and promised to find his mother, agreed to explore the ruins below the caves and find some book there about an ancient culture of one of the creator races for Professor Jax. Upstairs in their barracks we met an unexpected intruder:
She's one of the escaped prisoners. But I had a long discussion with her, and she seemed honest enough about her past. She seemed to regret what she had done and wished to change her life. That bounty hunter in Port Llast is just interested in money, not justice. Tyr is the god of justice, it's true, and I might have had problems with this decision if I had been ordered by Aribeth to hunt down the escaped prisoners. But this woman seems repentant and asks for mercy. I'm not going to kill her in cold blood for money.
I have heard that the conversation with Delilah takes a different turn when the player is male, but I have judged her based upon our conversation only, and decided to let her go.
Now, the next screenshot is just to show how stupid the pathfinding sometimes is, and how useful full party control would be.
I don't know how and why Tomi ended up right there when I had opened the barrel, and why opening the barrel made me end up behind it, but the result was that I was stuck. Talking to Tomi, changing commands, trying to walk, waiting for several minutes and trying again, nothing worked. I had to use the Stone of Recall to get out of there.
I don't like trolls. And I like troll shamans even less.
At least he was alone. Later there were two of them and an ogre, and I got stuck in the middle. I had to call in Tomi for a few sneak attacks on them. Unfortunately they shifted their attention from me to him and hit him hard, and one of them was blocking my way so that I couldn't heal him. I'm sorry, my friend.
I decided to let him rest at the temple for a while and to continue exploring this level of the caves.
See, I did *not* touch it. There was another one, a crate, that Tomi couldn't disarm, and it didn't even have scorch marks. It was next to the portal that takes you back to the surface after beating Dergiab. I didn't try to open that, either.
And then *another* troll shaman! Those guys must be really spiritual, they seem to have more shamans than warriors.
With the loot from that level, I went back to pick up Tomi. Selling everything tha I had found, and my Cloak of Protection +1, gave me enough money to buy the Ring of Protection +2. Broke again, but at least I have AC 29 now. Although I will have to walk around without light, and I have no cloak. I had made the mistake to sell the purple Nymph Cloak +1 to Johnny at the end of chapter 1, when I needed supplies, because I was wearing the Cloak of Protection +1 and didn't know that the blue Nymph Cloak +5 had been a random drop. Oh well.
Back in the caves, the next kill was a troll berserker and made me reach level 9.
I thought I was going to agonize over the choice. Improved Critical: Longsword sounds good, and so does Blind Fight. But my recent experiences with opponents who deal a lot of damage per hit made the choice easy. Toughness it is. Now I have 98 HP and AC 29 before potions.
It's time to go deeper into the caves to find those ruins and "what lurks below".
Level: 9
Reloads: 0
Personal Respawns: 8
Tomi Respawns: 9
Cela, a neutral evil sorceress, had charmed and manipulated her way into Drogan's school. Her natural beauty and Charm Person spell had served her well, and graduation approached. Surely, borrowing merit from Drogan's name would give her a leg up in establishing a reputation that would make her a high demand mercenary. Killing for it's own sake, she considered enjoyable. And all enlightened people know that making a living doing what one loves is the path to happiness.
After a bothersome conversation with her fellow students, sounds of combat rose from the floor below. Cela was happy for the distraction, as she was weary of maintaining her polite facade.
Teleporting downstairs via her ring, she saw many kobolds, pulled out her dagger, and summoned a dire badger. The kobolds all died or fled, but Cela was frustrated at her inability to take any of their lives by her own hand.
Once the excitement passed, Cela endured some more conversations and agreed to look for artifacts and herbs. Bringing Dorna along, she set out on her journey.
The first stop was a barn with evidence that something was hiding inside. The group found and promptly dispatched two kobolds. Ah, sweet satisfaction at last.
Bloodlust sated, Cela's mood lifted, and she went into town and visited the herbalist who gave her some of the herbs she needed, and said helmberry could possibly be found next door.
In the tavern was a mob of farmers. In the kitchen was a mob of kobolds. Cela spoke to the kobold's leader and used her Charm Person spell to convince them to come out. Cela took great delight in betraying their magically induced trust, allowing the other humans to kill them.
(The charm person option came up in dialogue. Pretty cool)
Nice report, @Arvia. You seem to be making good progress. Chapter Two is really big, and can kind of bog down, but it picks back up and gets more interesting later, I think.
Condolences on dying to that werewolf.
I got my Golden Circlet off one of the assassins who was hunting me, a really big half-orc. It was probably another one of those lucky random drops I've been getting, but you can buy one from Eltoora the mage.
The elf who wants the scepter jewels is in the tavern standing next to Anders and Ahelor, who are talking about the werewolves.
@BelgarathMTH , no, chapter 2 is fine, I'm just having a lousy day, that's all ?. But I wanted to share my progress before I continue playing again, so that I don't forget it all
so im in chapter 2 fiddling around with my Pally and then i come up to this dialogue:
and of coarse i forget to upsize my UI scale *face palm*
the first dialogue option is: that'll do pete, that'll do
i got a chuckle from that, knowing that is a reference from the movie Babe
im also noticing, it is damn hard to keep hench men alive, its almost like they have a death wish
fighting the silverback wolf was a pain, because Sharwyn always made sure to get into melee combat with her bow so then the silverback could get sweetski attacks of oppurtunity
and i just finished the bonus tomb area where you need to press the runes; NETHER SHALL RULE
oh the lols, as soon as we teleported in there, a bajillion skellies came at us and she started casting spells on the non defensive, so ALL those skellies got attacks of oppurtunity on her and chunked her right away *sigh* good thing henchmen have "minds of their own" because god forbid i would instruct them to at least MOVE OUT OF THE WAY or cast defensively so you can actually get a spell off with her +14 to concentration bonus lololololololololololol
@sarevok57 , I feel ya, I've still been playing solo in Luskan because I got tired of Tomi's constant getting himself killed. I wish they'd at least give us inventory access in the OC so we could give them decent gear; why would that be so hard? (As you know, we already have henchman inventory access in SoU, HotU, and all of the user-created mods.) And why can't we have the "I want to change your tactics" screen with all the extra options on it like in the later content for NWN?
The game engine supports henchman actions like, "Try to avoid melee, switch to your melee weapon only when under melee attack." "Don't try to cast spells in melee." "Cast a group a healing spells/buffing spells on me/yourself." "Heal me when I reach 50% health." So why can't that be backported to the OC?
@BelgarathMTH, thank you, I'll try to remember that.
*walks back into the OT and bashes the anesthesia machine*
If I can't get stuck behind it any more, maybe they'll let me go home before tomorrow morning.
But I'll keep it in mind for in-game situations, too.
The Tomb of Voleron in Luskan. I haven't done this dungeon in so long, I was pretty much playing it blind. I didn't even remember what kind of creature Voleron was.
I love Turn Undead.
Okay, this looks a little more serious.
All right, now it's a little less serious. I can handle the three that didn't get turned, then pick off the rest, one by one.
Uh, oh. That thing looks scary. And it has a proper light saber with an elemental ice emitter. (There's one for sale in Luskan with a green acid emitter. It costs over 30,000 gp, though. I hope I can save enough, because I want that green light saber!)
I was getting beaten badly, so in desperation, I checked my bag for potions that would help, and drank a Potion of Speed. That made a huge difference. Notice that I used almost every healing pack I had.
I forgot to take a picture of this before - in a chest near some warring men outside, I had found a belt that gives piercing resistance/20. It already protected me during some fights that included lots of archers. But without using metaknowledge, there's no way to know exactly which creatures other than archers are doing piercing damage, so the item is very, very situationally useful. I am hanging on to it for now, to rotate in and out among my other belts and match the belt to the situation as best I can.
Okay, these things can be very serious, because they drain your strength all the way down to nothing. So, I put my Amulet of Health back on, sacrificing 2AC from my Amulet of Natural Armor. Now the whole floor full of them is trivial.
A mummy lord. Remember when I could barely damage one with a Longsword +1? Well, I recently purchased a Longsword +2, and now it's not so tough. That Longsword +2 had cost me 10,000 gp at one of the Luskan shops, which could really hurt my chances of getting my green light saber, but I went by the philosophy of "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", and now I was glad I did.
I found a shortbow +3, and decided to keep it to bash trapped chests without triggering the trap. On a strong chest, normal arrows weren't doing any good, but lightning arrows did the trick. Later, I came across a chest the lightning arrows wouldn't hurt. I don't know if any other elements would have made a difference, so the bow is a very limited solution to trapped chests. I may still wind up selling it. I'm not sure yet.
The water elemental guardian. Be very careful with these, because they can take half your hit points in one hit. I almost died trying to finish off her weaker helpers before I realized how strong she was just before she landed the death blow.
Oh dear. Voleron is a lich. (Switching to superhero genre briefly - "Egad! It's my archenemy, the Lich! Thank god Robin isn't here!)
I pulled away all his henchmen to the beginning of the dungeon, and the Lich was too much of a coward to follow and join the fray.
I decided to try running back up the stairs to see if I could rest to restore buffs and top off health. I can. Good to know. "Your cowardice and overconfidence in your power will be your undoing as always, Lich!"
The Lich summoned a dire spider, an extremely dangerous creature, to help it. At first, it looked like it would follow me back to the entrance of the evil fiend's lair, but it suddenly ran off and stood in front of its now invisible master, refusing to move again. "Very well, Lich, I'll kill your "pet", and then we can have our final showdown with no more henchmen or tricks!"
He was standing on a pyramid, and I started to worry he might have a phylactery hidden behind the pyramid, (some NWN liches do), so I ran back there first to be sure. I didn't want to have to defeat him twice. There was nothing back there but some "weak" skeleton warriors.
At last, my archenemy and I are locked into single combat, as we likely will be for eternity. This is how it should be, no henchmen, no tricks, just you and I, Lich!
Whatever fire spell this is, I think it may be stronger than just a regular level three Fireball.
He started spamming negative energy spells and mind-affecting spells, but my gear was protecting me from most of that. He would have done better with more lightning, fire, and of course, his dreaded Evard's Black Tentacles, but he didn't try any of that this time, for whatever reason.
Until next time, Xykon! I know you're never really gone until I find that cursed phylactery. I will find it, this I swear!
Well, hello, utility belt! I'm sure Xykon was meaning to keep this from me. (Sorry, I know I'm mixing franchises again. It's just how my mind works.) My strength is now 25 as long as I don't have to take off the Belt of Frost Giant Strength to put my Belt of Guiding Light back on (liches, bodaks, and any boss wizard or sorcerer)
I was able to use my bow with lightning arrows to take out this "chest with scorch marks". Inside was a gnomish armor. The net result of changing my Whitebone for it would be a loss of 1AC in exchange for 12 magic resistance. I happen to know that amount of magic resistance is so low as to be next to useless against high level casters, and multiple sources of magic resistance don't stack, so this beautiful blue-tinted armor will have to be sold.
Reloads: 0
Level: 11
Personal Respawns: 2 ("D", Setara's golem)
Robin, err, I mean Tomi, respawns: 7
With the rescue of the cook, Cela acquired the last herb, and decided to drop the herbs off. It was as good a way as any to start establishing relationships with Harpers for future exploitation.
As Cela and Dorna made their way back to town, Cela decided to stop at the city hall. Perhaps the mayor had died in the attack, leaving a power vacuum she could conveniently fill. Sadly, the mayor was still alive, though drunk and worthless. The assistant mayor asked about Drogan then requested help dealing with the village idiot.
Cela agreed to help, for the money and prestige. She found Piper spouting smoke to a group of villagers. It didn't take much for her to point out the holes in Piper's story, and he fled, embarrassed and humiliated. Cela hoped a wolf would feed him to its cubs.
In no rush to report back, she continued toward the town gates and saw another magic user loitering. Speaking to him, Cela received a request to help him establish a store in the village. With the promise of money and an in with the Red Wizards, she had nothing to lose.
Returning to the city hall, Cela collected for her work with Piper and, with the help of a charm spell, secured a license for the wizard outside. Piece of cake. (Actually, the dialogue option kept breaking off the conversion, so I had to use the normal persuade. Bug?)
After talking with the red wizard again, Cela could feel her coin purse getting noticeable heavier, which is never a bad thing. How delightful these people would part with so much gold for such easy tasks.
@BelgarathMTH , that was fun reading and put a smile back on my face after a long night's work.
I like the mixed references, I think like that, too. There are just so many different situations that remind me of some other story.
And Turn Undead is so cool, I would really like to play a cleric in the future to be able to use the more powerful version!
I'm already afraid of the liches. I hope I can get better equipment soon, too. (I bet the strength belt was another of those lucky random drops!).
Congratulations on your progress, and thanks for the entertaining report blended with useful information, as always.
But I think I have to play for a bit, too, before I go to sleep for a bit during the day. I don't want to dream of Dire Spiders.
We have defeated the evil high captain Kurth, one of the two high captains who are terrorizing Luskan. He was summoning demons in his captured fortress, apparently planning to amass an army of demons to take over Luskan and then beyond, likely to mount an eventual attack on Neverwinter.
*****************
Kurth got a critical hit within two strikes that almost killed me. If he got another critical before I could heal up, it was going to be another respawn. A lot of fights come down to "Will they get a second critical hit before I can heal?" Before I resumed fighting, I took the chance on the attacks of opportunity involved to drink Potions of Barkskin, Speed and Endurance. No more critical hits, thank Torm, but I did need a couple more healer's kits to get back to full health, and then I could finally fight him effectively.
I had pulled Kurth out into the hallway away from his henchmen. I would have been dead if I'd run into the middle of that room into the ambush. If more had tried to follow, I would have tried to set up a choke point somewhere, or possibly used the portal stone to get out and to come back and hope for a better position, but as it turned out, none of that was necessary, and their AI wasn't smart enough to deal with a player using actual tactics instead of just blundering in.
He had a vrock demon, which is a medium-powerful hook horror type demon, that I was able to pull out of the room away from his pet cleric and rakshasa, and dispatched that.
Then I ran in to take out the cleric and the rakshasa, who were refusing to leave the throne room. I got the cleric first before she could Flame Strike or Negative Energy me to death.
A rakshasa is a tiger-headed man, with strong protective magic and usually strong melee, although this one wasn't hitting me for much. It must have been one of the lesser members of its species.
I kept trying to take a better picture of it so you could see the model, but it was wearing some kind of magical protective shroud that made its features blurry, plus the lighting in the room was very dark, and I'm not wearing any light-emitting items currently.
The combat kept saying "You cannot damage this enemy with your currently equipped weapon", but that was wrong, as it so often is. I could and did damage it every time I rolled a critical hit, which is pretty often with my expanded critical range of 17-20. Even so, it did take a very long time to slowly wear it down. Luckily it wasn't able to hurt me any worse than I could hurt it.
If I'd thought to switch to my bow and use those lightning arrows, those might have gotten through its damage resistance if I could have hit it, although it's a big question whether I could have hit it with no bow-supporting feats, even if I'd been able to open up a distance before shooting.
I did try a rapier +2 that I had found, which made no difference, so it wasn't a slashing vs. piercing problem. I didn't have a blunt weapon so I could try crushing. I've been trying to save every gold piece possible hoping to buy my green acid-emitting "light saber". The acid probably would have bypassed his damage resistance if I'd had it.
I'm going to go back in-game and try to progress at least a little further today.
Reloads: 0
Level: 11
Personal Respawns: 2 ("D", Setara's flesh golem)
Tomi Respawns: 7
Well, I got my third respawn against High Captain Baram, because of a wrong move I made. He was fighting as a rogue/monk with dual wield kamas and sneak attack. I had destroyed two gargoyle statues that were buffing him, so I hate to think how strong he would have been if I hadn't destroyed those first. I used a Potion of Invisibility to move from the first one to the second one without getting attacked.
My problem was that he had a cleric supporting him, and I was worried about getting hit by her and him at the same time, so I decided to try to get rid of her first. That was a fatal error, because it opened me to double sneak attacks by Baram, and I was dead. I didn't make that mistake again.
Also, I had the problem that using my healer's kits was allowing him to make two sneak attacks while I used it, and he was hitting AC 31 at least 50 percent of the time. It was head-or-tails odds with those sneak attacks, and those are terrible odds. I had drank a Potion of Speed before dying.
At the temple, before letting the cleric who raised me teleport me straight back into the fight, I drank a Potion of Speed again. Those two were the last I had. He still almost killed me. I discovered I could use Lay on Hands without his getting any sneak attacks, and at my current level and charisma, that was worth a 60 point heal. (Charisma bonus was +5, I had made level 12). That one Lay on Hands made all the difference.
So I won during round two, but at terrible cost of experience and gold.
So, Level 12. I got a feat, which was a very hard choice. I decided I'd better take Power Attack, since I plan to take all 20 levels of paladin for this character before I take 10 levels of Champion of Torm during Hordes of the Underdark, assuming I play that far, and I don't have that many paladin feats left. The Champion of Torm levels I plan to eventually take may have Divine Might and Divine Shield on the feats list, but I'm not sure how my epic level feats are going to work, since I've only ever played HotU once, and I'm extremely unfamiliar with epic builds.
Divine Might and Divine Shield seem to be designed into the paladin class, such that I think a paladin who doesn't take them is going to wind up being a gimped paladin at high levels. So, I took Power Attack.
Power Attack has surprised me with how well it works as of level 12. I have such high BAB , which goes even higher with Bull's Strength, Bless, Aid, and now, Greater Magic Weapon (gives my weapon a +4 enhancement instead of its innate +2, and that will go to +5 at level 15, lasts an hour per level), that I don't even feel the -5 penalty from Power Attack, so I keep it on most of the time now. I'll only turn it off if I notice I'm having trouble hitting a boss. Along with the acid in my new weapon, it helps me damage right through Stoneskins, often interrupting spells. That's extremely helpful.
I got an attribute point, and started working on charisma, so my base charisma is now 15. With my cloak adding +5 points to charisma, my total adjusted charisma bonus is now +5. I could take it even higher if I start using potions, scrolls, or spells of Eagle's Splendor.
Notable gear upgrades:
I finally made enough gold to buy my "green light saber".
I found a suit of White Dragon Armor, same AC as my Whitebone, but lighter weight, and 20/cold resistance.
Oops, a little later I also found a Mithril Mail, which is 1 additional AC. That's better than the cold resistance, so that's the one I'll use going forward. That brings my armor to AC 32 unless I take off my necklace of Natural Armor to wear the Necklace of Health.
I found a Bone Phoenix, which has a fire emitter. Besides looking cool when equipped (It's on fire! Sorry, I didn't think to take a picture.), it's one of the best blunt weapons in the game. I think I'll hold on to it in case I need emergency crushing or fire damage.
I'm finding my shortbow +3 with lightning arrows to be surprisingly useful in some situations. I was able to get out of an Evard's Black Tentacles cast by a yuan-ti necromancer, and keep damaging her and interrupting spells at a safe distance using the bow and lightning arrows. The paladin's high attack bonus progression allows her to fight effectively even with weapons she has no focus in or feat support for.
Reloads: 0
Level: 12
Personal Respawns: 3 ("D", Setara's flesh golem, Baram)
Tomi Respawns: 7 (would be much higher if I still had him with me)
In about a month, I'm going to have some time to dedicate to gaming, and you folks are doing your level best to inspire me to beat the OC for the first time ever, and with a paladin, specifically. Come to think of it, I've never beaten HOTU either, despite a few completions of SOU. Decisions, decisions...
@BelgarathMTH you are probably only going to grow to level 25 at most in HotU, im going to guess that you will hit level 15/16 max when you finish the OC, and depending on if you bring team mates or not, im going to say the chance of you hitting over level 25 in HotU is going to be zero,
even with my genocidal runs i think i hit around level 28 or so going solo
so thats just some food for thought
also when it comes to epic feats for the champion of torm, for every 3 levels above 10th they get a bonus feat ( this doesnt include the bonus feat that you continue to get every 3 levels starting at level 21 )
although it may not be a no reload run per se, this seems to be the active photo gallery of our adventures
speaking of which, here are some screenshots of an adventure that im working on at the moment, luckily this time around its not as hard as i thought it would be, and im learning a little bit more and more each day, although NI is easier to use in my opinion, im slowly learning the ropes, so without further a due, lets see what i have so far
here is the beginning of the city you start in, the city of Calin:
another part of the city, just talking to some of the randoms
*face palm* i keep forgetting to increase my scaling when i take these oops, anyways, the old man is talking about how he has a harder time reading sun dials as he ages
and there are quests! 2 to be precise, they may only be fetch quests, but hey, they have legitimate journal entries and if you have the item on hand before, you can give it to them right away
and to add some "RP" flavor, if you think you can go into people's houses and steal stuff, this could happen to you
don't know if you can see it, but after breaking the chest open i got one point headed towards chaotic
this is all i got done in 2 days, and no doubt i will be up until at 3 or 4 in the morning again *tomorrow* but this will be the project that i will be working on until your characters can hit all the way to level 20 hopefully, but we will see how that goes
@BelgarathMTH, condolences on your third respawn. I would have gone for the cleric, too.
I don't know how bad attacks of opportunity are compared to sneak attacks. Using healing kits leaves you flat-footed, that means you provoke sneak attacks and lose your dodge AC bonus, while using potions provokes attacks of opportunity. So, I wonder if it's better to use potions when you fight a rogue, especially one that is dual-wielding?
I'm so envious of your equipment and your AC! ? Congratulations on your progress, and good to know that Power Attack works well at higher levels.
I've not finished the Neverwinter Woods yet, I still have to go into the Spirit's Realm.
Some of my decisions in this region were different from yours, I wonder if and how you will judge me. For example, I decided to loot Setara's home. I'm sick of evil people doing evil things, trying to kill me with all kinds of creatures (while I only wanted to talk to them and save the forest they live in), performing foul magic, associating with beings from the abyssal planes, kidnapping people to "steal their face" (that she couldn't finish it does not count), and then thinking that they can get away with it with a simple "I won't do it again, I promise!".
I did not kill her, of course, but if she really repents and wants to make amends, the least thing she can do is support my search and my fight by offering supplies.
I'm sick of those evil people taking advantage of my conscience. She will live, that is enough mercy. Justice must be done, she should be punished and not just forgiven, and if I have to save the forest, the city and everything around, I need supplies and equipment. Tyr is the god of justice, and it is *not* justice if those who serve him are taken advantage of by those who don't follow any law, and it's certainly not justice if anyone gets away without consequences just because they surrendered and promised to be good. I confiscated her belongings as her punishment and to help me stay alive to fulfill my duty.
If that sounds to you like a weak excuse to get rich, let me know. But I really got angry during the game that I spare anyone who surrenders, no matter what they have done. She doesn't deserve to die, but she should pay for the evil things she has done, and if that serves the greater good of helping me to survive my mission, then it's a useful punishment.
(I have decided, however, to refuse the druids' reward for saving the spirit, once I finish that. I'm not there yet. It was an unpleasant task that made me kill lots of animals and good people (Nymph's house), I don't feel like being rewarded for it, and the druids haven't done anything wrong.)
@Arvia , Hey, no judgement here. You don't have to make the same decisions as I do. I struggle with the Setara situation, and I always leave it with a bad feeling. Killing the mind-controlled people in the nymph's house always makes me feel bad too. Chapter Two throws a lot of no-win scenarios (Kobayashi Maru command test at Starfleet, anyone?) at you as far as ethical decisions. But that kind of mirrors real life, no? There's not always a clear answer to what decision is right.
Thanks for the information about healer's kits causing flat-footedness and loss of Dexterity AC while also provoking Sneak Attacks. I did not know that. However, if I had been attacking the cleric when I tried to drink a potion, the resulting attacks of opportunity would have still been sneak attacks anyway, so in that case, I don't think it would have saved me. Unless maybe still having my Dodge AC would have made him miss. Do I understand correctly that you still have your Dodge AC while trying to drink a potion?
My issue with the bonus feats for Champion of Torm is that they have to be chosen from a very narrow list of fighter bonus feats. So, for example, Divine Might, Divine Shield, and Extra Turning are not on that list. But from what you say about expected levels at the end of HotU, especially given that I'm taking respawn xp penalties, and not doing the "genocidal maniac" thing, I'm going to wind up with something like Paladin 20/Champion of Torm 4. So I think I'm on the right track to lay the ground work now to make sure I get Divine Might and Divine Shield by HotU. I'm also going to want Extra Turning to use those paladin abilities more often, and I still want Blind Fight somewhere in this build.
At least Blind Fight is on the Champion of Torm bonus feat list. I know a lot of enemies in the Underdark use Darkness, so it's really going to be needed. I always want Dodge for the +1 AC, but maybe I shouldn't have taken Mobility early on, despite its having increased my survivability in Chapter One. I usually think in terms of surviving lower levels, and not in terms of where I'm going to wind up at high levels.
If I go the distance all the way with this character to the end of HotU, I may try to run a Paladin through Saga of Aielund next. I know you can be level 40 by the end of that.
Paladins are kind of the underdog class of both NWN1 and NWN2, but I get a lot of satisfaction sometimes out of successfully beating a campaign with an "underdog" class, and I especially enjoy doing it with a straight, pure-class build, with no exploitation of the overpowered, wild and crazy "splash builds" people are so fond of.
@BelgarathMTH, the Kobayashi Maru is a good comparison. There is no right solution, you have to make a more or less reasonable choice that you can live with and bear the consequences... just like real life.
But usually I like games also because good and evil and right and wrong are easier to distinguish than in real life
I wanted to kill Setara and the Nymph, for what they have done and will probably do again, no matter what they say. But it didn't feel right to execute them in cold blood after talking to them, especially considering the things they said. I pitied Setara. But both of them shouldn't just get away with what they did without facing consequences.
About potions in battle, as far as I know, attack of opportunity is just an extra attack. It's the flat-footed condition that takes away your dexterity-based AC (same as being entangled), and drinking a potion doesn't leave you flat-footed, as far as I have understood. At least I think my avatar continued attacking after drinking a potion. After using a healing kit, she just stands there until I command her to attack again.
But as I said, I might be wrong, I'm new to this game after all.
Edited: I tried to use healing potions in a fight, comparing to healing kits. (I was stuck between a brown bear and a dire bear and had to use almost all of them). Taking a potion worked much faster, and they hit me less with their attacks of opportunity than damaging me during the longer time that I was using the healing kit. But that was only one occasion. I don't know how much your AC vs the attackers' BAB influences here.
I have completed Chapter Two, and begun Chapter Three, where I had enough resources to purchase some major gear upgrades.
I'm not posting in any detail about the end of Chapter Two, because I don't want to spoil the story for @Arvia, and there are a lot of interesting reveals and plot twists that I really don't want to ruin for any first-time players.
I did take some pictures of one fight in the Host Tower where I almost died. There are two golems, one of which you create yourself and take control of (and you'd better do that!), and some enormously powerful mages - strong enough to cast the dreaded Evard's Black Tentacles.
I'm out of here! Scotty, beam me up!
I didn't want to "beam" back into that mess. So I walked back. By the time I returned, all the enemies were on the big iron golem. That made it easy to pick them off. Then, it appeared my golem and the big golem were locked into eternal stalemate with each other, so I got the portal stone I had to have, and left that floor of the tower forever. I'd feel guilty about leaving "my" golem there, but they're both mindless constructs. They feel nothing and think nothing. And they're both invulnerable to the other. Whoever wants to take over that tower later can deal with the two "robots" forever locked into combat with each other.
Entering Chapter Three, I was asked to become a defense attorney in a murder case. I was able to get my client acquitted by a narrow 3-2 jury decision.
I had enough gold saved up to buy a Ring of Protection +3 and an Amulet of Natural Armor +3, bringing my unbuffed AC to 34.
I did some cost accounting, and realized that if I sold my Belt of Frost Giant Strength, Greater Belt of Piercing, my Boots of Hardiness +2, and my powerful magical shortbow, I could afford a Boots of Speed from Neurik. Thank Torm! These boots are arguably the most powerful magic item in the game, and many content creators make sure that you *can't* get them in their mods.
They put you under a permanent Haste spell, which, in no particular order:
-increases movement speed
-increases attack speed
-increases casting speed
-gives +4 to AC
Now my AC is 36. I know from past experience that the "magic number" for AC, where you rarely get hit even by the most powerful enemies in the game, is AC 40. So now, I'm only 4 away from the magic number!
I've often had trouble with this guy. Not this time!
I had bought these gloves to replace my Belt of Frost Giant Strength, which I needed to trade in for my Boots of Speed, and which I wasn't using anymore anyway, as there is just entirely too much Death Magic flying around at this level of the game. With these, I've only lost 2 to strength instead of 4 to strength.
Vaath had this plate mail for me. It increased my AC another point to AC 37. I wish it didn't look so ugly.
I think it's supposed to be made of obsidium, or adamantium, or some such dark, shiny metal. I think it makes me look too much like a Blackguard, but that extra point of AC is too good to pass up. I guess I'll have to think of Luke Skywalker wearing solid black in "Return of the Jedi".
"Batman" looking out at the sunset over the ocean, from atop the cliffs.
@Arvia , btw, I've been meaning to put this information out, just in case you haven't run across it anywhere else. It's about how the expansions work together with the OC.
You are meant to export your character from the OC into Hordes of the Underdark, OR, to start a first level character in Shadows of Undrentide and export *that* character into Hordes of the Underdark.
Shadows of Undrentide is a campaign for a first-level character. It's a very good one, too.
ah, the infamous boots of speed, with my half-orc play through one of the 5 convict people dropped a pair, and then once you hit level.... 13/14ish you can sometimes find pairs of them
but damn is that a good item, like wowzers, although i like to keep my boots of hardiness +3 because in HotU you can make your weapon give you permanent haste so then you need another pair of booties
Comments
And level 11 already, wow.
Yes, yes, message understood about the chests, LOL. I was going to take screenshots of every chest that I did *not* touch, just to prove that even I can still learn that
The Stone of Recall portal wants 150 gp per transport now. I'm always walking back after using it.
I'll second (or third) what the two of you said about companion AI. I got killed by the second werewolf boy because of it. We were fighting trolls, me in melee and Tomi with a bow, and suddenly there was that wolf boy. "Stand your ground" doesn't work if he's in sight and his bow is equipped, hevstarts firing again after a short moment. I had to fight the werewolf after being down to Injured because of the trolls, but I had to keep hitting that command to make Tomi stop firing, in case of an arrow in the air once the boy turned blue. So, while constantly trying to bat his hand away from his bow, worried that he'd accidentally kill the boy, I didn't pay attention to my health bar, took a critical hit and was gone.
Also, if he starts firing at enemies from a distance, they run for him, and that's annoying, too.
I was wondering about the traps, can you trigger them by shooting them with a ranged weapon from a safe distance? At least the traps on containers?
Edited: Why does the combat log say "Immune to mind affecting spells"? What are you wearing that does that?
None of that works on floor traps, though.
The card for that request is already not on the Input board, but on the Roadmap board:
https://trello.com/c/lmXsvl13/158-allow-full-control-of-ai-party-summons-henchman-companions-and-familiars. In the Needs More Discussion List.
Cards in the Needs More Discussion list are features that we have started to investigate but we need more details or feedback from the community to further action the request. That said, the discussion around that feature request has been done a long time ago, and all the features of NWN:EE wait till the work on the renderer is done.
@Arvia i believe he is wearing the helmet that you can buy from the wizard store in chapter 2, it makes you immune to all mind influencing attacks, probably the best helmet in the game
I didn't meet an elf who wanted to construct a scepter, @BelgarathMTH , you had mentioned it, but it doesn't seem to be important anyway.
This is what we have resolved of the bigger issues until now:
In Port Llast, we had talked to the mage, the druid, the priest in the temple of Tyr, the boy who survived the werewolf issue, the bounty hunter, and we convinced a ship captain to accept a cargo of relief goods for Neverwinter instead of choosing the more profitable route.
We took the North Road first and accepted to look for the farmer's wife Leah.
We discovered the caves, found them swarmed with kobolds, orcs and bugbears, and found out that someone was using them, making them fight against each other and taking the strongest ones away for an army.
The orcs especially were a problem with my AC 28, we had to travel back a few times to get healed, sell our loot (heavy!) and buy healing kits. We freed one bugbear from a prison and later again from his own people, and he told us about the "master" behind all this. We let him run away.
Here's the fight with the minotaurs and the orc chieftain. Im keeping Tomi out of it.
Even with barkskin I needed 3 healing kits (with good rolls) to survive the orc chieftain, and only because I was using the entrance as a choke point. I'm glad I sometimes remember not to rush in.
Then the bugbear chief followed (the kobold chief, too, but that was not such a big issue and I didn't take pictures), and somehow Tomi managed to get caught between them. He got knocked down twice, but I could keep him alive.
Then I went in to kill the remaining enemies and walked into a level drain trap. Ouch.
Finishing this fight made me reach level 8. The point went into strength, of course, to get the +3 bonus.
I got a level 2 spell slot. I'm using Protection from Evil and Bless for level 1, and Bull's Strength for level 2.
I'm worried about Aribeth. I hope I can help her somehow.
All those issues are a great subject for roleplaying, but as I said, I don't feel like writing stories right now. But I doubt this is the last time that she talks to me about things.
We went back, healed and rested, to face Dergiab. He hit me with two fireballs before I could run back into the doorway. The monk Ganon was the strongest of Dergiab's "followers". Dergiab himself was the last one to die, but he had already used his best spells when I met him face to face.
Unfortunately I didn't get any lucky drop, just stuff to sell. No Large Shield +3 for me
But at least I had enough money to get a magic bag of 80% weight reduction.
After giving Ganon's journal (which told us more about the cult, and that Ganon had been Dergiab's superior, not his follower) to Aribeth, we went into the outlying farmhouse in the south, confronted the angry parents, fought and saved the first werewolf boy.
We met the second one on the East Road, when he suddenly appeared next to us (and in the broad daylight, too, with no wolves in sight) while we were fighting trolls (who can hit very, very hard). And suddenly I was trying to stop Tomi from shooting at him and got killed.
Ouch, the loss of 400 XP and 362 GP was very painful.
We went into the troll caves and again I consumed all my healing supplies (several potions, too), just to kill the troll chieftain and his entourage.
When we went outside to rest, we entered the archeologists' camp. One of them wanted the chieftain's head, because his friends had been killed by trolls. We gave it to him. We met the not-so-smart boy and promised to find his mother, agreed to explore the ruins below the caves and find some book there about an ancient culture of one of the creator races for Professor Jax. Upstairs in their barracks we met an unexpected intruder:
She's one of the escaped prisoners. But I had a long discussion with her, and she seemed honest enough about her past. She seemed to regret what she had done and wished to change her life. That bounty hunter in Port Llast is just interested in money, not justice. Tyr is the god of justice, it's true, and I might have had problems with this decision if I had been ordered by Aribeth to hunt down the escaped prisoners. But this woman seems repentant and asks for mercy. I'm not going to kill her in cold blood for money.
I have heard that the conversation with Delilah takes a different turn when the player is male, but I have judged her based upon our conversation only, and decided to let her go.
Now, the next screenshot is just to show how stupid the pathfinding sometimes is, and how useful full party control would be.
I don't know how and why Tomi ended up right there when I had opened the barrel, and why opening the barrel made me end up behind it, but the result was that I was stuck. Talking to Tomi, changing commands, trying to walk, waiting for several minutes and trying again, nothing worked. I had to use the Stone of Recall to get out of there.
I don't like trolls. And I like troll shamans even less.
At least he was alone. Later there were two of them and an ogre, and I got stuck in the middle. I had to call in Tomi for a few sneak attacks on them. Unfortunately they shifted their attention from me to him and hit him hard, and one of them was blocking my way so that I couldn't heal him. I'm sorry, my friend.
I decided to let him rest at the temple for a while and to continue exploring this level of the caves.
See, I did *not* touch it. There was another one, a crate, that Tomi couldn't disarm, and it didn't even have scorch marks. It was next to the portal that takes you back to the surface after beating Dergiab. I didn't try to open that, either.
And then *another* troll shaman! Those guys must be really spiritual, they seem to have more shamans than warriors.
With the loot from that level, I went back to pick up Tomi. Selling everything tha I had found, and my Cloak of Protection +1, gave me enough money to buy the Ring of Protection +2. Broke again, but at least I have AC 29 now. Although I will have to walk around without light, and I have no cloak. I had made the mistake to sell the purple Nymph Cloak +1 to Johnny at the end of chapter 1, when I needed supplies, because I was wearing the Cloak of Protection +1 and didn't know that the blue Nymph Cloak +5 had been a random drop. Oh well.
Back in the caves, the next kill was a troll berserker and made me reach level 9.
I thought I was going to agonize over the choice. Improved Critical: Longsword sounds good, and so does Blind Fight. But my recent experiences with opponents who deal a lot of damage per hit made the choice easy. Toughness it is. Now I have 98 HP and AC 29 before potions.
It's time to go deeper into the caves to find those ruins and "what lurks below".
Level: 9
Reloads: 0
Personal Respawns: 8
Tomi Respawns: 9
After a bothersome conversation with her fellow students, sounds of combat rose from the floor below. Cela was happy for the distraction, as she was weary of maintaining her polite facade.
Teleporting downstairs via her ring, she saw many kobolds, pulled out her dagger, and summoned a dire badger. The kobolds all died or fled, but Cela was frustrated at her inability to take any of their lives by her own hand.
Once the excitement passed, Cela endured some more conversations and agreed to look for artifacts and herbs. Bringing Dorna along, she set out on her journey.
The first stop was a barn with evidence that something was hiding inside. The group found and promptly dispatched two kobolds. Ah, sweet satisfaction at last.
Bloodlust sated, Cela's mood lifted, and she went into town and visited the herbalist who gave her some of the herbs she needed, and said helmberry could possibly be found next door.
In the tavern was a mob of farmers. In the kitchen was a mob of kobolds. Cela spoke to the kobold's leader and used her Charm Person spell to convince them to come out. Cela took great delight in betraying their magically induced trust, allowing the other humans to kill them.
(The charm person option came up in dialogue. Pretty cool)
Condolences on dying to that werewolf.
I got my Golden Circlet off one of the assassins who was hunting me, a really big half-orc. It was probably another one of those lucky random drops I've been getting, but you can buy one from Eltoora the mage.
The elf who wants the scepter jewels is in the tavern standing next to Anders and Ahelor, who are talking about the werewolves.
the first dialogue option is: that'll do pete, that'll do
i got a chuckle from that, knowing that is a reference from the movie Babe
im also noticing, it is damn hard to keep hench men alive, its almost like they have a death wish
fighting the silverback wolf was a pain, because Sharwyn always made sure to get into melee combat with her bow so then the silverback could get sweetski attacks of oppurtunity
and i just finished the bonus tomb area where you need to press the runes; NETHER SHALL RULE
oh the lols, as soon as we teleported in there, a bajillion skellies came at us and she started casting spells on the non defensive, so ALL those skellies got attacks of oppurtunity on her and chunked her right away *sigh* good thing henchmen have "minds of their own" because god forbid i would instruct them to at least MOVE OUT OF THE WAY or cast defensively so you can actually get a spell off with her +14 to concentration bonus lololololololololololol
The game engine supports henchman actions like, "Try to avoid melee, switch to your melee weapon only when under melee attack." "Don't try to cast spells in melee." "Cast a group a healing spells/buffing spells on me/yourself." "Heal me when I reach 50% health." So why can't that be backported to the OC?
*walks back into the OT and bashes the anesthesia machine*
If I can't get stuck behind it any more, maybe they'll let me go home before tomorrow morning.
But I'll keep it in mind for in-game situations, too.
I love Turn Undead.
Okay, this looks a little more serious.
All right, now it's a little less serious. I can handle the three that didn't get turned, then pick off the rest, one by one.
Uh, oh. That thing looks scary. And it has a proper light saber with an elemental ice emitter. (There's one for sale in Luskan with a green acid emitter. It costs over 30,000 gp, though. I hope I can save enough, because I want that green light saber!)
I was getting beaten badly, so in desperation, I checked my bag for potions that would help, and drank a Potion of Speed. That made a huge difference. Notice that I used almost every healing pack I had.
I forgot to take a picture of this before - in a chest near some warring men outside, I had found a belt that gives piercing resistance/20. It already protected me during some fights that included lots of archers. But without using metaknowledge, there's no way to know exactly which creatures other than archers are doing piercing damage, so the item is very, very situationally useful. I am hanging on to it for now, to rotate in and out among my other belts and match the belt to the situation as best I can.
Okay, these things can be very serious, because they drain your strength all the way down to nothing. So, I put my Amulet of Health back on, sacrificing 2AC from my Amulet of Natural Armor. Now the whole floor full of them is trivial.
A mummy lord. Remember when I could barely damage one with a Longsword +1? Well, I recently purchased a Longsword +2, and now it's not so tough. That Longsword +2 had cost me 10,000 gp at one of the Luskan shops, which could really hurt my chances of getting my green light saber, but I went by the philosophy of "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", and now I was glad I did.
I found a shortbow +3, and decided to keep it to bash trapped chests without triggering the trap. On a strong chest, normal arrows weren't doing any good, but lightning arrows did the trick. Later, I came across a chest the lightning arrows wouldn't hurt. I don't know if any other elements would have made a difference, so the bow is a very limited solution to trapped chests. I may still wind up selling it. I'm not sure yet.
The water elemental guardian. Be very careful with these, because they can take half your hit points in one hit. I almost died trying to finish off her weaker helpers before I realized how strong she was just before she landed the death blow.
Oh dear. Voleron is a lich. (Switching to superhero genre briefly - "Egad! It's my archenemy, the Lich! Thank god Robin isn't here!)
I pulled away all his henchmen to the beginning of the dungeon, and the Lich was too much of a coward to follow and join the fray.
I decided to try running back up the stairs to see if I could rest to restore buffs and top off health. I can. Good to know. "Your cowardice and overconfidence in your power will be your undoing as always, Lich!"
The Lich summoned a dire spider, an extremely dangerous creature, to help it. At first, it looked like it would follow me back to the entrance of the evil fiend's lair, but it suddenly ran off and stood in front of its now invisible master, refusing to move again. "Very well, Lich, I'll kill your "pet", and then we can have our final showdown with no more henchmen or tricks!"
He was standing on a pyramid, and I started to worry he might have a phylactery hidden behind the pyramid, (some NWN liches do), so I ran back there first to be sure. I didn't want to have to defeat him twice. There was nothing back there but some "weak" skeleton warriors.
At last, my archenemy and I are locked into single combat, as we likely will be for eternity. This is how it should be, no henchmen, no tricks, just you and I, Lich!
Whatever fire spell this is, I think it may be stronger than just a regular level three Fireball.
He started spamming negative energy spells and mind-affecting spells, but my gear was protecting me from most of that. He would have done better with more lightning, fire, and of course, his dreaded Evard's Black Tentacles, but he didn't try any of that this time, for whatever reason.
Until next time, Xykon! I know you're never really gone until I find that cursed phylactery. I will find it, this I swear!
Well, hello, utility belt! I'm sure Xykon was meaning to keep this from me. (Sorry, I know I'm mixing franchises again. It's just how my mind works.) My strength is now 25 as long as I don't have to take off the Belt of Frost Giant Strength to put my Belt of Guiding Light back on (liches, bodaks, and any boss wizard or sorcerer)
I was able to use my bow with lightning arrows to take out this "chest with scorch marks". Inside was a gnomish armor. The net result of changing my Whitebone for it would be a loss of 1AC in exchange for 12 magic resistance. I happen to know that amount of magic resistance is so low as to be next to useless against high level casters, and multiple sources of magic resistance don't stack, so this beautiful blue-tinted armor will have to be sold.
Reloads: 0
Level: 11
Personal Respawns: 2 ("D", Setara's golem)
Robin, err, I mean Tomi, respawns: 7
unless he was using empowered fireball
As Cela and Dorna made their way back to town, Cela decided to stop at the city hall. Perhaps the mayor had died in the attack, leaving a power vacuum she could conveniently fill. Sadly, the mayor was still alive, though drunk and worthless. The assistant mayor asked about Drogan then requested help dealing with the village idiot.
Cela agreed to help, for the money and prestige. She found Piper spouting smoke to a group of villagers. It didn't take much for her to point out the holes in Piper's story, and he fled, embarrassed and humiliated. Cela hoped a wolf would feed him to its cubs.
In no rush to report back, she continued toward the town gates and saw another magic user loitering. Speaking to him, Cela received a request to help him establish a store in the village. With the promise of money and an in with the Red Wizards, she had nothing to lose.
Returning to the city hall, Cela collected for her work with Piper and, with the help of a charm spell, secured a license for the wizard outside. Piece of cake. (Actually, the dialogue option kept breaking off the conversion, so I had to use the normal persuade. Bug?)
After talking with the red wizard again, Cela could feel her coin purse getting noticeable heavier, which is never a bad thing. How delightful these people would part with so much gold for such easy tasks.
I like the mixed references, I think like that, too. There are just so many different situations that remind me of some other story.
And Turn Undead is so cool, I would really like to play a cleric in the future to be able to use the more powerful version!
I'm already afraid of the liches. I hope I can get better equipment soon, too. (I bet the strength belt was another of those lucky random drops!).
Congratulations on your progress, and thanks for the entertaining report blended with useful information, as always.
But I think I have to play for a bit, too, before I go to sleep for a bit during the day. I don't want to dream of Dire Spiders.
the first expansion; SoU
*****************
Kurth got a critical hit within two strikes that almost killed me. If he got another critical before I could heal up, it was going to be another respawn. A lot of fights come down to "Will they get a second critical hit before I can heal?" Before I resumed fighting, I took the chance on the attacks of opportunity involved to drink Potions of Barkskin, Speed and Endurance. No more critical hits, thank Torm, but I did need a couple more healer's kits to get back to full health, and then I could finally fight him effectively.
I had pulled Kurth out into the hallway away from his henchmen. I would have been dead if I'd run into the middle of that room into the ambush. If more had tried to follow, I would have tried to set up a choke point somewhere, or possibly used the portal stone to get out and to come back and hope for a better position, but as it turned out, none of that was necessary, and their AI wasn't smart enough to deal with a player using actual tactics instead of just blundering in.
He had a vrock demon, which is a medium-powerful hook horror type demon, that I was able to pull out of the room away from his pet cleric and rakshasa, and dispatched that.
Then I ran in to take out the cleric and the rakshasa, who were refusing to leave the throne room. I got the cleric first before she could Flame Strike or Negative Energy me to death.
A rakshasa is a tiger-headed man, with strong protective magic and usually strong melee, although this one wasn't hitting me for much. It must have been one of the lesser members of its species.
I kept trying to take a better picture of it so you could see the model, but it was wearing some kind of magical protective shroud that made its features blurry, plus the lighting in the room was very dark, and I'm not wearing any light-emitting items currently.
The combat kept saying "You cannot damage this enemy with your currently equipped weapon", but that was wrong, as it so often is. I could and did damage it every time I rolled a critical hit, which is pretty often with my expanded critical range of 17-20. Even so, it did take a very long time to slowly wear it down. Luckily it wasn't able to hurt me any worse than I could hurt it.
If I'd thought to switch to my bow and use those lightning arrows, those might have gotten through its damage resistance if I could have hit it, although it's a big question whether I could have hit it with no bow-supporting feats, even if I'd been able to open up a distance before shooting.
I did try a rapier +2 that I had found, which made no difference, so it wasn't a slashing vs. piercing problem. I didn't have a blunt weapon so I could try crushing. I've been trying to save every gold piece possible hoping to buy my green acid-emitting "light saber". The acid probably would have bypassed his damage resistance if I'd had it.
I'm going to go back in-game and try to progress at least a little further today.
Reloads: 0
Level: 11
Personal Respawns: 2 ("D", Setara's flesh golem)
Tomi Respawns: 7
My problem was that he had a cleric supporting him, and I was worried about getting hit by her and him at the same time, so I decided to try to get rid of her first. That was a fatal error, because it opened me to double sneak attacks by Baram, and I was dead. I didn't make that mistake again.
Also, I had the problem that using my healer's kits was allowing him to make two sneak attacks while I used it, and he was hitting AC 31 at least 50 percent of the time. It was head-or-tails odds with those sneak attacks, and those are terrible odds. I had drank a Potion of Speed before dying.
At the temple, before letting the cleric who raised me teleport me straight back into the fight, I drank a Potion of Speed again. Those two were the last I had. He still almost killed me. I discovered I could use Lay on Hands without his getting any sneak attacks, and at my current level and charisma, that was worth a 60 point heal. (Charisma bonus was +5, I had made level 12). That one Lay on Hands made all the difference.
So I won during round two, but at terrible cost of experience and gold.
So, Level 12. I got a feat, which was a very hard choice. I decided I'd better take Power Attack, since I plan to take all 20 levels of paladin for this character before I take 10 levels of Champion of Torm during Hordes of the Underdark, assuming I play that far, and I don't have that many paladin feats left. The Champion of Torm levels I plan to eventually take may have Divine Might and Divine Shield on the feats list, but I'm not sure how my epic level feats are going to work, since I've only ever played HotU once, and I'm extremely unfamiliar with epic builds.
Divine Might and Divine Shield seem to be designed into the paladin class, such that I think a paladin who doesn't take them is going to wind up being a gimped paladin at high levels. So, I took Power Attack.
Power Attack has surprised me with how well it works as of level 12. I have such high BAB , which goes even higher with Bull's Strength, Bless, Aid, and now, Greater Magic Weapon (gives my weapon a +4 enhancement instead of its innate +2, and that will go to +5 at level 15, lasts an hour per level), that I don't even feel the -5 penalty from Power Attack, so I keep it on most of the time now. I'll only turn it off if I notice I'm having trouble hitting a boss. Along with the acid in my new weapon, it helps me damage right through Stoneskins, often interrupting spells. That's extremely helpful.
I got an attribute point, and started working on charisma, so my base charisma is now 15. With my cloak adding +5 points to charisma, my total adjusted charisma bonus is now +5. I could take it even higher if I start using potions, scrolls, or spells of Eagle's Splendor.
Notable gear upgrades:
I finally made enough gold to buy my "green light saber".
I found a suit of White Dragon Armor, same AC as my Whitebone, but lighter weight, and 20/cold resistance.
Oops, a little later I also found a Mithril Mail, which is 1 additional AC. That's better than the cold resistance, so that's the one I'll use going forward. That brings my armor to AC 32 unless I take off my necklace of Natural Armor to wear the Necklace of Health.
I found a Bone Phoenix, which has a fire emitter. Besides looking cool when equipped (It's on fire! Sorry, I didn't think to take a picture.), it's one of the best blunt weapons in the game. I think I'll hold on to it in case I need emergency crushing or fire damage.
I'm finding my shortbow +3 with lightning arrows to be surprisingly useful in some situations. I was able to get out of an Evard's Black Tentacles cast by a yuan-ti necromancer, and keep damaging her and interrupting spells at a safe distance using the bow and lightning arrows. The paladin's high attack bonus progression allows her to fight effectively even with weapons she has no focus in or feat support for.
Reloads: 0
Level: 12
Personal Respawns: 3 ("D", Setara's flesh golem, Baram)
Tomi Respawns: 7 (would be much higher if I still had him with me)
even with my genocidal runs i think i hit around level 28 or so going solo
so thats just some food for thought
also when it comes to epic feats for the champion of torm, for every 3 levels above 10th they get a bonus feat ( this doesnt include the bonus feat that you continue to get every 3 levels starting at level 21 )
speaking of which, here are some screenshots of an adventure that im working on at the moment, luckily this time around its not as hard as i thought it would be, and im learning a little bit more and more each day, although NI is easier to use in my opinion, im slowly learning the ropes, so without further a due, lets see what i have so far
here is the beginning of the city you start in, the city of Calin:
another part of the city, just talking to some of the randoms
and there are quests! 2 to be precise, they may only be fetch quests, but hey, they have legitimate journal entries and if you have the item on hand before, you can give it to them right away
and to add some "RP" flavor, if you think you can go into people's houses and steal stuff, this could happen to you
this is all i got done in 2 days, and no doubt i will be up until at 3 or 4 in the morning again *tomorrow* but this will be the project that i will be working on until your characters can hit all the way to level 20 hopefully, but we will see how that goes
I don't know how bad attacks of opportunity are compared to sneak attacks. Using healing kits leaves you flat-footed, that means you provoke sneak attacks and lose your dodge AC bonus, while using potions provokes attacks of opportunity. So, I wonder if it's better to use potions when you fight a rogue, especially one that is dual-wielding?
I'm so envious of your equipment and your AC! ? Congratulations on your progress, and good to know that Power Attack works well at higher levels.
I've not finished the Neverwinter Woods yet, I still have to go into the Spirit's Realm.
Some of my decisions in this region were different from yours, I wonder if and how you will judge me. For example, I decided to loot Setara's home. I'm sick of evil people doing evil things, trying to kill me with all kinds of creatures (while I only wanted to talk to them and save the forest they live in), performing foul magic, associating with beings from the abyssal planes, kidnapping people to "steal their face" (that she couldn't finish it does not count), and then thinking that they can get away with it with a simple "I won't do it again, I promise!".
I did not kill her, of course, but if she really repents and wants to make amends, the least thing she can do is support my search and my fight by offering supplies.
I'm sick of those evil people taking advantage of my conscience. She will live, that is enough mercy. Justice must be done, she should be punished and not just forgiven, and if I have to save the forest, the city and everything around, I need supplies and equipment. Tyr is the god of justice, and it is *not* justice if those who serve him are taken advantage of by those who don't follow any law, and it's certainly not justice if anyone gets away without consequences just because they surrendered and promised to be good. I confiscated her belongings as her punishment and to help me stay alive to fulfill my duty.
If that sounds to you like a weak excuse to get rich, let me know. But I really got angry during the game that I spare anyone who surrenders, no matter what they have done. She doesn't deserve to die, but she should pay for the evil things she has done, and if that serves the greater good of helping me to survive my mission, then it's a useful punishment.
(I have decided, however, to refuse the druids' reward for saving the spirit, once I finish that. I'm not there yet. It was an unpleasant task that made me kill lots of animals and good people (Nymph's house), I don't feel like being rewarded for it, and the druids haven't done anything wrong.)
Thanks for the information about healer's kits causing flat-footedness and loss of Dexterity AC while also provoking Sneak Attacks. I did not know that. However, if I had been attacking the cleric when I tried to drink a potion, the resulting attacks of opportunity would have still been sneak attacks anyway, so in that case, I don't think it would have saved me. Unless maybe still having my Dodge AC would have made him miss. Do I understand correctly that you still have your Dodge AC while trying to drink a potion?
@sarevok57 , Your mod is looking nice.
My issue with the bonus feats for Champion of Torm is that they have to be chosen from a very narrow list of fighter bonus feats. So, for example, Divine Might, Divine Shield, and Extra Turning are not on that list. But from what you say about expected levels at the end of HotU, especially given that I'm taking respawn xp penalties, and not doing the "genocidal maniac" thing, I'm going to wind up with something like Paladin 20/Champion of Torm 4. So I think I'm on the right track to lay the ground work now to make sure I get Divine Might and Divine Shield by HotU. I'm also going to want Extra Turning to use those paladin abilities more often, and I still want Blind Fight somewhere in this build.
At least Blind Fight is on the Champion of Torm bonus feat list. I know a lot of enemies in the Underdark use Darkness, so it's really going to be needed. I always want Dodge for the +1 AC, but maybe I shouldn't have taken Mobility early on, despite its having increased my survivability in Chapter One. I usually think in terms of surviving lower levels, and not in terms of where I'm going to wind up at high levels.
If I go the distance all the way with this character to the end of HotU, I may try to run a Paladin through Saga of Aielund next. I know you can be level 40 by the end of that.
Paladins are kind of the underdog class of both NWN1 and NWN2, but I get a lot of satisfaction sometimes out of successfully beating a campaign with an "underdog" class, and I especially enjoy doing it with a straight, pure-class build, with no exploitation of the overpowered, wild and crazy "splash builds" people are so fond of.
But usually I like games also because good and evil and right and wrong are easier to distinguish than in real life
I wanted to kill Setara and the Nymph, for what they have done and will probably do again, no matter what they say. But it didn't feel right to execute them in cold blood after talking to them, especially considering the things they said. I pitied Setara. But both of them shouldn't just get away with what they did without facing consequences.
About potions in battle, as far as I know, attack of opportunity is just an extra attack. It's the flat-footed condition that takes away your dexterity-based AC (same as being entangled), and drinking a potion doesn't leave you flat-footed, as far as I have understood. At least I think my avatar continued attacking after drinking a potion. After using a healing kit, she just stands there until I command her to attack again.
But as I said, I might be wrong, I'm new to this game after all.
Edited: I tried to use healing potions in a fight, comparing to healing kits. (I was stuck between a brown bear and a dire bear and had to use almost all of them). Taking a potion worked much faster, and they hit me less with their attacks of opportunity than damaging me during the longer time that I was using the healing kit. But that was only one occasion. I don't know how much your AC vs the attackers' BAB influences here.
I'm not posting in any detail about the end of Chapter Two, because I don't want to spoil the story for @Arvia, and there are a lot of interesting reveals and plot twists that I really don't want to ruin for any first-time players.
I did take some pictures of one fight in the Host Tower where I almost died. There are two golems, one of which you create yourself and take control of (and you'd better do that!), and some enormously powerful mages - strong enough to cast the dreaded Evard's Black Tentacles.
I'm out of here! Scotty, beam me up!
I didn't want to "beam" back into that mess. So I walked back. By the time I returned, all the enemies were on the big iron golem. That made it easy to pick them off. Then, it appeared my golem and the big golem were locked into eternal stalemate with each other, so I got the portal stone I had to have, and left that floor of the tower forever. I'd feel guilty about leaving "my" golem there, but they're both mindless constructs. They feel nothing and think nothing. And they're both invulnerable to the other. Whoever wants to take over that tower later can deal with the two "robots" forever locked into combat with each other.
Entering Chapter Three, I was asked to become a defense attorney in a murder case. I was able to get my client acquitted by a narrow 3-2 jury decision.
I had enough gold saved up to buy a Ring of Protection +3 and an Amulet of Natural Armor +3, bringing my unbuffed AC to 34.
I did some cost accounting, and realized that if I sold my Belt of Frost Giant Strength, Greater Belt of Piercing, my Boots of Hardiness +2, and my powerful magical shortbow, I could afford a Boots of Speed from Neurik. Thank Torm! These boots are arguably the most powerful magic item in the game, and many content creators make sure that you *can't* get them in their mods.
They put you under a permanent Haste spell, which, in no particular order:
-increases movement speed
-increases attack speed
-increases casting speed
-gives +4 to AC
Now my AC is 36. I know from past experience that the "magic number" for AC, where you rarely get hit even by the most powerful enemies in the game, is AC 40. So now, I'm only 4 away from the magic number!
I've often had trouble with this guy. Not this time!
I had bought these gloves to replace my Belt of Frost Giant Strength, which I needed to trade in for my Boots of Speed, and which I wasn't using anymore anyway, as there is just entirely too much Death Magic flying around at this level of the game. With these, I've only lost 2 to strength instead of 4 to strength.
Vaath had this plate mail for me. It increased my AC another point to AC 37. I wish it didn't look so ugly.
I think it's supposed to be made of obsidium, or adamantium, or some such dark, shiny metal. I think it makes me look too much like a Blackguard, but that extra point of AC is too good to pass up. I guess I'll have to think of Luke Skywalker wearing solid black in "Return of the Jedi".
"Batman" looking out at the sunset over the ocean, from atop the cliffs.
Reloads: 0
Personal Respawns: 3 ("D", Setara's flesh golem, Baram)
Level: 12
You are meant to export your character from the OC into Hordes of the Underdark, OR, to start a first level character in Shadows of Undrentide and export *that* character into Hordes of the Underdark.
Shadows of Undrentide is a campaign for a first-level character. It's a very good one, too.
but damn is that a good item, like wowzers, although i like to keep my boots of hardiness +3 because in HotU you can make your weapon give you permanent haste so then you need another pair of booties