The party travels to where we left the Underdark, and rests in sight of the exit. No ambush this time. Then we return to Elhan, and gain entry into Suldanessellar. He still refuses to tell us what relation Irenicus and Bodhi had to his people, but points us to a priestess who will.
Once inside, we are directed to find Ellesime and the high priestess. The first building we enter is guarded by golems of clay and stone; Lupa switches to a staff and Rasaad to his fists to deal with the clay golem. It goes down in one hit - no trouble at all.
That little battle brings Lupa to level 26, for more Pick Pockets and her first Spike Trap. We recover a stone horn and a cloak of elvenkind.
Continuing around the outside, we reach the palace, and a battle between elves and a Balor. Naturally, we intervene. It puts up its aura and a stoneskin, but we power through.
The palace itself is sealed; we will have to return later with a greater power. Outside, we meet an elven captain guarding some wounded, who tells us of a black dragon that Irenicus rode in on - we will likely have to deal with it as well. Reirra offers healing, but we have no need right now. We ask about the palace, and she tells us we must find the relics and summon Rillifane's avatar.
The elven warrior outside is talked into opening the gates, and we continue through to fight a group of rakshasa alongside elven battle mages. We wait out the useless attacks of a dominated elven battle mage - he can only hit Haer'Dalis on a critical, and his weapon is ineffective. Well, OK, we don't wait forever - he stays hostile, so we kill him inside the nearby building that also holds the moonblade and a Gate scroll.
Continuing to the northwest, we face stone, iron, and sand golems. No hits taken; we avoid a cursed wound. The house nearby holds a stone harp, and now there's an idiotic elven warrior chasing us around. Or maybe two.
The next step northwest is the dragon - can we take it unprepared?
A breath weapon goes off. The entire party saves, and has 50% or more resistance to acid on top of that. And moments later, it's over. One dragon down, dead to simple brute force. Between immunity to fear and swarm attacks with the bard song, resistance to acid, and strong saves, the dragon's nastiest moves were all neutralized. Jaheira bags another dragon.
The Bladesinger Chain is nifty, but not of use to this party.
And while we're at it - Jan wishes for experience. Time to fight some golems. Cernd takes a cursed hit, but that's all. We'll wait to cure it, as regeneration renders any need for immediate healing moot.
Demin's house is next. We rush to the nabassu and kill it, then the drow Raamilat goes hostile. A Sphere of Chaos can be ignored as the entire party is guaranteed to save, and we just wait out the PfMW... nope, shouldn't have. He's got an Imprisonment memorized. OK, reload and do this right. There's no autosave at the dragon, so we have to redo that fight. The dragon is even less effective this time, wasting effort on a Remove Magic. Lupa gets the kill, and this time we'll save.
The golems are fought; no cursed wound this time, but an adamantine golem hit drops Jan below half health.
This time, Raamilat gets a Haer'Dalis dispel.
The two normal rakshasas inside go down quickly enough, but the leader uses two PfMW to last eight rounds. A triple-LR spell trigger on Lupa... she's still immune to spell damage and has negative saves, so I'm not too worried. Also, that was 27% each. No ninth-level spells on this foe. A Maze gets Lupa out of the way. Then, finally, Cernd finishes Adsaan off. It's enough for him to reach level 24, taking club proficiency and Storm of Vengeance.
After waiting out the magical sword and the Maze, Demin has some exposition for us... well, actually, a lot of exposition for us.
We also pick up a girdle of less than werewolf strength, and a scroll of Absolute Immunity.
Some skeleton warriors are easily handled - hey, random Protection from Energy scroll! The next house provides a Meteor Swarm scroll, and a puzzle box that we leave to seek clues for. They are found upstairs, in a priest's house, along with a Time Stop scroll. Suldanessellar, apparently, has someone creating a great many 9th level scrolls. The box gives us the talisman, and we move on.
The next platform has a fight with an adamantine golem and two stone golems; Rasaad levels up to 29, taking enough Find Traps for 100 as a human and the Smite ability.
Yet more adamantine golems follow, and multiple gas cloud hits overwhelm Jan's regeneration. We have to spend a healing potion and a Slow Poison spell, and his contingency stoneskin triggers.
Only one building remains - the temple of Rillifane. It is guarded by a group of rakshasa. PfMW all around? Try a Remove Magic, then.
They hit us with a Remove Magic back, but even the maharajah isn't high enough level to break Jan's Stoneskin. Two of the lesser rakshasa get a second PfMW up, but we just wait that out ignoring everything they can do. Then a third - they're persistent. One of their dispels does get lucky and take out Jan's stoneskin. It's not like he needed it. A Stinking Cloud/Web minor sequencer actually knocks Jan unconscious - his death save is weak.
Suneer and his fiends go down; we can fight just fine in a Web after the enemy has cast Greater Malison.
65K experience for everybody brings Haer'Dalis to level 31 - another Spike Trap. We get the Staff of the Woodlands, which Cernd holds as his alternate slot - it saves him the trouble of using bracers of AC for reasonable defense in that mode.
Reirra shows up outside the temple; she offers excellent prices, but no items of interest. We enter the palace, and replace the statue pieces. It is time to enter the tree of life and confront Irenicus.
Our pack is not held together by obligations, but instead by far stronger bonds of loyalty. We will be together to the end.
Ellesime greets us on the tree; there are parasites that must be destroyed for us to continue.
It summons elementals to defend itself, but not enough to matter.
Then we come to a stump-like platform, where Irenicus stands within an impenetrable bubble. This is where he will be when the parasites are eliminated - so we prepare the battlefield with some traps:
The last two parasites are dispatched, and we return to face Irenicus.
It is a very short battle. He is killed by our traps, unable to take any action. But, then, it does not end there.
Lupa is in a Hell, and her pack has come with her. There is a door protected by five eyes, and five sets of stairs down. Clearly, they are some sort of tests to open the door.
Oh, and "injured in the battle"? No, that's definitely not what happened.
We start to the left of the door, and face the first test. It is a wraith of Sarevok, here to tempt our wrath.
Become the slayer? No; that is a form Lupa has not mastered. Instead, she will trust in her pack and remain as a werewolf. He attacks, and we are stronger. Even Haer'Dalis joins in, and gets the killing blow. The tear is claimed, but not used. We drop it on the ground by the stairs as a marker.
The next test tempts us to greed, with a powerful magical weapon. We resist temptation again; what good is a sword when we have our claws? This tear we use right away; Lupa's saves improve by 2.
The next is a test of selfishness; a demon kidnaps Cernd and asks Lupa to choose between sacrificing a piece of her strength and sacrificing her packmate. That is no real choice - but such cruelty deserves a trick in return. Jan hides Lupa in a Maze, and opens the doors for her. Without her to draw from, there is no sacrifice, only a rescue. Oops, magic resistance? Reload, and take off that equipment...
This tear is used and immediately dropped. Then we use it again, taking the place of the wrath tear. 20% magic resistance gained. When combined with Kaligun's amulet, the Ring of Gaxx, the Human Flesh armor, and greater werewolf form, that's perfect 100% magic resistance. This is the culmination of all our planning, the ultimate anti-magic tank. You need a no-save no-MR non-elemental attack to seriously harm her.
Next is fear. We are offered a cloak to protect one party member - but we have the howls of Haer'Dalis to protect the whole party instead. Keep your flayed nymphs; we will face this as a pack.
One room features beholders - two gauths, two ordinary beholders, and an elder orb. Lupa and Rasaad will handle this.
The Elder Orb summons monsters to attack us, but all but the magical swords are easily eliminated. It also protects itself with PfMW, which we simply wait out. It can't hurt us. We gather the tear and the loot in the chest, then return to the hub. This tear grants immunity to +1 weapons and less.
The last challenge is pride - will we fight a powerful creature simply because we can? No. A pack has no need for such things. We only fight with purpose.
We accept the dragon's gift. The tear of pride is ours. And now, we prepare for the coming of Irenicus. Traps are laid - three normal traps, three spike traps, and one time trap. Then we prepare defenses.
The last tear grants resistance to fire, cold and electricity - bringing Lupa to 95 of each. It is time to defeat Irenicus once and for all.
Our companions take one last chance to trash-talk Irenicus, and then the traps fire.
323 damage to start the battle. He's still walking, but shown at near death. I suspect that this battle's scripting includes that he can't die yet. His choice of defenses... Spell Shield, PfMW, Stoneskin. Jan's sequencer should break that. Also protection from Normal Missiles and from Magical Energy, not that we're using either.
There was one more trap in there, but the Time Trap seems to have done nothing.
Then, over the course of a Time Stop in which he added more defenses, Slayer Irenicus regenerates up to merely injured. OK, that was definitely more than enough damage; he just can't die yet.
When a Glabrezu puts up a Mirror Image, we have Haer'Dalis throw in a Remove Magic. That breaks down a lot of defenses. Eventually, the last demon goes down. Time to take out Irenicus... wait, where's Jan's Spell Trigger button? He's got one prepared. Actually, he's missing his Minor Spell Sequencer button, too. All right, we'll just have Haer'Dalis cast Remove Magic again. Slower, but no less effective. That breaks his defenses, and the beatdown commences. Rasaad in earth elemental form with a Greater Whirlwind is particularly effective.
And so, we come to the end of SoA. The last blow against the Slayer was struck by Jaheira, and then many further blows against human-form Irenicus followed - the last by Rasaad. We are given an Amulet of the Seldarine, and Cernd takes it. His save vs. spell goes up to 2, but that's tolerable.
Some final stats, at the end of SoA.
XP: Lupa 3711127+1250000=4961127. Cernd 4851250. Jan 4791412. Jaheira 4867411. Haer'Dalis 4696715. Rasaad 4870731. Nearly 5 million across the board, and we haven't even entered Watcher's Keep.
Kills: Lupa 599 for 2288616 XP, strongest Adalon (54000). Cernd 364 for 1063790 XP, strongest Hive Mother (50000). Jan 234 for 587019 XP, strongest Kangaxx the Demilich (55000). Jaheira 634 for 2161443 XP, strongest Bodhi (91000). Haer'Dalis 69 for 250765 XP, strongest Shade Lich (22000). Rasaad 430 for 19711335 XP, strongest Unseeing Eye (30000).
Since we nearly always fight with claws, the most kills go to the strongest melee attackers. Haer'Dalis lags far behind in kills, because he usually just helps the party by singing.
After the hell trials, in her standard werewolf configuration, these are Lupa's defenses:
173 HP, AC -12 (-2 vs missile, -1 vs. piercing), saves -3/-4/-2/-3/-3 (death/wand/polymorph/breath/spell), resistances fire/cold/lightning 95, acid 50, poison 100, magic 100. Immune to weapons up to +1, immune to spell damage, immune to disease. Regenerates 8 HP per round. She's usually under bard song, which is another 4 AC and 5 MR, plus immunity to stun, confusion, and fear. Physical damage is one of the very few ways to hurt her, and she's got double-haste movement and extremely good stealth skills to get away after being hit, on top of exceptional AC. This is a very tough nut to crack.
The previous post was the last SoA update, but not the end of the run. We're going straight into ToB, and I should be able to keep up this posting schedule to the end. I'm nearly there in my play anyway.
Part 31: Saradush
I tinker a bit with the save in order to fix the broken sequencers; this is the version in which the game knows what spells they have but has forgotten how to launch them, so I have to add the abilities back in. There's no way to fix this with normal play; you can't re-memorize the sequencers without launching them first, and you can't launch them to clear that. There are two such abilities for each sequencer type; for future reference, the "D" abilities are creature-targeted and the "P" abilities are area targeted. Thankfully, this is the only time I get this version; every other forgotten sequencer is the inverse, in which the launch ability stays but the spells inside are forgotten.
And then, we're sent immediately to the fight against Illasera and her Black Reavers. Illasera chooses to target Haer'Dalis, and comes very close to killing him; he is forced to retreat out of her range, and that's barely enough.
Still, we take down the reavers and then rush Illasera. She goes down fast enough at that point, and we are drawn into the new pocket plane. We restore Sarevok to life, but don't take him into the party.
Talking to Cespenar - bladesinger chain upgraded to +5 version. Still useless. Cloak of protection +2 upgraded to have abilities. And another one. Our third cloak goes un-upgraded. Of course, this means that we now have a way to grant improved haste equipped to the monk that can't use it and the bard that spends all his time singing... oh well, they can always be shuffled around if we want the abilities.
Time for the first challenge. We let Haer'Dalis sing and the others run around fighting - until we do something silly and have the bard engage some drow. He's not terribly effective, and that makes Jan a lot more vulnerable to the drow.
Jan nearly dies to Bodhi's swarm of bats while his regeneration is frozen in Irenicus' Time Stop, and the PfNW from the bard song wears off.
I have Jan retreat while the others take down the main threats - the vampire and warrior, of course.
Ooh, there's a HLA spell cast against us - Comet. Not very effective, though.
Bodhi goes down, and it's the fallen planetar's turn next (another HLA spell). Then Sarevok, and it's clear to take down another version of Irenicus. All right, we'll use that spell trigger. It seems to work, but he recasts PfMW. All right, a dispel this time. That doesn't work - eh, just wait it out. He can't be immune forever. It runs out, we hurt him... shadow door into another PfMW. Just keep going... He eventually goes down, with Jaheira getting the killing blow. The fighting experience and the reward at the end are good for thief level 27 on Lupa (more Pick Pockets and a Time Trap) and thief level 21 on Jan (stealth, Spike Trap).
Rasaad speaks up - for all he says he's not willing to be close to Lupa, he still watches. Both of them are deeply troubled by what they have been forced to do.
We leave the portal of our pocket plane, straight into the besieged city of Saradush and another fight - this time, with soldiers of Gromnir's army who see our appearance as signs we are spies. We find ourself charged with dealing with the general so that we can leave the city and deal with the besieger Yaga-Shura. And, of course, the mysterious meddler Melissan, who has some interest in the children of Bhaal and the ability to teleport away despite the siege's protections.
We spend a charge of a rod of resurrection to raise a peasant killed in the bombardment - or do we? Both rods still have the full ten charges.
At the temple of Waukeen, we speak to Sister Farielle. She reveals that Melissan brought many Bhaalspawn here - ostensibly to protect them, but the effect has been to gather them for slaughter. When asked how to enter the castle, she gives us a key to the abandoned jail - there is a path through to the castle, but the jail has been taken over by powerful undead.
We encounter several cultists and their mage leader, a "Cold Mistress". She protects herself with a fireshield (blue) and Mantle, so you know what that means - time for the fire elementals.
A street urchin Squip has some rather excessive demands. 1000 GP for information? We try to talk him down - OK, he'll talk for 5. It's more than he's had before. Some soldiers are harassing a group of elves, so we threaten them. They back off, but now the elves need somewhere to go. The temple provides.
In the tavern, we warn a group of soldiers to back off from harassing a waitress. They refuse, and attack us instead. A waste, but at least we get their armor and weapons. A +3 sword and a +3 hammer? Rich gear for grunts. The bartender sells even more generic +3 weapons - and a single unique item. Yamato +4, a wakizashi with +1 AC, is the most expensive item in the game. Fortunately, it can be stolen.
We meet Volo, and he has tales to tell about us - though, strangely, not one mention is made of our werewolf natures.
Hectan returns the spellbook in return for a teleportation scroll - but we must warn him that it won't work. Returning the spellbook to Lazarus is good for Rasaad's 30th level - more stealth, GWW #3. Then we have a scribing session. Stealing scrolls, we complete the spellbooks of both Jan and Haer'Dalis - well, the latter doesn't have Wish, but he's got everything he can possibly cast and more. That brings Jaheira to the brink, so we throw in a couple Identify scrolls. Fighter level 18, staff specialization, Summon Deva. Also, Lupa casts a Find Familiar scroll.
No, no, we won't eat you. Come on, rest in my pack. And don't think about my teeth. Jan - no stew. This rabbit's a friend.
Between buying and stealing, we're up to five boots of speed. If we felt like it, we could have everybody but Rasaad moving at double-haste speeds. Jan steals two more archmage robes, but after a fashion consultation Haer'Dalis sticks with his current "evil" version.
The barracks is next. Before we get there, Rasaad tries to tell a poorly timed joke:
Lupa offers him some reassurance - despite what he may say about choosing revenge first, she will stay with him. A pack is family, a mate is for life - forever.
In the barracks, it's enormous numbers of poorly armed soldiers. They don't have magic weapons, and we have Enhanced Bard Song. It's a slaughter.
And now, time to enter the jail. A few rooms in, we meet our first undead - a fledgling vampire. That lines up with the description we got from a terrified bar patron. Destroying the vampires here will be a service to the people of the town.
A tormented spirit greets us, and we find a skull nearby. Can we put this spirit to rest? More rooms and corridors, more vampires. Haer'Dalis reaches level 32, and we meet the spirit again. Axe proficiency, Spike Trap #5. We return the skull and amulet, and use our holy water. The spirit is put to rest, and Cernd reaches level 25 - a seventh level 7 slot, plus his last HLA (Energy Blades). All future levels will grant only hit points. We are also rewarded with a bit of treasure - a bronze ioun stone, granting a level 7 mage spell slot. Jan would rather wear a real helmet.
There's a lock further in that resists even 115 lockpick - so Jan switches to fire elemental form for the 25 Dex, puts on his techno-gloves, and applies the resulting 155 score to it. The vampire leader Phlydian is killed, and we head into the castle dungeons.
I like playing this next bit as a stealth mission; get in and free the prisoners without alerting the guards. The Staff of the Magi is key here, for its instant invisibility. And... failed right away, since a stealthed thief was there to see me open the door. OK, now it's the direct approach. Jan takes some hits, and retreats for a few rounds. Haer'Dalis actually gets hit in melee by the thief - it takes a roll of 20 on a backstab, but it happens.
The enemy mage throws up an image of some sort - it doesn't have any combat protections, so it dies. That leaves the real mage, who casts a Time Stop into Spell Turning and Greater Malison and Glitterdust. Then another Time Stop into Minor Globe and Symbol:Stun. One party member briefly blinded, none stunned. Then the combat protections go down and the mage dies. The prisoners are released for three wasted reputation points.
Forward to the next room, it's more mook soldiers, and an enchanted scabbard in a chest. Perhaps we'll find the sword it belongs to as well. Two more rooms of weak soldiers, and we have a way up into the palace proper. We won't take it yet - the sewers come first.
We are greeted by devil shades and shadow fiends; these sewers have an undead problem. The umber hulks, by contrast, aren't a big deal. Then it's sappers belonging to Yaga-Shura's army; they must be defeated to protect the town. A mage in the group? Take out the warriors first. The magical swords he summons are annoying, but he doesn't last long once his Improved Mantle ends... In retrospect, I should have whacked him with the Staff of the Magi.
A larger sapper group and the shades attacking them are no problem. A sapper group with mage backing - ignore the mage, chase down more sappers. Then we find the mage again. Only a Stoneskin and some spell protections up, until he adds a PfMW. Well, we got a lot of hits in against that stoneskin - let's try a nonmagical staff and spear.
It works, with Lupa delivering the killing blow.
The sewers are clear, and now it's time to head up. The next floor is guarded by a battle mage and a group of soldiers. Standard tactics apply - kill the soldiers, mop up the mage at leisure. The mage goes for summons - OK, kill the summons fast as well. We end up fighting in a Stinking Cloud, and Jan drinks a potion after taking some hits, but the plan works.
We somehow haven't rested since before Suldanesselar, but this is just Gromnir here. We press on, despite not being able to activate full defenses on the party. Stoneskins and spell defenses up.
Gromnir thinks Lupa is an assassin. Ugh, paranoia. Well, we came in ready for a fight.
We do agree with him on Melissan's untrustworthiness, though. We just aren't in a position to do anything about it.
It's a messy fight, with us using a number of potions. Soon, though, most of the clutter is gone. It's just Gromnir, the two mages, and some summons now.
Haer'Dalis is killed by Gromnir, and Jan finishes him in revenge. Now it's time to deal with the mages. A Teleport Field is insufficient to protect the battle mage, leaving just Karun the Black. He's got a combat protection up, so we try a Staff of the Magi hit... nope, still ineffective. Back to werewolf mode.
Cernd takes a break to raise Haer'Dalis, and all six attack now. Then, finally, his combat protections fall. Cernd gets the killing blow, with a critical hit.
Then Melissan shows up, to "guide" our next steps. We have no choice, really - but we will be watching for her sudden yet inevitable betrayal.
Then, of course, she teleports away. Clearly, she doesn't trust us not to attack her. We used a number of potions in the battle, but 13 new superior healing potions outweigh that. Lupa reaches level 28; Pick Pockets, long sword specialization, spike trap #2.
Unique equipment: Lavender Ioun Stone (to Rasaad, so his save vs. death is no longer a relative weakness), Roranach's Horn, Ice Star +4, Grandmaster's Armor +6. The helmet is situationally useful, but the weapon and armor are nothing we're interested in.
Up on the roof - ooh, free swords! 20 long swords +1, to be specific. Whenever the guards die and are replaced, they drop weapons. Jan takes a turn shooting fire giants from the ramparts. With the Ring of Gaxx equipped for regeneration, it's free experience and potions. We stop at nine kills - enough to fill out our current four stacks of extra healing potions and reach Rasaad's next level (stealth, Hardiness).
Before the party leaves Saradush, I'd like to handle the last substantial side quest there. We visit the militia headquarters, and find ourselves drawn into investigating a betrayal - someone opened a gate to let the enemy in. Speaking with the Countess Santele, we find a hint of the truth - the culprit has used kidnapping and blackmail to cover his tracks.
Speaking to Kiser, he makes a second accusation - the wizard Errard. Removing him would be a true blow to the defense of the city, but we talk instead - and Errard divines the location of the kidnapped Ardic. Kiser is truly guilty, and we return to confront him.
He's a particularly nasty backstabber (an Assassin with 7x backstab multiplier), landing a one-hit kill on Jan and another powerful backstab on a singing Haer'Dalis. Both of those were critical rolls - he missed Jaheira on a 13, so he certainly would have missed Haer'Dalis on anything less than a critical.
The repeated invisibility potions are also very annoying, but we nail him after the missed backstab. Then Jaheira raises Jan, and we continue working to clear the area.
He drops a Shakti Figurine, allowing a non-fighter to transform into a powerful hasted warrior for a few rounds. It's obviously far inferior to our existing werewolf abilities, so we have no use for it.
There's a mage farther in. We wait out her combat protections (PfMW, then Improved Mantle), then attack. Then it's a contingency PfMW, so we get out the nonmagical staff and spear. That doesn't take down her stoneskin fast enough to avoid a Time Stop, but the only offensive spell she casts is a Greater Malison. Her PfMW expires, and she goes down in moments after that. Ardic is freed, and the countess rewards us with a bit of gold.
We also picked up some starfall ore, which may have use in forging an item of power. We shoplift a few +3 arrows and bolts at the Tankard Tree, then a good deal more +4 bullets - after buying and selling 40 to increase the merchant's stock. About half of our old +2 ammo is recognized as stolen and dumped, while the rest is sold.
Talking to Viekang - no dialogue option regarding the Horror ability we have. In retrospect, we have to force this one and just cast the spell. We leave Saradush for the pocket plane, and tweak spell memorization... wait, the sequencers are gone. Oh well, just discharge the empty ones. We want something new anyway, so Jan prepares three Flame Arrow spells and we rest.
We use the portal to leave Saradush, and find elements of Yaga-Shura's army immediately. This poorly-equipped bunch only had a single magic weapon for the officer, so they went down quickly. One of the merchants they were harassing, a Karthis al-Hezzar, has a number of useful items to sell us - and he buys at the best prices in the game. We steal an ioun stone and a potion case, and buy our third rod of resurrection.
Now, to clear the area, some fun with backstabbing. Lupa equips the Staff of the Magi and the Staff of Rhynn in her quickslots, deactivates auto-attack, and goes on the hunt. The very first move? 132 points, one-hit kill on a Fire Giant.
Then she switches to the Staff of the Magi to retreat, switches back, and hides again. The second fire giant takes 127 from the stab, surviving with a sliver. Then she comes back to whack him, critically misses twice in a row, and finally kills the giant on the third swing - still before he can counterattack. Two soldiers are next, and she crosses the second bridge. Two soldiers there, plus a skeleton - the second soldier is saved by a critical miss, while a mage somewhere nearby puts up defenses. Still, we can come back and stab again. The soldier must have had his ranged weapon equipped - 152 damage (with Bard Song bonus from halfway across the map).
More soldiers go down, and we reach a northern group. A Cleric of Talos gets a critical backstab:
We take long enough whacking foes one by one that the fire giants' enrage wears off. They take two hits each, unlike all the humans. And now, where's that mage... OK, time to run Detect Illusion. I'll need a whack with the Staff of the Magi to dispel the Stoneskin anyway.
It doesn't seem to work. All right, forget subtlety. I'll send in the party and let the mage act. Everyone else was killed without them getting a single counterattack off. The mage shows up at the end of the bridge, gets off a Greater Malison, and dies in one hit after six others take down the stoneskin.
Now, it's time to go to Watcher's Keep. On the way, we are waylaid by Sharrans - a Crusader, a Monk, an Assassin, and a Sorceror. Ignore the mage, kill the monk and crusader, reveal the assassin with passive Detect Illusion.
That's an Unholy Blight. None of our party can possibly take damage from it; Rasaad is guaranteed to resist, and the other five are neutral.
OK, the Assassin was under non-magical stealth when the battle started. After critically missing, he goes with a potion of invisibility. That can be dispelled. He gets in another attack, and misses, before losing his invisibility so we can swarm him. Only the mage remains. He casts Mord's Sword, then loses his protection and dies quickly. He also tried a Slow spell in there - no effect.
We now know where to find the Deepstone Clanhold - but that can wait. First, Watcher's Keep. We pick up the Vigil Stone and the Ritual Scroll, then enter. The Paladin's Bracers go to Jan, for the increased HP. At 69, he's quite vulnerable. We now have enough gloves with passive bonuses to equip everyone.
The Stone Golem goes down in two hits, and we bring out Fire Elemental forms for the trolls. One hit taken, no spells cast by the spirit troll. For the highest-level version of this ToB encounter, they're not any worse than what we ran into way back at de'Arnise Keep. Then we pick up the Golem Manual - our fifth summoning item - but an attacker that is merely immune to magic and normal weapons isn't much in this party. Only Jan has the intelligence to use it.
The Case of Plenty +1 goes into the bag, and then we face the first dangerous enemies - two Vampiric Wraiths. Werewolf power is sufficient to take them down without taking any hits in return. More mists, some spiders, the +1 quiver, and the ammo belt. We spring a couple traps in our impatience, but they're damage spells that don't affect Lupa.
A fight against some mustard jellies brings Haer'Dalis to level 33 - Greater Evasion taken.
We talk to the archivist, then the priest. We're ready to perform the ritual and head down. But first, there are some golems here - Fight! Neither of them takes a single action before dying.
A gallery of statues that look like adventurers? Very suspicious - let's lay some traps. Two mages and a rogue get two spike traps each, while a priest gets one spike trap. Then we cast our buffs; Stoneskin and spell defenses for the mages, Iron Skin and Armor of Faith for the druids, plus Shield of the Archons for Cernd. Add some item summons, and we're ready for a fight.
And... trap fires early, statue immune to magic damage. The first group goes down without incident, and Foebane is ours.
The other traps go off, equally ineffectively. We target a warrior first with our attacks. Then we're cheated out of the experience - another statue gets the kill with an Incendiary Cloud. It wipes out our summons, but our party can fight in the cloud just fine. Next target, the golem. Rasaad takes a hit, but it goes down. The rogue and archer are next. Before we can do much, a mage goes into a Time Stop sequence - Shadow Door, Mord's Sword, Time Stop, Minor Globe, Symbol:Stun. The Time Stop has nullified our Bard Song, so that has a chance of causing trouble. (It doesn't)
Rasaad takes another crit from the rogue, and drinks a healing potion. We pick off a foe that had fallen to near death in the cloud, then get back to the rogue. Then Time Stop into Spell Thrust on Haer'Dalis (nothing to remove, now that SI: Abj has expired) and PW: Silence on Cernd - absorbed by his spell defense. Huh, I thought the AI was unwilling to target spell-protected characters with anything but defense-breakers.
Haer'Dalis loses his Spell Deflection to a Secret Word, and the rogue goes down. Usuno's Blade acquired. Then it's the ogre's turn, and finally only the mages are left. A triple-Remove Magic sequencer drops Jan's Stoneskin, while he removes the illusion protections of the two mages in return.
Time Stop into a triple-Lower Resistance sequencer on Jan - wait, that ignored his Spell Deflection?
One mage goes down, while the other protects himself with Improved Mantle. I'd like to dispel that, but I can't right now - Cernd is carrying the bag with the Staff of the Magi in it and is confused right now, and Haer'Dalis has Carsomyr and is stunned right now. Oops.
Then it's Jan's turn to be stunned, and he takes some magical sword hits - before those swords expire.
The Improved Mantle wears out, and is replaced by a Mantle. All three of our currently effective attackers can switch to +4 weapons. Jaheira gets the kill with her spear, and the fight is over. Now we just have to wait out the Chaos and stun.
Lupa reaches thief level 29 (PP, Spike Trap) and Jan reaches mage level 17 (Spike Trap). Note to self - don't bother with spike traps on the statues. A Time Trap or two would have been better.
We head down, meeting the Chromatic Demon. We apparently have no choice but to bargain with it. Oh, and Haer'Dalis was teleported down while still stunned. We just have to wait that out.
We unlock the gateway to the outside, and head back in. First, the fire library. There are a pair of fire giants there, which deserve a bit of backstabbing. One backstab brings the first down to critical levels, and he drinks a potion of freedom. Then a second finishes the job. The second giant is backstabbed once, then engage by the team. It gets a hit (averted crit) on Lupa, and dies shortly after. From there, the library becomes a job for the thieves.
We loot the place of its many potions and elemental ammo, and an imp tells us how the place works. It's all about the fan.
Next, the air library. Golems here; two clay, one stone, one iron. Sneakiness is recommended to whack the clay golems from stealth. Two hits on one golem, three on the other. Then the party joins back together for the last two golems.
The slime library brings spiders and floor traps. We disarm the traps under stealth, then engage. Jan reaches level 22 as a thief - stealth, spike trap #5.
The ice library has mists. The two vampiric wraths are taken down cleanly, and the remaining mists aren't much of a threat.
And now, time for the labs. The air lab is first. We fight the guardians in their realm; since most of our party is immune to electricity, it goes smoothly enough. Rasaad and Jan take decent chunks of damage, but only them. This encounter also brings enough experience for Rasaad to reach level 32. More stealth, no proficiencies left to take, and another GWW.
Simple brute force takes down the creatures of the slime lab, and we claim the flail head. Then we open and close doors to prepare the ice lab with toxic clouds. With most parties, I take this next step by ducking in and out, drawing out the guardians. This party, on the other hand? We should be able to fight in that. We can clear the slow effects by swapping weapons, and we can tank the poison damage.
Well, OK, the slow effects are more persistent than that. We still tank the poison damage and kill the ice golem in its own lab.
Luring the fire elementals is simple enough, and then we charge in to face the fire giant. The Helm of the Rock is an upgrade over the Dragon Helm for Lupa, adding acid resistance.
And now, it's time for the Chromatic Demon. For this fight, we're going after the ice form with fire damage. Bring out the fire elemental forms, fireshields, and that Fire Arrow sequencer. Also, there's one more source of fire damage. While Jan is over level 20 as a thief, his traps' power is based on average level of all classes - which means that he's still got the level 16 version that deals fire damage. I'll have five of those.
And then... it switches to the air form right when I open the cage. Oops. Also, the extreme resistances have been upgraded to outright immunities. Reload that. I cast my fire shields farther in advance, then wait for it to go icy. A misclick releases it in air form again, and reloaded.
On the third try, the traps do most of the work, then Jan fires off his sequencer.
Incidentally, the most reliable method I've found in a typical party is to to use wands of lightning. 18d6 lightning per shot, and any arcane caster or high-level rogue can use them.
And now, we've accumulated quite a few pieces for Cespenar to work with. Time to return to the pocket plane.
Foebane +5, Flail of Ages +4, Quiver of Plenty +2, Circlet of Netheril, Blessed Bracers, Helm of the Rock, Case of Plenty +2 crafted. The circlet would be nice for Jan, but I like the helm of defense even more.
Opening the way has also brought Haer'Dalis to level 34. Second Time Trap taken. We go down to the next level, and meet a mad elf "Yakman". Following him leads to another item of interest - the bard's gloves. He gets a Heal spell, restoring his sanity. We open the way out, and then it's back to the pocket plane. The gloves need upgrading now. And for once, we actually give the bard's gloves to the bard. They're great for Jan too, but he needs the HP from the paladin gloves more, and Haer'Dalis will make better use of the low-level spell slots.
And... the game glitches. Tamorlin is still in his base room, and talking to him again grants the 5K experience per party member a second time. OK, then. That's nice.
I haven't installed the randomizing component, so I have a map of the level here. We start by heading east, to the dead magic pillar room. This dispels Haer'Dalis' Stoneskin, but the party has no other dispellable effects active. It's nice to avoid that weakness.
It's an easy enough fight; the Balor tries and fails to cast a spell, and the only damage we take is from the Balor's fire aura. It's foolish enough to try to cast a spell rather than just attacking us.
Rasaad picks up Purifier, and we head east to Tahazzar. We're willing to negotiate... for now. Then it's south, to a room with a pit fiend and various minions. One Cornugon gets off a fireball despite the dead magic, but we're basically immune.
Jaheira reaches fighter level 19, and takes Implosion. We head east to the wild magic quasit room, and ... ooh, that's a wild surge I refuse to accept. 80% of the party gold gone, over 500K? Nope.
Reloaded... this time, a quasit gets a really good surge - no save on a Blindness spell. But it's targeted on Lupa, and eaten by her 100% magic resistance. Better luck next time! They also try Magic Missiles on Jaheira (Harper Pin) and are generally completely ineffective. Cernd reaches level 26, gaining ... 2 HP.
Now, south to the succubus and alu-fiends. They find it very hard to hit us and impossible to charm us, so it's fairly straightforward. Jan takes several hits, though, and disengages for his safety.
South to Ka'rashur next. It's easily won with brute force, ignoring the enemy spells with bard song. Jaheira gets the killing blow, and we have a heart to take back to Tahazzar.
The battle brings Lupa to level 30, and her second Time Trap. Back to Tahazzar we go, earning the Thieves' Hood and the scepter gem. Then we fight and kill them. Lupa sets a Time Trap, then launches an attack. By the time the trap ends, Tahazzar is dead - but losing the bard song opened up Jan to being stunned. Some quick maneuvering keeps the worst threats away from him, and we win the fight easily enough. Haer'Dalis does take one level drained from the succubus - down to 33. We'll clear that up when it comes time to rest; there's no spell slots lost that way. Except... for some reason, it deactivated his bonus spell slots from items. Apparently, level-drained characters can't benefit that way.
(He has the Wondrous Gloves and the Ring of Acuity equipped)
... Wait, why did two non-hostile glabrezu just teleport into the succubus room?
They're not interested in talking, so we attack them. That brings Rasaad to level 33, and GWW #5.
The summoners come next. And... all right, I need a better plan here. They start with PfMW and Mirror Image protections, there are considerably more summoners than vanilla, and attacking the summons simply isn't fast enough.
Reloaded, and this time we're opening with a Dispel Magic. Also, Jan will be detecting illusions. I spot a "Weapon ineffective" notice on an ice salamander attack - they don't have magical weapons, which means we can focus on the fire summoners and elementals. Jan gets chunked by a fire elemental attack... OK, reload. Revised plan; bard song stays up at all times, take out the fire summoners and elementals first. About two rounds in, with the aid of a dispel from Haer'Dalis and two Breaches from Jan, we have the fire summoners eliminated. Now, to clean up their elementals.
As it turns out, the battle at this point is far too chaotic to control. Jan keeps getting hit, and drinks multiple potions to recover. We do, at least, get rid of the elementals and one of the ice summoners, then try to take control again. The summons can't hurt us, so focus on the summoners. And then, it's only summons left - summons that can't hurt us.
It's automatic from there. When we're done... Lupa's already over halfway to her next level. The experience piles up fast in here, especially since each summon was good for 5K (ice) or 10K (fire).
Now, we turn west to the wild magic tieflings. They have some high-level abilities, but two whirlwind attacks didn't help much - our party has enough AC that they couldn't hit reliably that way, and they couldn't stand up to our attacks. We pick up ten superior healing potions from this room, more than replacing the five extra healing potions used in the last.
Now, we turn north. With Bard Song up, the fear and stun spells demon knights are fond of don't work on us. They try two PW:Kill spells on Jan; not only does he have too many HP, but he blocks both with magic resistance. Lupa gets drained two levels - "Slayer Transformation enhanced". At least she's down to only one copy of it. The Cambion gets a backstab in on Jan, but only 38 damage. And now, north to the wraith room. We prepare for it with a Find Traps spell and deactivating the AI, since there's no room to move without setting off traps.
The Demon Wraith puts up an impressive array of defenses, on top of its innate immunity to +3 weapons - but we're focusing on the slave wraths first.
We take them down and Jaheira gets mazed. Now, it's time for an elemental beatdown.
After the first staff hit, Lupa switches to fire elemental form. And then, with two fire elementals and two earth elementals pounding it, the wraith finds it very hard to cast anything. A triple Cone of Cold spell trigger drops Jan down to single digits, so he drinks a potion immediately. And then the beatdown continues, with Jan getting the final blow.
Incidentally, one of the spells the demon wraith cast early on was Black Blade of Disaster. That probably made its attacks less dangerous - no guaranteed level drain.
And now, we reach the final cavern, where Aesgareth is. A deck of many things... time to save-scum. Haer'Dalis' Remove Curse spell has, sadly, been wiped out by the level drain removing his bonus spell slots. As such, we'll pop back to the pocket plane, restore the lost levels, and rest. Haer'Dalis has picked up enough experience for level 35, and takes Avoid Death. While we're at it, we have Cespenar forge the white dragon scale.
Round 1, experience (for Haer'Dalis) against Spectral Brand. He draws "Strife", Aesgareth draws "Triumph". Victory for us.
Haer'Dalis is slowed, but takes on the next challenge as well. "Guile" vs. "Empress" - we lose, Haer'Dalis down 50K XP. OK, reload. "Strength" versus "Defiance". We win.
Now Haer'Dalis is cursed down to strength 6, and can't move. A casting of Remove Curse, and he's back to normal. Lupa reaches level 31; she's now better than Jan at picking pockets. New ability - Exploding Trap. Now, we play for the way out - but first, we set traps. Emperor for us, Wheel for Aesgareth. We lose, and now we renege.
The traps take out one tiefling and nearly kill Aesgareth; Lupa quickly finishes him off.
The mage is annoying as usual (PfMW), so we kill the rest before returning. A Time Stop into Symbol:Stun takes out Haer'Dalis since the bard song immunity wore off, and Lupa gets out a regular staff to beat up the mage. No, wait, she switched to Improved Mantle. Make that the Staff of the Magi. Dispelled, and then killed.
Jan levels up - thief 23, for more stealth and a second Time Trap. And now, we play with the Deck.
Round 1: Gem, Gem, Ruin, Gem, Flames, Donjon (save with a 5).
Round 2: Key.
Round 3: Skull, Comet, Skull, Comet, Moon, Erinyes, Throne.
The Warder's Signet goes to Cernd, and we're back to having all party members at 1 or better save vs. spell. The Throne XP is good for levels on Haer'Dalis (36, Bastard sword prof. and Exploding Trap), Lupa (32, Long sword mastery, Pick Pockets to 215 + 35 = 250, stealth, Avoid Death), and Rasaad (34, stealth, Deathblow).
I also considered settling for Comet there instead of Throne; the step from 95% fire resistance to 100% fire resistance is particularly valuable.
We move down to the next level, and meet Carston, the "Lord of the Level". He gets bored and summons trouble, in the form of mind flayers. We immediately dispatch them, and the experience is enough for Jaheira to reach new levels - fighter 20, druid 15. She gets lots of new spell slots and takes both Elemental Summoning and Greater Elemental Summoning.
We kill some devil shades and shadow fiends, then open the way out. This also marks the end of the session chronicled in part 31.
Returning inside, we explore the area. Soon, a group of trolls brings Cernd over the top to level 27. No new spell slots or HLAs, just another 2 HP.
Then, we run out of space in the ammo belt - entirely from what we've picked up down here. It piles up fast when you're not using any of it. There are Magic Golems, so Jaheira gets out her spear and Lupa gets her staff. I recall mimics, but we haven't seen any yet... Anyway we have the blue oil.
We turn to the other side - ah, that's where the mimics are. Also, six braziers. Lighting them is clearly needed to open the way. The blue oil is important, but we need flint and tinder too? Shouldn't we have that sort of thing already?
Next, the illithid encampment. With the sheer number of save-or-lose effects we expect, having the party at 1 or better (save vs. spell) isn't quite good enough. Jaheira gets a mind focusing potion, Cernd gets Chaotic Commands, Jaheira/Rasaad/Jan/Haer'Dalis get invulnerability potions. Now everyone's at -3 or better, and we proceed.
The flayers in the first room eventually wise up and hit us with a Detonate, but we regenerate fast enough. Opening the door south immediately lets more flayers and umber hulks in, and - huh, this bunch are actually trying their mind blasts. We finally take a brain-suck, on an averted crit by an ulitharid:
The southernmost room has a large group of illithids, and four of our party are brainsucked - including Haer'Dalis twice. That brings him down to 5, and vulnerable to death with one more. They may need criticals to hit us, but they get a lot of attacks.
Rasaad also reaches level 35; stealth, Greater Deathblow. We'll wait a bit, for regeneration and for some of that Int to come back. We speak to a dying apprentice of Carston; he tells us that the machine is the key to moving deeper, so we must find the key sequence to release Carston if we are to proceed.
Our Int is back, so forward it is. We take the southern path first. The illithids here have clearly already teleported in to attack us, but the umber hulks are enough for Jan to level up. Illusionist level 18 reached, Summon Planetar taken. Jan can cast that instantly, while still a werewolf - it's considerably easier to use than Improved Alacrity for this party. Also, now that he has ninth level spell slots, he memorizes a Freedom.
We complete the Illithid Rod, then return to the central area. The potions have expired, but this is the last room. We collect the red oil - trap activated. Two Vampiric Illithids attack. Their Psionic Blasts fail, the first misses on a 9, the second misses on a 16 - dead. We suffer no drain from them.
Back to the main area, and then the githyanki encampment. An Anti-Paladin drops the sword Ir'revrykal - eh, not as good as swords we've already got. Actually, this area is completely trivial; we're immune to their nonmagical weapons and their mind blasts, so they really can't do much of anything. The flood of enemies into the first room stops, and all they've managed to hit us with is a couple Acid Arrows that we resist heavily.
The flint and tinder we need are in a chest here, so we're one step closer to unlocking that puzzle.
There's another group of gith - we tell them that the illithids are dead, but they're completely unreasonable about it.
The Fallen Deva there is more of a threat, so we focus on it first. Haer'Dalis takes some hits, which are then followed up by a 50-point Absorb Health from the captain - OK, we should have cared about him, too. He drinks a potion to help recover. The captain drops a flaming sword Angurvadal - well, it's a better option for Jan's alternate weapon than the short sword he had before. The purple oil is ours, and all that is left in here are the two mysterious doors.
Knowing something of what's out there, we put up spell defenses and go into elemental forms before entering the western door. Lupa has the Staff of the Magi instead.
It starts out with all combat defenses, including PfMW and protection from fire and magic energy. An instant Breach is called for - and then Haer'Dalis dies. Failed save against the howl?
The Breach didn't work, for no clear reason. I didn't even get a "Spell Ineffective" message. Then it's a contingency spell shield, and Time Stop into Spell Trap, Improved Alacrity, Shadow Door, Dark Planetar, another PfMW, Dragon's Breath - we're back in werewolf forms now for the resistances... Imprisonment - Jaheira's shield is gone. Another Imprisonment, and Jaheira is removed. She hands her fire elemental token over before that can finish. RRR on Jan - no more Spell Deflection, but the Abjuration immunity is still up. Yet another PfMW...
OK, I'll reload. I was lax on preparations, and should have added Avoid Death for Haer'Dalis. Keeping him in the fight gives me more options to break through those combat protections. And - huh, didn't know you could go through with only one party member. Reloaded again, since I don't actually want to fight that way.
This time - forgot the Avoid Death, but only Lupa was in range of the howl anyway, and the whole party was still in werewolf form anyway. The dispel lands...
Fully effective, until a new PfMW goes up. Breach that... Spell Ineffective. I thought that component removed invulnerability to Breach? Apparently not for demiliches. All right, let's go with a Dispel instead. It's not like our side has any dispellable buffs right now. Dispel missed, Time Stop into Shadow Door and Stoneskin. That wasn't such a good idea; the PfMW expires, and the demilich starts taking fire damage through the stoneskin.
It gets a PfMW up, then I go for another dispel - aborted, since it ran to a far corner. A third dispel succeeds, although it used the time to summon a dark planetar. Still, down to almost nothing left. And... victory. Jaheira gets the kill, with a fire elemental blow.
Switching to werewolf forms before the Dragon's Breath lands, we take very little damage. The Fallen Planetar soon dies, and we can leave. We earn the Dagger of the Star from the demilich and the Greater Grimoire of Demon Binding from the casket.
Next, it's dragon time. With spell defenses up, Jan can't be given a Resist Fire and Cold spell - so he uses a potion of fire resistance instead. We add stoneskins, iron skins, mirror images, Armor of Faith, and Greater Sun for this battle. We're ready - time for battle!
He starts with Improved Haste and PfMW - that deserves a Remove Magic. Lupa doesn't have a stoneskin, so she has to retreat a couple times to avoid excessive damage, but other than that it's simple enough. Jaheira gets the killing blow.
We take an immediate trip to the pocket plane, and upgrade our two new weapons. The dagger goes in a bag, but the staff replaces the Staff of Rhynn; it's Lupa's ultimate whacking stick.
Haer'Dalis reaches level 37 with the dragon battle, and takes Magic Flute. Three delayed blast fireballs per day? It has its place.
We light the torches, and enter the last unexplored part of the level.
Two minotaurs are there, and I'd like to try out that new staff... backstab failed, only 44 damage. Rock is protected. They activate warrior HLAs, Power Attack and Critical Strike. OK, is Garock protected? Yes, only 40 damage on him. Right, time for the direct approach. We bring in the party, deal with some late-spawning shadows, and take out Rock. The Axe of the Unyielding is ours. Garock is now joined by some irrelevant ice salamanders. He tries a War Cry - we're fear immune from song and our saves are too good. Forget it.
He goes down, and we pick up a mallet and a clay golem page. Now, to extract Carston and use the machine. We hit the glass six times, and he's free. We let him go in exchange for his journal telling us how to continue down. That's the first combination we use. Now, who gets the stat boosts...
Int goes to Jaheira; being able to survive a second mind flayer hit is more valuable than anything other party members could gain. Charisma goes to Lupa, and the Nymph Cloak is obsolete. Wisdom goes to Cernd, for another fourth level spell slot. Constitution goes to Jan, for 10 extra hit points - all of our party are now at 90 or above. Strength and Dexterity go to Lupa, since she's more likely than anyone else to not be using a shapeshifted form. Haer'Dalis gets the magic resistance, fitting his usually defensive role. And finally, Rasaad gets to use the machine to pick up Storm Star. With that, we're done with the machine and ready to head down.
We open the exit first thing, then clear out a few monsters that were hanging around. Next, it's three doors guarded by a ghost. The first is a horde of orcs - since their only magical weapons are +1 arrows from the archers, we can basically run on autopilot. The mages use PfMW and minor attack spells, which makes them very easy to ignore until later. Eventually, they throw in some Teleport Field spells, which are actually slightly annoying.
Lupa reaches level 33, and takes more stealth plus a second Exploding Trap. We picked up the spear Ixil's Nail; upgrading to Ixil's Spike +6, Jaheira has her final spear. While we're at it, we also upgrade Storm Star, the Golem Manual, and the Thieves' Hood.
The second door is a green dragon. It opens with a breath weapon, and only Jan takes any damage - Lupa, Jaheira, Cernd, and Rasaad are all immune, and Haer'Dalis was standing too far away. It gets dropped to a sliver, then heals itself with a contingency:
Then it heals itself again. This dragon isn't much for offensive spellwork, but it's certainly annoying. A second breath weapon kills Jan, but there's no third heal. We win this fight, and raise Jan.
That fight was done without any preparation; we just charged in. We pick up the Warrior's Skull to continue in this area, and Hindo's Doom - our first renewable source of Restoration.
Jan levels up from the quest reward, taking katana proficiency, stealth, and Dragon's Breath. In this party, we'd love it even if it wasn't party-friendly.
The third door is an imp. We play his riddle games, and win. Rasaad reaches level 36, taking a fourth Hardiness. Then we exit and are given a key, along with enough experience for Jaheira to reach druid level 16. She takes a second Hardiness.
We use the key, and are thrown into a fight. Lupa and Rasaad concentrate on the Hive Mother, with Lupa using the Staff of the Magi to dispel its protections.
Then Jan uses his new Dragon's Breath spell. Instantly cast, it deals heavy damage to two enemies - but he dies before it lands. The Hive Mother goes down, allowing Lupa and Rasaad to join the fight against others. The others follow one by one, leaving only the marilith Y'tossi.
We wait out one PfMW, only for her to cast another, and another, and another... Eventually, she goes down, to a hit from Rasaad. We raise Jan with the Blessed Bracers, and continue on. In retrospect... we really should have set some traps.
Taralash goes into the bag, while the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization go to Jaheira. She now has 5 APR as a werewolf. Haer'Dalis reaches level 38, picking up another level 6 spell slot and taking a second Exploding Trap.
The spirit warrior comes next. East and attack the goblin, east and attack the skeleton,, take the wand, north and attack the dog, take the potion and key, west and take the scroll, west and drink - oops - north and attack the ghost, take the helm, east and try the drawer - die. Reload.
Second round, don't drink from the fountain, save against the poisoned drawer. Then north and use the scroll, west and drink the potion, ominous archway. Use the wand, win the fight, and return.
We set traps before using the key this time - including a time trap for Lupa. It's not quite enough to kill Azamantes, but it's enough to badly hurt him (two bars, "Near Death". The Flaming Skulls hurt us quite a bit on death with their skull traps, enough that we move out of the way for a bit:
Then, while killing the last skull, it's a Time Stop sequence - Greater Malison, Gate, Cloudkill. The Pit Fiend is killed, and we retreat in the face of a PfMW. He doesn't chase us, and thus isn't subject to the two traps that didn't fire. Eventually, we run him out of defenses and take him down - but not before he summons a Pit Fiend that's immune to +3 weapons. Lupa clears that up, earning us the Erinne Sling and the Serpent Shaft.
The experience is enough for Lupa to reach level 34, taking a fourth Spike Trap.
Then it's the globe machine. We start with red - hobgoblins, kuo-toa, trolls, greater wolfweres. We mixed in a couple traps for the last round.
With no poison immunity and relatively low HP, those two normal traps wiped out the greater wolfweres. We put the red globe in its pillar.
Blue brings mages. Slow but easy. The second casts two horrid wiltings... which we can just tank, no problem. The third dies before she can do anything. The fourth gets a pair of spike traps, and dies instantly to the first. Blue globe into blue pillar.
Green is spiders, then umber hulks, then earth elementals, then beholders. I have Haer'Dalis set a time trap and an exploding trap for the last round, which he uses to attack the Hive Mother - badly. The party retreats, leaving this fight to Lupa and Rasaad.
Purple brings skeleton warriors, devil shades (Jaheira reaches fighter 21, taking sling specialization and Globe of Blades) which drain Cernd and Rasaad a level each, vampires which get a pair of spike traps, and finally liches. We tank the incendiary cloud, but then have Cernd imprisoned and Jan dead to a generic lich (failed save vs. Wail of the Banshee). The elemental lich casting Time Stop into Incendiary Cloud and Meteor Swarm, by comparison, can be completely ignored. Rasaad somehow takes a tiny bit of damage from the cloud despite 123% MR, but he's still 90% fire resistant.
And then, finally, that elemental lich goes down. I really should have added more traps to the last round. Haer'Dalis uses a Freedom scroll to get Cernd back, Cernd raises Jan, and we tackle the final seal.
A full array of traps, and we turn the key - Haer'Dalis reaches level 39, for a second Greater Evasion. He uses his Time Trap to go after the Aurumach Rilmani - ooh, bad idea. The Rilmani are time stop immune, and we're in trouble. With two dead, we reload - unfortunately, back to the Azamantes fight. This time around, Haer'Dalis gets the kill - which is, at least, a new top kill for him.
Fewer traps on the globes this time. One spike trap for the third mage, nothing for the wolfweres or beholders. Rasaad gets the Hive Mother kill again, but for some reason the lower-XP Unseeing Eye is still his #1. This time, only Lupa has a level drained by the devil shades. The vampires, on the other hand... Jaheira loses five levels there, and that calls for immediate restoration. Haer'Dalis uses the charge from Hindo's Doom for this. He's fatigued, but that won't impact his singing. Cernd levels up to 28, taking shield style. Rasaad hits level 37, for another GWW.
Now, the liches get traps - aimed at the generic lich. Three spike traps... The first one works, but the other two get absorbed by a PfME. At least it's down to Near Death; I have Haer'Dalis cast a dispel, and Lupa gets that one last blow in. Now to beat on the Elemental Lich. Its elemental attack spells do virtually nothing to us, and we win easily.
We set traps at the seal - no time traps this time - and unleash the Rilmani. Three of them are knocked down by exploding traps, and we take advantage to attack them immediately.
Two down... and then the aurumach casts a Time Stop. Ouch; Jan dies, because they always target him first. We take down the ferrumach, leaving the aurumach immune to werewolf attacks - oh, that's an innate immunity to +3 weapons, not anything in the Mantle line. Bring out the elemental forms.
The Club of Detonation... I really like its +5 version in general, but this party doesn't do one-handed weapons. The second ring of fire resistance is more useful to us. We are now ready to enter the final seal.
Down in the final seal, Lupa reads the scroll. The Imprisoned One tries to dissuade her by telling her the Helmites are false, but she will hear none of it.
It's a large experience reward, and Jaheira hits druid level 17. Storm of Vengenance taken. The portals out are indeed inactive, so we return to the Imprisoned One. It offers us a way out - but we're not trusting it. Time to fight. We put up some buffs and traps, then speak to the Imprisoned One again.
It is Demogorgon. The traps injure it noticeably, and then a PfMW goes up. All right, then, Haer'Dalis has one Remove Magic left.
Well, that didn't quite work out. We came close, though. And - uh, let's summon help before starting the battle this time.
Rasaad uses an Earth Elemental/Hardiness/GWW combination to fight Demogorgon head on, and we swap Jan to the Periapt of Proof Against Poison to stop damage from the foe's disease.
And then, we win.
Rasaad for the killing blow.
And then, in the mop-up stages, Lupa dies. I didn't even see what killed her - although there was a Balor, so possibly that. Actually... the energy drain effect appears to remove her saving throw bonuses. That makes her vulnerable, so it probably was that.
We go again, and this time avoid dying at the end.
Spellcasting during the battle was minimal; one Remove Magic, and that was it. We summoned a planetar and an elemental prince in advance (plus a wasted deva - oops), though, and used some warrior abilities and healing potions. Rasaad leveled up to 38, taking another GWW. Jan leveled up to thief 25, for Comet. And Lupa got drained all the way down to thief level 23. Ouch. Well, that's mostly temporary. We just have to wait for Jaheira to come back from the maze with our stock of restoration scrolls.
We exit, then return to the top of the temple to confront the false Helmites. And... oops, I made the mistake of reloading without checking. Now I have to fight the battle again... but this time, Haer'Dalis reads a restoration scroll for Lupa before the battle. She hits level 35, and adds another spike trap to the preparations.
No energy drain this time; the battle is in much better shape when Demogorgon goes down.
Jan's Planetar got the killing blow there. And then the Balor kills Lupa again. Her save vs. death is -3; this should not be happening so easily. Right, time to kill the demon prince a fourth time...
This time, it's Rasaad that eats a vorpal chunking after Demogorgon is dead. Grrrrrr...
This shouldn't be happening, by the way. According to the readme for "Improved Fiends" which I definitely have installed, the vorpal effect shouldn't chunk and should allow a save. For some reason, that element simply isn't working for the Balors that Demogorgon summons.
Take five... This one works. Jaheira takes some level drain (from the Cambion?) but it all works out with no deaths. We're finally back where we should be.
We demand a reward, then let the Helmites go free.
And with that, Watcher's Keep is done. With all those rewards, the lowest experience total of any party member is Haer'Dalis with about 6.67 million. We drop off some quest items in the pocket plane, and use the deck of many things a fourth time so it can move on. The Erinne sling is upgraded, and we can move on to the next objective.
This was originally all one part, with a full 50 images... but the post was about a thousand characters over the limit. So, then, I split it in two. Parts 33 and 34 are the same session anyway.
The run's gameplay is now done, so this is post-production now. It still takes a while to put these posts together and compress/upload the screenshots, even with a text file log that I can copy large chunks of.
Part 34: Deepstone Clanhold
We rest in the pocket plane, then return to the ford outside Saradush. And immediately, bugs. First, Haer'Dalis has spells in a minor sequencer but no ability to discharge it; as far as I know, there's no way to fix that in-game. Then when we travel, Lupa somehow gets stuck behind in the pocket plane.
That one can be fixed by using a console command to move the stray party members, or by dismissing the ones that aren't in the same place as the protagonist.
OK, I'll edit that autosave. This time around, I'm simply deleting the effect that says what's in the minor sequencer. That brings us to right before the travel. This time, I'll pop into Saradush for an errand; we have a Horror memorized, so we can help Viekang out now.
And now, we travel to Deepstone. Arriving there, we are greeted by a dwarf who first mistakes us for Sharrans, then guides us to his people's camp when he discovers the truth.
Lupa scouts the area under stealth, finding a lumber camp where dwarves are cutting trees under guard. If we can sneak in invisibly, we should be able to take out the Sharrans while protecting the dwarves. They will likely have the ingredients we need, or even an alternative way into the mountain.
Jan casts an invisibility spell on the party (10' radius) and we sneak into the camp. The Sharrans fall easily to our claws, and we speak to the leader Cuddy Dugdeep on how to enter.
He offers a third option - a log ride past the guards, to where they have been delivering the wood.
One set of guards fall, and the next challenge us. We try to confuse them, and it works on one - but the other just calls for a fight.
Sharrans fall, dwarves are rescued, and we head up into the main clanhold to free more.
We follow Cuddy and Haralt to where they fight an inquisitor, and take him out. Lupa reaches level 36 - High Mastery in long swords, and her stealth skills now exceed 200 each for perfect "hide in broad daylight". Ability? Another spike trap; she just doesn't need the rogue defensive abilities.
Then it's Torcadahl's turn; we don't enter the main hall just yet, so as to delay the alarm. There are Miscast Magic effects going around; it seems the Sharrans employ wizard slayers. Fortunately, we're not very interested in casting spells here. Jan is next to level up, reaching mage level 19 and taking Improved Alacrity.
Theyeradahl doesn't even last a round with five werewolves beating on him, and we're ready to advance.
There's a Sharran Assassin down here, so we have Jan run around with Detect Illusion active, both to protect himself from backstabs and to reveal the assassin. It works, leaving Jan and Haer'Dalis to kill the assassin while the rest of the pack fights a group of monks and mercenaries nearby.
The assassin drinks another potion after taking only one hit, so it's back to the runaround. The second time, he's not so lucky, and Haer'Dalis finishes him with a crit.
And... crash. My computer completely freezes up, and requires a hard reboot. I'll have to reload that section. I was having such a good run, too.
This time, we can't avoid triggering the alarm:
That alarm starts a timer - the slower you get to the room they're guarding, the more of Alorgoth's possessions they burn.
Jassar kills Jaheira while most of the party is fighting... you know, I'll reload.
And, apparently, Cuddy and the assassin are having a fight - while, simultaneously, Cuddy is just standing there doing nothing. In the face of this obvious glitch, reload again.
This time, we avoid the alarm and reach the door. Jaheira reaches druid level 18, taking Energy Blades. Only fighter abilities remain for her.
And, about that alarm... let's introduce ourselves with a backstab. And foiled - couldn't get behind them. We charge in anyway, before killing the fighter/mage Sephos. That lets us grab all four of the items out of the fire - boots, headband, cloak, book.
The last is a pure flavor item, telling of the history of Selune and Shar. It is also the first to burn if you don't get here fast enough. Jan gets the cloak (Cloak of the Sewers into storage), Rasaad gets the headband (Lavender Ioun Stone into storage), and the boots go into storage. The book goes back on a shelf.
Sephos and Shani get a Dispel, breaking their protections so we can kill them easily.
There are a few more assassins on the level, including the named Danys Ten-Teeth. One of them gets a backstab on Jan, but he has enough hit points to survive that and enough regeneration to counter the poison. We find out the source of that glitch earlier; Cuddy Dugdeep has apparently figured out how to be in two places at once, with instances both in the main hall and where we entered the hold. And then, it's back down into the mine.
We find a large group of Sharrans overseeing miners, and their sorceress fails to protect herself. It's the last mistake she makes.
We reach a milestone in this battle - enough superior healing potions for everybody to have a full stack of 24. And we hardly ever use them.
The battle is won without any of the dwarves dying - but they insist on continuing the fight. Very well, then, they will fight alongside us. Or not, since we're all faster than them and can reach the next battle first.
We find Alorgoth, along with a large party of guards.
Alorgoth flees and we fight his guards. They hit hard, but we're able to keep up with potions and regeneration. Then shadow creatures start showing up, one turns a Deepstone dwarf hostile to us, the party attacks automatically... reputation down the drain. Reloaded.
This time, we lose a dwarf in the first battle. For the second, I unleash Jan's sequencer: Malison/Slow/Web. Lupa charges in to take out the sorceror first, the guards enrage, and the battle is on. And of course, the scripts at the start of the battle canceled that order for Jan. OK, let's actually use the spell this time. It's not perfect; Cernd gets webbed in the first round along with half of our enemies. Still, it's quite helpful, and the guards are nearly all dead by the time the first shadow creatures arrive. Incidentally, our vulnerability to a friendly web? Only Cernd and Haer'Dalis can fail the save. They have saves of 1 and MR of 55/60 respectively, so that's a 4.5% chance and a 4% chance of failing the save each round. Actually, on second thought, I swap some equipment. Now Jan gets the fire resistance ring, the cloak of protection, and the Heart of the Mountain, while Haer'Dalis gets the ring of protection, the Cloak of the Dark Moon, and the Amulet of Power. At night, we'll have five out of six party members with save vs. spell of -1 or better. The amulet swap there was more about not wasting AC past the cap; Haer'Dalis is one short in his normal configuration when singing, so +2 from the amulet would be half-wasted. I can always swap amulets when I need the NPP or the casting speed somewhere else.
The last guard dies, and we go forward. Into the shadow plane, to face Alorgoth for the last time.
Jaheira loses a level here, to a hit by a shadow creature. We meet Alorgoth and his mysterious partner here, and manage to lay a trap before they go hostile:
It strikes Yxtrazzal, who is a dragon. Haer'Dalis launches a dispel, and manages to get it off despite allegedly being unconscious from a wing buffet.
Once the dragon is dead, the cavern here begins to collapse. We must retreat, and use the wheel to open a portal back. We are not given the satisfaction of ending Alorgoth ourselves, but as we leave we know for certain that he is dead or worse.
The dwarves offer us a modest reward, and Rasaad muses on what comes after his vengeance.
Naturally, Lupa says they should remain together. All that remains is to visit the sites of earlier battles and pick up the loot. Jaheira is restored, and the party rests. Well, the party rests after an interruption. Winter wolves, of all things.
A hop back through the Pocket Plane to Saradush, and we sell off a large amount of junk for an enormous amount of gold.
Yes, that's 500K gold from selling the contents of the bag of holding. Nothing unique either, except for a few named +N items like Arla's Dragonbane, Suryris' Blade, and the Plate of the Dark.
While we're there, we loot Lazarus' scroll collection.
And now, it's time to enter Yaga-Shura's domain. First, the Forest of Mir. Knowing what's coming, Jan prepares a Chain Contingency - two Incendiary Clouds and a Death Fog, at the first sign of hostilities. He also sets up that Malison/Slow/Web sequencer again.
Resisting the shade's cruel taunts are enough for Rasaad to reach level 39, and his eighth GWW. When the battle begins, he unleashes one of them immediately.
Jaheira and Jan each suffer some level drain, but the battle is quite easy for us overall. A Dispel to bring down the Master Wraith's defenses, and it's over very quickly. Jan's spells? The Death Fog was wasted, and many of the shades were immune to fire. It killed the Swamp Horror, but not much else. We would have been better off with a pre-battle Limited Wish, really.
In retrospect... I can't take back that contingency, but I'm going to reload and cast Limited Wish for party-wide NPP.
And, important note... the conversation takes enough in-game time that the NPP runs out. Ugh. In the revised version, Jan is still drained one level.
And then... I should have been more worried about the Skeleton Cleric and allies just inside the temple. Haer'Dalis gets held by an Implosion, Jan gets ganged up on and killed, and we need to spend a Resurrection instead of a Restoration.
The Skeleton Mage in the group is particularly annoying, going invisible repeatedly. Still, we eventually see through that - and it goes with Improved Mantle rather than PfMW. We have weapons that can break through that now.
Then we meet Nyalee, a follower of Bhaal who was Yaga-Shura's adoptive mother. She sees his actions as a betrayal, and will aid us in killing him for revenge.
We know the secret, but now we must find the hearts. We travel east, to Yaga-Shura's sanctum in the Marching Mountains.
In this new area, I'd like to play a little with Staff of the Ram backstabs. First, try, dead Fire Giant. Oh, yeah.
The second one reaches our party and has to be engaged in melee. He gets two hits on Cernd, in shockingly quick succession, but goes down easily enough.
Then there's a giant to the east, carrying an assortment of non-magical weapons for some reason. He's a little tougher, and we note - the piercing damage doesn't get multiplied in a backstab.
So then, we merely deal (29-34)*5 + 8 crushing and 1-4 piercing on a song-aided backstab. 154-182 total damage. It's just right to one-hit kill a normal fire giant.
The Burning Men nearby turn to face Lupa, but don't attack her. No backstabs there. Two more one-hit kills on respawned fire giants to the north, and Jaheira reaches fighter level 22. Power Attack taken, since she's out of spells.
And then... something small and furry wants to fight us? Time for supper.
The battle is surprisingly tough; these Bhaalspawn have a lot of levels, and Chinchilla transforms into a werewolf to fight us. Then the respawning giants show up again; we have Rasaad spend a Hardiness and tank them as an Earth Elemental.
Cern reaches druid level 29, for another 2 HP. He's at 100 now.
Even more giants spawn at the entrance, and battling them drains Lupa's HP further. We'll have to wait a bit to regenerate.
Just inside the door, it's our first taste of elite fire giants. They hit hard, and it takes a lot of maneuvering to withdraw injured members so they don't get focused down. Still, we win through without spending spells or lots of potions.
Our way forward is barred by some complicated rune-locked device. We must find the keys to continue.
We take the left path first. It brings fire trolls, for which Jan pulls out his old bow and some ice arrows. They are killed, and we recover the hammer wardstone. There was also a belt of fire giant strength - an upgrade from our old belt of stone giant strength, and something that can actually increase even a werewolf's strength.
The right path leads to more fire giants. Backstabbing with the aid of the Staff of the Magi, we take them out without any retaliation. Well, the elite fire giant survives two backstabs and then a normal hit; it had to drink potions, but that's just an enormous HP pool. Then there's a second elite fire giant; three backstabs for that one.
The damage she's taken? Lava only.
Once they're down, we pick up the skull wardstone, revealing golems. Adamantite, magic, and clay. Lupa and Jaheira take on the magic and clay golems, while the rest of the party handles the adamantite golem that's right next to them.
We then use our two wardstones, back near the entrance. The experience bonus is enough for Lupa to reach level 37 - time for some overkill Detect Traps, plus another spike trap.
In the next room, on the lower left, we lure out a Fell Cat with an invisible Lupa. A Noble Efreeti gets a backstab, a second Fell Cat dies, and then we head in to fight the second Noble Efreeti... and a Fire Lich. Our party's fire resistances: 95, 110, 100, 90, 110, 75. And two of those below 100 have 100+ magic resistance. We're not too worried about that.
And... somehow, our attacks are getting through. I don't know how its defenses got dispelled, but I'll take it. Just before it would have died, it throws out a Time Stop sequence: Spell Turning, Meteor Swarm, Teleport Field. Nope, not enough.
Oh, that's what was going on - it was a clone. The clone's dead now, and the original put up a second PfMW. It's not casting anything dangerous (Meteor Swarm, Fire Storm? Pfft.), so we'll just wait it out. Time Stop into Meteor Swarm and Meteor Swarm... Incendiary Cloud... PfMW #3.
Remove Magic/Greater Malison/Death Spell sequencer? No effect. Haer'Dalis has a stoneskin up, but the lich doesn't have enough levels to dispel that. A Horrid Wilting actually manages to deal a bit of damage to Jaheira and Jan, but still not enough to be worried. PfMW #4... a triple Remove Magic sequencer fails to remove the one buff our party has running... Delayed Blast Fireball... And then it ends. The lich starts taking damage, gets a spell disrupted, and dies. Jaheira gets the killing blow.
Grabbing the flame wardstone spawns some Burning Men. They are killed easily, and we're done with this side room.
The room on the right has more Fell Cats, Fire Salamanders, and a Flaming Skull. Lupa lures out the Fell Cats, and then the party moves in. What, you say parties are supposed to move when they're standing on lava in an incendiary cloud? Nah, why would we do that?
The Skull Trap death, though, does a bit of damage. It even ignores magic resistance to hit Rasaad.
Picking up the wardstone this time summons bone fiends and an Erinyes. Lupa and Jaheira charge the Erinyes, while the others handle the bone fiends. The Psion's Blade is ours, and we have all four wardstones to advance.
Atop the stairs, a pair of fire giants slow us down. Then it's a pair of closed doors that bar the way - but there are side paths we can take, walking through lava. We backstab some giants, until we attract the attention of the red dragon Brimstone - but there are two paths, and we can easily take the other. Except... it knows where we are, and follows us to the other. We'll have to fight it.
It goes quickly; the dragon didn't put up much protection, and our fire resistance handled its breath.
Now, Berenn is a legitimate threat. Implosion holds for a round, no save - and that's a real threat when dealing with serious melee threats like the other fire giants. Rasaad spends a GWW to take down an elite fire giant:
Well, that could have gone better - he's the target, and he dies before he can use those attacks. Jan fails a save against Storm of Vengeance, and makes the mistake of using a healing potion rather than an antidote - dead to the incredibly strong poison. Well then, time for a Mass Resurrection.
We raise the fallen, and Jan reaches level 26 as a thief, taking more stealth and Energy Blades. The entire party exceeds 7 million experience now. Also, we now have the Balor's Claw, and can upgrade that axe we'll never use.
Claiming Yaga-Shura's heart brings Jaheira to level 19 as a druid, for Critical Strike and her last saving throw improvement.
Imix is beyond the next set of doors; he gets a simple brute force assault.
He used a GWW, then hit on two out of eight attacks. The Master Harper amulet is a nice upgrade for Jan - he gets targeted a lot, so the AC is very welcome. The Heart of the Mountain, then, goes back in the bag. The Ravager goes in the bag for now, although we'll want the upgraded version to be handy. We find Nyalee's heart, and then a captive woman - she came to join the army, but was not received well.
Back in the pocket plane, we stash the stone golem page, then upgrade a few things. We have the Ravager +6, the Axe of the Unyielding +5, and the Bag of Plenty +2 - not that we'll ever use the latter with all our +4 bullets.
And... hmm, Haer'Dalis is showing with saves 2 points better than they should be. 1 for his mask, 1 for mage robes, 2 for a ring of protection, 2 for the cloak of the Dark Moon at night... total 8 better than baseline. There seems to be a bug there; the cloak may be doubling up somehow. Combined with later observations, it's consistent; the cloak actually grants a 4-point save bonus at night.
With that, we leave the temple and return to Nyalee. She reneges on the deal, and we must fight her.
Nyalee dies in moments, but one of the nymphs she summons manages to dominate Cernd. At 4.5% to beat both his save of 1 (-2 penalty for Mental Domination) and his magic resistance, that was rather unlikely - but it would have been outright impossible for anyone else. The clone of Lupa gets beat down, and the domination is quickly dispelled. Then it's just routine cleanup on the shambling mounds and lesser undead.
Back at the north forest, the long day has caught up to us, and we rest in the pocket plane. Jan has forgotten the sequencer he memorized today - seriously? - so he fires off the empty version, and then re-establishes as much as he can (minor sequencer, trigger, contingency). Then we travel to the siege camp, and find Saradush has been sacked.
We cannot save the town, but we can take vengeance. This will be a red dawn.
The ordinary soldiers lack magical weapons, and can easily be ignored. There are, however, elites and fire giants mixed in, which must be focused on before they can do too much damage.
The army is an endless font of junk gear, gems, and healing potions - but since they keep spawning, we must push forward and engage their leader. A giant kill brings Lupa to level 38, and yet another spike trap.
And then, the wave of foes fades away. We move forward, and find Yaga-Shura himself - alone.
His initial lava bomb causes minimal damage and knocks some of our party unconscious - briefly. We'll go with Earth Elemental forms and Hardiness on the two warriors, since Yaga-Shura is a primarily physical attacker.
And then... he flees at the first sign of injury. We add Armor of Faith on the two druids, so Jaheira becomes immune to physical damage, and pursue. Also, the mages put up their stoneskins.
Well, we try to pursue. He doesn't seem to be anywhere right now. Time for some traps. We lay three spike traps, which proceed to do minimal damage to Yaga-Shura. Oh well. He brings lieutenants this tame, who are dangerous enough that we need to take them down first. Well, except the mage. He's a low priority, once we take down the fallen planetar.
At this point, it's basically just a straight brawl - in which our side regenerates and has plenty of healing potions, and the enemy doesn't get nearly as many attacks. Also, I'm back to werewolf form for everybody.
Cernd gets the killing blow, and we are dragged into the pocket plane.
We are returned to the camp, only to find Melissan - suspicious, as always. She claims that she tried to get the Bhaalspawn out of Saradush, but such claims ring hollow. Still, we have little choice - our path leads to Amkethran now.
Yaga-Shura drops some nice stuff; armor we have no use for, a hammer we have no use for, and a shield that ... well, it's good enough to take the place of the old Sentinel shield on Jan's alternate weapon slot.
With the mage lieutenant fled, there is nothing left for us here. We return to the pocket plane to take on the new challenge.
And... huh, looks like we took an "evil" path in the dialogue. I'd rather not - back to the save at the beginning of the area. This time, we set normal traps and a time trap in preparation for the second round of Yaga-Shura, and add more buffs. Jan and Cernd take the opportunity for a banter:
We focus down the lieutenant mage early this time, and... vorpal planetar hit on Jan, chunked. Reload. I wouldn't mind so much if they just killed, but permanent deaths of party members are not fun.
The fight goes smoothly on reload, enough that I didn't take any notes on it.
All right, take two on the pocket plane challenge. We lay a full set of spike traps before triggering it this time... and the minions go down before the fight even starts. Excellent.
The evil Lupa wielded Blackrazor, and landed level-draining hits on both Lupa and Rasaad. That'll cost us a scroll of restoration. Next, we have some more EE character quests to cover.
Neera is first, taking Jan's place in the party. She fills her spellbook and picks up a bunch of gear nobody else was using - the circlet of Netheril, the 20 strength belt, the +5 Erinne sling, AC 3 bracers, a +2 protection ring, the cloak of the sewers, the amulet of spell warding... all in all, stuff any pure mage would love to have. No Robe of Vecna, though; she's wearing the wild mage robe that grants Chaos Shield. Actually, on second thought, she gets the cloak of mirroring instead. Spell damage immunity is a big deal with her low hit points and poor resistances.
The experience from those scrolls is good for about 100K experience to the party. Lupa reaches her last level (Find Traps, Spike Trap), Jaheira gains levels in both of her classes (Smite, Hardiness), and Cernd gains a level (2 HP).
After resting, while Neera prepares her sequencers, Rasaad comes to speak. The sacking of Saradush brings a melancholy turn for him.
We leave, and Neera receives a message.
It's time to strike back at the Thayans. We head to the clearing, and have Neera lay the trap. Lupa adds some traps of her own, too. It takes two tries for Neera to cast her pre-rest stoneskin, and then she casts a reckless dweomer for... minute meteors. Why not - it's a long duration. Result... sex change. Neera will be male for the coming quest.
A third of the enemy forces die to the traps, before anything can even start.
And then, Vicross talks. She recognizes Neera despite her changed appearance.
She blocks Neera's magic - but we don't need it. Neera uses the Staff of the Magi to run and hide, while the rest of the party engages the Thayans in melee. The fighters go down easily, leaving just the red wizards. They can defend themselves, but they're not very good on the attack against our werewolves. Eventually, their defenses run out and they go down. Then Vicross teleports away... and pulls our party with her, to an arena in Thay. Oops.
That triggers a quest reward that puts Neera over the top to level 17. And then we fight. The yuan-ti go down, and then we meet Szass Tam. He is vexed, and wants Vicross dead - which makes us useful tools in his plan. Sigh, once again there's no real choice here.
The merchants, at least, have some interesting things on offer. A unique shield, a resistance cloak, more AC belts, another Gift of Peace, a full stack each of arrows of dispelling and detonation. And then, the last few scrolls to finish Neera's spellbook.
Szass recommends we rest, but we haven't spent any daily resources yet. There's no reason to do that. We speak to him, and enter Vicross' estate. A slave greets us, and is willing to provide information against her master. Kill the guards quickly and stealthily, and they will not be able to alert Vicross. Now that is a job for Lupa in backstab mode.
In the second room, we get some spectacular overkill - a 286-point critical backstab, that also stuns... on a low-HP Red Wizard.
Our luck runs out eventually, and the guards in the fourth room are alert. The direct approach, then. We clear out the remaining guards, buff the team, and then enter the courtyard from opposite the entrance.
The guards go down first, and then Vicross casts a Time Stop and starts surging. Random summons, a Gate... A Balor casts Symbol:Death at Neera, while Vicross casts a Dragon's Breath. The Cloak of Mirroring protects from one, the Cloak of the Lich from the other... It'll have to be mirroring, because there's still a decent chance of saving against the symbol.
And in the end, it's moot. They were targeted at the ground, and Neera dodged. We take out the balor and the random summons, then engage Vicross. A PfMW goes up... let's dust off an old favorite, and Insect Swarm her. OK, she's invisible - make that targeted on Lupa.
It doesn't work so well; Vicross runs around too much, and avoids the swarm. Then it's another gate, and another bunch of minion-level monsters... these aren't real wild surges. They're clearly scripted to provide a real threat.
Eventually, we corner Vicross and land a Remove Magic. She goes invisible, but Lupa detects illusions to catch her, and Cernd lands the final blow.
In the post-battle lull, Rasaad finally makes a choice...
We re-buff, ring the bell of summoning... and Szass Tam comes. Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!
For all his protections (PfMW, Stoneskin, two fireshields, Protection from Energy)... they can't stand up to Haer'Dalis' dispelling power. He really needed abjuration immunity there.
A hit or two, a Sun Soulray - and he's off it. We call him a coward... and the fight is back on. All right then, another Remove Magic.
We wishes for time control, unleashes everything - and we still beat him. As his last act, he forces us to leave.
Cernd took some nasty debuffs there including a Chaos, so we hit him with a dispel. Neera gets a Heal, and her quest is done. There is a reward for beating up Szass Tam; a fully charged Wand of Whips.
Some equipment tweaks... Jan takes off the Reaching Ring. Spell slots are nice, but he tends not to use them anyway. It's better to have the room available so he can wear both a ring of protection and a ring of fire resistance. Add the Cloak of the Lich, and he's immune to fire, cold, electricity, and death effects. Jan needs that last immunity, since his save vs. death is by far the worst in the party at 5.
The fire giant strength belt and the girdle of fortitude were swapped out for AC belts; crushing for Jaheira, piercing for Haer'Dalis. And finally, the Cloak of Mirroring goes in the bag. Between elemental resistances and magic resistance, we just don't need it. Lupa will get more out of the Cloak of the Sewers and its +1 AC.
Next, it's time to work with a bit of evil. Lupa enters Slayer form to lower her reputation by 2. A chat with Sarevok - we hand him the Sword of Chaos +2, and it upgrades to a +4 version. Incidentally, Use Any Item bypasses its Sarevok-only restriction. LUpa can hold the sword, but doesn't have the proficiencies to use it properly.
Then, it's Dorn's turn. Sarevok's response: "Am I to be replaced by some quivering, fawning lackey?". Anyway, Dorn gets a full array of cool stuff that I wasn't using already:
Shurrupak's plate would be good for slightly better AC, but at the cost of 2 to saves from that protection amulet. He's already dangerously poorly defended against magic with only a save vs. spells of 2 and the cloak of mirroring, so I don't want to make that worse. Oh wait, Foebane has a save bonus. He's at 1 in two-weapon mode. Better.
Anyway, time to wander around for a week until the crusaders show. An attempt to rest at the siege camp triggers a pair of fire giants, so we head to the pocket plane instead. The creepy temple - safe. North forest - three fire giants, but weaker versions that don't drop armor and gems. Then soldiers that can't hurt us, and the third try works. Neera's clearing is safe, and then the next travel gets us what we want.
There are several well-armed crusaders, plus an unkillable Planetar of Justice. We fight them off, but receive bad news - both Dorn and Lupa now have their names written in the Scroll of Retribution, and will be attacked repeatedly until this is dealt with.
And then, the legacy of earlier bugs strikes. The plot events counter for the Dorn quests isn't keeping up, and we get an obsolete message.
It was Ur-Gothoz telling us what to do back in the clearing ... and now it's Azothet. She's supposed to be dead... this is some weird glitchiness.
Priests, paladins, and planetars of Tyr abound here, and soon we pick a fight. We need a sigil to enter the pavilion where the scroll is kept, and it is a planetar that holds it. The fight is easy enough; brute force attacks work wonders against clerical casters.
To the southeast, we meet an old acquaintance - Bollard Firejaw, or at least his spirit. Dorn doesn't remember, until we mention the event.
Naturally, we kill him again. It's even fast enough that we don't get more attackers coming after us from the alarm.
In the next area, Lupa sneaks ahead to grab some blessed fruit.
Why sneak ahead? Because if Dorn sees the tree, this happens:
No matter what you choose, Dorn corrupts the tree. If you didn't pick the fruit before, you aren't getting any now.
And now, we enter the last section. We find the pavilion, and try to talk our way in to make the changes... nope. This calls for a fight. We target the priest first, then the paladins. The mage scribe helps us along with an Incendiary Cloud.
The scribe wastes his PfMW rounds with a Time Stop sequence and dies. Dorn gets the kill. Then we discover something interesting - Foebane's trigger can hurt a Magical Sword.
Letting it play out on autopilot, Dorn manages to kill both swords, and earn a whole lot of temporary HP.
Then we erase the two names we came for.
In their place, Sendai and Abazigal. It is time to leave - but as Dorn wishes, we'll get in some slaughter on the way out.
We attack a crusader. A hit squad of a planetar, a priest, a paladin, and a fighter respond. Dead.
A group at the tree, responding to its corruption - dead.
Some hounds... you know, Rasaad's "Pay for your sins!" battle cry is a bit off up here.
Now, there's one big fight left. Two silver dragons, and that calls for a few buffs. Resist Fire and Cold for Lupa, Dorn, and Rasaad, an extra Protection from Cold for Dorn. Also, standard buffs like Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Armor of Faith, and a Defensive Harmony from Dorn.
The dragons protect themselves with Spell Turning and Spirit Armor - but no immediate stoneskin or weapon protection. They're doomed. A Maze attempt on Jan - blocked by magic resistance. Dorn gets hit and tries to Absorb Health - hit again, disrupted. Then he retreats to drink a potion in safety, but has to wait a round. More battle, potions drunk - and Lupa takes out Dolrassa.
We add Hardiness on Jaheira and Rasaad, and a Remove Magic on Ixthezzys. We beat that one down, drink more potions, and Rasaad gets the kill.
The group of priests on the way out, by contrast, are easy to kill. The petitioners they were guarding? High level mages. One gets some defenses up, then puts up a Teleport field that really takes advantage of the level design to send our party members a long way away. Still, he goes down eventually and we leave.
Cespenar forges one set of scales into armor we'll never use, and we keep the other as a memento.
Cernd returns to the party, and we return to the clearing so we can travel. All five companions have something to say about the experience - even the one that wasn't there.
We have put it off long enough - it is time to travel to Amkethran.
We travel to the oasis, and are immediately faced with trouble.
We are being blamed for the destruction of Saradush. There is no negotiation, no chance to plead our case. Only battle remains.
The leader Jamis Tombelthen, wielder of a very slow sword, is our first target. He dies before he can attack even once. From there, it's easy. This bunch are very well equipped, but they just can't stand up to our pack. It takes very little input to slaughter them all.
And now, Amkethran. We take a carefully plotted path to the tavern, avoiding most encounters. Some things, however, are unavoidable.
Saemon claims we're using weapons he sold us... we're not using manufactured weapons at all. But then, these mercenaries are really just looking for an excuse to fight.
Hexxat is recruited in Cernd's place, levels up to 21, and is given the pick of the equipment we're not using right now. It's time for her quest.
There's also a stack each of arrows of detonation and of dispelling, and we can transfer elemental arrows over whenever we feel like it. She is notably weak to non-damaging spells - there's nothing in there that improves her save vs. spell, so she's stuck at 5. She gained two proficiencies leveling up, which went to shortbow and two-weapon style.
Then we enter the tavern with her. Marlowe has a quest, but it will have to wait - Cabrina is here as well.
We have a lich to subdue, and we enter the tomb immediately. The first encounter we face? Another of L's agents, Phreya. She holds a grudge, and will attack us in here.
Undead and traps abound in this maze, and are mostly easily handled. One spellcasting greater mummy puts up a Physical Mirror spell we don't notice, and hurts Hexxat that way. She switches to melee after noticing that.
Jaheira reaches druid level 21, taking another Hardiness.
Another encounter with Phreya - we beat on her, and she flees again without managing to strike back. That's the last of the first quadrant.
Bone fiends, greater mummies... all simple by now. A bubbling green tank in an otherwise empty dead-end room? Perhaps there will be something here later. (No, there isn't.)
Then comes a laboratory with more of the tanks, mummies and fiends, and Phreya again.
Phreya taunts Hexxat about having "lost her cloak" But, well, she still has both the cloak of mirroring she's wearing and the cloak of Dragomir in her pack. Phreya drinks an invisibility potion, then throws a non-magical (poisoned) throwing dagger at Lupa... "Weapon ineffective". You know, she's not very smart.
There's a passage to the next quadrant here, but we'll backtrack a bit and cover the other paths first. A mage of questionable sanity named Umolex:
It's a fight, but not much of one. Umolex doesn't put up adequate defenses, and only casts a Slow. Everyone saves or resists, except Hexxat. The journal mentions simulacrum creation - a warning of what is to come?
A pair of sand golems, then a third, then two more - no hits taken. The floor here is even covered in sand. A patch of spikes - no traps, despite appearances. There are only another two sand golems beyond, which fall like the others.
A Death Tyrant - Lupa and Rasaad lead, all others retreat. Then it's a second Death Tyrant inside the library, also easily handled. We bring the party back, and face Phreya once more.
Phreya is a pushover as usual, and retreats again.
There are two paths out of the library - a secret door leading to the fourth quadrant, and a better hidden normal door continuing the third quadrant. A bridge over some green liquid, and two more sand golems go down. An odd gnome named Culak is here, surrounded by spiders:
He goes hostile when we say that, and his death brings thief level 27 for Jan. Stealth improved, Exploding Trap taken. The third quadrant is done, and we move on to the fourth.
We are met here with three bone fiends, and then a true challenge to navigation. Connected doors, and a necrotic barrier that only Hexxat can traverse safely. There are more bone fiends there, which we pull back to the party.
And then... I botch the doors somehow, getting Hexxat into a trapped state. Trying to fix it level drains one of my other characters... reload, and I'll have to do half the third quadrant again.
All right, this time I save in that first room. We finally take a notable hit - one of the bone fiends drains Jan for 4 Str and 4 Dex.
The named bone fiend T'lassus is more trouble - he takes Hexxat down to 15 HP before we're able to toggle the doors so she can come back.
And then, she finds the switch to disable the traps. The party joins, and goes through a previously locked door to face Phreya and what appears to be Korkorran. Phreya dies and Jan reaches mage level 20 (Exploding Trap #2), but "Korkorran" went down too easily. This must have been a simulacrum.
Then we meet the true Korkorran - who, naturally, creates a simulacrum immediately. He has an offer, and Hexxat's desire becomes clear. She wants to become human again.
Korkorran starts off with an Improved Mantle, so a hit from the Staff of the Magi clears that up. And then... Dragon's Breath on Hexxat. She saves, and still takes enough damage to "kill" her in one hit. The Cloak of Mirroring was no protection at all.
Bad rolls, really. If you save against a Dragon's Breath, it deals an average of 55 damage. Korkorran drops a Ring of Anti-Venom.
And then we get teleported back anyway, before we can pick up the equipment Hexxat dropped. Uhh... reload. That whole thing just felt wrong.
All right. This time, Hexxat gets a Protection from Fire... which we end up dispelling by accident. But then, this time she rolls better, and lives. That also means Korkorran gets mind-controlled instead of dying, so the normal scripting holds. All right, take all that fancy gear off.
We are returned to the tavern, and go to the barkeep to rest. Instead, we are teleported away, to meet with Cabrina - and L.
But there's a catch. Hexxat's desire comes at a steep cost.
For all that, she finds it worthwhile. And who are we to say no to that?
And with that, we are returned to Amkethran, after just long enough to pick up what Hexxat dropped. Incidentally, her coffin becomes a pile of adamantine dust. We return to the pocket plane, bring Cernd back, and get some proper rest.
Oh, and a banter I haven't seen before:
Hexxat's ToB quest is far less rewarding than the other EE character quests, mostly because of the lack of humanoid enemies. There's just not that much loot, and nothing unique. Well, the ring of infravision may be unique in BG2, but it's not actually useful.
Leaving the tavern, we run into a woman named Asana being threatened by guards. We intervene, and a fight ensues.
Our reward: a bit of experience, Montolio's Cloak, and +1 reputation.
Then it's a priest arguing with a monk - the priest wants aid for the people here, the monk thinks it's not important.
We intervene to aid the priest, and donate money to buy food. Another +1 rep, and the oaken ring.
We're back up to 20 rep, just in time for the last round of shopping. Also, we hop back to the pocket plane to make our new acquisitions useful. Montolio's Cloak is an upgrade over the old Cloak of the Sewers; we don't have any dual-wielders, but this is at least an extra +1 to saves for Lupa. The Heartwood Ring? We've got two druids, but they're both so melee-focused we really don't need it. Into a bag. The only items we're using that add spell slots are the Ring of Acuity and Wondrous Gloves on Haer'Dalis - because he wants all the 3rd level slots he can get for dispels.
The priest sells us a fourth potion case, the last container we'll get.
We find a mercenary captain summoning creatures for his soldiers to shoot, and object. They attack us instead, and die quickly. The captain lasts a little longer, as a fighter/mage. He drops the unique Darkfire Bow, which is basically useless. And... wait, mercenary attacking mercenary? What's going on?
We find them, and attack the apparently rebellious mercenary. The other two don't appreciate that. This turns out to have lasting consequences...
Then Balthazar comes out to talk to us.
He is unfriendly, but at least offers us directions to where Abazigal and Sendai are based.
And then, we accidentally disturb a camp of what appears to be endlessly spawning mercenaries. We're just not killing them quite fast enough...
The experience is enough for Lupa to reach the cap. We break contact eventually, though not before spending some healing potions, Hardiness, and a stoneskin.
Off to the east, we head up and find the smith Kerrick - who apparently works with pantaloons. We have two of the three parts he needs...
Talking to Marlowe, he wishes us to save his daughter's soul from a lich. A worthy quest.
We enter the smugglers' cave, and find yet more monks and mercenaries causing trouble - this time, to arrest smugglers for what Saemon has done. We intervene, killing the monks.
The smuggler offers us excellent prices, which we take advantage of to buy four items:
Lupa takes off the boots of speed in favor of the gargoyle boots. We now have a ToB party in which none of the members are using boots of speed or belts of strength.
All right, time to face Vongoethe. We put up spell defenses, then enter the cave.
It turns out the lich took the soul in order to enforce a bargain - not something we can tolerate. Still, we can bring Marlowe to save Malla.
As soon as we have the soul stone, we pick a fight. Vongoethe cannot be allowed to continue as he is. The lich goes down quickly, to a Remove Magic and werewolf attacks.
Malla's soul stone and a ring of anti-venom are ours. Now, we just have to clear out the various lesser undead he summoned.
We do that, then turn the tables. The elemental guardians are easy enough, until we reach the fission slimes... time to bring out the fire elementals. Of course, they've already split a few times before we realize.
Rasaad spends a GWW, and our fire elementals eventually clean them up. By the way, split fission slimes grant pathetically low XP and no item drops. It's not something worth grinding.
More hostile mercenaries on the way to Marlowe's house... he's dead, but Malla is there. We restore her, and the bonus experience brings Jaheira and Rasaad to the cap. Level 24 fighter (Two-weapon style, Critical Strike #2) and level 40 monk (Hardiness #5) respectively.
The mercenaries in the tavern are hostile now, and we kill them. And now, we're basically done with Amkethran. I flip a coin for the next target... Tails. Sendai comes first.
A woodcutter mentions "funny-looking elves" ... we'll investigate. Two recent graves, arranged to look older - we should expect more deception here. We disarm a trap laid across an apparently innocuous stretch of forest, and note that the animals here do not seem to move around...
And then, arriving where we were sent, an ambush. Drow, umber hulks, and a Hive Mother.
Our party is strong enough against magic now that we don't have to retreat most of the party against the Hive Mother. Haer'Dalis retreats because he's vulnerable to the death ray, but the rest stay in there; with our saves, only damaging rays are a threat. A Cause Wounds on Jan - half resisted. A Magic Missile on Jaheira - absorbed. Flesh to Stone? Save vs. spell. Fear, Domination? Magic Resistance. OK, nearly the whole party can fight beholder types safely now. The Hive Mother does have an Improved Mantle up, so we bring out the Staff of the Magi to dispel it. Soon, the Hive Mother is down, having done nothing more than a few bits of damage. Jaheira gets the kill.
Then back to the woodcutter... oh, wait, it's the real woodcutter buried in the grave. The false woodcutter attacks, and the animals are revealed as drow. We are able to concentrate force and quickly defeat these high-level warriors, at least.
Then more join, and a setback:
Then the wizard imprisons Cernd... well, Jan has a Freedom memorized, once we raise him. Lupa uses the charge of the Blessed Bracers for that, with the battle still going on. The wizard goes down, and the entrance to Sendai's base is revealed. We wait for the Acid Arrow on Jan to expire, then cast the Freedom. Cernd has his old druid grove line here, incidentally.
The cabin holds some junk and a magic rune. We can upgrade the runehammer now, and will do so the next time we visit the pocket plane.
A drow warrior starts throwing around all sorts or warrior HLAs, while under what seems to be nonmagical stealth... Jan just keeps running, since this warrior can also backstab.
Well, OK, it can't backstab very well. Only 4x damage on the backstab, for 29 to Jan. The warrior dies immediately after becoming visible. The next assassin is worse, landing a 7x backstab on Jan for 36 damage plus 6 poison.
Back in the west, more drow have revealed themselves, including another wizard. He gets a dispel and dies quickly.
And, looking at it... the Cloak of the Dark Moon is being consistent, and not matching its description. Actual effect: +2 AC during the day, +2 AC and +4 saves at night. It's even better than it appears.
The first threat inside is confusion. Umber Hulks, myconids, and spore colonies. We have bard song, so we can just ignore all that and hit them. The spiders that follow are a little more threatening, but easy enough to handle.
Then some drow, carrying their usual Underdark gear.
In the drow barracks, we take out the warrior leader quickly. Amulet of Cheetah Speed? Nah, into the bag. The warriors go first, then the priestess who put up a Sanctuary, then the mage who is mostly just annoying.
Elsewhere, Sendai meets with an envoy from Balthazar.
Slaves in the north tunnels, pets in the south... we'll cover both. Slaves first. It's derro at first, and the 12K XP each... well, that experience piles up fast. Then orogs, at a much less lucrative 1200 each.
Getting bored, we press forward to kill the slavemaster and his umber hulks. Haer'Dalis reaches the cap - third dot in two-weapon style, spike trap #6.
Killing the slavemaster stems the flow, and we return to the entrance to try the other route. Lots of spiders, and the leader Lashar'ra has a rather nasty poison:
The potion is not enough. Both Jan and Haer'Dalis die, leaving only the four remaining poison-immune fighters. Cernd reaches the cap and level 31.
Once the web stops, Jaheira revives our fallen.
With that, we move on. After some more spiders, it's a group of drow and fiends.
We have to be careful concentrating force, but soon the warriors are down and we can hit the spellcasters. The mage, as usual, puts up protections and takes some time. We wait for the teleport field to dissipate, put up spell protections, and enter the lich's lair.
The vampire apprentice put up something like a Mantle; we tried a dispel, but Haer'Dalis got hit by a skeleton warrior. Thankfully, the staff of the magi took care of it.
We alternate attacks between the two liches, based on which one has protections up. Odamaron is the first to become vulnerable, and thus the first to fall.
The lich apprentice hurts us a bit with a Horrid Wilting, but eventually goes down in turn. And now, we loot. Also, since there are containers here, we drop off the drow stuff. We've picked up several upgrade tokens, so it's time for a trip back to the pocket plane. Short Sword of Mask, Carsomyr, Spectral Brand, Runehammer upgraded.
As we leave, Sendai gets the bad news, and sends her priestess leader after us. Time to kill some more drow. They have a pair of beholders with them, so Haer'Dalis retreats to a safer distance.
We to take a bit of magical harm; Cernd fails a save and is dominated. But then, our party's AC is so good that he just can't do much attacking them. We just wait it out.
Next the priestess taunts us - the elemental prince Ogremoch is here. We're perhaps a little too aggressive attacking him, and both Jan and Haer'Dalis fall again:
All right, then, we raise them. Diaytha next; she comes with some nasty minions. She herself, on the other hand? Easy backstab fodder.
The party deals with the ancient vampire, then the hive mother. Cernd gets mazed, but we press forward to deal with the fiends. Huh, a demon heart? I guess this reused the tanar'ri from the planar prison quest.
Then it's a duel, with Captain Egeissag.
Lupa gets hit once before taking him out, and the spectator's geas takes care of the many crossbowmen. The experience is enough for our party's final level, as Jan reaches thief level 28. Two-weapon style, stealth, and spike trap #6.
Then Sendai sends her illithid. She's running out of minions. The vampiric illithids go down cleanly, as do the forces that teleport in afterward. Lupa takes one brain-suck hit, but that's it. Liquid mercury acquired.
There are more illithids in the next room, along with thralls. We lure them back to our party rather than getting stuck in the corridor. That works well for removing the illithids, but then the thrall fighters are actually a more dangerous threat - they force Jan to drink a healing potion. The wizards stay in their room, so we have to hunt them down, and either break or wait out their combat protections.
And now, Sendai herself. We enter unprepared, but act immediately.
The first statue dies instantly from the traps. Full plate, shield, flail - probably a cleric.
The planetar casts an Insect Plague targeted on itself, affecting the primary Sendai. Then a Symbol:Death/Finger of Death/Horrid Wilting chain contingency, aimed at Haer'Dalis? His save vs. death is 2, and he's got 55 MR... OK, amulet temporarily swapped to the periapt of life protection.
The next statue to awaken is a mage - that one will probably last a while. Everyone lives, we activate the gem of seeing in response to a statue's invisibility, and we have some drow at the entrance to take care of.
A rogue statue goes down, then a warrior, then it's another mage that activates...
An archer statue wakes up, and survives a little longer by being teleported away from our party. A mage statue dies when it fails to keep up its protections - just one statue left.
This Sendai protected herself with Absolute Immunity - so Haer'Dalis hits her with Carsomyr +6. No more protections, and she can't last after that.
Then the original Sendai teleports in, and we've still got a planetar active on our side. She puts up a PfMW, Haer'Dalis dispels...
It is time to talk to the Solar again. She calls forth an alternate version of Lupa - apparently male and armored, but still a werewolf.
It seems our fate is to prevent the great destruction the prophecy spoke of. It is a relief.
And with that battle and the reward after, Jan has reached the experience cap. We have a full six-member party at the ToB cap of 8 million experience.
That also brought Jan up to 100 HP, including his bracers. Every member of the party has triple-digit HP.
So, then, another Ascension boss fight. Hectic, but we won on the first try without any character deaths. Focusing down the warrior statues as soon as they showed up was the key.
And, oh yeah, we just went through Amkethran and all of Sendai's base without resting. We used up our daily free resurrections and nearly all of our dispels, but we did it all in one day cycle with minimal losses.
Now, the pocket plane challenge. We throw on some defenses, summon a deva and an elemental prince, and head in.
This is doubt, or innocence. Turn back to what Lupa once was? No; she has fought long and hard to master herself.
The Slayer it turns into is remarkably ineffective; it only manages to hit Lupa once. Divine Gift ability gained.
Jan and Haer'Dalis have forgotten their sequencers again, so I discharge the one empty ability and call the session to an end.
We travel to Abazigal's lair, hop back to the pocket plane, and rest. And also, because I've got the opportunity, a Chain Contingency. 3x Incendiary Cloud, targeted at the nearest enemy, at the first sign of hostility. I don't know how the upcoming fight has been tweaked, but I do know it's a dragon, and not the firebreathing kind. Actually, Jan has enough spells leftover from the day in which the party cleared both Amkethran and Sendai's enclave in order to prepare a full array of sequencers and contingencies.
Haer'Dalis doesn't have any of his stoneskins left, so no contingency for him. We cast pre-rest stoneskins and iron skins, then get the sleep. It is night when we awake - perfect.
The first face we meet is not a friendly one. Emissaries not returning?
Oh, he starts with a pre-cast Protection from Fire; he's a mage in human form. His chain contingency was Symbol:Death/Finger of Death/Horrid Wilting - must be a necromancer. All right, this calls for a Remove Magic. He gets off a Time Stop sequence before our Remove Magic lands, but it does and he's in trouble.
He gets up an Improved Mantle at "Near Death" - Staff of the Magi.
In dragon form, it's a PfMW, and his fear effect lands on two party members - because the bard song has lapsed for some reason.
Most of my party is trapped literally unable to move inside him - that's a problem with the dragon transformation. Abazigal has a "blow everyone away" effect when he transforms to prevent this, but Draconis doesn't. Still, the fear wears off and he hasn't done any significant damage or even dispelled our stoneskins.
From there, we just tank his melee attacks, passively dispel his invisibility castings, and wait out the PfMW. He goes down easily enough, and Lupa gets the killing blow.
Tzu-Zan's bracers... they're nice, but is 1 AC and 15 HP better than the 2 THAC0 Rasaad already has? Probably yes; he's got so much AC already that every bit more helps him as a tank, and base THAC0 zero is good enough to hit practically everyone anyway. I do wish there was something better than the old +1 THAC0 gauntlets for Cernd, though.
With that, we enter the lair. One third-level spell used so far.
Lizard men and a greater werewyvern in the entrance - just a straight brawl. We take some hits, but we regenerate quickly. Jan's stoneskins from the day before run out.
The doors are locked, and only the vents remain as a path to travel. The first three we try are a bit too far to travel underwater, but the fourth works. It leads to a room full of lizard men. Mostly warriors, with two shamans - as divine casters, they are worth attacking early.
Wait, no, they're mage/druids who put up PfMW. Never mind, target the warriors and summons.
And... OK, enhanced bard song doesn't protect against swarm attacks at all. Lupa and Rasaad are immune to that Creeping Doom, but none of the other party members are.
Many Superior Healing potions later, the warriors are down and it's just the two shamans left. If things worked properly and Enhanced Bard Song granted immunity to insect swarm attacks, this would have been a very different story.
At this stage, they're protecting themselves with Mantle, so a Staff of the Magi hit on each breaks their defenses and they go down.
There is only one direction to go now, and we exit this cavern. It leads to a large cavern, in which we meet a dragon willing to talk - Anadramatis.
Sure, we'll talk. There's no reason to be unnecessarily violent here.
The flattery falls a bit flat; this dragon has been captured, and made to be a guard dog. We offer to kill Abazigal if she lets us have the breath potion.
And... no, it's a fight anyway. The breath weapon deals piercing damage and blinds several party members briefly. We don't have any buffs up right now, so Haer'Dalis goes with a Dispel - effective, and a simple beatdown suffices from there. We choose to spare the dragon rather than finish her off.
... and then one last attack goes through anyway and kills her. Oops.
Incidentally, Lupa's top kill is still "Dragon"; apparently, the generic green dragon in Watcher's Keep level 5 is more XP than Draconis or Anadramatis.
The amulet grants immunity to wing buffets... nah, we've got other important defenses going on all our amulets.
The eastern side of this cavern opens to air and sheer cliffs, impassible to us. We must return the way we came and use the other underwater passages.
I recall the vanilla version of this quest for the breath potion being a generic cave reusing SoA art, and then a room straight out of a city; this modified version fits the dungeon theme much better.
New foes enter the lizard man room - fiends, teleporting in. They're easy prey for us.
We return to the entrance cave, and begin to explore. First, the easternmost vent.
This leads to an area built for human-sized beings, with the appearance of kuo-toa construction - and, indeed, we meet some. They are supported by water elementals, a foe we have not met before. There is even an elemental prince here - Olhydra, of water. It falls easily before us.
Then a captured monk, of Balthazar's order. He dies, but not before telling us of a captured dragon that guards Abazigal's inner sanctum - and that we will need a rope. He had one, but it was burned.
Hindo's hand is ours. We pop back to the pocket plane to do some upgrades. Angurvadal +5 becomes Jan's switch weapon - hey, now he has enough strength to move when he's in casting mode. Haer'Dalis holds Hindo's Doom +4, because he was already holding the +3 version. The Yellow Dragon Scale goes in the bag; it's nice, but it precludes wearing rings and cloaks of protection. Firetooth gets upgraded, but stays in the bag.
Now, where can we find a rope... Ah, there's another door from the kuo-toa area. We try it... No, lockdown. There's nowhere left we can go, except outside. And nothing happens out there. I'm stumped. Looking it up in the readme... ah, return to town required.
We kill some mercenaries that get in our way, talk to the bartender... one rope, free of charge. All right, now we can head back to the lair. We'll need to rest after we arrive, so let's try that triple-cloud sequencer again.
And having the mercenaries constantly hostile and respawning... ugh. They're enough of a threat that we have to kill them, and it's just a bunch of standard vendor trash they drop. We're not even getting experience anymore, with everyone at the cap.
On returning to the lair, we are fatigued immediately. We return to the pocket plane to rest.
And - dragons!
The first two dragons die to melee attacks and incendiary clouds, though Lupa is badly wounded and retreats to drink potions. Then it's a green dragon; the red waits.
We try to draw Ithy back into the burning clouds, but they expire before any significant damage can be dealt. Also, a dispel removes any remaining stoneskin from Jaheira and Jan. We add some Hardiness, and resume the beatdown.
Then it's Carnifex's turn. Uh, I don't suppose you've noticed... we've only used a few of our spells and abilities, and the whole party's in the yellow or better. We're close enough to fresh.
This one puts up a real defense, with PfMW. All right, time for a Remove Magic. Down to Near Death, and another PfMW - Breach this time. No, that didn't work. Better make it a Dispel. Another Stoneskin after that... Carnifex finally goes down, to Jaheira.
We drank a number of potions, but restricted ourselves to the weaker extra healing potions there.
Upon entry, a door opens. We can travel to and from the kuo-toa area without diving now.
The south vent is next, leading us to a large open cavern. This is where the bound dragon Fll'Yissetat stands guard. Several other vents here are suitable for travel; we try the one in the northwest first. That takes us to a vent in the southeast of the same cavern, so we try the vent next to it.
And now, a new cavern. It's full of floating eyeballs - and then, beholders. Also, "tyrant golems" in the form of beholders.
We retreat most of the party and have Lupa and Rasaad handle this. The tyrant golems are extremely resistant to slashing damage, but also incapable of harming Lupa or Rasaad.
And then, Haer'Dalis gets stuck. A neutral "Vigilant" is floating on top of him, preventing him from moving.
And then it's Jaheira and Jan that get stuck... right, time for those Vigilants to die. Another pool - this is the cavern reached from the north vent in the entrance.
Farther north in the cave, we meet a mad wizard who wants a gauth eyestalk. Well, how about we subcontract?
A Stone to Flesh scroll... We offer them 100 gold, and they accept.
Then they do something foolish...
And... they reload.
Now, we can find out what Kerrick will make. But first, to rest and continue the dungeon.
The first vent we try leads to Iycanth's lab, behind a hidden door in the rock. We get the scroll, and pick up a juggernaut golem page while we're at it.
The second leads to a swampy area with a gauth and three elder orbs... hey, shouldn't the gauth be dead?
And... Haer'Dalis is gone. I can't find what got him, but there's no portrait. All right, reload. That takes us to the last time we entered the cave of eyes, so we redo the Bondari sequence.
This time around, it goes well. We kill the orbs, wait out the magical swords, and return to the cave of eyes.
And... actually, a second thought about equipment. The default configuration has Haer'Dalis with a daytime save vs. spell of 2. That's not good enough - so he swaps cloaks with Lupa. Better AC and night saves for Lupa, day save down to 1 for Haer'Dalis. No chance of being stoned by a beholder now.
The last two vents are connected to each other, and we return to the entrance cave. Time to free Fll'Yissetat and face Abazigal.
Odd fact: she runs off toward the entrance, then turns human and runs off in a different direction.
And finally, after far more in-game time than any other dungeon, we face the boss. We put up spell defenses and buffs, prepare the triple-cloud sequencer, and enter. Summons added, so now there are two Planetars and Sunnis in the picture.
It doesn't take long for the incendiary clouds to deal with human-form Abazigal. And thankfully, unlike Draconis, he blows party members away from him when he transforms. No getting stuck in this fight.
A stack of buffs... oh, wait, abjuration immunity along with that PfMW. Well, now we can't just dispel him.
Jan takes some hits, drinks a potion, gets hit again, contingency stoneskin triggers... and one more hit before he can get away. Dead.
The dragon Tamah falls, and now it's just Abazigal. He's distracted fighting the planetar and elemental, and we take the opportunity to cast a mass resurrection...
Everything but the robe goes back on, and the robe isn't all that important.
And... seriously, an Imprisonment? On Jan, the only one who has a Freedom prepared, or even can prepare it? All right, can he put up a defense fast enough... He can try. Casting Abjuration immunity... Nope, he's gone.
You know what? I don't like how this went, and I made a mistake in preparation; Jan forgot his Spell Deflection. Reload.
It starts about the same, and I note that the "Planetar of Justice" stays in the entrance not noticing Abazigal. That's a change made by the mod which breaks this reward from Dorn's quest; the vanilla version spawns the planetar near the exit portal, where it will definitely get involved.
This time, we spend a good chunk of the fight just running around. Against PfMW plus SI:Abjuration, there isn't much we can do. (Not true, but I was working on the assumption that SI:Abjuration actually did what it said it did.)
Imprisonment on Rasaad? He can't put up a decent spell defense, but we do have that Freedom memorized. Imprisonment is just such a fundamentally unfair spell - absolutely no way to defend yourself with saves or resistances?
That picture may show the party getting healed, but it's only moments before things go wrong.
After some more running, we finally get Abazigal dispelled with a Staff of the Magi whack. Now we can fight properly.
Jan tries to put up a Stoneskin, and gets whacked. Then Cernd... all right, take 3. This time, we'll lay some traps near the entrance and try to draw Abazigal over.
It's that SI: Abjuration. Immunity to dispels, or anything that could bring down the combat protections and improved haste, is not something this party is equipped to handle. Ordinary mages aren't much trouble to wait out, but a dragon just deals way too much damage.
We put up the spike traps... and it's Tamah who triggers them. Not quite enough to kill, but close. Also, Abazigal spends his Imprisonment on the Planetar.
And... oh, great, now it's Cernd trapped under the dragon. That was supposed to be prevented... Cernd tries to cast an Aura of Flaming Death, and fails, disrupted by zero electrical damage.
Then... Cernd gets chunked by a normal dragon attack. Ugh, reload. Maybe this time the traps will hit the right dragon.
Take 4... I take down Tamah quickly, but one of the drakes goes and triggers some of the traps early. I eventually lure Abazigal back to the entrance and fight him there alone, but the traps still don't help; the last few ran into a Magical Sword.
I try Haer'Dalis' spell sequencer... wait, he doesn't have a deflection spell up. Targeted effects will work. Right, let's fire off some big spells. Jaheira casts Implosion. No hold, but at least it does some damage. Jan... I set auto-pause on spell cast, and Jan goes with Improved Alacrity into Comet, Dragon Breath, Fireball, Acid Arrow, Mord's Sword, Slow, Slow, Malison, Symbol:Stun, Magic Missile, another MM, Spook, Spook, Blindness, Crushing Hand. Cernd adds an Implosion... still only at Injured. We got some damage through, but none of the debuffs landed. And Remove Magic spells are still ineffective.
Wait, Badly Injured! Abazigal is taking damage from attacks now! Jaheira uses a Critical Strike, Rasaad goes Earth Elemental and uses a GWW...
And... oops, breath weapon takes out Rasaad. All right, Jaheira has another Critical Strike...
Someone finally acts against Melissan. And then it's time for another chat with the solar. We hear of the true plan - to raise Bhaal, or to steal his essence and ascend to godhood. Once all the Bhaalspawn are gone, all the essence will be in one place...
We raise Rasaad and return to the pocket plane.
Flail of Ages +5, Blue Dragon Plate, Juggernaut Golem manual crafted. And now, it's time for the next pocket plane challenge. Lupa meets Cyric - who excludes her pack. Very rude, that. She assures him she has no intention of becoming the god of murder.
Still, he sends his favored to "test" us...
Rasaad uses the gem of seeing... nothing. Can we set traps? Yes, actually. Then they teleport in, and then they die instantly. That was easy.
Jan gets credit for two, Lupa the third. Lupa is now immune to level drain.
All right, the Abazigal fight? That was a serious boss fight, far harder for this party than any of the other ToB boss fights so far. We do damage with weapons, and the SI:Abj/PfMW combination just isn't something we can do much of anything about. With no dispels possible, we're in trouble. Actually... shouldn't that SI block any future castings of those protection spells? That's how I've read it; It does say that it blocks both friendly and harmful effects in the description. But - no, Spell Immunity doesn't block self-targeted spells. Actually, based on later experiments, it doesn't block defense-removers either. For later runs, I'll have to be aware of that - anything from Spell Thrust on up can take down Spell Immunity, even if it's to Abjuration.
Now, winning that fight after so many attempts just felt incomplete. So, then, I decided to reload and go after it with new strategies. Kiting, to run out the immunity so he can be dispelled? No, that didn't work out in two or three tries. I accept the win and move on.
We leave the dungeon and head back to Amkethran... but that's a story for another time. I still wanted another go at Abazigal, so I reloaded a save back at the end of the Sendai sequence. Running the lair again...
Draconis goes down cleanly enough, despite his SI:Abjuration/PfMW combination. No Improved Haste, and being alone, makes a huge difference. On the first try, I had everyone in melee, and they got stuck under him... Second time, Incendiary Clouds and kiting did most of the work... and then he cast a Heal. Oh well, we had mostly run out the PfMW by then anyway. Simple beatdown finished it.
The Lizard Man Shamans are highly vulnerable to the Insect Plagues we had prepared - hey, casting spells actually helps! Oh, and a Comet helped deal with the warriors.
... It's way too easy to kill Anadramatis after sparing her. I didn't issue any commands to my warriors either time, and she still died. Maybe a scripting change; force neutrality and don't take away the 1-HP item, like Lavok?
The kuo-toa and elementals are easy.
Four-dragon ambush? Nice and quick this time. Only a few extra healing potions, a Hardiness each on Jaheira and Rasaad, a GWW, and one Remove Magic. Most of the pre-battle stoneskins I put up are even intact.
Cave of Eyes? Easy enough. The elder orbs imprisoned Rasaad and Cernd, but one Freedom brought both back.
And now, most of the party is fatigued. Only the fight with Abazigal and his minions remains. We can rest specifically for this fight. Our planning:
- Druid spellcasting. Lots of insect spells and Dolorous Decay. The former is damage that ignores PfMW and magic resistance, the latter is no-save slow.
- Mage spellcasting. We don't want incendiary clouds too early, so that we're fighting two dragons at once. Instead, set the contingency to go off when helpless, and use a Protect Image to set that off (or getting blown away). The image, of course, will go with Improved Alacrity into Incendiary Clouds.
And, of course, the usual summons and traps. Holding the line is important.
First time... not quite working as intended. We still triggered dragon Abazigal too early, and had Tamah in the back causing trouble. I stopped after the first party death.
Second time, I pay attention to Tamah... immunity to Abj and Div, Improved Haste, no PfMW. OK, a whack with the Staff of the Magi. Contingency stoneskin? Another whack. And then... Lupa dies. I have no idea what got me. OK, take 3.
This time we manage to basically clear the board before Abazigal transforms.
And then, as nearly his first move, dragon Abazigal imprisons Jaheira. That is such a terribly unfair spell. Jan casts the Freedom as part of his Improved Alacrity sequence., and we bring her back into the party immediately.
Cernd backs off to repeatedly cast insect spells, and... eventually the PfMW lapses. Switch to the Staff of the Magi... dispelled.
Jaheira spends her Critical Strikes, and we win. OK, that feels like a working strategy. Some luck is required, but we got there eventually.
None of the Dolorous Decay spells ever connected, though; so much for that. It's still a good thing to have memorized in our party, though, since it casts so quickly. Only 13 superior healing potions used this time - much less than the first time I beat this fight.
Upon leaving the dungeon, we are greeted by Elminster.
He offers a bit of guidance on how to enter the monastery - that Saemon can help us.
We go to Amkethran, where a few more mercenaries die pointlessly, and then we reach the cave. Oh, Saemon, you're blaming us now?
He "disguises" us - as if the monks would believe a bunch of werewolves were part of their order. There must be more to this scheme...
And there it is. The monks expected us - but they expected us drugged. Finally, a double-cross that favors us.
It's the usual sort of party fight; kill the fighters first, sort out the mages at leisure. These mages use Lower Resist sequencers, so we'll have to rely on saves and elemental resists instead.
We enter, and speak to Balthazar. He wanted the others of the Five dead, and used us to that end. He truly believes he is doing the right thing.
He wishes to end our evil... but we are not evil. Why fight when it will only serve our common enemy's purposes?
In the end, we talk him down. He will stand with us at the Throne of Bhaal, when the end comes.
Back in the pocket plane, the solar speaks - Melissan is no child of Bhaal. No, she sees herself as the god's successor, to take Bhaal's place.
She was the high matriarch of the Bhaalist temple, the one designated to resurrect the god. And then, she found she liked the power. All of the conflicts we have found in Tethyr stem from her plan. She confirms something we had figured out some time ago:
We return to Amkethran and exit the monastery... the monks and mercenaries still don't like us. Apparently, Balthazar didn't tell his underlings he was calling a truce.
Well, at least there aren't infinitely spawning reinforcements anymore.
And... oh yeah, time to visit Kerrick.
And... I can't even pick up the thing with a werewolf without crashing the game. Remember back when Adalon's transformation caused trouble? Yeah, it's the same bug.
Reload... back at the monastery entrance.
Oh, and fighting those monks? This party has basically nothing to fear from Quivering Palm. Nearly the entire party has either unbeatable death saves or immunity to death effects.
Oh no - it's worse than I thought. Picking up the Unit while -any- character is shapeshifted crashes the game. Right. We're forging the Unit, and then we're dumping it somewhere it will never be found - in the pocket plane, where nobody can reach it other than our party.
Yes, the Unit would be worthwhile in this party. It doesn't block divine spellcasting or protection items, so Jaheira or Rasaad could wear it with no real drawbacks, and gain a big chunk of AC. That is, if it didn't crash the game. We're getting rid of this thing ASAP. The rod and ammunition... well, just use Firetooth with the ammunition instead. That is, if we were ever going to do anything ranged.
Well, OK, there's one exception to that "any character" thing. Cernd can't use the Unit, so he's safe to be shapeshifted while someone else plays with it.
And then, I decided to go back and kill Abazigal again. The only decision we did differently this time was to dump the Unit on the table near Kerrick and Lazarus, rather than in the pocket plane. The smith does deserve to see the results of his work.
And now, we proceed to the end. First, we sell off all of our junk:
Yes, that's 1.5 million gold worth of stuff sold in one batch. All that enchanted gear on ToB mooks really adds up.
We keep our old healing potions and such, even if we only plan on using the superior variety. There are three item upgrades we haven't taken: no club of detonation +5 (because the second ring of fire resistance is crucial to making our front line fire-immune), no second silver dragon scale, and no second black dragon scale.
No rest before the last challenge, but that's OK. The Ravager is immune to +3 weapons, so we break out the elemental forms:
Haer'Dalis AC tanks the Bone Blades, while the rest of the party beats on the Ravager. For a bit there, the Ravager knocked Rasaad unconscious and started beating on him - but he was running 90% physical resistance from Hardiness and Earth Elemental form. The Ravager goes down to near death, and we unleash our full power with Kai, Smite, and Greater Whirlwind:
Lupa gets the killing blow, as is proper. Then everybody switches back to werewolf form to clean up and regenerate. We never had to worry about Haer'Dalis tanking all the bone blades, by the way - he's at full health when the final blow is struck. Lupa gains the Resurrection ability, and the party is ready for the end.
Only the Throne remains. With the werewolf regeneration backing us, we rarely spent potions outside the hardest of fights - which means we have over 300 superior healing potions now. Everyone has a full stack, with the exception of a slightly reduced stack for Jaheira so she isn't slowed in human form.
Some shots of the characters, just before the party enters the Throne:
Lupa:
Jaheira:
Cernd:
Rasaad:
Jan:
Haer'Dalis:
Jaheira and Cernd have Armor of Faith active, while Rasaad has Hardiness. All three are immune to poison in addition to the resistances that fit on the screen. (Enhanced) Bard Song is not active.
Melissan greets us with a taunt. And then, she summons Irenicus. A mage, to oppose us? How pathetic.
Add in Bodhi? Well, now, she's at least slightly dangerous. Imoen as the Slayer, a Fallen Solar... OK, there's enough warrior power here to be troublesome. Rasaad becomes an Earth Elemental to engage the Solar, while the rest of the party engages the Slayer and Bodhi.
(I meant to have a picture here, but missed it)
Jaheira gets level drained to oblivion... OK, reload and do this one right.
An early abort, and then take three...
Slayer Imoen is the first to fall, and we've avoided level drain by kiting Bodhi - she really likes to chase Jaheira. Then the Fallen Solar, and Bodhi. Only Irenicus remains, and right now he's using Improved Mantle... OK, time to use the Staff of the Magi. That breaks his protections, and he dies once more.
We wait out the summoned swords, then head to the first essence pool. Of course, we lay some traps first... It's just some fiends, easily fought. OK, more traps. Activate the pool, free rest and restoration.
The second pool brings more fiends. Jan gets poisoned? OK, use one of our Elixirs of Health.
This one gives Lupa the power to teleport, and to fight for control of demons under Melissan's control. We've set some traps at the third pool.
And those traps are devastating, destroying multiple demons in the first round. Only the final fight remains.
We lay some traps, summon some friends, and go. New power... protection from Time Stop and others. Wow.
OK, the summons didn't come with us. Oops. And the free restoration runs into the spell defenses and wipes them out. Bleh.
Then Melissan shows, and summons some help. Sarevok, Illasera, Gromnir, Yaga-Shura, Sendai, human Abazigal. Sendai and Abazigal are mages in this incarnation, while the others are warriors.
The party splts without my conscious direction, and the heavy hitters Lupa and Jaheira go after Sarevok and Yaga-Shura first - leaving the others to take a lot of punishment.
We take down Sarevok, then Yaga-Shura. Haer'Dalis actually steps in for the killing blow there.
Then we go after Illasera - she deals a lot of damage. It goes fairly well, until interrupted by Abazigal blowing everyone away.
And... oh great, Abazigal imprisons Rasaad. Not again... Freedom right away, then.
And... too much damage to Lupa. Dead before she could get away. All right, take 2 - and this time we'll put the summons where they can help.
I missed a member of the enemy party in the first shot, so here he is:
This time, we focus and kill Illasera immediately, then follow up with Gromnir. Sarevok and Yaga-Shura targeted next... and then Melissan joins the fray.
The fight continues, large amounts of damage are thrown around, and Jan gets chunked by Abazigal. Reload.
Illasera down. Gromnir down. Yaga-Shura down. We ignore Sendai, but Abazigal is a fighter/mage that must be handled quickly.
I notice a strange message in the log...
Abazigal imprisons Rasaad, then Melissan time stops... and Lupa takes advantage to kill Abazigal. Neat.
We then spread some boots of speed around, cast the Freedom, and have Haer'Dalis kite Melissan. Sarevok and Sendai down... only Melissan left, plus the demons she summons.
The fight goes on, and Melissan is very hard to hurt. We cast a Mass Resurrection, for the healing.
And then we decide to actually control Balthazar for a moment... oh, those are some nice abilities. The debuff kick helps bring Melissan down to three bars health, "Badly Injured". Some warrior abilities, an Improved Haste on Jaheira... One bar, "Near Death"... Victory.
But after that comes a choice. Our companions offer their advice:
(Jaheira had some advice too, but I didn't get a picture)
The choice is clear. Lupa will stand by her pack and return to the mortal plane.
The werewolves of this plane already have a god - but we could offer so much more by living. Perhaps a new monastic order, devoted to taming the wolf? That would be a worthy position to take after our adventures, and a way for the pack to leave an enduring mark.
Some final stats, from a save in the Throne:
The game didn't bother resetting experience past the cap, so the party ended up about a million past it. Lupa 7952065+1250000 = 9202065, Jaheira 9076427, Cernd 8842740, Rasaad 9059200, Jan 8674227, Haer'Dalis 8873721. And we could have had more, with our very large collection of scrolls.
BG2 kills: Lupa 1339 for 8083616 XP, strongest "Dragon" with 62000 (the green dragon in Watcher's Keep level 5). Jaheira 1038 for 5153058 XP, strongest Bodhi with 91000. Cernd 554 for 2349310 XP, strongest Hive Mother for 50000. Rasaad 602 for 3347705 XP, strongest Carnifex for 64000. Jan 436 for 2046209 XP, strongest Kangaxx the Demilich for 55000. Haer'Dalis 94 for 512165 XP, strongest Elite Fire Giant for 26000. Half of the party has their strongest kills from the SoA portion of the game.
On the whole, this party was powerful throughout the game and very fun to play. It was so much fun that I basically played it every day for a month - and it was only the second time I've ever gone all the way to defeating the final boss.
And now, the epilogues. I've used some material from the ones in the game, but largely written these myself to fit what the characters became.
Lupa returned to her keep for a time, and ruled as the sovereign until her eldest daughter was ready to take over. That daughter married Nalia's son, and the land returned to the de'Arnise name. During this time, she also bought the temple once used by the Twofold Trust, and refurbished it to a new purpose.
Together with her husband Rasaad, she founded a new order of monks - the Full Moon order, commonly known as the Werewolf Tamers. They would travel far and wide to bring succor to the werewolves of the world, or to put down those who only knew violence. And if a monk were to be infected by some accident? They would continue their duties, once they learned to master the change. Many even chose to become werewolves voluntarily, and other werewolves joined the order to become monks.
The two lived for many years together, and all five of their children became notable figures. The eldest, a daughter named Anath, learned to manage a fief at her mother's knee, and took up the lordship of the de'Arnise lands at her majority when Lupa stepped down in favor of the temple. The second, a son named Remus, found monastic life to his liking, and joined the Full Moon order. His vigilance was crucial to stopping an attempt on Lupa and Rasaad's life by Sharran assassins, and he rose to become the Master of Defense at the temple by the time of their retirement. The youngest three did not stay so close, and instead took up lives as adventurers, achieving great renown in distant lands.
While Jaheira traveled across the realms on Harper business and her own, she returned many times to her home at the Tamers' Temple. Her comings and goings were never predictable, but she somehow always knew when to be there for the truly important events. The Harpers offered to place her among their highest ranks, but she always turned them down - for the bonds of family and pack she had forged were stronger than her bonds to the Harpers. While she never remarried, she was a beloved aunt to the children that came to the pack.
Her last return to the temple, or for that matter Amn and Tethyr, came with Lupa lying on her deathbed. She stayed long enough to organize the funeral, and then left for parts unknown.
Cernd split time between the druid grove in eastern Amn and the temple, teaching acolytes the ways of balance both within themselves and with the world. But all was not well; his son Ahsdale moved away while he was focused on his duties, and grew into a dark and twisted wizard. With great regret, an aged Cernd called together the pack to right this wrong. Ahsdale was powerless to harm them and fell before the pack's might, but grief at having to put down his son brought Cernd low. With a final howl of mourning, he laid down and died at the site of that battle. Jaheira planted an oak tree in his memory there, and it stands as a site of pilgrimage for the Tamers.
Over the years, Jan gradually brought many of the extended Jansen family onto Lupa's lands near both the temple and the keep. Turnips became a staple of the diet at both locations, and he organized a rabbit hunt each spring that became a tradition among the werewolves of the temple. Lupa's promise to aid him with his family proved unnecessary, as Vaelag's business was ruined by a mysterious rabbit infestation and Lissa left the man in the face of his mounting anger and paranoia.
Haer'Dalis spent most of his time traveling the realms, spreading stories of the group's exploits far and wide - but he always returned home to the Tamers' Temple. Even when he found love with a female cambion and traveled to the Abyss, he only stayed away for a few years before leading a revolt that brought a demon lord to the bargaining table and saw him banished to the Prime as part of the treaty.
And, ten years after rejecting godhood, Lupa finally fulfilled an old promise. She travelled to Brynnlaw with her pack and children, and chartered Golin's ship for a journey into the poorly charted reaches of the great sea. There, she found the island of Kaishas Gan and her village - this time, without crashing the ship. They set up a permanent portal between the island and the temple, so that the island could serve as a sanctuary for those werewolves not yet able to fully control their change. Kaishas even came over and spent a month seeing the sights of the Sword Coast, before returning to her home.
Comments
The party travels to where we left the Underdark, and rests in sight of the exit. No ambush this time. Then we return to Elhan, and gain entry into Suldanessellar. He still refuses to tell us what relation Irenicus and Bodhi had to his people, but points us to a priestess who will.
Once inside, we are directed to find Ellesime and the high priestess. The first building we enter is guarded by golems of clay and stone; Lupa switches to a staff and Rasaad to his fists to deal with the clay golem. It goes down in one hit - no trouble at all.
Continuing around the outside, we reach the palace, and a battle between elves and a Balor. Naturally, we intervene. It puts up its aura and a stoneskin, but we power through.
The elven warrior outside is talked into opening the gates, and we continue through to fight a group of rakshasa alongside elven battle mages. We wait out the useless attacks of a dominated elven battle mage - he can only hit Haer'Dalis on a critical, and his weapon is ineffective. Well, OK, we don't wait forever - he stays hostile, so we kill him inside the nearby building that also holds the moonblade and a Gate scroll.
Continuing to the northwest, we face stone, iron, and sand golems. No hits taken; we avoid a cursed wound. The house nearby holds a stone harp, and now there's an idiotic elven warrior chasing us around. Or maybe two.
The next step northwest is the dragon - can we take it unprepared?
And while we're at it - Jan wishes for experience. Time to fight some golems. Cernd takes a cursed hit, but that's all. We'll wait to cure it, as regeneration renders any need for immediate healing moot.
Demin's house is next. We rush to the nabassu and kill it, then the drow Raamilat goes hostile. A Sphere of Chaos can be ignored as the entire party is guaranteed to save, and we just wait out the PfMW... nope, shouldn't have. He's got an Imprisonment memorized. OK, reload and do this right. There's no autosave at the dragon, so we have to redo that fight. The dragon is even less effective this time, wasting effort on a Remove Magic. Lupa gets the kill, and this time we'll save.
The golems are fought; no cursed wound this time, but an adamantine golem hit drops Jan below half health.
This time, Raamilat gets a Haer'Dalis dispel.
After waiting out the magical sword and the Maze, Demin has some exposition for us... well, actually, a lot of exposition for us.
Some skeleton warriors are easily handled - hey, random Protection from Energy scroll! The next house provides a Meteor Swarm scroll, and a puzzle box that we leave to seek clues for. They are found upstairs, in a priest's house, along with a Time Stop scroll. Suldanessellar, apparently, has someone creating a great many 9th level scrolls. The box gives us the talisman, and we move on.
The next platform has a fight with an adamantine golem and two stone golems; Rasaad levels up to 29, taking enough Find Traps for 100 as a human and the Smite ability.
Yet more adamantine golems follow, and multiple gas cloud hits overwhelm Jan's regeneration. We have to spend a healing potion and a Slow Poison spell, and his contingency stoneskin triggers.
Only one building remains - the temple of Rillifane. It is guarded by a group of rakshasa. PfMW all around? Try a Remove Magic, then.
Suneer and his fiends go down; we can fight just fine in a Web after the enemy has cast Greater Malison.
Reirra shows up outside the temple; she offers excellent prices, but no items of interest. We enter the palace, and replace the statue pieces. It is time to enter the tree of life and confront Irenicus.
Ellesime greets us on the tree; there are parasites that must be destroyed for us to continue.
Then we come to a stump-like platform, where Irenicus stands within an impenetrable bubble. This is where he will be when the parasites are eliminated - so we prepare the battlefield with some traps:
Oh, and "injured in the battle"? No, that's definitely not what happened.
We start to the left of the door, and face the first test. It is a wraith of Sarevok, here to tempt our wrath.
The next test tempts us to greed, with a powerful magical weapon. We resist temptation again; what good is a sword when we have our claws? This tear we use right away; Lupa's saves improve by 2.
The next is a test of selfishness; a demon kidnaps Cernd and asks Lupa to choose between sacrificing a piece of her strength and sacrificing her packmate. That is no real choice - but such cruelty deserves a trick in return. Jan hides Lupa in a Maze, and opens the doors for her. Without her to draw from, there is no sacrifice, only a rescue. Oops, magic resistance? Reload, and take off that equipment...
Next is fear. We are offered a cloak to protect one party member - but we have the howls of Haer'Dalis to protect the whole party instead. Keep your flayed nymphs; we will face this as a pack.
The last challenge is pride - will we fight a powerful creature simply because we can? No. A pack has no need for such things. We only fight with purpose.
The last tear grants resistance to fire, cold and electricity - bringing Lupa to 95 of each. It is time to defeat Irenicus once and for all.
There was one more trap in there, but the Time Trap seems to have done nothing.
Then, over the course of a Time Stop in which he added more defenses, Slayer Irenicus regenerates up to merely injured. OK, that was definitely more than enough damage; he just can't die yet.
When a Glabrezu puts up a Mirror Image, we have Haer'Dalis throw in a Remove Magic. That breaks down a lot of defenses. Eventually, the last demon goes down. Time to take out Irenicus... wait, where's Jan's Spell Trigger button? He's got one prepared. Actually, he's missing his Minor Spell Sequencer button, too. All right, we'll just have Haer'Dalis cast Remove Magic again. Slower, but no less effective. That breaks his defenses, and the beatdown commences. Rasaad in earth elemental form with a Greater Whirlwind is particularly effective.
Some final stats, at the end of SoA.
XP: Lupa 3711127+1250000=4961127. Cernd 4851250. Jan 4791412. Jaheira 4867411. Haer'Dalis 4696715. Rasaad 4870731. Nearly 5 million across the board, and we haven't even entered Watcher's Keep.
Kills: Lupa 599 for 2288616 XP, strongest Adalon (54000). Cernd 364 for 1063790 XP, strongest Hive Mother (50000). Jan 234 for 587019 XP, strongest Kangaxx the Demilich (55000). Jaheira 634 for 2161443 XP, strongest Bodhi (91000). Haer'Dalis 69 for 250765 XP, strongest Shade Lich (22000). Rasaad 430 for 19711335 XP, strongest Unseeing Eye (30000).
Since we nearly always fight with claws, the most kills go to the strongest melee attackers. Haer'Dalis lags far behind in kills, because he usually just helps the party by singing.
After the hell trials, in her standard werewolf configuration, these are Lupa's defenses:
173 HP, AC -12 (-2 vs missile, -1 vs. piercing), saves -3/-4/-2/-3/-3 (death/wand/polymorph/breath/spell), resistances fire/cold/lightning 95, acid 50, poison 100, magic 100. Immune to weapons up to +1, immune to spell damage, immune to disease. Regenerates 8 HP per round. She's usually under bard song, which is another 4 AC and 5 MR, plus immunity to stun, confusion, and fear. Physical damage is one of the very few ways to hurt her, and she's got double-haste movement and extremely good stealth skills to get away after being hit, on top of exceptional AC. This is a very tough nut to crack.
I tinker a bit with the save in order to fix the broken sequencers; this is the version in which the game knows what spells they have but has forgotten how to launch them, so I have to add the abilities back in. There's no way to fix this with normal play; you can't re-memorize the sequencers without launching them first, and you can't launch them to clear that. There are two such abilities for each sequencer type; for future reference, the "D" abilities are creature-targeted and the "P" abilities are area targeted. Thankfully, this is the only time I get this version; every other forgotten sequencer is the inverse, in which the launch ability stays but the spells inside are forgotten.
And then, we're sent immediately to the fight against Illasera and her Black Reavers. Illasera chooses to target Haer'Dalis, and comes very close to killing him; he is forced to retreat out of her range, and that's barely enough.
Talking to Cespenar - bladesinger chain upgraded to +5 version. Still useless. Cloak of protection +2 upgraded to have abilities. And another one. Our third cloak goes un-upgraded. Of course, this means that we now have a way to grant improved haste equipped to the monk that can't use it and the bard that spends all his time singing... oh well, they can always be shuffled around if we want the abilities.
Time for the first challenge. We let Haer'Dalis sing and the others run around fighting - until we do something silly and have the bard engage some drow. He's not terribly effective, and that makes Jan a lot more vulnerable to the drow.
Ooh, there's a HLA spell cast against us - Comet. Not very effective, though.
Rasaad speaks up - for all he says he's not willing to be close to Lupa, he still watches. Both of them are deeply troubled by what they have been forced to do.
We spend a charge of a rod of resurrection to raise a peasant killed in the bombardment - or do we? Both rods still have the full ten charges.
At the temple of Waukeen, we speak to Sister Farielle. She reveals that Melissan brought many Bhaalspawn here - ostensibly to protect them, but the effect has been to gather them for slaughter. When asked how to enter the castle, she gives us a key to the abandoned jail - there is a path through to the castle, but the jail has been taken over by powerful undead.
We encounter several cultists and their mage leader, a "Cold Mistress". She protects herself with a fireshield (blue) and Mantle, so you know what that means - time for the fire elementals.
In the tavern, we warn a group of soldiers to back off from harassing a waitress. They refuse, and attack us instead. A waste, but at least we get their armor and weapons. A +3 sword and a +3 hammer? Rich gear for grunts. The bartender sells even more generic +3 weapons - and a single unique item. Yamato +4, a wakizashi with +1 AC, is the most expensive item in the game. Fortunately, it can be stolen.
We meet Volo, and he has tales to tell about us - though, strangely, not one mention is made of our werewolf natures.
Hectan returns the spellbook in return for a teleportation scroll - but we must warn him that it won't work. Returning the spellbook to Lazarus is good for Rasaad's 30th level - more stealth, GWW #3. Then we have a scribing session. Stealing scrolls, we complete the spellbooks of both Jan and Haer'Dalis - well, the latter doesn't have Wish, but he's got everything he can possibly cast and more. That brings Jaheira to the brink, so we throw in a couple Identify scrolls. Fighter level 18, staff specialization, Summon Deva. Also, Lupa casts a Find Familiar scroll.
Between buying and stealing, we're up to five boots of speed. If we felt like it, we could have everybody but Rasaad moving at double-haste speeds. Jan steals two more archmage robes, but after a fashion consultation Haer'Dalis sticks with his current "evil" version.
The barracks is next. Before we get there, Rasaad tries to tell a poorly timed joke:
In the barracks, it's enormous numbers of poorly armed soldiers. They don't have magic weapons, and we have Enhanced Bard Song. It's a slaughter.
And now, time to enter the jail. A few rooms in, we meet our first undead - a fledgling vampire. That lines up with the description we got from a terrified bar patron. Destroying the vampires here will be a service to the people of the town.
A tormented spirit greets us, and we find a skull nearby. Can we put this spirit to rest? More rooms and corridors, more vampires. Haer'Dalis reaches level 32, and we meet the spirit again. Axe proficiency, Spike Trap #5. We return the skull and amulet, and use our holy water. The spirit is put to rest, and Cernd reaches level 25 - a seventh level 7 slot, plus his last HLA (Energy Blades). All future levels will grant only hit points. We are also rewarded with a bit of treasure - a bronze ioun stone, granting a level 7 mage spell slot. Jan would rather wear a real helmet.
There's a lock further in that resists even 115 lockpick - so Jan switches to fire elemental form for the 25 Dex, puts on his techno-gloves, and applies the resulting 155 score to it. The vampire leader Phlydian is killed, and we head into the castle dungeons.
I like playing this next bit as a stealth mission; get in and free the prisoners without alerting the guards. The Staff of the Magi is key here, for its instant invisibility. And... failed right away, since a stealthed thief was there to see me open the door. OK, now it's the direct approach. Jan takes some hits, and retreats for a few rounds. Haer'Dalis actually gets hit in melee by the thief - it takes a roll of 20 on a backstab, but it happens.
The enemy mage throws up an image of some sort - it doesn't have any combat protections, so it dies. That leaves the real mage, who casts a Time Stop into Spell Turning and Greater Malison and Glitterdust. Then another Time Stop into Minor Globe and Symbol:Stun. One party member briefly blinded, none stunned. Then the combat protections go down and the mage dies. The prisoners are released for three wasted reputation points.
Forward to the next room, it's more mook soldiers, and an enchanted scabbard in a chest. Perhaps we'll find the sword it belongs to as well. Two more rooms of weak soldiers, and we have a way up into the palace proper. We won't take it yet - the sewers come first.
We are greeted by devil shades and shadow fiends; these sewers have an undead problem. The umber hulks, by contrast, aren't a big deal. Then it's sappers belonging to Yaga-Shura's army; they must be defeated to protect the town. A mage in the group? Take out the warriors first. The magical swords he summons are annoying, but he doesn't last long once his Improved Mantle ends... In retrospect, I should have whacked him with the Staff of the Magi.
A larger sapper group and the shades attacking them are no problem. A sapper group with mage backing - ignore the mage, chase down more sappers. Then we find the mage again. Only a Stoneskin and some spell protections up, until he adds a PfMW. Well, we got a lot of hits in against that stoneskin - let's try a nonmagical staff and spear.
The sewers are clear, and now it's time to head up. The next floor is guarded by a battle mage and a group of soldiers. Standard tactics apply - kill the soldiers, mop up the mage at leisure. The mage goes for summons - OK, kill the summons fast as well. We end up fighting in a Stinking Cloud, and Jan drinks a potion after taking some hits, but the plan works.
We somehow haven't rested since before Suldanesselar, but this is just Gromnir here. We press on, despite not being able to activate full defenses on the party. Stoneskins and spell defenses up.
Gromnir thinks Lupa is an assassin. Ugh, paranoia. Well, we came in ready for a fight.
It's a messy fight, with us using a number of potions. Soon, though, most of the clutter is gone. It's just Gromnir, the two mages, and some summons now.
Cernd takes a break to raise Haer'Dalis, and all six attack now. Then, finally, his combat protections fall. Cernd gets the killing blow, with a critical hit.
Then Melissan shows up, to "guide" our next steps. We have no choice, really - but we will be watching for her sudden yet inevitable betrayal.
Unique equipment: Lavender Ioun Stone (to Rasaad, so his save vs. death is no longer a relative weakness), Roranach's Horn, Ice Star +4, Grandmaster's Armor +6. The helmet is situationally useful, but the weapon and armor are nothing we're interested in.
Up on the roof - ooh, free swords! 20 long swords +1, to be specific. Whenever the guards die and are replaced, they drop weapons. Jan takes a turn shooting fire giants from the ramparts. With the Ring of Gaxx equipped for regeneration, it's free experience and potions. We stop at nine kills - enough to fill out our current four stacks of extra healing potions and reach Rasaad's next level (stealth, Hardiness).
Before the party leaves Saradush, I'd like to handle the last substantial side quest there. We visit the militia headquarters, and find ourselves drawn into investigating a betrayal - someone opened a gate to let the enemy in. Speaking with the Countess Santele, we find a hint of the truth - the culprit has used kidnapping and blackmail to cover his tracks.
Speaking to Kiser, he makes a second accusation - the wizard Errard. Removing him would be a true blow to the defense of the city, but we talk instead - and Errard divines the location of the kidnapped Ardic. Kiser is truly guilty, and we return to confront him.
He's a particularly nasty backstabber (an Assassin with 7x backstab multiplier), landing a one-hit kill on Jan and another powerful backstab on a singing Haer'Dalis. Both of those were critical rolls - he missed Jaheira on a 13, so he certainly would have missed Haer'Dalis on anything less than a critical.
He drops a Shakti Figurine, allowing a non-fighter to transform into a powerful hasted warrior for a few rounds. It's obviously far inferior to our existing werewolf abilities, so we have no use for it.
There's a mage farther in. We wait out her combat protections (PfMW, then Improved Mantle), then attack. Then it's a contingency PfMW, so we get out the nonmagical staff and spear. That doesn't take down her stoneskin fast enough to avoid a Time Stop, but the only offensive spell she casts is a Greater Malison. Her PfMW expires, and she goes down in moments after that. Ardic is freed, and the countess rewards us with a bit of gold.
We also picked up some starfall ore, which may have use in forging an item of power. We shoplift a few +3 arrows and bolts at the Tankard Tree, then a good deal more +4 bullets - after buying and selling 40 to increase the merchant's stock. About half of our old +2 ammo is recognized as stolen and dumped, while the rest is sold.
Talking to Viekang - no dialogue option regarding the Horror ability we have. In retrospect, we have to force this one and just cast the spell. We leave Saradush for the pocket plane, and tweak spell memorization... wait, the sequencers are gone. Oh well, just discharge the empty ones. We want something new anyway, so Jan prepares three Flame Arrow spells and we rest.
We use the portal to leave Saradush, and find elements of Yaga-Shura's army immediately. This poorly-equipped bunch only had a single magic weapon for the officer, so they went down quickly. One of the merchants they were harassing, a Karthis al-Hezzar, has a number of useful items to sell us - and he buys at the best prices in the game. We steal an ioun stone and a potion case, and buy our third rod of resurrection.
Now, to clear the area, some fun with backstabbing. Lupa equips the Staff of the Magi and the Staff of Rhynn in her quickslots, deactivates auto-attack, and goes on the hunt. The very first move? 132 points, one-hit kill on a Fire Giant.
More soldiers go down, and we reach a northern group. A Cleric of Talos gets a critical backstab:
It doesn't seem to work. All right, forget subtlety. I'll send in the party and let the mage act. Everyone else was killed without them getting a single counterattack off. The mage shows up at the end of the bridge, gets off a Greater Malison, and dies in one hit after six others take down the stoneskin.
Now, it's time to go to Watcher's Keep. On the way, we are waylaid by Sharrans - a Crusader, a Monk, an Assassin, and a Sorceror. Ignore the mage, kill the monk and crusader, reveal the assassin with passive Detect Illusion.
OK, the Assassin was under non-magical stealth when the battle started. After critically missing, he goes with a potion of invisibility. That can be dispelled. He gets in another attack, and misses, before losing his invisibility so we can swarm him. Only the mage remains. He casts Mord's Sword, then loses his protection and dies quickly. He also tried a Slow spell in there - no effect.
We now know where to find the Deepstone Clanhold - but that can wait. First, Watcher's Keep. We pick up the Vigil Stone and the Ritual Scroll, then enter. The Paladin's Bracers go to Jan, for the increased HP. At 69, he's quite vulnerable. We now have enough gloves with passive bonuses to equip everyone.
The Stone Golem goes down in two hits, and we bring out Fire Elemental forms for the trolls. One hit taken, no spells cast by the spirit troll. For the highest-level version of this ToB encounter, they're not any worse than what we ran into way back at de'Arnise Keep. Then we pick up the Golem Manual - our fifth summoning item - but an attacker that is merely immune to magic and normal weapons isn't much in this party. Only Jan has the intelligence to use it.
The Case of Plenty +1 goes into the bag, and then we face the first dangerous enemies - two Vampiric Wraiths. Werewolf power is sufficient to take them down without taking any hits in return. More mists, some spiders, the +1 quiver, and the ammo belt. We spring a couple traps in our impatience, but they're damage spells that don't affect Lupa.
A fight against some mustard jellies brings Haer'Dalis to level 33 - Greater Evasion taken.
We talk to the archivist, then the priest. We're ready to perform the ritual and head down. But first, there are some golems here - Fight! Neither of them takes a single action before dying.
A gallery of statues that look like adventurers? Very suspicious - let's lay some traps. Two mages and a rogue get two spike traps each, while a priest gets one spike trap. Then we cast our buffs; Stoneskin and spell defenses for the mages, Iron Skin and Armor of Faith for the druids, plus Shield of the Archons for Cernd. Add some item summons, and we're ready for a fight.
And... trap fires early, statue immune to magic damage. The first group goes down without incident, and Foebane is ours.
The other traps go off, equally ineffectively. We target a warrior first with our attacks. Then we're cheated out of the experience - another statue gets the kill with an Incendiary Cloud. It wipes out our summons, but our party can fight in the cloud just fine. Next target, the golem. Rasaad takes a hit, but it goes down. The rogue and archer are next. Before we can do much, a mage goes into a Time Stop sequence - Shadow Door, Mord's Sword, Time Stop, Minor Globe, Symbol:Stun. The Time Stop has nullified our Bard Song, so that has a chance of causing trouble. (It doesn't)
Rasaad takes another crit from the rogue, and drinks a healing potion. We pick off a foe that had fallen to near death in the cloud, then get back to the rogue. Then Time Stop into Spell Thrust on Haer'Dalis (nothing to remove, now that SI: Abj has expired) and PW: Silence on Cernd - absorbed by his spell defense. Huh, I thought the AI was unwilling to target spell-protected characters with anything but defense-breakers.
Time Stop into a triple-Lower Resistance sequencer on Jan - wait, that ignored his Spell Deflection?
Then it's Jan's turn to be stunned, and he takes some magical sword hits - before those swords expire.
We head down, meeting the Chromatic Demon. We apparently have no choice but to bargain with it. Oh, and Haer'Dalis was teleported down while still stunned. We just have to wait that out.
We unlock the gateway to the outside, and head back in. First, the fire library. There are a pair of fire giants there, which deserve a bit of backstabbing. One backstab brings the first down to critical levels, and he drinks a potion of freedom. Then a second finishes the job. The second giant is backstabbed once, then engage by the team. It gets a hit (averted crit) on Lupa, and dies shortly after. From there, the library becomes a job for the thieves.
We loot the place of its many potions and elemental ammo, and an imp tells us how the place works. It's all about the fan.
Next, the air library. Golems here; two clay, one stone, one iron. Sneakiness is recommended to whack the clay golems from stealth. Two hits on one golem, three on the other. Then the party joins back together for the last two golems.
The slime library brings spiders and floor traps. We disarm the traps under stealth, then engage. Jan reaches level 22 as a thief - stealth, spike trap #5.
The ice library has mists. The two vampiric wraths are taken down cleanly, and the remaining mists aren't much of a threat.
And now, time for the labs. The air lab is first. We fight the guardians in their realm; since most of our party is immune to electricity, it goes smoothly enough. Rasaad and Jan take decent chunks of damage, but only them. This encounter also brings enough experience for Rasaad to reach level 32. More stealth, no proficiencies left to take, and another GWW.
Simple brute force takes down the creatures of the slime lab, and we claim the flail head. Then we open and close doors to prepare the ice lab with toxic clouds. With most parties, I take this next step by ducking in and out, drawing out the guardians. This party, on the other hand? We should be able to fight in that. We can clear the slow effects by swapping weapons, and we can tank the poison damage.
Well, OK, the slow effects are more persistent than that. We still tank the poison damage and kill the ice golem in its own lab.
Luring the fire elementals is simple enough, and then we charge in to face the fire giant. The Helm of the Rock is an upgrade over the Dragon Helm for Lupa, adding acid resistance.
And now, it's time for the Chromatic Demon. For this fight, we're going after the ice form with fire damage. Bring out the fire elemental forms, fireshields, and that Fire Arrow sequencer. Also, there's one more source of fire damage. While Jan is over level 20 as a thief, his traps' power is based on average level of all classes - which means that he's still got the level 16 version that deals fire damage. I'll have five of those.
On the third try, the traps do most of the work, then Jan fires off his sequencer.
And now, we've accumulated quite a few pieces for Cespenar to work with. Time to return to the pocket plane.
Foebane +5, Flail of Ages +4, Quiver of Plenty +2, Circlet of Netheril, Blessed Bracers, Helm of the Rock, Case of Plenty +2 crafted. The circlet would be nice for Jan, but I like the helm of defense even more.
Opening the way has also brought Haer'Dalis to level 34. Second Time Trap taken. We go down to the next level, and meet a mad elf "Yakman". Following him leads to another item of interest - the bard's gloves. He gets a Heal spell, restoring his sanity. We open the way out, and then it's back to the pocket plane. The gloves need upgrading now. And for once, we actually give the bard's gloves to the bard. They're great for Jan too, but he needs the HP from the paladin gloves more, and Haer'Dalis will make better use of the low-level spell slots.
And... the game glitches. Tamorlin is still in his base room, and talking to him again grants the 5K experience per party member a second time. OK, then. That's nice.
I haven't installed the randomizing component, so I have a map of the level here. We start by heading east, to the dead magic pillar room. This dispels Haer'Dalis' Stoneskin, but the party has no other dispellable effects active. It's nice to avoid that weakness.
It's an easy enough fight; the Balor tries and fails to cast a spell, and the only damage we take is from the Balor's fire aura. It's foolish enough to try to cast a spell rather than just attacking us.
Jaheira reaches fighter level 19, and takes Implosion. We head east to the wild magic quasit room, and ... ooh, that's a wild surge I refuse to accept. 80% of the party gold gone, over 500K? Nope.
Now, south to the succubus and alu-fiends. They find it very hard to hit us and impossible to charm us, so it's fairly straightforward. Jan takes several hits, though, and disengages for his safety.
South to Ka'rashur next. It's easily won with brute force, ignoring the enemy spells with bard song. Jaheira gets the killing blow, and we have a heart to take back to Tahazzar.
... Wait, why did two non-hostile glabrezu just teleport into the succubus room?
The summoners come next. And... all right, I need a better plan here. They start with PfMW and Mirror Image protections, there are considerably more summoners than vanilla, and attacking the summons simply isn't fast enough.
Now, we turn west to the wild magic tieflings. They have some high-level abilities, but two whirlwind attacks didn't help much - our party has enough AC that they couldn't hit reliably that way, and they couldn't stand up to our attacks. We pick up ten superior healing potions from this room, more than replacing the five extra healing potions used in the last.
Now, we turn north. With Bard Song up, the fear and stun spells demon knights are fond of don't work on us. They try two PW:Kill spells on Jan; not only does he have too many HP, but he blocks both with magic resistance. Lupa gets drained two levels - "Slayer Transformation enhanced". At least she's down to only one copy of it. The Cambion gets a backstab in on Jan, but only 38 damage. And now, north to the wraith room. We prepare for it with a Find Traps spell and deactivating the AI, since there's no room to move without setting off traps.
The Demon Wraith puts up an impressive array of defenses, on top of its innate immunity to +3 weapons - but we're focusing on the slave wraths first.
And now, we reach the final cavern, where Aesgareth is. A deck of many things... time to save-scum. Haer'Dalis' Remove Curse spell has, sadly, been wiped out by the level drain removing his bonus spell slots. As such, we'll pop back to the pocket plane, restore the lost levels, and rest. Haer'Dalis has picked up enough experience for level 35, and takes Avoid Death. While we're at it, we have Cespenar forge the white dragon scale.
Round 1, experience (for Haer'Dalis) against Spectral Brand. He draws "Strife", Aesgareth draws "Triumph". Victory for us.
Jan levels up - thief 23, for more stealth and a second Time Trap. And now, we play with the Deck.
Round 1: Gem, Gem, Ruin, Gem, Flames, Donjon (save with a 5).
Round 2: Key.
The Warder's Signet goes to Cernd, and we're back to having all party members at 1 or better save vs. spell. The Throne XP is good for levels on Haer'Dalis (36, Bastard sword prof. and Exploding Trap), Lupa (32, Long sword mastery, Pick Pockets to 215 + 35 = 250, stealth, Avoid Death), and Rasaad (34, stealth, Deathblow).
I also considered settling for Comet there instead of Throne; the step from 95% fire resistance to 100% fire resistance is particularly valuable.
We move down to the next level, and meet Carston, the "Lord of the Level". He gets bored and summons trouble, in the form of mind flayers. We immediately dispatch them, and the experience is enough for Jaheira to reach new levels - fighter 20, druid 15. She gets lots of new spell slots and takes both Elemental Summoning and Greater Elemental Summoning.
We kill some devil shades and shadow fiends, then open the way out. This also marks the end of the session chronicled in part 31.
Returning inside, we explore the area. Soon, a group of trolls brings Cernd over the top to level 27. No new spell slots or HLAs, just another 2 HP.
Then, we run out of space in the ammo belt - entirely from what we've picked up down here. It piles up fast when you're not using any of it. There are Magic Golems, so Jaheira gets out her spear and Lupa gets her staff. I recall mimics, but we haven't seen any yet... Anyway we have the blue oil.
We turn to the other side - ah, that's where the mimics are. Also, six braziers. Lighting them is clearly needed to open the way. The blue oil is important, but we need flint and tinder too? Shouldn't we have that sort of thing already?
Next, the illithid encampment. With the sheer number of save-or-lose effects we expect, having the party at 1 or better (save vs. spell) isn't quite good enough. Jaheira gets a mind focusing potion, Cernd gets Chaotic Commands, Jaheira/Rasaad/Jan/Haer'Dalis get invulnerability potions. Now everyone's at -3 or better, and we proceed.
The flayers in the first room eventually wise up and hit us with a Detonate, but we regenerate fast enough. Opening the door south immediately lets more flayers and umber hulks in, and - huh, this bunch are actually trying their mind blasts. We finally take a brain-suck, on an averted crit by an ulitharid:
Our Int is back, so forward it is. We take the southern path first. The illithids here have clearly already teleported in to attack us, but the umber hulks are enough for Jan to level up. Illusionist level 18 reached, Summon Planetar taken. Jan can cast that instantly, while still a werewolf - it's considerably easier to use than Improved Alacrity for this party. Also, now that he has ninth level spell slots, he memorizes a Freedom.
We complete the Illithid Rod, then return to the central area. The potions have expired, but this is the last room. We collect the red oil - trap activated. Two Vampiric Illithids attack. Their Psionic Blasts fail, the first misses on a 9, the second misses on a 16 - dead. We suffer no drain from them.
Back to the main area, and then the githyanki encampment. An Anti-Paladin drops the sword Ir'revrykal - eh, not as good as swords we've already got. Actually, this area is completely trivial; we're immune to their nonmagical weapons and their mind blasts, so they really can't do much of anything. The flood of enemies into the first room stops, and all they've managed to hit us with is a couple Acid Arrows that we resist heavily.
There's another group of gith - we tell them that the illithids are dead, but they're completely unreasonable about it.
Knowing something of what's out there, we put up spell defenses and go into elemental forms before entering the western door. Lupa has the Staff of the Magi instead.
The Breach didn't work, for no clear reason. I didn't even get a "Spell Ineffective" message. Then it's a contingency spell shield, and Time Stop into Spell Trap, Improved Alacrity, Shadow Door, Dark Planetar, another PfMW, Dragon's Breath - we're back in werewolf forms now for the resistances... Imprisonment - Jaheira's shield is gone. Another Imprisonment, and Jaheira is removed. She hands her fire elemental token over before that can finish. RRR on Jan - no more Spell Deflection, but the Abjuration immunity is still up. Yet another PfMW...
OK, I'll reload. I was lax on preparations, and should have added Avoid Death for Haer'Dalis. Keeping him in the fight gives me more options to break through those combat protections. And - huh, didn't know you could go through with only one party member. Reloaded again, since I don't actually want to fight that way.
This time - forgot the Avoid Death, but only Lupa was in range of the howl anyway, and the whole party was still in werewolf form anyway. The dispel lands...
Next, it's dragon time. With spell defenses up, Jan can't be given a Resist Fire and Cold spell - so he uses a potion of fire resistance instead. We add stoneskins, iron skins, mirror images, Armor of Faith, and Greater Sun for this battle. We're ready - time for battle!
We light the torches, and enter the last unexplored part of the level.
Int goes to Jaheira; being able to survive a second mind flayer hit is more valuable than anything other party members could gain. Charisma goes to Lupa, and the Nymph Cloak is obsolete. Wisdom goes to Cernd, for another fourth level spell slot. Constitution goes to Jan, for 10 extra hit points - all of our party are now at 90 or above. Strength and Dexterity go to Lupa, since she's more likely than anyone else to not be using a shapeshifted form. Haer'Dalis gets the magic resistance, fitting his usually defensive role. And finally, Rasaad gets to use the machine to pick up Storm Star. With that, we're done with the machine and ready to head down.
We open the exit first thing, then clear out a few monsters that were hanging around. Next, it's three doors guarded by a ghost. The first is a horde of orcs - since their only magical weapons are +1 arrows from the archers, we can basically run on autopilot. The mages use PfMW and minor attack spells, which makes them very easy to ignore until later. Eventually, they throw in some Teleport Field spells, which are actually slightly annoying.
The second door is a green dragon. It opens with a breath weapon, and only Jan takes any damage - Lupa, Jaheira, Cernd, and Rasaad are all immune, and Haer'Dalis was standing too far away. It gets dropped to a sliver, then heals itself with a contingency:
Jan levels up from the quest reward, taking katana proficiency, stealth, and Dragon's Breath. In this party, we'd love it even if it wasn't party-friendly.
The third door is an imp. We play his riddle games, and win. Rasaad reaches level 36, taking a fourth Hardiness. Then we exit and are given a key, along with enough experience for Jaheira to reach druid level 16. She takes a second Hardiness.
We use the key, and are thrown into a fight. Lupa and Rasaad concentrate on the Hive Mother, with Lupa using the Staff of the Magi to dispel its protections.
Taralash goes into the bag, while the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization go to Jaheira. She now has 5 APR as a werewolf. Haer'Dalis reaches level 38, picking up another level 6 spell slot and taking a second Exploding Trap.
The spirit warrior comes next. East and attack the goblin, east and attack the skeleton,, take the wand, north and attack the dog, take the potion and key, west and take the scroll, west and drink - oops - north and attack the ghost, take the helm, east and try the drawer - die. Reload.
Second round, don't drink from the fountain, save against the poisoned drawer. Then north and use the scroll, west and drink the potion, ominous archway. Use the wand, win the fight, and return.
We set traps before using the key this time - including a time trap for Lupa. It's not quite enough to kill Azamantes, but it's enough to badly hurt him (two bars, "Near Death". The Flaming Skulls hurt us quite a bit on death with their skull traps, enough that we move out of the way for a bit:
The experience is enough for Lupa to reach level 34, taking a fourth Spike Trap.
Then it's the globe machine. We start with red - hobgoblins, kuo-toa, trolls, greater wolfweres. We mixed in a couple traps for the last round.
Blue brings mages. Slow but easy. The second casts two horrid wiltings... which we can just tank, no problem. The third dies before she can do anything. The fourth gets a pair of spike traps, and dies instantly to the first. Blue globe into blue pillar.
Green is spiders, then umber hulks, then earth elementals, then beholders. I have Haer'Dalis set a time trap and an exploding trap for the last round, which he uses to attack the Hive Mother - badly. The party retreats, leaving this fight to Lupa and Rasaad.
A full array of traps, and we turn the key - Haer'Dalis reaches level 39, for a second Greater Evasion. He uses his Time Trap to go after the Aurumach Rilmani - ooh, bad idea. The Rilmani are time stop immune, and we're in trouble. With two dead, we reload - unfortunately, back to the Azamantes fight. This time around, Haer'Dalis gets the kill - which is, at least, a new top kill for him.
Fewer traps on the globes this time. One spike trap for the third mage, nothing for the wolfweres or beholders. Rasaad gets the Hive Mother kill again, but for some reason the lower-XP Unseeing Eye is still his #1. This time, only Lupa has a level drained by the devil shades. The vampires, on the other hand... Jaheira loses five levels there, and that calls for immediate restoration. Haer'Dalis uses the charge from Hindo's Doom for this. He's fatigued, but that won't impact his singing. Cernd levels up to 28, taking shield style. Rasaad hits level 37, for another GWW.
Now, the liches get traps - aimed at the generic lich. Three spike traps... The first one works, but the other two get absorbed by a PfME. At least it's down to Near Death; I have Haer'Dalis cast a dispel, and Lupa gets that one last blow in. Now to beat on the Elemental Lich. Its elemental attack spells do virtually nothing to us, and we win easily.
We set traps at the seal - no time traps this time - and unleash the Rilmani. Three of them are knocked down by exploding traps, and we take advantage to attack them immediately.
Down in the final seal, Lupa reads the scroll. The Imprisoned One tries to dissuade her by telling her the Helmites are false, but she will hear none of it.
It's a large experience reward, and Jaheira hits druid level 17. Storm of Vengenance taken. The portals out are indeed inactive, so we return to the Imprisoned One. It offers us a way out - but we're not trusting it. Time to fight. We put up some buffs and traps, then speak to the Imprisoned One again.
Well, that didn't quite work out. We came close, though. And - uh, let's summon help before starting the battle this time.
Rasaad uses an Earth Elemental/Hardiness/GWW combination to fight Demogorgon head on, and we swap Jan to the Periapt of Proof Against Poison to stop damage from the foe's disease.
And then, in the mop-up stages, Lupa dies. I didn't even see what killed her - although there was a Balor, so possibly that. Actually... the energy drain effect appears to remove her saving throw bonuses. That makes her vulnerable, so it probably was that.
We go again, and this time avoid dying at the end.
We exit, then return to the top of the temple to confront the false Helmites. And... oops, I made the mistake of reloading without checking. Now I have to fight the battle again... but this time, Haer'Dalis reads a restoration scroll for Lupa before the battle. She hits level 35, and adds another spike trap to the preparations.
No energy drain this time; the battle is in much better shape when Demogorgon goes down.
This shouldn't be happening, by the way. According to the readme for "Improved Fiends" which I definitely have installed, the vorpal effect shouldn't chunk and should allow a save. For some reason, that element simply isn't working for the Balors that Demogorgon summons.
Take five... This one works. Jaheira takes some level drain (from the Cambion?) but it all works out with no deaths. We're finally back where we should be.
We demand a reward, then let the Helmites go free.
The run's gameplay is now done, so this is post-production now. It still takes a while to put these posts together and compress/upload the screenshots, even with a text file log that I can copy large chunks of.
We rest in the pocket plane, then return to the ford outside Saradush. And immediately, bugs. First, Haer'Dalis has spells in a minor sequencer but no ability to discharge it; as far as I know, there's no way to fix that in-game. Then when we travel, Lupa somehow gets stuck behind in the pocket plane.
OK, I'll edit that autosave. This time around, I'm simply deleting the effect that says what's in the minor sequencer. That brings us to right before the travel. This time, I'll pop into Saradush for an errand; we have a Horror memorized, so we can help Viekang out now.
And now, we travel to Deepstone. Arriving there, we are greeted by a dwarf who first mistakes us for Sharrans, then guides us to his people's camp when he discovers the truth.
Jan casts an invisibility spell on the party (10' radius) and we sneak into the camp. The Sharrans fall easily to our claws, and we speak to the leader Cuddy Dugdeep on how to enter.
We follow Cuddy and Haralt to where they fight an inquisitor, and take him out. Lupa reaches level 36 - High Mastery in long swords, and her stealth skills now exceed 200 each for perfect "hide in broad daylight". Ability? Another spike trap; she just doesn't need the rogue defensive abilities.
Then it's Torcadahl's turn; we don't enter the main hall just yet, so as to delay the alarm. There are Miscast Magic effects going around; it seems the Sharrans employ wizard slayers. Fortunately, we're not very interested in casting spells here. Jan is next to level up, reaching mage level 19 and taking Improved Alacrity.
Theyeradahl doesn't even last a round with five werewolves beating on him, and we're ready to advance.
There's a Sharran Assassin down here, so we have Jan run around with Detect Illusion active, both to protect himself from backstabs and to reveal the assassin. It works, leaving Jan and Haer'Dalis to kill the assassin while the rest of the pack fights a group of monks and mercenaries nearby.
And... crash. My computer completely freezes up, and requires a hard reboot. I'll have to reload that section. I was having such a good run, too.
This time, we can't avoid triggering the alarm:
Jassar kills Jaheira while most of the party is fighting... you know, I'll reload.
And, apparently, Cuddy and the assassin are having a fight - while, simultaneously, Cuddy is just standing there doing nothing. In the face of this obvious glitch, reload again.
This time, we avoid the alarm and reach the door. Jaheira reaches druid level 18, taking Energy Blades. Only fighter abilities remain for her.
And, about that alarm... let's introduce ourselves with a backstab. And foiled - couldn't get behind them. We charge in anyway, before killing the fighter/mage Sephos. That lets us grab all four of the items out of the fire - boots, headband, cloak, book.
Sephos and Shani get a Dispel, breaking their protections so we can kill them easily.
There are a few more assassins on the level, including the named Danys Ten-Teeth. One of them gets a backstab on Jan, but he has enough hit points to survive that and enough regeneration to counter the poison. We find out the source of that glitch earlier; Cuddy Dugdeep has apparently figured out how to be in two places at once, with instances both in the main hall and where we entered the hold. And then, it's back down into the mine.
We find a large group of Sharrans overseeing miners, and their sorceress fails to protect herself. It's the last mistake she makes.
The battle is won without any of the dwarves dying - but they insist on continuing the fight. Very well, then, they will fight alongside us. Or not, since we're all faster than them and can reach the next battle first.
We find Alorgoth, along with a large party of guards.
This time, we lose a dwarf in the first battle. For the second, I unleash Jan's sequencer: Malison/Slow/Web. Lupa charges in to take out the sorceror first, the guards enrage, and the battle is on. And of course, the scripts at the start of the battle canceled that order for Jan. OK, let's actually use the spell this time. It's not perfect; Cernd gets webbed in the first round along with half of our enemies. Still, it's quite helpful, and the guards are nearly all dead by the time the first shadow creatures arrive. Incidentally, our vulnerability to a friendly web? Only Cernd and Haer'Dalis can fail the save. They have saves of 1 and MR of 55/60 respectively, so that's a 4.5% chance and a 4% chance of failing the save each round. Actually, on second thought, I swap some equipment. Now Jan gets the fire resistance ring, the cloak of protection, and the Heart of the Mountain, while Haer'Dalis gets the ring of protection, the Cloak of the Dark Moon, and the Amulet of Power. At night, we'll have five out of six party members with save vs. spell of -1 or better. The amulet swap there was more about not wasting AC past the cap; Haer'Dalis is one short in his normal configuration when singing, so +2 from the amulet would be half-wasted. I can always swap amulets when I need the NPP or the casting speed somewhere else.
The last guard dies, and we go forward. Into the shadow plane, to face Alorgoth for the last time.
Jaheira loses a level here, to a hit by a shadow creature. We meet Alorgoth and his mysterious partner here, and manage to lay a trap before they go hostile:
A hop back through the Pocket Plane to Saradush, and we sell off a large amount of junk for an enormous amount of gold.
While we're there, we loot Lazarus' scroll collection.
And now, it's time to enter Yaga-Shura's domain. First, the Forest of Mir. Knowing what's coming, Jan prepares a Chain Contingency - two Incendiary Clouds and a Death Fog, at the first sign of hostilities. He also sets up that Malison/Slow/Web sequencer again.
In retrospect... I can't take back that contingency, but I'm going to reload and cast Limited Wish for party-wide NPP.
And, important note... the conversation takes enough in-game time that the NPP runs out. Ugh. In the revised version, Jan is still drained one level.
And then... I should have been more worried about the Skeleton Cleric and allies just inside the temple. Haer'Dalis gets held by an Implosion, Jan gets ganged up on and killed, and we need to spend a Resurrection instead of a Restoration.
Then we meet Nyalee, a follower of Bhaal who was Yaga-Shura's adoptive mother. She sees his actions as a betrayal, and will aid us in killing him for revenge.
In this new area, I'd like to play a little with Staff of the Ram backstabs. First, try, dead Fire Giant. Oh, yeah.
Then there's a giant to the east, carrying an assortment of non-magical weapons for some reason. He's a little tougher, and we note - the piercing damage doesn't get multiplied in a backstab.
The Burning Men nearby turn to face Lupa, but don't attack her. No backstabs there. Two more one-hit kills on respawned fire giants to the north, and Jaheira reaches fighter level 22. Power Attack taken, since she's out of spells.
And then... something small and furry wants to fight us? Time for supper.
Even more giants spawn at the entrance, and battling them drains Lupa's HP further. We'll have to wait a bit to regenerate.
Just inside the door, it's our first taste of elite fire giants. They hit hard, and it takes a lot of maneuvering to withdraw injured members so they don't get focused down. Still, we win through without spending spells or lots of potions.
Our way forward is barred by some complicated rune-locked device. We must find the keys to continue.
We take the left path first. It brings fire trolls, for which Jan pulls out his old bow and some ice arrows. They are killed, and we recover the hammer wardstone. There was also a belt of fire giant strength - an upgrade from our old belt of stone giant strength, and something that can actually increase even a werewolf's strength.
The right path leads to more fire giants. Backstabbing with the aid of the Staff of the Magi, we take them out without any retaliation. Well, the elite fire giant survives two backstabs and then a normal hit; it had to drink potions, but that's just an enormous HP pool. Then there's a second elite fire giant; three backstabs for that one.
Once they're down, we pick up the skull wardstone, revealing golems. Adamantite, magic, and clay. Lupa and Jaheira take on the magic and clay golems, while the rest of the party handles the adamantite golem that's right next to them.
We then use our two wardstones, back near the entrance. The experience bonus is enough for Lupa to reach level 37 - time for some overkill Detect Traps, plus another spike trap.
In the next room, on the lower left, we lure out a Fell Cat with an invisible Lupa. A Noble Efreeti gets a backstab, a second Fell Cat dies, and then we head in to fight the second Noble Efreeti... and a Fire Lich. Our party's fire resistances: 95, 110, 100, 90, 110, 75. And two of those below 100 have 100+ magic resistance. We're not too worried about that.
Oh, that's what was going on - it was a clone. The clone's dead now, and the original put up a second PfMW. It's not casting anything dangerous (Meteor Swarm, Fire Storm? Pfft.), so we'll just wait it out. Time Stop into Meteor Swarm and Meteor Swarm... Incendiary Cloud... PfMW #3.
Grabbing the flame wardstone spawns some Burning Men. They are killed easily, and we're done with this side room.
The room on the right has more Fell Cats, Fire Salamanders, and a Flaming Skull. Lupa lures out the Fell Cats, and then the party moves in. What, you say parties are supposed to move when they're standing on lava in an incendiary cloud? Nah, why would we do that?
The Skull Trap death, though, does a bit of damage. It even ignores magic resistance to hit Rasaad.
Picking up the wardstone this time summons bone fiends and an Erinyes. Lupa and Jaheira charge the Erinyes, while the others handle the bone fiends. The Psion's Blade is ours, and we have all four wardstones to advance.
Atop the stairs, a pair of fire giants slow us down. Then it's a pair of closed doors that bar the way - but there are side paths we can take, walking through lava. We backstab some giants, until we attract the attention of the red dragon Brimstone - but there are two paths, and we can easily take the other. Except... it knows where we are, and follows us to the other. We'll have to fight it.
Now, Berenn is a legitimate threat. Implosion holds for a round, no save - and that's a real threat when dealing with serious melee threats like the other fire giants. Rasaad spends a GWW to take down an elite fire giant:
Claiming Yaga-Shura's heart brings Jaheira to level 19 as a druid, for Critical Strike and her last saving throw improvement.
Imix is beyond the next set of doors; he gets a simple brute force assault.
And... hmm, Haer'Dalis is showing with saves 2 points better than they should be. 1 for his mask, 1 for mage robes, 2 for a ring of protection, 2 for the cloak of the Dark Moon at night... total 8 better than baseline. There seems to be a bug there; the cloak may be doubling up somehow. Combined with later observations, it's consistent; the cloak actually grants a 4-point save bonus at night.
With that, we leave the temple and return to Nyalee. She reneges on the deal, and we must fight her.
Back at the north forest, the long day has caught up to us, and we rest in the pocket plane. Jan has forgotten the sequencer he memorized today - seriously? - so he fires off the empty version, and then re-establishes as much as he can (minor sequencer, trigger, contingency). Then we travel to the siege camp, and find Saradush has been sacked.
The ordinary soldiers lack magical weapons, and can easily be ignored. There are, however, elites and fire giants mixed in, which must be focused on before they can do too much damage.
The army is an endless font of junk gear, gems, and healing potions - but since they keep spawning, we must push forward and engage their leader. A giant kill brings Lupa to level 38, and yet another spike trap.
And then, the wave of foes fades away. We move forward, and find Yaga-Shura himself - alone.
And then... he flees at the first sign of injury. We add Armor of Faith on the two druids, so Jaheira becomes immune to physical damage, and pursue. Also, the mages put up their stoneskins.
Well, we try to pursue. He doesn't seem to be anywhere right now. Time for some traps. We lay three spike traps, which proceed to do minimal damage to Yaga-Shura. Oh well. He brings lieutenants this tame, who are dangerous enough that we need to take them down first. Well, except the mage. He's a low priority, once we take down the fallen planetar.
Cernd gets the killing blow, and we are dragged into the pocket plane.
We are returned to the camp, only to find Melissan - suspicious, as always. She claims that she tried to get the Bhaalspawn out of Saradush, but such claims ring hollow. Still, we have little choice - our path leads to Amkethran now.
With the mage lieutenant fled, there is nothing left for us here. We return to the pocket plane to take on the new challenge.
And... huh, looks like we took an "evil" path in the dialogue. I'd rather not - back to the save at the beginning of the area. This time, we set normal traps and a time trap in preparation for the second round of Yaga-Shura, and add more buffs. Jan and Cernd take the opportunity for a banter:
The fight goes smoothly on reload, enough that I didn't take any notes on it.
All right, take two on the pocket plane challenge. We lay a full set of spike traps before triggering it this time... and the minions go down before the fight even starts. Excellent.
Neera is first, taking Jan's place in the party. She fills her spellbook and picks up a bunch of gear nobody else was using - the circlet of Netheril, the 20 strength belt, the +5 Erinne sling, AC 3 bracers, a +2 protection ring, the cloak of the sewers, the amulet of spell warding... all in all, stuff any pure mage would love to have. No Robe of Vecna, though; she's wearing the wild mage robe that grants Chaos Shield. Actually, on second thought, she gets the cloak of mirroring instead. Spell damage immunity is a big deal with her low hit points and poor resistances.
The experience from those scrolls is good for about 100K experience to the party. Lupa reaches her last level (Find Traps, Spike Trap), Jaheira gains levels in both of her classes (Smite, Hardiness), and Cernd gains a level (2 HP).
After resting, while Neera prepares her sequencers, Rasaad comes to speak. The sacking of Saradush brings a melancholy turn for him.
It's time to strike back at the Thayans. We head to the clearing, and have Neera lay the trap. Lupa adds some traps of her own, too. It takes two tries for Neera to cast her pre-rest stoneskin, and then she casts a reckless dweomer for... minute meteors. Why not - it's a long duration. Result... sex change. Neera will be male for the coming quest.
The merchants, at least, have some interesting things on offer. A unique shield, a resistance cloak, more AC belts, another Gift of Peace, a full stack each of arrows of dispelling and detonation. And then, the last few scrolls to finish Neera's spellbook.
Szass recommends we rest, but we haven't spent any daily resources yet. There's no reason to do that. We speak to him, and enter Vicross' estate. A slave greets us, and is willing to provide information against her master. Kill the guards quickly and stealthily, and they will not be able to alert Vicross. Now that is a job for Lupa in backstab mode.
In the second room, we get some spectacular overkill - a 286-point critical backstab, that also stuns... on a low-HP Red Wizard.
Our luck runs out eventually, and the guards in the fourth room are alert. The direct approach, then. We clear out the remaining guards, buff the team, and then enter the courtyard from opposite the entrance.
The guards go down first, and then Vicross casts a Time Stop and starts surging. Random summons, a Gate... A Balor casts Symbol:Death at Neera, while Vicross casts a Dragon's Breath. The Cloak of Mirroring protects from one, the Cloak of the Lich from the other... It'll have to be mirroring, because there's still a decent chance of saving against the symbol.
And in the end, it's moot. They were targeted at the ground, and Neera dodged. We take out the balor and the random summons, then engage Vicross. A PfMW goes up... let's dust off an old favorite, and Insect Swarm her. OK, she's invisible - make that targeted on Lupa.
It doesn't work so well; Vicross runs around too much, and avoids the swarm. Then it's another gate, and another bunch of minion-level monsters... these aren't real wild surges. They're clearly scripted to provide a real threat.
Eventually, we corner Vicross and land a Remove Magic. She goes invisible, but Lupa detects illusions to catch her, and Cernd lands the final blow.
We re-buff, ring the bell of summoning... and Szass Tam comes. Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!
We wishes for time control, unleashes everything - and we still beat him. As his last act, he forces us to leave.
Some equipment tweaks... Jan takes off the Reaching Ring. Spell slots are nice, but he tends not to use them anyway. It's better to have the room available so he can wear both a ring of protection and a ring of fire resistance. Add the Cloak of the Lich, and he's immune to fire, cold, electricity, and death effects. Jan needs that last immunity, since his save vs. death is by far the worst in the party at 5.
The fire giant strength belt and the girdle of fortitude were swapped out for AC belts; crushing for Jaheira, piercing for Haer'Dalis. And finally, the Cloak of Mirroring goes in the bag. Between elemental resistances and magic resistance, we just don't need it. Lupa will get more out of the Cloak of the Sewers and its +1 AC.
Next, it's time to work with a bit of evil. Lupa enters Slayer form to lower her reputation by 2. A chat with Sarevok - we hand him the Sword of Chaos +2, and it upgrades to a +4 version. Incidentally, Use Any Item bypasses its Sarevok-only restriction. LUpa can hold the sword, but doesn't have the proficiencies to use it properly.
Then, it's Dorn's turn. Sarevok's response: "Am I to be replaced by some quivering, fawning lackey?". Anyway, Dorn gets a full array of cool stuff that I wasn't using already:
Anyway, time to wander around for a week until the crusaders show. An attempt to rest at the siege camp triggers a pair of fire giants, so we head to the pocket plane instead. The creepy temple - safe. North forest - three fire giants, but weaker versions that don't drop armor and gems. Then soldiers that can't hurt us, and the third try works. Neera's clearing is safe, and then the next travel gets us what we want.
And then, the legacy of earlier bugs strikes. The plot events counter for the Dorn quests isn't keeping up, and we get an obsolete message.
To the southeast, we meet an old acquaintance - Bollard Firejaw, or at least his spirit. Dorn doesn't remember, until we mention the event.
In the next area, Lupa sneaks ahead to grab some blessed fruit.
And now, we enter the last section. We find the pavilion, and try to talk our way in to make the changes... nope. This calls for a fight. We target the priest first, then the paladins. The mage scribe helps us along with an Incendiary Cloud.
Then we erase the two names we came for.
We attack a crusader. A hit squad of a planetar, a priest, a paladin, and a fighter respond. Dead.
A group at the tree, responding to its corruption - dead.
Some hounds... you know, Rasaad's "Pay for your sins!" battle cry is a bit off up here.
Now, there's one big fight left. Two silver dragons, and that calls for a few buffs. Resist Fire and Cold for Lupa, Dorn, and Rasaad, an extra Protection from Cold for Dorn. Also, standard buffs like Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Armor of Faith, and a Defensive Harmony from Dorn.
The group of priests on the way out, by contrast, are easy to kill. The petitioners they were guarding? High level mages. One gets some defenses up, then puts up a Teleport field that really takes advantage of the level design to send our party members a long way away. Still, he goes down eventually and we leave.
Cespenar forges one set of scales into armor we'll never use, and we keep the other as a memento.
Cernd returns to the party, and we return to the clearing so we can travel. All five companions have something to say about the experience - even the one that wasn't there.
We travel to the oasis, and are immediately faced with trouble.
The leader Jamis Tombelthen, wielder of a very slow sword, is our first target. He dies before he can attack even once. From there, it's easy. This bunch are very well equipped, but they just can't stand up to our pack. It takes very little input to slaughter them all.
And now, Amkethran. We take a carefully plotted path to the tavern, avoiding most encounters. Some things, however, are unavoidable.
Hexxat is recruited in Cernd's place, levels up to 21, and is given the pick of the equipment we're not using right now. It's time for her quest.
Then we enter the tavern with her. Marlowe has a quest, but it will have to wait - Cabrina is here as well.
Undead and traps abound in this maze, and are mostly easily handled. One spellcasting greater mummy puts up a Physical Mirror spell we don't notice, and hurts Hexxat that way. She switches to melee after noticing that.
Another encounter with Phreya - we beat on her, and she flees again without managing to strike back. That's the last of the first quadrant.
Bone fiends, greater mummies... all simple by now. A bubbling green tank in an otherwise empty dead-end room? Perhaps there will be something here later. (No, there isn't.)
Then comes a laboratory with more of the tanks, mummies and fiends, and Phreya again.
There's a passage to the next quadrant here, but we'll backtrack a bit and cover the other paths first. A mage of questionable sanity named Umolex:
A pair of sand golems, then a third, then two more - no hits taken. The floor here is even covered in sand. A patch of spikes - no traps, despite appearances. There are only another two sand golems beyond, which fall like the others.
A Death Tyrant - Lupa and Rasaad lead, all others retreat. Then it's a second Death Tyrant inside the library, also easily handled. We bring the party back, and face Phreya once more.
There are two paths out of the library - a secret door leading to the fourth quadrant, and a better hidden normal door continuing the third quadrant. A bridge over some green liquid, and two more sand golems go down. An odd gnome named Culak is here, surrounded by spiders:
We are met here with three bone fiends, and then a true challenge to navigation. Connected doors, and a necrotic barrier that only Hexxat can traverse safely. There are more bone fiends there, which we pull back to the party.
And then... I botch the doors somehow, getting Hexxat into a trapped state. Trying to fix it level drains one of my other characters... reload, and I'll have to do half the third quadrant again.
All right, this time I save in that first room. We finally take a notable hit - one of the bone fiends drains Jan for 4 Str and 4 Dex.
The named bone fiend T'lassus is more trouble - he takes Hexxat down to 15 HP before we're able to toggle the doors so she can come back.
Then we meet the true Korkorran - who, naturally, creates a simulacrum immediately. He has an offer, and Hexxat's desire becomes clear. She wants to become human again.
And then we get teleported back anyway, before we can pick up the equipment Hexxat dropped. Uhh... reload. That whole thing just felt wrong.
All right. This time, Hexxat gets a Protection from Fire... which we end up dispelling by accident. But then, this time she rolls better, and lives. That also means Korkorran gets mind-controlled instead of dying, so the normal scripting holds. All right, take all that fancy gear off.
We are returned to the tavern, and go to the barkeep to rest. Instead, we are teleported away, to meet with Cabrina - and L.
Oh, and a banter I haven't seen before:
Leaving the tavern, we run into a woman named Asana being threatened by guards. We intervene, and a fight ensues.
Then it's a priest arguing with a monk - the priest wants aid for the people here, the monk thinks it's not important.
The priest sells us a fourth potion case, the last container we'll get.
We find a mercenary captain summoning creatures for his soldiers to shoot, and object. They attack us instead, and die quickly. The captain lasts a little longer, as a fighter/mage. He drops the unique Darkfire Bow, which is basically useless. And... wait, mercenary attacking mercenary? What's going on?
Then Balthazar comes out to talk to us.
And then, we accidentally disturb a camp of what appears to be endlessly spawning mercenaries. We're just not killing them quite fast enough...
Off to the east, we head up and find the smith Kerrick - who apparently works with pantaloons. We have two of the three parts he needs...
Talking to Marlowe, he wishes us to save his daughter's soul from a lich. A worthy quest.
We enter the smugglers' cave, and find yet more monks and mercenaries causing trouble - this time, to arrest smugglers for what Saemon has done. We intervene, killing the monks.
All right, time to face Vongoethe. We put up spell defenses, then enter the cave.
It turns out the lich took the soul in order to enforce a bargain - not something we can tolerate. Still, we can bring Marlowe to save Malla.
We do that, then turn the tables. The elemental guardians are easy enough, until we reach the fission slimes... time to bring out the fire elementals. Of course, they've already split a few times before we realize.
More hostile mercenaries on the way to Marlowe's house... he's dead, but Malla is there. We restore her, and the bonus experience brings Jaheira and Rasaad to the cap. Level 24 fighter (Two-weapon style, Critical Strike #2) and level 40 monk (Hardiness #5) respectively.
The mercenaries in the tavern are hostile now, and we kill them. And now, we're basically done with Amkethran. I flip a coin for the next target... Tails. Sendai comes first.
A woodcutter mentions "funny-looking elves" ... we'll investigate. Two recent graves, arranged to look older - we should expect more deception here. We disarm a trap laid across an apparently innocuous stretch of forest, and note that the animals here do not seem to move around...
And then, arriving where we were sent, an ambush. Drow, umber hulks, and a Hive Mother.
Then back to the woodcutter... oh, wait, it's the real woodcutter buried in the grave. The false woodcutter attacks, and the animals are revealed as drow. We are able to concentrate force and quickly defeat these high-level warriors, at least.
Then more join, and a setback:
The cabin holds some junk and a magic rune. We can upgrade the runehammer now, and will do so the next time we visit the pocket plane.
A drow warrior starts throwing around all sorts or warrior HLAs, while under what seems to be nonmagical stealth... Jan just keeps running, since this warrior can also backstab.
Back in the west, more drow have revealed themselves, including another wizard. He gets a dispel and dies quickly.
And, looking at it... the Cloak of the Dark Moon is being consistent, and not matching its description. Actual effect: +2 AC during the day, +2 AC and +4 saves at night. It's even better than it appears.
The first threat inside is confusion. Umber Hulks, myconids, and spore colonies. We have bard song, so we can just ignore all that and hit them. The spiders that follow are a little more threatening, but easy enough to handle.
Then some drow, carrying their usual Underdark gear.
In the drow barracks, we take out the warrior leader quickly. Amulet of Cheetah Speed? Nah, into the bag. The warriors go first, then the priestess who put up a Sanctuary, then the mage who is mostly just annoying.
Elsewhere, Sendai meets with an envoy from Balthazar.
Slaves in the north tunnels, pets in the south... we'll cover both. Slaves first. It's derro at first, and the 12K XP each... well, that experience piles up fast. Then orogs, at a much less lucrative 1200 each.
Getting bored, we press forward to kill the slavemaster and his umber hulks. Haer'Dalis reaches the cap - third dot in two-weapon style, spike trap #6.
Killing the slavemaster stems the flow, and we return to the entrance to try the other route. Lots of spiders, and the leader Lashar'ra has a rather nasty poison:
Once the web stops, Jaheira revives our fallen.
With that, we move on. After some more spiders, it's a group of drow and fiends.
The vampire apprentice put up something like a Mantle; we tried a dispel, but Haer'Dalis got hit by a skeleton warrior. Thankfully, the staff of the magi took care of it.
As we leave, Sendai gets the bad news, and sends her priestess leader after us. Time to kill some more drow. They have a pair of beholders with them, so Haer'Dalis retreats to a safer distance.
Next the priestess taunts us - the elemental prince Ogremoch is here. We're perhaps a little too aggressive attacking him, and both Jan and Haer'Dalis fall again:
Then it's a duel, with Captain Egeissag.
Then Sendai sends her illithid. She's running out of minions. The vampiric illithids go down cleanly, as do the forces that teleport in afterward. Lupa takes one brain-suck hit, but that's it. Liquid mercury acquired.
There are more illithids in the next room, along with thralls. We lure them back to our party rather than getting stuck in the corridor. That works well for removing the illithids, but then the thrall fighters are actually a more dangerous threat - they force Jan to drink a healing potion. The wizards stay in their room, so we have to hunt them down, and either break or wait out their combat protections.
And now, Sendai herself. We enter unprepared, but act immediately.
The next statue to awaken is a mage - that one will probably last a while. Everyone lives, we activate the gem of seeing in response to a statue's invisibility, and we have some drow at the entrance to take care of.
A rogue statue goes down, then a warrior, then it's another mage that activates...
Then the original Sendai teleports in, and we've still got a planetar active on our side. She puts up a PfMW, Haer'Dalis dispels...
It is time to talk to the Solar again. She calls forth an alternate version of Lupa - apparently male and armored, but still a werewolf.
And with that battle and the reward after, Jan has reached the experience cap. We have a full six-member party at the ToB cap of 8 million experience.
So, then, another Ascension boss fight. Hectic, but we won on the first try without any character deaths. Focusing down the warrior statues as soon as they showed up was the key.
And, oh yeah, we just went through Amkethran and all of Sendai's base without resting. We used up our daily free resurrections and nearly all of our dispels, but we did it all in one day cycle with minimal losses.
Now, the pocket plane challenge. We throw on some defenses, summon a deva and an elemental prince, and head in.
This is doubt, or innocence. Turn back to what Lupa once was? No; she has fought long and hard to master herself.
Jan and Haer'Dalis have forgotten their sequencers again, so I discharge the one empty ability and call the session to an end.
We travel to Abazigal's lair, hop back to the pocket plane, and rest. And also, because I've got the opportunity, a Chain Contingency. 3x Incendiary Cloud, targeted at the nearest enemy, at the first sign of hostility. I don't know how the upcoming fight has been tweaked, but I do know it's a dragon, and not the firebreathing kind. Actually, Jan has enough spells leftover from the day in which the party cleared both Amkethran and Sendai's enclave in order to prepare a full array of sequencers and contingencies.
The first face we meet is not a friendly one. Emissaries not returning?
In dragon form, it's a PfMW, and his fear effect lands on two party members - because the bard song has lapsed for some reason.
From there, we just tank his melee attacks, passively dispel his invisibility castings, and wait out the PfMW. He goes down easily enough, and Lupa gets the killing blow.
With that, we enter the lair. One third-level spell used so far.
Lizard men and a greater werewyvern in the entrance - just a straight brawl. We take some hits, but we regenerate quickly. Jan's stoneskins from the day before run out.
The doors are locked, and only the vents remain as a path to travel. The first three we try are a bit too far to travel underwater, but the fourth works. It leads to a room full of lizard men. Mostly warriors, with two shamans - as divine casters, they are worth attacking early.
And... OK, enhanced bard song doesn't protect against swarm attacks at all. Lupa and Rasaad are immune to that Creeping Doom, but none of the other party members are.
Many Superior Healing potions later, the warriors are down and it's just the two shamans left. If things worked properly and Enhanced Bard Song granted immunity to insect swarm attacks, this would have been a very different story.
There is only one direction to go now, and we exit this cavern. It leads to a large cavern, in which we meet a dragon willing to talk - Anadramatis.
The flattery falls a bit flat; this dragon has been captured, and made to be a guard dog. We offer to kill Abazigal if she lets us have the breath potion.
And... no, it's a fight anyway. The breath weapon deals piercing damage and blinds several party members briefly. We don't have any buffs up right now, so Haer'Dalis goes with a Dispel - effective, and a simple beatdown suffices from there. We choose to spare the dragon rather than finish her off.
The amulet grants immunity to wing buffets... nah, we've got other important defenses going on all our amulets.
The eastern side of this cavern opens to air and sheer cliffs, impassible to us. We must return the way we came and use the other underwater passages.
I recall the vanilla version of this quest for the breath potion being a generic cave reusing SoA art, and then a room straight out of a city; this modified version fits the dungeon theme much better.
New foes enter the lizard man room - fiends, teleporting in. They're easy prey for us.
We return to the entrance cave, and begin to explore. First, the easternmost vent.
This leads to an area built for human-sized beings, with the appearance of kuo-toa construction - and, indeed, we meet some. They are supported by water elementals, a foe we have not met before. There is even an elemental prince here - Olhydra, of water. It falls easily before us.
Hindo's hand is ours. We pop back to the pocket plane to do some upgrades. Angurvadal +5 becomes Jan's switch weapon - hey, now he has enough strength to move when he's in casting mode. Haer'Dalis holds Hindo's Doom +4, because he was already holding the +3 version. The Yellow Dragon Scale goes in the bag; it's nice, but it precludes wearing rings and cloaks of protection. Firetooth gets upgraded, but stays in the bag.
Now, where can we find a rope... Ah, there's another door from the kuo-toa area. We try it... No, lockdown. There's nowhere left we can go, except outside. And nothing happens out there. I'm stumped. Looking it up in the readme... ah, return to town required.
We kill some mercenaries that get in our way, talk to the bartender... one rope, free of charge. All right, now we can head back to the lair. We'll need to rest after we arrive, so let's try that triple-cloud sequencer again.
And having the mercenaries constantly hostile and respawning... ugh. They're enough of a threat that we have to kill them, and it's just a bunch of standard vendor trash they drop. We're not even getting experience anymore, with everyone at the cap.
On returning to the lair, we are fatigued immediately. We return to the pocket plane to rest.
And - dragons!
This one puts up a real defense, with PfMW. All right, time for a Remove Magic. Down to Near Death, and another PfMW - Breach this time. No, that didn't work. Better make it a Dispel. Another Stoneskin after that... Carnifex finally goes down, to Jaheira.
Upon entry, a door opens. We can travel to and from the kuo-toa area without diving now.
The south vent is next, leading us to a large open cavern. This is where the bound dragon Fll'Yissetat stands guard. Several other vents here are suitable for travel; we try the one in the northwest first. That takes us to a vent in the southeast of the same cavern, so we try the vent next to it.
And now, a new cavern. It's full of floating eyeballs - and then, beholders. Also, "tyrant golems" in the form of beholders.
And then, Haer'Dalis gets stuck. A neutral "Vigilant" is floating on top of him, preventing him from moving.
Farther north in the cave, we meet a mad wizard who wants a gauth eyestalk. Well, how about we subcontract?
Then they do something foolish...
The first vent we try leads to Iycanth's lab, behind a hidden door in the rock. We get the scroll, and pick up a juggernaut golem page while we're at it.
The second leads to a swampy area with a gauth and three elder orbs... hey, shouldn't the gauth be dead?
This time around, it goes well. We kill the orbs, wait out the magical swords, and return to the cave of eyes.
And... actually, a second thought about equipment. The default configuration has Haer'Dalis with a daytime save vs. spell of 2. That's not good enough - so he swaps cloaks with Lupa. Better AC and night saves for Lupa, day save down to 1 for Haer'Dalis. No chance of being stoned by a beholder now.
The last two vents are connected to each other, and we return to the entrance cave. Time to free Fll'Yissetat and face Abazigal.
And finally, after far more in-game time than any other dungeon, we face the boss. We put up spell defenses and buffs, prepare the triple-cloud sequencer, and enter. Summons added, so now there are two Planetars and Sunnis in the picture.
Jan takes some hits, drinks a potion, gets hit again, contingency stoneskin triggers... and one more hit before he can get away. Dead.
And... seriously, an Imprisonment? On Jan, the only one who has a Freedom prepared, or even can prepare it? All right, can he put up a defense fast enough... He can try. Casting Abjuration immunity... Nope, he's gone.
You know what? I don't like how this went, and I made a mistake in preparation; Jan forgot his Spell Deflection. Reload.
It starts about the same, and I note that the "Planetar of Justice" stays in the entrance not noticing Abazigal. That's a change made by the mod which breaks this reward from Dorn's quest; the vanilla version spawns the planetar near the exit portal, where it will definitely get involved.
This time, we spend a good chunk of the fight just running around. Against PfMW plus SI:Abjuration, there isn't much we can do. (Not true, but I was working on the assumption that SI:Abjuration actually did what it said it did.)
Imprisonment on Rasaad? He can't put up a decent spell defense, but we do have that Freedom memorized. Imprisonment is just such a fundamentally unfair spell - absolutely no way to defend yourself with saves or resistances?
That picture may show the party getting healed, but it's only moments before things go wrong.
After some more running, we finally get Abazigal dispelled with a Staff of the Magi whack. Now we can fight properly.
It's that SI: Abjuration. Immunity to dispels, or anything that could bring down the combat protections and improved haste, is not something this party is equipped to handle. Ordinary mages aren't much trouble to wait out, but a dragon just deals way too much damage.
We put up the spike traps... and it's Tamah who triggers them. Not quite enough to kill, but close. Also, Abazigal spends his Imprisonment on the Planetar.
And... oh, great, now it's Cernd trapped under the dragon. That was supposed to be prevented... Cernd tries to cast an Aura of Flaming Death, and fails, disrupted by zero electrical damage.
Then... Cernd gets chunked by a normal dragon attack. Ugh, reload. Maybe this time the traps will hit the right dragon.
Take 4... I take down Tamah quickly, but one of the drakes goes and triggers some of the traps early. I eventually lure Abazigal back to the entrance and fight him there alone, but the traps still don't help; the last few ran into a Magical Sword.
I try Haer'Dalis' spell sequencer... wait, he doesn't have a deflection spell up. Targeted effects will work. Right, let's fire off some big spells. Jaheira casts Implosion. No hold, but at least it does some damage. Jan... I set auto-pause on spell cast, and Jan goes with Improved Alacrity into Comet, Dragon Breath, Fireball, Acid Arrow, Mord's Sword, Slow, Slow, Malison, Symbol:Stun, Magic Missile, another MM, Spook, Spook, Blindness, Crushing Hand. Cernd adds an Implosion... still only at Injured. We got some damage through, but none of the debuffs landed. And Remove Magic spells are still ineffective.
Wait, Badly Injured! Abazigal is taking damage from attacks now! Jaheira uses a Critical Strike, Rasaad goes Earth Elemental and uses a GWW...
We raise Rasaad and return to the pocket plane.
Flail of Ages +5, Blue Dragon Plate, Juggernaut Golem manual crafted. And now, it's time for the next pocket plane challenge. Lupa meets Cyric - who excludes her pack. Very rude, that. She assures him she has no intention of becoming the god of murder.
Rasaad uses the gem of seeing... nothing. Can we set traps? Yes, actually. Then they teleport in, and then they die instantly. That was easy.
All right, the Abazigal fight? That was a serious boss fight, far harder for this party than any of the other ToB boss fights so far. We do damage with weapons, and the SI:Abj/PfMW combination just isn't something we can do much of anything about. With no dispels possible, we're in trouble. Actually... shouldn't that SI block any future castings of those protection spells? That's how I've read it; It does say that it blocks both friendly and harmful effects in the description. But - no, Spell Immunity doesn't block self-targeted spells. Actually, based on later experiments, it doesn't block defense-removers either. For later runs, I'll have to be aware of that - anything from Spell Thrust on up can take down Spell Immunity, even if it's to Abjuration.
Now, winning that fight after so many attempts just felt incomplete. So, then, I decided to reload and go after it with new strategies. Kiting, to run out the immunity so he can be dispelled? No, that didn't work out in two or three tries. I accept the win and move on.
We leave the dungeon and head back to Amkethran... but that's a story for another time. I still wanted another go at Abazigal, so I reloaded a save back at the end of the Sendai sequence. Running the lair again...
Draconis goes down cleanly enough, despite his SI:Abjuration/PfMW combination. No Improved Haste, and being alone, makes a huge difference. On the first try, I had everyone in melee, and they got stuck under him... Second time, Incendiary Clouds and kiting did most of the work... and then he cast a Heal. Oh well, we had mostly run out the PfMW by then anyway. Simple beatdown finished it.
The Lizard Man Shamans are highly vulnerable to the Insect Plagues we had prepared - hey, casting spells actually helps! Oh, and a Comet helped deal with the warriors.
... It's way too easy to kill Anadramatis after sparing her. I didn't issue any commands to my warriors either time, and she still died. Maybe a scripting change; force neutrality and don't take away the 1-HP item, like Lavok?
The kuo-toa and elementals are easy.
Four-dragon ambush? Nice and quick this time. Only a few extra healing potions, a Hardiness each on Jaheira and Rasaad, a GWW, and one Remove Magic. Most of the pre-battle stoneskins I put up are even intact.
Cave of Eyes? Easy enough. The elder orbs imprisoned Rasaad and Cernd, but one Freedom brought both back.
And now, most of the party is fatigued. Only the fight with Abazigal and his minions remains. We can rest specifically for this fight. Our planning:
- Druid spellcasting. Lots of insect spells and Dolorous Decay. The former is damage that ignores PfMW and magic resistance, the latter is no-save slow.
- Mage spellcasting. We don't want incendiary clouds too early, so that we're fighting two dragons at once. Instead, set the contingency to go off when helpless, and use a Protect Image to set that off (or getting blown away). The image, of course, will go with Improved Alacrity into Incendiary Clouds.
And, of course, the usual summons and traps. Holding the line is important.
First time... not quite working as intended. We still triggered dragon Abazigal too early, and had Tamah in the back causing trouble. I stopped after the first party death.
Second time, I pay attention to Tamah... immunity to Abj and Div, Improved Haste, no PfMW. OK, a whack with the Staff of the Magi. Contingency stoneskin? Another whack. And then... Lupa dies. I have no idea what got me. OK, take 3.
This time we manage to basically clear the board before Abazigal transforms.
Cernd backs off to repeatedly cast insect spells, and... eventually the PfMW lapses. Switch to the Staff of the Magi... dispelled.
None of the Dolorous Decay spells ever connected, though; so much for that. It's still a good thing to have memorized in our party, though, since it casts so quickly. Only 13 superior healing potions used this time - much less than the first time I beat this fight.
Upon leaving the dungeon, we are greeted by Elminster.
We go to Amkethran, where a few more mercenaries die pointlessly, and then we reach the cave. Oh, Saemon, you're blaming us now?
It's the usual sort of party fight; kill the fighters first, sort out the mages at leisure. These mages use Lower Resist sequencers, so we'll have to rely on saves and elemental resists instead.
We enter, and speak to Balthazar. He wanted the others of the Five dead, and used us to that end. He truly believes he is doing the right thing.
Back in the pocket plane, the solar speaks - Melissan is no child of Bhaal. No, she sees herself as the god's successor, to take Bhaal's place.
We return to Amkethran and exit the monastery... the monks and mercenaries still don't like us. Apparently, Balthazar didn't tell his underlings he was calling a truce.
Well, at least there aren't infinitely spawning reinforcements anymore.
And... oh yeah, time to visit Kerrick.
Reload... back at the monastery entrance.
Oh, and fighting those monks? This party has basically nothing to fear from Quivering Palm. Nearly the entire party has either unbeatable death saves or immunity to death effects.
Oh no - it's worse than I thought. Picking up the Unit while -any- character is shapeshifted crashes the game. Right. We're forging the Unit, and then we're dumping it somewhere it will never be found - in the pocket plane, where nobody can reach it other than our party.
Yes, the Unit would be worthwhile in this party. It doesn't block divine spellcasting or protection items, so Jaheira or Rasaad could wear it with no real drawbacks, and gain a big chunk of AC. That is, if it didn't crash the game. We're getting rid of this thing ASAP. The rod and ammunition... well, just use Firetooth with the ammunition instead. That is, if we were ever going to do anything ranged.
Well, OK, there's one exception to that "any character" thing. Cernd can't use the Unit, so he's safe to be shapeshifted while someone else plays with it.
And then, I decided to go back and kill Abazigal again. The only decision we did differently this time was to dump the Unit on the table near Kerrick and Lazarus, rather than in the pocket plane. The smith does deserve to see the results of his work.
And now, we proceed to the end. First, we sell off all of our junk:
We keep our old healing potions and such, even if we only plan on using the superior variety. There are three item upgrades we haven't taken: no club of detonation +5 (because the second ring of fire resistance is crucial to making our front line fire-immune), no second silver dragon scale, and no second black dragon scale.
No rest before the last challenge, but that's OK. The Ravager is immune to +3 weapons, so we break out the elemental forms:
Only the Throne remains. With the werewolf regeneration backing us, we rarely spent potions outside the hardest of fights - which means we have over 300 superior healing potions now. Everyone has a full stack, with the exception of a slightly reduced stack for Jaheira so she isn't slowed in human form.
Some shots of the characters, just before the party enters the Throne:
Lupa:
(I meant to have a picture here, but missed it)
Jaheira gets level drained to oblivion... OK, reload and do this one right.
An early abort, and then take three...
Slayer Imoen is the first to fall, and we've avoided level drain by kiting Bodhi - she really likes to chase Jaheira. Then the Fallen Solar, and Bodhi. Only Irenicus remains, and right now he's using Improved Mantle... OK, time to use the Staff of the Magi. That breaks his protections, and he dies once more.
We wait out the summoned swords, then head to the first essence pool. Of course, we lay some traps first... It's just some fiends, easily fought. OK, more traps. Activate the pool, free rest and restoration.
And those traps are devastating, destroying multiple demons in the first round. Only the final fight remains.
We lay some traps, summon some friends, and go. New power... protection from Time Stop and others. Wow.
Then Melissan shows, and summons some help. Sarevok, Illasera, Gromnir, Yaga-Shura, Sendai, human Abazigal. Sendai and Abazigal are mages in this incarnation, while the others are warriors.
We take down Sarevok, then Yaga-Shura. Haer'Dalis actually steps in for the killing blow there.
And... oh great, Abazigal imprisons Rasaad. Not again... Freedom right away, then.
And... too much damage to Lupa. Dead before she could get away. All right, take 2 - and this time we'll put the summons where they can help.
I missed a member of the enemy party in the first shot, so here he is:
Illasera down. Gromnir down. Yaga-Shura down. We ignore Sendai, but Abazigal is a fighter/mage that must be handled quickly.
I notice a strange message in the log...
But after that comes a choice. Our companions offer their advice:
The choice is clear. Lupa will stand by her pack and return to the mortal plane.
Some final stats, from a save in the Throne:
The game didn't bother resetting experience past the cap, so the party ended up about a million past it. Lupa 7952065+1250000 = 9202065, Jaheira 9076427, Cernd 8842740, Rasaad 9059200, Jan 8674227, Haer'Dalis 8873721. And we could have had more, with our very large collection of scrolls.
BG2 kills: Lupa 1339 for 8083616 XP, strongest "Dragon" with 62000 (the green dragon in Watcher's Keep level 5). Jaheira 1038 for 5153058 XP, strongest Bodhi with 91000. Cernd 554 for 2349310 XP, strongest Hive Mother for 50000. Rasaad 602 for 3347705 XP, strongest Carnifex for 64000. Jan 436 for 2046209 XP, strongest Kangaxx the Demilich for 55000. Haer'Dalis 94 for 512165 XP, strongest Elite Fire Giant for 26000. Half of the party has their strongest kills from the SoA portion of the game.
On the whole, this party was powerful throughout the game and very fun to play. It was so much fun that I basically played it every day for a month - and it was only the second time I've ever gone all the way to defeating the final boss.
And now, the epilogues. I've used some material from the ones in the game, but largely written these myself to fit what the characters became.
Lupa returned to her keep for a time, and ruled as the sovereign until her eldest daughter was ready to take over. That daughter married Nalia's son, and the land returned to the de'Arnise name. During this time, she also bought the temple once used by the Twofold Trust, and refurbished it to a new purpose.
Together with her husband Rasaad, she founded a new order of monks - the Full Moon order, commonly known as the Werewolf Tamers. They would travel far and wide to bring succor to the werewolves of the world, or to put down those who only knew violence. And if a monk were to be infected by some accident? They would continue their duties, once they learned to master the change. Many even chose to become werewolves voluntarily, and other werewolves joined the order to become monks.
The two lived for many years together, and all five of their children became notable figures. The eldest, a daughter named Anath, learned to manage a fief at her mother's knee, and took up the lordship of the de'Arnise lands at her majority when Lupa stepped down in favor of the temple. The second, a son named Remus, found monastic life to his liking, and joined the Full Moon order. His vigilance was crucial to stopping an attempt on Lupa and Rasaad's life by Sharran assassins, and he rose to become the Master of Defense at the temple by the time of their retirement. The youngest three did not stay so close, and instead took up lives as adventurers, achieving great renown in distant lands.
While Jaheira traveled across the realms on Harper business and her own, she returned many times to her home at the Tamers' Temple. Her comings and goings were never predictable, but she somehow always knew when to be there for the truly important events. The Harpers offered to place her among their highest ranks, but she always turned them down - for the bonds of family and pack she had forged were stronger than her bonds to the Harpers. While she never remarried, she was a beloved aunt to the children that came to the pack.
Her last return to the temple, or for that matter Amn and Tethyr, came with Lupa lying on her deathbed. She stayed long enough to organize the funeral, and then left for parts unknown.
Cernd split time between the druid grove in eastern Amn and the temple, teaching acolytes the ways of balance both within themselves and with the world. But all was not well; his son Ahsdale moved away while he was focused on his duties, and grew into a dark and twisted wizard. With great regret, an aged Cernd called together the pack to right this wrong. Ahsdale was powerless to harm them and fell before the pack's might, but grief at having to put down his son brought Cernd low. With a final howl of mourning, he laid down and died at the site of that battle. Jaheira planted an oak tree in his memory there, and it stands as a site of pilgrimage for the Tamers.
Over the years, Jan gradually brought many of the extended Jansen family onto Lupa's lands near both the temple and the keep. Turnips became a staple of the diet at both locations, and he organized a rabbit hunt each spring that became a tradition among the werewolves of the temple. Lupa's promise to aid him with his family proved unnecessary, as Vaelag's business was ruined by a mysterious rabbit infestation and Lissa left the man in the face of his mounting anger and paranoia.
Haer'Dalis spent most of his time traveling the realms, spreading stories of the group's exploits far and wide - but he always returned home to the Tamers' Temple. Even when he found love with a female cambion and traveled to the Abyss, he only stayed away for a few years before leading a revolt that brought a demon lord to the bargaining table and saw him banished to the Prime as part of the treaty.
And, ten years after rejecting godhood, Lupa finally fulfilled an old promise. She travelled to Brynnlaw with her pack and children, and chartered Golin's ship for a journey into the poorly charted reaches of the great sea. There, she found the island of Kaishas Gan and her village - this time, without crashing the ship. They set up a permanent portal between the island and the temple, so that the island could serve as a sanctuary for those werewolves not yet able to fully control their change. Kaishas even came over and spent a month seeing the sights of the Sword Coast, before returning to her home.