Lets talk about Lareth

Right now, the fight is pretty easy if you cast obscuring mist. That pretty much blocks off the ranged attacks (100% miss chance). Polearms too.

Top it off with a bunch of sleep scrolls, and it's just a matter of time till they're all ready to be Coup de Graced. (here's a thought: what if Lareth's guys could wake each other up? hmmm...)

Web & Entangle may be of some help, but before killing Lareth you don't have a Ring of Freedom of Movement yet, so you can't really melee. I suppose you could use ranged attacks (+Obscuring Mist so it's one sided) - that would indeed make the fight quite easy. Unless, of course, a certain Priest also cast Obscuring Mist... heh.

Re. XP; I think the point he was making was that if all the creatures are put together in one place, then at the end of the fight you would run into the XP roundoff issue (e.g. you'd be level 2, on the verge of 3, and then you'd gain enough XP to go on to level 4, but it'd be capped off instead).
It's not an issue right now, because I've only transferred the corridor guardsmen to the barracks. The bugbears, Lubash, gnolls etc. remain in their place.

Re. Difficulty, I don't think the difficulty would become overbearing. You do have to come prepared, though. Unprepared novices would probably get slaughtered. Their problem There are enough spells at those levels to handle that encounter, and if you're still having trouble, there are many NPCs in Hommlet that can help you. And you can always retreat from the ambush back into the Moathouse.

 

Yes. That's what I meant.

Then I'm not that worried. I thought EVERYONE (gnolls, bugbears, Lubash, ghouls, zombies) was going to be squeezed into the guard room.

 

Success!
I managed to get the guardsmen to wake up adjacent ones who were put to sleep.

Now, to get the archers to approach their felled brothers...

 

So is it possible to wake up characters?

 

The following quote is from the computer game manual:

You select Aid Another from the radial menu.

 

Unfortunately, you can't Aid Another in the game. It's not implemented.

So instead, I just apply some minor nonlethal damage, which causes the NPCs to wake up. Abstracted as a side effect of the other NPC kicking / slapping / shaking the sleeper

Anyway, I also managed to get the archers to move towards sleeping fellows and wake them up. That's one cheese tactic taken care of
(each NPC archer will have 50% of prioritizing that, unless its target is hiding inside Obscuring Mist, in which case it will be 100% because they can't hit anything anyway)

Next up, and it shouldn't be much of a problem, is to have Lareth cast Obscuring Mist if he sees the party using ranged weapons against his buddies. Also, to dispel Web and Entangle spells. I think it's doable.

 

The above is now done
(Lareth Dispelling Web / Entangle + casting obscuring mist - he now carries a scroll of Obscuring Mist, much like my sneaky party).

Also, I managed to fix Obscuring Mist - due to a bug, it was effectively an "I WIN" button vs. archers (100% miss chance from more than 5 ft away). Now reduced to RAW 50%. Should make the fight quite a bit tougher now It was a lot of work (my 2nd DLL hack!), but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Unfortunately, Dispel Magic is bugged in that it dispels the Web spell even if the dispel check fails (though the creatures who were webbed remain so). I'll give DLL hacking this a shot too.

 

Attached are the following:

• Entangle made to work only in specified outdoor maps, that have any significant plant growth. If new ones are added, the list should be updated inside the entangle py file.
• Lareth casts Dispel Magic and Obscuring Mist.
• Lareth's guards will wake each other up.
• Fixes for Holy Word and Blasphemy.

This assumes the 2010-10-08 submission is already in place.

There's a bug in Dispel Magic that I haven't been able to fix (and I went through hell trying to) - if Lareth fails the dispel, it will still dispel the Web itself, but his men will remain webbed. Oh well.

 

Are these fantastic additions and tweaks going to be offered as an "ADD-ON PACK" via the Front End, or should we be patient and await 5.93NC?

 

The latter.

 

Did some further testing:

1. The encounter is still easy with the proper spells/preparation.
2. Unfortunately, there's a bug that causes combat to stop in a very peculiar way that prevents any interaction with the combatants, while the music still plays. Will have to look into it.

 

I just tried the battle using Sitra's modifications. It was really cool to see Lareth walk through the Entangle and cast spells within the AoE - I was confused because it said he was Entangled but, of course, his ring negates that.

My question has to do with issues which do not pertain to Sitra's mini mod. I played a NE party and did not encounter Al the drow or find Black Jay's ring in a frog's stomach. On the other hand, I did get dialog saying I was carrying a message for the New Master when talking to both his men and Lareth. Of course, my group did not actually have the message from Eclavdra to give him.

 

Depending on what version your playing, this answer may not apply. I believe they took out the drow from the Deklo grove some time ago, so you are not encountering him because of that.

As for Jay's ring, it can be found in other creatures, other that the last giant frog. It randomly shows up in the bear with the giant in Emridy, and I believe the spider from the tower. Just his tab on all three till you find it.

Hope this helps some.

 

I think the "I have a message to deliver" line is from vanilla (except it wasn't backed up by anything, just bluffing your way into his chambers...)