Challenge game - The Disbanded rogues

This game consists of starting a solo rogue PC char. Feeling free to cheat a little on the attribute rolls as I'm not sure how much survivability this game allows yet.

Party Alignment: CN

Your band of Rogues was heading to Verbobonc to recruit a famous bandit, Guntur Gladstone... but a band of vicious barbarians accompanies by trolls managed to ambush you and after a severe beating, you managed to get away... barely.

Each member of your group headed in a different direction and you are now in charge of finding them.

Your PC was the strong leader (or not, if you are feeling hardcore and want a pure natural roll for your char) and it's now up to him to find every rogue and get to Verbobonc.

The fun lies on rushing to get all rogue NPC's ASAP as to leave more quests open to collect their XP.

Rogues are infamous for being able to finish the temple at low levels, but the challenge game imposes that you must finish Verbobonc at lvl 20. So unless you really want to cheese out on random encounters, you reaaally need a way to survive tough fights (only to a certain point of toughness, of course).

You will get Furnok, Serena, Riana, Wonnilon and Wicked together ASAP, maybe turn back a little for some hommlet quests and XP and run with them until the end of Verbobonc.*

*Jaer is another rogue that can only be found in the Earth elemental node and he has a quest of his own to get him somewhere safe, so we'll consider him an independent agent and not part of our band.

*Hruda will only join if Mother Screng is already in party so that's a no-go as well.

Doing the assassin encounter should be VERY challenging but that NPC was the very inspiration for this challenge.


Restrictions:

- Party leader can have ONE level of any other class.
- All NPC's can multiclass but must have at least 11 levels of Rogue by lvl 20.
- All chars must finish the game (NC) at level 20.
- Guntur Gladstone must be recruited in Verbobonc



Now suggestions for this game? Here are the NPC's attributes

Wonnilon
Fighter 3/ Rogue 3, Gnome.
Attributes: 15/17/18/12/9/10

Furnok
4th level Rogue
Attributes: 10/18/15/14/10/13

Serena
3rd level Rogue
Attributes: 12/12/16/8/10/14

Riana
2nd level Rogue
Attributes: 13/16/12/10/11/16

Wicked
2nd Level Rogue
Attributes: 12/14/16/13/12/10
-------

Later on in Verbobonc you get Guntur Gladstone

Now, a question for the more seasoned players....

Is it doable? the restriction of being lvl 20 by the end makes it challenging, 4 NPC's take a huge bite off the loot and crafting might take some work since you'll be low on cash.

You CAN have a CG PC and take advantage of Fragarach and Scather... so a STR rogue might be the way to go with a barbarian level for maximum DMG and the very useful rage bonus. Later on, dual weilding the two to be really monstruous as I don't think any other rogue is CG

Weight is an issue as none have very good STR scores

 

Sounds like an interesting challenge. Good luck, and be sure to tell us how it turns out!

 

Ì started it just now. Decided to do the fetch quests alone to get a headstart on leveling since my companions will be already pre-leveled. Also I took 1 fighter level instead of barbarian. The extra feat was good to get me closer to spring attack at lvl 6 along with exotic spec (bastard sword) and TWF.

Dodge and mobility will probably be feats that every party member will have. I was REALLY impressed on how effective 2 rogues are on the battlefield. I keep circling the enemies and getting all sneak attacks on my humble 2 attacks per round. Supremely effective but you MUST have dodge and mobility. And the Holy Sword +1 is also a must have. Witch means that this challenge gets a LOT harder if you do not have 18 CHA on your face PC.

Also, I gave Furnok the spiked chains. He is a pussy when it comes to carrying any weight so he can't even wear a chain shirt with this weapon. But later on I'll remedy that. He is not proficient with it but he still gets +7 to hit with it right out of the bat due to his weapon finesse. I decided I'm gonna turn him into a bard. 9 bard levels (the most allowed by the challenge) allows me to craft lots of goodies, provides good support for rogues (and everyone) and does not hurt his BAB as a rogue. Plus, he still gets some skill points. Wizard or sorc could also work, but I'll leave that to Serena or Riana who are a little worse in melee.

I found out that the most disappointing thing here is that every rogue NPC comes with at least one feat I will not use. Some have weapon focus (dagger), others have weapon finesse (but mediocre DEX), and wonnilon is a repeating crossbow specialist. I never used it before... is it good?

Anyway... I'm off to welkwood bog now. Wish me luck!

 

I always give each guy Improved Initiative first before anything else. It's so important at any level.

I ran an all Rogue group in KOTB and it didn't go very well, lol. There are so many encounters that are range attack oriented, or in close quarters where one guy gets stuck out front, and a lot of undead that just laugh at sneak attack. I think TOEE is more suited for it as the dungeon setting is more open usually.

 

I stumbled upon a small issue when recruiting Wonnilon.

The max NPCs a party can have is 5, so..... we'll have to leave one rogue out of this.

I'll choose wicked for his lack of flair =P

And with Wonilon my party is now complete and ready to clear the moathouse and proceed to Nulb .


I stole the diary in order to get to Nulb and recruit Serena and Riana.

 

The log of today...

After rescuing the last member, wonnilon, we descended to dungeon level 3 to get his crossbow. Sneaking to Scorpp we've recovered it. But Scorpp had to die because some of our group had lost practice and needed it back.

After the fight, riana gained a Cleric level so the party has another capable fighter/healer and buffer. Serena is the perfect candidate for sorcerer and wonnilon will be one of those "quick-draw" flexible type of fighter/rogues that can melee and attack from a distance, while the main PC will be the Fragarach/Scather dual weilder (before this, probably a Katana/Wakizashi Samurai) and Guntur should be the "other", lighter dual weilder frontman.

 

I can't wait to hear your "role-playing in character" explanation of how a CG character - even a rogue actually obtains both Fragarach and Scather.....:no:

 

Actually, the party's alignment is CN. And it is pretty conceivable for a party of mostly TN's, one CN and one CG rogue to hang back while the mighty Thrommel slashes at foes willy-nilly... and dies doing so for lack of support from the party.

...but if he's already dead, might as well loot him, right? RIGHT!

But ohhh... those pesky TN's are the majority in the party actually. And all that restoring balance bu**sh** just get to you eventually. And so we resurrect him and send him on his way home. And hey! He actually gave us a present for doing that! Bloody convenient what dying can do to a man's memory....

And there you go.


(Also... what is it with nearly every NPC rogue being True Neutral in this game?)

 

The party of rogues exited the temple and went back to finish off that queer looking fella in the moathouse ruins. With a sneaky entrance in his room they did not give him a chance to attack and 2 charm persons later, both his seargents were fighting for us. The guardsmen fell like flies to sneak attacks of opportunity in that small room of Lareth's and the two seargents were later dispatched as well.

Easy fight but.... not as much XP as I'm used to in that fight. The early solo leveling and Wonnilon's 6 levels made this party of rogues too advanced for the moathouse. If it were not for lareth's gear (club) I wouldn't have bothered with it.

This did not stop serena from getting a level of Sorcerer in and Riana from reaching 2 rogue/2 cleric of oldamarra (I had never played a luck domain cleric before... they have an option to reroll a missed save/attack roll as a daily ability. Cool and nice for a rogue)

After some lucrative business in Hommlet my party was ready to revisit Nulb... and make madam Ophelia regret what she did to Riana....

...but all in due time, because on my way there I was ambushed by a cloaked assassin. That was a piece of cake to dispatch with smart tatics of crowding his way to the sorcerer and making him suffer lots of Sneak AoO's before he could do any real damage (dumb AI on this guy)


I realized that a rogue party can be extremely strong in some points. I'm sure that the ultimate melee DPS party should include at LEAST 2 good rogues in a party of 5. But if we are talking exclusively melee/achery... I would say probably 3 or 4 rogues.

With 5 rogues your tatics consist of making a devastating first blow, then following with a clever "dance" around your opponents to get as many SA's as possible. They don't last long, so I'm convinced DPS is the way to go and will turn my sorcerer into a battlemage to help things along. But the bard will be helping with crowd control and healing (while slinging his spiked chains enlarged =P) an the cleric will start to shine soon...

Right now I'm in a tough spot as my secondary classes are still in the lowest levels and I'm not going to make much progress level-wise in Nulb. Therefore I'll start the temple with not many spells. Perhabs I'll resort to sneaking around level 3 for a while to get some potent gear before tackling the upper levels... but getting F&S now might make this game a little too easy (apart from the small detail of having no tank and not being able to avoid most combat).

The house ambush might be a tad hard but I know that most of those guys are easily affected by enchantments so I'll explore that to the fullest.

Heading to Nulb... tomorrow.

 

NULB:

It was worth my while.

First order of business was to eliminate ophelia. She went down with a club to the head (Riana) and nobody seemed to be bothered by it. All is well now for the girl rogues.

One great advantage of an all rogue party is that you can travel while sneaking to a place like Imeryds run and not activate the ambush. Nice as well. (Could be done with any party theoretically... but that seems like a waste of a lot of skill points)

After cathing the gar, eliminating Rentsch and Wat in the "Thief!" quest fight (caught Dala stealing and did not let it go), assassinating Lodriss and clearing out the boathouse tavern afterwards I had a nice bit of loot already and Riana and Serena were cathing up to the other party members with their cleric/sorcerer levels and Wonnilon got his 4th rogue level and second attack with crossbow (yey!)

Then I went to my house. And after hearing that someone was looking for me in the area. I got a little suspicious... casted a couple of enlarge person and bull's strength and went inside.

the ambush was set up and the fight was really tough. I admit that if this was a no-reload game, this would definitely have been an impossible fight. It had to have a perfect timing on the first rounds, otherwise I would have gotten crushed by those cleaving fighters.

But, thanks to CRPG magic, the fight was won with the help of a nice fungal summon and a scroll of stinking cloud.

And that was Nulb.

Off to the Temple we go...

 

You should name your party.

A fun read, for sure!

 

Well then...

This raggedy bunch of opportunists are getting some reputation now. And apparently some new beggar from Hommlet made his new life mission to tell everyone he meets that he's only in that miserable condition because of the "Sons of Witches" rogueband.

Apparently his drunkish slur got misinterpreted somehow...

Well, now that's what the name this band is known by throuout the land. I guess in the future some smart scholar is going to waste his life trying to find SOME trace of a connection between these bandits and witches... hehehe.


The Sons (for short) realized that the dangers awaiting them on the road to Verbobonc are far greater than they had antecipated. And wonnilon's incarceration in the temple revealed that was a place full of treasure to be found. It is their unanimous decision to stay in the temple a little longer and try to get a little richer before meeting Guntur in Verbobonc.

Scounting the surroundings they stumble upon a lone scout outise a broken tower. They approach fearlessly and put some fear into the scout's heart. After he reveals that inside lied an ambush, the scout lost his usefulness and had his throat sliced.

Feeling cocky the band enters the tower after some buffing.

The wizard goes down first, then the leader, then the witches and then the rest. Tough fight indeed. Obscuring mist helped with dodging all the missiles.

The reward? a new path to DL3... that was promptly explored and revealed great treasure...


"We did not know who or what she was... we just saw a shining blue armor and felt like we could use more color." - Riana.

Smigmal (thou the party never learned her name) went down in a flurry of sneak attacks before she could even speak. No assassins were summoned.

In the room across the hall, peeping through the keyhole the Sons spotted a wizard. All happy with his spellcasting and stuff. The band was experienced enough to know that where there are wizards, there is treasure. So.... he never saw what hit him. Unlike Smigmal, he didn't even had to suffer all 9 sneak attacks that the sons deal in one round (yeeezzzz suuuuurrrr)

The sons have a weakness... in their haste they are poor searchers. So even upon a close inspection, they did not find much in Falrinth's room. Kinda disappointing for them... but I have a feeling that they will learn more about this anonymous wizard that they just killed from a different spellcaster later on...


The sons return through the secret tunnel and enter DL1 from the temple.

Exploring they fight off some harpies, goblins, an ogre and a snake. They talk to Romag and he thanks them for the pest extermination service. They loot the temple altar's chests in sneaky sneaky fashion and since Rentsch had to go earlier... they are now in charge of killing 2 underpriests.

We'll see how that goes another day....


Curent levels:

Dario Villamonde (Leader) - 1 FHT/7 ROG
Furnok - 4 ROG/ 4 BRD
Riana - 2 ROG / 5 CLR
Serena - 3 ROG / 4 SRC
Wonnilon - 4 ROG / 4 FHT

 

WO HO HO...

After some thought the Sons descend to DL2 where a minotaur and a party of brigands decide to throw their lives away in the hands of the band. That made the leader a better rogue and better investigator for that matter, witch opened up a LOT of new paths in the dungeon.

With the new Ring from Smigmal, the leader can now be invisible (and can pick up loot without picking a fight as well) so the band returns to DL3 where the banshee's chest is raided, the Thorned chains of love are handed to furnok and the banshee quickly dispatched.

After that, the party stumbles upon a Vampire prince. He joins the group because well... are you going to say no to a VAMPIRE? Not me...

He joins and then... well... he manages to solo 4 ogres, but is too hasty to dispatch the will-o-wisps. He then dies and the party that was already amazed by the shining golden blade he carried now sees the opportunity to cease it. The blade is now Dario's but... aaaawww damn... he might have been a Vampire and all but he wasn't a jerk. Furnok, the bard, being Neutral, decides he should get back home at least and will revive him with a scroll.

But first, let's hide his stuff in the extraplanar chest! ***

Thrommel is revived and sent home. He promises a reward.

The party goes to town with his gear and spends a lot of the profit on booze! The males also make a quick visit to the now manager-less Snake pit for a "chat" with the girls there. They are going through a rough patch without Mada Ophelia around and they decide to help them out throwing a litte business their way. Always the good samaritans these guys...


Well... after 20 days of hard partying it was time to get back to adventuring. And on the way to the temple, a courier reaches the party and delivers even more riches along with a blue glowing blade.

Well... needless to say, Dario is now what we would call a raging murder machine on steroids.

Riana gains Dario's trusty old Holy Longsword +1 and her low wisdom is hurting her cleric spells. So she needs to get to lvl 9 soon to be able to craft a necklace of wisdom for herself. but she has tons of potions and is doing fine as a healer and support for sneak attacks.

Not much else was done today because time is short.

Everyone but wonnilon got a level today.



*** In my game, Thrommel took Fragarach with him even if it wasn't in his inventory when he left. The only way I found to be able to keep it was to put it in the extraplanar chest before dismissing him.

 

Let's hide his stuff in the chest .... ROTFLMAO

Can't wait to see what happens next.

 

After some fiddling around in this new setup. The game started to feel cheaty.

Apart from those two gigantic glowing swords only being aesthetically fit for the tallest of half-orcs to weild (not my human skinny rogue). Even thou there are still plenty of deadly fights ahead due to my low overall HP and only 1 single PC, I can now basically choose 1 target and he's dead. That is no fun at all.

I thought this game would be more challenging, but it starts to feel like any other game by the time you finish the early temple quests. The slower level progression in some classes does not mean THAT many setbacks.

I'm thinking of finally playing a no-reload game even thou I NEVER got to Zuggtymoy before due to this same boredom setting in in the middle of the temple.

At least in a no-reload you have to deal with NPC deaths and getting really strong is actually exciting and rewarding, instead of making the game suck =P


Hey... sorry about cutting this novel in half.


But I do reccomend this challenge to anyone. Playing this in no-reload might be crazy difficult since you actually have to avoid many fights. And on the RP front, it is really fun. I just might avoid going for F&S and instead dual weilding something else. Perhabs dual Dagger of Venom might be nice, RP wise. I was thinking of making Guntur dual weild those eventually.