5.6.1 Point Buy Play-Through

Okay. I know it was definitely discussed. All the different stuff kind of blurs together after awhile.

Cool.

Figured as much, but wanted to mention it since there were other issues in the room.

Yeah. It's annoying having to come back specifically for the chests once you're high enough level to actually have a chance of getting past them. I know Troika setup the locks as auto-20 (which Liv then upped the unlock DC on, because she didn't like the way you could automatically open any chest as long as you had a rogue at 1st level) but the traps have always been rolls, AFAIK. No idea if the DCs were ever changed, but having a Rogue with an Int of 12 makes them really, really tough. I also seem to recall only some of the Moathouse chests were trapped in Vanilla, whereas in Co8 they all are.

I have to say, having Elmo in the party is major boon. It's kind of annoying in that he completely outshines the rest of the party, but I think I'd be reloading a whole lot more without him along.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I do wish there was something could be done about how when the whole party is selected and an NPC is closest party member to the object you want to interact with, nothing happens. I understand not wanting NPCs to start conversations, but they should be able to loot bodies, go activate staircase, etc. It's part of the reason I normally don't recruit NPCs when I play. They add unnecessary mouse-clicks.

Of course, I'd also love for the 1st person in your party to automatically start conversations when the whole party is selected as well.

 

Headed back to the moathouse. Fought the guards outside Lareth's room. AI bugs galore (which I realize are being addressed) making the fight 10 times easier than it usually is. (Not much threat when your enemies are running around circles, provoking AoOs like crazy.) Flush with my easy victory over his troops, I pressed on into Lareth's room. Was happy to see him immediately go on the attack instead of standing idly by while my party surrounded him.

This was actually a good fight. Lareth got his AC up to 25 (ouch) via spells, making my party have a hard time hitting him. Which let him get a bunch of spells off. He didn't appear to be dual-wielding, though, something he was doing in either 5.0 or 5.5 (I can't recall what I last played under). I almost had the bastard finished off when he interrupted the fight. Like the (new?) option about not being interested in his surrender and going right back to the fight. Under the new initiative, he went first and immediately cast a huge cure spell on himself, turning it into another slug fest. I hit two of his spider friends with sleep and then my rogue and bard took care of the third while the rest of the party took down Lareth over the next several rounds. By the end everybody was pretty beat up (and the barbarian was down) and I was almost out of spells. Party also leveled up to level 4 (except the rogue again). So I got my barbarian back up on his feet by virtue of his newly-rolled HP. Knowing I still had some more spiders to fight and the ambush waiting for me, I used up a bunch of the CLW potions I got off the bugbear to restore everyone to at least half HP.

The spider ambush in the hall wasn't too tough. The spider in the foyer thingy got beat down pretty quickly. The spider in the exit corridor got to take a couple bites out of my barbarian before being dispatched. However, if I didn't know it was coming and use all those potions, I would have lost a bunch of folks due how beat up my party was folllowing Lareth. Burn a couple more potions to heal the damage from the spiders and then save my game before heading out to the real ambush. (I'm fully expecting to get destroyed at this point.)

Ambush. My Evoker wins initiative and has one spell left: Charm Person. So I do the most logical thing, I try to charm the biggest, nastiest baddie on the field: Kobort. Yeah, so I found a bug. Kobort failed his save and suddenly his picture is listed in my party. But that's not the really buggy part, as Kobort still behaved like a normal charmed monster. The really buggy part was where Turuko was now fully controllable like a normal NPC in the party, yet his picture was not listed in my party. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact you cannot not recruit them individually, but I would have expected to see both of them in the party bar, or for Toruko's picture to show up since he was the one that was behaving like he joined the party. Regardless, charming one shouldn't bring the other one to your side, anyway.

Needless to say, the battle went a whole lot smoother with the two of them on my side (of course they probably stole some of my XP while they were at it. Though apparently not too much, as both my Rogue and Elmo leveled up from the fight.) That said, my party took a lot of damage, and I had zero spells left to actually heal them with.

Once it the battle was over, I waited for the wounded Kobort's rage to finish and then had my rogue sneak attack him while he was fatigued, which snapped him out of the charm as well as immediately kicking Toruko out of my party and making him hostile as well. I finished them off, looted the bodies and headed back to Homlett to sell a crapload of stuff.

Went to the Traders to sell Lareth's boots and saw the new items for the first time. Cool stuff. (I'm particularly appreciating the eyeglasses. Suddenly things are much more affordable. Though I think the neatest idea of the bunch is the spyglass. Really nifty.) Bravo to whoever put them together. However, the burning oil and acids say they use dart proficiency, but when I gave them to my Evoker, they showed as him not being proficient. Wizards should be proficient in darts. Any idea what's going on there?

Another note, in previous versions, you could complain about the prices before resolving the courier quest. Now the dialogue option only appears once you've confronted the courier and segways (a little clumsily) into accusing Rannos and Gremag about what the courier told you. I know there was different accusation dialogue in the past. Was this intentionally changed?

 

Not the end of the world. I was just thinking "These would be kind of useful if he ran out of spells." His crossbow still works.

Figured it would have been done already if it was easy. Just felt the need to gripe. :raving:

Ah. I thought there actually had been an effect on the prices. They don't admit they're too high, but suddenly the costs were down a bit (though still more than what everyone else was charging.) But I could be wrong.

Log continues:

Sold my crapload of stuff, went back to the Inn to heal up and memorize new spells, told Terjon I cleared the Moathouse, then headed back to the Moathouse with my now level 4 rogue to try the chests again. Interestingly enough, the traps on the spider chest and the thieve's tools in the courtyard had vanished. No such luck on the ghoul and crayfish chests. Even with the increased level and the bard Inspiring Competence, it still took about a half dozen tries (with occaisional healing breaks) per chest to disarm the traps. Bleh. Head back to town, Read Magic the crap out of all the scrolls, rest up again and then it's off to Emeridy Meadows.

Found my way to the Rainbow Rock. Killed the assorted undead and the special Rainbow Rock ambush without a whole lot of trouble. Didn't notice any of the bugs folks have been reporting either.

Get jumped by the assassin on the way back to town. Cue Benny Hill music as the assassin chases my Evoker around the battlefield with the rest of party in hot pursuit trying to bring him down and whiffing repeatedly until I manage to get my Bard close enough to cast Tasha's Laughter, which is immediately followed by a gang-beating. Victory and new toys for the rogue are mine.

 

Went back to Emridy Meadows and fought the Hill Giant. I tried to be careful: buffs all around, keep the squishier party members back to use ranged weapons, lead off the fight with a Web, etc...

Unfortunately, the bear made it's save and came rampaging out of the web to chew on Elmo and my barbarian. The Hill Giant failed it's save, but quickly escaped. I managed to slow it down by throwing spiritual weapons at it and hitting it with Sound Burst to stun it while pounding it with ranged weapons and spells. It made it's save versus both of my bard's Hideous Laughters. Finally the bear went down about the time I ran out of things I could slow the giant down with, so I healed by barbarian back up to full and had him move in on Mr. Giant. My barbarian swung and missed. The giant swung and didn't miss. Twice. He didn't miss so much that he critted my barbarian into a bloodly splotch on the ground with his second hit. More spells, arrows and a lucky crit from Elmo brought the giant down before he could turn anyone else in the party into a pancake.

Collect the loot, haul the barbarian's body back to Terjon for a Raise Dead and then hand the Giant's Head over to Brother Smyth. He tells me the masterwork stuff will be ready later. I reinitialize dialogue so I can sell some loot and the only purchase option is "Show me your masterwork wares" but they're decidedly not masterwork. Sell my stuff, go back to the inn, rest for a day, come back out. Still no masterwork (I realize the masterwork spawn is known-bugged, I'm just detailing it for completeness sake. Note I have not been to Nulb or the Temple at this point) Grumble about not being able to buy masterwork gear and wander over to the Trading Post to discuss my run-in with the assassin earlier.

Rannos tries to convince me he's not responsible and I express my disbelief by trying to put my sword through his gut (Nice job on whoever updated his model to match his picture, BTW.) Fight ensues. I manage to hit Rannos with Tasha's Laughter, which immediately prompts him to recite his escape dialogue. (Which, okay, not sure how he manages that between the peals of debilitating laughter, but I appreciate them realizing that spells that make them helpless are just as dangerous as low HP. No idea if they used to be that smart.) Fight resumes and I get to pound on him for a round before the spell expires. Meanwhile, no one can seem to hit Gremag, even before he turns invisible. Gremag makes his escape, but my Evoker's finally magic missile is just enough to kill Rannos before he follows his partner out the door. Welcome to level 5 (except my recently dead barbarian.)

 

Moving on, time to visit Nulb. I wander around, talk to Sammy (nice dialogue fix with Otis and dealing with him, BTW) and then Otis. Head over to Ah Fong and purchase some Mithral Plate for my Barbarian and Dwarven Plate for my Cleric, and a mithral buckler for my Bard, using up most of my cash. I find where Preston and Grud are hiding and talk to them, then head down to Mother Screng's, almost getting in a fight with Haruda and then over to talk to Mona and Serena. From there I take a look around the Waterside Hostel (getting robbed) and quickly discover I just don't have the Skill Levels required to accomplish any of the Nulb social quests. Can't find out what's really going on with Alira, can't get Wat and Rentsch to double-cross each other, can't get Mickey to give me Mona's orb... I didn't even try the Skole assassinate Lodriss quest, figuring even I did manage to convince her he wanted her dead, she'd still scam me out of the jem. Those lack of ability points are really hurting here.

So with nothing else I can do, I head over to Imreyds Run for Grud. Manage to pull both the frogs and the lizardmen/hag into the same fight, but some timely uses of Web to tie up the lizardmen and Hideous Laughter on the sea hag leaves me mostly just tangling with the two frogs. Haste helps, too. My cleric still gets dropped and Elmo and my bard aren't feeling too hot. Dispatch the frogs and launch fireball into the web to kill off most of the lizardmen. Mop up the rest and beat the laughing hag to death. Heal my cleric, get everybody else close to full HP and go face the gar. Which promptly crits my rogue and drops her before she act. The rest of the party takes some wounds, but we manage to finish the gar off before my rogue can bleed to death (I really hate the auto-stand-draw an AoO thing with healing downed party members, but since there's no prone animations beyond lying still, I realize there's nothing can be done about it.) Elmo hits level 6. (Side note, I think I goofed up his protos overhaul. I'll have to double-check, but I was surprised to learn he had Weapon Spec: Battle Axe when I went to give it to him. I don't think he's a level 4 fighter when you first recruit him, and if he's not, he shouldn't have it.)

Take the head back to Grud, head back to Homlett and heal. Tell Burne about Ramos and Gremag (another cool dialogue fix/addition) sell some loot and then I head over to the Temple since I don't have any other options at this point. Try the broken tower fight. Die horribly 3 times before I give up. Out-numbered, out-gunned and the RNG apparently decided it hated me. Lots of rolls of 1s and 2s and 3s for my characters, and lots of crits for the baddies. So I guess it's off to temple level 1, we go.

 

Yes, Kalshane, Elmo starts as a 4th level fighter in ToEE. He should be a 4th level Ranger according to the module but that is a discussion found in a dead thread.

Go on with your commentary; I'm enjoying every word of it.

 

Aye, see if there is Moon Ivy armor or any of the other cool armors that were there before. Mirthril, Moon Ivy, and Dwarf Plate were missing after my first visit (but you bought plate and mithril so they should be gone for you, but moon ivy may be there).

 

For me the Hommlet masterwork stuff was pitiful, and never changed from that state. A couple of exotic knives and scale mail or somesuch. Waste of time.

 

Cool.

Will do. Not sure if I'm going to have a chance to fire up the game tonight or not. May have to wait until tomorrow.

ETA: Had a witch in the Broken Tower run into the middle of my party and draw an AoO. Don't recall if she ran in to use her crossbow or cast a spell, though.

Also, since we've got some spell scripters again, is anyone up to taking another look a Silence? It really should be a zone the effects everyone within it automatically, and wears off once you leave it, not a save or be affected for 60 rounds deal. (The save is only supposed to be if you try to cast it directly on someone so it stays with them when they move.)

 

No. I did the Giant before going to Nulb. I don't recall any other offer.