Circle of Eight Modpack 5.9.x/5.9.xNC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

The Wilfrick thing is still a little borked. After I talked to him about completing Frozen Assets and Under Attack From Underground, it gave me the option to tell him that someone hired me to kill him when no one actually gave me that quest. Also, I still couldn't complete the darlia/Lerrick quest at the castle. I had to talk to him at his house at night.

I like the slavers this time. All business. The woman is the key. You gotta get rid of her immediately or else things can go south fairly quickly because she's got that aura or anti-magic shell or whatever it is.

 

Did much better on the 4th try. Only lost 3 and Elmo killed the sorcereess. Didn't lose any children. Teleported to Hommlet and Terjon raised the dead. No blue circles this time. Tough fight.
Is the wand merchants inventory suppose to refresh?

 

This is just a hunch on my part but I bet that it's got something to do with receiving the Robbing the Hostelry quest from Darlia.

I was level 16 this time and the death wards did hinder me. I had to use my cleric running around killing them all individually using his longsword because the fighter was continually Blasphemed, the rogue archer was killed outright by the woman and the wizard couldn't really cast AoE spells without catching the whole party in it along with some kids. I didn't have Weird at this time, only Circle Of Death. The wizard was basically limited to Scorching Ray and Magic Missile.

I think the woman must target the 2nd slot in your party all the time because it just happens that the exact same person was killed in my party in 5.9.0 as in 5.9.1. Or does it decide by threat? If it decides by threat, it made the correct choice because the rogue archer could have wiped out their party of bad guys in very short order. Actually, that should always be the choice the computer makes. Have it check for a rogue archer. IF "A"=rogue archer THEN KILL "A". They will always be the largest threat of any encounter and capable of murdering 2 or more full health people in a round of combat.

Or better yet. Instead of killing the rogue archer outright, have them be Dominated and plugging their own party members! Now that would be absolutely brutal! Not only does it remove 1 party member from the PC party but it adds the most deadly one to the bad guys' party, and most likely flanking the whole party that runs up to close with the bad guys! Doing this would almost assure a 90%+ win rate for the bad guys every time. Man, I scare myself! This would definitely make the casual gamer actually cry if they weren't prepared to cope with it. Hell, probably make the hardcore gamers cry too! Just imagine what kind of massacre it would be with a hasted 16th+ level rogue with a super crafted (+3 H/Sb/Ib/Fb) masterwork composite longbow (Str 18) and weapon focus, crippling strike, precise shot, sneak attack improved critical, rapid shot, etc. with 5 shots a round doing 50 points of damage per arrow without crit or sneak attack!

I don't know about the wand merchant but the scroll merchant definitely does not refresh. Once you buy all the scrolls that you didn't know beforehand, they are just gone and empty spaces remain.

 

The blue circle thing happened when the kids where returned. I don't recall ever seeing a pc go blue circle. Last time it didn't happen and I teleported to Hommlet and had Terjon raise everybody. I suspect another case of random wierdness again and I'm not using the console.
The wand merchants inventory doesn't refresh.

 

Just adding to others that so far NONE of the merchants in Verbobanc have renewed their inventories in 5.91. I have even tried to rest for 100 days and no luck.

They are a nice addition to the old merchants and would be added spots to sell off goodies if you do not want to travel back to Hommlet.

 

I agree with Necro that the addition of Senshock as a merchant and the goodies he has to offer is nice. For a party who does not want a wondrous item crafters, his stock is nice to access. Expensive but handy.

 

Ok took the slaver mission and found the culprits. I was trying to see what would happen if you just tried to talk to them and bullshit them with who you are.

Spoiler.....










Turns out you botch the mission and get sent back to Verbobanc. Thought that you might have a way to legitimately BS them so you could try to get a drop on them without attacking without talking. Oh well had to try.

Found out that you can "earn" the reputation of "Coward of the County" when you try to report to Willy Boy. Seems you can only talk about how you ran away and no chance to BS your way through.

 

Another Spoiler on the Slavers















Tried another tactic by sending an animal companion and/or summoned creature to see if it would trigger any conversations. That was a BIG no. So if you wanted to try to scout ahead on the Slavers to get into an ideal position for an attack, you can try to this if you so wanted.

 

Last Spoiler on the Slavers






















Just tried to send a Familiar ahead as above and yet again no trigger on the conversation. Was funny how they talked on the familiar's nakedness and their commentary was funny depending on who was reacting.

Now I know this is a cheat, but if you leave the familiar in the second position you can prevent one of your guys buying it when the head baddie zaps them when you start the battle.

 

I've been playing the 5.9.1 patch and have been pleased with all of the fixes. I'm not as far along as some though (only made it to Nulb and the first level of the temple) but I have a few things to report:

1) All three of the skeleton guards in Emeridy Meadows have double longspears. They don't get to use both in battle but carry two around. Thought it might be a glitch.

2) Along the double inventory lines, Wat (in the Waterside Hostel in Nulb) has both leather boots and elven boots. He can only wear one pair so you can actually pluck the leather pair off of him. He also carries a magic dagger and 2 throwing daggers. I believe that this goes all the way back to vanilla but he sure carries a lot of items and wondered if maybe he could be lightened up a bit. The same goes for Retsch (his partner) - he has a magic battle axe +1 and a longsword. He wisely uses the battle axe so his sword is just dead weight.

3) To confirm the inventories in #2, I drew my party off to one side and cast a fireball to begin the battle in the place (didn't save the battle though). The effect took down a lot of the cannon fodder of course but it also hit Alira. She is the business associate of Wat. Normally she just sits and watches a party take out everyone else at the hostel. However, since I hit her along with most everyone else, she was drawn into the battle. With my party being on the other side of the hostel, she decided to go after Pearl. So I guess she is on her own team? It got even more interesting when she ended up killing Pearl - who is Wat's girl - so Wat disengaged from my party and ran over to hit Alira. Those two dueled with Wat eventually winning.

Anyway, the short of it is = would it be possible to put Alira on the same team as the rest of the hostel patrons?

4) On the map where you are outside the Temple (where you get the movie when you first approach), there are some trees on the map. The second tree along the right side of the screen (starting from the bottom) has its shadow off by about ten feet. The effect is that you can run around the tree and then about ten feet over from it, you can experience a trees shadow. I think this one might go back to vanilla but it would be cool to this nit-picker if it could be corrected.

5) Prince Thrommel's Golden Belt cannot be worn. It just sits in his backpack. I believe all other belts in the game can be worn. Could this be corrected as well? I realize that this does go all the way back to vanilla. Also, out of curiousity, does it grant any powers/abilities or is it just for looking pretty?

Other than that, I have not had any problems, jerkstops, or crashes except one CTD when I did a quicksave during the skeleton priest & skeleton guards battle at Emeridy. I retested this and it was not repeatable.

 

Not sure if this is a bug or just how it is, but even when you have finished the Drow, Dragon, and Slaver quests for Wilfrick and given your reports , you can still get the options to give reports for the Drow and Dragon missions.

Should they not be over and so no more options for those reports?

 

A few things I have noticed:

1) I have cast cure spells and gotten heals below what should be possible i.e. a cure light wounds from a third level cleric of Pelor with the healing domain that only healed one hit point (yes the target was wounded more the one hit point down). More broadly, it does not seem to matter if you have the healing domain in any case, I am not sure the domain is giving you the +1 level properly.

2) My poor halfling does not seem to be getting his attack roll bonus with his sling, he gets the small size hit bonus, but not the halfling bonus with thrown weapons & slings...

3) I can't seem to complete quest [31] A second trip for Otis, furthermore, he is not leaving after returning with him & the old ladies from the temple... the ladies leave, but not Otis.

4) you can attack adjacent mobs with a reach weapon... which is nice, but contrary to the PnP rules.

5) The saber and wakizashi are dealing piercing damage, not slashing damage...

6) The trident should be a one handed weapon with a range increment (if I remember correctly).

7) Sometimes when casting heals, or using scrolls and/or potions of healing the spell effect occurs at range, other times the caster/user moves in to an adjacent hex... this is handy of course when it happens at range... but when it doesn't... bad things can happen to said healer as they run the gauntlet of AoO unexpectedly.

 

Just a follow up on this situation that may have a solution with what happened. I was taking out the 2nd level of the Temple and gathering up all those Bugbear's potions my Dwarf Sorcerer was using his read magic to ID them. Just to see what would happen, I kept using my hot key for the ID. After a butt load I finally ran out of spells. I think what was happening was that the computer was using up the higher spell slots to cover all those read magic. When I left click my spells, all the levels were 0. I tried to cast some other spell and alway got the message that no spells were available.

 

@Oakheart
The folowing weapons are considered short swords : short sword,gladius,cutlass ,wakizashi;
short sword and gladius do pierce dmg
cutlass and wakizashi do slash dmg
Any other sword' u see its either a long/great or bastard blade and those all do slash dmg
If u like to check this your self just click and expand the dice window so u can see the rolls and dmg type induced to the oponent that got hit (don't mind de animations used for weapon swinging those are probably misleading u to think its slash dmg involved )
About yr halfling : he does get hes bonus on stuff like thrown dager,javelin,dart(on the dice rols u will see racial bonus) ... odd enough not on sling (wonder where the pronlem lyes incorect text or coding ... to lazy to check onthe 3.5 rules tome :evilgrin: )
About the polearms... yes in dnd they don't work for close quarters but just think with me here: what's the point of enforcing this into the game ?!! u can (in 90% of the cases) just do a 5 foot step ... anyways maybe a penalty for close quarter combat with polearms can be implemented to make things better' (but it could involve messing around some hardcoded' stuff wich may yeld some adverse' effects if u know what i mean)