Challenge game - The Disbanded rogues

Why not get the Hand ax weapon proficiency and dual wield masterwork cleavers? That could be interesting...

 

I did that in another game with a Ranger/rogue. Crazy strong as well, but i don't like the cleaver in the D&D setting. It is an alien weapon... very suitable only to Fruella in this game due to her "crazy wife" attitude. I mean... she might as well use a macarroni roll instead, but THAT would have been crossing the line - the devs must have thought. =P

I'm now playing a no reload game with a normal party of 5, with 2 rogues. One dual weilds DoV's and the other will use a Katana two handed.

Also, they are an evil party. So no holy shanenigans as well...

 

Don't feel bad about cutting the story short. It's all about you having fun playing, if you're not, then it's time to try something different.

Myself, I find fishing to be a great way of having fun and I don't even need to pug it in.

 

I'm sorry the rogue playthrough got stale for you. You had a fun narrative going here.

 

People should do narratives more often here... I always like reading them as well.

And on a sidenote: No-reload is definitely my kind of game. The difference it makes in the tactics you apply is huge. But I do keep a save handy in case of misclicks on my part. It happens quite often with my laptop's worn touchpad.

 

My question is how you can you dual wield both Scather and Fragrach... I tried it when I first got both weapon. But can't dual wield them. What perk setup did you use?

Was a good read, btw.

 

Are one of the swords a bastard sword? Because that might explain it.

 

If you take exotic wpn bastard swrd you can dual weild bastard swords like katanas and F&S

 

I haven't played 8.1.0, so I'm going to try your challenge. Before a game I tend to obsess about party composition, so this will neatly eliminate that waste of time.

Pearse Penniless, CG human Rogue

STR 12
DEX 15
CON 13
INT 15
WIS 10
CHA 16

Doesn't Furnok leave you after obtaining a certain level of loot? I can't remember because I usually kill him first. If he leaves I assume I'm free to replace him with another rogue NPC.

When I recruit Riana, I can level her up as a cleric of Olidammara. Until then, nobody better get hurt.

Will post reports.

 

I too obsess about party composition before any game... hehehe


I don't know about furnok. I played until lvl 9 or so and he did not leave. But yeah, if he leaves you can replace him with someone else.

Nice brave stats.

One thing: I do not recommend leaving quests behind to gather XP later with your full party. The hommlet quests have much better value when done with a solo char. The moathouse is up to you. But a real challenge with just furnok with you.

Wonnilon is actually a fairly strong NPC and getting him ASAP might povide you with a much needed early game tank. Later, he is a better archer than Melee'r (and the only char to make use of the awesome, but feat heavy, repeating crossbow)


Lastly!

Combat is REALLY fun with 5 rogues. There's no tank, so eveyone must be constanly moving to get sneak attacks and avoid hits. Most rewarding combat I ever had in the game. Enjoy it!


Have fun and keep us posted on your progress!

PS: Are you doing no-reload as well?

 

After a lot of games with different parties, chars and strategies I decided to get back to this challenge. It is too cool to give up on =P


But I'll take some liberties this time.

I decided not to rush to get all the rogues ASAP. I'll take my time solo and develop the main char as much as I can before that.

I also won't be taking serena and will take wicked in her place. She'll be a backup if something terrible happens to a member of the group.

I *might* do it in no-reload mode.

And building is going to be completely different this time around:


My main char is going to get his UMD score at 20 by lvl 9 by taking Skill Focus in UMD and magical affinity. Yes, those are two horrible feats but I see now that this challenge is all about min/maxing your rogues to get the best possible party under the circumstances. And due to logistic limitations, one cannot afford to just wait until the party mage can craft the right item or hold out a couple of levels to get UMD to 20 later on. Fighting is challenging and this guy is going to be using lots of mirror image and dimension door spells with his masterwork naginata (later on, holy ranseur)

To make him scrolls, Furnok is going to be a wizard this time. He has the best intelligence and nice DEX to keep AC up. Furnok is actually going to be the "Shadowdancer" from This thread. But he will end up Rogue11/Wiz9 due to challenge rules.

Wicked has good stats as well, and he's going to be a ranger. Being able to cast barkskin, summoning animals and specializing in killing bugbears and giants. He will be the secondary melee'r.

Wonnilon remains the party archer as he comes ready for it.

And riana will be the healer. She'll be a bard because her low wisdom makes her a very limited cleric. Also, some enchanting spells are going to come in handy.

Everyone will be UMD capable (but not everyone will take feats specifically for it like the main) for flexibility reasons. I think dimension door is going to be one of the most used spells to get out of hairy situations quickly. I plan on making it the core of my battle strategy to get the most out of sneak attacks. The wizard will create scrolls for it and everyone will be able to take advantage of them. It is also a freely found scroll that I can copy then scribe so I can take advantage of it sooner than any other really useful spell.

Either the wiz or the bard or both are going to be able to craft items/weapons&armor.

-------------

Later on in Verbo, Guntur becomes a third melee'r probably taking barbarian levels.

 

UMD... ohhh... it saved my life sooo many times already.

I've been soloing with a single rogue for now. And scrolls keep saving my life. Every fight is just barely won with little HP left.


The lareth fight was won with Blur+Protection from arrows scrolls (all bought from burne's tower) and left me with 8 HP.

Then the moathouse ambush was lots of fun. getting out while sneaking allowed me one "free" action after dialog ended. So I used a potion of invisibility for good measure and hid behind a rock. There, all the bugbear potions came in handy to heal back to full HP (something like 37 at that point) and then came back sneaking to the attacker's formation. There, 5 perished to sneak/cleaving attacks on the first round. Since I took out the edge of the fighters first I could lure the rest one or two at a time behind the rock and finished them all with my trusty, non magical, non masterwork, longspear.



I didn't think you could solo a rogue in combat in the game. But with smart and efficient leveling,and some scroll shopping, you can.

I'll take him to Nulb next where he'll probably achieve lvl 9. Then I'll start bringing in the other rogues onboard. This game is shaping up a lot more fun than the last one.

 

LOL moments in this epic game:

Just for kicks I decided to see what were my chances in the Nulb ambush fight with just wicked by my side.

I drank one Bull's strength potion and gave Wicked gremag's dust of disappearance to hold (did anyone notice how the dust weighs 10 pounds!? Wicked got medium encumbered by holding it)


Got in, and entered combat during Rannos's dialog.

Put my fighter1/rogue8 in the middle of eveyone and attacked the enchantress with the holy ranseur.

1 DEAD and one cleaving attack on the nearby thug.

Then, wicked used his turn to greater invisible my rogue.

Then, in ONE ENEMY TURN in a master combo of AoO's and great cleaves, EVERY SINGLE ATTACKER DIES....

Actually, the priest was in the corner and lived. But only until the next turn.



Amazing!

Wicked got around 9500 XP for this. Some of it was wasted because he gained more than 2 levels worth of it. But it was really fun and now I have 1 lvl 9 and one lvl 7 char to start the temple with.


Wicked is a nice ranger. I've been giving him one level of each to improve BAB quicker and it is paying off. He comes with weapon focus (dagger) so I gave him a DoV for the offhand and the female bugbear's great cleaver on the main (after rescuing him I paid a visit to the bugbear small room and killed the 3 in there to get it).

With all the light gear I've been saving, he's well equipped and starting to be of real help with creating opportunities for sneak attacks.

With all pre-temple quests done I decided to get furnok and head to the temple to level my wizard up before getting Riana. Wonnilon comes at lvl 6 so he can be the last.

I just realized that being a bard won't help Riana, and a bard won't help the party. It does not get the good spells by lvl 9. So she'll probably become a sorcerer instead to spam damage spells while Furnok will be more of a rogue illusionist with more focus on crowd control.


And one other thing happened. After killing lodriss, outside the tavern Mona and Serena became hostile. So I had to kill serena. =P

 

It would have been great if you'd have gotten a screenshot of right after the ambush.

 

I might still have a saved game right after it....

EDIT: I don't =P.