Spoiler: Going to attempt Demons and Demigods with restrictions

Spoilers below

Spoiler

I've never seen the demons and demigods quest. It sounds like a real challenge. My last attempt ended when my characters reached level 14 or 15 and it became obvious that finding random encounters that would teach them up to level 20 with extra crafting experience simply would not happen. Now I'm using a temple plus option to allow me to store experience (I'd rather do this in a legit way, but I can't). I rolled up a pack of new characters for a neutral good party (no one is chaotic good) with especially high stats and I started over. I have Rudy's item mod and temple plus installed.

On the walkthrough, every successful story seems to involve something that I consider to be an exploit and wish to avoid.

I'll list them:

Using a weapon that never misses.
Stacking multiple sources of damage reduction (cast 10 stoneskins on one character).
Using attacks of opportunity when your character is intended to be prevented from attacking due to a spell (Otiluke's Resilient Sphere and Meld to Stone).
Intentionally bugging the AI to continue to attack a summoned creature possessing regeneration after the creature has passed out.

(Edit: I looked at the SRD entry for quicken spell and for full round action, and apparently quickened full round casting spells (summons) are allowed. I had this on my list, but I'm feeling encouraged to remove it.)

I'm going to try to get to and pass this encounter without taking advantage of anything on the above list.



My plan:

20 Human Druid (I only intend to wild shape for free healing as it's implementation is screwy)
20 Human Wizard
20 Elf Rogue
20 Human Cleric of Pelor
2 Half Orc Barb 18 Fighter

Everyone has max UMD (only the rogue has it as a class skill, though), tumble, improved initiative, an 18 in their primary stat before racial modifiers, and 30' base movement. The rogue is an archer (I noticed that Iuz does not have true seeing listed on his information on the walkthrough. If he is supposed to have it, I'll probably use her as a UMD specialist). The fighter is a spiked chain specialist who will have spring attack. The three casters will each have max concentration, greater spell penetration and quicken spell, and the druid and the wizard will have augment summoning. I might take it on the cleric as well, but feats on my plan for her got a little tight when I realized that I would not be able to make an npc create good aligned weapons for me (Edit: moreso now that I'm considering adding temple plus' rapid metamagic to the list).

I intend to farm extra gold and experience for crafting equipment, scrolls, and wands. Temple plus will allow for custom made +5 keen, holy, lawful weapons. Rudy's Item mod will allow for amulets of inner perfection and belts of outer perfection. I will also create boots of springing and striding, Rings of Blink and Freedom of Movement.

Pouring over the list of level 1-4 spells for useful wands (no spell resistance check or save dc, buffs, or summons. Edit: removing area snares because I forgot his freedom of movement., I'm considering blink, expeditious retreat, greater invisibility, stoneskin, Heroism, cure critical wounds, mirror image, divine favor, divine power, summon monster 4, summon nature's ally 4, True Strike, Enlarge Person, fog cloud. Also scrolls of heal, mass heal, and miracle.

Edit: Reading through another thread, I saw that user Terjon pointed out the usefulness of orb of invulnerability scrolls. Might take some of those too.


I intend to level Ronald, Spugnoir, and Melony to craft gear for me, to free up feats on my main group.


I'm considering but not sure of:

Picking up Fire spells and greater spell focus evocation. The walkthrough says he has fire damage reduction of 10, which is less than his 15/- for physical, and I think that I can stack up a 50% chance to overcome his spell resistance and a 40% chance that he fails a lvl 9 meteor swarm reflex save (+15 +7(dex)= +22 to reflex vs dc 19 + 9 (29 final int)+2= dc 30.) Even a Fireball with a much lower dc would have 50% chance of doing half damage through the spell resistance though. Flamestrike might be great.

Otiluke's Resilient Sphere spam to take one of the avatars temporarily out of the fight on a lucky failed save.

Bringing 3 npcs (not sure which) to create a full roster.

I intend to do the other co8 additional content, but aside from some of my own choices just for fun, I'm building and gearing my party with this fight in mind.

Any advice is appreciated. I will let you know how this goes.





PS. I've made an open office spread sheet with all the wizard spells, which are not available except upon level up, and which are not available until verbobonc. Also with the spells for druids, clerics and wizards that require saving throws by magic school. I used it a long time ago to decide which spells to select upon leveling up and what spell focus feats I wanted. If anyone is interested, I could try to clean it up and upload a copy. Let me know.



PPS. Did some searching, found a discussion thread that brought up official iuz stats from 3.0
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?165370-Stats-for-Iuz/page2

I don't see true seeing on the list, but he could of course cast it as a lvl 20 cleric. Not sure whether I want to take advantage of it or not. Edit: I've thought about it. There are 4 avatars. They don't cast spells and they aren't really him. I think I will be okay with taking advantage of that.

 

This is what I get for copy pasting my article before reading the front page. At least I finally got the spoiler tags to work.

There is another thread up with someone asking for advice for this fight. Some of the advice will be helpful when I attempt this fight. I'll still let you know how it goes when I get there. And anyone is welcome to give me feedback if you wish.

 

I would suggest taking a Ranger(Archery)/rogue as your face person. A lot of same class skills, better BAB, and rapid shot with a Composite bow +5, speed, holy, shocking with the sneak attack dice of a rogue can take 100+ hp off of iuz every round from range while your melee are occupying his attention

 

Thank you for the idea. I don't think it'll be worth it, though.

My planned feats for my elven rogue include improved initiative, point blank, precise, improved precise (temple plus), rapid shot, deadly precision (temple plus), both ranks of weapon focus (longbow), slippery mind, crippling strike, and improved evasion. This wouldn't change without taking at least six levels of ranger.

I could take only four ranger levels for +1 BAB at lvl 20, to have access to the fourth BAB attack without using a wand of divine power (also a level one animal companion, a couple of level one spells, and eight hit points with the hp max option). Multiclassing warrior would provide specialization and one additional feat at the cost more of skill points. In either example, though, I would rather take the 2 sneak attack dice and 8 or 24 skill points with greater flexibility.

 

My characters are level 5 now. I did a few quests to unlock masterwork leather and wood vendors. I ran around between Emridy Meadows and Welkwood Bog until they were almost level 3. Then I cleared the bog and the weaker skeletons of Emridy Meadows.

My first real challenge was the hill giant. My characters were level 4, and I attempted to get close enough to shoot the bear, then run further so I'd only have to fight one at a time. Two rounds into the fight, however, the giant joined. Piles of summons are truly effective, though, and my cleric and wizard started using all their debuff / cc spells, hoping that the thing would fail a save. He got doomed and tripped up by grease, and I dropped all the bears and wolves my druid had slots for on him, and got through it.

The skeleton priest was much easier, and Emridy Meadows was cleared.

I took the moathouse in stages, grabbing everything that I could and taking it back to town. The Lareth fight was a little hairy, but once I got Lareth prone I was able to pile on the damage and the attacks of opportunity, clean up the remaining guards, and reach level 5.

Went back to town to buy four mithril bucklers (I want to hold on to them for the rest of the game, and I don't know if scroll use is affected by arcane spell failure chance a few wizard scrolls, so I didn't buy a much cheaper darkwood buckler for anyone except the druid), masterwork weapons, healing and spellcraft kits, etc. With the remaining funds, I'll probably pick up four mithril shirts from Nulb, but the guy doesn't always have them and only restocks once a week.

 

Time is of almost no importance in ToEE, so if a vendor replenishes once a week, you can just "pass time" or "rest" for 7 days, then re-enter the shop. When I run a solo character, I use that to buy heal potions from the herbalists in Nulb. Adventuring can be traumatic, so the characters need some vacation time anyway.

 

I might be wrong, but I think that Iuz is immune to sneak attacks. With his high AC and damage reduction, he's thus insanely difficult to injure (he also laughs off a lot of spell damage, and I think he has both Improved Evasion and an insanely good reflex save, so AoE spells are of little use).
I suspect that even with level-squatting/ XP rollover you will struggle to take a party of 8 to level 20 across the board, though in fact having a full roster can be a disadvantage in fights like this: it's hard to keep everyone away from all the Iuz avatars all the time.
I think that some folks have had some success with a polearm wielded by a PC under effects of both Enlarge Person and Righteous Might, while standing out of reach of Iuz who is now smaller than you (i.e. behind allies sheltered in Resillient Spheres or in Tree Shape...).
I think it is possible to beat 4x Iuz avatars without the exploits you list, though inevitably one ends up looking for other exploits such as using multiple low level summonings to keep the avatars distracted (I think Iuz's AI may have been tweaked since I wrote up my experiences a few years ago) or stacking items like scrolls of Heal. With enough resources, one probably could outlast the avatars, even if one were only inflicting damage on a small proportion of one's attacks. It would be rather dull to play through, though....

 

How is stacking scrolls an exploit? I don't understand.

How are summoned distractions an exploit? Is it intended that the avatars ignore them?

I hope that my experience will not be dull, especially as I've set myself a goal and fulfilling such has been enjoyable to me in the past.


My main team is level 7 now, and I'm leveling my crafters a bit before I assault the temple. I don't want them taking any of the temple loot, so I'm running around the map and fighting the more difficult random encounters that I come across. I have one male character and he only had 9 for charisma, so I had to fish someone out of the inn roster to flirt with Meleny, but now she's in the group also, is level three, and has made the main group some magic boots.

 

There is a large thread about Mithril vs Elven chain. The assassin (if you triggered the quest) has mithril chain and you can get 2 sets of Elven chain which can be further enhanced.

 

I had a really long fight with two groaning spirits. They managed to fear seven out of eight characters and both animal companions, leaving my archer rogue and summons to fight the spirits. I noticed a few things that seem pertinent. My rogue would five foot step away from the spirits to launch her arrows, and the spirits would continue to move to the rogue, ignoring the summoned bears around them. After my druid had ran far enough away, I started blasting them with flame strike and call lightning. Halfway through the fight, the spells stopped working. I'd get a message that the spell resistance failed, but no messaging for the saving throw or for damage.

I'll still bring summons to the fight, hopefully they will be more effective when my characters are running 30+ feet rather than five foot steps. Also, I just like them.

Relying on fire spells is going to be a bad idea.

Farming 210k exp for main team, my crafters (much more for these), and three npcs will take a while. I think that I will take Furnok, Elmo and Darley (I'm assuming that I'll need the tolerant npcs option as the walkthrough says that the quest starts with npc dialogue).

 

So... I screwed up. At some point I sold or otherwise lost the Gnome Ring. I realized this when I went to chat with Wonnilon in the prison. Luckily I save often and can back up, but it's a lot of progress lost.

Also, I've decided to use the hommlet's inn guest book to recruit a custom cleric for crafting good aligned weapons, to free up my last feat slot on my party cleric. I'll have to level him up to level seven, but with all the rest of the grinding that I have planned, it won't be much relatively.

 

So, I am still working on this. I have caught up to where I was before. My party is level eight, I've crafted some magical armor via spugnoir and ronald, and I've cleared about half of the first level of the evil temple.

I'm just playing for a few hours when I have time and inclination, so it's taking a while.

 

I've cleared out all the temple except Zuggtmoy. My first attempt did not go well.

Going to level my crafters a bit.

 

You can just replace the Gnome Ring by using the console. To give yourself any item in the game, just open the "data" folder in the ToEE folder, select MES, and then open the "description" file. It lists all the items (and npcs for that matter) in the game, each one having a 4 or 5 digit number. In the console, just type "give xxxx", with xxxx being whatever the number for that item is. Better that than replaying a large chunk of your game.

 

If you add items with the console, make absolutely sure you get the number correct. If you type the number incorrectly, it will appear at first as though nothing bad has happened, but then when you go to reload a saved game it will crash on you. At that point it will not be apparent that the problem came from accidentally typing "give 60177" before you typed it properly the second time as "give 6017".