Hi, Start a nuetral party on ironman. Start you party with a few animal aligned clerics. The opening scene requires you to talk to a druid and his two brown bears. Use your animal aligned cleric's once-a-day ability to charm one or both of the brown bears. Let the brown bears kill the druid. Take the druid's stuff! The druid has a serpernt rod that is worth 20k and a ring of invisibility and a +2 cloak of protection and a +1 weapon and some other stuff! Anyone know what the serpant rod does? It is +1 but since it is worth 20k I would imagine it has some special property? Anyway, once your three or four animal aligned clerics have done their job, ditch them at the inn and roll up the rest of your party the way you really want them. Start with tons of money! PS A nuetral aligned character probably could justify the killing. I mean, you need that 20k gold fund to fulfil your quest of balancing out the universe. Balancing everything out is all important - the life of one druid is not important relative to the balance of the world
Also, if you charm the brown bears you can take them into Hommlet for your first visit. You can use those brown bears to "balance out" Hommlet too! Who in homlet has magic items of value that will help you on your quest to balance out the universe? Gotta kill some good people to make up for all the evil people in the temple you plan to kill.
who to kill The two traders who have been spying for the Temple have some good stuff. I'm playing a neutral good party, and just exsposed them, but Bourne had no swift justice for them. I thought they needed to die or leave town. They were really tough for level 1 party, but worth it in +1 weapons, and chainmail +3, etc. it set me up with enough cash to identify things as I get them.
Keep in mind, killing people in Homlet will earn you the "Butcher of Hommlet" repuation which means everyone in town will attack you and if you haven't been to Nulb yet you can't advance the game any further. There are people in Hommlet you can kill without repurcussions. They are Zert (fighter at the Inn), Kobort and Turuko (Barbarian and Monk at Inn) and the traders. However, if you're looking for maximum loot you shouldn't kill the traders right away. When you discover the traders are up to no good, talk to them before you talk to Burne. If you have the right social skills you can get them to cough up a shortsword+1 to not tell on them. Leave them be for now. Once you've killed Lareth in the moathouse, sell something that is labeled as "Lareth's" (his gold chain, plate boots, breastplate, ring, etc. I normally sell the boots since they're the cheapest item and the traders won't pay full price for anything.) Now go travel overland. Where you go doesn't matter. On the way you'll be waylayed by an assassin. Kill him for a long sword+2 and dagger of venom. Now go back to Hommlet, tell Burne about the traders, then go kill them. I'm not sure how using characters just for the opening of the game and then ditching them doesn't count as cheating, but whatever floats your boat. And killing someone simply for money is evil, not neutral. (That and only the occaisional neutral character is actually concerned with "balance" in the current game. It's more of a generic outlook now.)
Interesting suggestion! Interesting suggestion, though I would have to agree that it is maybe not the truest roleplaying for a neutral character -- though it seems rather appropriate for NE's in a neutral party. What I found odd about it though is the head druid has a lower CR than Jaroo!?! If you are not opposed to using a cheat (superstrong character) you can knock off the lord mayor, the priest of hexor, the elves, or Terjon with the appropriately alligned party. It seems that you get one free kill (other than a trader, Zert, Kobort, or Turuko) before getting the Butcher label, though taking out Terjon is a little risky, as he is useful for raise dead. I think you may be able to finish the game even if you are a Butcher of Hommlet from the start since someone in Hommlet has a map to the moathouse, someone in the moathouse has a map to Nulb, and someone in Nulb has a map to the temple. Nonetheless it still isn't recommended...
I've never seen a map to Nulb. I do recall my evil party finding a map to the moathouse on someone's corpse (Burne's maybe) but by the time I was killing people in Homlett (Hey, I was NE. My main quest was to kill Turjon. Everybody else in town just seemed to have a problem with it.) I had already been to the Temple, so it was a moot point.
I should have been more precise -- the map is actually Lareth's journal (when you click on it it tells you there is a map to Nulb in it and it is marked on your map). I double checked and I think I was wrong about being able to attack the elves at the CG beginning -- the conversation seems to start immediately. That certainly makes sense that the Hommlet folk would have a problem with you attacking Terjon, but I am somehow able to get away with attacking one villager (I have tried this with Terjon, Calmert, or BlackJay), I only get labeled a Butcher (and attacked) after attacking a second one. Did you kill Calmert too (I know it is tempting even if you character is not NE)? Incidentally, it was sort of humorous when I attacked BlackJay -- all his sheep rushed in to avenge him!?!
When I played an evil party, I wiped out all of hommlet, and the only one there who hit me was one of Black Jay's sheep! (On a natural 20, of course).
Yeah, his sheep kick ass. One time when I decided to actually take out the teamster's son in the field, the sheep jumped in in his defense - scored a few dingers too. I never knew sheep were so tough.
Unable to Loot Druid Before Leaving As soon as combat ends, I am sent to Homlet. I attempted to loot the body before being relocated, but it won't seem to work. Any advice?
ohh i killed him by the stairs pretty far away from the alter.... maybe killing him there givves you time to loot? did you instead kill him at the altar?
I tried by the stairs, but that didn't make a difference. Instead, turns out that right after I killed him, I was able to hit C again to restart combat and have someone loot him before I was redirected to Hommlet.
