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

I was kind of hoping I could get an answer to this. Is Hextor's symbol there? It is pretty close but I'm not sure if its an exact match so I realize that maybe it is just a coincedence.

 

Thanks for the information. You are right - Lareth never initiates dialogue with your party when your party enters his room.

Thank you for that valuable information. In my runthrough of 5.9.1 NC, I was just lucky that I encountered the hill giant when he was quite a distance away from the brown bear.

Somebody reported recently that their healer was able to cast healing spells at a greater range than touch. Well, my cleric has to move over to touching distance when casting healing spells on most occasions. But he was casting healing spells at LONG distances away from his targets when I fought the hill giant at Emridy Meadows. My cleric was about 20 feet north of the hill giant, and yet my cleric was able to cast Cure ..... Wounds spells at a target on the other side of the hill giant!

The Ivory Chest in the tower outside the moathouse keeps relocking whenever the party leaves the map.

While playing 5.9.1 NC, when I exited the Church of St. Cuthbert, I heard a weird sound effect or music that lasted for a few seconds that I have never heard before or since! (i.e. it only happened once). The screen was black for an unusually long time during the transition to the Hommlet map as a result of the sound/music. It was as if the game was trying to play a video cutscene but the video wasn't playing correctly.

The new A.I of the Ogre Shaman at Hickory Branch is excellent. When I fought him, the spells that I identified that he cast included Bane, Bless, and Sound Burst. The Sound Burst spell was very effective (it stunned 2 of my characters). I've always had a problem with the D&D monsters "Ogre Mage" and "Ogre Shaman" - to me, it seems totally illogical that a monster that big and strong would cast spells instead of smashing foes with mighty blows wielding a greatclub. My only criticism of the A.I. of the Hickory Branch Ogre Shaman is that I wish that he would switch to melee attacks once the enemy has gotten within melee range of him. But he's your creation, so it's up to you how you want him to behave. My second run through of Hickory Branch is so much easier than my first - I've found all of the combats that I've fought outside so far extremely easy (my party hardly loses any HP, except for the Ogres who hit hard!) except for the Orc Trainer and his Dire Wolves (which has always been a challenging combat for me).

 

Wouldn't Hedrack craft wands of Heroes Feast and give one to each temple? Or does the temple have a trade agreement with someone in Hommlett for supplies? What would they eat? They couldn't cannibalize their own troops to feed everyone, there wouldn't be anyone left. I don't think they would eat human food. Maybe the temple has a garden out back? I don't think Zuggtmoy would appreciate everyone eating mushrooms. There has to be a huge source of meat somewhere. Temple stockyards with an aggressive breeding program! Hundreds of unicorns penned up and fed and slaughtered daily.

 

So would Hedrack and Co use virgin slaves to be the herders of those Unicorns or would it be the sacrificial victims to the Fungus Fanny use last duty would be to feed those ravaging beasties?

 

Thanks. Obviously I haven't played a LE party before. :icon_chuc I just have can't stand to use the law for evil ends. I'm just proud that I figured it out (but being from the vignette I suppose dimishes that a bit).

 

Two words: troll legs.

 

Gaear, would you mind posting the 5.9.2 files for the Viscount? I'd like to give it a once-over.

 

Playing LE in 5.9.1 (sorry if I'm spoiling too much)

1. The new & improved slavers encounter is great. Played through it several times trying diffferent things. One way, I recieved dialog and the encounter was very similar to 5.9.0. The main difference was only one undead appeared to break the "charisma spell" (or whatever it is) and return my free will. 2 of blue bikini girl's gigalos still went over to fight it instead of the party though. I did notice one new prebuff for girlie, her cleric and her main squeeze... Pentagrams and such. Another way, I encountered no dialog screen at all, just some banter and standing around until I initiated melee. "If that's the way you want it..." (banter balloon) Nice touch! There is a far enough point at which they don't dectect prebuffs, but it's far enough away that the short term ones run out before you get there. In my case, the same person died either way most of the time (she saved a couple of times in combat). I played this thing through about 8 times with a party of 5 at level 12. If I hadn't bought Mother Screng's Staff of Life, I would probably have lost this encounter more than I won it. As it was I got the skeleton with a sword through his chest movie twice.

When I think of new and challenging content, this is exactly it.

Note: The Constable Captain in Verb. still gives dialog like you brought the kids back the next time you encounter him, even if they all died. The game did not insta-teleport me back like it does when they live though. I forgot that Order's Wrath would effect them as well as the bad guys.

2. Overall the Verb Guards responded better. Here's what specifically happened to me in Framework for Murder. I finally managed to get a guard alone. Dead in one round, but it activated combat with one (not two) citizen around the corner. Killed him, too. I'm cruising along, walking around by other guards and citizens, whistling like I'm innocent and have done nothing wrong until I go to the world map and return to the Verb square to use the signpost. The two guards at the entrance give me dialog choices of attack or surrender. I attacked, they went down. The you killed guards rep activates in my logbook. I go about my business, rest for 2 days, visit Darlia, rest for 2 more days, see a vendor or two, etc. When I go back to the square, two new guards are in the square itself (no longer by the door to the palace). They are benign as well. I have a "Hey y'all, watch this!" moment (translation for those who don't live in the southeastern US, "Let's try something really stupid."). I go into the constable heatquarters, nothing. I go downstairs and here comes the lawyer. I'm feeling 10 feet tall, magic missle proof and have suddenly grown large adamantium testicles. Well, if there were any men in the party they would have felt that way after surviving the slavers. Anyway, I tell the lawyer, sure, go ahead, execute me. You can't kill me. Well... Hmm. If I used hotkeys, I might have gotten out of it. There's one dialog choice that causes a break before starting up again. I managed to get the radial menu up over a witness and was moving the highlight toward single attack when the dialog kicked back in. Maybe I'll go back and try just pressing "C". Not all dialog choices give you that break though. Nice effects. Anyway, I hit power relaod, went back down there (even though I had no real reason to), and paid the man, it umm, got much smoother after that. Reps in the logbook cleared, etc.
I never got the choice to attack or surrender after that one time when I was confronted by the guards at the palace entrance. Not sure if that's right. I did notice that Darlia wouldn't give me the Removing Wilfrick quest until I cleared my rep. I think. I came back in "a couple of days" several times (at least 5 days had passed), but he didn't give the quest until after my rep cleared. That part actually feels right.

3. After much deliberation, my party voted and decided the world would be a better place if Lerrick was running Verbonc instead of Wilfrick, so they took the Removing Wilfrick quest. They were almost at level 14 (one experience point away) after the slavers, so a level 14 party faced Wilfrick's square (except for my recently resurrected tank still at L12). Nothing changed about the encounter that I could see. My opinion? As is, it is a 8th to 10th level encounter. I still say they should be prebuffed a lot better since they are already in a fight with the Scarlett Brotherhood when the party shows up. Add twin archers (ftr/rogue, min ftr level for wep spec, the rest rogue for sneak attack) with point blank, manyshot, precise shot, longbow wep foc, longbow wep spec plus greater invisibility (when the party comes in range), cat's grace and bull strength. Give them composite LBs and Bracers of Archery. Just sayin. Make those low AC PC mages hunt a hole. Or a sphere. Or something. Apologies, I know I'm repeating myself. I blame my grown and gone kids. That's where I picked up the habit.

4. I managed to finish the entire Under Surveilance thing. I think. I did finally get a dialog choice to confront Darlia and have him admit it (In an earlier dialog he kind of denied it). He wouldn't admit if it was him, or if he was hired to do it though. Se la vie.
Side note: I can't help but feel I'm missing something with Lerrick. I simply cannot ever get him to respond with anything other than neo-political babble after the first time I talk to him. I'm trying to use the "who cares about gnomes" responses, too. IDK, maybe he's just doing the plausible deniability thing. I supported his ascent to power. He should respond. Weaksauce. Makes me want to take him to the Moathouse torture chamber and have an "inquisition" with him until he comes clean. Mealy mouthed son of a.. ah well, I guess it's a frog and scorpion thing (his nature - politician).

5. While I was having my "Hey, y'all, watch this." moment, I decided to cast Dominate Person on Holly. Not a good idea. She shows as in the party and under the effects of the spell until you change maps. Then she immediately leaves the party and yells out "Criminals!". When you hover over her with the mouse, she shows as still under the effects of the spell, but she attacks the party anyway. I finished the fight she started, re-dominated her before I had to kill her and she dialogs what seems to be the completion of her drow in the tunnels thing. She did that on every map change. I'll probably never activate that one becuase I've always treated the drow tunnels as a suicide run with preps of scribing and crafting to finish what I started. Just habit I guess because the vanilla pathing from the tutorial was so bad it was a PITA to move the party around. It was designed for 1-2 PCs originally, not 4-8. It's not that way anymore, don't know if someone fixed it (kudos if so) or if my new laptop's better processor is the reason. I'm still going straight through those tunnels without stopping.

6. Checked out Necro's Hero Tower Sheild thing. Weirdness ensued. Different than his, but still weird. I consoled in a MW Metal Tower sheild, Ted's old Curved Heater and a standard +1 sheild. I already had the Hero's sheld. I could not use any of these sheilds with a two handed weapon no matter what I tried, however I could activate them with a two weapon fighter and two weapon rogue. If the sheild slot was empty, the sheilds would not go in, but if a buckler was already in place, the sheild would swap into the buckler's slot by using right click. It worked for all the sheilds listed above. They behaved normally in combat with one exception. No penalties for anyone with sheild proficiency. The off hand -1 penalty for using a buckler two handed or two weapon did not show up in the PC "hits" NPC section on the second and fourth off hand attacks. It did show up for the buckler when it was in there instead. This is not the first time I've seen this. I'm thinking the first time I saw it was 5.5 or earlier. It's not something I would normally do anyway because of the armor check penalties. I like to travel light with 30' movement and craft AC into an acceptable range for the party.

7. As I said, LE party. I don't know if this one is a 5.9 issue either. I have had a persistent ctd when trying to enter the Welcome Wench at night since I killed Lareth and exited the Moathouse. No welcoming party on leaving the Moathouse, pretty sure that's the way it's supposed to be. From that point on, I can go into the Inn during the day, rest for days if I want because the characters inside don't change until I change maps, correct? If I try to enter during the night, it takes awhile trying to load (normal for my game since so much is added there now) and it shows a flash of the inside before it crashes. The best I can tell, everyone is there except Toruko, Zert and his big friend. If I'm inside during the day or have rested until night with no map change, when I try to go upstairs, it also crashes. I even tried the sandalwood box to "Just take me home." Didn't work. I couldn't get to the last criminal. . The only thing I have not done that I can think of is take Fragratch to the not-Hextor preist in Verb. He used to accept the sword without Toruko present back when he was a not-not Hextor preist. I don't think that will work either though. I can't remember when, but I think someone else had this issue at least once. First occurance for me.

8. Speaking of the Criminals (not me!), the first 2 turned on me in a wilderness encounter between Nulb and Hommett. Again, same as 5.9.0. The encounter initiated without an "avoid" choice both times. I would not have been able to get all three together in one place even if I didn't have issues with the Hommett Inn. No Ranger, Druid or Barbarian, but I did have a fighter and cleric maxed on survival. It was in the 6-7 range at the time.

 

Hi Gaear
I assume that the "Hextor Priests Pretending to be Priests of Pelor" scenario hasn't been fully fleshed out? The reason I am asking is that:
A.) My Cleric of Heironeous didn't have a dialogue option of "If you are Priests of Pelor, why do you have symbols of Hextor on the walls ?". Seeing as Heironeous and Hextor are enemies, a Cleric of Heironeous should know what the symbol of Hextor looks like.
B.) There is no dialogue option to ask the REAL Priests of Pelor what is going on in their former temple (or for that matter, how it was destroyed in the first place).
I also have a bug to report. I took the "Frozen Assets" quest and cleaned out the Gnome Tunnels and killed the dragons. When I reported to Wilfrick I first told him that the Gnomes were correct about the Drow in the tunnels. I then reported that I had killed all the Drow in the tunnels. He then replied "So the Gnomes were telling the truth after all......." .
One of my dialogue options was "I've been ordered to kill you" even though I had not spoken with Darlia, and the advisor wouldn't give me the time of day the one time I spoke with him.
The Royal Canadian

 

Optimistic today, are we? That's good. Hope is a good thing. oke:

 

Really? Haven't encountered that. I don't see anything in the scripting that should do this either.

It could be nice to have it, though.
Say, raise a flag if the dialogue sequence fires off as intended.
In Tarah's san_enter_combat script, add a check for the flag. If the flag is 0, raise an appropriate float. Or even better, do the "child teleport" thing.

Also, another bug I found - LE (or CN for that matter) parties who haven't spoken to Kent will have the dialogue sequence cut off when Tarah orders you to kill the child. That's because the LE/CN followup dialogue node checks for flag 801 for some reason. If the flag is not set, you just get to say "goodbye" and the sequence ends, letting you attack as usual.

Another thing, I think Death Ward doesn't actually work.

Lastly, a comment about the encounter's difficulty:
With all the new spell casting in the game, there is finally good reason to memorize / learn anti-spellcaster spells. Like Silence, and Feeblemind, for instance. What can I say, it's not that hard when Tarah can't cast spells But kudos for forcing the player to make that effort.


Regarding the Viscount encounter, I enjoyed that too, even though it wasn't that hard either. They may have major rings of fire resistance, but they got nothing against Cone of Cold. Or Cloudkill, for that matter.

But I suppose it's inherent to high level D&D. You have to worry about all sorts of buff / debilitate scenarios. I guess that's what demons with 400 HP and resistances to most of everything are meant for.