I have decided to start over for several reasons: 1. 5.8 is out! Happy days 2. I am going to try not to die even once... I will use what I learned. 3. Specialist slots are somewhat bugged. 4. Hommlet broke for me, even on earlier saves, and I was sick of doing console repair (reload, award XP and GP to match what I had when it broke). 5. Not critical, but by banning evocation I excluded the ability to craft good weapons. 6. I should really have gotten improved initiative at level 1. 7. I had it on max HP from racial HD, NPC class levels, and PC class levels... this meant I had a little more HP, but every monster had a lot more. I turned those off... (I really wish there was an "average HP" mod) 8. Swapping the eyeglasses back and forth (while casting fox cunning) is extremely tedious and forces me to spend more time in homlet inn... which causes the game to break. I had made my first mod ever that fixes it by making the glasses work from inventory: http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=8035 http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?p=95096#post95096 So... anyways... starting anew... let the "Tales of Tal Tamir's Lone Elf Wizard" commence. Original thread can be found here: http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=8028
Male elf, average height for an elf (4' 11'), white hair in a braid, voice set "power hungry". Alignment: Neutral Good Stats: STR: 11 Dex: 16 Con: 12 Int: 16 Wis: 8 Cha: 8 Reasons: con and dex are crucial, str prevents me from being encumbered from just carrying my most basic gear. I could have taken str 8 and int 17, which would actually come in handy at level 4... but I have chosen to instead go with a little more str. both dex and con are at 14 +/- racial bonus/penalty. Starting equipment: 200 arrows Longbow White Robe Eyeglasses Scholar's Kit Rat Familiar named "Hath" Starting feat: Improved initiative Starting spells: Color Spray, Grease, Mage Armor, Sleep, Expeditious Retreat. Class skills (maxed): Concentration, Spellcraft Cross Class Skills (all maxed out): Appraise, Tumble, Survival initial prepared spells: SL0: 3x read magic SL1: 2xsleep I will make scrolls ASAP... in town... I am using a brand new clean install with 5.8 on it and my own eyeglasses mod. Last time I had the "max HP per level, Max HP per Class level for NPC, Max HP for racial HD"... this meant that while I got a little more HP, every single monster did too... Enemies should have a lot less health now. Unfortunately, I will also have less health. Especially if I roll poorly on levelup.
well, lets get this show going... scribed 10 scrolls of sleep 5 each of mage armor, summon monster 1, and true strike. Same rule as last time, I don't scribe scrolls I am not high enough level to cast (TOEE allows that). Oh, and on levelup I seem to have rolled a 3 out of 4... so my HP total is now 9. Bought a spyglass, twice the chance to spot a random encounter. I encountered the first of new content... welkwood bog. I will leave it for later. undead are immune to sleep. damnation... my first reload! I slew the frogs with ease, but when I approached the moathouse the scripted surprise round from the very first crossbowman had him score a crit for 12 damage, killing me outright. mmm... maybe if I had bought a scroll of protection from arrows from burne, a bit meta though since that means I expect to be shot by arrows. It seems that the biggest issue I have is to not have anyone score a critical hit against me (despite my defensive buffs, my AC is 17 at level 2 btw)... Also, if my social skills didn't suck so hard I would have completed more fed ex quests and might have left town as level 3. EDIT: ok, 3 more deaths at the same spot... either they got stronger or i am rolling bad... or perhaps the XP modifier got even worse and I am lower level than last time? anyways, I have an idea, I shall scribe scrolls of shield. And use it to complement my defenses. EDIT2: Very odd, I checked their rolls... I now have an AC of 21: 10 base + 3 dex + 4 Mage Armor + 4 shield. Yet the attack rolls against me say vs AC18! I figured it out... its a scripted surprise round, meaning I am flat footed and lose dex to AC bonus. This explains why I was so easy to hit, only AC of 14 with my mage armor alone. I decided to put off the moathouse, I went to deklo grove instead. A quick 1-2 of sleep and slay and both spiders were dead netting 360XP each, followed by 360XP for finishing the quest.. enough to put me into level 3. Also allowing me to purchase a masterwork longbow and getting me jayfie's ring which I could trade for his cloak and sell to fund a few minor magic items. on levelup I selected "craft wonderous items", and the spells fox cunning and cat grace to craft +int and +dex items. +con will come later (3 extra HP right now is not as good as more initiative, AC, and spell DCs I think). I also seem to have rolled a 3 out of 4 again, as my HP is now 13. prepared mirror image and blur, created a scroll of summon monster 2 (I can't afford more), craft headband of int +2 and gloves of dex +2. I am ready to take on the moathouse ambush, I think. well, it was a massacre, I didn't even have to run and come back, while my defenses lasted (1 minute) i put 8 of the 10 to sleep (two didn't trigger, and I left them be), then I coup de graced them. I was hit once by a lucky shot (considering my AC was 23, I had 20% concealment, and 3 mirror images; which laster until they ran out of time)... I earned tons of XP. Since reaching level 4 is a priority (more HP, learn the requisite spell to craft +con items, and be able to craft the allmighty vest of escape) I am limited myself on the crafts right now. I am more generous in using scrolls. I used up 7 castings of sleep during the last battle, at 6XP a and 12gp per scroll it is more then a good bargin (current exchange rate about 5gp per XP... so about 8 to 9 XP per casting; which has a 75% of finishing a being worth 360XP at my level). Just wanted to note how utterly brutal the moathouse ambush actually is, force surprise rounds count for a lot. and without the prior knowledge to cast 1 minute duration buffs before entering the courtyard i die... When I would be done with this guy, I think I will try the same with a cleric and a druid. I sold my gloves of dex +2 and headband of int +2, crafted 3 more of headband and sold them, then crafted a +4 headband... i am out of money and XP (burned about 1000XP on the process) but I am now never going to have to need to cast fox cunning again (cutting down on my trips back and forth), gained another level 1 spell slot (prepare another sleep), and gained a +1 to save DCs...
I have taken the moathouse tower, I loaded up on the defense, even though the spider saved often and I failed due to concentration check (web) it only hit me once, eventually it fell asleep and died... I crafted some more basic gear. I had a random encounter with two bandits... one of them saved against a DC16 sleep with a poor +1 mod to his save 7 times in a row... then i shot him with a bow once for 8 damage and disabled him... afterwards I missed his AC14 6 times in a row before finishing him off (he didn't do anything since he was at 0HP and didn't want to die...) Aside from that, things are progressing well, I load up on defenses in my slots, so if a wasted a cast, no big deal, ill just rest. With only a few attack spells (2 sleeps) and a bunch of scrolls (10 scrolls of sleep plus plenty other scrolls).
@taltamir, just FYI, Welkwood Bog was basically designed to be a substitute for Hommlet fedexing, and it will take an average 5 person level 1 party to level 2. So skipping it in favor of the Moathouse is a bit backwards. That said, the expansion stuff is fairly free-form (no "you MUST do it now and you CANNOT do it later!" moments), so by all means play it in whatever fashion floats your boat.
oh good to know, I Was afraid I'd get slaughtered if I went there... I didn't realize it was targeted at 1st levels. It would be a good place for me to go if its easier then the moat-house. I think its the way it was set up and introduced led me to believe it will be a very high level encounter. Well, things are proceeding well, I am level 4, I burned nearly 10,000 XP on crafting already which, as of right now, means I have: +6 con amulet +6 int headband +4 dex gloves (will upgrade it ASAP) +2 bracers of Armor +1 Cloak of Resistance Vest of Escape. I think I noticed yet ANOTHER issue with web causing it to be even more overpowering... it seems that if someone successfully breaks free, they must immediately make a reflex save or be webbed again. Amulet of con certainly helps in level 4. And welkwood bog is a much more level appropriate set of encounters... this should be done first from now on, very nice. Damn, again I triggered an encounter with 4 giant spiders in perfect formation around me such that it is impossible to move out of the way... and I don't mean impossible without getting AoO, I mean that I click move and it shows me that the way is blocked... I have no idea how they "surround" me in such a manner, but somehow they do. sigh, and I haven't died in such a long time... mmm, you know what. If I was being totally hardcore about it? I could get a single scroll of dimension door! Heck, I could craft it myself since TOEE allows you to do that... i know i said "no crafting higher level scrolls" but its better to do that (or maybe just craft other stuff, sell it to burne, and keep buying those scrolls from him... meh. Anyways, it will be ridiculously expensive. But I avoid death in such a "trap" situation.. no reload, no cheating. Just a ridiculously expensive consumable (700gp before markup). Alright, done... it cost me ~860 to buy the scroll, I copied it to spellbook, then scribed one for 28XP and 350GP. My current profit @ appriase 11 on crafting is 11.5GP per XP point spent... so total XP cost per cast is 58.4XP Not bad at all actually for a 4th level spell. And I can certainly do a lot with it. well great... for the first time I am surrounded by dire rats (6 of them) and I have discovered something interesting about Dimension Door... you cannot use it to teleport anywhere in the fog of war... this means I can only teleport a distance shorter then my move range! ARRRG! but thats ok, just get out of the kill zone... oh great... It turns out dimension door is also a full round action... so I could only take a 5 foot step after using it! it worked! 240XP for killing them - 58XP for casting dimension door... totally worth it. plus I survived what before was a "reload" moment. Very impressive. it helped that the place I teleported to was a narrow bridge. BTW, monsters are a lot easier to kill now that they have normal HP instead of max HP per HD.
I have encountered giant crayfish a few times, they hit like a truck, have tons of HP and AC, and too many HD to be affected by sleep... solution? fiendish medium spider from summon monster 2. (and web of course) One or two spiders thus summoned will drain their STR via poison (1d4 str damage initial, 1d4 str damage secondary) and paralyze them... once paralyzed I can just walk up to them and coup de grace them. They are also worth lots of XP... it is just important not to be cocky, you could easily die from those things if you are not careful. Alright, I got my +6 dex gloves by now, I also converted a bunch of XP to GP and used it to buy all the spells I didn't already have from burne... this includes higher level ups, so I now have a bunch of 3rd, 4th and 5th level spells I can't cast yet. Alright, I have made a complete list of spells burne offers for sale. Please note that I intentionally ignored his stock when choosing spells on first level (to do otherwise would be cheating ), after you reach hommlet you can just ask him what spells he sells regularly and make a list (in game, in character, in theory... you can't really, I made one though) http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?p=95111#post95111 So, anyways... converted some XP to GP and bought and copied to my spellbook every single one of them. interesting... I learned some things: 1. One scroll of dimension door might not be enough (thanks to the damn crappy range! 2. You can just get surrounded again by some enemies... namely, the giant lizards I dimensioned door to the bridge, and they each double moved and surrounded me again and I couldn't move. Quite a conundrum... I think I should teleport near the doorway so I could "flee battle" if that happens. Alternatively, start off with a web THEN dimension door out of the way. The web will reduce their attack capability so I will probably survive one round in the center. PS. Scrolls do NOT trigger AoO when used.
interesting... remember that scroll of sleep uses the DC the same as if I cast it from my spell slots? well, magic missile scroll adds missiles as if I used my own slot. So at level 4 I am doing 2 missiles. That is so not how PnP works... This, btw, makes magic missile scrolls useful. Scrolls are just amazing in TOEE. I came up with a new strategy! instead of just using summon monster 2 to get fiendish medium spiders to do STR damage to things (which is great against some things, but terrible against some monsters which insta gib them, at reach), I will make some scrolls of ray of enfeeblement. I should be able to directly target those stronger opponents with those rays (and use a true strike scroll if needed) to ensure they are trapped in the web, or even paralyzed (and thus coup de graceable) oh wow, turns out cover exists in TOEE, I was shooting at something from the other side of a wall and it counted as cover and added +4 to their AC, i moved a bit to the side and the cover AC bonus was gone. zombies are annoying... immune to ability damage, immune to sleep, DR 5 against piercing weapons... ugh... scrolls of magic missile are definitely the way here (using scrolls of summon monster is too expensive for them). I finally thought to keybind the craft scroll button, I set it to B... it remembers the last scroll selected as long as you don't open any other crafting window (aka, if I open craft wonderous items window it forgots the last scroll selected) So I can rapidly scribe scrolls by hitting B, then left clicking create, rinse and repeat... I have made so many scrolls I lost count, hundreds... here is my current inventory: It is finally time, I am ready to reach level 5! No more crafting until level 5. wee. (well, and not much craft for the next few levels after that, since most of the really expensive stuff I already got) Damnation! I did not notice before but ray of enfeeblement cannot reduce STR below 1... well at least in PnP... I went ahead and tested it and in TOEE it can reduce it indefinitely, even to negatives! However, it cannot paralyze anyone. Spider poison on heavily enfeebled giant snake had it get the "paralyzed" tag for a round. I tested it via friendly fire. Magic missile scrolls are proving very useful against certain types of opponents.
Ding, Level 5. I was difficult to choose spells... but I ended up choosing deep slumber (sleep of up to 10HD) and Clairaudience/Clairvoyance. By seeing where things are ahead of time, I can avoid painful death. Unfortunately, even though I can "see" everything around me, dimension door does NOT want to operate beyond my characters actual "line of sight" (which is tiny)... this is very unfortunate. I rolled a 2 out of 4 on this level's HP. The ogre was an easy kill with deep slumber... slumber and slay. Finished off the zombies using 16 scrolls of magic missile (giving 2 missiles each) Interesting, scrolls don't use your current attributes and caster level, they use your attribute and caster level at the time of their crafting... the problem is with stacking. If I have a CL4 magic missile scroll (2 missiles) and I craft a new one whilst being level 5, it will make another scroll that only gives 2 magic missiles, If I drop my current scrolls and then craft, it will give me a scroll that casts 3 missiles, and if I then pick up the scrolls on the ground, well, they all now give 3 missiles. Dropping my magic missile scrolls, then crafting a new one, then picking the old ones up resulted in my quick key for magic missile scrolls (the slash '/' button) no longer working to call one up... weird. I would have kept the CL4 and CL5 scrolls separate but they are forcibly stacked... and I Could just go to town, sell them (at a profit btw), and then craft myself a new batch of CL5 scrolls.. they only cost 2XP (1XP + 12GP which is 1XP as well) reached level 6, learned haste and heroism, took the feat "school focus (Conjuration)" so that I might take augment summoning at level 9. I rolled 2 out of 4 on my HP this level. (good thing I have con boosters though, total current HP is 39) Upgraded my longbow from +1 to +2, my bracers of armor from +2 to +3, my cloak of resistance from +1 to +2. All which were I have done as soon as I leveled. Thus I am again limited by my level in terms of crafting (aka, everything is maxed out). I decided to go ahead and craft 2 +6 items and sell them for cash. (aka, convert 2880XP to GP)... I was thinking of maybe mining some random encounters and building up a wealth of 100k GP while stalling at level6, it is hard to decide whether I should or shouldn't though. I would have to waste 10,000XP to do so, and delaying levelup is risky. I had a random encounter of a will-o-wisp... those are frightening, they do electric damage, immune to web, do LOTS of damage, and have a to hit of +16. But I found out they are not racially immune to sleep... so great slumber is a surefire way to take them out. Inventory space is becoming a major issue. I had to get rid of some scroll types. I put others in the extraplanar chest, I also put my scholar's kit there. I will take it out only when I am trying to copy a scroll. I ended up converting about 8000XP to GP... so now I have about 80k gp in cash. I then continued to hunt random encounter (by sleeping at the moathouse). with a scroll of teleport ready in case I must escape, and other scrolls too (as usual). Finally reached level 7. I took solid fog and summon monster 4. I rolled 2 out of 4 on HP putting me at a total of 45. Average HP for my level and attributes is 45.5 so I am spot on. I changed my level 1 spells from: 4x sleep, mage armor, shield to: 5x magic missile, shield. Mage armor currently only gives me 1AC (because I have bracers of armor). And 4d4+4 damage (always hits) vs monsters under 4HD seems more appropriate now, I am still packing sleep and magic missile scrolls of course. (10 and 30 respectively) I thought better of it and I now use mage armor again... +1 to AC is better than a fifth daily cast of magic missile... I still have my 30 scrolls if I do run out, and its only 12gp and 1XP per scroll I reached level 8... After fighter larath's men (but not larath himself) I went out of the moathouse for a rest, encountered some trolls, and killed them with deep slumber / coup de grace. had to use scrolls of it. I also encountered a bunch of random monsters while trying to rest inside the moathouse, never could, always encountered something. Since my int increased again, I now have an extra skill point on levelup, I am starting up on diplomacy. Rolled a 2 again on HP, I am now at 51HP. killed larath, left the moathouse. encountered the ambush by zert and turoko... amusingly they referred to my "group" and "associates" even though I am playing by myself.
I decided to get a composite longbow (STR12) in preparation for when I get an ioun stone of +2 str. I would take the -2 to attack until then, and sell my current longbow. The reason for this is that I am going to enchant it with frost and lightening and its getting rather expensive. I don't want to sink all that money and XP into it now only to have to sell it and get another one later. Plus you get pretty poor XP after level 10 and I don't want to waste it. Alright, I now got a Composite Longbow (STR12) +2 with Frost and Shock enhancements... now onwards, to hickory branch Woot, level 9. Summon monster V and Dominate Person. I rolled a 1 out of 4 for HP... total HP 56. I chose augment summoning for my feat. Reached level 10. For a feat I took Quicken Spell. For spells I took mordenkeinen faithful hound and eagle splendor (level 2 spell, for crafting). Rolled 3 out of 4 on HP, so I am now at 63. Crafted Cloak of Resistance +3, bracers of armor +5, ioun stones: +STR, +WIS, +CHA, +Deflection, circlet of persuasion, cloak of charisma +6. And upgraded by bow with icy burst and +3.
