There is always a tinge of sadness when it comes to farewells, and this particular farewell was no different. Mazzy Fentan had been a good friend and a steady archer for the party. Saying goodbye to her was not easy.

"Are you certain you no longer require my services? I will be more than willing to accompany you on your journey to the Elven city."

"I would love to, Mazzy, but you have your own family," Rena said, "I do not wish to separate you from them any more than it is necessary."

"Kelsey seems to be stuck in your party. Does he not have his own family as well?"

"Well... the thing is... *cough* Imoen and him are... that is to say..."

Mazzy's mouth gaped wide open. A remarkable feat for a Halfling of her stature.

"Surely you tease me!", Mazzy exclaimed excitedly, then in a conspiring whisper, "Since when?"

"Probably after I clobbered him with his own staff for kissing me without my permission. Imoen took pity on him then, and... and... urgh, I don't really want to think too much about it. The sugary sweetness sickens me."

Mazzy chortled, "Looks like you have bigger problems on your hands than some wayward psycho."

"Urgh. Tell me about it."

~~~~ ~~~~

To be continued...

~~~~ ~~~~

Mazzy was the last NPC I took into the party, but she was by far the best one. Her rapidfire Hell of arrows turned many battles into a game of "Who can kill the enemy before Mazzy?".

Especially when she was Improved Hasted. Hoo-boy.

Since I had three sets of Red Dragon Scales, I could well afford to give Mazzy the entire Dragon Armour Set. She looks mighty fine in them. [img]smile.gif[/img]

It may seem excessive to give her all those arrows, but the fact of the matter is... I have too many arrows now. My ammunition usage is far, far below my aquisition of them.

I still have 5100+ Paralytic Bolts, to give one example... I have since thrown away all my Arrows +1, because I have too many Arrows +2. Well... actually... I threw away all my Arrows +2 as well, because I have too many Arrows +3. Imoen herself is exclusively using Arrows of Piercing, because I have over 800+ of them.

It is crazy! Maybe I should not have used Pickpocket so much. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

In any case, back to Mazzy. I have also given Mazzy the Tuigan Bow and the Bow of Tansheron. Nono... I have not gone stark raving mad. The fact of the matter is, Imoen is the only person in the entire party using Short Bows, and she already has the Short Bow of Gesen.

Rena and the ToB NPC are using Crossbows. Minsc is using Long Bows. Jaheira and Kelsey are using Slings. Kelsey also uses Darts. So... yeah.

So with all the SoA NPCs settled, here is the group shot of them in Maheer's Inn. ;) Can you find Rena? Can you identify all the NPCs?

For those wondering, Yoshimo's katana, waikashi, and journal are in one of the bookshelves. It was fun gathering all of them into the Inn. It helps that the Inn had the pleasant Inn music for that jovial mood.

Getting Mazzy to stay in the Inn was problematic. If you remove Mazzy from the party, she will insist on going back to her home in Tradesmeet. This cannot be allowed of course.

Problem was solved by making Mazzy petrify herself with a Cursed Scroll of Petrification. After petrifying her, use a scroll of Stone to Flesh, and viola! Instant neutral Mazzy.

Also, would people prefer if I continue the ToB stuff in this thread, or would you prefer I continue over at the ToB Forum?

Cheers.

well - if you decide to merge the forums . . .

;)

excellent work btw

Indeed!

</font>[/QUOTE]I agree 100% Dundee.It is IMO the most unbalanced part of the Tactics mod.
Here are some of their abilities (again CTRL+A to read):


<span style="color:#564006">


The improved Fire Giant is a 20-level Berserker who :

- has 22 STR and 190 HPs
- is permanently improved hasted with 7 attacks/round !
- has permanent Fireshield red
- has the highest regeneration rate in the game which,combined with the imp.haste,make him regenerate : 10 HPs/second or 60 HPs/round !!!

- each hit :
a) does +60 damage/hit on insane
b) casts lower fire resistance on target
c) has a high chance of casting randomly: fireball,firestorm or summon a greater fire elemental on target

- each time you hit him,again lower fire resistance is cast on your PC

Moreover the Improved Battles mod give to the F.Giants,but only to those inside Yaga-Shura's lair,these additional abilities (that unfortunately stack with those of the Tactics mod) :
- 110 MR (magic resistance)
- the ability to insta-cast every few rounds: Stoneskin + mantle + prot.from the elements all at once

Simply ridiculous...

But there is a way to beat them even with a solo fighter.The trick is to save vs. their Lower Fire resistance.
It can be done with :

a) 2-3 potions of Invulnerability (or those of Stone Form for the non-fighters).Their effect is cumulative.
b) A potion of Magic Shielding for automatic s.throws.

Then with 127% Fire Resistance,all that insane ammount of Fire damage will heal your character.Also the FoA with its Slow effect will cut at half their regeneration rate ;) . But a fighter will still need many GWW attacks to kill them.

I remember that my fighter's HPs in that battle went up and down like crazy.He was taking a lot of dmg from the giants' hits, but in a few seconds he could return in full health from the fire-storms/balls/shields of the giants.
And now that I am thinking of it, someone could also use Dundee's tactic of the chain reaction for additional healing.A fighter can have fireshields from the Staff of Fire.

so it's doable? Go for it Dundee. You wouldn't want to finish the game with the knowledge that one part of it you couldn't complete.

Improved Ilyich is doable too, but that does not mean it is... enjoyable( to me at least). I install mods to increase the difficulty of my game, yes, that much is true; but I do not install mods that will ruin my enjoyment of the game.

If someone made a mod where suddenly everybody and their grandmothers were level 40 monstrosities capable of beating Lesser Demon Lords on their own, and were immuned to all weaponary except those of +3 and above, it would STILL be possible to beat the game, but good grief, the sheer annoyance of trying to complete it.

ZFR, I have already completed every aspect of the game multiple times over. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Mods are strictly not an official part of the game.

In short, this mod component joins my deemed-to-be trash heap of other mod components such as Valen, Multiclass Grandmastery, etc...

Bloody waste of my time.

Indeed. I have no problem with mods that ramp the difficulty up so that enemies are actually credible opponents (Mages not waiting until after they've been Backstabbed to cast Stoneskin is a good move), but abominations like Improved Faldorn are just disgusting.

Say, Dundee, ever tried installing Shadow Thief Improvements and siding with Bodhi? [img]graemlins/littleangel.gif[/img]

As much as I would like to give it a fair review, I have yet to hear a single positive review for it, which makes me very wary of it. Sometimes I wonder how some modders test their mods for balance.

"A Dragon?"

"Yes, a Dragon. I understand that I ask a lot from you, but the Goblet is very impo-"

"Oh, nono, please do not misunderstand me, Sister Dermin. I am actually GLAD it's a Dragon."

"I beg your pardon?"

Such was the conversation between Priestess Dermin and Rena Ryuuguu. Jaheira could only rest her forehead on her fingertips as she shook her head from side to side slowly.

"Oh it's nothing, Sister Dermin. Just something our party know about. It's a bit hard to explain really."

"No it's not," Jaheira thought to herself, "It's very simple actually. Dragons go stark raving stupid when they see Rena. That's all there is to it. Rena in my sights? Watch my intelligence drop like a rock."

"She's the Mind-Flayer of Dragons," Jaheira whispered, to nobody in particular.

~~~~ ~~~~

Several minutes later... in an open glade.

"So... what say you?"

"You have found not the Goblet but death!"

"Oh darn. I was kinda hoping that you would be smarter than this. You know... surprise me a bit. I guess this is the part where I start running for my life like a chicken and you blindly chase after me even if the rest of my party are happily whacking away after you?"

"Uh..."

"Oh whoosh. Looks like your intelligence drop just kicked in. Don't mind me, I am just going to stealth and walk out of your visual range."

"Damn, where are they?"

"Wow! You actually said, "they"! But of course I know you actually meant to say, "she", but what are a few semantics eh?"

"Damn, where are they?"

"I dunno if you are actually genuinely interested in my party's location, but just for your information and the sake of our amusement, they are standing right over there. Yes, there. At the staircase leading out of this glade. Not that it matters though, since it's me that you will want. It's me that you will attack. Imoen could probably play see-saw Margery Daw on your tail and you wouldn't take notice of it."

Imoen laughed, "Now I remember why travelling with you was always so much fun."

"Damn, where are they?"

"Oh blast it all. HERE! I'm here! You overgrown piece of vegetable! And calling you a vegetable is an INSULT to all vegetables!"

"Rena Ryuuguu! Prepare to die!", Nizidramanii'yt the Black Dragon roared, as it shot its' breath attack at Rena.

"Nizi, your name's Nizi right? I hate to tell you this, but... I'm immuned to your breath attack."

"Die!"

"Sigh..."

The chase was on. Nizi had casted an Insect Plague at Rena, and Rena took pains to avoid it. She ran around the glade in circles, causing the plague of insects to be confused and remain rooted in the center of the glade.

She ran past Kelsey, who was still just standing there. "Not going to bother," he said, "To give it, you know... a chance."

Not for long though, because Kelsey was soon caught in one of Nizi's wing-buffet. "Okay," he muttered as he got back up, "Now I'm sufficiently motivated enough to do something."

Kelsey casted a Lower Resistance spell, and Imoen casted a Greater Malison spell. After a few moments, Kelsey attempted to end the fight with a scroll of Finger of Death, but Nizi survived the attempt.

Rena continued running. It was the same story all over again. She could probably make a living just by being a Dragonslayer. Legions of Dragons shall tremble before her curse of Dragon Stupidity.

Running past Imoen, she heard Imoen shout out to her, "Say Rena! Do you think it is possible to make Nizi any dumber?"

"Frankly I would be astounded if that was possible, why?"

"Just wondering..."

Imoen rummaged through her scrollcase and took out a scroll of Feeblemind. "Gogo, Feeblemind!", Imoen chirped as she casted from the scroll.

The spell struck Nizi, and the Dragon suddenly stopped in its' tracks.

"It worked!", Imoen shouted, "It actually worked!"

"Hello?", Kelsey asked as he waved his staff in front of Nizi, "Anybody home?"

Nizi made no reply and started drooling out of its' toothy mouth.

Rena sighed, and in that moment of stillness, the Insect Plague finally struck her.

"Argh! Rena!", Jaheira yelled as the insects started spreading.

"Whaaaat?", Rena replied non-chalantly, ignoring the biting insects around her, "It's not as though we need to cast any spells now..."

"Even so, it hurts!"

"Oh please, Jaheira. Take this as a form of challenge for fighting a Dragon. Oooo! We suffered insect bites from slaying a Black Dragon! What a terrible tragedy! Such unimaginable consequences! The pain! The horror! The... 'CHALLENGE'!", Rena said, using her fingers to make quotation marks when she said 'CHALLENGE'.

"It's not so bad, Jaheira," Imoen cheerfully chipped in. She was the only other one affected by the Insect Plague, "In fact, it kinda tickles after a while. *laughs* " Sipping from a Potion of Healing, Imoen stared at the drooling Nizi.

"So... what do we do now?"

"We bring it down and search for the Goblet," Rena answered.

"We're not going to play with it first?"

"Heck no. We can play with more Dragons after we get back my soul," Rena said as she searched for something in her pockets, "Ah, there we go." It was a scroll of Finger of Death. Casting from the scroll, the spell reached Nizi and this time, Nizi failed to avoid its' effects.

Kelsey pondered to himself out loud, "I do not know whether we should be glad that all our battles with Dragons are so anti-climatic, or should we be disappointed?"

"That depends on your objective, I guess," Rena replied, "Me? I'm just happy that up till now, all the Dragons have been walking bags of loot'r'us."

Imoen laughed. "I want to kill a Dragon too!"

~~~~ ~~~~

To be continued...

[ 06-16-2006, 06:07 AM: Message edited by: Dundee Slaytern ]

Battle Report for Nizidramanii'yt:
---- ---- ---- ----

The events in the above tale happened more or less exactly as it did in the actual gameplay. Rena was the ONLY character I manually controlled. I left the rest of the party to the devices of their AI Scripts( which was why Kelsey initially did nothing, because he was invisible( his script has since been modified)).

I did not pre-buff.
I did not pre-summon.
I did not lay traps.

In the spirit of story-making, I just entered the glade, and made Rena walk over to Nizi to kickstart the conversation. Given the behaviour of ''Smarter' Dragons', the outcome of the fight was already a foregone conclusion.

I am now seriously debating whether to uninstall this mod component after I finish Rena's run through the game. As I have already demostrated, it should really be renamed, 'Dumber Dragons'.

On one hand... it makes for hilarious stories. On the other hand... it makes a mockery out of fighting Dragons.

~~~~ ~~~~

Coming up next! How to kill "Tree of Life JIrenicus" with one hit! Reasons why the Wand of Monster Summoning is good against Improved JIrenicus! Backstabbed Enslaved Genies and more! In the next installment of Rena's "I can't believe this is happening" Journey!

Cheers. ;)