Inspired by wally p's first post here on IW, I'm attempting to walk a lone Priest of Helm all the way from the dirty steelbarred cage to godhood ascension. Will update this thread as I go along.
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Settings
Insane Difficulty
Tactics mod installed
Ascension mod installed
Oversight mod installed
To those not familiar with the Priest of Helm, it is essentially a pure cleric with two nice features:
- He may cast True Sight once per day per 5 levels.
- He may use the Seeking Sword ability once per day per 10 levels.
Now, True Sight needs no further explaination, but the Seeking Sword is a more intriguing ability. When used, a +4 enchanted Long Sword with +4 THAC0, +2 ApR, and 2D4 damage will occupy your main-hand for a duration of 1 round/level, during which you cannot cast any spells. The meager damage and lack of an elemental component aside, the +2 ApR bonus of the Seeking Sword is enough to make the Priest of Helm a more powerful melee fighter than what most other classes could be on their own accord.
With the premise out of the way, on with the game:
The dice flew for a good five minutes before the lawful good elven cleric Thomas rolled an unusual 94, which were distributed as below:
STR 18
DEX 18
CON 17
INT 12
WIS 18
CHA 11
CON needed to be at 17 instead of 16 so I could use DUHM to regenerate life en masse when resting at lvl 9 instead of at lvl 12, and there's really no reason to raise DEX above 18 since I intend to visit level 4 of WK before the Nine Hells. Race being elven is entirely for the +1 THAC0/Dmg bonus they enjoy with the Long Sword, which is what the Seeking Sword is classified as. Besides, they look less like marshmallow men and more like athletic warriors than humans.
So Irenicus had his bit of monologue, and a few flashes later, Imoen came to rescue me.
"No Imoen, whatever's out there is looking for me, and ME alone. You'll all be safer if you let me go alone and clear the way for you."
Short story:
Beat it Imoen
I let her fix those gizmos behind the painting first though...
Armed with a plain War Hammer and aided by DUHM I slowly wittled down the summoned Ogre Mage with not-so quick Hit'n'Run charges. 1 attack per round and a speed factor of 7 makes this sort of impossible, but he went down anyway, after I had used every single potion and healing spell available to me. A rest followed, and now with access to Sanctuary, I chose to just walk through the first half of the first level, stopping only to, for the first time, use the Seeking Sword to take down the pair of Golems.
Greater Otuygh, Free Action seemed to only negate one casting of the Dolorious Decay, and so I only fought him long enough to trigger his regen and then ran away. After the regen wore off, I summoned half a dozen skeletons meant mostly to be cannon fodder, but they actually killed the cyclops by themselves! Nothing more interesting occured up until the confrontation with Ilyich. Getting past the traps in the Portal key room was a matter of biting the bullet, the spear trap shaved off 76 out of 79 HP, but the key was retrieved, and my business in that room was done.
Ilyich & Co was dealt with in 5 phases:
- Killed the Glabrezu with a combination of Spiritual Hammer and Prot from Evil. Trapped in the central room with no way out, the poor thing was utterly helpless, though a certain amount of doorslamming was necessary to get enough time alone with him. Kudos to wally p for notifying that Prot from Evil actually works on the Glabrezu, it's supposed to only work on summoned demons, but I guess this one for some reason counts as such.
- Nailed the Golem by playing tag with him right by my skeleton squad in the central room. The Golem was too caught up in the game (AKA, he doesn't seem to be able to switch targets) to realize my skellies were pounding him to pieces.
- Only the duergars were left, and Rasputin was first up. Led him to the central room where I promptly cast Doom followed by Hold Person while he was busy fighting my skeletons, didn't last long once he got held.
- Next, Ilyich. He's a tougher nut to crack, so I had to once again slam all the exits shut once he was in the central room by himself. I let him chase my skeletons while I waited for his Barbarian Rage to fade away so I could hold him. Lots of stop-motion micromanagement with my skeletons followed, since Ilyich only needs two hits to down a skeleton, and my number was down to 3. Had to make sure the skeleton he was chasing was at all times moving straight away from him and always made large sweeping turns around the room since it was the only way to keep him out of striking distance, while also keeping myself and the two other skeletons well outside Ilyich's attention range. The rage eventually wore off and only one skeleton was lost in the process. Doomed him, cast Hold Person, Ilyich saved, cast another Hold Person, Ilyich saved again, too bad for him I had three more in storage! He finally failed on the fourth Hold Person and was history after that. I did at first skip the fancy microplay and instead attempted to overpower him Mano a Mano, using every buff spell and other combat booster I had available. But even with a THAC0 of 3, 4 ApR, -5 AC, and 15 average damage, my 3 healing potions weren't enough to outlast his 3. Would've been pretty neat though, a pure lvl 8 cleric beating the early game's most powerful fighter in a melee showdown.
- With only Zhivago and Karamazov left, the time was ripe to overcharge them. Slept once to gain the aid of the Acorn summons, and then made sure to run into Zhivago to trigger his Deva casting. Walked away, waited 2 turns, and then confronted both of them in the library with 2 skeletons, 2 nymphs and 1 moose behind me. I cast Doom on both, and with me and the two nymphs lobbing Hold spell after Hold spell on the both of them, it didn't take long before they failed their saves and became hapless victims to my surviving skeleton and badly injured moose.
At this point I reached lvl 9, meaning full life restorations with DUHM whenever I rest. Nothing left on the 1st level caused any noteworthy problems, the cambion died to a pair of skeletons while I tanked with the newly acquired Full Plate. Not much trouble on the 2nd level either, sent in 4 skeletons to distract the mephits in the mephit portal room while I went in equipped with the Seeking Sword and took out the portals one by one. The vampire fell just as easily to the Seeking Sword and a Holy Power/Righteous Magic/DUHM combo. A few turns and a lot of running around later, I finally saw daylight.
First part ends here, I'll continue the report later this evening.
[ 04-13-2005, 08:39 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]