Solo Cleric through Weimer Land

[Rataxes]

The fifteenth and final report on this thread is here! I split it into three posts, mainly to be able to cram in all the screenshots. I might as well warn any potential modem user that these three posts have a combined size of about 1.5mb, so it'll take a while for them to load fully.

I had just left the graveyard with the Lanthorn in my hands, and seeing as how there was now absolutely nothing left to do in SoA besides finishing it, I went to straight to Elhan with it. He took me to Suldanessallar, where Irenicus had begun raising hell with his Rakshasa friends. Proceed with Operation Clean-up:

Oil of Speed [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
Deva [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
AoF [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
HRDS [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]

Went to the north first, to the House of the Horn. Inside were a trio of Clay Golems whom were quickly overcome when I activated Imp Haste from the Gloves. Collected the horn and then went further north. An Iron Golem blocking the way didn't seem all that threatening compared to Adamantite Golems this time around. A major pack of Rakshasa were guarding what, from the size of the door, looked to be an important structure. Their Chain Lightning and Cloudkill bombardment did nothing to my minions and when I moved in, aided by Imp Haste from the Ring this time, entrance to the house was soon free of charge. Entered and surveyed. A mage, a demon, a Rakshasa, and a golem, odd mix. Conjured up some Energy Blades and tried to hit the mage with a few, but a timely PfMW shifted my attention to the Rakshasa, who received a dozen before time stopped. I was out of sight, behind the center statue at that point, and so all that was new when time began rolling again, was that a few Mordies had entered the scene. Finished off the Rakshasa, and with another set, the golem and demon were next. The mage had SI: Abjuration, but had forgotten to renew his PfMW, and never got a chance to rectify his mistake. Could do nothing more in this place at the time, so I went back into the open.

Direction, SW this time. Crossed a bridge and found another big house, and this one was guarded by a more familiar trio of golems. The Energy Blades worked surprisingly well on the big one actually.



Proceeded in the same direction, and found, gasp, yet another house! Big one, two doors. Went upstairs first and found a strange rune stone. Downstairs there was cupboard with some sort of riddle lock. Aha, but the stone held the clues, and so I collected the talisman and went on west. Several skeleton warriors were battling a few elves here, I bet they appreciated me turning them when I passed. A drow mage and his pet demon had somehow found their way into the city and were not very surprisingly, quite aggressive. Immediately disposed of the demon with some blades, and then to my delight, I discovered that this particular drow possessed zero magic resistance. He may not have been damaged by them, but a Holy Smite each round kept him from casting any spells until his PfMW wore off, at which point he was easy prey for the blades. Entered the house they guarded, to find a woman assaulted by three Rakshasas. The horror, the fury! SLICE AND DICE! Dozens of lightning blades later, the last of them fell, leaving her badly injured. It turned out to be the priestess I had been looking for, and she informed me how to use these strange artefacts I had collected.

With her being safe, I moved on to the NE, to the House of the Moon. No guardians here, entered and saw a little act with an elf vs a demon. Both of them ended up dead, so I picked up the Moonblade and was on my way. By the Harpist's House, there was a battle involving some elves and golems. Energy Blades took care of most of them nicely, except a Sand Golem who I summoned an Aerial Servant to take care of. Collected the Harp, and then moved on to where the dragon resided. Rested, and proceeded with the standard buffs, some blades, and a few skeletons. Sent a Dispel Magic out in the gloom, and it apparently took effect since the dragon woke up. My skeletons marched forth to take the first hit, and I was right behind them throwing blades. The first Wing Buffet removed my minions from the picture for a while, but I did alright on my own with some Hit'n'Run.



Only needed one set to bring her down, and with the cup in hand. I returned to the house with the gigantic doors and did as the priestess had said. The Leaflord appeared and summoned some spirits to clear the rest of the city of bad guys. My goal was now Irenicus himself, and so I went through the great gates into the center hall. Here the musical instruments I collected came in handy in giving me access to the Tree of Life. Ellesime telepathically instructed me on how to stop Jon. I was to kill off some giant parasites. With Energy Blades in hand, I rushed through the entire place in minutes, killing the elemental guardians of each parasite with nothing but the blades. Time it was, for Irenicus to die! His supposed final incarnation was not terribly more potent than any other mage I had so far faced. His contingency included SI: Abjuration and Absolute Immunity, and he cast a few Time Stops, but what use were they when one could simply walk out of his sight range and he would not pursue? I summoned a Deva and waited for a gap to appear in his castings of anti-weapon spells.



Irenicus didn't even have the power to down my Deva, she lived long after I had struck him down with Energy Blades. Certainly this wasn't all you had to show for, Jon?

-

-

-

-

It just never is, is it? Irenicus sucked me with him to the Hell he was surely going to. If this was Hell, it looked more bizarre than horrifying. I took a moment to collect myself, and then began exploring the place. If I was ever getting out of here, killing Irenicus would have to be part of it. I found a set of stairs and went down to find a strange cavernous room. Sarevok was standing there. Failing to tempt me to give in to the taint, he instead went berserk on me. Just how many hitpoints does this guy have? With HRDS active, I had no problems going up against him in melee, but it took bloody ages before he fell. Got a Tear of Bhaal for my effort, and had gathered that I must collect the rest of them before anything interesting would happen. So that's just what I did. Gave the djinni his sword, sacrificed myself for the peasant, refused to fight the dragon, and chose to fight the Beholders rather than accepting the cloak. I sent in a buffed up Deva and cast Holy Smite after Holy Smite from a safe distance, till they all fell.


Can you spot the Deva?

With all the Tears in hand, I returned to the great gate I had awakened in front of. I felt a surge of power flowing through me with every Tear I placed around the gate. With only one last Tear left to set in it's place, I began to prepare myself for the final battle.

[ 02-14-2004, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Rataxes]

I really was facing the last battle in the game, so this final prebuffing session could probably be counted in turns, rather than rounds. Before resting, I had re-organized my spellbook. Two Skeletons and a Holy Smite on the 3rd level, the rest on Dispel Magic. I had included a single Harm spell on the 6th level, and reduced the number of Energy Blades and Devas and instead included an Implosion and three Fire Storms. After resting, I chugged down almost half a dozen different potions. A couple of Potions of Mind Focusing, a Potion of Magic Protection, an Oil of Speed, a Potion of Power, and a Potion of Magic Shielding. Naturally cast every single prebuff in the book, and gave my summoned Skeletons and Deva Prot from Evil, Fear, and the Deva Free Action and Chaotic Commands. This is how he looked with all that make-up on:



So I considered myself ready. Time to insert the final Tear. As I did so, I was granted +10% MR, pushing my temporary total up to 105%, could definitely prove handy. The gate opened, and Irenicus made his grand entrance. Explained that this was it, and just when I was beginning to have pleasant memories of our most recent encounter a day ago, he summoned his allies. He introduced me to them, and then before I knew it, they were all gone, and so was my Crom Fayr and Amulet of Power!

The fight was on

Ignoring the three puny shadows, my first move was to cast Harm. Doing so took a full round, but with nothing more dangerous than the shades around, I could finish undisturbed. With the Harm spell active, I ran down to greet the Sword of Greed. My first punch hit home, and it almost cracked the blade asunder!



Knowing it to have but a single hitpoint left, I put some distance between us and then cast a Holy Smite. With that, it broke into pieces.



My plan had after that been to quickly run by the Lich and turn him. But no lich was yet to be found, and since I didn't have any time to lose I went on with the next step in the plan. Making sure the Dragon of Pride was the closest on my tail, I ran down the narrow path he guarded. Success, he was not only restricted to any further advancement down the path himself, but had blocked of everything else as well. This was a move I tried out long ago, but only remembered again when I read through Leslie's story of Aragorn, kudos to him!Finally getting some peace, I turned the trio of shadows that resided there and calmly thought through what should be done next. I had earlier reached the conclusion that three Fire Storms would be enough to kill the Dragon, and since that was my only goal at the moment, I had not memorized any more. I was standing just out his sight range and cast all three of my Fire Storms in rapid succession. I had not counted on any other of the major players to be vulnerable to this, since the Beholder had his fireshields and a high natural FR, and Irenicus wore the Cloak of Cheese. But believe me when I say that I was surprised to see Irenicus at "Near Death" when the Dragon finally died and I came out from my hiding place. Near Death was all he ever got to though, since I had let loose complete chaos when I killed the dragon.



I put on the Preserving Boots mostly for fun at this point just to see how long I could last. I had already been hit by a couple of Anti-Magic rays and I knew this battle was long lost.

-
-

Take two

That Irenicus was vulnerable to Fire Storm had put a completely new spin on the whole thing, and I decided to remove the Implosion and a Deva from my spellbook, to be replaced by two additional Fire Storms instead. A new rest, and a new prebuffing session, no shorter than the last, and I inserted the final tear once more. Irenicus did his introduction once more, and everything was just the same, up until my confrontation with the Sword of Greed. I missed! Stunned, I took a look at my THAC0 with the Harm spell active. It had dropped from -9 unarmed, to -4, what the hell was that all about?! It's supposed to act like a +6 enchanted weapon with a +6 THAC0 bonus, no? It's so typical, the very first time you try something, you go nearly all the way. And then on the second attempt, when you think it's just a matter of perfecting what you did the last time, you constantly stumble on the first step instead.

Take seven

Finally, on the seventh attempt, my Harm-enhanced punch hit home once again. The two following steps of the plan were executed without fail, and then I was finally back on track in that narrow path, temporarily secure while that dragon blocked the path. This time I remembered the secret weapon I had stopped to purchase in the Adventurer's Mart before returning the Lanthorn to Elhan. I put on the Vhailor's Helm and produced a Simulacrum of myself. The copy was not entirely perfect, apparently quite a bit less powerful than myself, but he did have two 7th level spell slots. These were unfortunately not Fire Storms as I had hoped, but the dual set of Energy Blades he had instead gotten would also serve me well.

Another minor change in tactic was me casting a Dispel Magic into the lump of monsters that was just outside my sight range, and this did achieve what it was meant to - Dispel the Orb of Fear's dual fireshields, the red one in particular. This brought it down to a mere 75% FR. With everything set, I cast all my five Fire Storms at once, and could only tell from the battle text what mass destruction they must've caused.



Three of the five main baddies were down. Despite it's strong resistance to fire, this massive rain of fire had brought the Orb down to Near Death. The Wraith of Wrath was the only unharmed foe left on the map, and he was currently breathing down my neck with a frightening relentlessness. Apparently Beholders treat Simulacrums like summons, since it did not ever hit my copy with an Anti-Magic ray! So while the real me was trying his best to avoid the Wraith while at the same time staying within that extremely tight space to avoid being seen by the Orb, my copy was battling it. Since he had apparently retained the temporary effects and buffers I had on when I created him, he was completely immune to magic and was tossing blades at the Orb with impunity! I had been doing a poor job at avoiding the Wraith and had been hit for massive damage thrice, things even got so desperate that I had to throw off a lot of my inventory to be able to keep running when my STR was zapped to 13.
So it came as a great relief when the Simulacrum finally downed the Orb.



Aaaah, finally free to run out from that stinking corner! What followed next was as easy as this battle ever got. The Wraith of Wrath may be just about the single toughest foe in the game to face in melee combat, but he is slow, and can do absolutely nothing but swing with his sword. A perfect victim for the ranged Hit'n'Run tactic that is. At first I just used the Sling of Everard's own bullets, and it felt like trying to bring down a wall with a peashooter.



I started to panically wonder if I would even have enough Holy Power spells (couldn't hit him without it) to kill him. Then I figured out the reason the damage was so pathetic. Apparently the sling's own bullets don't count as real enchanted bullets, and thus do not get the STR modifier applied to them. I only had 60 +2 Bullets with me, would it be enough for both the Wraith and the following fights? Getting to the following fights was a higher priority being able to win them though, so I started slinging some real bullets at the Wraith, with improved results.



FIRST PHASE COMPLETE!!

[ 02-14-2004, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Rataxes]

Things weren't over, I was pretty sure of that. But Irenicus sure took his sweet time to compose himself. After waiting around for several minutes, doing nothing but popping leftover shadows spread around the map, he finally summoned me again. This time in his Slayer form. He stripped me of my equipment and pushed me away to the other side of the map. With Oil of Speed still active, I could return to my equipment pile without suffering any blows from him, and put on everything but the plate mail. Irenicus in his Slayer form is very much like the Wraith of Wrath, only difference is that he's about three times as quick. So I used the exact same Hit'n'Run-With-A-Sling tactic that worked so nicely before. Irenicus nasty speed only meant that I could only fire one shot at a time and then move on, and I also had to run across the map to put enough distance between me and him to give me the time to renew my DUHM, but other than that, it was the same simple procedure.




The Slayer finally died, but since all good things are three, I just knew there had to be a final battle, Mano a Mano.

This one was just between the ultimate reincarnation of Irenicus the Mage, and myself. Jon opened up with a prebuff list that looked like it contained every single defensive spell in SoA, cast Timestop, and then proceeded to spam about 50 different spells in that time. I think I would have been pretty toasted at that point if it hadn't been for my 105% MR. Irenicus only had one way to remove it, albeit a very effective one, but I had yet to be targeted by his Shatter Magic ability in this whole fight, maybe because he died without ever even seeing me the first time around. I was thankfully immune to pretty much everything he threw at me, whether it was endless chains of ADHW's, or combinations of dozens of low level spells like Acid Arrows and Magic Missiles.

He had ardently been summoning Mordies, and the first time I found a gap in his casting of anti-weapon protections, three of them were chasing me (and my AC was pathetic due to the loss of armor).




I wasn't going to kill anything in that manner though. These potshots were mostly done to taunt him while I was waiting for his SI: Abjuration to wear off.

Aaaah! He hit me with a Shatter Magic, the one and only in the whole fight as it would turn out. Surprisingly enough, it only dispelled my potion effects, of which I really only had the Oil of Speed and Potion of Magic Protection left. No sweat, I had more where those came from. I waited for the temporary -35% MR to wear off, and then went to confront him again. His SI had worn off, so I cast Dispel Magic. Success!! He was stripped, and I upgraded from the Sling of Everard to a set of Energy Blades. I was flinging blades for the life of me!



For the first time in the battle, Irenicus was beginning to feel some heat, and teleported away to heal himself like the chicken he is. I was on his tail though, and moved like a lightning bolt across the map to his hiding spot. But, ah, it was too late. He managed to cast a PfMW just as I reached him, and before I could dispel him again, he had healed back to full health.

Back a step or two, but definitely not lost. I only had 30 blades left, so I couldn't afford him to run away to heal like that again. I dispelled him once more, and was on him again with my blades! When he got to "Badly Injured" he chickened away again. Paused and scrolled the map to locate the humming sound his Cloak of Cheese made, and then I RAN! He was still injured when I got to him, and this time I sure as hell didn't allow him to cast no PfMW! The lightning blades flew from my hands with previously unseen fervor. He tried to teleport away once again, but I bloody got him before he got away!


May we never meet again


Well, that's it. My Priest of Helm has beaten SoA, and I'll start a new thread on the ToB forum about his continued journey, after the weekend. Thanks for reading!

[ 02-14-2004, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Assassin]

Nice... Good job. I'm surprised that you got the first incarnation of Jon the Mage so easily. Usually, he teleports all over the map whenever he gets damaged.

Darn... I just realized something. You only took 16 real-life days to finish SoA [img]redface.gif[/img]

[ 02-14-2004, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: Assassin ]

[Black Baron]

Nice work there!!!!!
I wonder-why did you have 2 beholders and a lich?
In my final battle with John Bon (which i have yet to complete) i had one beholder and no lich.

Can i hit him, btw, with a miscast magic or time stop-mind flayer?

[Assassin]

Insane mode, Black Baron.

[Xen]

GREAT JOB MAN!!!!!!!!!!


Oh and about this thing:

Stunned, I took a look at my THAC0 with the Harm spell active. It had dropped from -9 unarmed, to -4, what the hell was that all about?! It's supposed to act like a +6 enchanted weapon with a +6 THAC0 bonus, no? It's so typical, the very first time you try something, you go nearly all the way

Take a look at this thread:
http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/cg...c;f=2;t=023030

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Xen: GREAT JOB MAN!!!!!!!!!! Oh and about this thing: quote: Stunned, I took a look at my THAC0 with the Harm spell active. It had dropped from -9 unarmed, to -4, what the hell was that all about?! It's supposed to act like a +6 enchanted weapon with a +6 THAC0 bonus, no? It's so typical, the very first time you try something, you go nearly all the way

Take a look at this thread:
http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/cg...c;f=2;t=023030 [/QUOTE]So Harm overrides Holy Power? It seems like a viable theory, though something about it still isn't adding up. The weapon that Harm creates is indeed +6 enchanted, but only has a +2 THAC0 bonus, which in my case still means that something is missing. My THAC0 dropped by 5 points, but the 6 points I'd lose from losing Holy Power, minus the +2 THAC0 bonus that Harm gives me, only adds up to 4 points being lost.

Black Baron, according to IE, both "human" incarnations of Irenicus (the 1st and 3rd that is) are immune to INT drain, though none of the other tear monsters are. Miscast Magic should work though, if you can get past their low saves, since neither of the human versions are immune to Casting Failure (Insect Plague works on them for instance)

Also, the image hosting service I had initially chosen to put up these pictures on was junk, with a ridiculously low bandwidth and views limit. I've now registred a new account on my old service instead, which is far more stable, and relocated the images there.

[ 02-14-2004, 03:40 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Leslie]

Congrats, Rataxes !

I really enjoyed reading your story and reliving some of the incredible weimer battle moments.

Good luck in TOB !

You may even convince me to start BG2 again. I am deeply into NWN (SoU and HotU) now.

[Dundee Slaytern]

Regarding the fight within the Temple of the Leaflord. It was not necessary to fight the Mage, the Rakasha, the Demon and the Golem. You just need to run to the altar, place the three items in it, summon the Leaflord, and let him kick their hinny little rears. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Good job with Improved Irenicus. [img]smile.gif[/img]