Tactics revisited.....................Spoilers

[rily83]

Hi my second attempt at tactics.
This is my party:
PC- Male elf generic archer with grandmastery long bow
Korgan- Berserker dwarf who needs a bath
Valen- Evil vampire girl who needs a tan
Tashia- Lovely elven sorceror who left an abusive ex-boyfried (who wouldnt?)
Nalia- Mother Teresa wannabe
Jaheira- Harper druid treehugger

As you can see I dont have a cleric. The main plan was to have Jaheira substitute clerical duties, but after a time I really started missing valuable spells like prot from evil 15", flamestrike, bolt of glory etc. Ja can only do bless and chant but makes up with insect plague which is still very fun.

I did the easy stuff first: Circus, Inn in Waukeen's, Copper Coronet, Slavers, Temple sewers, getting valuable stuff along the way. Then I did Maevars', somehow making it through with the usual greater malison, confusion and emotion trick, plus plenty of fireballs at the back. At the end, everyone made it with only some potions of healing drunk. Then I killed Renal Bloodscalp for his boots of speed and joined Bodhi to get Valen.

With the party complete I did Nalias keep. There were less spirit trolls because I didnt install the most powerful spawns component (That would just mean more dungeon critters which isnt the most fun part of tactics anyway). Torgal was pretty strong, but Valen backstabbed, ran and hid and backstabbed again while a fully buffed party dispelled his invisibility and shot enough lvl3 fire arrow spells and melfs to take him out. The YuanTi mages and the rest of his buddies were slaughtered by the cheap web and fireballs and cloudkill combi. The Yuanti mages' final words were "Damn, where are they?"

Next was some of the unmodded quests like the playhouse, Jaheira's sidequests, killing a few cowled wizards, tanner's quest,etc etc making my party run around the whole of the city like randy bulls. It was fun clearing up the guys guarding Kangaxx's tomb. I took out the melee guys, then my entire party hid in Maevar's guild. Korgan lured the offensive spellcasting lich out into the docks, and everytime he cast Abi-Dalzims Korgan would run into the guildhouse interrupting it. This took out 4 Abi-Dalzims. The party ran out, and though the weird teleporting thing caused everyone to teleport around the lich, we dispelled his defenses and shot him into undead goo. I lured the other lich out into a painful deathtrap. He managed a hakeshar before expiring. Then the little gnome fighter inside took some good hits before joining his friends who were already dead for the second time. Cromwell forged another neat Ring of Preservation +2 for the party, wrapping up the day.

[rily83]

Guarded compund-- This battle made me miss Keldorn. Suffice to say Keldorn's dispel magic is max level and dispels a lot. On the other hand, Ja had problems dispelling chant. My fav malison, confusion trick only worked on 1 of the Orog fighters. Koshi was shot to death by my archer alone using called shot while Korgan overwhelmed the thief. Valen was in the midst of all the action, prob getting two levels off Sion before his protections kicked in. Ja's insect plague left the cleric smacking himself with a newspaper, but Valen had to go into vampiric mist because of the swarms of skele warriors and animals. Tashia and Korgan took on the heavy task of defeating Sion, with Tashia doing breaches and secret words while Korgan kept interrupting him with Frostreaver's cold and acid attack. Nalia's emotion spell left the two orogs lying down, out of the fight. Everyone now turned their attention to the unfortunate Sion whose remains were scattered all over his cloak and most of the floor. Cleric guy, the skeles and then the two orogs decided to join him. Was a bit tougher than my first game, and needed Valen's mist form as a valuable distraction. In fact it was her main contribution, but hey, at least it was something. Yoshi must have been chewing gum during the MaeVar battle.

Trademeet(Kuroisan)-- My entry into Trademeet was the epitome of chaos. The Trademeet guards were busy with the crazed animals and Kuroisan just had to pop in and demand Celestial Fury from me. I politely refused but he decided to resort to highway banditry(my specialty actually). My party did the one thing they were really good at: running. Kuroisan slaughtered the guards and probably the animals, emerging from his own cloudkill looking for my party. In a burst of speed, he overtook my party halfway across the Trademeet outskirts. My party got some decent buffs in by this time, and Kuro only seemed to like Tashia a lot, so I gave her the boots of the hornet and ran circles around, while my party drew all their melee weapons and hacked at him. I must have spent close to 7 breaches on him while he recast his combat protections again and again, all the time acid arrowing and acid backlashing everyone, who must have drank 3 potions of extra healing each. Finally he took a decent arrow of biting(which actually worked!)slowing him down a bit. Everyone(except Tashia who was still the bait) beat the living crap out of Kuro and were rewarded with the Sanhkokku sword, yet another overpowered Katana and a gd reason to be a dualwielding Katana grandmaster. The only victims were the poor Trademeet guards and their families, but at least their courage and bravery will always be remembered by yours truly.

Anyway, I was doing the trademeet quest right?
Druid grove-- Ridiculous spirit animals aside, I was ambushed suddenly and caught unaware. Everyone was hit by insect plagues and the animals were level draining some of the party. Had to reload. This time, I got some buffs and summoned improved Kitthix. Nalia and Tashia took turns magic missiling the two druids making sure none of their spells went off. Kitthix webbed and poisoned the druids. Gd old item-upgrades. The next few encounters were simple cloudkill from offscreen affairs. Finally I came to the point where I had to challenge Faldorn. Jaheira was meeting her harper friends so I invited Cernd along for the fight. Imagine my shock when it was my archer, itemless in the ring with a fully buffed Faldorn preparing to kick my ass and readying a creeping doom. Realised that the ease-of-use all-stronghold upgrades meant that only my archer(bowless)could face Faldorn. I was pushed against the wall with some dire wolves nipping at my feet while I desperately punched and kicked them away. When despair threatened to overwhelm me, a miracle happened! A brilliant beem of fire poured from the heavens, dealing 1149 damage and ending Faldorn's life. A greater being must have been angered by Faldorn's abuse of nature and decided to answer my prayers and save me from certain death. Anyway the bottomline is Trademeet was saved, all thanks to my party and some divine intervention.

[Cerek]

Originally posted by rily83: Anyway, I was doing the trademeet quest right? Druid grove-- Ridiculous spirit animals aside, I was ambushed suddenly and caught unaware. Everyone was hit by insect plagues and the animals were level draining some of the party. Had to reload. This time, I got some buffs and summoned improved Kitthix. Nalia and Tashia took turns magic missiling the two druids making sure none of their spells went off. Kitthix webbed and poisoned the druids. Gd old item-upgrades. The next few encounters were simple cloudkill from offscreen affairs. Finally I came to the point where I had to challenge Faldorn. Jaheira was meeting her harper friends so I invited Cernd along for the fight. Imagine my shock when it was my archer, itemless in the ring with a fully buffed Faldorn preparing to kick my ass and readying a creeping doom. Realised that the ease-of-use all-stronghold upgrades meant that only my archer(bowless)could face Faldorn. I was pushed against the wall with some dire wolves nipping at my feet while I desperately punched and kicked them away. When despair threatened to overwhelm me, a miracle happened! A brilliant beem of fire poured from the heavens, dealing 1149 damage and ending Faldorn's life. A greater being must have been angered by Faldorn's abuse of nature and decided to answer my prayers and save me from certain death. Anyway the bottomline is Trademeet was saved, all thanks to my party and some divine intervention.

What a coincidence, the exact same thing happened when my solo bard was forced to face her.

I guess it's true what they say - it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

[Hank Parsons]

Ahh, the God Of Control Y smiles upon the enemies of Tactics Faldorn.

[Magness]

Rily83, Keldorn (or any Inquisitor) is a godsend in magic heavy battles with those excellent inquisitor Dispel Magic and True Sight abilities.

Inquisitors are the true "wizard slayers"!