Solo Cleric through Weimer Land

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Odruith: Just a quick question, Will you be/have you already acquired *spoiler* * * * the Crom Faeyr hammer from Cromwell?

Have acquired it, just not so sure I will use it. Attaining 25 STR when needed has never been a problem for this guy.

[Rataxes]

A dozen installments with this one, can't believe covering a run through this game would take so much space!

Anyway, recap. Kangaxx was dead, the Ring of Gaxx was mine, and saving the world from Irenicus still wasn't priority number one, for the first time since Chapter 2 I wasn't really sure what to do next. Dundee to the unexpected rescue!

Originally posted by Dundee_Slaytern The following is my personal opinion, successful attempts must include the following besides the main plot in order to be credible. 1) Defeat the Twisted Rune and the Guarded Compound. 2) Defeat the entire Watcher's Keep (you may end the last fight peacefully). 3) All the Major Quests must be completed (De'Arnise Keep, Tradesmeet, etc...). 4) Defeat Kangaxx.

Major quests? [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
Kangaxx? [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
Watcher's Keep? Later...

The Guarded Compound and the Twisted Rune had thus been singled out. So I rested, made my way to the Temple District, and busted down the door. Why, I haven't the slightest roleplaying justification for, call it a hunch if you will. The people inside fortunately seemed to be at least a bit villainous, and retreated upstairs to give me some kind of surprise. I gave chase, but just by the staircase, a whole slew of various monsters appeared. How fortunate that I already had HRDS activated eh? Started with the Demon and worked my way down to the Ogre. Hmm, I was in doubt as to if that was *the* surprise. Cast some Energy Blades, some additional buffs, and finally a Sanctuary, before I went upstairs. Holy Helm, up there, the whole family was apparently waiting for me, complete with the overgrown half-breed twins and slightly psychotic sword-toting teenager. I quickly ran into the nearest room so as to not have to face them all at once. One of them had a True Sight triggered the moment I came up the stairs and so they all saw me sneak in. The Ninja wannabe came in first, so I started pelting him with my blades, but then somewhere out in the great hall, someone cast Time Stop. It was apparent who when a thin fellow came in and started to lob ADHW's and a RM at me. When time started, I dodged that RM for a few rounds, just to unload all but 1 blade before it hit me (didn't know those magically created weapons acted as anti-dispel shields, but I've never had my buffers removed by one when I've had energy blades or the seeking sword active) and then cast a new set of blades. Pumped half a dozen more into the Kensai before he died, and then summoned a Deva to split the focus of my enemies somewhat. The twins had also joined the fight, and all the spellcasters now stood in the doorway, seemingly not doing much but casting defensive spells. I started to blast the place with Holy Smites



and everything that wasn't dead after 3 castings I finished off with the remaining blades. With the family dead I moved out into the hall again, only to find all their pets packed in the middle, a couple of leopards and some skellies, made the Deva take care of them and left the building.

Twisted Rune next, I had acquired a Rouge Stone in the compound that directed me to the place, and so I stepped through the door and was teleported someplace, I guess, pretty damn far from where I entered. I attempted to explore the place, but as I took my first step forward, probably about at least a dozen Skull traps magically shot out of nowhere and lined up by the doorway. I took it as a warning, and so buffed up with everything I had, conjured up some blades, and summoned four servants and a Deva. One of them I summoned right under the doorway to remove those skulls. The servant surprisingly absorbed them all, only becoming badly injured. Anyway, with that barrier gone, I moved out with my minions and placed them right by the doorway. Now a line of flames began to pop up, leading to the raised circular platform in the middle. Shangalar the Lich made his entrance. I got a bit lucky with the TU timing, and popped him right after his dialog, before he had a chance to teleport away. Never the less, he brought all his friends with him. I had placed my minions as close to the spawning spot of the Beholder as possible, hoping they'd attack him first, since I didn't dare to go within the Beholder's sight range. One Anti-Magic ray would mean instant game over. So you can probably gather that I was on the other side of the room, and I just had time to get one Storm of Vengeance off before some big mean-looking fighter reached me and started to swing. Layene, the mage, had also teleported to me, and I only had time to sling a few blades at the fighter before she cast Time Stop. She didn't do anything more lethal with her time than to cast RM and summon a pair of Mordies, but it did remove my blades and forced me to cast a new set. Did so and continued to work on the fighter. He was dead before Layene cast Time Stop once more, accomplishing even less this time around with some anti-spell protections. I threw another Storm of Vengeance to the other side of the room, where the numerous Rune Assassins were now beginning to drop like flies, and two rounds later, my Deva, being the only summon still alive, delivered a killing blow to the Beholder! I immediately headed across the room to turn the vampire, and when the last of the Assassins died that round, only Layene was left. She didn't have any SI: Abjuration, so she was just begging for a Dispel Magic. Without her PfMW, she couldn't resist the energy blades for long.



And that concludes today's report. I've finally entered the Watcher's Keep, and so accounts of how things went with the Ritual, the Red Badge, and the fight with Pontifex's more prominent alter ego, will hopefully all be up tomorrow.

[Assassin]

(didn't know those magically created weapons acted as anti-dispel shields, but I've never had my buffers removed by one when I've had energy blades or the seeking sword active)

At your high level, it's highly doubtful that a Dispel Magic will work on you...

Anyways, what's RM stand for again?

[Dace De'Briago]

RM = Remove Magic in this case.

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Assassin: quote: (didn't know those magically created weapons acted as anti-dispel shields, but I've never had my buffers removed by one when I've had energy blades or the seeking sword active)

At your high level, it's highly doubtful that a Dispel Magic will work on you...

Anyways, what's RM stand for again? [/QUOTE]As I understand, the level that Dispel Magic works at is capped to level 20 the same as all other spells. Level 20+ mages, and I think quite a few I've met have been, at least most liches, should have a 50/50 chance of dispelling me.

[Assassin]

I haven't experienced any capping. At least, then Inquisitors would be completely useless, seeing as at level 10 they hit the cap.

Off the top of my head, I can't remember the level of most Lichs, but assuming that they're under level 30, it's highly unlikely that they'd be able to RM or DM a level 37 Cleric.

[Dundee Slaytern]

Nono, Inquisitors still cap at 20, but it acts like it's level 40. They basically get double the bonuses, so instead of getting a +5% chance bonus per level, they get +10%.

[Assassin]

[img]redface.gif[/img] Okay, I'll withdraw my statements.

[Rataxes]

Time now for the Ritual, in this thirteenth post.

I stopped by the Bridge District barrel to pick up a 5-pack of Oils of Speed and a 9-pack of Invisibility potions. Re-arranged my spell book to contain mostly Fire Storms and a few Devas for 7th level, and packed my 3rd level full of Dispel Magic. A rest later, I was off to the Watcher's Keep. I would enter it soon, but for the time being, my business was with Pontifex. He said I must disrupt a ritual of unspeakable evil that threatens the entire world. Suspicion grew when he wanted to put a Geas on me, but I reluctantly agreed. Teleported me on the spot and left me with the words "You have 7 hours. Fail, and die" and some treasure, most of which I didn't need. Among those things were the Preserving Boots however, pretty much the only reason I didn't wait with everything surrounding Watcher's Keep till ToB.

He'd given me some instructions on how to deal with this. There were seven skulls, seven guardians for each of the seven skulls, and I had no less than seven hours to kill them all. A pretty coincidence, no? I must destroy the seven skulls in order to break the barrier protecting the ritual, and for each skull, I must kill it's seven guardians before I can destroy the skull itself. Best get moving. The first skull was located directly south of me, with the guards neatly spread out to prevent any nice area damage. I tried a variety of different procedures, which included fully prebuffing and assaulting the entire party head on, spamming Fire Storms, and using a lot of servants while staying behind with energy blades in my hands. Neither worked very well. What did in the end work was a slower and more cautious tactic. I drank an Oil of Speed and lured out the fighters one by one. When only the battlemage and druids remained, I cast Dispel Magic and Silence to prevent spellcasting and instead forced them to attack me, at which point I lured them away from the skull and killed them one by one.

Great, one skull was gone, only six to go! This little escapade had taken two hours though, so I was way behind schedule. The next skull was to the north, and fortunately, this bunch was very tight. Dual Fire Storms worked like a charm here, leaving only two fleeing survivors that I took down with some energy blades. Yet another skull down, and still four hours to go. Went straight east for the next skull. This group also had these annoyingly spread out positions. Luring out the fighter in the outer circle enabled me to place another pair of Fire Storms close to the core of the bunch without being spotted though. Had a few more survivors to contend with this time before I could deal with the skull itself.

The three following groups to the south, west, and southwest, were disposed of with largely the same tactic utilized against the first group, mostly because I was out of Fire Storms. I also summoned a few servants and used up my two Deva summonings to speed up the process slightly. The seventh and last group was pretty much the same thing, only I had some trouble with the two druid's extraordinary spamming of Call Lightning. In the end I got tired of it and dug up my Potion of Magic Blocking, which was a more amusing solution than the Prot from Electricity scrolls I for some reason had elected not to take with me in the beginning.


Just keep'em coming!

With approximately half an hour to spare, all seven skulls were destroyed, and I still had 70% of my memorized spells left, though I drank 6 Oils of Speed. So I went to the center of the map and met the priestess. She convinced me to let her complete the ritual (not that I had any way of stopping her without resorting to lethal force anyway). For some reason, those three giant golems became hostile, some luck I had already buffed up. They were at least twice as mean as regular Iron Golems though, and underestimating them really got me into trouble.


"Damn! We're in a tight spot!"

The ritual was completed seconds after I had managed to kill the first golem, and then the rest turned into goo. I had failed my task, though at that point I really couldn't tell whether that was a good or a bad thing. I went back to the Watcher's Keep anyway. Immediately upon entering the map, I was teleported away, and moments later appeared in some dark and dank dungeon. The Red Badge had caught me. They warned me of an upcoming confrontation and then sent me back. I thought it would take them at least a day to drag me back into that smelly little snake nest again, but I when I was prepared to initiate the fight with Pontifex, they called me back, less than two minutes after we first met! I can't say I was prepared for that meeting just yet and certainly didn't have the appropriate spells for them. Thus, reload back to the point where I failed to disrupt the ritual, modify the spellbook. I had checked out these creatures and knew that the only thing they were vulnerable to was pure magic, that and any kind of weapon of course. So gone were the Dispel Magics, 3rd level was now full with Holy Smites. Rested, and then went to the WK. Met with the reptiles, and then I started with the prebuffers. I added a Physical Mirror besides the regular bunch, and was summoned back only a few seconds later.

Only two of the foes can be said to possess ranged offense: the Bloodbane-wielding one, and the one on the other side who periodically casts Poison Clouds at you if you show yourself to him. With Physical Mirror on, the first had already been taken care of. He stunned himself with the fourth attack and I finished him off with energy blades. Flinging a few blades and then running was a favourable tactic with Boots of Speed and Imp Haste. There were three monsters on my tail, one retaliates with Project Force as soon as he's hurt, one is immune to magical weapons, and the third has no special perks. So I killed the third with another set of Energy Blades and then ran away far enough to summon a Deva. Thereafter cast four Holy Smites, and all of the sudden, there was just this one Poison-Cloud-flinging snake left, whom we took care of with a few more Holy Smites. Now that I look back at the fight, I'm pretty positive the whole Red Badge could've been killed with nothing but Holy Smites, the energy blades would've been superfluous if not for providing me with Imp Haste (now that was needed).



Now, with the threat of suddenly being teleported away in the middle of the fight gone, I returned to Pontifex. He would apparently have let me go, despite my failure, but after resting and once again re-organizing my spellbook to include a lot more Dispel Magics, I went back and spoke with him again. This time he was going to kill me he said. "What can you do, old man?" He could turn into a dragon, always something.

Now this here is Ira'kiou'dneg, and he's just about the cheesiest dragon that ever lived (the yellow hide simply cannot be a coincidence). I first got acquainted with his manners when he surprised me with a Time Stop, somehow crammed into a Chain Contingency, and killed me before I had moved a muscle. The second time I was prepared for that and summoned a Deva for him to chew on beforehand, but after that I found his ability to use Dimension Door about twice per second slightly disgruntling, and doing it after casting yet another Time Stop was certainly a turn-off. That was the second time I tried to fight him, and it was the second time he clawed me up while I was gray and frozen. I tried once to cast a Storm of Vengeance, since it was one of the few things I had that could damage him, but I learned that standing still for more than a second when he was on-screen only resulted in being splattered by "Yellow Dragon Scorching Sand", that did something like 48d10 piercing damage.

No, it was time for a change of tactics. There was no way I was going to be able to run around in the open and avoid him long enough to wear out his SI: Abjuration, especially not with his fondness for casting Time Stop. Re-organized my spells - A pair of Skeletons, lots of Dispel Magics, lots of Aerial Servants, two Devas, and the rest of the 7th level filled with Energy Blades. After the rest I went up the first set of stairs leading up to the various exits from the keep. Nice and narrow, no chance in hell that thing would be able to teleport to this place. I summoned 3 Aerial Servants here, and then went down to Pontifex and summoned a skeleton. Cast the regular prebuffs and then talked to Pontifex. Ran the hell out of there as soon as the dialog finished, up the stairs. The skeleton left behind triggered his Chain Contingency and I was this time well out of the danger zone, not even being on the same screen.

What happens with Ira'kiou'dneg when can't reach you, is that he goes completely nuts. He had gone to the bottom of the second staircase and there spammed Dimension Door like crazy. Since he was temporarily not occupying the space at the bottom of my staircase, I went down and quickly attracted some Sand Golems up the stairs.


3 Aerial Servants VS 2 Sand Golems was a surprisingly even fight that ended with 1 badly injured servant left alive. I wagered that the SI: Abjuration had worn off by now, so I summoned a new skeleton at the bottom step and went down so that a sizeable spot of the ground below the staircase was visible. This caused the dragon to teleport right in front of the stairs, which was my cue to move back a bit again to keep out of his reach. I summoned the skeleton so that he would hopefully occupy the dragon long enough for me to cast a Dispel Magic without him simply vanishing again through a Dimension Door. It took effect, all his protections were gone for a moment or two. This was my chance to hit him with Energy Blades, so I rushed down and just kept pumping blades into him. He tried to cast his Scorching Sand, but it is fortunately a non-targetable breath attack with an effect delay and a small AoE, which makes it easy enough to avoid it if you can just stay on your feet. The fun probably didn't even last half a round though, since after taking 5 blades, he autocast both Stoneskin and PfMW at the same time. "Barely Injured", well it was progress.



Something odd happened at this point. The dragon had teleported back to the other staircase and summoned several Mordies. For some unexplainable reason, they started to attack him, presumably he accidently hit them with some of his scorching sand. I had some fun watching them very slowly strip away his Stoneskins, but then decided it was time to hit him again. I repeated the exact same process, even used the same skeleton (he'd been pushed up the stairs by a Wing buffet). Placed the skeleton on the bottom step, walked a bit down the stairs, waited for the dragon to dimension door there, then went back up and cast Dispel Magic. Success once again, his protections were gone and now I had to seize those few seconds he was actually vulnerable to the blades. I got a few more good hits, and he had actually moved down to "Injured" when he finally recast his PfMW. I had 5 minions left to summon, more than half a dozen Dispel Magics, and an entire 7th level filled with Energy Blades. I could do this for a good while. And so I did, twice when I ran down the stairs and started to throw those blades did he try something other than the "Scorching Sand". The RM/Chaos Trigger and the Dragon Fear/Slow special move only slowed me down though, and barely that with the prebuffs I had on. Slowly his health status changed from "Injured" to "Badly Injured" and finally to "Near Death". I was down to using my Devas to lure him to stay, when I dispelled his protections for the 8th time and began throwing my third set of Energy Blades. He finally fell!




With that, I'll end this installment. Status check: My Priest of Helm is now level 39, and 48 days have passed since he woke up in Irenicus dungeon. I'm not sure whether I'll be doing WK now to retrieve the breaching wands, or just get on with the main storyline and go and kill Bodhi next.

[ 02-11-2004, 07:48 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Intangir]

whoa, awesome! I honestly didn't believe you until i tried that strategy myself with a quickly assembled cleric... (must be because the cheese-dragon constantly annihilated my front assault partys ^^ )

Ira even hurt himself with his wing buffets for ~15 damage after the protections were gone O_o


[edit] ah yes, hi everyone

[ 02-11-2004, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: Intangir ]