My new party and their adventures

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

Well It's been awhile since I played this game but reading Aerich's posts about his priest-heavy party inspired me to create my own magical party. As always, comments are welcome.

Ivan, Dwarven Fighter/Cleric, 18/9? STR, 17 DEX, 19 CON, 7 INT, 18 WIS, 2 CHA
??(Forgot the name), Half-Elf Fighter/Druid, 18/92 STR, 18 DEX, 11 CON, 5 INT, 18 WIS, 15 CHA
??, Half-Elf Druid, I forgot his stats and don't have access to them at the moment
Bjorn Jansen, Gnome Thief/Illusionist
??, Half-Elf Cleric/Mage
Azzmar, Elf Mage

[Aerich]

Excellent, excellent, a convert.

You are going to have some FUN! Once you hit 3rd level spells with all characters, you will be laughing.

The one thing you may regret is not having anyone to use longbows and axes. You could turn the elf mage into a F/M, or you could just not worry about it. It isn't that big a deal once you get past the psychological blow of having really cool weapons that you have to sell (::cough, throwing axe:: ) because no one can use them. OTOH, you will make a load of cash.

I'm liking the party, btw. A couple of pure casters, a couple of fighter/casters who can enhance themselves (giant strength potions or strength spell + Draw Upon Holy Might is cool), and a couple multi-purpose casters. Two clerics, two druids, three mages. [img]graemlins/wootrock.gif[/img]

You will have to think a bit about how to get optimum usage out of your mage spells. Take levelling into account, especially for spells that gain in power with each level and have no upper limit (skull trap). You might want to consider having your cleric/mage "specialize" in a few mage spells- give him a few good attack spells to complement the good buffs.

Kick some butt! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

Stats are a might powergamey though but then, this is going to be my first complete runthrough of IWD/HoW and Trials of the Luremaster. So I kinda wanted to make sure it wouldn't be too tough. Magic=fun.

Since I really haven't played before,(I've played about up until the second level of Kresselack's Tomb) I really don't know how fast this party will level up. What I do know is that at high levels, this party is gonna rock!


P.S.I'm not completely berefit of bows. The Thief/Illusionist has a proficiency in bows so he can use short bows. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Aerich]

Yes, I noticed a little imbalance, but whatever...

I personally don't have a problem with that unless you spend an hour rolling each character or use Dalekeeper to up your stats to 25, or some such thing. One of the things you can do to mitigate/poke fun at the powergaming aspect is to do detailed character descriptions that explain why, e.g. your dwarf is so uncharismatic (toothache and penchant for wearing clashing colours) or why your fighter/druid is so stupid (tree fell on head). Let your imagination run wild.

With your multi-classes and six characters, it will seem to take a while to level up at the beginning. Once you get to monsters that give more than 1000 XP at a time, you will go up faster. You might consider playing on Hard difficulty up until the point you reached last time, as your familiarity should give you an advantage.

I know you're not entirely without bows, but the best bows are longbows, and the best shooters ('cause of Thac0) are fighters. That's ok, it's only one asset you can't use out of many. The quantity and quality of your spell selection will make up for it. Don't sweat it.

If you run into any problems, just give us a shout.

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

Will do.

Expect to see a post of this party's progress over the weeken at some point.

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

[img]graemlins/1pissed.gif[/img] Really ticked off because spyware has comitted a hostile takeover of our main gaming computer.
At least I had made no progress other than creating and outfitting the party and I will recreate them after we re-format the gaming computer.
It just ticks me off that it is perfectly legal for companies to be able, through your clicking the yes button in that End-User Licence agreement thingy that you cannot say no to because it will cancel installation, install adware and spyware on your computer. It has gotten so bad that the computer locks up if you try to do anything.
Anyway, expect a progress report by late sunday if all goes well. If not, it could be awhile.

[AThousandYoung]

Caster heavy parties kick ass. My favorite tactic has always been the web/entangle/stinking cloud/death fog/spike stones/etc... + fireball fireball fireball patch of magical death, at least for swarms of opponents. You've got a solid tank too. With the Thief/Illusionist doing your scouting you've got a solid party. No single class Cleric will slow down your access to high level Cleric spells, but that doesn't really matter two much since AD&D is fairly generous to it's multiclass casters in their speed of levelling.

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

Problem occured again tonight so I'm currently hoping and praying to Tymora that we don't have to reformat the hard drive.
Progress so far:
At the startup I had around 1502 gold!
So my party was equipped with the best money can currently buy. Splint mail for the Fighter multiclasses, Studded Leather for the druid, Everyone who can use a shield has one, etc.
Weapons Proficiencies:
Ivan, Dwarven Fighter/Cleric, 2 Hammers, 1 Flails, 1 Missle Weapons
Fighter/Druid, 2 Spear, 2 Missle Weapons
Druid, 1 Large Sword, 1 Missle Weapons (Uses Darts)
Thief/Illusionist, 1 Short Sword, 1 Bows
Cleric/Mage, 1 Maces, 1 Missle Weapons,
Mage, 1 Daggers (Using the Throwing variety of course) [img]smile.gif[/img]

Once out of there I quickly proceeded to clear out the mini-quests such as Killing the wolf in the warehouse, etc. With Insane mode on I got 2400 Exp for each mini-quest completed! Turned Insane mode off to avoid AIDBG. (An ignomious death by goblin)
With everything done in this area that I can do, I headed for the orc caves, no laughing matter for once again I turned Insane mode on. I was okay until I reached the large area where I knew there was an ambush of Orc Archers waiting for me. After a couple tries I turned of Insane mode but even then one person got killed just before the fight ended. Needless to say I wasn't going to do all that over again so I quickly picked up her stuff and headed back to town to the temple where she was quickly returned to the world of the living. A quick trip to Pomab's to buy ammo and to sell some of the junk I found and a quick trip upstairs nets me some Tchazar Gems and a Chromatic Orb scroll. I have Azzmar (Elven Mage) copy the spell from the scroll into his book then head downstairs to sell these Tchazar Gems. After that I head to the inn for a quick rest and return to the Orc Cave to finish some unfinished business. Venturing northward after the large cavern I find a couple of Orcs and Quickly dispatch them. Venturing westward from there I come upon a Treasure Chest guarded by three Orcs. The orcs fell quickly and a quick examination of the treasure chest found it to contain some stelth-enhancing boots. Bjorn quickly tried these on but the boots simply did not provide enough of a boost to his skills( or lack thereof) in stealth. Bjorn decides to keep them anyway saying that they feel more comfortable than his regular footware so the party quickly decided against trying to separate the gnome from the magical boots. We press onward, backtracking a little eastward then taking a passage southward when lo and behold we run into a gang of three more orcs. Once again we find ourselves easily exterminating these vile creatures but wisely decide to rest. When we awakened we decided to venture southward and the truth of our wisdom hit us. We were faced with seven orcs, all archers, and four ogres!
We gave everything we got but ultimately had to retreat to regain our energy. Re-entering the cave we met up with our pursuit somewhere near the fist large cavern and instead of sniping from a distance we decided to rush into combat in close quarters. This proved to be the best choice for when we felled one orc, two more would appear behind it, having been left behind when the chase began. The ogres proved less troublesome. Once they appeared the party quickly mobbed them from all sides. They didn't stand a chance. Retreiving a contract from the lead ogres body we ventured to the cavern that these foul creatures had been camping in. Another treaure chest was discovered, this one holding a scroll of horror and a winter wolf pelt. We decide to rest here for the night and return to Easthaven in the morning.

[ 08-21-2004, 11:31 PM: Message edited by: Neo the Warrior Cat ]

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

After returning to Easthaven we delivered the contract to the Fishmonger and recieved a small reward. Then we stopped by Hrothgar's and picked up a supply list to deliver to Pomab. While delivering said list we also purchased all the remaining darts and throwing daggers Pomab had.
Off to Hrothgar to begin the adventure.
After the avalanche I was forced to turn off Insane mode again as goblin archers decimated my party. But I have found that havinge insane mode turned on in an area and then turning it down will not remove the additional monsters that Insane adds. So I still had several tough and nail-biting fights to reach the windmill. The orcs inside the windmill fell all too quickly for my taste and I recieved a phase dagger from their fallen leader. On to the next floor, exterminated the goblins and talked to Jermsy. I clear out all the goblins in the place and then leave for Kuldahar.
Once there we go straight to Arundel and learn of the troubles that plauge this peaceful town. Before leaving his home we "liberate" him of his free action ring, he won't need it anytime soon and now my fighter/cleric can tank away through entangles. A quick stop by Orrick's to learn that he wishes to find out more about mythals and to purchase some spells. We then before leaving, "liberate" his Metaspell Amulet and His Free Action ring. We then proceed to Conlan's. Along the way we find someone being chased by Tundra Yetis. We immediately rush over and smash those Yeti into next year. A quick conversation and we learn that the townsperson being chased is Mirek and he asks us to find his family necklace. We accept this quest and before going to the Vale of Shadows we pop by Conlan's as originally planned. We purchase more ammo and a suit of plate mail. We then leave for the Vale.
Well, nothing really interesting here, adventured through the many crypts. Undead are a breeze with this party. Sunscorch, Moonblade, Magic Stone, and as always Turn Undead.
So after retreiving all the keys from the various crypts and also killing a yeti chieftain, we head back to Kuldahar to sell some booty and to give Mirek his family amulet. Then it's back to the Vale and we enter the cave that was behind the Yeti Chieftain. More Yeti to smash! And we do so with a stunning array of magics and physical force. Looting the containers in the upper left portion of the area turns up, amongst other things, a dagger+1 and a mace+1. We give the dagger to the gnome and the mace to the Cleric/Mage. Then we go to the Big Crypt, smashing shadows as we go. Once inside we proceed to smash undead and don't face any substantial threat until after we disposed of the bone dancer and Myrkul's Sending. We then enountered a long hallway with Skeleton Archers at the end. We smash those and then try to open the container at the end of the room. Our strudy dwarf drew the short straw in this endeavour and is quickly put to sleep by the trap on the container as a portion of the wall dlides aside revealing many skeletons. It was touch and go to keep them from killing the sturdy dwarf but we managed to smash them all with the usual combinations of our various undead-killing magics. Finally opening the container we recieve a Prot. form Fire scroll and a Haste scroll. Needless to say, we file that one away for later. On to the the hallway opposite this one reveals a similiar situation but when we investigate further we discover a mummy! We smite it mightily with our best undead smighting magics and soon it is lying on the floor motionless. Not much found in the sarcophogus and we rest before going down the stairs to the next floor...

P.S. I'm able to fight almost every fight with undead on Insane because I haven't encountered any normal undead that were unaffected by the party's turn undead.

EDIT: Well I stomped through the crypts and met the shade of Kresselack. Helped him with the minor matter of a Priestess of Auril. After doing that, going back and speaking with Kresselack we return to Kuldahar to tell Arundel our findings. He tells us of another way that we may be able to find this evil byb using the Heartstone Gem. Only problem is that we have to find it. So after a quick trip by Conlan's and Gerth's we head to the Temple of the Forgotten God. With difficulty on normal I am able to defeat Verbeeg, still no easy task. More to come later..

[ 08-28-2004, 11:44 PM: Message edited by: Neo the Warrior Cat ]

[galdur]

Heh, I think everyone, who has passed IWD knows this story. [img]smile.gif[/img]