Going Through Again

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Does the shadow dragon armor get stealth though? The AC may be better, but you're better off (IMO) with going with the Night's Gift or Armor of Stealth from Mae'Var. Besides, I won't have a pure thief in this party. Imoen is not going to be wearing any armor, and all the other members of my group are fighter-types, so I'm going to need quite a lot of heavy armors. I agree that there are a lot better armors than the Red Dragon Armor, but it's certainly going to be at least the 5th best heavy armor available to me - at least at this point in the game.

 

The shadow dragon armor gives you 50% acid damage resistance. On the whole not that useful, but after a certain level really don't need the stealth bonuses either. On the other hand, you don't really need the better AC either once you hit ToB, because everyone will hit you anyway, whether your AC is -5 or -15.

You can use the grandmaster's armor from ToB in conjunction with the boots of stealth, because it gives you haste as a property. So you won't need the boots of speed anymore for the character wearing that armor.

 

Hey hey hey! I found Delon walking around in the Docks District! I initiated dialog, I got the quest, went to the Umar Hills, talked to the mayor, and everything continued normally. Now, my cabin is still boarded up, but at least I got the quest.

I'm kind of on the fence with the Sarelith mod. I don't know if I necessarily like it or not. I do like that she's a cavalier - I've obviously played Inquisitors with Keldorn, but typically when I play a paladin it's an Undead Hunter. OTOH, the romance seems a bit infantile, and she starts with proficiency in just about the worst weapon you can pick for SoA: Bastard Swords. Sure, once you get to ToB good weapons abound for every class, but not so much in SoA. I may actually give her a point in clubs - Blackblood isn't bad at all, and no one's using it.

 

Go to the Wather's Keep and you should get an OK bastard sword.

 

Oh, and for the first time, I gave Mazzy the Tuigan short bow, which Mazzy basically turns into a machine gun. 5 (!) attacks per round! Although I'm not sure how it gets to five. Even with grand mastery and an extra attack per round, you'd think it would max out at 4.

 

Attacks should max out at 5 unless under improved haste or whirlwind (which maxes out at 10):

2 (for just using a bow) + ½ (specialized) + ½ (grand mastery fix) + ½ (above 7th level) + ½ (above 13th level) + 1 (Tuigan bonus) ... you get another attack for being hasted but can't exceed 5 attacks per round (no need for a hasted archer). Improved haste will get you 10 attacks per round.

Mazzy is awesome.

 

Tuigan Bow: 3 attacks per round basic (that's the special ability that makes the Tuigan Bow worth having), Grandmastery: another full attack per round, Fighter level 13 and higher has 2 attacks per round as basic, put differently, another full attack per round. Thus bringing you to 3+1 from Grandmastery+1 from F13+ = 5 att/round.

 

It's deja vu all over again....

 

Oops, sorry, guess it skipped my attention there was a second page to this thread.

 

I forgot about the bonus attacks fighters get at 7th and 13th level. That's where the extra attack comes from. I do have the grandmastery fix installed, although honestly, there still isn't really any point in going beyond the 2 star (specialization) unless you have everything else you could possibly want in the way of weapon proficiencies. Mazzy comes with 5 stars in short bows, so there isn't much that can be done there, but generally speaking, instead of investing 5 points in one weapon, you're better off getting 2 different weapons specialized, with an extra point towards yet another specialization.

I'm in the shark city. Truth be told, I don't know why I went there, other than easy XPs. I don't think there's anything you absolutely need - not even parts of stuff for Cromwell to craft there. Sometimes I just take the portal and start the Underdark.

(Speaking of Cromwell, is Gesen probably going to be my best bow option for Imoen? Typically I stick with the Tuigan bow, and this may well be the first time I've had two different characters using short bows in the same party. I have used Gesen before. I seem to remember that while you can fire it without any arrows at all, that you do get the damage component for the arrows added on to the damage from the bow, so it pays to keep using the arrows.)

Also something that I'm quite sure I have not experienced before - I got my first HLA before going to the Underdark (!?!) While I will concede that I did everything prior to getting Imoen (except the liches), including finishing my stronghold, this is still quite unexpected. I know I've done everything before (in fact, if you aren't taking Imoen with you, there's no reason not to finish everything else), and this still seems quite early for my first HLA. I seem to remember not getting my first one until I was near the end of the Underdark. I don't recall offhand what level I'm at, but I have just over 1 million XPs in both of my classes. Judging from the XPs of other characters, it appears many of them will join me in acquiring HLAs at their next level up. (Except Imoen who is quite a bit behind (she only has 7th level spells), and for some reason, Keldorn seems to be about a 200K behind Minsc, and 400K behind Saerilith.)

 

I think the difference between two stars and three stars is huge. With two you get +1 to hit and +2 damage -- that improves to +3 and +3 with just one add to weapon proficiency. I always go the three stars whenever possible but rarely to five.

I usually give Imoen Tasheron to start with and then shift to Gesen (except in the elf city -- I'd give Gesen to Mazzy for that). The Sahuagin City provides a good place for Imoen to gain experience. It's a required stop for a monk (who must side with the king).

Regarding the HLA's -- I recall only getting HLA's after ~3,000,000 xp. That means you should be getting your first one at 13th level ranger (and then at 15th level for cleric). Perhaps you have a mod that lowers that requirements.

 

HLA's for RC's seem to be bugged:

http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19656

 

Cloak of Protection +2 is not bad either for some characters. I pretty much always go to Sahuagin City, even though Saemon gets on my nerves. Sometimes I can't resist and just kill him anyway (you can get him in Spellhold if you're quick), I always kill him before he teleports off the ship. If somehow he manages to teleport away, I will reload. I always want to get him in ToB too, but he teleports away too quickly.

But anyway, reasons to go to Sahuagin city are: Cloak of reflection, cloak of protection +2, wave halberd part, Impaler +3 (good spear, especially if you went to Spellhold straight away), and Gloves of crushing (extra damage plus thaco for monks, but you only get them if you side with the king).

I forget, though, where is the other part of the Wave halberd?

 

I think you get it from the Planar Prison quest with Haer Dalis'. I already have the shaft, so I need the blade part of it.

In Suldnesselar? Why? For golem smacking? It's a short chapter (possibly the shortest although Chapter 6 is close) that it hardly seems to matter.

No monks in the party, although I should really look into a NPC mod for one. I'm not a big fan of playing a monk as the PC, and as such I think I've done that character once. Also kind of lame that they get the fighter stronghold.

I think Splunge has it right. I too thought you needed around 3 million XPs to get your first HLA. As I said, I usually don't get my first HLA until the very end of the Underdark, and I got my first one before Sahuagin City. As those two areas are certainly worth several hundred thousand XPs per character, it's way early.

As with Splunge's character in his link, i ONLY had the ranger HLAs to choose from, and none of the clerics, although like Splunge, since I don't yet have the ability to cast level 7 cleric spells yet anyway, it wouldn't have mattered even if I did.

 

It doesn't really matter, but since there's a fair amount of admantium golems there, it's good to be able to deal with them from a distance.

You can only select HLA spells if you have access to the relevant spell level. So multi-class mages can't get access to Improved Alacrity and the other HLA spells until they can actually cast lvl 9 spells (so they can get HLAs from 3 mln xp, but won't actually be able to choose the mage HLAs until they get to almost 6 mln xp (when they get lvl 9 spells)).

 

Or, in the case of a F/M/T tri-class, when they get to 9 million XPs! I do not remember offhand what the ToB experience point cap is (probably because it is irrelevant for most characters - there isn't a terribly large difference between a level 22 and level 25 character), but it actually could come into play here.

 

The level cap for vanilla ToB is 8 million. So yeah, no lvl 9 spells for tripple classes unless you remove the level cap. Not that this is useful to do in the vanilla game, because you won't even get to the level cap unless you have a party of four or less people.

 

I normally let my mages do what they do best - tank.

8mln.
And the cap matters for most multiclass and those that dual at high level.

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Or do some heavy training, i.e. with the Lum machine.